Jordan Essentials: Bath, Body and Spa Rep #10522 http://jordanrep.com/10522

The Country Bunny Bath & Body Shopping Experience

2007-12-12T13:09:00.000-06:00

When asked, enter rep number 10522.

Christmas Gifts - BathBodySpa - One of My Alter Ego Interests ;)

2007-12-10T17:16:00.000-06:00

If you're still looking for something affordable to give loved ones for Christmas, consider a lotion bar, tube of shea body butter or bath salts from Jordan Essentials. (If you remember Country Bunny Bath and Body, some of the products are the same.) There are many great products, but those are just a few that are sure to be a hit. And, they make an affordable gift.

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You can look at the products here:

http://jordanrep.com/10522

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Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.

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There is a ‘grab bag’ special going on right now, too. With any purchase, you can also buy a ‘grab bag’ for $12. The value of the items is guaranteed to be $15 or more. I just called and asked about it. I have no idea what’s in the bags, but they said some have a value of $20. A couple of years ago, I bought grab bags and they had salt scrubs and shower gels. I’ve not yet purchased the bags this time, so I can’t offer any clues.

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You can order online through the web page or by calling the customer service number. Be sure to place your order by December 14th in order to receive the items in time for Christmas.

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REMINDER:

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Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.

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update: date correction

items need to be shipped by December 14th

From:	Deb’s House Concerts
Date:	Dec 10, 2007 6:06 PM
Subject:	date correction - in an odd little poem (not really a poem!)
Body:	I just called again (being a bit obsessive about this) to ask the same question to another person. . I understood them to say the orders must be in by December 14th to be a guaranteed delivery by Christmas. . The person I just spoke with on THIS phone call said the orders need to be SHIPPED by Dec 14th to be guaranteed delivery by Christmas. . Yikes! . So, if you’re interested, check it out right now and call them 1-877-662-8669 (or, just order online tonight http://jordanrep.com/10522). . When you call, ask if they’ll be able to ship the order by December 14th, so they can guarantee delivery by Christmas. ************************************************* JORDAN ESSENTIALS BATHBODYSPA http://jordanrep.com/10522

Giving Thanks

2007-11-23T09:21:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday in the USA.

People who live in other countries do not share this holiday. And, many who live in the USA do not spend Thanksgiving Day consciously giving thanks. I’d like to invite each of you to make today your day for giving thanks for all that is good in your life.

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It is so easy for us to see bad things happening all around us, both personally and globally. I would like to invite you to join with me in taking a moment to notice all that is good.

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I also want to invite you to join with me in consciously choosing to live with gratitude while continuing to work to make our personal lives, our communities, our countries and our planet safer, healthier and more peaceful for us all.

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Yesterday, I was with some of my family for this holiday for the first time in years. This is one thing for which I am grateful.

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Deborah Hord
"Lean In For A Kiss" free mp3 download http://eFolkMusic.org (in Vol 3 free digital sampler)

My song “Lean In For A Kiss” is one of the 12-free-mp3-downloads available now in Volume 3 on eFolkMusic.org

2007-11-10T18:19:00.000-06:00

Deb’s House Concerts

Exciting News!

"Lean In For A Kiss"
(one of my songs)

is one of 12-free-mp3-downloads
on eFolkMusic this month.

Free efolkMusic Digital Sampler, Volume 3!
Supporting the good music and musicians since 1999

Deborah Hord

Lean In For a Kiss

Writing folk songs with a personal touch, Deborah Hord brings her own perspective to folk music. She loves to hear a good story and incorporates storytelling into her songs

The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering

2007-05-12T13:05:00.000-05:00

Please read about The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering and join others in 5 minutes of silence at 1pm, your time zone, Sunday May 13, 2007.

http://www.standingwomen.org
http://www.grandmotherbook.com/

Prince Charming is Dead

2007-05-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

This morning, I returned home ready to sleep after working all night. All of my furry family greeted me except for one beloved kitty, Prince Charming.

I could not find him last night before I left for work. This morning, I stood on the deck and called for him.

He always comes home when I call. When he did not come, I walked out into the yard and saw his body lying in the rain.

There was no indication of what caused his death. I took comfort in the fact that he died in his own yard. He was lying near a spot where he used to sit and watch the dogs play. There were no signs of trauma.

Prince Charming

(Tuxedo Kitty)

Summer 1999

May 2007

Honeybees Vanishing

2007-04-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

This makes my honeybee-loving-heart sad. Honeybees are essential to our survivial. We need honeybees to pollinate plants that grow the food we eat.

We already kill them with pesticides. They are attacked by other species, too (ex- veroa mites). Now,it looks like we, in addition to possibly giving ourselves brain tumors, are killing honeybees with our cell phones.

Sarah Gilbert, of bloggingstocks.com , says, "U.S. beekeepers claim 60% of West Coast populations and 70% of East Coast bees have vanished." This is bad, very bad.

Country Bunny Bath and Body is now Jordan Essentials

2007-04-17T17:53:00.000-05:00

Welcome! I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to visit Jordan Essentials - bath, body and spa .

Jordan Essentials has grown out of Country Bunny Bath and Body. The product line continues to expand. The name has changed to reflect the changes in the company. (One part of the name change is related to a new product, salts from the Dead Sea.)You can shop here.

The products are wonderful. That’s why I sell them.Visit my online store and see photos and descriptions of the products. There is even an ingredient list in the sidebar of my Jordan Essentials online store page.

The ingredients are what make the products so wonderful.The feel of the products, along with the fragrances available, are what convinced me to use these products.

You can window shop without buying. Just walk through and see what catches your attention.

http://jordanrep.com/10522

Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly

2007-04-11T23:15:00.000-05:00

Life is short, Break the rules,
Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly,
Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,
And never regret anything that made you smile.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we
should ..... dance.

This came from my email inbox today. It was one of those forwarded-around-the-world email-chain-letters. I like what it says. I hope it reminds you, too, to take your time and enjoy every moment.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T07:52:00.000-06:00

Best Wishes for 2007!

I hope you will
enjoy good health,
follow your dreams,
believe that your life has purpose and
know you are loved.

Happy New Year!

God Bless Tracy

2006-11-14T00:11:00.000-06:00

Any patient would be lucky to have a nurse as empathetic as Tracy. If only those who condescend could see that she is the one who lives the truth, maybe there would be less judgement and more kindness.

Solonor said it well: http://solonor.com/archives/005509.html

Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?

2006-10-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

Cough Safe video describes how to cough more safely and reduce the spread of airborne infections. Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?

Trail Mix Recipe

2006-09-28T01:49:00.000-05:00

I don't remember ever buying or making trail mix. I've rarely ever even eaten it. So, why I thought I'd like to buy some tonight, I don't know. And, why I decided to buy the ingredients instead and make my own, I don't know either.

I was at Sam's Club, so of course I bought JUMBO-sized bags of ingredients. You KNOW I was hoping I would like this concoction I was about to put together. As it turned out, it's pretty good!

One Layer of unbuttered, popped popcorn
One Layer of cashew halves
One Layer of cranberry raisins (dried cranberries)
One Layer of plain M&Ms
One Layer of uncooked, old-fashioned oat meal

Shake it all together. Put it into snack-sized ziplock bags. Enjoy. :) Repeat as needed.

How To Avoid Losing Your Lunch

2006-09-21T13:50:00.000-05:00

(alternate titles - How to avoid throwing up, How to avoid vomiting, What do to if you feel nauseated, Anti-emesis tips, Things to do that act as anti-emetics)

I realize this is a 'gross' topic, but there are many people in the world who have physical (diseases) or chemical (medication) reasons for feeling nauseated and involuntarily vomiting. For those people, these hints might make a world of difference.

I have a friend who has Meniere's Disease. She throws up every day, sometimes more than once a day. She gave me a list of hints for people who experience nausea and involuntary vomiting.

This is her advice. She does these things every day:
*ice chips
*ice pack on your head
*small amount of protein
*a little salt
*deep breathing
*keeping a fan on your face, ice on your wrists
*lying down usually makes things worse.

Give Blood

2006-09-20T12:07:00.000-05:00

Give blood. Give platelets. Give plasma. Give often.
Give blood. Give platelets. Give plasma. Give often.
Give blood. Give platelets. Give plasma. Give often.
Give freely, and know that you are saving someone’s life.

It’s really not that hard. It only takes a little time. And after you are done, you know you’re gonna feel so fine. Because you’re saving someone’s life with what is yours to give. Now people with burns, and cancer, and trauma and blood disorders can find a way to live, because of you, and what you give.

from “Give Blood” c2006 Deborah L Hord

This post is in honor of my friend Beth who has Multiple Myeloma. She will be in the hospital for the next three days getting high doses of anti-cancer drugs in preparation for a stem cell harvest in a few weeks (preparing for a stem cell transplant).

You can help with the search to find a cure for MM. Visit Beth’s Cent’s for Cells website. She hopes to collect one penny for every stem cell harvested. Your gift will help fund research to find cure for this disease.

Thank you for caring.

Peace House Tulsa - Grand Opening September 23, 2006

2006-09-18T11:06:00.000-05:00

Peace House Tulsa - grand opening Saturday 23, 2006- I'm singing 130pm - 150pm
Press Release from Peace House Tulsa:

The public is invited to the Grand Opening Celebration of Peace House - Tulsa from 1-8 p.m. Saturday September 23, 2006.

Peace House is Tulsa's newest organization devoted to supporting peace and justice. Located at 306 South Phoenix Avenue, Peace House was established by local nonviolence activists to be an incubator for building a culture of peace through justice.

Children's activities from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm will include folding of peace cranes to remember 12 year old Sadako's efforts to fold 1000 cranes before she died from the effects of radiation from the bombing of Hiroshima; making "pinwheels for peace" as part of the celebration of International Peace Day, September 21st, and just for fun, a space jump ride.

Performers donating their talent for the day: Singer Susan Herndon; Singer/songwriter Terry Aziere; Guitarist Lon Bartlett; Spoken word performer Deborah Hunter; Band Mothers Brothers and Others, Jazz keyboardist Gayle Williamson; Writers in the Round song writers circle and several others.

Former New Orleanians and Katrina survivors Lavelle and Stefanie Cole's new catering business: Cater for You will sell Cajun delicacies from 4 - 8. Vegetarian options will be available.

Peace House Tulsa provides meeting space for Tulsa Peace Fellowship, Pastors for Peace, Poets for Peace, Veterans for Peace. Peace House; holds a library of peace and justice-related titles donated by the Hodge Podge collective; houses the Tulsa Peace Fellowship video library as well as a magazine exchange. Peace House can be reserved for retreats, meetings, musical events and film screenings by contacting the director, Rev. Valerie Mapstone Ackerman at 918-231-2514.

