First day of 2012

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years Eve. We spend ours watching an old classic "Murder on the Orient Express" and topped it off with the new "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". (They should have really bumped up the rating to an R so it could have played out more realistically. The PG 13 rating limited the realism.)

I hope, whatever your events were last night they were enjoyed with optimism for the coming year. It's a bright beautiful day filled with possibilities and hope out there. Better go out and grab it. Life is too short to focus on the constant weight of misery. There is so much happiness out there that does not have to based on monetary value, technology, or gadgets. Letting go of old hurts and sadness in life can free you to experience this beautiful world, whether your world encompasses the globe or never makes it out of a few city block's range, live life instead of just observing it. I know that is my plan for this year.

Happy 2012.

Daily Scripture: December 27, 2011-Genesis 7:2

There is a new blog of note: Daily Scripture. It is a daily verse for those scriptures often overlooked. All scriptures come directly though the Standard King James edition.

Daily Scripture: December 27, 2011-Genesis 7:2: "Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate" G...

When the Wall Came a Tumbling Down.....

Does anyone else remember watching the Berlin wall coming down? Did you feel the history you were witnessing in your lifetime? I still remember watching it on the television with tears streaming down my youthful teenage eyes.

Winds of Change-Scorpions

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 7-Another Casualty

One of the hardest things in this life is a death of a relationship. It can be a marriage, friendship, or family member. Not a death in the literal sense of someone dying but in the sense of someone who was so integral to your life drifting, fading and eventually leaving your life. The pain of that loss is somehow worse because you know they are out there, living, having fun and don't even give you a passing thought. That is the worst pain to feel, knowing you are less than a blip on someones radar. I have been feeling a loss coming on for some time now. It hurts so much because this is the one person who has been there through thick and thin with me for the past 28 years. Now they have finally outgrown our friendship. I guess I should be thankful for those 28 years, and I am. I just feel so gut wretchedly sad that I have been outgrown and my purpose outdated. 

I have not said anything. What is there to be said? During this darkest chapter in my life I have been alone. By that I do not mean that my husband  has not been here. He is the one I have been taking care of and nursing back to health. I am talking about a true friend that knows you better than anyone else. Someone who has always been there through the happiness and sorrow. Now the sorrow is all mine to bare. The funny thing is, they are so happy with their new life, friends, relationships, that you cannot wish ill will. That would be selfish and mean spirited. I shall just cry alone.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 6-Last Call

When my beloved Chris committed suicide 14.5 years ago I was plagued repeatedly with questions like "What could I have done differently? What could I have said? What could I have asked? What could I have given?" I think of this because of the importance of listening to someone when they are hurting. If you don't act or actually listen to the person when they are here it will haunt you for the rest of your life. I will be haunted for the rest of my life for things I should have never said to him, things I should have said and my absorption with my own life that I did not see his slipping away.

If someone tells you, actually tells you, that they are at the end of their rope and are in dire circumstances and you have the power to help, don't put it off for your own self absorption. I did that and I lost one of the closest people in my life. It is so easy to have fun and take the easy way. It is much harder to actually look at the face of the person you care about suffering and asking for help, either directly or indirectly, and choosing to flit away your time and energies on self indulgence and pleasure, it will later haunt you when that person is either no longer living or  living on the streets.

The Economic Bill of Rights by FDR circa 1944

Excerpt from President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union:

“

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty. As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness. We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education. All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 5-Occupy Wall Street, Hand-Outs, and Freebies

I am so amazed by the argument I hear from dear friends of mine that accuse protesters of being slackers, wanting hand-outs, wanting freebies. Especially when these friends are union members in the public sector doing heroic work everyday. Let me just say, the protesters are not asking for freebies, just their future being sold out to bail out corporations and banks. 

Below is an example of expectations and freebies:

You take a job a for $20 an hour. The union that covers your area of work has negotiated health care premiums that only cost you $50 a month. This union also negotiated a cost of living increase every year for you as well as a 4% raise every year. You have accepted the job for $20 an hour. When the pay increases come in, do you accept them for doing what you committed to do, your job? Or do you consider it getting something for free? To me it sounds like, based on the logic I have been told about the protesters, that the person working should be happy to make that $20 an hour because that is what they agreed to. Taking anything over that $20 an hour is getting something for free. 

It is all ridiculous. Of course people should get raises. They should also thank their unions that those raises have been fought for and won. I hate to see good people whom I care for and love be so mislead by the talking heads that have big business to answer to and promote instead of the truth and the citizens of this great country.

This country was founded on protest. Our founding fathers encouraged it. How can good American people allow themselves to be led like sheep to the slaughter by corporate greed?