Archive for category Soapbox Saturday

Reading through my son’s summary of a top-selling book, my brain began to hurt, my eyes fogged over and my attention span came to a screeching hault.

Charlie’s interpretation was a jumble of words, complex phases and disjointed thinking which had to come from the author.  I could only stop dead in my state of confusion and breath slowly.

There are authors and writers.  There are thick books which contain amoung their pages, the work of several people, each with their own agenda.  They are the people who “eat dictionaries and anthologies” for breakfast, then spit out long words and sentances that tend to defy comprehension by mere mortals.

A very large book (size, weight and content) sits on my work table challenging me to read it, sneering at the very thought that I will understand it.

Hundreds of years ago when I was in 4th grade, I had a fabulous English teacher, Nellie Wi bbing.  She was and remains one of my mentors opening literary doors to me, and helping me to win “The Book Award” for reading and writing the  most book reports.  I gobbled up glorious words, savored them and stashed them away for future use.  My favorite word was “philoprogenitiveness” which meant love of your children (I couldn’t find it in my dictionary).  I never use it…

Now, I am confused and wonder why stories, reports and perspectives can’t be written in a more simple and direct manner?  Are the writers just filling pages?  Do they covet their words to a point of no return leaving the reader suspended from the pages barely hanging on only to crash into confusion as they fall?

Between you and me, I have never forgiven Napoleon’s soldiers for the destruction they did in Egypt to the Sphinx’s noses!  Robin  Tauck, owner of Tauck Tours (a tour company who as been in business a long and successful time) recently reported on attending the 33rd annual World Heritage Center.

Many of us within the travel industry overlook the unheralded work of this UNESCO activity.  Often, we’re unaware as we  visit one or more of the 890 diverse sites in 148 countries that these sites are under international protection.

Travelling the world, I’ve watched native dances from Spain throughout Africa, Egypt and Canada, never realizing that “Intangible Cultural Heritage” (traditional dance and linguistics) is part of the program.  Sites are submitted as nominations each year (47 this year).  In the first 10 years hundreds of sites and 34 new countries joined the World Heritage Sites Incentive.

Mankind often appears to be in such a relentless race to update and modernize rather than preserve our past.  I read of a man who tore down one of the Mayan pyramids to build a hotel with the building material!

The World Heritage Committee in Paris leads the assessment process along with deligations from 21 of the 187 member nations participating on a rotating basis.

Under the “endangered list” are the Galapagos Islands.  Many cruise companies want to dock there and the fishing industry has caused concern.  Fortunately, this has been stabilized for the time being.  The Belize Barrier Reef (the “Blue Hole” of Captain Costeau where I foolishly decided not to dive as the depth is unknown) is endangered due to mangrove cutting and land development (in both cases).

Within the next 3-5 years we’ll continue to be faced with climage changes and the impact on natural sites and biospheres (top of the list).  The World Tourism Organization (WTO) is on board raising tourism awareness worldwide. 

Somehow, words from the poem “In Flanders Field” by Lt. Col. John McCrae, MD of the Canadian army whom my grandmother knew, echoed:  “Take up our quarrel with the foe – To you from failing hands we throw – The torch; be yours to hold it high!”  It is up to us to help in preserving the precious gifts of the past which we have inherited.

http.//whc.unesco.org

There comes a time when your sight is getting “foggy”.  Working on a computer is a chore, and reading glasses don’t help.  At my annual eye examination I was told that I had cataracts.  The procedure would be that my first eye would be operated on, and one week later the second eye.

On my medical information sheet I indicated that I suffer from hyperthyroidism, Graves Disease and macular degeneration.  I was told that I was an “excellent candidate” for the operation.

Following each operation my eyes were blood red.  My computer wasn’t touched for weeks, and I could not drive.  My distance sight was gone.  For the first time in my life I was given prescription glasses which I had to cover with dark glasses because of my sensativity to light.

On my sixth visit I complained about a problem with clear vision, and I was told that my thyroid was trying to get rid of the new lens by coating them with “gunk” (my own special word).  According to my doctor I was “one in a million”.  After weeks of applications of special cream and a prednisone sterate, I developed “floaters”, black bits of “gunk” broken up by the sterate.

When the floaters were down to about 16, I named each one and formed soccer teams.  As the “floaters” lessened I decided that the players had gone to Spain or Italy’s teams.  When I laughingly told my doctor I could see that he considered me quite mad.

Now I can read almost everything and work on my computer for hours.  Driving?  I can see and read everything except long street signs.  The warning that I might have to have my lens “zapped” with a laser about every six months to remove the “gunk” is no longer applicable.

We all want to have instant gratification when we read advertisements promising beauty in a box, glamor over night or immediate clear vision.  Nothing really works out that way.  Even with the best physicians, it takes patience and faith.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/461817

When I was a little girl, one of the two closets in my bedroom was full of my mother’s evening dresses.  She would tell me about her many trips to Cuba in the 20’s and 30’s, the glamor and the excitement.  I remember a crushed red velvet dress with a very low, draped back and the black chiffon dress that had what she called “a rhumba skirt”.  To me, in the early 40’s, Cuba beckoned, then faded.

I went to a boarding school with Valentina who was from Cuba.  By then it was the late 40’s and some of the stories she told about politics frightened me.  I kept in touch with her, and in the mid 50’s my letters were not answered.

April 14, 2009 Travel Pulse published an article titled, “Obama Lifts Certain Travel Restrictions”.  It began, “President Barack Obama is allowing Americans to make unlimited trips and money transfers to family in Cuba, and easing other restrictions to usher in a new era of openness toward the island nation ruled by Communists for 50 years.”

About 1.5 million Americans have relatives on the island nation that turned to Communist rule in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized control.  Do I approve?  I may have a friend still there.  As such, I am emotionally involved.

My mother’s fabulous dresses are lost to the past.  No longer will she gracefully descend the marble stairs of the hotel in all her finery, no longer will she dance the starry nights away in Havana…but it is a beginning, we pray, back to individual freedom, a return to contact with the outside world and, as such, a better life.

Only time will tell.