I'll be singing during the first hour. I'll be one of the ones singing children's songs (20 minutes from 130pm - 2pm). You can hear the songs on eFolkMusic.

The Tulsa Peace House is located at 306 South Phoenix.
Peace House Tulsa306 South Phoenix at Charles Page Blvd (3rd Street)Tulsa, OK 74127
directions: go west through downtown Tulsa on 3rd Street. 3rd becomes Charles Page Blvd. Turn left on Phoenix.

http://peacehousetulsa.org/
http://www.peacehousetulsa.blogspot.com/
http://www.efolkmusic.org/ArtMusic/ViewDigitalAlbums.aspx?AID=1439

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Half Your Age?

2006-09-13T01:59:00.000-05:00

HA!

Here's a fun advice from a 50 year old to a 25 year old (man) article from the Washington Post.

(I wrote a song on this topic a few months ago. When I get it recorded in a studio, I'll post it on efm.)

I'm happy to announce my first digital album.

2006-09-03T01:01:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to announce my first digital album.

‘Weird Duck’ (the cd) now available as a digital album September 2, 2006
Digital Albums Deborah Hord

Visit my eFolkMusic mp3 Downloads page to hear some of my songs.
By the name of each song, click PREVIEW to hear the song.

Deborah Hord
Digital Album
“Weird Duck (and other animal tales for grownups)"

Album Genre: Modern Folk

WEIRD DUCK spins real life into fables, fairy tales and folksy stories about ducks, dogs, birds, a snow goose, a donkey, a teddy bear and one tiny unnamed creature. These songs were written for adults, but quite a few are perfect for children, too. {Lyrics and chords are in the liner notes.}

“Weird Duck” “I’m a weird duck. You told me already. You told me you think I am…You’re saying you love me, but you didn’t want me to know.” [2:35] •

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“Broken Wing” “I think I have a broken wing. I’ve fallen from the sky. And, I can’t get back up again, no matter how I try … Oh broken wing, my broken wing, you know I’ll treat you gently, because you are a part of me, and what hurts you will hurt me.” [6:26] •
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“Shelter From the Storm” “I sleep a single hour, and then I wake up from a dream. I wonder if my life has passed while I have been asleep. I’m startled into wakefulness by images I feel. I close my eyes and slip back to a dream that’s much too real.” [4:52] •
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“Duck Soup” “The winds of change blow endlessly, and feed that little fire. And, Mama Duck begins to sweat, and she begins to tire. She lifts her wings and tries to fly, but she has lost her power. Her pond has grown too hot. She knows she’s soup within the hour.” [3:21] •
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“Dog Barks” “Come inside little puppy dog now. Come inside you can sleep in the house. You don’t have to protect me tonight. You can sleep, baby it’s alright.” [1:40] •
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“Little Snow Goose” “There once was a far away fairytale land where the people lived close to the sky. So far up the mountain that no one could stand without clouds bumping into their eyes. And, all of the children were happy always. And, all of the grownups were, too. They had a good reason for feeling this way. They were loved by the Little Snow Goose.” [4:30] •
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“Life Is Like That” “Life is like that. You can’t predict the way tomorrow’s gonna be. Even in you wish upon a star, you wait and see. But, I still like to wish on stars just to remind me of my dreams.” [2:20] •
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“Ugly Duckling” “I’ve been the ugly duckling all my life. When will I turn into a swan? The other ducks keep taunting me and telling me that I’m not one of them. I try to be like other ducks, but everyone says I am not the same. I wonder when the other swans will come for me, and I will fly away.” [3:16] •
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“We’re All a Part” “We’re all a part of all of life. We’re all a part of love, surrounded by the breath of life that keeps us all alive. We’re all one big community, so different yet the same. We’re part of one big family, just called by different names.” [3:46] •
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“Needy Dog” “Every one of us knows the feeling. Everyone has been on both sides. Sometimes you’re the one brushing someone off. Sometimes you’re the one who cries. Every one is that lonely, needy dog. Everyone of us understands. Every one of us needs some personal time, so our lives don’t get out of hand. [4:01] •
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“Ducks Don’t Cry” “I’ve heard that ducks don’t cry, and no one’s ever seen duck tears. But, that’s because they fly away. So, no one’s seen them cry in years … How do you know that ducks don’t cry? They always fly away. They go to some place friendlier. Then, they come back some day.” [3:13] •
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“Donkey Song” “There once was a donkey who fell in a well. He couldn’t climb out, so he cried out for help … The donkey was startled when dirt hit his back. He’d always been loyal, and now they attacked … The lesson my brothers and sisters is this: When life shovels dirt on you, always resist. You don’t have to die even when you are hurt. Sometimes the best gifts are the shovels of dirt.” [4:45] •
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“Teddy Bear” “Teddy bear, I don’t care what they say about me. You’re my friend ’till the end. There’s no need to doubt me.” [1:49] •

Stained Glass Design

2006-08-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

Do you like beautifully crafted, original stained glass designs? If so, I’d like to direct you to Stained Glass Design, David Hoot’s new website. Soon, you can find photos of his work at http://davidhoot.wordpress.com .

[UPDATE: FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 8, 2006] Tonight I had the pleasure of attending David L. Hoot's showing of his Original Stained Glass Designs at CLUB 209. CLUB 209 "Smoke Free Martini Lounge" is Tulsa's only smoke-free bar, located at the corner of Brady and Boulder (just east of the Brady Theatre). David Hoot's stained glass creations are designed and created by David Hoot of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“I Smile Again So You Won’t See Me Cry”

2006-08-26T16:39:00.000-05:00

“I Smile Again So You Won’t See Me Cry” has been in the ‘purchase this download’ category on my page at eFolkMusic.org. Today, I’ve listed it as a complimentary download. Free MP3 Folk Music Download.

I’ll leave “I Smile Again So You Won’t See Me Cry” listed as a free mp3 download for a few weeks. Please take the opportunity to listen to it, play along or sing along, and download it if you’d like. (The other two songs currently listed as free downloads are Teddy Bear and Life Is Like That.)

I’ve updated my eFolkMusic profile, too.
Here’s what it says:

About the artist:Writing folk songs with a personal touch, Deborah Hord brings her own perspective to folk music. She loves to hear a good story and incorporates storytelling into her songs. Listen, laugh, cry, identify, and download if you’d like to hear these songs again. Email contact: dhconcerts@yahoo.com

Residential panhandling ... follow-up to the 'homeless' post

2006-07-17T03:35:00.000-05:00

I just wrote a note to another blogger who posted about people asking for money in her neighborhood.

Hi ...,

How are you? I almost posted another comment to your homeless post with an entirely different story.

The other evening, I was sitting with a neighbor on her front porch. She told me someone knocked on her front door close to midnight on July 4th, but she didn't answer. When I asked if she saw who it was, she said she saw a man in shorts running (moving quickly) down the street.

Soon after she told me that, a man in shorts and a shirt, slightly out of breath, came walking across her yard up to her front porch. He looked a little sweaty, but not like he'd been working out.

It was a hot evening. He said, "I'm the man who knocked on your door the other night" (July 4th). It was July 12th or 13th by this time. "I'm your neighbor." He could have been a new neighbor. People move in and out of houses at the far end of the street. He did not appear to be without access to laundry or shower facilities.

He said, "I just moved in that day... down the street ...432." He asked if we could "help a neighbor out." My neighbor immediately began to be rude to him. She stood up and began talking at him, not to him. She would not look him in the eye.

She said, "Around here, it's work first, pay later." He said he wasn't looking for a handout and asked what work she had. She said she has work to be done, "but no tools to do it today."

The man said he'd been doing stress tests that day (for his heart). He said he was locked out of the house, "and, my wife is at work." He said, "I used to work for the railroad." I was not sure what those three pieces of information had to do with each other.

My neighbor said, "Get a screwdriver. Open a window." He said, "I have an alarm system." She said, "You can turn it off when you get into the house." He did not reply to that.

"Can you call your wife?" I asked. He'd said his wife was at work. "Can she come home early and let you into the house?" He said that would not be possible, b/c she works in the next town and rode with someone else. "When will she be home?" I asked. "Not until 930pm," he said. There was a reason why each offered solution would not work.

I wondered why he couldn't just sit at the local Mexican restaurant 3 blocks away (there are actually 3 that are about 3 blocks away, North, South, and West). That's what I would have done. I certainly would not have been out talking to people I didn't know asking if they could "help a neighbor."

At this point, he still had not made the money plea. So, I was willing to keep listening to this tale he was spinning. I try really hard not to assume the worst about people until they've already proven that they cannot, or should not, be trusted.

My neighbor was responding with the no-eye-contact + rude-voice = "Get lost!" response. I kept asking questions, looking for the truth.

This uninvited guest began adding bits of information to his story. He said when he worked for the railroad he was a track inspector. He said he recently moved her from (another town).

He said his car had a flat tire, and all he needed was some fix-a-flat and he'd be able to drive to where his wife was working to get the house key. I asked where the car was. I wanted to see the car with the flat tire.

It was not down the street at the house he'd just moved into. It was at the MacDonald's a few blocks away just off the interstate ... because you know how people will do things to cars left by the highway. The car was a Mercedes. The more he talked, the more unnecessary details embellished the simple hustle.

By this time, my neighbor was so disgusted she went into the house without a word and locked the door behind her, leaving me on the porch to talk to this stranger in the front yard.

Since I'd been left, I got up to leave, too. This guy said he almost had enough (money was the unspoken word) for some fix-a-flat. He said he had someone to take him to the auto parts store.

I was still thinking about the heart stress test, the railroad job, the wife at work in the next town, the house he'd just moved into, and the Mercedes in the MacDonald's parking lot with a flat tire.

I was out to the sidewalk by this time, and he was trying to close the deal and get some cash from me. I told him, "This is a pretty poor neighborhood. I don't have any money either. But, I have roadside assistance. I'll be glad to help out with your car."

At this point, he began to move down the sidewalk in the direction opposite the one I was taking. He said he'd accept my offer if he couldn't get the fix-a-flat.

I walked back to my house, and, in good sleuthing form, I followed up on the clues I could verify. I got into my car and drove down the street looking for the house he said he'd just moved into. I did not see a number like the one he'd named at the start of the visit. Then, I drove to the MacDonalds, and circled the parking lot. There was no Mercedes. There was not a car of any make or model with a flat tire. After that, I drove over the interstate and down the road beside it to look for any parked vehicles in that area. None.

