Heat All Around

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

How Refreshing

How refreshing that President Obama did not pass the buck for the gridlock that has stalled the Country from a sweeping recovery...although I cannot, in fair consciousness, blame the President solely for the difficulties he continues to face in implementing the plans he had for recovery. How can one man be expected to guide the recovery when faced with such overwhelming refusal on the parts of so many in the Congress to work with him? How can he be effective when it seems the goal is to make him a one term president even if that means continuing to keep the average family from acquiring jobs and keeping their homes?
Does no one remember how many times when things went horribly wrong during the previous administration's twin terms, the excuse from the president was, "I wasn't told about that.", or more often than not, he was shoveling it in Crawford instead of shoveling it in Washington?

President Obama inherited a gargantuan mess from that administration...and although many want to bury their heads in the sand, the fact is the former presidents and their policies are at the root of today's problems. President Bush allowed the corporate world to run their operations without effective oversights...and since most of those placed into the position to oversee the rules are former lobbyists for the very corporations they were to be monitoring, is anyone surprised?

The failure of the S&L's happened under Bush Sr. The failure of everything else, economy wise, happened under Bush Jr. Now I do not want you to think I am not 100% aware of the fact that the foreign trade agreements that have allowed the obscene outsourcing of jobs to third world countries overseas were implemented by President Clinton, because I am.

We are only beginning to learn, as papers become available, just how much ILLEGAL activity was going on under the former administration. How anyone can justify or whitewash the repeated violations of the Constitution the elected officials are sworn to honor, defend, and uphold, is beyond me, and yet it happens with a regularity that staggers the imagination, and I am sure is not what the Revolutionary War and the implementing of the Constitution were really about.

President Obama claims responsibility...but HE did not filibuster every program meant to bring about improvement in the overall situation; the Senate did. He TRIED to work without party bias only to met with a wall of noses out-of-joint because they were no longer the top enchiladas. They did not question or put limits on the failed Bush programs, but they are totally against ANYTHING to undo the massive deficit.

YES we had to go a bit deeper into that humongous hole, but has no one heard the adage...you have to spend money to make money?

The current pundit for the other side QUIT the only job she was ever elected BY THE PEOPLE to perform because she'd rather be out there pretending to know what the people need. SHE QUIT when the going got hard. President Obama is taking the responsibility for the failure to implement the programs we, the people, elected him to do because of obstruction and bad sound bits from those who do not want to give up the bottom-line in their own under-the-table inducements.

Once again, please do not think I am blind to the mistakes President Obama is making or may make. I am in total disagreement with ANY plans to make it impossible to bring former and/or current Attorney Generals to court for gross violations and/or manipulations of the Constitution. If President Obama allows such a plan to happen, giving Ashcroft immuinity from knowingly involving America in torture, he is setting a terrible precedent...one that will allow further torture despite the Constitution and the Geneva Convention.

Are any of you as tired as I am of the massive deluge of ads and the billions being spent to cloud the issues? Are any of you tired of the Big Guys cutting every program meant to help the average people while feeding more and more privileges to the richest?

President Obama TRIED! Unlike President Bush, he did not get cooperation, nor did he get blanket agreement with everything he put out there. It's a shame the partisan games keep getting in the way of taking care of the PEOPLE.

When you QUIT the job THE PEOPLE ELECTED you to perform in favor of becoming a richer than Croesus media mouth, or you vocally admit that your single purpose AS our elected official, is to obstruct every recovery program so you can insure President Obama is a ONE TERM only president, how can any of us, the American People expect something to be done before WE become the third world country?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Struggle Continues

I was naive.

Yes, it's true. I was very naive about many things. Honor and truth seem to not matter any more.

We are raving as a country over what amounts to insanity, and for the life of me I do not understand why. There is a woman who was not known to any of us two years ago, who knew so little about the world and what is happening in it, it was frightening. Now, two years later, she has left the one and only job the PEOPLE elected her to perform so she can become an overnight multi-millionaire and the "voice" of our sanity?

How can this be? She is a woman who to further her own career, outed her unwed, pregnant, teenaged daughter. Who does that? What "mother" who claims to put family before everything does that?

