No More Walks in the Wood

No more walks in the wood
The trees have all been cut down
And where once they stood
Not even a wagon rut
Appears along the path
Low brush is taking over

No more walks in the wood
This is the aftermath
Of afternoons in the clover fields
Where we once made love
Then wandered home together
Where the trees arched above
Where we made our own weather
When branches were the sky
Now they are gone for good
And you, for ill, and I
Am only a passer-by

We and the trees and the way
Back from the fields of play
Lasted as long as we could
No more walks in the wood

CC here writting from Southern California.  In the United States, it is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and National Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  I didn’t want to bring everyone down by focusing my posts on these two extremely important issues.  However, I wanted to do a post that I rarely see and that is about male sexual assault and not just children, but men.  For women, it is very difficult to speak up about being sexually assaulted, but for men it is significantly harder.  When they do speak up, they are really not taken seriously or their emotional damage is hardly ever addressed.  They receive little support because most services are for men although this is changing somewhat.  

From the National Center for Victims of Crime, they define sexual assault by the following:  Sexual assault takes many forms including attacks such as rape or attempted rape, as well as any unwanted sexual contact or threats. Usually a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person’s body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person’s consent. Some types of sexual acts which fall under the category of sexual assault include forced sexual intercourse (rape), sodomy (oral or anal sexual acts), child molestation, incest, fondling and attempted rape. Sexual assault in any form is often a devastating crime. Assailants can be strangers, acquaintances, friends, or family members. Assailants commit sexual assault by way of violence, threats, coercion, manipulation, pressure or tricks. Whatever the circumstances, no one asks or deserves to be sexually assaulted.

Adult men seem to be the forgotten victims of sexual assault due to some of what I stated above.  I found little information regarding adult male sexual assault, but tons of information regarding women and children (boys and girls).  But, there are some resources.  One reason is the myth  instilled through masculine gender socialization and sometimes referred to as the “macho image,” declares that males, even young boys, are not supposed to be victims or even vulnerable. We learn very early that males should be able to protect themselves. , strength, and knowledge. A cultural bias maintains that males cannot be victims. Males are expected to be confident, knowledgeable, and aggressive. To be a victim means one is an inadequate male.

The same misconceptions apply to men and some to women as well.  Male victims of sexual abuse struggle with issues of homosexuality as most offenders are male. Their homophobia plus their confusion and fear encourage silence.  If a boy receives money for sex; he is less likely to be perceived as a victim; If a boy has a homosexual orientation, he is often blamed for the “seduction” of the older male, instead of being acknowledged as a legitimate victim of sexual abuse;  molestation by an older female is often viewed positively as a kind of “initiation rite” into manhood;  cultural pressure encourages participation while denying feelings; male victims of sexual abuse, more than female victims, may fear loss of freedom and independence if the sexual abuse should be made public;  fear of reprisals from the offender plays a role in under-reporting;  when boys are victimized, they tend to be blamed more for their abuse and are viewed as less in need of care and support; boys fear negative judgment by family and friends; and embarrassment and/or confusion prevent male victims of sexual abuse from disclosing.  This information is from Male Survivor website.

For more information and support go to Male Survivor, Butler County Rape Crisis Center or RAIIN.

Please share your experiences personal or someone you know.  All comments are welcome, but please be considerate of the fact that adult males are victims and maybe reading this post. Don’t further myths and cause shame and emotional harm by your comments.

The Pope is due to visit Britain later this year and I wonder what sort of reception he will get.

 The Government has been plunged into a major diplomatic storm after Foreign Office officials circulated an offensive memo mocking the Pope’s forthcoming visit to Britain. In the document, staff who were asked to propose ideas for the ‘ideal’ visit suggested Benedict XVI could launch a new range of ‘Benedict’ condoms, bless a gay marriage or back a Miss Developing World beauty contest.

Sources in Rome said the document also proposed that the Pope might sing a duet with the Queen to raise money for charity. The pair are due to meet during the Pontiff’s visit in September. The memo, which has dismayed Church leaders in Britain, is also understood to suggest that the leader of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics could apologise for the Spanish Armada, reverse his ban on women priests and visit an old people’s home.

Maybe the design of this stained glass window should be re-thought:

Comments welcomed on Brand Benedict and I ask you how would you receive him and if you find the church INSPIRATIONAL or FRIGHTENING? Do tell…..

In a follow on to Mr Irish Coffee’s post and one of my many rants on this site I thought I’d come out of retirement  for a short time to ask some direct questions of you.

Recently myself and my wife decided to have a child and so began the fun part of this activity. Once we’d managed to complete the procreation part, more than a few times we hit the jackpot and my wife got pregnant.

Whilst enjoying the fantastic experience that this brings and the beauty of the pregnant female form (cue an excuse to show off a nice photo);

I also began to think to myself what would this mean in the future as in the main that future is my daughters. As such I began to try and think of ways that we could do this that would lessen the impact of her arrival.

It was quite a struggle and in reality we only made three concrete choices.

The first is generally accepted as the best thing to do anyway, my daughter will be breast fed and not fed on powdered milk formula. This will deprive the process industries who peddle this product of a customer and therefore lessen factory farming, industrial processing and the transportation of this product.