Satisfied that I'd given the man every possible benefit (while satisfying my own curiosity), I returned to my house. Later that evening, I missed a phone call from the neighbor I'd been visiting. She left a message. "I hope you didn't give money to that man!" That was the nicest thing she said. She told me later that when she described the encounter to her daughter, she said the same man has been at her workplace asking for money.

My neighborhood has a known problem with people walking through and asking for money. I am probably spared the problem of unwanted knocks on the door and solicitations for money, because I keep my front blinds closed, and I use a side door. Most of the time I avoid that problem.

Related - Homeless and Hungry , NIMBY

Social Commentary

2006-07-08T01:41:00.000-05:00

Irony, humor and comments, too. I've read this list before, but it crossed my path again a few minutes ago, so I'm passing it along to you.
from http://blogsnow.com

Visitors From Muslim Nations

2006-07-08T00:53:00.000-05:00

I have noticed that there are quite a few visitors from countries where Islam is the predominate religion. The stat counter points to the page that is the favorite of most visitors. I'd love to hear from you in comments. Please know you are invited to comment.

I'll expand that and say all readers are invited to comment. I hope you enjoy what you read. I'd love to hear what you have to say about what you find here.

* 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812* 8812 * 8812 * 8812 *

2006-07-08T00:48:00.000-05:00

My Country Bunny Bath and Body independent representative number is 8812. I thought I'd changed all the links on this page to reflect that, but someone clicked a link the other day and it took her to a non-working (or, non-existent) page.

If you'd like to check out the Country Bunny Bath and Body products, please visit:
http://cbunnyrep.com/8812 .

You'll love the products!

Homeless and Hungry

2006-06-27T12:44:00.000-05:00

I've been reading new (to me) blogs this past hour, and found an interesting post by WordsRock about people asking for money on the street. I ended up writing a long comment, so I've decided to post my comment in full here as my own post.

Only daughter, you said it all.

"the only daughter said... Some people are dangerous, being cautious is prudent. Some people are hurting, being compassionate is human. Some people are homeless,being as as generous as you can afford to be is right. Some people are scamming...How do you know? How do you choose?"

I live on a street in a fairly poor neighborhood with people walking through all the time. I don't know if these people are homeless or without non-ped transportation. I imagine they have a place to live, because they usually carry grocery bags with them from the nearby market.

But, I have 'my own' homeless person. He's an aquaintance now with a familiarity that is surprising for someone I don't actually know.

He approached me the 1st time at my post office and asked for money for food. He scared me, because he came right up to the car door, and he looked a little wild with a bushy beard and hair. I bought him food instead at the dollar store next to the P.O..

The second time we met, he was drinking water at a restaurant where I was having lunch with a friend. I bought him a sandwich that day. We met two more times in that restaurant, but I didn't buy him anything, b/c I knew they were taking care of him.

About that time, we introduced ourselves. He told me his nickname and said it's the same as his grandfather's nickname.

He cut his hair and trimmed his beard. He said he was looking for work, but he needed $16 to get a new government issued ID. He asked if he could work for me for the money. I teased him about always trying to get money from me.

I told him there's a guy who hangs around on my street who's always asking if he can weedeat or mow my yard for cigarette and beer money. I mostly just didn't want to take him to my house, so I told him no. And, I did not give him any money.

At the restaurant, we talked about his living and working situation. I still don't understand. He appears to be able-bodied. He told me he used to earn a good wage as a painter. I never got the connection to why he's in his current situation.

This past Sunday, I took some blankets to a nearby laundrymat. He saw me and approached me with a big smile. His hair and beard still looked okay, but his clothes were dirty and he looked like he'd been out all day.

I called him by name. He now seems like a friend who's always trying to borrow money that you know will never be repaid.

He tried to sell me things he'd dug out of a dumpster. I told him I didn't need any belts or hair products. He begged me to buy something. "Please!" he said. I said I only brought enough money for the washer and dryer. He begged, "I'm hungry!"

I said, "Don't you have a house you live in?" Because he told me once that he had a place he stays, people he stays with. He said, "I live under a bridge."

I went home and brought back two bottles of water, three cans of soup with pop-top lids, a metal fork and spoon, a couple of cans of vegetables (without pop-top lids, I now realize) and some heavy duty paper towels.

I looked around for him, but he was gone from the place he'd been standing with the box of dumpster items. Then, I saw him running towards me. I guess he's not used to people doing what they say ("I'll bring you some food.").

He looked so happy when he saw the food and the water. I thought about what a brief time that amount of food will last. I still don't understand why he doesn't work. There is no obvious reason I can detect (by looking at him or talking with him). But, I do believe him when he tells me he's hungry.

"Where's your bridge?" I asked as he was leaving with the food. He told me the cross streets. He lives a mile from my house under the bridge next to the ice cream store.deb

mp3 or jpg?

2006-06-26T06:55:00.000-05:00

Music or photos, which will it be? I love photography, so I guess this result is okay. But, it's not quite accurate. I love photos, but I love words, too. I'll just have to be mp3 on one side of the brain and jpg on the other! ;)

Which File Extension are You?

Compassion = Happy

2006-06-23T11:35:00.000-05:00

Joel found a good quote about compassion and happiness. Here's what he wrote:

I was introduced to this quotation from the Dalai Lama here:

If you want to make others happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Stunned - It was all just right - Singing at the Saffron

2006-06-18T01:22:00.000-05:00

I sang tonight at the Saffron - 12th/Harvard, Tulsa, OK. I did three sets. The first two were 40 minutes each. I think the last one was an hour. I sang two songs twice by request (Hazmat Couple, Lean In For A Kiss).

In the weeks preceding the show, I gave out about 150 menus with a little paper attached advertising that I'd be there tonight. Almost every person seemed interested, and several said they'd definitely be there.

As it turned out, two people who had the menu and ad came. One drove 40 miles one way. One brought a group of friends (about 5 or 6 were in that group). A school friend and her partner were there (after a phone message the other day). And, the two people who inspired the Hazmat Couple song were there (b/c, our mutual connection person invited them for me).

There were some other people there as a group, and there were a few other tables of customers now and then. And, the people I know from the restaurant were there - owner, staff, and the very nice guy (musician/singer who sings during lunches at the Saffron) who allowed me to use his sound equipment and set it up for me and did the sound checks.

This is all to say that my fantasy of packing the place did not come true. But, I left there feeling stunned. Those who came because I was singing stayed for 2 - 3 hours. And, as the evening went on, things became more interactive. "What do you want next, a bluegrass song or a fairy tale?" Or, which title do you want, "I Smile Again So You Won't See Me Cry" or "Hell of My Own Choosing"? I enjoy it more when those who are listening are able to participate in some way. I also really enjoyed seeing smiles and hearing laughter during the funny songs.

I almost forgot to check the tip jar. I didn't expect tips, or if any, not more than a couple of dollars. I was floored. There was some generosity happening last night. (If you were those persons, and you're reading this, THANK YOU!) And, I sold a songbook and cd, too. The money surprise underscored how good the evening felt. It was icing on the cake. The cake was having people who wanted to be there come and stay for a long time and enjoy what I did. It was cool.

This probably sounds like I've never performed before. That's not the case at all. It's just that I've not performed, doing my own show, for several years. And, it feels so much more right to me now than it ever has in the past. It really feels like now is the time to perform as often as possible and get the word out about where people can find my songs.

Very soon, eFolkMusic (http://efolkmusic.org/) will have digital albums available for purchase and download. As soon as that is an option, I will upload my three existing cds (the ones I recorded in January 2003, "Weird Duck", "Hungry When I Wake", "Lean In For A Kiss"). Then, they'll be available for purchase from efm as digital albums. The songs will also be available as individual mp3s.

If you join eFolkMusic ($30/year), you can download about a thousand 'member' mp3s (free to members), plus you get a 10 per cent discount on merchandise purchases. EFolkMusic is totally cool. Even if you don't join efm, you can browse through the site and listen to lots and lots of music (just click preview to hear songs for free).

Anyway, this is all to say that the crowded restaurant I imagined was not what happened. But, what did happen was so great. It was just right that there were a few friends and a few new people. It was just right that we had the opportunity visit during my breaks and interact while I sang.

It was all just right. And, I will sing again at the Saffron just as soon as I am able. I love the Saffron. If you live in or around Tulsa, I hope you'll check it out. It's at 12th and Harvard (near the University of Tulsa). The Saffron is a cool place. I hope you'll stop by soon!

Mosquito Repellent Testamonial!!!

2006-06-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

*** NO MORE MOSQUITOES ***

On a bunny note, my friend Beth told me the Grapefruit and Lime lotion bar kept bugs away from her. I think she told me this last summer, and I never tried it. And, I've been eaten up by mosquitos this season.

Yesterday, I was in my backyard in the hammock and more were landing on me. I had one of those "now is the time" moments, and I went inside and got out a Country Bunny Bath and Body Grapefruit and Lime Lotion Bar and rubbed it all up and down my legs, feet, and arms. No more mosquitoes.

Now I want to tell everyone!

You can order the Grapefruit and Lime Lotion Bar (and other products in that fragrance and other fragrances) and see how it works for you. Visit my online store - http://cbunnyrep.com/8812.

Cool Story About A Cat - Orange Tabby Chased A Bear Up A Tree

2006-06-10T20:13:00.000-05:00

WEST MILFORD, N.J. (June 10) -

A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree - twice.

Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's editions.

Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack's accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.

After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.

Dickey, who feared for her cat, then called Jack home and the bear scurried back to the woods.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," Dickey said.

Bear sightings are not unusual in West Milford, which experts consider one of the state's most bear-populated areas.

06/10/06 02:23 EDT
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

Father's Day Special

2006-06-06T00:18:00.000-05:00

Have you been thinking about trying Country Bunny Bath and Body products? How about getting something special for Dad for Father's Day?

Order a 4 Him t shirt for your special guy in the month of June! Only $16 shipping is included and will begin shipping on June 10th. Make sure your guys is on the best dressed list this Father's Day!

Try the new aromatherapy products (lotion bars and spritzers) for yourself, and get a Kiwi Cooler gift set for for only $14.00.

Check it all out here.

Eight Songs Are Posted on efolkmusic.org

2006-06-03T23:30:00.000-05:00

There are three categories of mp3s at http://efolkmusic.org

Free mp3s (to anyone), Member mp3s (free to eFolkMusic members, for sale to non-members), for sale mp3s (to anyone).

Currently, I have free, member, for sale mp3s available. All my mp3s are available to preview (full-length songs) without charge.

