2012

when ali and sawyer visited recently, we watched the movie 2012 at sawyer's begging plea. it is a horribly scripted, directed, and acted movie, but the plot is pretty trippy.

since then i've been more curious about the mayan predictions about 2012. this video makes me wonder if there might actually be something to their predictions?? maybe the whole world doesn't end, but some crazy stuff goes down for sure. because, japan already was moved 9 feet and the earth moved on its axis . . .

a beautiful day

i've watched this three times and i cry each time

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gorillas in the midst

i just stumbled upon this video looking for something else. and when i watched the video i remembered the power of this experience and thought i'd blog about it now, since then i didn't have a blog . . .

this is video i took in 2006-ish. i had been working in rwanda and stayed over a weekend (before heading to kenya) to visit the sousa gorilla family. the sousa family was the family diane fossey studied.

Fossey was found murdered in the bedroom of her cabin in Virunga Mountains, Rwanda on December 26, 1985. The last entry in her diary read:

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future

i will never forget being there. rwanda was amazing in and of it self . . . this is a link to a blog i wrote after my second time in rwanda . . . there is a powerful sense of forgiveness and hope.

anyway, here i am being chased by a gorilla . . . i had been watching and taking photos of them. they were transfixing. they would look at you and it would feel like they were looking in your soul. the babies played and fought and needed codling. the old lady's sat around grooming each other. and the teen age boys tried to be the alpha male.

i was watching one too closely. i'd been told not to make eye contact because it can be threatening . . . but i couldn't help myself . . . and one of the teen boys got a little crush on me (or something). i must have accidently hit record when i was running away from the gorilla. he reached out and touched my back . . . which was CRAZY but the guides him and he ran away (they had tranquilizer guns if they needed them). . . i think about it now and it is crazy scary. but you can see in this, i have a high tolerance for adrenaline.

i kept messing up and saying gorillas in the midst (instead of in the mist), hence the title. they were actually in my midst, which was one of the coolest things ever!

al queda's plan to exploit weak US gun laws

this seriously freaks me out!

this is the al queda spokesman, on the short list to replace bin Laden, in a chilling video calling on jihadists in america to exploit loopholes in american gun laws to create terror in our country . . . as if we need more terror here . . . seriously, we have got to change these laws. he claims, gaps in our guns laws are a “golden opportunity” to claim more american lives.

i joined a group called at FixGunChecks.org which was started by a group of mayors in the US who want to see the gun laws in our country changed.

they are advocating for two critical changes:

• Get all of the names of people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the background check system.
• Require a background check for every gun sale in America

even if you are a gun rights advocate, these seem pretty reasonable. i have family members who are ardent gun right fighters, but even they agree that people with schizophrenia or with a criminal record of violence shouldn't be allowed to purchase guns (let alone, automatic weapons).

please check out this site and sign your name . . . i'm not sure what signing our name really does, but hopefully it is meaningful in some way. for more information about how this group is trying to close these loopholes, check out fixgunchecks.org/background-checks

strong is beautiful

this is a great campaign! i wonder how many female athletes it will inspire. will it change female tennis for the better by attracting so many more women to the game? will it inspire a new LARGE generation of women that play sports? will this have impact on america's obesity epidemic? if playing a sport is sexy, not being rail thin, will it change things?