Monthly Archives: December 2012

Year 2012: Reflections

30 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in United States

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Happy New Year 2013Source: calconews.com

 

My goal to write and publish a weekly blog article continued to be a challenge in 2012. I extend special thanks to the publisher of the Guyanese Online Newsletter for re-posting my articles on his blog. Thanks, too, to you my ‘follower’ and visitor for taking the time to read my posts and for sharing your own thoughts. May you realize your goals and dreams in the year ahead.

I failed to achieve my major goal of completing the revision of my first novel, Under the Tamarind Tree. Frustration badgered me for six months before I devised a workable system for cutting the excess length. In 2013, I aim to complete the revision process, have my manuscript edited by a professional, and find an agent.

As if my frustrations as a writer were not enough, I also had to deal with contentious issues raised during the US presidential election campaign. Right-wing politicians sought to regulate women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Some of the stuff coming out of their mouths baffled and offended me. Have we failed as mothers in raising our male offspring?

In a video leaked to the press, a presidential candidate dismissed 47 percent of Americans as dependent on government handouts who do not take personal responsibility for their lives. That hurt. Is there hope for changing the rules of an economic system that is controlled by and favors the rich?

When Hurricane Sandy developed into a Frankenstorm intent on obliterating America’s northeastern states, it seemed as though the gods were warning us to get our act together as guardians of Planet Earth. While 97 percent of climatologists agree that mankind is causing global warming (ScienceBlogs, 20 Jan 2009), the major culprits refuse to change their ways and continue to foment doubt about global warming. How do we – the 47 or 99 percent – convince them to take responsibility in caring for our planet? Many of those who lost everything during the Frankenstorm will not recover from the blow and will join the 47 percent, already publicly derided as moochers who want stuff.

Before we could recover from the devastation of Frankenstorm Sandy, a troubled young man kills his mother – with one of her own guns – and then goes on a killing spree at an elementary school, taking the lives of 20 children and 6 adults. Disturbing facts: the killer came from a wealthy, white, middle-class family of a well-to-do suburban neighborhood in the state with the highest per-capita income (US Census 2010). Can we curb our culture of violence and love of guns?

We face these and more challenges in the year ahead. Our world did not end on 12.21.2012 as some believed or feared. The American Dream came to an end. Can a dysfunctional government that caters to the interests of the One Percent end the glaring inequality we face as a nation? Our ability to come together to overcome the crises we faced in 2012 gives me hope that we will prevail.

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The Magic of Christmas

23 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Brazil, Family Life, Festivals, Guyana, Religion, United States

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Christmas StarThe Christmas Star

For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him. Matthew 2:2

 

Our Christmas traditions demand a flurry of activities, some of which can be quite stressful. This year, I stayed clear of the frenzy at the shopping mall. My yearly gift-buying spree ended when the American economy crumbled in August 2008. Since my adult sons no longer believe in Santa Claus, I only put up a Christmas tree and decorations when my spirit craves the festivities.

When my siblings and I were kids, our mother did not put up the Christmas tree and decorations until Christmas Eve Night after we were all asleep. It was a magical moment to wake up on Christmas morning to find a tree with presents stacked beneath it.

In the United States, some homeowners go all out in decorating the exterior of their homes and yards. The Christmas lighting extravaganza holds its own magic for me. My childlike fascination for festive lights has never waned with age.

When it comes to food, every region and country has its own traditional specialties. In Guyana, I enjoyed eating pepperpot with bread at breakfast and black cake at teatime and in every home we visited during the Christmas Season. During the years we lived in Brazil, I carried on our Guyanese Christmas tradition of making black cake and, for breakfast, began having coffee with Panettone – an Italian sweet-bread popular in Brazil at Christmastime. My sons and I buy our favorite brands of Panettone at the Brazilian Shop in Culver City. As my sons no longer appreciate black cake, I have stopped making it and now enjoy the American Christmas fruit and nut cake. Christmas Dinner has its own magic when family members, living apart in faraway cities and countries, come together to share a meal.