The free songs show up on the first page. Click the 'download' link to hear the rest of the songs.

I've labeled them modern folk and childrens for this group of songs (some of each).

Children's Songs:
The Donkey Song
Little Snow Goose
Teddy Bear

Modern Folk:
Broken Wing
Love for Me to Love You
Do You Know
Life Is Like That
Lean In For A Kiss

Clarification About eFolkMusic Free Downloads

2006-05-30T07:41:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my first eFolkMusic downloader (the 1st who is not a family member or friend who listened because I asked!) for this clarification about how downloads work at efm:

There are three kinds of downloads at eFolkMusic: free, member, and pay.

The free tracks are free to everyone.

The member tracks (there are about 1000 of them) are free to members and everyone else must pay for them.

The pay tracks must be paid for by members and non-members alike. (So members do get 1000 free downloads, but it is not from the full selection.)

*** JOIN eFolkMusic.org. It's easy! The membership fee is $30, and you get 1,000 free downloads the 1st year. ***

Free mp3 Folk Music Downloads

2006-05-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

My profile at eFolkMusic is active now. I'll be posting another song every week or so. If you like the music, please visit often.

ps - If you're looking for Country Bunny Bath and Body products, you're at the right place! It's easy to order, online or by phone, and the products are delivered to your door within a few days.

Order online: http://cbunnyrep.com/8812

Order by phone: 1-877-662-8669 (ordering from Rep # 8812)

Improbable.com

2006-05-21T10:28:00.000-05:00

This looks like a fun site. I just discovered it.
Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK

Deb's House Concerts

2006-05-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

I just started up another blog for another interest. I write songs, and I'd like to find my way into the folk music circuit. Drop by if you can and say 'Hi' over at Deb's House Concerts.

Deb's House Concerts

debhouseconcerts.blogspot.com/

Listen To Songs Here

Quote of the Day

2006-05-04T09:42:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Marla for this quote:

Quote of the Day

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

-- Nelson Mandela, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

First Aid Guide

2006-05-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

Basic Guidelines
Preparing for an Emergency
Bleeding
Broken Bones
Burns
Chest Pain
Choking
Not Breathing, No Pulse
Seizures/Convulsions
Unconsciousness
Links to More Information

Embrace Your Crisis

2006-05-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

Embrace Your Crisis
Author Laura Day Talks About How to Turn a Crisis Into an Opportunity

May 1, 2006 — Laura Day has seen her share of crises. Her mother committed suicide when she was 14. Her marriage ended when she was 33 and a new mom, leaving her impoverished to raise her son alone.

"We're creatures of pattern," she said. "As mammals, when something changes, it signals danger to us. So crisis is a change we're not prepared to handle. … But if nothing changes, that's when something is wrong. See the crisis as an opportunity. It can't be avoided."

Day drew from her own experiences to write a book, "Welcome to Your Crisis: How to Use the Power of Crisis to Create the Life You Want." The book outlines her journey from crisis to the publication of her best-selling self-help manual, which made her almost $4 million.

Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman is a great example of overcoming crisis, Day said. After her divorce from Tom Cruise, Kidman went on to act in some of her best roles ever."Nicole did it on a grand scale," Day said. "But this [book] is something for everyone. … Nicole had to reach into herself for change."

Day has worked with celebrities like Uma Thurman and Demi Moore, whose divorces have been followed by career successes. She created strategies for dealing with crisis based on different types of personalities.

"Everyone has a response type," Day said. "It's usually part of what got them into the crisis in the first place. It's important to know which type you are and act accordingly."

Day's Tips for the Different Personality Types

Depression Type: Tend to isolate themselves and are more tired than usual. Tip: Depression types need to focus on the task of just getting out of bed and washing their faces at first. They need to alter their environment to help them snap out of it. They should also find a comforting daily routine to help them cope.

Anxiety Type: Anxiety types are so nervous all the time, they miss what the real problem is and run out of energy to solve it. They have trouble sleeping and act impulsively but ineffectively. Tip: Anxiety types need to find a way to be calm and simplify their lives by focusing only on what really needs to get done. Make a checklist to avoid getting distracted.

Rage Type: This person feels like they have premenstrual symptoms or road rage all the time. They react to crisis by snapping or exploding. They also have vengeful or violent fantasies. Tip: Don't bottle the rage up, but let it out in a constructive, private way. Stop blaming other people and pretend the crisis is your fault so you will have the power to fix things.

Denial Type: The denial type responds to crises by becoming Superman or Superwoman. They think they don't need help and avoid people who see their situations differently, especially old friends. Day said Thurman — like many other celebrities — fell into denial after her marriage to actor Ethan Hawk ended. Tip: Denial types have to recognize their feelings and move toward the things they want to avoid.

"People who come through crisis have a life that's left with the things they truly value: a more pleasure-based and less need-based life," Day said. "You also strip away things that have sapped your energies in the past, and what you have left of the tools to have a much more fulfilling, successful life."

Day said that you could tell whether you were having a crisis if you were always unhappy or anxious, and the only time you felt at ease was when you were taking a break from your life. It could be isolated to just one part of your life. For example, your relationship could be going well, but you dread going to work every day.

When you are in crisis, don't look back or ahead, deal with the moment, Day said. Use the Internet or other tools to reach into the community. Avoid new damage and try not to put yourself in the same bad situation over and over again.

NEW REP ID NUMBER 8812

2006-04-25T22:00:00.000-05:00

My first year as a Country Bunny Bath and Body independent representative ended on April 15th. That was also the end of my number 7733.

CBunnyRep.com/7733 is no more.

Here is the new address:
http://cbunnyrep.com/8812

Please stop by for a visit. The site is easy to use. Shopping is simple. The products are wonderful. If you have questions, send me a note.

Draw A Pig Personality Test

2006-04-09T22:07:00.000-05:00

This is cute, fun, and worth the minute it takes to do it. Draw a pig.

Calm Water

2006-03-27T18:51:00.000-06:00

School is not yet out. I have not yet successfully completed the semester. But, late last week, I hit the same place I hit last semester when there were only a few weeks left.

The best way to describe it is that for weeks, I've been holding on for dear life to a raft that's been bouncing over rocks and snagging on tree branches and flipping over and over and spinning, spinning, spinning. Finally, over the last waterfall, I slipped into calm water.

It's not that anything has changed. It's just that I've hit that place where I can say, "I'm doing all I am able to do. I will either make it out of here successfully or I won't." All the things that have been worrying me are still there, but I've hit the spot where I'm now saying, "Whatever is going to happen is going to happen, and there is nothing more I can do about any of it."

I like the peaceful place. A classmate calls it being fatalistic. I don't know if that's what I'd call it. It's more like finally acknowledging that I have no control over what will happen. I cannot control what the river might ultimately do to me.

All I can do is keep holding on as if my life depended on it, for it does in a figurative way. That's all I can do. The rest is out of my hands. Being in the place where I can feel that is where I like to be.

The river may still be rushing all around me, but it feels like I've found a peaceful spot where I can stay until the water level drops. I could still die, figuratively speaking, but I'm not worrying about it right now. I'm just enjoying the blue of the water and the green of the trees.

I don't yet know if I'll make it out of the river alive, but for now, I'm enjoying this moment of peace.

Spring Break

2006-03-19T12:54:00.000-06:00

This month is flying by. This past week was spring break. I celebrated the time out of school by spending time with family far, far away. It was good to get away.

If all goes well, I'll live near family again some day and have the opportunity to see them more than a few times a year. Then, getting away from work or school will mean going somewhere entirely different.

I used to have the opportunity to travel frequently. I hope that will become an option again in a few years. Life takes many twists and turns. Who knows what the future holds?

Ash Wednesday

2006-03-01T19:58:00.000-06:00

I saw people at school today with ashes on their foreheads, and I remembered that today is Ash Wednesday. Yesterday, a classmate brought a King Cake to lab, and I remembered it was Fat Tuesday.

Yesterday, an instructor asked if I'd be at school today. She wanted to schedule a meeting with me. I just looked at her, because I could not remember. I knew I'd have to look at the schedule to find out. She remembered, and said, "You have lecture tomorrow."

Two days ago, someone in the elevator said, "You have lab today?" I didn't know the answer at first. She motioned to the uniform I was wearing, required on lab days. "Oh." Lately, I only seem to remember things when they are right in front of me.

I did not know there was to be an Ash Wednesday service at church tonight. Somehow I missed it Sunday in announcements at church, and in the bulletin, and in the newsletter.

An unrelated phone call this afternoon provided the information, and I thought, "Why not?" Tonight, at church, I could not remember the name of the person sitting next to me.

I am very tired. I think I must be exhausted by all the emotion in my life. You'd not know it by looking at me. I don't know what I look like, but I feel like I'm wearing a lead suit.

The service tonight was small, and we sat in chairs in a circle. When we spoke, it was about brokenness in the world, among ourselves, and within ourselves. I'm in the fine pieces category these days. I feel like I've been steam-rolled.

The image used tonight was a mosaic which can only be made with broken pieces. The mosaic is an image that offers hope. It's something to hold on to.

On the way to church, I encountered a series of objects of interference. In each case, there was almost a physical meeting of car and other. Fortunately, each event stopped just in time. I told a friend who said it sounded like a dream sequence or a moment in a Sundance Film Festival movie.

I was little more than a block from my house when a dog ran from the sidewalk directly toward the front of my car and in front under the wheel. Somehow, I did not hit the dog, and it ran back to the side of the street.

At the end of the street, I pulled up to a stop sign as a larger vehicle made a too-fast turn and just missed my car. I turned left onto that street, and before the next stop sign, a van was in my lane heading for me, with the driver looking backwards at something else. He looked forward again in time to pull into his lane.

I turned right at the stop sign, and as I went through the traffic light at the next corner, two birds the size of large pigeons, came flying and falling from the sky directly in front of my car, and either hit, or almost hit, the pavement. Then, they flew off in different directions.

In every case, I was only a few feet away from a collision with the other. In every case, I braked, and moved on to the next object(s) running, turning, driving, flying/falling towards me. I was glad to turn into the parking lot at church at go inside!

I don't think I have ever been to an Ash Wednesday service before. If so, I don't remember it. But, that doesn't mean much these days.

In the last few moments of the service, each one of us stood in turn and put the ashes on the forehead of the one next to him or her. Each one spoke the name, and said, "From dust we came. To dust we will return. May your journey lead you to wholeness."

I am exhausted. I am going to bed now with a textbook to read about cardiovascular and respiratory problems. I am certain I will be asleep before 8pm.

