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ISSN: 1530-5775
July 2008, Vol.10 #7

• This month's Featured Fiction
  Hitting the Bricks by Mary C. Wickner

• This month's Feature Article
  Back At Work from Georgia Jones

• Special Feature
  Your Own Tree of Dreams, by Lynn Andrews

• Science & Medicine Correspondent
  Lose Weight With Smart Thinking
  a special series by Richard Kuhns

• Is the Internet Messing with Our Minds?
  by Irma Hudson

• BabyBug
  The Combing of the Hair

• Poetry Corner
  Poems from Shimon Weinroth

• Domestic Violence fly away home
  The next installment from
  Flying Lessons for Butterflies by Sheila Whitman

• Exceptional Women
  An Extraordinary story
  from the Killing Fields of Cambodia

• Now Hear This
  Other Cloaks—Our Hosts Are Versatile

• Financial Correspondent
  First oil then food-Who starves?

• Books, Cooks, Looks & Ms. Elani
  A Review of The Kindness of Strangers

• LadybugNews

• Your House is on Fire
  It's Not Over

• From the Editor
  Be Afraid

• Our Readers Reflect
  Last Month Our Exceptional Women Were You

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• Regular Contributors
  
• How to be published here


• Copyright Information
  

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• Regular Contributors
  
• How to be published here


• Copyright Information
  

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From the EDITOR

Be Afraid

In recent days, kind friends have been asking if I am safe from the flames. In case you haven't heard, California is burning. We are safe—the closest fires are about five miles away—but we are heavily (dangerously if you venture out) blanketed in smoke. The hills I can normally see through the trees around my house (cleared of over and undergrowth for safety as we do every year) are invisible or floating in a fantasy mist. It is no fantasy, though. California is burning and the Midwest—breadbasket to the world where food prices are already beyond imagining for the poor—the Midwest is flooding. In my turn, I ask my friends along the Mississippi how they are doing. Our own Irma Hudson lives along that river and I worry about her, but not too much because she has the resources and sense to protect herself... for now. Both Irma and her husband, Horace, have educations in meteorology so we talk weather when we get together, even virtually. The other day she passed on that they were in a tornado alert but that Horace had said (half joking I'm sure) that he preferred tornadoes to earthquakes. We haven't had a good one of the latter in some time but seismologists are warning that we are due. I'm sure you all remember the recent spate of tornado activity. All of that is not to mention the tsunami, earthquake, flooding, droughts, etc. in other parts of the world. It is easy to forget how many others are suffering when you are dodging some natural calamity of your own. The Bush Administration just announced that Global Warming (something they discovered only recently) is going to be the biggest danger to peace (something they have not explored during this administration). I'd like to say something sarcastic to that announcement, but how? It's true and has been true for nearly a decade now. Only we didn't notice. I remember, too many years ago to reveal, sitting on the DC Mall with my stack of posters, ready to hand out and staple up, and being told that we were about to change the world. That was the first first Earthday. I remember what happened, too. We had a wonderful event. I saved my "Stop at Two" button, because I truly believed it was an important sentiment, and had my Earthday button (a large tree in an open field) made into a nice piece of jewelry, because it was important to remember as well. Some people got very rich after that, making boutique items they labeled "environmentally aware", and some people spent a lot of money becoming "environmentally pure". Some of them meant it and went on to explore ideas for living that were as much a part of those times as the buttons and boutique fortunes. The EPA was established and given teeth—teeth are always good in government agencies since they are so easily pulled. Nothing really changed. We are back there again. I can tell you that from the perspective of my age (the only reason I can glean for age). We are not only back there but we have lost forty years of effort. Today we have had another first Earthday (every generation should have their own) though buttons are out of style; have boutique riches coming in from "green" business; and "green" consumers laying out good money for those items because that is what we all must do. Our world is falling in around our ears, as evidenced by the projections that every trace of summer snow in the Antarctic will be gone not in 50-60 years as originally estimated but in 5-10—hardly a blink, even in human terms, and less than a sigh for the planet. California is burning, the Midwest is flooded, we have had a series of "worst-year-evers" in any kind of environmental measure and we are still talking about shortages of oil instead of how to never touch the stuff again. My advice through the haze of my sunny California summer is: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid. It was fear and our primal brain's reaction to fear that once drove our species to create a culture and a world.