There are secrets in my family...I'm a single Mom...so of course there are secrets my children want remaining so. My children DO come first. There is no way I would betray them for any reasons and share their secrets with the outside world to save my own skin.

Lying...if our politicians were held to the same standards our employers expect from their workers, how many of them would pass the "lying on your résumé" test? Lies are the requirement for representing us and our future? Your boss would fire you, but we are stuck with them because we VOTED for them based on their lies? Is that really the democracy the Revolutionary War was fought to engender?

I do not understand how or for that matter why corporate America is being allowed to buy our elections. Yes, we need business, but to the exclusion of the needs of the working, average person? How is business building up America when they are sending jobs overseas to the third world countries so THEIR profit margin is bigger?

Do they not understand there will come a time when the product they are selling will no longer be affordable here?

Is that their purpose...send jobs overseas so they can diminish America until it becomes a third world country they can then bring back the lowest paying jobs to? Is that why the party of that woman refuses to have ANY guidelines or oversights? Do they not realize had the government not installed those regulations back during the depression and the Second World War, none of them would have been able to amass the wealth they now so greedily horde?

Had the shores of the USA not been open to immigration, NONE of them would be here today to whimper and scream about the injustice they feel towards today's immigrants?

Had the Native Americas been more war-like from the time the first escapee from religious intolerance landed on America's shores, none of them would be here today to claim ownership over all they perceive?

I am a child of the sixties. I saw what power in the wrong hands could explode into. Does no one teach recent history? Do today's children not know about Watergate, the Viet Nam War, the parade of corrupt vice presidents during the Nixon years?

We spent millions of dollars impeaching Bill Clinton...does no one remember that? And what was his ultimate crime? He got a really bad "B-job." Had he not, they had NOTHING on him despite squeezing the life out of everyone remotely attached to them.

What man or woman who is cheating on their spouse would have told the truth about their cheating? Does no remember that farce conducted by Newt Gingrich...there he was vilifying the President for lying about cheating while behind him he had his wife sitting on one side in the front row and his mistress on the other? Talk about throwing stones when you live in a glass house...Yet he is back today trying to throw stones again?

Karl Rove outed a CIA operative whose job required her anonymity so she could gather the intelligence that administration said it needed to keep America safe. How safe can we be when our own government is unmasking those out there doing the REAL job of trying to keep us safe? Today Carl Rove is pouring outrageous amounts of money into the campaigns of any and all members of his party so they can go back to doing the same things that got us into this extreme deficit. How does that make sense?

Two years ago that woman was chanting DRILL BABY DRILL. Now that we have had the largest ecological disaster in the world's history, she rants that government didn't move fast enough to clean it up. How can you say government should stay out of corporate business and then rant at government for not cleaning up the debacle caused by business?

I heard the accusations of "flip-flopping" but there has been more flip-flopping done by this loud and all too frequently inconsistent mouthpiece. She has a reality show coming up saying she would rather be in the majesty of her State than in the political offices...then why does she continue to tour the country for outrageous speaking fees spouting things that I doubt she fully understands and if she did, doesn't seem to really care about?

She and so many of her confederates want to appeal this amendment, reinterpret that amendments...because we are NOT doing as the Founding Fathers wanted us to do. Lady, the Founding Fathers did NOT give women the right to vote. Our Grandmothers and Great Grandmothers had to fight long and hard for that right, so do NOT quote the Founding Fathers when you speak of returning to THEIR vision. You'd be bare foot and pregnant or else.

I saw, up close and personal, what the government is capable of. Does no one remember the Iran Contra hearings? Does no one remember the S&L bailout under Bush Sr.? Clinton gave Bush Jr. a huge surplus that he squandered within the first six months of his presidency LONG before 9/11 and he then railroaded us into the situation we are currently in, a war based on lies, and misdirection

I KNOW the job situation is bad, but hello, it was horrific under Bush Jr. The Wall Street and Corporate downfalls happened under BUSH JR. not under Obama, yet they have managed to rewrite history through their cache of lies. It took Bush Jr. less than six months to go through trillions of dollars, but the other side are the spenders? Think of how irrational that sounds. Major surplus under Clinton gets passed on to Bush Jr. but it's gone...ALL gone in less than six months BEFORE 9/11.