Purchase Country Bunny Bath and Body Products Online

2006-02-27T19:55:00.000-06:00

"touch me.feel the softness."
Delicious Bath and Body Products
http://www.cbunnyrep.com/7733

Cold Day In ... My House

2006-02-19T12:35:00.000-06:00

I keep my thermostat set to 50F when I'm away from home. I turn it up to 55F when I'm home if I'll only be awake for a few hours. I turn it to 60F, and sometimes even up to 65F, when I'll be home for a few days.

This weekend, I'm off work and was planning to have a (reasonably) warm house while studying for an exam on Monday. When I walked in on Saturday morning and turned up the heat, my (very old, in-the-wall, natural gas) furnace made a loud BOOM!! sound. A few minutes later, I realized that there was no heat accumulating in the furnace and the fans had not turned on to blow hot air.

Along with other unfortunate events recently, this was not a good thing. It was yet another 'bad timing' experience. Why? Because, outside yesterday, there was ice and snow on the ground and the temperature was 14F. The temperature in my living room (where the thermostat is), was below the lowest turn-on value. (50F is the lowest setting to turn on the furnace. The thermometer was below 50F one more 5-degree mark.)

After a few phone calls, I went to the neighborhood hardware store and bought a 4000W, 240V, Fan-Forced electric 'ultra-power utility convection heater'. Back home, I ran it at full force for several hours before the thermometer on the thermostat moved up to 55F. That's as warm as it got, but it was a start.

From there, I moved it to my bedroom. The bedroom is closed, so the heat is staying in there a little better than in the living room (where I am now with almost-numb-with-cold fingers). The bedroom is where I am spending the bulk of the weekend with cats and dogs piled in around me. (Only one tough-guy kitty refuses to go in with the rest. He's out in the freezing part of the house.)

At this point, there is still ice and snow on the ground. The temperature outside is 21F. From what I can tell from the thermometer on the thermostat, it's maybe 40F in my living room. I have the faucets all open enough for a slow drip.

Last night, I kept a fire in the woodstove with bags of newspapers, and stood in front of it wearing a coat while watching Castaway (Tom Hanks). I didn't mean to watch it all. It's amazing that it was so fascinating to watch what was almost completely a one-person movie.

Today, I'm saving the remaining newspapers for tonight when Grey's Anatomy comes on. I plan to either be finished studying by then or sick of it. Either way, I'll stand in front of the open wood stove and try to stay warm for an hour. Maybe the temperature in this room will rise at least to 50F for that hour!

Someday soon, after this exam and during normal business hours, I'll call in someone to repair the furnace. The guy at the hardware store told me what he thinks the problem is. The part costs $100. He told me I can replace it myself. It's that easy. I'm not so sure. I think I'd rather pay someone for an hour of labor, someone who has done it before. Anyway, the natural gas company will have to turn off the gas to my house before that can happen. So, it's not even an option right now. I'm still using the gas to have hot water. Maybe in a few days.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Bipolar Life

2006-02-19T09:22:00.000-06:00

I don't have a bipolar diagnosis. I don't have the symptoms of bipolar disorder. But, I've certainly been thinking about it recently and wondering what it's like when all the ups and downs are on the inside rather than on the outside.

So far this semester, my experience in school has been wonderful and terrible. I have felt wonderfully happy, encouraged, positive, capable, and on my way to good things. In turn, I have felt deeply sad, discouraged, negative, completely lacking, and headed straight for hell.

It is only fitting that in the past day or two, I've begun to wonder if having bipolar disorder is like having all these wonderful and horrible external events going on inside your head. So, that even though I can (at least in theory) walk away from my bad situations, people with BPD have it on the inside and fight a much more difficult battle.

Am I way off the mark here?

Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain

2006-01-28T18:50:00.000-06:00

It rained today. It was so nice!

Yesterday there were a few drops of rain, and I could smell the rain in the air for the first time in months. This afternoon, I napped to the wonderful sound of rain.

Flack Jackets and Funerals

2006-01-24T06:38:00.000-06:00

On the Tulsa morning news just now, I heard that in addition to the current "Make My Day" law which allows OK residents to protect themselves with deadly force inside their own homes, OK will soon have a "Stand Your Ground" law which will allow people to use deadly force in public places if they feel threatened, even in places like supermarkets. The wild west returns.

Fabulous Truck Art

2006-01-23T15:35:00.000-06:00

I do not know the origin of these photos - artist, company that owns the trucks or photographer. So, I am unable to give credit where due. These photos and descriptions arrived today in email. They're worth sharing.

Truck Art

There are 7 pictures of semi-trucks and trailers decorated to look like the sides are missing and the products they are hauling are painted on the sides and back.

The first one looks so real, it seems like the bottle is coming out the side of the trailer.
The second is of a canvas tote bag.

The third is of Pepsi cases and they are all stacked on the ceiling, and the bottom of the trailer is empty.

The fourth is of another truck with the windshield facing toward the rear and there has been a driver painted in the drivers seat looking back over his shoulder to appear like he is driving backwards.

The fifth one is of an aquarium with fish swimming in it.

The sixth one is of a bookshelf with books lined up in it and a post it note with an advertisement on it.

The last one is for Pringles Hot & Spicy potato chips. The inside of the trailer has the appearance of having been through a fire, telling us the chips are super spicy.

You mean so much more than you realize.

2006-01-20T13:55:00.000-06:00

If you're thinking of hurting yourself or ending your life, think again. The hurt you leave behind lasts a long long time. YOU ARE LOVED. The loss of you in the lives of those who love you would leave a hole they could not repair.

"Can We Have Letters of the Day?"

2006-01-18T16:28:00.000-06:00

Today was the 2nd day of clinical for this semester. I'll have six weeks of Med/Surg two days a week, then I'll rotate through three other areas two weeks each. At the start of the day, I was thinking (again), "Now WHY am I doing this?" At the end of the day, I was stopping by ICU to see an old friend and by HR to pick up an application (to work as a nurse aide as needed on weekends).

Today started out cold with the temperature at 32F. By the time I left the hospital it was almost 70F. A day like this needs hammock time! So, I came home and opened up windows, got a snack and was about to go out to the back yard when three of the neighbor kids appeared at the door, calling to me through the open window in the door.

"Deb'rah! Deb'rah! Can we have letters of the day? Can we have letters of the day?" There were three kids this time. "Sure you can. What letters do you want?" Since they couldn't agree, I suggested they each pick a letter. They chose 'J', 'K', and 'S'.

I got my cup of soup and joined them outside. The 'K' girl started spouting off 'K' words as fast as she could. The 'J' girl said, "I'm bored," and went next door to see what was going on. Then, the 'S' girl and the 'K' girl looked through the newspaper for words starting with those letters.

They all lost interest after about ten minutes, so I was ready to say goodbye and go back inside. But, we talked another minute when I suggested an idea they liked ("Maybe sometime you can cut out pictures from magazines and cut out the letters they start with."). One said, "Could we glue them on paper???" Sure! Of course you can. Then, that one wandered off.

The last one asked me to get a book and let her look for 'S' words. I said, "I'll get a 1st grade book, so it will be easy." She's in 2nd grade. She said, "Could you get a 3rd grade book, so I can learn to read 3rd grade books?" Cool! Sure!

So, I got a couple of books and we went to the front yard. The other two joined us again. They sat on the front steps and I stood in front of them, as in a classroom, and read the book to them, making a big display of showing the pictures. They alternately listened and jumped down and ran around the corner of the house to tell secrets.

Before the story was over, not even five minutes, the older sister of one of the girls (a tough-acting girl who dropped out of high school several years ago and swears a lot) started screaming at her sister to come home and screaming at the other two girls telling them their mom wanted them to go home.

That behavior seems so bizarre to me. It's always an, "If you don't ..., I'm going to beat your ..." kind of a threat. There's not any respectful behavior from adults (or want-to-be adults) to the children ... none that I see anyway.

It's just so weird. What was the sudden emergency that required someone to scream at the kids and threaten them when they were in plain view of the adults right next door? I've offered a number of times to help the older sister study for the G.E.D. exam, but I think she might be a little too 'tough' to let anyone help her.

I hope someday there is someone in her life who she can trust enough to allow to help her. I hate to see people's lives going nowhere just because the people around them made the same less-than-optimal choices. It's pretty clear that I am not that person. She has too big a chip on her shoulder and I don't know the right language (figuratively speaking) to be of any value to her.

To those who want to learn to read, I say, YOU CAN DO IT! YOU CAN LEARN TO READ. THE WORLD OPENS UP TO YOU WHEN YOU READ. YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE, DO ANYTHING, MEET ANYONE IF YOU CAN READ. READING IS YOUR PASSPORT TO A LIFE BEYOND THE CIRCLE THAT IS AROUND YOU NOW.

Speaking of life beyond the circle, I have a lot of clinical work due in the morning (along with an 8-11am class, an 11am-12noon class, and a 1-4pm class), so I'd better get moving. I want to always keep learning, so I can keep moving the edges of my circle wider and wider and wider.

Happy reading to all, and to all a good night!

Microsoft Is Now Claiming Ownership of the Content of Personal Blogs???

2006-01-17T20:57:00.000-06:00

Wow! Be sure NOT to use Microsoft's new weblogging product, MSN Spaces. According to datacloud, the fine print says Microsoft OWNS whatever you post on your page!

What's the Letter of the Day????

2006-01-16T14:44:00.000-06:00

When I arrived home after the parade and turned into the driveway, three little neighbor girls from three different houses came running up to my car. "Debwa, Debrah, Deborah! What's the letter of the day?!?!?"

I got out of my car and said, "What would you like it to be?" The letter of the day on Saturday was "S". Saturday was the first letter-of-the-day day.

I like shows like Sesame Street that get kids thinking about phonics and letters and sounds. So, when a six-year-old neighbor trailed along while I walked my dogs Saturday afternoon, I started talking with her about the sounds of letters. It all started with the "S" on the stop sign. She didn't know what S-T-O-P spelled. She didn't know what a red octagonal sign with the word STOP was . So, I talked about stop signs and we sounded out the letters and put them together into the word STOP. After that, we thought of words that had an "S" in them and said them aloud.

For today's "Letter of the Day", they chose the letter T. They thought of words with a "T" sound in them and they looked for "T"s on nearby cars, on a drink bottle, on an egg carton, and in an old newspaper. They thought of all the words they could think of that included the letter "T" and then one said, "Can we have TWO letters-of-the-day today?" I said, "Sure! What other letter would you like?" She chose the letter "H".

