Strong Arming Armstrong

Love yourself…first and best. Honour truth. Never look for validation from others. Seneca said, “A thing can be presumed bad when the common sort applaud”. O.K. you are probably wondering what brought on today’s rant. In a word Lance Armstrong (ok that’s 2 words lol). Most of you have heard the story by now. Mr. Armstrong won 7 Tour de France cycling races, passed thousands of drug tests and is still being accused of doping and threatened with censure. Yesterday Lance finally said, “enough of this shit I’m done”. To me it is about time… as long as he knows the truth, screw the committee.  The chairman went on the news and said Lance’s decision to not fight the charges (after years of fighting them) is proof of guilt. To me that is just proof of good sense… a wise man once said, “Don’t get in the mud and wrestle with pigs…you’ll both get dirty and the pig will like it.”  My argument is simply this…someone had to win those races…and unless the 2^nd 3^rd and 4^th place winners were on performance  enhancing drugs why wouldn’t a slightly better athlete beat them to the finish line. This incident, as with the SteveFonyo vs. the Order of Canada  just proves that you should never look to others for validation. Do your best in any given moment, enjoy your victories, forgive your mistakes and learn from both. Life is about the journey … live, laugh and love. Treat yourself with the same kindness and respect you show others. Have a joyous day.

Just a Little Update

Yes, it has been 6 weeks since my last post… in my defense I have posted 2 more sections to the Research Findings page of the website. I want to say welcome back to Drakakis, after almost a year away the LowLives Blog is posting once again. Hope life is treating you well.

Now, for my rant “de jour”.  On the news this past week it said that India (you heard right) is planning to have a launch to MARS in 2013… What is this sudden obsession with Mars?  Haven’t we done enough damage on this plant?… Now we want to spread that around the rest of the milky-way. Jeeezzz people... does anyone besides me think this is messed up.

I was complaining a few blogs ago that people (governments) should clean up the problems in their own countries before sending resources and/or criticism out to other countries; but now I have to say that even taking a one world “global economy” view…let’s at least keep our mess on our own frickin planet.   Maybe someday when we have repaired the damage we have done here, it will be time to spread ourselves into the rest of the galaxy.

For those of you not up to date on my plans, I will take this time to share. The Angels of the Road journey is over and I have been publishing my findings on the website…. There are still a few entries to come but all should be there by the end of September. My job as a nanny ended in July… and I am looking to get back into the shelter industry (addiction, recovery, rehab, reintegration, etc). I am especially interested in working with urban Native populations struggling with addiction and recidivism (in and out of corrections). So if anyone knows of a position…. feel free to give me a heads-up. Thanks.

It was always my intention to publish an account of my life (two years) living homeless in Canada, but I am going to be putting that off for a while. First, I am going to write a handbook for human services professionals about how we can best serve this client population. I am calling it… OUT REACHING: A Streetwise Guide to Social Work.  The 100ish page manual will be a staple for the industry… student and professional alike will find the information very enlightening. I have started looking for a literary agent and expect to have the book ready by year end.

I don’t do these personal updates too often so it is hard to know what is of interest to all-ya-all. The Blepharospasm treatments work well and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get another one done soon. The treatments last 3-4 months but are quite expensive ($400) by my standards LOL. Other than that, I am enjoying good health and just have a couple of appointments to wrap things up before I leave Hamilton. The time I spent on the road took a toll on my health, as it does with anyone who is in that environment of more than a few weeks. But with the help of  Dr Walser-Jebb and a program of supplements, I am as healthy as anyone else ;-)

The cost of health care to homeless people is in addition to the $100 per day per person this country spends on shelter services (sleep, food, monitoring, laundry, counseling etc, etc, etc). This is why housing first programs make so very much sense from a taxpayer/budget perspective. With a comprehensive program to create affordable home ownership and supportive housing we could reduce homelessness by 70%... saving 50% of the $1.4 million dollars we spend daily; a whopping $255,000,000 per year. Go Habitat for Humanity ....yeh!

That is my 600+ words for today I’ll be adding more on the research findings soon. Have a joyous day my friends.