A lot more happens during this festive season. There are parties and gift-giving in workplaces; school Nativity plays for those who have young children; Christmas caroling; Christmas Eve Midnight Mass; and a variety of festive shows. We even have Christmas songs and movies.

We can get so caught up in all our preparations, activities, and events that we lose touch with the essence of Christmas: a celebration of hope and joy at the birth of Jesus. You may or may not accept Jesus as Christ our Savior, but this spirit of hope and joy at Christmas was passed on to us through the generations in our traditions of giving and receiving, forgetting our differences, and letting our goodness shine through for all to see. Our transformation in revealing our inner light is the true magic of Christmas.

Doomsday 12.21.12

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Family Life, Human Behavior, United States

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Connection Shooting - 14 December 2012

Family in shock after Connecticut Shooting – 14 December 2012

Source: news.yahoo.com

 

I had already drafted my article for this week’s blog about Doomsday 12.21.12 when gun violence reached a new high on Friday, December 14, here in the United States. I am still in shock at the senseless massacre of 20 first-grade children and 6 adults at an elementary school located in a quiet, upscale, suburban neighborhood in Connecticut. Regardless of where we live, our children are not safe.

Something is definitely not right with our world when a “brilliant and remote” 20-year-old Adam Lanza kills his mother and then goes after defenseless children.

The word “remote” used by someone who knew Adam Lanza is telling. In spite of our advances in communication technology and online social networks that connect us 24/7, we are more disconnected than ever before. Even his older brother, by four years, has not had contact with him since 2010. Disconnectedness between brothers. He turned against his mother, a divorcee, the person who was there for him each day of his struggle. Disconnectedness between parents and their children.

When our family unit collapses, we are left to make it on our own the best we can. Some of us – especially those already struggling with emotional and social disabilities – may fall apart.

The tragedy at the elementary school in Connecticut is a visceral manifestation of the way our destructive behavior shatters the lives of others in our path. In an instant, a gun armed with bullets can take the life of another, while a tongue armed with hate speech destroys lives a day at a time.

On Friday, 21 December 2012, when winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and our planet once again aligns with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, we will not face annihilation. At least, so NASA assures us. But Doomsday has arrived for the families touched by Adam Lanza’s killing rampage. Doomsday has arrived for every family controlled by fear and violence. Doomsday has arrived for every family that faces homelessness, hunger, and despair.

In a wealthy nation such as ours, it is shameful that millions of families – the roots that hold our society together – are suffering needlessly. There is an urgent need for more jobs: jobs that pay a living wage. Americans need to get back to work. More and more of our men, of all ages, will resort to violence under the strain of joblessness, loss of self-esteem, and loss of purpose in their lives. More families will be ripped apart.

In his poem, “Let There Be Light,” Rex Sexton, an American Surrealist painter and poet laments (excerpt):

            Everything is gone. There is no reason

            to go on. For too many of us, faith, hope,

            charity, compassion, liberty, equality,

            fraternity, have all died in a country

            that lost its dream of decency.

On Friday, 21 December 2012, let us begin a new life of awareness, connectedness, and decency towards others. Let us work to restore decency in our nation, in our communities, in our work places, in our schools, in our homes. Let decency begin with me.

 

Toys Toys Toys

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Brazil, Economy and Finance, Working Life

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Feira Brasileira de Brinquedos - Sao Paulo - April 2011

ABRIN 2012: Feira Brasileira de Brinquedos – Brazilian Toy Fair

São Paulo – Brazil – April 2012

Source: http://www.abrin.com.br

 

Before I started earning a decent living wage in Brazil, I could only afford the luxury of buying brinquedos for my sons on special dates: birthdays, Dia das Crianças (Children’s Day, October 12), and Christmas Day. It was often difficult to buy that special toy they coveted. After former President Collor de Mello (March 1990 to December 1992) opened Brazil to imports in 1990, cheaper toys from China – eye-catching and novel – filled stores downtown and at street vendors.

By 1995, the influx of toys from China had crippled Brazil’s toy industry, forcing the government to file an antidumping investigation against China with the World Trade Organization. To provide a level playing field for local manufacturers, the government raised the import tax on toy imports and imposed Brazilian quality and safety certification for imported toys intended for children up to 14 years of age.