Watergate...the President escaped being held accountable for the illegal break-in of the Democratic Party's headquarters. Hours of subpoenaed tapes had been splotchily erased. The US under Reagan and Bush Sr. illegally supplied arms to the Iran Contras then made Oliver North their scapegoat.

Bush Jr. well let's JUST concentrate on the outing of Valerie Plame...Scooter Libby was found guilty, although he was allegedly acting under the orders of Dick Cheney, the Vice President. Bush Jr. interceded in so many ways...invoking executive privilige whenever ANY of his people got caught with their hands in the illegal cookie jar. Scooter Libby, the Bush Jr. fall guy will never serve a day in prison. Does no one see a theme here?

President Jimmy Carter lost his presidency because of the Hostages taken when Iran became the system it is today. The other party claimed he was weak for not getting them out sooner. Perhaps he was, perhaps he was not. Maybe like Bush Sr. who did not move into Iraq after reclaiming Kuwait, he was trying to be as diplomatic as that powder keg of a section is, to safely bring them home without starting a war.

Once out, though, he has become a world figure because he and his wife began Habitat for Humanity. The Kennedy's began Peace Corp AND Special Olympics. Clinton has established many humanitarian organizations around the world with the wealth his books gained him.

What has the other side done?

Created Think Tanks to figure more ways to have corporate America take over the Country. What has that touring mouthpiece done with her well over $700 million dollars? Toured for MORE money. How much money can you spend in a lifetime?

We REALLY do not teach the CURRENT history of say the past forty-fifty years! We stop with the Second World War...and I don't understand why. Did life end with the end of the Second World War? Not in my own memory did it end. I was born during the Korean War, but I learned nothing about it in school, and it would seem today's students learn nothing about it either.

Do we teach about The Bay of Pigs, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Viet Nam war, Nixon having to leave his second term in shame but with full clemency from Gerald Ford? Do today's young people know anything about the taking of hostages in Iran when the Shah was ousted by the Ayatollah and his followers? Do any of today's young adults know about The Marcos' from the Philippines, or Baby Doc from Haiti, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Castro in Cuba, Manuel Noriega of Panama; the FULL story of Osama Bin Laden's rise to power, and any of the other changes that have fashioned the current world and its emotional embroilment with life as it is today?

Why are we so willing to let the truth fall by the wayside in place of ALTERED realities. You cannot recreate the past nor should we be so willing to believe the swirling creations of bent truth. We aren't cattle to be herded by the strongest roustabout...are we?

Has this posting sounded like I am anti-Republican and pro-Democrat? No, no, no! I am neither. For instance I am not happy with the current President's lack of allowing the Don't Ask Don't Tell insanity to fade by not allowing the Justice department contest the Federal Court decision stand. The US Government is NOT God. Only God has the right to decided what should and should not be expressions of intimacy and love.

I hear the rhetoric and fear mongering concerning having our children see, learn, or be taught by non-heterosexuals, and I have to ask...with all the cases of teachers molesting their students...HETEROSEXUAL teachers molesting their students, why would we think our children would be in any more danger from NON-HETEROSEXUALS?

We are so rabid about this topic and yet we do not put the same level of anger, rage, and increasing the punishment for these pedophiles. Non-Heterosexuality is NOT contagious. You cannot CATCH it like the flu. Pedophilia, on the other hand IS contagious. It DOES pass on to the next generations. So how is it heterosexuals that COULD be pedophiles teaching our children is okay, but NON-HETEROSEXUALS teaching our children is SCARY?

What cowards we have all become in this Twenty-First Century.

Why is it okay for HETEROSEXUALS in the military to express themselves sexually, but we are so terrified that a NON-HETEROSEXUAL, just because they are non-heterosexual, is going to be a real problem? Could it be the heterosexuals that are raping the female military personnel are afraid they won't get close enough to a good looking non-heterosexual to force themselves on her?

It is my experience that those that are the most anti-non-heterosexuals are usually those afraid they have such tendencies. But Mr. President, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a violation of a huge segment of our populations rights under the Constitution...and to those who want to throw Religion at me, please remember this Country was founded by the Framers of the Constitution, and colonized because they wanted and were guaranteeing FREEDOM FROM PERSECUTION. I do not agree with polygamy, which IS against the law, yet we do not go after the Mormons as rabidly as we persecute non-heterosexuals.