Georgia Jones, Editor

 

Read this feature from past issues.

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At LadybugFlights we have always encouraged the participation of our readers. For that reason we have this space, a place where you can be heard. Nothing as formal as an article or a column... Just some venting, self-expression, or a chance to communicate what you are thinking on almost any topic. Send it to us and we will let you know if we can use it!

 

I am going to steal this column this month to repeat, at least part of, last month's "Exceptional Women". If you didn't read it last time, when you read it now you will understand why I am including this again:   ...Yes, for all of the misunderstandings about the 1960s and 1970s, the ones about "Women's Liberation" are the most damaging to us and to all of society. So, if you were there, we want to hear what you remember about women of the time. It doesn't have to be a lengthy account of a first-hand experience. We want those, of course, but we are also interested in the I was drying dishes and looked up to see Billie Jean King hit that final point... Those are your stories and those are a big part of the history. Shall we write some history here? Please send your thoughts to Georgia@ladybugbooks.com and they will be included in LadybugFlights this Fall. Read the entire article and this month's Exceptional Women.

Read this feature from past issues.

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Who makes this possible? Regular contributors to these pages include: Georgia Jones, Editor: I love the fact that when you or I have something to say it can be said... no stuffy guy behind a desk or underpaid postal worker need be involved in delivering or processing what we say to each other or to the world. Sharon Asher-Phelps, The Breast Journal: I started my life in 1952 in a small midwestern town. Pretty scenery and good values...horrible humidity, and no oportunity for getting ahead. After highschool I attended San Jose Medical and Dental college. I graduated in 1971. For the next 6 years I worked in the dental field. My interests changed, and I needed to decide on a new career. When I was 27 years old, I became interested in the skin care industry. I attended Bay Area College of Electrolysis, Permanent Make up, and Skin care. This college was located in Santa Clara, Calif. I graduated from this school in 1978. I have been self employed in this field for the last 28 years. It has been a rewarding career as it has allowed for the flexibilty of having and raising a family. I have a skin care business in Cupertino, Calif. www.Sharon-Phelps.com Amy Cipolla Barnes, BabyBug columnist: My professional writing career began with a very small column for Byroads.com as Ruby Mae and at Coffeehouse For Writers where I taught courses. I traveled Georgia's Highway 41 in a red convertible with big red hair and red fingernails. The pay was small but I got invaluable clips. I then discovered Ladybug.com as my creative poetry outlet. I have since written columns on topics ranging from stamp fraud to nostalgic radio, travel technology to date nights with small children. I still teach courses online for students around the world. My first book on hiking with your dog in Metro Atlanta is due out from Cruden Bay Books in 2003. In December 2001, I had my first child, Joel David. I learned to type one-handed while nursing. He can't read (yet) but he's calling mamamamama. My brief two-handed typing stint is over. Irma Hudson, Correspondent, Virtual World: Curiosity has always been an important trait of mine, which I developed into a degree in physics. Then I moved into meteorology. This was followed by a degree in motherhood, probably the most remarkable of my accomplishments. While working as a meteorologist, I moved naturally into the field of computers and am now a database programmer working with Microsoft Access. I am also a poet and writer. It is so much fun to play with words. Fran Sbrocchi, Correspondent, Australia: I am Crone now, and the chronology stretches so far. Here, on the western edge of Australia it is easy to forget the great high banks of winter snow in the northern town where I was born, where summers were rich and hot and waving fields of wheat ripened against the rows of spruce and poplar. I teach now and then, spend hours at the computer reading and enjoying others’ work. We travel when we can and hope one day to meet each one of the Ladybugs. Beatrice Spreadmoore, Correspondent, Financial: I am just an average person with average luck and with an interest in achieving the American dream, to be rich. I am not what I appear to be, except through email, but that is the charm of all this. Remember the government supports the rich! Robertina Steele, Correspondent, Medical: I am a Clinical Anthropologist, otherwise known as an Applied Medical Anthropologist, specializing in health and wellness counseling and consulting. My training as an anthropologist built on an innate ability to understand my fellow human beings, and allowed me to fully appreciate "cultural" diversity. I used the quotation marks there because, much to my old professors'chagrain, I do not readily embrace the concept of culture; prefering instead to think in terms of groups of individuals who share similarities, both tangible and intangible! I write, about pretty much everything, and have my own website MyHealthNavigator.com. Linda Vernon, Correspondent: I began writing in 1989 when I took a creative writing class at the local college. One of the assignments was to write a sentence for the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest – where contestants write the worst beginning sentence to an imaginary novel. To my utter amazement, my entry was chosen as the Grand prize Winner. Inspired to keep on writing, I focused on crafting slice-of-life essays, many of which have appeared in The San Jose Mercury News, the Alameda Newspaper Group newspapers, and The San Diego Union Tribune. Currently, I am having fun (mostly) writing a mystery novel which is set in the Gold Country. In 2001, my husband and our three kids moved from the Bay Area to the wonderful town of Sonora, CA. In addition to writing, I enjoy spending time with my horse, gardening and shopping for treasures at used bookstores and thrift shops. Read Linda's Blog Shimon Weinroth, Israel: I have been in Israel since the 50's, served in the army. Lived on a kibbutz. A biology and educational major, I was, for thirty years, principal of the Bagrut High Schools of Jerusalem. I've had poems and essays published in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, U.K., USA, and now around the world in LadybugFlights. My present pursuits are in philosophical and literary research at the Hebrew University. Listen to Shimon LIVE at MooseMeals.com Lane Willey (Ms. Elani): I grew up in rural Campbell, California. My writing interests started early with plays that were performed by neighborhood groups. As an elementary teacher I wrote stories and vignettes dealing with school related issues. I have written articles on children's rights and environmental and political concerns, and my first novel, The Invitation, relates to women who often dream of 'what if'. My second book, Fireflies in Baldwin has just been released. My husband and I enjoy living in the Sierra foothills and spending time with our twelve grandchildren. I am currently working on my next book. Do you have something to say the whole world should hear? Here at LadybugFlights we are dedicated to the voices of women. In order for women to become a true force in the world we need, first of all, to talk to each other. It is with that in mind that we offer these pages and encourage your participation. It is our intent to publish one short fiction or feature article and one poem per issue, though this combination will vary according to the material we receive and may be replaced by special issues with a focus on news, fiction, or poetry — Special issues will be announced well in advance so submissions can be prepared in a timely way. Short-short stories, up to 1,000 words, and poetry under 40 lines can be submitted according to the same process as news articles (below). Longer works require special consideration so please send a proposal first. Longer works may be published up to three months after acceptance. News items are provided from our regular contributors and from any of you who have a newsworthy item to pass on. News articles of 100-400 words will be published with a byline or you can send facts and sources and we will write it. Longer, feature, articles (1,000 to 1,500 words average) and columns will be considered on an individual basis. We want news from all over the world and are counting on you to help us find it! (Because the language of this publication is English, all materials must be in English.) Unfortunately, we are not yet able to compensate writers who contribute here, but it is our hope to be able to offer modest compensation soon. SPECIAL CATEGORIES: Exceptional Women is a regular series of short articles, approximately 1,000 to 1,500 words about women of accomplishment. These can, certainly, include the famous and the should-have-been famous women of the past and the present, but it can also include stories of exceptional women who are not likely to be recognized by history because their unique contributions did not involve large numbers or dramatic events. We look to you to tell us about the women you admire. AFFILIATE PROGRAM: We know there are a lot of good women's businesses, ezines, and individual sites out there and if you are from one of those we are happy to help you be seen. Send us material we use and we will credit your site by putting a link from the information so our readers can find out more about you. To submit work for LadybugFlights: Send short pieces in the body of an email message, being sure to state the source of facts and quotes you may be including. Longer works, special categories, and proposals, can be sent in the body of an email message or as an attachment saved in doc or rtf format. Deadlines for each month's publication are firm: one week before the end of the month, unless it is a special issue and another deadline has been announced. New issues are posted late night on the last day of the month and remain active until the next month, when they are moved into the archive and kept available for one year. Send an email with either completed work or a summary of the information or feature article you have in mind to: LadybugFlights.com LadybugFlights Copyright LadybugBooks.com Copyright to original work on these pages is retained by the author. Original or copyrighted material on these pages may not be reprinted without permission of the author. To reprint all or any part of this ezine, written permission must be obtained. To request reprint permission email Permission. Fair Use This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 USC. Section 107, the material on this site is published without profit for research and educational purposes. For more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. To comment on anything in these pages, contact: LadybugBooks.com

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