After that, they asked to play in my front yard and asked if they could write on my sidewalk in chalk. I said okay. A little later, I came out to find "I love you"s written on every square. That was nice. To me, it means that they feel valued and respected by me, maybe even cared for. I never allow them into my house or my back yard, but when they come over and ring my doorbell and ask me to read to them or to bring my dogs out, I'll usually go out with books or dogs, or both, and sit with them in my front yard.

When I took the dogs and books out today, there were about five kids in the front yard. They played with the dogs and helped me pick up trash. (People throw trash into my fenced in front yard. I don't know why. Chicken bones, cigarette butts, empty drink bottles and cups and fast food containers. My guess is it comes from the house next door where the driveway is also full of similar garbage. I don't like it, but there's not much to be done, since it happens when I'm not looking and people would surely not admit to doing such a thing.)

The camera is broken :(, so I couldn't take any digital photos of the words on the sidewalk, but I found a throwaway camera in the house and took a photo of each of the kids with their messages. After that, they selected a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle story from one of my books, and I read it to them. Before the story, one of the two went home. Three remained. Two started listening to the story, then one went to play with the other. By the end of the story, only one was listening. That one left, and I was back to my own events.

Back inside, I repaired my kitchen faucet! It's been without water for what seems like ages, but I wasn't ready to pay someone to come fix it. Yesterday, when I went to have my car worked on, my mechanic's plumber-friend was there. I described the "no water in the kitchen sink" problem, and he told me what to do. It was SO easy! Yippee! No more washing the dishes in a dishpan with water from the bathtub!

This past week was the first week of 2nd semester. I think it will be okay this round, because my work schedule has changed, and I might actually have time to do my school work in a timely fashion. Now it's up to me to stay focused and do what needs to be done each week! There is a lot to do and a lot to learn this semester! I wonder if I can come up with enthusiasm like those kids had today. That would be neat. It might be a little odd, but neat. "Teacher! Teacher! What's the assignment of the day???" Of course, I already know the answer to that one. "It's in the syllabus." Oh yeah, right. Off to the books! :)

Martin Luther King, Jr Day Parade

2006-01-16T14:40:00.000-06:00

I've heard that Tulsa, Oklahoma has one of the biggest MLK Day parades in the country. Does anyone know? This one was pretty long. I went planning to take photos of all the groups. Unfortunately, my camera quit working mid-shot soon after the start of the event. I tried two more sets of batteries, but nothing worked. This is not good! The camera is a Cannon A-80. Has anyone else had this problem? I've really enjoyed the camera up to the moment it died today. I hope it's not an irreversible problem.

I love doing photography. I'd be happy to be the event photographer for parades and parties and weddings. I've done it in an unofficial capacity, but never as my profession. I especially enjoy faces, expressions and interaction between people.

I wonder what MLK Day means to most people? I know the people along the parade route were mostly African American. At any point along the route, there were probably fewer than five fair-skinned faces mixed in with every hundred darker-skinned faces. The parade had more of a mix, as a number of corporations and employees participated as did churches, school groups and diversity groups.

Before the parade, I was driving around through the surrounding neighborhoods trying to find the free community breakfast. I never did find it. But, it was neat seeing people walking to the parade route. There were lots of families and groups of friends. It would be neat if more people went to event parades that celebrate equality, diversity, inclusion, and acceptance.

The mood was happy except for one young woman who started yelling at me for speaking to her child. (A very small child was sitting alone in the grass crying. I looked around and saw no adult within 15 feet, and none were looking his way. I bent down to ask where his parents were. The 'adult' who came over to me had 'a attitude'. She said, "He may not look like me, but he's with me!" Okay. Okay! She was definitely not in the spirit of the occasion. I just walked away.) I also spoke with a high school senior and her mom. The girl is going away to college in the fall.She hopes to go to Howard University to study premed. Her mom is hoping she'll choose a school a little closer to home.

I never did see the end of the parade. After two hours, I left and came home. I saw one person I know (marching). I guess the other groups I knew were wayyyyy back at the end of the parade. I think I'll choose my viewing spot at the start of the parade route next time instead of at the very end.

... The Light Will Soon Return

2006-01-16T08:41:00.000-06:00

From a mural in Flagstaff,AZ. Thanks to MaryBeth at
The Desert By Day.
(Click the image to see a larger photo of the mural.)

Transformation

2006-01-14T12:26:00.000-06:00

***It is not enough to find your passion,you must dive straight into the fire of your fear,and hold it,until it transforms you...**

Fantasy Weekend

2006-01-14T12:22:00.000-06:00

Good Morning and Welcome to Saturday.

We want you to feel at home here in our luxurious resort. Notice the wall of windows overlooking a pristine bay backed by snow capped mountains. The day is warm and sunny. The trees are green. Flowers are in bloom.

Bicycles and rollerblades are available for your use. The stable has horses of every color, size and temperament. You may ride bareback, western, English or in a carriage. If you prefer to watch the races, we have box seating for you with only the finest accouterments.

Light aircraft tours are available for viewing the glaciers on the mountain tops. Snow skiing and sledding are available on the slopes. Boats await you for water skiing or scenic tours on the bay.

All food is fresh, whole and healthy provided by our 5-star chef and his staff of 10. We do have a chocolate fountain for dipping your strawberries and pineapple chunks. Thick, moist, dark chocolate cake and dark roasted coffee are also available for those special moments.

The rooms have surround sound high fidelity music of your choice. Movies, books, journals, newspapers and high-speed internet connections are also available. The bath has a tub large enough for complete floating relaxation and 15-head walk-in shower. All towels are half an inch thick and softer than cotton. Shower shoes and thick, terrycloth robes are provided.

Fresh flowers will be placed in your room daily. A masseuse awaits you at the spa. Please enjoy our string quartet in the dining area and blues band in the club. If there is any way we can be of service, let us know. Your pleasure is our goal.

Your friends will arrive this afternoon? We will prepare their rooms. Have them tell us their requests (comments!) and they will be fulfilled.

Pray For Rain

2006-01-09T04:08:00.000-06:00

Grass fires. Oklahoma is burning.

There are fires both east and west of Tulsa. OK has not had rain for a long time. There are burning bans everywhere.

Two hundred twenty homes and businesses have burned in the rural areas. People are starting to have 'allergy attacks' (maybe due to smoke in the air?). This last bit is anecdotal, since it's not from anyone medical, but rather from conversation with others.

I woke up coughing within the last hour and took a decongestant. I hope there is rain soon.

On a different note: Level Two begins in less than four hours. The next semester of the four semester program begins soon. The coursework seems a bit daunting. I need to focus on one day at a time and attend to what is before me each day.

Pray for rain.

530pm Monday Jan 9, 2006 Update - Two things:

1)This email arrived today from a friend in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
"The fires have gotten within 5 miles of my home, so I have been told. So far they have burned on the east, south, and west of me. Sometimes I can smell the smoke and twice we could see it in the air. Sinus infection is what I am hearing the most about. Several herds of cattle have been trapped by the flames. I have friends on the police department and volunteer fire department that try to keep me informed. I pray a lot."

2)I told my mom about midday today about the fires and the need for rain, and how it hasn't rained in OK for almost 100 days. Now, a few hours later, there are thick clouds covering the sky, moisture in the air, and a forecast for rain for tomorrow. (Yesterday there was no rain forcast for the next week or so.) Maybe my momma has been praying up a storm. Literally. I could believe she has a special direct line to God. Thanks to all of you who do think of others and pray or send good thoughts or energy or meditate on good things. We're all in this (world, life) together. It means a lot to know people care. Thanks for being there.

And, a p.s. about school. I'm cautiously optimistic. :) I think it (this semester) is going to be okay. At any rate, the 1st day went well.

Fire update: Jan 14, 2006 midday
The snow provided a brief respite, but fires continue to burn thousands of acres of land along with homes and businesses. While OK is without rain, the Seattle area is experiencing its 27th day of rain. And, according to KinK over at JL, parts of CA are washing away, too. At the same time, the weather reports say the east has rain and the northeastern states will get snow. Can't we all just share? I'll take your rain. You take my sunshine. What do you think? If only it were that easy.

Fire update: Jan 15, 2006 10pm
The fires continue. Several factors have increased the fire risk:
Temperatures up to 70F
Wind speeds up to 40 mph
Humidity down to 15%
Just counting the Tulsa area, there were fires in nearby communities north, east, west, and south. One fire was stopped 50 feet from a house at the edge of a neighborhood. Another was started by people who threw out firecrackers into dry grass and then drove away. I know the people in the Pacific Northwest would gladly take our dry weather for their endless rain. I know we'd be happy to take their rain.

The Case of the Disappearing Teaspoons

2006-01-09T03:58:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Joel for this interesting link:
The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an Australian research institute

Thank You Christmas Shoppers!

2005-12-29T08:03:00.000-06:00

Thanks to those who did their Christmas shopping with me.

It was a happy surprise when you called and said, "I don't know if you remember me, but I want to order six tubs of C-Spa Salt Scrub and five jumbo Lip Tubes and a tube of Satin Shea Body Butter." (Of course I remembered you! You were excited to find a CBBB rep last summer when we met, because you were almost out of the Country Bunny Bath and Body Satin Shea Body Butter, and you desperately wanted to find a way to buy more.)

And when I started to give you (each 'you' is different) a Christmas gift, you said, "I want to buy something," and bought Country Bunny Bath and Body Lotion Bars and Satin Shea Body Butter for yourself, your inlaws, and your children.

Then, you said, "I need eight Lotion Bars to give my brothers and sisters," and did your Christmas shopping with me.

Then, you said, "When you come home, bring a Shea Butter and a Lotion Bar for me to give my mom."

And, you bought two Country Bunny Bath and Body Oatmeal Milk and Honey Gift Sets, one for yourself and one for your sister.

Then, you bought Country Bunny Bath and Body Pearberry, Mountain Fresh, and Lavender and Eucalyptus Glycerine Soaps.

And, you bought Lotion Bars for your your son's teachers, and there are nine!

You also bought a few extra Glycerine Soaps just to have some on hand when birthdays and special occasions pop up.

You bought a Country Bunny Bath and Body Shea Butter Bath Bomb set for yourself to make your bath water silky smooth and luxurious.

And, you bought two sets of Country Bunny Bath and Body Kids Bath Paints for your niece and nephew.

Then, someone gave you a Country Bunny Bath and Body Lotion Bar. You had never heard of Country Bunny Bath and Body before, and you liked the Lotion bar so much that you looked at the online store and you bought seven more Country Bunny Bath and Body Lotion Bars to give to your sisters and brothers for the late Christmas celebration you'll be having with them across the country in a few weeks. You ordered the other night online and it was packed and shipped by UPS the next morning.

