Archive for the ‘News Stories’ Category

I am humbled by women like Rosa Parks. Her single act was not only defiant but dangerous in 1950′s Alabama. When I feel fear in the face of a difficult step or a new life path I think of how insignificant it is in comparision.
The only way that I can honour Ms. Parks and women like her is to stand strong in my convictions and realize that fear is fleeting; it is the change that is significant.

Rosa Parks February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005

Of the many images from Hurricane Katrina; one keeps playing through my mind. Rescuers who were trying to convince a man to leave his home. What stuck me was the look on the man’s hardworking somewhat weatherbeaten face; he was afraid. In that instance I knew why.

He was afraid that once he left his simple home he would cease to matter. That as houses and aid were being given to young abled bodied families; some thirty year old government employee would take one look at his sixty plus weatherbeaten face and write on his paperwork; ‘Recommend relocation to a senior centre’. One bare room to replace a lifetime.
For so many of the older victims, their homes are the symbol of eveything that they have achieved. Their hold on that was at best fragile; now their very identity could slip through the cracks of red tape and paperwork.