Late night angry ramble...

Just getting back from the Inn, where my head was spinning with what I wanted to post. I know I won't re-create it here, but I will try my best.

A group of guys came in late night after being at the golf tournament at Nashawtuc all day. They were from the Dominican Republic. I sat watching them throw their money around and talk about the million dollar resort they had helped develop, and I was irrationally angry. To think that there are million dollar resorts just miles from where my son grew up, starving. That people lay around in luxury, and hit golf balls, when just next door mothers struggle to feed their children... it's just unfathomable to me. One of our favorite singers, Kasey Chambers has a song called "Ignorance", with the chorus, "If you're not pissed off at the world, then you're just not paying attention. I've never 'gotten' that song more than I did tonight. I was very pissed off watching and listening to these guys and thinking about my son's homeland. How can it be that in this day in age, right near the coast of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, there are resorts where the rich and slothful throw their money away? How can a mother be abandoning her child at an orphanage, only because she can't feed it, when only miles away, someone is laying on the beach sipping a Margarita? Yeah... I'm pissed off tonight.

Comments

[Sue]

Mutual Rambling

Your ramble brought GWB to mind...remember that horrible moment after Katrina when he talked about Trent Lott's house being gone? But he'll rebuild, Dubyah assured us.

Last year, my in-laws took us all to a posh resort on Kiawah Island. "Look!" the kids exclaimed. "Our room has a doorbell!" The only black faces I saw that week, other than that of my younger child, were those employed by the resort...

A former student is now a young documentary film maker, and, not too long ago, he called with an interesting idea for a film. "I went to private schools all my life," he said, "and my teachers were all pretty serious Democrats, pretty left of center, pretty egalitarian. So here's my question--why do you all teach in private schools where clienteles tend to be Republican, right of center and elitist?" Good one, Jeff. I had to really think. I came to the following conclusion--yep, it's pretty likely that some of those we teach now WILL end up "in charge" later on. I can only hope that, as a result of the time that I had with them, they will be in charge with a bit wider world view and a great deal more humanity.

Yeah, I get pissed off too. You've written in such a visceral way here, one can't help leaping in!

(Am looking forward to trying out the singer you mention.)

[Larane]

Your anguish and torment come through clearly. It's such a painful world.

[Elizabeth]

Denise,

Thanks for posting the angry ramble. It is much more than anger, you know. For example, it gives me a springboard for a conversation with my daughter. She is very sensitive to the inequities you're talking about and the more she hears of them, the more aware she is and the more ways she can act to alleviate such inequities.
And there are many more with her sensitivity. Seems to me that real life situations fill in a lot of the blanks for them and hearing someone who is authentic voice anger about the inequities -- well, that is good for them to hear.
So please, keep letting the world know when you are angry. In fact, in your spare time, why not write a column - either in traditional papers or in cyberspace!

[Fitz]

It's never what you have; it's how you use what you have. Even Jesus did not have a rational explanation for poverty, except to say that "there will be poor always." But I also think that magnificent wealth and magnificent wisdom seldom live in the same person.

And those guys only gave me a four dollar tip:)

[elizabeth C]

And sometimes people are put before us to remind us of how not to be or to remind us of what really matters,or spurring us to act. Infuriating yes!there has to be reason for all the inequity ibn the world...