Jun 6, 2005 by Naomi.

Losing touch with friends shouldn’t happen but unless common bonds refresh an acquaintence friends recede into the background. After a few months when contact is made I expect an answer. When none comes what can I do? I’ve lost touch with a wonderful friend in Hungary. No response came from her home address. Her university e-mail was not rejected but no answer came. I assume she left her teaching position at the Agricultural College in Godollo. Will I ever hear from her again?

I no longer hear from an old friend and fellow scout leader who lives in Culebra, an island in Puerto Rico. Out in the hills there is no telephone available but I had no response from her Post office box. I know Bill Young was not is great health in 1992 but their attachment to the Awesome Finca would have kept them there I think. Nancy Lawrence disliked living in the states. She hated visiting the states but did so on several occasions when I was available to house-sit and care for the animals.

My tour guide to United Nations China NGO Conference is busy lecturing and writing so I’m not surprised she does not respond to my latest query. She was more than a little upset at her failing health after she turned seventy. She was a wonderful companion to Uganda for the eighth International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women and all points in between there and the Oldupai gorge. She lives in California - a place to which I can drive so I can run her down easier than Elizabeth in Hungary, or Nancy in Puerto Rico.

Maybe my next effort in communication will bear fruit, or at least a reply.

Posted in Social Commentary | No Comments »

Jun 6, 2005 by Naomi.

When I was about four years old, Mama got sick. Her condition was bad
enough that she couldn’t cook and clean house so Daddy took her to a doctor.
She was examined as many doctors did in the 1930’s as an unfortunate distraught
woman who thought she knew more about her body than ‘medical science’
did. He gave her some of the required medicine for hysterical women and
sent her home. She collapsed almost immediately and Daddy carried her
out. After all a doctor could only do so much.

To be honest the doctor was suffering more than Mama - suffering from
lack of knowledge of the human body. The doctor also suffered from accepting
the attitude that a woman didn’t know anything about her body in particular.
But most of all he suffered from the worshipful attitude society willingly
bestowed upon the medical profession.

Mama recovered eventually. I surmise from stories by my sister, that when Mama got over her humilation of being discounted by a man who had to be paid for his social status not his knowledge, she relaxed in her own bed. She knew she had to rely on her own experience. She gave directions on how to make and apply a poultice to the hand that had sustained a broken needle point during a routine washboard laundry task.

Home life was disrupted to say the least. Her ten-year old daughter fed the diapered toddler and a four-year old and got herself off to school. She rushed home at noon to check on Mama, feed and clean the kids and get back to school. After school she cooked, did dishes, and put the kids to bed. Mama’s poultice finally withdrew the broken needle that had been the problem which the doctor couldn’t see and wouldn’t believe.

Modern technology and multimillion dollar noninvasive equipment have improved our health conditions. I do not believe that the medical schools have entirely thrown out the attitude that women should not expect to understand their own bodies. I think our bodies are too complex to leave our health care completely to outsiders.

Posted in Social Commentary | No Comments »

Jun 6, 2005 by Naomi.

The human brain is not fully developed until the individual is about 24 years old. Did insurance companies know of the research to prove it? Or did they look at statistics and find more men under 25 were involved in accident claims? Well, no matter, I for one believed I had a full brain when I was 18. After all, I could vote and whatever else the law wasn’t looking over regarding my life.

I started out looking for the source of the human spirit. I looked for
evidence that a human brain began without a female or male inclination
and found that research supports that as truth. Although the physical
mass of the brain is about 2% of the individual’s total body mass, nowhere
does it specify that the smaller individual is destined to make coffee
or wash dishes or clean house or keep a job for its lifetime. I am acquainted
with some naturally small men and some naturally big women. Size does
not put them in any particular category of work in this century.

The brain is a strange organ considering that the surfaces folded in
to put more surface in the small space nature allowed for it. Diane Ackerman
decided it looked like a gym bag crammed full of used clothing because
of the unorganized folding it contains. But that’s where we think. That’s
where we store memories and experiences. And that’s where we change over
a lifetime. In fact, each individual likely changes with each new set
of experiences she or he is willing to think about. Scary isn’t it?

Actually it gives us the real hope for our species. We can outthink war. We can think peace. So let’s do it!

Posted in Social Commentary | No Comments »