The second step is to use traditional nappies that we (mainly me) wash by hand after each change. This lessens the amount of dumping (excuse the pun) that will go on in landfills, reduce the amount of raw materials processed to produce disposable nappies and also the transportation involved in this industry.

We have also reached a deal with her sister whereby we contribute to the clothes for her daughter as in two years they will be my daughter’s, after all small kids clothes get, at best, two months wear. (this was the toughest one to sell to my wife as its not a money issue and she does want to go clothes shopping, therefore we won’t be 100% sticking to this idea).

I am still disappointed in myself that I can not make further steps so I am asking all you guys out there in the coffee community to put your thinking caps on and try and come up with some other ideas. I mean its hardly like anything we are doing is revolutionary, in fact it is simple regression to a time gone by.

So, is the best way to go green to simply turn the clock back?

Yesterday was Earth Day, and today I offer my first post as a GSTC contributor:

Each and every time I unplug my Sony Ericsson C905 eight mega pixel camera mobile phone from its charger, a message pops up on its big TFT screen. It tells me to ‘unplug the charger from the socket as well, in order to save energy’. I duly oblige, of course. But I then start wondering if I will soon be getting messages instructing me to ‘have shorter telephone conversations’ or ‘send fewer texts’, or that I must ‘try to take more care of this fragile handset so that it does not need to be replaced so often’..  Well, they want to save the world. Don’t they?

Let’s take some stock here! What is this “Save the World” mania really all about? The story runs something like this. We’ve been very greedy for a long time. But now we’ve caught ourselves red-handed, with egg on our face, so to speak. Basically we’ve been busy consuming more than our fair share of the world’s resources, acting as if the world was a kind of bottomless sack of Christmas gifts. For the sake of ourselves and for our children, it makes sense to be concerned about saving it, along with its gifts.

Political parties, charities – all sorts of organisations and companies – are keen to shape themselves around this one seemingly wholesome, faultless motto: “Save the world!”…And why not? It seems we’re all buying into it. From running our washing machines at 30 degrees to recycling our coke tins, this is an ideology we’re all proud to represent.

“Save the World!”… I mean, who wouldn’t want to be on board such an enlightened and practical ideology? Well, let’s ask a very practical question: How effective will this revolution be in actually helping to preserve our planet? At least some seem to realise that perhaps they don’t really need to be buying so many clothes in the first place, or guzzling down so many soft drinks. On the whole, however, aren’t we flattering ourselves by overestimating how badly the world needs us? As for our grand “Save the World!” idea, has that not now become simply a trendy slogan that we merrily slap onto our consumer lifestyles, so giving us a bunch of “alternative”, guilt-free ways of ravaging our natural environment?

Discuss…

I know that we have had a post on Wordle, the program where you put your words in and come up with something fun.  I thought that it would be nice to revisit it.  To make your own Wordle go to http://www.wordle.net/.  There are many fonts, layouts and colors.  To keep words together add a ~ between the words you want to keep together.  Below is the Coffee Shop Crew.   To see a bigger picture, please click on the picture.

Custom Made:

  URL Used:

I also wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Irish Coffee.  On both of my blogs, I will soon be featuring Irish Coffee and some of the good changes here at GSTC.  My blogs are Clinically Clueless, which is quite personal, and Something Just To Start, which is fun and filled with shopping ideas.  (I know shameless plugs for my blogs!!)  I have many Wordles on my right side bar which are quite graphically personal, but it will give you an opportunity to see what can be done with Wordle.

Why don’t you go try it yourself or tell us what your topic would be.  If you do try one, in your comment add the url or the link as the picture will not post here. 

Go! Smell the Coffee and Have Some Fun!! 

BERLIN – Air controllers lifted all restrictions on German airspace today, paving the way for more flights into one of Europe’s busiest airports. Airlines announced they had lost at least $1.7 billion and criticized government actions during the volcanic ash crisis.

Here’s footage from NASA showing the scale of it:

I then youtubed ‘Iceland Volcano’ for more exciting footage (at least with music) and found this:

Mother nature or the illuminati?

Open minded comments welcomed, black dragons optional!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

What other captions can you think of?

Welcome ‘Irish Coffee’  – our latest writer to get amongst it at GO! Smell the coffee so top o’ the mornin’ to all.

 I’m updating the old coffee badges in an attempt to make this place a worthy site to visit as part of your valuable time online.

Irish Coffee is a 26 year old male from Ireland. Currently writing up four years of research in Systematic Theology, while considering launching a career in life coaching. When it comes to recreation,  he is also drawn to books, but this time to the sort of books that read him. When he’s had his fill of the books, he enjoys playing or watching soccer, running, meditating, and travelling. He relishes all sorts of challenges, physical and mental.  However, the greatest challenge he faces, the one which he just cannot seem to overcome, and yet the one which brings him the most joy – is the challenge of knowing himself!

Welcome to GO! Smell the coffee : Irish coffee! Discuss…..

Who can tolerate this kinds of abuse? I mean from the ladies perspective – not the Irish. I do wonder how anyone can tolerate this in their life but often some don’t have any choice. Or do they?

What can be done to ‘help’ the victim here and when you looked at the image did you assume the ‘attacker’ was a man? Comments welcomed!