Giving strong consideration

to using this entry's suggested means of dealing with obstacles, courtesy of lwood. . . Newark Star-Ledger ran a front-page, below-the-fold article today about how FDA is suing Red Cross for blood donation problems in the past. Considering that our overall trck record on these things is excellent, and that we've improved and/or fixed the problems of the past, I suspect FDA is (understandably) trying to save face. And that the Star-Ledger hates us, because over the course of the last twelve months I can't think of anything they ever published that was the least bit complimentary or positive about the Red Cross. Funny how none of the other organizations that collected $ for September 11th has taken the kind of flack we have, from anyone, least of all the Ledger. . . including some of the overnight charities that've sprung up and just as quickly vanished, taking the donations with them. I wonder if the Ledger has an editor who was in England during World War II and didn't get his damn free donuts (long story short: the Brits didn't give stuff away at the time, so Secretary of War Stimson told us we had to charge for our donuts & coffee or he'd pull our charter), or if it's that someone on staff thinks President Bush's 'give money to faith-based organizations' plan is the right way to go and that a dedicated neutral organization like the Red Cross needs to be destroyed to make that more likely, or what, but they pretty much seem to hate us. They've been writing about nothing but our flaws and failings for as long as I've worked here. I think the only times they've written about anything GOOD we do, they've written about our Braille bindery, and maybe once about how we reunited a Holocaust survivor in the Ukraine with his family in America.

I have several things I wish I could wish on them, but all of them would be horribly un-Christian, un-Buddhist, etc., so I'm not gonna do it. All I can say is: I have more faith in my organization, in my employers, in the people around me here at the Red Cross than I do in the American government - or in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in which I grew up. I have no doubt we'll do the right thing and eventually be vindicated; I just hope people like this don't tear us apart first. We're not just an organization. We're people. We're paid staff, we're volunteers, we're civilians and nurses and doctors and soldiers. We're here to support the American people in time of disaster and to support the American armed forces every single day of every single year. . . but in the end we are nothing but people, and I can only pray that the ones who seem to hate us so much that all they can ever talk about is what we did wrong don't succeed in destroying those people. We're needed, dammit. And we're doing the best we can.

You know,

when things get stressful, and the amount of casual hatred, stupidity, and nonsense around you gets to be too much to bear with grace, I find myself thinking of how my parents said 'running away never solves anything'.

Total bupkis. Running away solves the problem of 'how do I go about catching my breath without being repeatedly struck in the solar plexus by the collective fist of Bad Things'.

Of course, for it to work properly, you have to run back once you've got your breath back. Which is why I'm glad to report that Amtrak has informed me they'll be more than happy to carry me straight into the heart of Toronto this October... well, as straight as one can get if one stops in New York, Niagara Falls, and someplace referred to only as CBN along the way... for a very reasonable sum of money indeed. And back again, I hasten to add. Now I just have to work out accommodations and stuff. Not only will I get to see some good friends again, but I'll be able to re-visit the Royal Ontario Museum again, and you know what? The ancient Sichuan pieces I was so fond of will be there through November. Huzzah!

I feel better just thinkin' about it, man. Now to check up on the Dundas Street youth hostel, and other hostels in the city.

Ooops.

Karate class today: time to practice sidestepping. Someone coming at you with an overhand right-handed strike? Slide your left foot towards them, then move the right an equal distance to follow; you're getting out of the strike's way and getting a good shot at their unprotected side.

Line up in two lines, facing each other, says the instructor. Practice this as I give the count. So we do. Then we switch roles and the dodgers do the striking. Fine. So we switch partners and repeat. Great.

Now, says instructor, you and your next partner are going to do this with the striker throwing overhead blows at random - no count, no pattern. Just keep your eyes on his or her shoulder/chest area and sidestep as appropriate. The striker is to aim for the dodger's centerline before they start moving, as if they were trying to hit them on the center of the head.

So we do, and I avoid Eric's strikes pretty well, though he's an orange belt and I'm a white and he's six inches taller than me. Huzzah. Okay, says instructor, now switch.

We do this. And the first few strikes go okay, though Eric's not sidestepping all that far...

Then comes the overhand left-handed knife hand strike.
The one he doesn't sidestep far enough.
The one that comes straight down on his wire-rimmed eyeglasses.

He's okay. He was pretty good-humoured about it all. Even after he got the towel and started holding it to his face. The glasses didn't break, they just came down very hard on his nose... I drew blood. A fair amount, apparently.

I admit, my first thought was, 'You were supposed to be DODGING!'. After that came 'are you okay?', because I'd clipped him - I hadn't seen the blood yet. Then came 'I'm glad I had LASIK' and 'dude, you're an ORANGE BELT, I shouldn't have been able to do that'. At least all I said out loud was 'are you okay?'.

But geesh. I'm not supposed to be the one drawing first blood.