All human beings are...

...born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Today is International Human Rights Day, a day commemorating the date the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although that took place over 70 years ago in 1948, not every human is as free as terms of the proclamation hoped. I love the fact that one of my heroines (and friend of Amelia Earhart), Eleanor Roosevelt, headed the committee in charge of creating the declaration. 

The photo I selected for today is of a friend who is a great inspiration to me -- for her simple lifestyle, her love of nature, and her acceptance of everyone. It's a true bonus that a rainbow, long a symbol of both hope and peace, as well as its contemporary meaning of acceptance of sexual diversity, managed to appear in this shot of her beautiful hand. 

A convergence of calendars

Two of my favourite calendars this year both have images of an odd-looking fish -- a creature I've learned is called a unicorn fish, for fairly obvious reasons.


But there's a more significant convergence today -- anniversaries of two people who made a big difference in speaking out for racial equality among the rest of us fish in the sea.

It's been fifty years since Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. He is still held in great esteem and is now commemorated with a national holiday in the US. Although much has improved, his work certainly isn't done. But this leads me to think about the other significant person associated with this day.

It would have been the 90th birthday of the multi-talented writer, Maya Angelou. Perhaps best known for her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she was commemorated today with a delightful Google doodle, that used animation, along with the voices of a range of writers and actors performing her poem, "Still I rise".

A link of somewhat-bizarre calendar images, a birth-and-death connection involving two people courageous enough to truly make a difference in the world. Magical as unicorns.

Hard to balance

It's a balancing act. Life, that is. Still, it bothers me that so many aspects of life can feel so out of balance.

While it shouldn't have come as a surprise, last week's tree-cutting in White Rock, came as a shock to many. Apparently, it had been part of the ever-shifting Official Community Plan, a document that too often has seemed to have been amended behind closed doors. This time, there was some sense to the act, as it was meant primarily to address the unsafe interlock-block sidewalk that had been shifting and rising over the years. Nonetheless, seeing stumps the breadth of these takes my breath away. I know, silly tree-hugger me. And if it weren't that the city has already cleared so many other tracts of trees, it might not seem as harsh as it does. Somehow, replacing a tree with a high-rise isn't an equation that seems very balanced to me.

But trees aren't the only out-of-balance item of late. Sunday's Academy Awards were certainly another indication of that. Among comments made by Frances McDormand (brave soul that she is) was the observation that, of Oscars presented, 33 went to men while only 6 went to women. That stat becomes even grimmer when you remove the two that could only be awarded to women (Best Actress and Supporting Role) and the two given only to men (Best Actor and Supporting Role). Then the imbalance becomes even clearer: 4 to 31.

And no, I'm not going to go into detail about the ongoing matter of wage inequity or lack of representation in board rooms (the glaring exception here is the status of volunteer-based organizations -- if there's no pay, women are given the jobs).

Today, International Women's Day, is a day for awareness, yes. But I wonder, just how many years is it going to take for equality to be a fact, and not a dream.

On achieving equality

There's a chilling line in a Kurt Vonnegut story about a future I don't believe any of us want to see come true. "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal."

It's from a story called 'Harrison Bergeron' in Welcome to the Monkey House. While the idea of equality is a noble one, the way it's achieved in Vonnegut's vision is anything but noble. To achieve 'equality' among everyone, anyone with a beautiful face must wear a hideous mask; anyone with above-average intelligence must wear earphones that continuously blast cacophonous sounds to prevent them from thinking clearly. It's a society with a level playing field, but it's one where the bar has been lowered to the bottom rung.

On the weekend, I attended the On Words Conference of The Writers Union of Canada, a group to which I belong. The overriding theme of the weekend was the issue of equity.

Carmen Rodriguez offered a metaphor of explanation, one that made it clearer than any I'd heard before. She told us to picture three people standing behind a fence, outside a soccer match.. One of the persons is quite tall, one is of medium height and one is very short. The tall one can see a bit of the game, the mid-sized one can reach for the occasional glimpse, but the short one is out of luck. In other words, they're not being given equal opportunity to see the game.

Then someone comes over to the fence with three little stools for them to stand on. Now, the tall one has a good view; the medium person gets a better look than before, but the short one still can't see over the fence. Resolution for the problem? For the tall person, the short stool provides a solution, allowing them to see the game. For the middle-sized person, a stool that's a bit bigger will make all the difference. As for the short person, they will need a very tall stool to look over the fence comfortably to participate in watching the game. Equity. Aha! A chance for all to be equal.

At our family supper on Sunday night, I told Carmen's story and reactions around the table were mixed. One son thought each person should get the same advantage -- that they should all get a tall stool right at the start. Even though the tall person didn't need a tall vantage point, this way would be 'fair' to all with no one person needing more 'propping up' than the other. Interesting.

And then came the suggestion to simply take down the fence.

I'm still not sure how best to handle the question: How do we provide equality to everyone? About the best metaphor I can offer for now is the image of the curving fence above. Maybe each of us needs to find our own place along it.