You CANNOT have selective justice.

Another thing that has me upset right now with President Obama. Sir, if you do not allow prosecution against former President Bush's Attorney General Ashcroft and risk making it law that no Cabinet members such as this can be held accountable for their illegal action, are you not risking this Country becoming a dictatorship? Is that what you want, Mr. President? That is so NOT what the Framers of the Constitution wanted.

And so my struggle continues. I agree with SOME of the things the Republicans want, yet until they undo the damage done by the eight years of cowboy politics under THEIR watch, how can the be trusted? How do you get that faith back?

You stop filibustering every bill. You start sitting down and working in conjunction with the other side. Both sides need to stop the stupid ideological war and get down to the business of helping the USA recover from eight years of out-of-control insanity. YOU, the Republicans, created the current mess, and YOU, the Republicans are doing everything in your power to see it does not get fixed.

I suggest STRONGLY you learn from history. The USA has only been a super power since the end of the Second World War... are you going to implode faster than any super power in history because of your self-centeredness?

I don't CARE about your sexual lives, unless you are using your power to intimidate others to be your sex-slaves...but affairs? That should be between you and your God and families. MY concern is how do you behave as a leader of MY government and MY Country. Is that too much to ask?

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

White Haired Confusion

There comes a time in life when mirrors are no longer

your friends. For a while you may try to deny the truth of this through all manner of subterfuge...like drapping yourself in over sized tee-shirts that travel all the way down to your kneecaps...but one day, you'll really wake up to the fact you are not stunningly gorgeous and built like... 

...a brick s_ _t house any longer.



The once blonde mane...




...is now purely white with some sooty gray thrown in so you cannot claim it is just premature whiteness and you're actually a platinum blonde.







And we so do not want to talk about the body and the nasty things gravity does to it. (If I have told my boobs once I have told them a thousand times to stop kissing my kneecaps...









...My kneecaps have the response capability of a dormant bituminous rock.)








Eventually you do settle for the reality of leap-frogging elderliness,

and then, just when you have settled comfortably in batty older than dirtness, along comes,

from out of the blue, men ready willing and more than eager to flirt.

One would be enough to make my roseacea give way to an honest to God blush...but THREE?


Have they stopped prescribing bifocals to men of a certain age?

I mean, Hello? I am rapidly nearing that 60 mark and sixty looks no better the closer you get to it than it did when you thought 30 was over the hill.

Three obviously vision challenged men have suddenly, and yes, sweetly...no overt attack for a quick feel here...let me know they think I am <gulp> pretty...AND they find me...ENCHANTING. My obvious reaction, once I move past the "ARE YOU BLIND?" knee jerk reaction is "WHY?"

I've been around the bend and am stretched thin because of it. The day I can get into a size four flew out the door the moment a teenaged girl came out of a side road talking on her cell phone instead of paying attention to the

 stop sign she was supposed to obey.

Injuries alter body flexibility and of course, shape...which only intensifies with the medications they give you too.

Prednisone...is an instant weight increaser and once increased forget peeling it off in this life time.

Okay, I have a sense of humor.
When you look like a Shar Pei you'd BETTER have a sense of humor!

And yeah, I'm smart...but that used to turn guys away in droves. Now that I am approaching senility, having a sharp mind is APPEALING?

I tried to remember back to when I actually went out with, let alone did anything else with a man...I think his name was Ty...yep..

Ty Rex...so there's been a really, really long dry spell here.

And that means, I am not certain how to take ONE guy calling me pretty and wanting to get to know me...THREE? So again I ask...did they stop giving men of a certain age access to bifocals?

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Of late I have found myself pondering that question along with what exactly constitutes "humanity".

My daughter and I are writers, but we are also classified permanently disabled, which means we squeeze our meager resources together each month to keep roof over head, food on table and litter in boxes for two precocious kitties.

Now I can see some of you out there shaking your heads and thinking..."Well, if you're so resource strapped, what business do you have supporting cats?

