Tributes

On my TV blog I have posted some videos and video links in tribute to Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

Foundation Fighting Blindness on Face Book

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=123723695015&f=1&e=0#/FoundationFightingBlindness http://www.kathyskids.org Ms. Kathy's Kids Blog: http://mskathyskids.blogspot.com/

Changing the world

Yes, I do! Thanks Brother G! I use to have a poster of this in my office/class. I've been moved around so much lately I'd lost it.I'm going to keep this on my blog.
BTW, I just joined Facebook a couple of weeks ago the suggestion of my brother who lives in another state and my sister. If you're ever on there, look me up!

http://www.kathyskids.org

Ms. Kathy's Kids Blog: http://mskathyskids.blogspot.com/

--- On Fri, 6/26/09, GerryKate wrote:
From: GerryKate
Subject: Fw: Changing the world
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@yahoo.com
Date: Friday, June 26, 2009, 11:20 AM

Hi Kathy

thought you might like this one

G

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

If a child lives with criticism he/she learns to condemn

If a child lives with hostility he/she learns to fight

If a child lives with ridicule he/she learns to be shy

If a child lives with shame he/she learns to feel guilty

If a child lives with tolerance he/she learns to be patient

If a child lives with encouragement he/she learns confidence

If a child lives with praise he /she learns to appreciate

If a child lives with fairness he/she learns justice

If a child lives with security he/she learns to have faith

If a child lives with approval he/she learns to like themselves

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship he/she learns to find love in the world

It's My Hair Story and I'm Sticking to It!

Years ago in several dreams I saw myself in locks . When I started wearing my hair natural, without hot comb or chemical straightening, it felt so right for me--just as I felt it was and just as it was in my dreams. Key phrase: "It felt so right for me." For the last fifteen years or so, I have been so happy with my choice. My hair is now a little past my waist in length and my husband is quick to quote that I am "Nappy and happy."


It becomes a ministry in its own, my hair does. I've explained where locks are mentioned in the Bible when I've had my hair discussion at the beginning of the Girl Scout year with my Brownie Scouts. Yes, I have to have that discussion to get all the little girl hair questions out of the way so we can be about Girl Scout business the rest of the year. "Is that your real hair?" "Why do you wear it like that?" "Will you ever cut it?" "Can you take it loose?"

Mind you, it is an important discussion to have with little girls of African descent with African features. The media still tells them that those Africanesque features are not considered attractive. Before you disagree, take a look at the hair care products that are advertised on TV and in magazines. The "better" looking hair is considered soft, silky, "manageable" and straight. Even for hair coloring products, the African American models most often have chemically altered hair. That and the constant fight to pull, perm and tame the tot's tresses gives her the implicit message that she needs to be made over--that God made some serious mistake that has to be corrected-- before she faces the public. That is the concept I fight and one I take seriously as that implicit negative message has an impact beyond hair texture for children.

My job and my hair's job is to reinforce Psalm 139:14:

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."


This my way to get the children to understand that means God doesn't make garbage and that includes each of them from head to toe.

A person's choice to wear artificially straightened hair--with all the consequences that entails-- is their own choice. Inevitably, I am asked about my hair by different people. Usually Black women who may be described by one of my friends as either Tres ghetto or gauche country or somewhat unenlightened will ask me if it's all mine and how I get my hair like this--as if they really don't know. These are usually women with very hard straightened hair that is partly shellacked with gel to the scalp, bleached copper red on the ends with hard hair ribbons cascading from somewhere on top or from the side of their heads. Yes, Virginia, some people really do wear salad bowls and waterfalls on their heads.Sometimes they have cute short haircuts that are super straight with little rows of not-quite-curled-but-rather bent curls on top.

These ladies will ask, not for an answer from me but to make a statement, which is usually an explanation as to why they would never wear their hair locked. Most often the answer to the unasked question is, "I couldn't wear my hair like that because I like to wear different styles/change my hair style a lot." One lady told me she likes to scratch her scalp and she believes locked hair would prevent that, so she will continue to smear skin-irritating chemical straighteners, which make her scalp itch, onto her head every three weeks just for the pleasure of being able to scratch the chemical induced itch. Stop. Blink twice. Now read on.

It amuses me when a lady with all of her hair cut near the scalp except for the little bent hairs on top, as mentioned above, tells me she likes to change hair styles when she hardly has any hair.

