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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">Thanks to Jack Giles and Paul Schrijnen for the two forwarded articles. Both moved us for two different reasons.</font></div>
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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">It is not in the same league (this is not false modesty; our stream-of-consciousness method of writing fits the Asian penchant for indirection without much sensitivity to consistency and logic, often devoid of depth and focus) but being our penultimate contribution to our ending <i>Saipan Tribune</i> OpEd column (online today), I thought I'd add it to the reflection (admittedly anticlimactic since this group already got the final submission). We did intend it for a particular audience other than this listserv, so, let me take cover on that excuse for its shortcomings.</font></div>
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<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">For the last time, ... see you at the bend!</font></div>
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<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><b><font size="3">Innocence</font></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">It is Innocents'
day in Christendom, to commemorate the massacre of newborn males in Bethlehem
allegedly ordered by King Herod when the Three Kings failed to stop at the
palace after they tracked down the eastern star. Nice dramatic Middle Eastern touch save that Matthew
lifted it out off the Moses story when young males were ordered killed also
while the Hebrew exodus leader was yet </font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">to </font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">suck his thumb in the cradle.</font></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">The plight of
innocents has been a strong undercurrent in liberal causes, ours included, in
the phrase "innocent suffering".
MLK Jr. considered unearned suffering as redemptive, giving a non-Baptist
twist to the plight of African-American fight</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> and f</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">l</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">ight</font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "> from bonded servitude and
discrimination into the "oasis of justice" in the Civil Rights
struggle.</font></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">In a world grown
interrelated and interlaced, incidences of innocence have grown so intertwined
and interconnected to the rest of existence that to claim clean hands on
anything jaded has become untenable.
Either in acts of omission or commission, each participates in the fate
and destiny of one's life. Indeed, no
person is an island. Culture already taints
us from the hour of conception into human practices hardly considered pure and
chaste even before birth. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">The tutorial
center where I volunteer on the weekends had three middle class parents
approach our coordinator inquiring if I can tutor their six-year-old
"treasured snowflakes" (reference to the 2nd generation "little
emperors" in China's one-child policy) in oral English to qualify them to
the elite Yi Cai bilingual school on the outskirt of the city. They even bought apartments in the area so
that they can qualify for the residency requirement. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">The three tots spend
their Sunday afternoons from midday to two-chimes-after-sunset, on their
parents' schedule and comfort, in one hour-and-a-half session each, wading through
basic Math (not arithmetic, mind you), oral, written, and vocabulary lessons in
English. Children who would otherwise be
freely at play, or have their imaginations set loose to horizons never treaded
before, sit quietly before teachers, to be instructed on quantifiable patterns
and the intricacies of an organic foreign language. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">Other than the
natural rebellion when exceeding the attention span of seven minutes, the bored
children participate in their "suffering" as a matter of obedience to
parents, as well as partake at an early age, the gleam of the status symbol
attached to attending the school of their intention. They are hardly innocent!</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">Innocence as the
lack of guilt, legal or otherwise, is no longer an experienced external
reality. It has moved to the realm of
the subjunctive. It has become a matter
of attitude. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><font size="3">Avril Ramona Lavigne,
the multi-talented French-Canadian performer, croons her <i>Innocence </i>in our Oral English class:</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>Waking up I see </i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>that everything is OK<br>
The first time in my life </i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>and now it's so great<br>
Slowing down I look around</i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>and I am so amazed<br>
I think about the little things </i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>that make life great<br>
I wouldn't change a thing about it</i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"><i>This is the best feeling.</i></font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; text-align: center; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">Not that I have
anything against the "I'm OK, you're OK" mindset, but it does sound
boring, if not delusionary. This
"best feeling" as innocence is my students' familiarity. We refer to this as the illusion of romantic
longing, totally internal and in the realm of a preferred personal perspective,
consigned to the universe of moods and sentiments. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">Asked what
Christmas meant to our first generation China one-child-only denizens who went
about their celebrative mood this year, and we get the nebulous "I am
together with my family and we are happy" response.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">Corollary to the
stance of innocence is the claim of victimization. Romney got a trouncing in the polls because
he had the temerity to dub 47 percent of the American population as sorry
victims of misfortune simply out to leech off the largesse of the more
fortunate productive and well-off ones through the distributive justice
programs of the Federal government. He
expressed a popular sentiment devoid of lucidity and truth.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">The Church calls
Herod's alleged senseless political executions "holy innocents". The term is often applied to refugees caught
in the crossfire between government goons and their hardly quixotic
opponents. We've known enough fleeing
refugees from Vietnam to the Philippines, Chinese beholden to tongs wanting to
head for NYC for $30K, Afghans and Iranis heading for Australia, even Yanbians wishing
to cross into Korea, the huge undocumented immigrants in the US, and the
overstaying visitors in Japan. The EU had
a more enlightened policy on migrants until reactive forces got too wary and
anxious. </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">"Innocents"
is not be a word I use to describe the destitute sectors of humanity.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3">But the issue of
rights falls squarely at the core of our times.
There are issues on economic justice that precedes political ones. Culture is hardly questioned but it exerts considerable
influence on everything that we do. Gun
culture, anyone? NRA's Wayne La Pierre
(Le Prick in French, I was told) boldly asserts that guns are not the problem
but the solution to senseless killings.
More armed guards are needed in public places. Thanks, but no, thanks.</font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; "><span style="font-family:"><font size="3"> </font></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Manipulative and
coercive practices continue to shape our behavior. W</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">e might keep</font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "> the "feeling" </font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">but change the practices. Mayhap, it is time to redefine innocence.</font></font></div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; clear: both; "><a style="font:lighter 10px Verdana, Arial;color:#000000;"><img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="http://presence.mail.aol.com/mailsig/?sn=jrvergarajr2031"></a> <font color="black" size="2" face="arial">j'aime la vie
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<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, </b></font></i><i><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#ff0000"><b>Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
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