What are you stitching next?

The very fact that they were where you could talk to them (unless you went to them) makes them atypical and not a good idea to generalize from. The plural of anecdote is not "data."

Elizabeth

And I don't know how you can know this unless you've been there. Saying it's easier to be poor if you don't know any better is just a way to justify your own privilege and it's a callous thing to say.

Elizabeth

Um, no. You said that it's easier to be poor if everyone around you is poor and I questioned that. I still do. I was not picking an argument over something you never said, but disagreeing with something you definitely did say.

When I suggested that it would be hard to watch ones children starve, you said that my American upbringing was showing and that people in other cultures were more resigned to losing their children. I disagree with that as well, but you DID say it.

Elizabeth

Your cousing knows what he or she is talking about. You have only hear-say and are trying to generalize to the whole world from one example.

Elizabeth

Unfortunately, Japanese cars are too small for us to buy one. DH couldn't even get into some of the ones we tried to test drive, so it doesn't matter what kind of customer service they have.

Elizabeth

\>

I can reach 5'2" if I draw my breath in hard, so Japanese cars are built for me lol

And here I thought I was the only one who knew that. When I had my Toyota I was very comfortable. Now that I drive my bigger Pontiac, I can just see over the wheel, and yes, I've heard all the jokes about Florida and driverless cars for seniors.

If I ever get around to getting rid of this gas guzzler with very low mileage, I'll definitely buy a compact Japanese car like the Corolla or the Honda.

As I'm aging, it takes a really strong breath to make it to 5' and my car isn't very comfortable for me any more.

Lucille

They were talking about people who wanted to dump their Hummers, trucks, vans and assorted gas guzzlers on our radio the other day. When they laid out the taxes on a new vehicle, the loss on the gas guzzler etc. it didn't make sense to do it for that reason. It was better financial sense to keep it, as one would have normally, and try to drive it less, not taking those small trips several times a week, combining into one weekly trip, that type of thing.

My Nissan is comfortable but I have difficulty actually getting in and out of any vehicle now with my hips and knees. As Bette Davis said "Old age is no place for sissies" and was the wretched woman ever right!!!

Go back and read my original post. Not what you think you remember or what someone else claims I said, but what I actually wrote. I said nothing about anyone dying; that subject was brought in by someone else, and I corrected the false assumption that I had said it was "easy" to watch your children die, because I had not said ANYTHING about dying.

I said that if you are equal to your neighbors you are not as aware that you are "poor" vis-a-vis someone who sees extreme wealth all around them. No one in my original post was starving to death, they just weren't aware that the government numbers say they're officially below average because their only basis for comparison is that they're keeping up with the Joneses next door.

But let's throw >these people just grieve quietly and get on with their lives

That's exactly my point: >>I won't say it's "easy" for those women to watch children die, but >>they are more resigned to, and accepting of, that possibility than >>Americans.

Now, how that sense of (to use your words) not "qvetching and complaining" because (to rephrase my statement) something is a common everyday occurence in their community that they just resign themselves to it's likely going to happen, logically becomes "Karen says it's easy to lose a child" is beyond me. As you said they "grieve quietly and get on with their lives"; it happens often enough in their culture that they don't expect national media headlines for it as would happen in the US.

A friend of a friend lost a child and because the death of a child is so rare in modern American culture, decades later she is still able to be the most demanding *itch you ever met, and get away with it. (I have met her once, about long enough to be introduced ... all these observations about her are made by our mutual friend, and are not my own.)

Long after the girl died, the mother and my friend wrote a book about it, and went on a book signing tour. At every stop, the mother would demand "you must bring me", "you must give me free" and people would fall all over themselves to cheer her up with gifts and pampering. Until my friend let them know this was not like yesterday, this was like

She simply would not get away with that attitude of entitlement in a culture where it's expected that a sizeable percentage of babies will not survive. If she tried it, someone would slap her upside the head and say "just deal with it, every other woman in town did", but in the US where it's expected that 99.9% of babies will live, no one would dare be so mean to the poor woman. (And, in fact, she was greatly put out when our mutual friend, who has her own major cross to bear, told her enough is enough and, as Lucille says "get on with life".)

Big difference from the attitude one of my great-aunts had that it was a fact of life "in those days, many babies died" to the current one that it's such a rarity that this nasty self-centered woman must be nominated for sainthood despite her *itchiness (I'm told she was high-maintenance before, this just gave her an excuse to be even more demanding and no one dares criticize her because, "boohoo, I lost my baby").

Is it "easy" to lose a child? I said, and I quote "I won't say it's easy". But when it's a fact of life that a large number of babies in your community don't make it, you deal with it differently than when you feel singled out for punishment. You resign yourself to the probability that it's going to happen to you because it happens to everyone. It's not "easy", it's just a different attitude toward dealing with it.

FYI, this used to happen quite regularly in another group. Someone would accuse me of saying something upsetting, and after three days of pitched battle involving a dozen people, I would offer to the moderator that I would apologize if she could find the exact words she wanted me to apologize for. She'd go hunting through the archives and find the accusation, but never where I actually said what I was accused of, or even anything close to it.

And here, too, I NEVER said "it's easy to watch children die". That phrase was put in my mouth by someone else, who chose to add a topic that I hadn't even addressed, and led everyone else to believe that I said it. Read my original post, and you'll see that statement is not there; the only thing I said was easy was "I think it's easier to be poor when everyone around you is poor", which has nothing to do with anyone dying.

