These Are The Families We Fight For

I've never had much use for reality TV.  Always said that if I wanted to see reality, I would look out the window. Or even around my own living room.

So here's a new kind of reality TV. Are you up for it?

It's powerful. Very, very powerful. A must see.

But don't take my word for it.



This family didn't post this video to garner your sympathy. That I know.

Empathy, yes. Sympathy, no.

But, even more important, they we desperately need to open our eyes to the family lives of so many people. Our neighbours. Our co-workers..

People who still get up in the morning. Make breakfast for all their children. (Try to) go to work. Come home to relax with friends And then. Deal. With. Everything. Else.

They are our children. They are our lives.

Heartbreaking

UPDATE: Today, Monday, January 23, 2012 is the first annual International Day of Mourning, born out of Dave's original blog post featuring this video. Spread the word, please.

 

The video speaks for itself when it comes to the issue of institutionalization.

The only comment I might make that many, many years ago (longer than this video might portray), the world was a very different place. Without even the often sadly-lacking services that we have now. For the parents that made that decision in those times, they don't need to be characterized this way.

Of course, that, in no way, justifies the money governments continue to pour into institutions (including the building of new ones) for the current generation. Because that ... Is. Just. Wrong.

H/T to Dave at Rolling Around in My Head via Ashely's mom at Pipecleaner Dreams

Blog Fodder

I thought this was an interesting article considering the trouble I got into over in the comment section at Lex's once upon a time.

I'm just saying ...

UPDATE:  In the interests of fairness, Lex had some interesting follow up thoughts on the subject. Way back in the way back.

Never Say Never

Untitled from Nep Lex on Vimeo.

He flies again!

When I first started hanging out at Lex's I asked him once in comments whether he had ever considered flying for an airline, it appearing that his fighter pilot days were over. Not that I worded it quite that way, of course!

Anyway, he replied no, he thought he would never fly again. Having once partaken of government-sponsored crack cocaine there was no going back (or down?) to mere commercial flight.

But, as life turned out, a few years later, he took on a weekend job flying tourists and other assorted types in dog-fight flights in these babies. With the occasional  learn-to-fly jaunt thrown in for good measure.

A few years after that, he decided to learn how to pilot taildraggers, whatever they might be.

And now, in his own way, he's back in the fighter pilot game.

Which just goes to show you. Never. Say. Never.

What`s That You Say

Come on. I double dog dare you.
Try it. Forget twenty times.
Just once. As fast as you can.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

GO AHEAD. FINISH IT. IF YOU DARE