These restrictions on toy imports did not deter Ceará Importers Ltda (fictitious name), where I worked as import manager, from importing toys for Dia das Crianças and Christmas, the periods of greatest demand. The import process for these products became more time-consuming and onerous as I had to forward a sample of each toy to a laboratory approved by INMETRO – Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Qualidade e Tecnologia for quality and safety control. While samples are no longer required for obtaining the INMETRO quality and safety seal and Import License, careful control and planning are still essential for imports to arrive in time for peak sales.

Despite all these measures to restrict imports from China and make locally manufactured toys more competitive, Chinese-made toys continue to dominate the Brazilian market. In 2011, China accounted for over 85 percent of total toy imports, valued at US$358.6 million. The increase in the import tax from 20% to 35% for 14 types of toys did not achieve the 15 percent growth in national sales expected by the Associação Brasileira dos Fabricantes de Brinquedos (ABRINQ). The year ended with 70 percent of sales for imported toys against 30 percent for national production. ABRINQ’s hope is for Brazilian toy manufacturers to close 2012 with 60 percent of total sales. Vamos ver.

At Ceará Importers, our imported toys from the USA and China were a success on the local market. The children’s joy on seeing our selection of toys made up for all the frustration of the importation process. The large and colorful Chinese marbles captivated my sons, turning them into marble collectors.

Toys shine at Christmastime and reap rewards for producers. Children’s fascination for toys is not determined by their country of origin. As parents, buying our children’s dream toys boils down to the cost. The toy industry’s success depends upon its ability to remain innovative and competitive, as well as the Brazilian government’s provision of favorable fiscal and market conditions necessary for its survival.

Chris Brown & Domestic Violence in Guyana

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Family Life, Guyana, Human Behavior, Relationships

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Help & Shelter Candle Vigil against Domestic Violence - Guyana - 25 November 2011

Guyana NGO Help & Shelter Candle Light Vigil against Domestic Violence

Source: www.demerarawaves.com

Domestic violence is a difficult issue for me to discuss. But, ever since Chris Brown cancelled his Guyana Christmas concert, originally programmed for Boxing Day, following protests from local women’s rights groups, the subject has been haunting me.  According to the U.S. Human Rights Practices Report for 2007, one in every three Guyanese women is a victim of domestic violence. An article in the Kaieteur News, published in January 2012, puts the number at over two-thirds of Guyanese women. Violence against women contaminates all social and economic strata and ethnic groups of Guyanese society where men batter, rape, maim, and kill their female partners.

As a child growing up in Guyana, I was unaware that other children in school shared the same shame and fear that I experienced in living with a father who became violent when pumped up with alcohol. My parents fought constantly. It got worse when my mother learned to fight back. I was fifteen the day she grabbed her sewing scissors to defend herself. I intervened. The thought of losing my mother terrified me.

I decided at an early age to remain single. I decided, too, not to have children. I would not bring children into this world to suffer as I did. I eventually married a persistent suitor: a practicing Catholic like myself whose loving father had died when he was twelve. He never hit me. He abandoned me and our two sons in Brazil. His punishment was brutal.

I had not heard of the American R&B singer, Chris Brown, then nineteen, until he made US national news in 2009 for battering his then-girlfriend, Rihanna, an award-winning recording artist of Guyanese-Barbadian parents. As an idol for millions of young men in the US and worldwide, Chris Brown’s record of domestic violence makes him a potential contaminant for young Guyanese men who already have a propensity for violence against women.

Domestic violence and all forms of violence against women have consequences that last a life-time. It took years for me to learn to forgive my father. It will take another life-time for the wounds inflicted by my ex-husband to heal. Years after my father’s death, my mother still holds onto her hatred for him. “He robbed me of my youth,” she told me. Rancor has spoiled her goodness, driving us apart.

What can I say to the thousands of Guyanese men who batter the women in their lives? We live in challenging times. The survival of our nation and of our species depends upon co-operation between both men and women to find solutions that plague our nation and our planet. Be part of the solution and not the problem. Stand up and be counted.