Christmas 2004
Dear friends, neighbors, and foes,
May the Christmas Season find you happy and the New Year add good health and prosperity.
My sister Marlene enters the sixth year of her successful kidney/pancreas transplant, which “technically” has removed her from being a juvenile onset “diabetic”. Her leg doctors continue adjusting her prosthetic leg and her prosthetic eye makers has promised to continue making her plastic eye, even though he is leaving the field. When she can, Marlene continues going to the YMCA, but her newest pursuit reflects her deepening interest and study of current affairs, world health, and politics. No, she is not a candidate for office, but she has been appointed to the San Francisco Grand Jury. Look out political hacks and cronies, Marlene’s about to clean house. And yes, she did vote for the thoughtful presidential candidate, who supported stem cell research, so that fewer Christian and non-Christian children entering this world need suffer through what she has with her decades of diabetes.
For me the past year saw a culmination of events that often happen to the 100,000 + mile automobile. In jumping that odometer hurdle many cars suffer: a rock in the windshield – I got a basketball game poke in the eye that still hasn’t healed properly; a couple flat tires – I popped a hernia as a five year old and the same spot blew out traveling the bumpy roadways of life this year; worn down shock absorber — x-rays revealed that my continued one-sided, painful and lumpy ride resulted from wearing down my cartilage suspension system cushioning my left hip. Replacing shock absorbers gets greasy while replacing a hip is bloody, so Chicken Little me is pursuing everything from pills, yoga, and workouts to prolong or fix the hip’s drivability.
Hoping that hope is on the way, early stem cell cartilage re-growth is encouraging. California’s voters were perceptive enough to bond $3 billion for stem cell research (120 times the $24.8 million this administration’s 2003 human embryonic stem cell budget proposed spending on prolonging and enhancing lives). And yes, I too voted for the candidate who supported embryonic stem cell research that would save lives, reduce suffering, and allow folks like me to practice their Christian good works rather than just mouth hollow but well-marketed , repetitious phrases about helping the world.
Due to needed repairs, I will miss a fourth consecutive Habitat Build, right when the world so much needs Americans building homes and lives, and thereby help stem the unprecedented evil will an historically epic portion of the world is casting upon America due to our myopic policies. So, in this Christmas spirit of giving, I hope you consider filling in for me and volunteer your time and or money to Habitat. Volunteering for Habitat is as close as you will get, in a 2-3 week stint, to being a productive Peace Corps volunteer. And if you are a fundamental Christian, you must have read those Biblical lines in which Christ asks us to walk in the sandals of the meek, humble, and suffering, which is the dusty path some Peace Corps volunteers and Habitat builders travel. Had we had decades of a million yearly PCVs in the field, as Kennedy wanted, we would not have anything near today proliferation of terror cells, terrorists, and America hating erupting throughout today’s world. Habitat offers a chance to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, which seems to be what too many American believe is all the world’s declining super power needs to do to fulfill its responsibility to lead the world to a more adult, healthy, smart, and responsible future. Habitat is a chance to win hearts and minds, so that tomorrow’s American soldiers are less exposed to maiming, killing, and its costly aftermath. You can contact Habitat at: http://www.habitat.org/getinv/
You can review more of my policy thoughts on Peace Corps and Habitat and Iraq at: http://dwaynehunn.hypermart.net/peace_corps.htm
There are not many more Christmas gifts one can give that tops helping build a house for those in need of basic shelter. Stemming hatred by performing works of good will and learning about the world’s true needs is what Christ and all other religious leaders I know of were all about, right?
Much of my work this year revolved around educating for the future development of the 85-acre Canalways parcel. If you are interested in the politics and headaches of land development in places like affluent Marin County, you can get plenty of information from www.canalway.hypermart.net
With political people involvement bubbling to historic levels, I had increased opportunities to become re-involved on discussions on the initiative, national initiative, and national policy issues. Some of that work is listed at: www.peopleslobby.hypermart.net and my web site:
To all my Excel customers, thanks. With increasing concentration in telecommunications, as in all our industries, Excel faces difficulties accessing today’s broad band telecommunications lines and, consequently, struggles to remain one of the leading telecommunication companies that forced down phone rates years ago.
May you have happiness and good health through the coming year.
“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be expected.” (Luke 12:48)
LaGrange. Georgia. Carter Habitat Build, 2003.
Previous pictures from Fiji and Sri Lanka.
http://dwaynehunn.biz/Christmas%202004.htm old site