The other type is the "I'm-too-important-to-reveal-my-natural-hair-texture" woman who knows we all know but acts like we all don't know what we know we know. That type, if she ever does speak to the likes of me, will usually tell someone else in my presence how unprofessional natural hair is as she should know because she would not be in her position if she were not privy to all things professional. Her concept of professionalism usually includes not allowing a certain "ethnic look" to offend those of Euro-ethnicity.

To those women, here's the deal: You must get a life. I am ethnic. You are ethnic--in whatever way you define it. To say that one ethnic look is more professional that another is, to quote Mike Tyson impersonators: "Ludicrous! Simply ludicrous!" My ethnicity doesn't prevent me from enjoying my students and being professional at what I do with them.

Here's what my husband, who is of another ethnicity said he thought when he first saw me: "That hair caught my eye. I said, 'Here is someone who is real from head to toe. She is who she is and not a thing is fake including the texture of her hair.' I thought it was beautiful then and it's beautiful now." So say all my friends of all ethnicities.

To all those ladies: When you ask me about my hair, I tell you just to answer your question. That is all. I am not trying to proselytize you into a religion of natural hair. You do to have to explain to me why you prefer to wear your hair the way you do. You may not believe this but--read my lips--I really do not care. Really! I did not ask about your hair; you asked about mine. Be happy with your choice. I am with mine and I have no regrets and make no excuses for my decision.

Another questioner type are, of course children. Little Black girls are told their hair stops growing and cannot possibly get to be as long as naturally straight hair. Hello, moms! Tell your little girls that the pulling and yanking on hair with implements made for straight hair breaks it off--especially when that hair has been damaged by the chemical straighteners, then plied with greasy hair gook that is supposed to counteract the drying effect of the chemicals.

These children ask me, "Is that your real hair?" They are usually excited and want to play with my hair. Um, no honey. I love children but do you usually allow people you don't know to come up to you and touch your hair? Well, you shouldn't, and neither do I.

Teens and young adults who are starting their locks will ask some upkeep questions. I have to remind them that my hair is not part of a faddish fashion statement for keeping up with my peers. From them I usually get a smile and a "Wow!" or a "Ma'am, I like your dreads! How long you had 'em?" I have to remind them that there is nothing dreadful about locked hair. I prefer not to use the term for cultivated locked hair. In the West Indies, transplanted Africans allowed their hair to lock. Notice I said allowed. Those that escaped slavery to live in the wilderness would sometimes swoop down and attack English colonist who dreaded seeing them coming with their dreaded locks because it meant bad news! Since our hair is usually started or styled to induce locking they are cultivated. That is the difference and why I prefer the terms "Nubian locks" or just "locks." Mine represent my way of life and not a way to stay fashionably in step with peers.

Older White people ask me about my hair also. I'd rather a person ask and know rather than assume and walk around ignorant. So I don't mind answering questions. Sometimes older people ask me about their kids' hair. I tell them that for me the naturally tight curl pattern makes it a natural way to keep my hair. For kids with straight hair there is a different method for achieving locked hair that most parents cannot deal with because it involves lots of beeswax and not washing it for weeks. Ew.

The one question I do not care for is, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Whoopi Goldberg?" The answer is yes. Someone has said I look like Whoopi Goldberg. Usually it is some well-meaning person of largely European descent who has had limited up-close exposure to Black people of African descent and thus have the perception that all of us with that heretical background not only know each other by name but that we resemble each other most remarkably! My husband who is an American of Italian and Irish background gets far more insulted by that comparison that I and says:."You look nothing like her and she looks nothing like you. How can he say that? Is he blind?"

My retort to the comparison to Whoopi---for which I am far more accustomed than my dear Hunnee-- is that I can understand that mistake seeing that we are close in age, both female, African Americans with locked hair. The big hairy BUT is, that while I deeply admire the Whoopster--which is what I call her on a more personal level, for as you know, we all know each other--- she is the more humorous of the two of us while I am the cuter.

I appreciate the beauty in all these things that God has created in each of us. I can appreciate these differences in my friends. Appreciation means not placing one above or below the other but knowing that the differences in themselves is a beautiful thing. My daughter's hair is nearly black and curly. My Hunnee's hair is wavy and blond. My hair is kinky and brown. It's all good 'cause it's all from God. How boring it would be to be all the same!
This is my hair story and I'm sticking to it!

