justice isn't justice, it just is.

My sense of Justice is having a hard time dealing right now. I have always had a strong sense of what is just and what is not, and it has helped me deal with many situations in my life. I am not sure where this came from, it seems that it has always been inside me, I guess I learned it at one point. Although the strength that it has leads me to believe that it comes from a deeper place inside me.

We have to deal with many injustices in the world, often a good way of dealing is not dealing with the situation. We closing our eyes, ignore the out comes and the hurts. When I say we I include myself and probably you, because we are all guilty of closing out eyes. I mean we live in a city that has the poorest postal code in North America, you are a better person than I if you have done work down there recently. When I say work I do not mean throwing money at the situation, because that doesn't really do much.

Last night I watch the movie, "Shake Hands with the Devil", it disturbed me. It followed me into my dreams and shortened my night, I even woke up thinking about it. The movie is about the failure of humanity in Rawanda, where a million Tutsis and Hutu moderates were murdered by the Hutus, and wiping out 85% of the Tutsi population across a 100 day period. The reason that so many people died was because people closed their eyes. Politics and bullshit, people closing their eyes and not wanting to admit there was an issue. Orders being given from a far away place by people that did not know what was going on, orders that cost the lives of thousands and thousands of people. It makes me angry and it makes me sad. I finished watching the movie, because I thought that I should be a witness to the lives of those people. Everyone knows about the Holocaust, but who knows about a small African country?

My privileged sense of justice is having a hard time dealing with this. I remember when this was happening, a friend of mine was working hard to get people to notice. I did not really notice, too busy with my own life. She is a good person.

The Spirit of LB

It never ceases to amaze me how often I go on journeys and how often exiting is important in my life. Now that I have discovered the practice I am going to hold on to it, tightly gripped in my left hand. I have learned so much already and it is expanding me in so many ways. I imagine me standing somewhere with an invisible force pulling me in a hundred directions, my body molding to the expansion.

Every year Lindy Bout is different, I really appreciate that, it never gets stale for me. This year I was worried, having not social danced for about 5 months I was concerned that my ego would get in the way. How could Lindy Bout again exceed my expectations? Honestly it was starting to upset me a couple days before the weekend. Some how I managed to get my ego in control, I am not sure how this happened. The weekend started and I adopted my usual method of competition, have as much fun as possible and be completely outrageous.

The one thing that I have wanted to win since it has been introduced to the weekend, was the spirit if Lindy bout award. It is voted on by the people in attendance. Now that I think about the award, it is mostly a popularity contest. I do not have a desire to be popular, but when Lindy Bout comes round every year I give everything I have. On Saturday evening I was sitting outside of the dance with some friends and Meghan came out and sat down with us saying, "I am going to vote for Claudia for spirit of Lindy bout, tell all your friends." Right there I was satisfied. It was really an amazing feeling and surprising. I did not really need it anymore because the people that mattered to me felt that way and vocalized it. The event for me is about them and not all the other people. I did not win the award, Angie did and she deserved it as she worked her butt off for the event. It is her time in Vancouver to be amazing. I was not upset, I was happy for her. I am happy that my ego did not get in the way.

I am exciting from LB, thanks for ride my friend.