To those who are cogitating over that conundrum, let me explain that medical health providers will tell you that when you have disabled people who are bound by their disabilities to little if any outside activities, having the sweet, gentle purring of a contented cat in your lap being rubbed methodically and with care and affection by that disabled entity, the calm that can and does sweep through that person's...


...neurons and synapses may be far more advantageous than the best anti-depressants; which in the long run, are far more costly than the aforementioned feline companions.

My daughter and I have two...one is hers and is so in tuned to her body's aura, she will often alert me to the onset of one of my daughter's more violent convulsive seizures.

That precious early warning allows me to get in place so I can minimize the extent of injuries my daughter must suffer during those seizures. That alone makes that kitty worth her weight in gold, and then some.

The other kitty is our baby kitty. She came to us from the Animal Shelter wrapped in a blue wash cloth, she was that tiny, but has been fearless and a great source of laughter, joy, and unadulterated and unconditional love. So once in a while she protests when the litter box is not scooped clean fast enough...small price for all the wonderment she brings into our world.

And that brings me, in my own convoluted way, back to my original question. Am I my brother's keeper...or, and here is MY take on what the question should really ask...Am I my brother's sister?

I am sitting here tonight before my computer screen, my adult daughter, the radiant joy of my life, despite all the challenges of her uncontrolled seizures,

sleeping contentedly nearby...so I can hear her and reach her should she begin one of her seizures...with our eldest cat curled up on the round mound of her hip, or beneath her neck stretched out in utter adoration and trust.

I have one light on and the air conditioner is quietly keeping the air comfortable in the 90 degree heat still squeezing in from outside.

You can not see, unless you are on your hands and knees over near the balcony door, the purple cord that keeps the balcony door open because my neighbor knocked on my door, and in unwarranted humiliation asked me for help.

She has an adult son with many medical issues too...one being total blindness and others dealing with respiratory issues.

Please, she asked nervously, her son needs a fan...there electricity was shut off just today...she's been out on disability and is awaiting her workman's comp...could she please run a cord...she'd pay me and take care of me and my daughter with transportation anywhere we wanted to go...(neither my daughter or I drive any longer)...but please.

I looked at her and said "Of Course, and not to worry about anything. Neighbors look out for neighbors."

Brothers and sisters look out for each other. I am not my brother's keeper...I am my brother's sister. I am God's daughter and my neighbor is God's daughter. Her son is my brother, my son, my family. There but for the Grace of God, go I. We are all of us neighbors helping neighbors.


My daughter and I have little. We have been in that place where we wondered how we would pay to keep the utilities on, the food on the table, the roof over our heads.

A fire years ago stripped us of everything, and for one solid week we had to live in my car...my daughter, my son, and myself until my next paycheck when I could put down a security deposit while we waited for our insurance company to pay a small percentage towards our loss. All we had left was the black smoke lining all of our nostrils, and that car we would live in for the week to come.

Tomorrow it could be us again needing to reach out a hand with bent head asking for help.

We have little, but we may not be our brother's keeper, but we are our brother's family...and family...GOD'S family is here to help each other along this path...

...so I have this purple cord, which means I cannot completely close the door...My daughter is a major bug-a-phobe...the gap that lets the cord run from my surge protector...

...to the fan my neighbor's son needs for his well being, is now taped with packaging tape to keep any wayward bugs out...

...and my daughter sleeps deeply and contentedly...she shared in making the decision to help our neighbor...and her cat is stretched out beneath her chin, their bond ethereal...and I am here typing this, my mind fluid in its ponderings.

I am going to end this by saying deep inside I feel good knowing I have helped. It was soul wrenching for her to knock on my door and beg for help...I hope she will know no matter what I am first and foremost her sister, and sisters look out for each other.

Monday, September 20, 2010

The Phoenix Breed is Rising


There are among us many brave men and women who have taken on the specter of power and dominion and WON. It is never easy to confront such minions from a darker side and one always risks the fires that can scorch and destroy. Does that mean you should not risk the pits of some one's self-created hell? HELL NO!


Heroes are not born into some magical skin... heroes do not even realize they ARE heroes...not now when they are performing heroic deeds, nor later when their heroism shines like a beacon for all to see.