"Gimme a head with hair Long beautiful hair...

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy, shining
Gleaming, steaming, flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted; Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled and spaghettied"
~~From Hair the musical

It's...So...Hot!!!

It's so hot!!!! It's so hot that

• I saw a chicken lay a fried egg!
• energy experts believe sweat is the new oil.
• It’s like living in the french fry bin at McDonalds.
• your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"
• Michael Vick is organizing penguin fights.
• it's noon in July, kids are on summer vacation, and not one person is out on the streets.
• you actually burn your hand opening the car door.
• you break a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m. before work.
• no one would dream of putting vinyl upholstery in a car or not having air conditioning.
• the birds have to use potholders to pull the worms out of the ground.
• The weather is 95 and hazy ..kind of like John McCain.
• It's so hot that I saw two trees fighting over a dog.
• It was so hot today I saw a funeral procession pull into a Dairy Queen.
  
• It was so hot today I saw an Amish guy buying an air conditioner.
• Potatoes cook underground, so just pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.
• You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.
• Angelina Jolie is adopting kids from Antartica"
• you notice the best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
• hot water now comes out of both taps.
• you can attend any function wearing shorts and a tank top.
• The 4 seasons are: tolerable, hot, really hot, and ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!!
• you discover that in July, it takes only 2 fingers to drive your car.
• you can attend any function wearing shorts and a tank top.
• you've experienced condensation on your butt from the hot water in the toilet bowl.
• you would give anything to be able to splash cold water on your face.
• Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"

Which photo was taken this summer on the hottest day ever!








I am so feeling what a candle must feel like.Yesterday it was 96 degrees outside with a heat index of 106 degrees. The kids at school are nuts from the heat.

I was going to work my little garden after the sun went down but it was still so steamy and I was sooooooo drained.

Daily Encounter ... Strength out of Weakness [Tuesday, June 23, 2009]

I love this!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

1. Strength out of Weakness

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it [my problem] away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."1

In his book, Confidence, Alan Loy McGinnis talks about a famous study entitled "Cradles of Eminence" by Victor and Mildred Goertzel, in which the family backgrounds of 300 highly successful people were studied. Many of the names of those in the study were well known to most of us—including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Gandhi, Einstein, and Freud, all of whom were brilliant in their fields of expertise.

The results of this study are both surprising and encouraging for many of us who came from a less-than-desirable home life. For example: "Three-quarters of the children were troubled either by poverty, by a broken home, or by rejecting, over- possessive or dominating parents.

"Seventy-four of 85 writers of fiction or drama and 16 of the 20 poets came from homes where, as children, they saw tense psychological drama played out by their parents.

"Physical handicaps such as blindness, deafness, or crippled limbs characterized over one-quarter of the sample."

These people who had confidence in their abilities and put them to creative use all have had more weaknesses and handicaps than many who have a lack of confidence because of low self-esteem. So, what made the difference? Probably by compensating for their weaknesses they excelled in other areas.

One man reported, "What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature." The speaker who stammered until his death was W. Somerset Maugham, as he looked back on his life at age 86.

"By then he had become a world-renowned author of more than 20 books, 30 plays, and scores of essays and short stories."

Speaking personally, I too came from a psychologically distraught, dysfunctional family. What made the difference for me was a deep sense of God's call and my faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ (with a lot of hard work and growth). However, I tremble to think where I would have ended up had it not been for my Christian faith and practice.

It's not what we have or don't have that matters in life but what we do with what we have—and what we do about facing and resolving our issues. It is very important that we don't allow our past to determine our future and that we use what we have to the best of our ability.

As another has wisely said, "I may have been a victim in the past but if I remain a victim, I am now a willing volunteer." And another, "Hope for the future gives us power in the present!" No matter what our background, when we commit and trust our lives daily to God, we can and do have hope for the future. It's up to us what we do in the present to resolve our past and to become what God wants us to be in the future.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, help me to see all that you envision for me to become and do and that, with your help, I can become and do. Help me to realize that I don't have to allow my past to determine my future, and help me to face and resolve every issue in my past that might be holding me back in any way. And above all, I thank you that when I daily commit and trust my life to you, you can help me to turn my weaknesses into strengths. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NIV).

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