I gave you the phone number for the customer service line, so you can call them sometime if you want the personal touch when ordering. They know the products, and they can be so helpful in helping you find just the right item. That number is 1-877-66BUNNY. It's toll-free but, the 1st three digits are 877. 1-877-662-8669.

Thanks to all of you who bought your Christmas gifts with me. I love the products. You love the products. Now your families and friends are experiencing them, too.

Thanks! And, HAPPY NEW YEAR! :)

Joyous Noel

2005-12-24T08:33:00.000-06:00

That's how I feel today, joyous and peaceful and contented. It's really nice. :)

I'm with family in NC having a perfectly lovely time. I feel so content and happy here with them this year that I'm noticing it repeatedly and making note of it internally. I don't know if things are extra good with them this year or if I've just been way more stressed than I had realized. Either way, it's nice to feel so relaxed. I've also had the opportunity, so far, to see three friends here. And, I'll get to see at least five more before going back to OK. So far, this visit has been filled with friends, family, laughter, children playing, books, music, photos, fire in the fireplace,good food and that surprising feeling of deeply joyful contentment.

I Forgot to Mention

2005-12-23T01:36:00.000-06:00

I survived Level One (the first semester of nursing school). It was definitely a learning experience. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it later. I'll just need a publisher! ;)

Easy Christmas Shopping

2005-12-08T10:53:00.000-06:00

Easy Christmas Shopping. Click the link, then use the left sidebar to find what you want.

Update: I just discovered that the link was getting some kind of error. If you get to a page that asks for your representative's number, my number is 7733.

Tomatoes, Blueberries, Broccoli, Sweet Potatoes, Kale

2005-12-08T10:47:00.000-06:00

Five Superfoods for Better Health

1) Tomatoes

These five superfoods can slow the aging process and beat the three biggest killers. Decrease cancer risk with tomatoes. The powerful antioxidant lycopene, found mainly in tomatoes, helps protect against heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, osteoporosis and cancer. Cooked tomatoes are better because heat causes more lycopene to be released. Buy the best: Choose dark red tomatoes and store fresh tomatoes at room temperature.

2) Add Blueberries

Prevent heart disease. Blueberries are brimming with vitamin C, fiber and potassium. Preliminary evidence also suggests that a component in blueberries might enable cells to break down fat and cholesterol, which helps keep arteries clear. Buy the best: Year-round, you can buy frozen berries marked unsweetened.

3) Go for Broccoli

Beat cancer. A National Cancer Institute study found that people who ate three servings of vegetables a day (especially those who included a half serving of broccoli or cabbage) were 40 percent less likely to get a cancer called non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, have also been shown to lower the risk of ovarian cancer. Buy the best: Choose broccoli with floret or bud clusters that are dark green with some purple tinge.

4) Savor Sweet Potatoes

Lower your risk of stroke. These flavorful orange spuds are one of the richest sources of antioxidants (such as beta-carotene), which may help prevent heart disease, strokes and certain cancers. Sweet potatoes are also rich in fiber and immune-boosting vitamin C. Buy the best: Choose sweet potatoes that are firm and have clean, smooth skins. Don't confuse this vitamin-rich veggie for the less nutritious yam.

5) Consider Kale

Protect your eyes. Eating more kale and other dark green, leafy vegetables can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. Kale is also high in the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, which protect the eyes and can reduce the risk of cataracts. Buy the best: Look for crisp, fresh, dark-green leaves, or buy frozen, chopped kale.

From the AOL Welcome page Dec 8, 2005 taken from All You magazine

The Holidays Are Almost Here!

2005-11-20T00:42:00.000-06:00

Country Bunny Bath and Body products make wonderful gifts.

Lotion Bars and Satin Shea Body Butter are great last-minute gifts that will keep you fondly remembered for many months to come.

Premier Product sets are SUPER-NICE gifts!

Shopping Online Is Easier Than Ever

How to Shop
Country BunnyFace Collection
Body Products
Bath Products
Relaxation Products
Premier Product Sets
Country Bunny Baby
Country Bunny Kids
Hip Hop for Teens
Products for Him
Suncare Products
Gift Sets
Adopt-A-Bunny
Customer Specials

If you'd rather order by phone:

Call 1-877-66BUNNY and tell them which product and fragrance you'd like to purchase. They will ship directly to your home. Be sure to give them my number - Independent Rep # 7733.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ORDER! :D

ps - Link to this entry http://countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com/2005/11/holidays-are-almost-here.html and put a note in the comments to say you've linked. Okay? ;) Thanks!

cbunnyrep.com/7733
Countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com
http://countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com/2005/11/holidays-are-almost-here.html

Home for the holidays.

One Pot Meals

2005-11-10T23:37:00.000-06:00

How Very Strange

2005-11-07T20:02:00.000-06:00

Does anyone have any idea what this is all about?

System Time: 17:52 7 Nov 2005. Stock Ticker: Open

STATUS: All Clear - Come chat in #blogshares (Chanstats).

Country Bunny Bath and Body Rep # 7733

URL http://countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com/
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Last Updated 07:35 31 Oct 2005
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Congratulations T.O.H.R.

2005-11-06T17:20:00.000-06:00

[Update: November 19, 2005 Photos from the House Blessing for the new glbt Community Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.]

Raise the Rainbow

TOHR: A Mission of GLBT Equality

How to Donate

Volunteer

Photos by Deb! ;)

ps - Link to this entry http://countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com/2005/11/congratulations-tohr.html and put a note in the comments to say you've linked. Okay? ;) Thanks!

Thoughts on Words From Marshall's Brain...

2005-10-30T21:25:00.000-06:00

are over at JL.

"Say when!"

2005-10-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

October is almost over, and I've only posted once. It's been a busy month. Nursing school has gone from terrible to tolerable to enjoyable at times. I actually enjoy what I'm learning. The difficulty has been that the process and structure of it are hard to adjust to.

At this point, and for several weeks now, things have been okay. I know what is expected, and I am meeting those expectations as much as possible. I have tried to adapt myself to the 'nursing' way of thinking, so that I can do my papers and presentations and other written assignments in a way that is acceptable and encouraged (translated - required).

Seven weeks of school remain for this semester. I have been successful in enough requirements that I have no doubt I will continue to the next level (the next semester in the program).

"The next level" makes it sound like a video game, doesn't it? Maybe I should think of it that way. There are huge obstacles to overcome, with humans, assignments, and learning requirements all in my way. I have to negotiate my way through all that stands between where I am now and my goal (winning the game at the end of the last level, graduation).

The only problem with the video game analogy is that I don't play video games. I should probably think of a new way to describe it. Any ideas?

I did not feel supported or encouraged by faculty at the beginning of the program. That has changed gradually as the weeks have passed.

There are a few instructors who seem to be willing to talk with students and help with questions. Others answer questions, but the feeling of engagement is missing. Obviously, the ones who seem the most interested in students, and their success, are the ones who are the most helpful.

Over the course of the past ten weeks my effort, my work and my attitude have spoken on my behalf. Where I was hearing criticism and (what felt like) condescension, I am now hearing compliments and encouragement. That's a nice change.

My parents have said, "Don't say IF!" ("If I get through this semester." and "If I graduate.") Say, "When ..."

That reminds me of watching milk being poured into a plastic cup and waiting for just the right moment to say it's full enough.

"Say when!"

Thankful

2005-10-01T14:06:00.000-05:00

This is from one of those silly email chain letters, but it says something worth remembering.

I am Thankful :

FOR THE WIFE
WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT,
BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME,
AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

FOR THE HUSBAND
WHO IS ON THE SOFA
BEING A COUCH POTATO,
BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME
AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.

FOR THE TEENAGER
WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES
BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME,
NOT ON THE STREETS.

FOR THE TAXES I PAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM EMPLOYED.

FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE
BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.

FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.

FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE

FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING,
WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME.

FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

FOR THE PARKING SPOT I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT

BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING
AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .

FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I AM WARM.

FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING
BECAUSE IT MEANS
I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.

FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES
AT THE END OF THE DAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN
CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.

FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.

AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE
FRIENDS WHO ARE THINKING OF ME.

Why Fatherhood Turns You Into a Wimp

2005-09-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

What a great article! It's definitely worth reading. (The comments are good, too.)

Why Fatherhood Turns You Into a Wimp
by Trey Ellis

I’ve rock climbed and kayaked and surfed and hang glided. I’ve hitchhiked across the continent of Africa and gotten lost overnight on the side of a Guatemalan volcano. I’ve been motherless since I was sixteen and fatherless since I was twenty-two so I pride myself on my stoic resilience.

Yet now that I’m taking care of two small children I cry more easily than a seven-year-old little girl.

When I was married and they were babies I was the muscle, the typical male who carried the car seat, assembled the pack-n-play, carried them back to the car when they said they were too big for a stroller but still too little to long distance self propel. When my daughter was three and a half and my son just a half my then wife moved out. She still saw them most every afternoon and still does, however suddenly I was the one more often giving them a bath , shampooing, conditioning and braiding my daughter’s enchanted forest of hair and putting them to bed. I was the one in the mornings making them Cream of Wheat (I add raisins that when cooked get deliciously mushy) and then driving my daughter to preschool. When I look back at these past four years I have no idea how I got through it but it’s vastly easier now that she’s older and my son’s in preschool. I’ve gained so much, grown stronger than I ever thought I could -- but also much, much more soft. It hit me the other day when I was reading to my daughter and one of her best friends before school started. My daughter picked out a book called The Wednesday Surprise by Eve Bunting and I started reading. In the book, a seven-year-old and her grandmother are excited about the surprise they have planned for her father. Meanwhile they read and read and read, an hour each day. I thought an hour straight is a long time, we read before school starts for just fifteen minutes. I turned the pages but still no sign of the dad’s surprise. Finally the dad’s birthday arrives. He’s a long-haul trucker and he’s dead tired but happy. Hmm. A working-class dad in a kids’ book, I think to myself. Very cool. The grandma and the little girl tell the dad to sit down and get ready for his surprise. He does and the grandma picks out one of the children’s books and starts reading it. The mother and the father gasp and suddenly I can’t breathe either. I’m about to sob -- great, loud, heaving weeps and gasps -- in front of all the kids and all the other parents reading to their kids this morning because it was the little girl who was teaching her poor illiterate grandma to read. My daughter and her friend were absolutely unphased. I held my eyes open wide to try to catch the tears then gave up and rubbed the water into my cheeks like lotion. I realized right then that before I had kids I just didn’t care about other people as deeply as I care about them now. Now, thanks to my kids, I’m as tender as a three-inch, dry-aged filet. And I used to be kinda cool. I’d go to clubs. I’d dress in black. That’s all gone now. I swear to you that years from now, if my kids ever give me the chance, I’m going to be that insanely embarrassing old grandpa you see in the supermarket parking lot wearing a sweatshirt silkscreened with the faces of all his grandkids.

