Thursday, October 25, 2007

Superdome and Qualcomm Stadium



I received an email today asking me if the Chargers Stadium (Qualcomm) was like the New Orleans Super Dome. Here is part of my reply.

It couldn't be less like the Super Dome if you could imagine that. I volunteered at the Salvation Army emergency relief station and people who were coming up for everything from clothes to toothbrushes and toothpaste could not be more gracious or grateful. I would say 1 in 100 had a bad attitude and we saw thousands of people. At its height there were about 12,000 people staying there. We had so many supplies it was almost comical.

(By the way, the picture I found randomly online actually has our station in the picture. If you look in the background you will see the back of my head. I am wearing a dark blue shirt. I organized all those diapers that you see in the background. That was only a small portion of what we had at the beginning of the day!)

It is almost a festival type atmosphere there. They have teachers volunteering to offer kids activities in a safe zone (they are even screening the teachers before allowing them to work with the kids). There were table set up for free massages and acupuncture. Several companies had free internet and cell phone use to anywhere in the country. There was grief counseling and I saw signs for AA meetings. There were impromptu orchestras putting up signs for a little music practice and concert. There is face painting, balloons for the kids and comedians putting on shows.

FEMA was right on the spot, there is a police and military presence second to none, and ample supplies. The insurance companies all have booths set up to help process the claims.

I think there are a number of reasons for the difference.

1. The tragedy didn't affect everyone in San Diego. 1 in 5 people were evacuated but that made 4/5th of the people who were unaffected and able to help.

2. Without sounding racist, I think that those displaced here were higher education and income. They have the means to recover and not slip into a helpless victim mindset. They know things can and will get better so they are not angry at the system.

3. The government (local, state, and federal) learned from Katrina and the Super Dome. I think that in that tragedy as with this one that it starts with the local politicians and moves out to state then federal. The federal government is like trying to move a mountain. To expect them to be nimble and immediately responsive is to misunderstand the role or effectiveness in government. It reminds me of when I was a kid and we approached a mega church about doing an outreach. They told us if we started planning now it could happen in 12 to 18 months.

4. Interestingly, it was the Christian community that moved in force to step in and help. I walked around and talked to high school students and adults and the vast majority were from Bible believing churches. It seemed like at every volunteer organization from Red Cross to Salvation Army to everything in between when I asked them why they came out they were a part of a youth group, church or ministry.

5. Finally, there was an outpouring of help that staggers the imagination. People drove to Target or Wal Mart and bought hundreds of dollars of supplies. So much so the police had to turn them away for a while on Tuesday because there was an hour wait to get into the stadium and traffic was too backed up. Cars, vans and trucks waited for hours to get in. They were afraid that there were so many donors that the evacuees couldn't get in!

I have to tell you my heart swelled with pride at being an American that day! This is what people will do if they have an opportunity and know a need in a tragedy. America is still the most generous, most compassionate nation on this planet. I say that knowing that statistics bare this out. We often only look at government donations to relief efforts around the world. But when you add in private direct donations to relief efforts we blow the rest of the world away! Don’t let the media tell you otherwise.

I'll go back today again just to make sure they don't need anymore help. I've been there the last two days so I do need to get some church stuff done. Our church wasn’t affected so that allowed us to help others.

I may take my camera today (which I forgot the last two days) and take pictures.

Sincerely,

Dave

P.S. There were some negative stories of people trying to take advantage of the situation. Driving their cars in and filling up with donated supplies. Then there is the looting. Sad but it reminds me that sinful people will always find ways to do evil, even in a tragedy.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Birth Control to 11 year olds

(Click Title above to connect to the original story.)

I just read the article this morning that the Maine junior high is going to start offering contraceptives to their 11, 12 and 13 year old children. If it wasn't so shocking I would this that this is some kind of hoax because sane adults would try to discourage kids that aren't even teenagers yet from having sex rather than supply them with contraception. Now keep in mind, we aren't talking about condoms here but giving girls the pill or the patch.

Wait a second, the school nurse cannot distribute an aspirin or Tylenol because it is unsafe and they don't want to take the legal liability. But they are willing to pump an 11 year old girl's body full of hormones that can have side effects. I know many adult women who have a time adjusting to birth control in the weeks leading up to their wedding.

What bothers me most is that the school CANNOT tell the parents that they are distributing birth control pills. Don't the parents have a right to know what medicine their child is receiving by a medical professional? Don't parents have a right to know what their kids are doing that they need birth control at age 11. We are talking about kids who legally cannot consent to have sex in the first place.

Furthermore, we have seen that at least some of these kids who are getting pregnant so young do so because they are being abused by someone who is much older. In order to protect the children from emotional and psychological harm isn't it in the best interest of the child and the parent to discuss this and decide?

We’ve taken the erroneous idea that they are going to do it anyway so we need to give them contraception to its logical absurdity. As a society we have bought into the idea that it is inherently immoral to tell a kid "no" or "stop doing that." Furthermore, we assume that kids cannot be influenced by positive moral teaching and are going to do it anyway. We also undermine any structured moral teaching given by family and church when we tell them that these services are available. Beyond that, we end up teaching them that other 11, 12 and 13 year olds are having sex when we tell them these services are available.

The article says only a small percentage of kids are having sex at that age. I believe that national statistics would bear that out. However, as we have become sexualized as a nation and have shielded kids from less and less adult material they have an even greater awareness of sex at a younger and younger age. However, when a teacher or health official tells them that these services are available, they not only are speaking to the small percentage of kids but to the larger percentage who are not engaging in sexual activity as a child.

Suddenly there is an awareness and curiosity of who is doing this coupled with the natural curiosity that is stirred within themselves. Ah, but it might be argued that it is only the kids who come to the health office that will be told these services are available. But that won’t do either. If you wait until they come to you then it is already too late because they won’t come to you if they don’t know these items are available. The only other reason they will come to you is if it is too late and they are already pregnant. So you must inform everyone in advance which does the very thing that I disagree with in informing everyone about the sexual activity of a few and stirring curiosity.

Let me make one other observation that is at least as controversial as my first point, what we are missing in this society is a sense of morals and a sense of stigma towards those who violate these moral standards. People are motivated to do right or avoid wrong by two forces, one external and the other internal. The external one is the expectations that have been placed on them and the fear of consequences for doing the wrong. The internal one is a sense of morals and values that have been instilled and cultivated over the person’s life.

We have removed all sense of shame and guilt from any behavior (because we have no absolute standards only personal “values”) and then we don’t teach any enduring morals that we believe that people are able to strive toward and keep. We don’t want to teach any values that might smack of religion or traditional morals so we take the cop out way and just hand out condoms.

We miss the point of previous generations that some actions brought shame upon myself and my family. We have a "guilt free" society that doesn't like the idea that others might look down on a person's behavior or, heaven forbid, say that a certain action is wrong. Well, 11 year olds having sex is wrong, dead wrong and someone needs to stand up and say something. The people who want to give out contraception rather than informing the parents ought to be ashamed of themselves.

We put Band-Aids on cancerous melanoma rather than getting to the root issue and dealing with the disease. The moral decay and our inability to articulate moral values in our society has brought us to this new low point of giving 11 year old girls the pill rather than redirecting their lives to something more fruitful and productive.