Happy 90th Birthday, Mom!

My mother was born 90 years ago today. Happy birthday, Magi!

She served in the WAAC (Women's Auxiliary Army Corp) during World War II and has just received a special letter from Congressman Bob Filner, former Chair of the Congressional Veterans Affairs Committee, thanking her for her service to our country. She was surprised and pleased, as she showed it to me on Skype last night.

She has lived an interesting life, from those WAACy times to becoming a nurse, then mothering six children and then retiring from motherhood to address worldly concerns, such as sexism, the patriarchy of the Catholic Church, the revitalization of Detroit and peace. She once ran for Mayor of Detroit and received a surprising number of votes.

She has outlived my father, Joe, who died a year ago. They were married for 56 years.

She's a crone, a peacenik, an avid reader, an Amy Goodman aficionado, a Facebook friend, and a rabble-rouser. And now she is a Nonagenarian.

Happy Birthday Wishes from your eldest!

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A Whopper, A Red Bull and Thou - by Patty Mooney

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr I like to mull things over in bed before I get up in the morning. Today I was thinking about how we as a society have reached a point where we don't mind handing over our rights, our freedoms, and our treasures in exchange for fast foods, television and gasoline.

When I was a kid, it was a treat for our parents to take us out for a Whopper and a shake. That happened maybe once a month. Most of the time, our parents did what they could to adhere to the USDA "food pyramid" and feed us properly nutritious foods. I had an apple or an orange in my lunch bag every day. And they TASTED like an apple or orange. Today I see children hopped up on sodas and the sugar that is crammed into every boxed and canned food out there. Why don't parents bother to read the ingredient panels on the food and beverages they are giving their children? Sometimes the first ingredient listed is "Sugar," meaning that it's the main ingredient. There are more instances of ADD, autism and other brain-addled diseases today than ever before. And why? Well, could it possibly be about what these kids have been eating?

What with all the hormones and crap in meat, and the lack of enough leafy greens in the typical American diet, no wonder children are obese, diabetic and uninterested in going outside to play. And then after their childhood is whiled away on violent or frenetic video games, they are happy to go across the world and shoot up our global neighbors. And for what? Oil. When are we ever going to move beyond that crippling addiction?

Our children are our treasures, and look at what we are doing to them. School programs are the first thing on the chopping block while the corporations ransack our IRAs, our savings, our dwindling fistfuls of money. People complain about politicians and bankers, but frankly, what are we American citizens doing about it? As long as we give these corporations our hard-earned dollars for their fake food, their Red Bulls and their beef-fed beef, their Frankenfoods and their soylent soybeans, their vapid promises of the "good life," then I guess we just get what we deserve. Don't we?

Related articles

• Childhood Obesity (education.com)





• USDA Ups Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (organaholic.com)





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Haiku - A Collection by Patty Mooney

Image by cleopatra69 via Flickr Maybe it's the season, or maybe it's MY season, but lately I have enjoyed less than more. What I mean by this is, I have been more into the quiet of a secluded meadow than the chit-chat of for instance a morning radio team all juiced up on coffee and Red Bulls and spilling out every random thought that crosses between their ears, which they dump out of their mouths without any filters. The irony of this is that that secluded meadow really is full of sound - the sparkly laughter of birds, their wings cutting through the sky like knives through water, the crashing through dried leaves of the lizards, the rise and fall of cricket speak, the whine of distant military jets...

So, reflective of my recent segue into Walt Whitmanville, I have written some Haiku that I enjoy and thought I would share with you.



The Keebler Elf Tree

First, gored by lightning.
Years pass, then, an inferno.
Obliteration.



Upon the News of My Brother's Demise

I couldn't sleep. Grief.
Cried so hard my jaw bones ached,
pillow drenched with tears.



Haiku to Cher Upon Viewing "Burlesque" with Postscript to Gary Shandling

If only you were
not such a caricature
of who you once were.



Life Is Stress

I am a spirit
trapped in an aging body.
The palm trees whisper.