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Date: 10/07/2008Views: 90
to everyone we have stayed with, and probably those we will stay with on the remainder of our trip…
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I used your shampoo. I forgot mine in SA.
Don’t worry, I have my soap 
Is this acceptable guest protocal (the using shampoo, not the admitting to it)? My guess/hope is yes – everyone always says “make yourself at home.”
Although I have always had relatives living in San Francisco, and have visited several times over the years, I have never been particularly fond of “the City.” Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe its the packed feeling. Maybe it’s “the City’s” choice of calling itself “the City.” To me, San Franciso always seemed to need to prove itself, to say they were better than LA (while LA more or less ignored SF). And of course, there are the Forty-Niners…
On the other hand, I love that people use public transportation and can walk. I love that people care about the environment and taking care of others. There are great buildings and nieghborhoods. And how can you NOT like a city on the water with lots of bridges and hills? And of course, there are the Raiders…
Today, we had breakfast in town with family, then took the kids to the Exploratorium. We went there wtih my Aunt who took me there when I was a boy. We all had a great time and it was a bit nostalgic remembering learning at the same exhibits as our kids were playing with today. We also got to drive around the city a bit and the weather was perfect.
In the past, I’ve generally given San Francisco a thumbs down. After today, I think I would give it thumbs up. What do you think and why?
I love many of the traditional Christmas hymns. Though oft’ difficult to sing, the lyrics are powerful and full of great truth. Tonight, in singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel, I am reminded of many who are in true need of Christ:
the hungry
the homeless
the sick
the impoverished
the lonely
the rejected
the war-torn
the displaced
the orphan
the lost
Especially for these – the ones I know & the countless I don’t
This is my prayer today. Appear, come, ransom your people
Amen.
some people are always running late because they lose track of time
others are simply unorganized
there are those who live in the present so much that they can’t leave one moment to make it to the next
and of course, many with kids can’t seem to make it anywhere on time.
us, we live in Africa.
please excuse our running late, staying too long, and getting there whenever we do. that’s how things work where we live. there’s always time. it’s not because we don’t like you.
it’s cultural – a more abundant perspective on time. i know it’s true in Africa. we teach our new apprentices about this bit of worldview. I just didn’t know WE operated that way until we got to America and pretty much have been late to see nearly everyone.
so, our apologies. we live in Africa.
Are you serious?
HARARE, Zimbabwe – President Robert Mugabe declared Thursday that there was “no cholera” in Zimbabwe and the country’s health crisis was over, even as the United Nations raised the death toll from the epidemic to 783.
Cholera has spread rapidly in the southern African nation because of the country’s crumbling health care system and the lack of clean water. The U.N. said 16,403 cases have been reported.
Last week, Zimbabwe declared a health emergency because of cholera and the collapse of its health services. South African authorities have declared the cholera-hit border region with Zimbabwe a disaster area as the disease spreads to other countries.
At a state funeral Thursday for a ruling party official, Mugabe insisted the outbreak of the waterborne disease had been “arrested” with the help of the World Health Organization and other aid agencies.
Mugabe lashed out at critics who have been calling for his ouster — and even military intervention — as concerns about Zimbabwe’s deepening humanitarian crisis mounted.
“So now that there is no cholera, there is no cause for war anymore. We need doctors, not soldiers,” he said during an hour-long address broadcast live on state television.
Mugabe has ruled his country since its 1980 independence from Britain and has refused to leave office following disputed elections in March. A power-sharing deal worked out in September with the opposition has been deadlocked over how to divide up Cabinet posts.
President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy all have called recently for the 84-year-old leader to step down.
In Washington, the U.S. ambassador to Harare, James McGee, told reporters at the State Department that the cholera problem is getting worse and that Mugabe’s assertion that the health crisis was over showed “how out of touch he is with the reality” in Zimbabwe.
“The situation is truly grim,” McGee said, “One man and his cronies — Robert Mugabe — are holding this country hostage.”
Britain’s Africa minister Mark Malloch-Brown also rejected Mugabe’s claim that there was no longer a crisis in Zimbabwe.
“I don’t know what world he is living in,” Malloch-Brown said during a one-day trip to South Africa, where he visited a Johannesburg church housing 1,600 Zimbabweans who have fled the country.
Malloch-Brown called on South Africa to put more pressure on Mugabe to end the political and humanitarian crisis. South Africa has withheld 300 million rand ($30 million) in aid for Zimbabwe but otherwise has been reluctant to use its huge economic and political muscle against its neighbor.
“South Africa could do a lot more and it needs to do it now,” said Malloch-Brown, who also met South African Health Minister Barbara Hogan, who is trying to contain the spread of cholera from across the border. He was also due to meet President Kgalema Motlanthe.
About 664 people have been treated for the waterborne disease and at least eight people have died in South Africa. Hundreds of Zimbabweans cross the border at Beitbridge every day to search for jobs in South Africa, buy supplies and, increasingly, seek medical treatment.
Phandu Skelemani, foreign minister of neighboring Botswana, which has been critical of Mugabe, said his country’s border with Zimbabwe should remain open but he supported other measures to isolate Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party.
“If you switch off petrol (gasoline), I think that ZANU-PF will have to go. If that step is agreed and you then simultaneously airlift critical supplies like food and essential supplies to prevent Zimbabweans from starving to death, I think it will have desired effect,” Skelemani told The Associated Press on Thursday.
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