Racist remarks by adult club members bring tears to children

The Creative Steps Day Care, a Philadelphia-area day care center, said Thursday, that members of a private swim club the organization had paid to attend, made racist comments about the center’s children to the point of bringing some of the young children to tears. Not to be outdone by its racist members, the swim club then quickly canceled the swimming privileges of all the children – from the day care center!

The Creative Steps Day Care children, ages kindergarten through seventh grade, went to The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, on June 29. During their first visit, some children said they heard club members asking why African-American children were there. One of the young boys told the Philadelphia Inquirer that a woman at the club said she feared the children “might do something” to her child. Days later, the day care center’s $1,950 check was returned by the swim club without explanation. Club President John Duesler tells Philadelphia television station WTXF that several club members complained because the children “fundamentally changed the atmosphere” at the pool.

Most reading this story are probably too young to remember the treatment of Sammy Davis Jr. by the casino where he and the rest of the famous “Rat Pack” group were performing. When a group of Texan “high-rollers” saw Mr Davis in the casino’s pool, they demanded the pool be completely drained and then refilled so they could “enjoy a proper swim”. Yes, we are being kind as I’m sure we all can imagine that different words were used by them, but you get the idea and the casino quickly complied. The other members of the “Rat Pack”, led by Frank Sinatra, refused to perform unless the casino apologized directly to Mr Davis, which they did and the incident never occurred again.

We believe a regime change is long overdue at The Valley Swim Club. The PA Health Department should also insist that its pool be drained and refilled as a precaution against further contamination by whatever sickness its current members may have brought to that community.

-Surface Earth columnist: CB

Update: Swim Club President denies charges

Shelley helping the kids, the innocents, in India

Many of you may have read Shelley Seale’s article, posted a few days ago here, The Weight of Silence….

Now maybe you may take a moment and watch her video on these utterly beautiful innocent souls, and if you do, maybe you will pass it on and on, and stop at her site and buy her book.

It starts now.

Shelly & her kids

Confronting Ourselves: Where the Wild Things Are

I sat here, for a blessed moment or two, doing nothing but seeing.

I saw that despite my attempts to clean up my shelves, a piece of paper had a mind of its own and somehow became lodged between one shelf and another, in a space which served to highlight it: A Novena to St. Jude.

Now I have always known St. Jude is powerful and clever, but this beats all, quite a funny way of reminding me I owe him a few prayers of gratitude.

I sat again, unwilling to pick up the novena prayer, not quite yet, this is my stillness and prayer to me is active in a way mere thought is not.

I had just stopped working on a memorandum, research, the pursuit of questions without quantifiable answers, but whose answers, when found exonerate or impose liability and to be frank, I was done, I was “still”.

So I continued to stare thinking about a series of email exchanges regarding how much is too much, when does thought and excavating the past liberate us and when does it encumber us?

My eye glanced to a lovely book, an older version: Little Pictures of Japan. And I was drawn to its cover and wanted to jump in and indulge myself in its ability to take the complex and make it simple but I didn’t.

I continued to sit and stare.

My mind became drawn to a book: Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. One of my absolute favorites from childhood.

I stood up, I picked it up, walked back to my chair and sat down.

I love it just as much today: the child on a journey, confronting and meeting his fears, and regarding them unblinking.

Yes. It was the perfect ending to that line of thought if I had not just stepped outside afterward and for the second time today heard a long forgotten song playing from a neighbor’s home which propelled me to view myself remotely as a beautiful and pure child and to want to smother that child with kisses and thank her for her dreams, for her courage to believe, for her vision and to promise her, I would begin to take down the walls that stood in her path.

See Ronnie’s Out of My Head piece:  Where the Wild Things Were

Energy, Courage & Healing

I find myself in awe of so many things. I would love to write them all down, but some of them fly by me before I can properly apply gratitude and others stop me in my tracks, ground me, that I don’t know how to add any “new” words to the events.

Yesterday, Ronnie at Workcoach and OutofmyHead got me thinking, oh, I said that didn’t I? But forgive me, I’m no cook, and I have another pot of vegetable soup simmering and a drum set in my kitchen and Princess Di’s Memorial Concert pouring out with Sir Elton John humbling us, and maybe I may be repeating myself as I do this…..

So Ronnie dared to talk about the different types of energy and how they balance and I said: girl, you are talking to me. Her post read: Energy, Fortune Cookies and Life (yes, I left out Ronnie’s comma, more on that sometime later, maybe).

I said, Amen, Amen, Amen: how true is her post, how much it resonates with life. The balancing and the acknowledgment of the balancing and the presumed freedom to do just that.

We are waiting for Ronnie to post the next piece on the steps of courage to implement the levels of energy…wait with us…I promise…it will be worth the wait.

Funny how Ronnie’s piece led me to Romancing the Crone’s newest piece. And before I tell you how to get there, I must say, the people in Barnes & Noble today thought I was wacked out of my head when I wasn’t sure of the author or the title of some books of the Hawaii method of englightment, balancing and readjustment of justice that she so kindly posted for any of us that tripped over her site.

Ok, ok: here it is: Romancing the Crone on “You need to know about Ho’oponopono”.

Well, imagine me trying to pronounce or describe that in Barnes and Noble–believe me, neither me nor the man at Barnes & Noble with a striped, polo, golf-t were impressed…so here I am, and I will order the books off of Amazon.

Romancing caused me to start surfing to find out more and I came across a blog: Today is that Day with some great resources.

In the meantime, I came across a story in People Magazine, yup, at page 46 of the printed version: entitled: Raising My Sister’s Boys.

A story about a young, young man, 20 when this began, who visited his twin sister’s children in foster care and couldn’t live with the sounds of their tears or his own as he left and he convinced the system that he would be the best parent for them, that despite being a young man.

What I wonder, and I ask anyone out there, don’t we know of any way to help this young man get ahead, who in his young 20s, took on responsibility for 3 children?

Read the story yourself please & hey, namaste, no lie, I can’t yet find an internet link, but if any of you are standing in line at the store, it begins at page 86 of the July 9, 2007 edition.