This blog posting is dedicated to those who posted recently to the firestorm brewing in the e-Pub world in their own names...very, very brave, and those who had to take care because of an addendum that denied them their constitutional right to speak freely.

They still posted, but had to do so using the anonymity of anonymous. All of you are heroes and Phoenix's rising from the ashes of the hell fires you were captured in is your legacy.

Kudos, one, kudos all. May your future endeavors be richer and filled with literary joy.



Soar high My Beautiful Birds of Flame. You have all risen above the fires and your wings will span wide and gracefully with success as you head towards your waiting aerie.

Friday, September 10, 2010

9/11 Days into Months Later

For long days after the Towers slipped into ash and rubble, the city smoldered and the Nation...no the World walked around in stunned disbelief. The enormity of what they'd watched on their television screens that replayed like a maddening loop on a treadmill none could step off from, made each of us cringe over and over and desperately want to jump away from those screens and DO SOMETHING...but what?


Rescue personnel from around the world rushed into the city preparing for survivors...survivors that never materialized...

...and as the smoke began to fade, we soon understood why. Still mankind lives, breathes and hopes. Walls of photos appeared seeking loved ones that had been in those Towers when the two planes careened into their bellies and brought them low.



Months of cleaning did find the odd bit and piece of human remains amidst the skeletons of the Tower's remains...but survivors? None. Many of the brave rescue crews that had rushed in praying to bring out the innocent, became themselves, casualties when the Towers mushroomed down upon themselves. Still we screamed out for something to do to mitigate the agony clawing at our guts...something that would remind us we were still here and still capable of breathing, living, and being human again.


Across the Country, across the world, blood drives began. Why? I couldn't help wondering why? There were no survivors. Who was going to need blood? But then I remembered to add a two word codicil to my question...Who was going to need blood...this time? No one, but such hate that would drive people to fly planes on a suicide mission like those that flew those planes that Tuesday would not stop with this attack. There would be more. IN other words, the WORLD needed blood, just in case.


Military agencies here in the United States leaped to the forefront...they who serve on the front lines, know the need of preparedness...


...Corporations world-wide opened their doors to the world wide Red Cross encouraging blood drives at all of their facilities...


...here and there, Americans stepped up to do what none of us could do for those that had perished in the Towers, in that field in Pennsylvania, at the Pentagon that Tuesday morning on September 11, 2011, give the preparedness of life saving blood...in case...


...even in makeshift cafeterias, like this one pictured above...similar to the one where my daughter Kat Holmes worked as a Corporate Auditor. Kat was twenty-five, when she climbed up on that table, let them strap her down and plunge the needle in to draw her precious life giving blood during her Company's 9/11 blood drive. We had no way of knowing...no one did until the convulsion began, with the needle still buried deeply in the crook of her elbow, and her vein, that this would be the first of her Grand Mal seizures, but it was. We didn't know as she made this gesture to help humankind be ready against future insanity, her own future was going to be irrevocably altered, but it was. We had no idea one violent seizure with the needle still in her vein would become five, ten or more a day, but it did. We had no way of knowing giving blood would permanently disable her, but it did. From the depth of her need to DO SOMETHING she gave unstintingly, and in that act, her life has been forever changed.

The passengers on that plane on 9/11 knew when they made the decision to engage the hijackers they were going to die. They chose to die DOING SOMETHING. Kat did not know when she chose to DO SOMETHING that she was permanently altering her forever...she was JUST twenty-five...yet despite the cruelty of how her life has changed she dedicates herself to helping others and giving as much as it is possible, given her limitations to give.

She did not die on that table with that needle in her arm, but her life has been permanently changed...yet two years ago she spent one whole year making two hundred designer dolls to give to elderly women in nursing homes who no longer have families at Christmas so they'd have something of their own to open Christmas morning...so I'd say she DID something. Here's a couple of those dolls. You be the judge.






I know there are many out there with similar stories. The events of 9/11 continue to have long reaching impacts upon all of us nine years later. Some more obvious than others, but all of us, I pray, DID SOMETHING no matter where in the world we were on that Tuesday, and hopefully we are STILL doing something. We can never forget we are Humanity first before all else.