I did later say, after that inflammatory statement was put into my mouth by someone else, that it's "easier to deal with the same odds in your household" if this is something you've been brought up to believe is inevitable. Not that it's "easy" but that you're resigned to the fact of life that the same thing affects everyone you know, which means that you're more prepared for that eventuality than someone who never dreamed such a thing would happen to them. Just like someone who races cars for a living is more mentally prepared for the possibility of being in a major car crash than the granny who drives three blocks to church on Sunday at 5 MPH ... zipping down the racetrack at 200+ MPH, you *know* it's going to happen, the only question is when. Much different mindset when you know the odds are against you.

I beg to differ--read this direct quote from your note and then tell me what you didn't say:

"Resigned to" is not "easy".

Bad things are often easiER to deal with if you're prepared for them, which does not mean that people are lining up for the experience.

If you have prepared for an earthquake by stocking food/water, candles and batteries, you're going to find it much easiER to deal with the aftermath than your neighbor who's sitting in the dark wondering if it's safe to drink the Ty-D-Bowl blue water from the toilet bowl, and when the National Guard is going to bring him some food that doesn't require cooking or refrigeration.

I'm not standing on the front porch going "oooh oooh, I want a 9.5 right under my house", but I live in California so I'm resigned to the notion that there are pretty good odds that I'm going to need that earthquake kit some day. When it happens, I'm ready for it. (And had most of the same stuff duplicated at the office.)

The Tupperware is stored on the top shelf -- if it's jolted out of the cupboard, it'll bounce right off my head with no damage to my skull.

As opposed to someone in, say, Massachusetts, who is buried under two tons of books because she didn't perform basic earthquake preparedness tricks like bolting the bookcase to the wall because she never in a million years expected a major quake in her state.

OTOH, we here in the Valley don't own snowblowers or have a ton of firewood to get us through a blizzard-related power outage. So help me, if I ever have to shovel three feet of snow off the front steps with my garden trowel, I'll LMAO. That's something we're not prepared for.

First off let me admit I haven't got the patience to try to read this long drawn out note from you and digest what you're trying to say. However, I must add that unfortunately I knew a lot of people who were faced everyday of their lives with the possibility that their child would die young. Rather then (using your word) "milk" the tragedy of a child's life slowly withering away, most of those people (myself included) went on to do what they could to prevent this horror in someone else's life. No one of this group of parents went on to write books, or for that matter ever say poor me.

Because it was a fact of our life never made it easier, nor did it allow for easy acceptance. Instead it made us stronger and more determined to find a cure, or at least a way to prevent it from happening. I want to believe that every so often one person says no more and makes the world aware of their plight and tries to make it better.

I saw countless sets of parents when I spent weeks and months in the Pediatrics Ward at New York University Medical Center and I can readily say that it was extraordinarily rare to see anyone behave the way you seem to think is normal. These people came from all over the place, some on public assistance, some middle class and some very wealthy with private insurance, but none of them seemed to behave the way you think people do. And this wasn't in a third world country, this was in New York in the 70's.

You are being more cynical about the world then I'm willing to be. I want to believe that mankind is smart enough to always want more and better and I refuse to believe that anyone just shrugs their shoulders and says this is what my life is about and there's nothing that can be done about it. If we all act that way, nothing will ever get better and I refuse to think that.

I hope you can admit that you know some odd people, with odd ideas. Either that or you judge everyone by your own life and that's not realistic.

Lucille

Excuse me? Are you accusing me of purposely stirring up trouble? Because if you are, if you think that I had nothing better to do than sit around and think of how to make trouble for you, you are severely overestimating your importance.

I DID NOT put anything in your mouth. You said "it's easier to be poor when everyone else is poor" and I said "I can't imagine it's easy to watch your children die of starvation under any circumstances," which is often one of the consequences of extreme poverty (which was one of the topics you mentioned). I put nothing in your mouth and I led no one to believe that you had said it. YOU did that by saying that my "modern American upbringing was showing."

Take responsibility for your own words, Karen, instead of accusing me of trying to make you look bad. I have no need to work at making you look bad. If you think poverty "has nothing to do with anyone dying" there's nothing I can say to make you look any stupider than you make yourself look.

Elizabeth

I don't see anywhere where I said it was. But "resigned to" according to you means "it's easier to deal with the same odds in your household than if you're the only person you know in that boat."

Go back and read your own posts before you accuse people of purposely trying to cause you trouble by putting words in your mouth.

Elizabeth

The main thing here is regardless what is being said by whom, there are many millions of suffering beings. Counting animals, trillions of suffering beings and each one of them requires unconditional compassion. This compassion is not only for the object of compassion, it is also for our own minds. It's so vitally important. My heart is breaking. I don't care what or how the poverty stricken, starving to death, dying of thirst, AIDS orphans, mother's without food for their young accept or not. That is not the point. Generate compassion is the point. Everyone needs that, even the people here who are discussing this issue.

Peace, Victoria

Snort - why is there no spew warning attached???? Cheryl

How did they invent a solar powered player? I would love to know so I could use it. Slowly, we are going "green" here. There are two things I really want to do before I leave the planet; install a cistern to collect rainwater and install solar panels to provide as much electricity to the operation of our home. I'm always curious about how people invent things like this.

The solar power technology is well developed; it is merely a question of cost. Also, the sun does not always shine, and there is no cheap technology to store the huge amounts of electricity you need to power a home. So, unless you are prepared to live with an intermittent power supply, you still need to have input from the grid. However, when you are not using your solar panels, and the sun is shining, you can sell your power to make a bit of money.

True, I had a Jetta GLI when they first came out, and it had good room. We seriously looked at a Passat before - it was pretty nice.

Didn't find the PT Cruiser to have as much room as some others - head room ok, but it felt kind of cramped.

Ellice