You think the Moonies are the world experts at brainwashing? They’ve got nothing over fatherhood.

BlogsNow.com

2005-09-24T15:31:00.000-05:00

BlogsNow.com

Check this out. I've recently discovered BlogsNow.com, because visitors to my 'bunny' blog have come from there.

It's a cool online tool.Here's what the guy who designed the program says about it,

" Every sixty seconds BlogsNow generates a new list of topics. Reflecting what weblogs are talking about right now. BlogsNow will show you trends and breaking news faster than any other tool. Please credit BlogsNow if you blog about links you found here.Click here for news about BlogsNow in my weblog.Andreas
Wacker · andreas@blogsnow.com "

To read the complete post, visit this entry over at Julien's List.

A Family of Artists Picks Up the Pieces

2005-09-18T17:03:00.000-05:00

This was an interesting interview. A family of artists lost everything in the hurricane. You can listen to it at npr.org. (Click the link for the title to get to the page with the recorded interview.)

All Things Considered, September 18, 2005
by Debbie Elliott

Tracy Wahl, NPR

Pottery left mostly intact by Katrina offers temporary decoration for a storm-battered wall at Shearwater.

Since the 1920s, a family of artists have made their home at Shearwater, a complex overlooking Mississippi's Biloxi Bay. Perhaps most famous is the late Walter Inglis Anderson, known for vibrant watercolors of Gulf Coast landscapes. His two brothers were potters, and a fourth generation of the family carries on the Shearwater pottery tradition.

Hurricane Katrina swept through Shearwater, taking out nine family homes and six other buildings, and severely damaging a pottery workshop that had been in operation since 1928.

Mary Anderson Pickard, one of Walter Anderson's four children, was among those who lost a Shearwater home. Since then, she and her family members have dug though broken shards of decorative pottery, hoping to salvage what they can.

Some of Walter Anderson's work is housed at a museum in Ocean Springs, Miss., that survived the storm. But the family's treasured private collection... full of writings, paintings and linoleum blocks... was kept at Shearwater in a special vault. And it didn't fare as well.

Hmmmm

2005-09-15T00:32:00.000-05:00

Laughter Is Contagious

2005-09-14T23:15:00.000-05:00

If you enjoy a play by play story, where the storyteller is laughing all the way through, check this out.

This is a phone message from a Dallas, TX morning radio show. The caller started out telling his friend he was on his way to meet him. Then, he witnessed a fender-bender.

Since it happened right in front of him, he watched the whole scene unfold.

- Guy clips a car full of 'little old ladies'.
- Guy gets out and approaches the car he just hit.
- Guy's body language says it was the other driver's fault.

- Little old ladies attack.

The guy telling the story laughs harder and harder as the story progresses. It's hard not to at least smile while listening to it.

I've listened to it several times now.

Introducing Myself to Ms. Julien's List

2005-09-14T07:30:00.000-05:00

As the newest contributor to Julien's List, I was asked to introduce myself. This is what I wrote:

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

New Kid On the Block

I'm the new kid on this block. I feel like I'm the scrawny kid, or the little kid, among the heavyweights. No, I'm not talking about physical attributes! But, I'm delighted to be here.

I'm in the middle of a long stretch in school, working towards a career change. I realized a couple of years ago that it was time to think about going to nursing school. Since then, I've been taking prerequisites and corequisites. Now, I'm in my fourth week of a two-year program. Maybe saying that to more and more people will help me keep my eyes on the goal.

Ms. J has been asking when I'd be writing my introductory post. I asked if I could copy a recent post from my bunny blog, and she gave the okay.

Here's my post from yesterday on my blog:
(On Julien's List, I quoted my entry from yesterday. Here, just look below for my entry from yesterday.)

The End of Politics As We Know It

2005-09-13T06:12:00.000-05:00

The End of Politics As We Know It?

Okay, not really.

But I am moving my comments, links and quotes over to Julien's List.

Well ... not moving existing comments, links and quotes ... but, future comments, links and quotes that are political in nature will appear where they belong, with other political commentary.

Henceforth (I just like the word, it invokes an image of a man in purple tights reading from a scroll held at arms length ... a good fairytale image), this blog shall be as it was originally intended.. a BUNNY BLOG.

Well ... except for comments about medical things and whatever else comes to mind! ;)

But, for sure, my plan is to take my political views elsewhere.

This little Bunny Blog should be for things that smell good and feel wonderful, not for politics (which doesn't smell good no matter what you believe).

I actually prefer to view the things that concern me politically as being about justice and morality. But, I know there are others, who believe differently than I, who believe they are the ones talking about what is right.

Fortunately, we citizens of these United States are all (most of us anyway) allowed to speak our minds without being arrested for it (most of the time anyway). There are exceptions to this, but to a large degree, it still exists.

I would like to see the day when we all can live with justice and mercy, compassion and acceptance, celebrating the diversity of the citizens of this great country and embracing and valuing our differences, knowing that in our understanding and acceptance of our differences we will find some of our greatest strengths.

When we, both individually and as a nation, learn to love and respect all of our people, then we will be caring for ourselves individually, and as a nation, in the greatest possible way.

Well ... Wow! ... I've Been Invited to Contribute to Julien's List

2005-09-11T01:27:00.000-05:00

I read Julien's List almost every day. I've quoted from it a few times recently. I mentioned to Ms. Julien (via email) that I've become a little uncomfortable with posting so many political things on my personal 'bunny blog', since I originally intended for it to be totally about the wonderful bath and body products I sell. She agreed. Then, she shocked me by inviting me to be a guest contributor on her web log. Wow!

Ms. Julien is an impressive woman. She's educated, articulate, successful, and brave. Those are a few of her attributes. She speaks out for the rights of those who are under fire by many of the decision-makers in our government and by those who hold a kind of power over their followers by claiming that their personal views come directly from God.

This is from one of her recent posts, a copy of her letter to the Governor of California.

Hello Governor,

I am writing to respectfully ask that when you consider whether or not to approve the bill for same-sex unions, you please keep in mind that the human lives you will hurt, perhaps forever, by siding with people who hate others simply because they love differently...Simply because they love differently...but they DO love, Governor. They have a need to be protected in
their love, and in their families.

My other half is a physician, and is being courted by a major CA medical center to provide a unique combination of trauma, critical care, and vascular surgery. She is being courted by several other hospitals in the nation. One of our major decision-making factors will be the outcome of this decision. I know in the scheme of things this is not a proverbial "big deal" but to see California being the first state in the nation to have a same-sex marriage law passed by the legislature, and then to have it not allowed, paving the way for further discrimination on behalf of hate groups, would just not make the state an enticing place to live.

Loving differently should not preclude being allowed to love fully.

Thank you.

I feel honored to have been invited to participate in Julien's List.

Is It Just Me, or Does It Bother Other People, Too ...

2005-09-10T08:21:00.000-05:00

Why is it that as soon as the photojournalists were banned from New Orleans, and not allowed to photograph the bodies or the retrieval of the bodies, there are suddenly LOTS of articles saying there are fewer bodies than expected? (Does "fewer bodies" = "not really as bad as people thought, so what are you complaining about?")

I hope the "fewer bodies" word coming out of the city is true. I hope more people escaped than has been feared.

Today, I'm posting Only Good News and Heartwarming Stories

2005-09-09T00:28:00.000-05:00

This letter is published with the permission of the author. She asked only that I include her disclaimer that she is "not a Red Cross spokesperson nor an authority ... I simply wanted to share my experiences." And, she said, "I just wanted everyone to know that these peoples only fault was that they were poor. So many had tragic, horrific stories to tell, but nearly all could still smile and were positive in there outlook. I fell in love with each and everyone as soon as I met them."

Here is her account of her experience with some of those who came to Oklahoma after the storm:

Subject: Camp Gruber Report from Tulsa Peace Fellowship member

Hello Friends and Family:

Just wanted to share a bit about Camp Gruber. Dennis and I, as Red Cross Disaster Action Team Volunteers, worked there from 1:00 p.m. Saturday through 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Those sixteen hours were an eye opener.

Thirty-nine buses of evacuees started arriving around 10:00 p.m., about 2,000 people of every age and walk of life. First they were triaged by doctors and nurses, with some going to area hospitals. I heard that their were a few deaths before the buses reached us, but I haven't confirmed that.

The ones that needed minor treatment or could wait until the next day were registered and assigned to a dorm, a former army barracks. Dennis headed up a men's dorm where he eventually helped about 240 men find a place to stay. I headed the women with special needs dorm, elderly women, women with mobility problems, and other health issues.

Our mission was to reassure them, get them fed, showered, in clean clothes, and in bed. What our actual major mission turned out to be was to listen, cry, and hug.

In my own experience, I and my helpers welcomed each woman to our dorm, helped her shower, got her some clean clothes and a plate of hot lasagna, and let her pick out which bed she wanted.

As we brought each woman into the room they were just amazed that these metal army beds with clean white sheets were for their use. They had a difficult time realizing that we asked nothing of them but to let us get them some fresh clothing and something to eat. Most would not sit down on the bed until they had a shower, and several were reluctant to exit that warm shower.

You see, some of these people had been on that bus for several days, and none had bathed since last Monday or Tuesday. They had waded and swam through that contaminated water up to their necks, cut holes in roofs to escape their homes (60 and 70 year old women), slept out of doors on top of bridges, inside and outside of the Super Dome, and had generally survived in conditions that we can't even imagine, and seen things that I don't care to repeat.

They wanted to talk. We listened. And listened. And cried. They stories they told were horrendous, and I will never forget their words and faces. I sit crying as I type these words. But almost to the last one, they had tales of courage, and hope, of people helping each other, or of funny things they encountered.

These strangers to each other chose beds next to new friends and shared what they had left of their lives. The fortunate ones had a garbage bag with a few pieces of soiled clothing. Some had only the small toiletry bag issued to them when they arrived.

Each thing was so precious to them and they expressed so much gratitude for what we, as Oklahoman's were doing. They were so thankful to be in a safe, secure place, until they can figure out what to do now. They were concerned for us and telling us that we looked tired and needed to rest.

Some of these people will only be there a few days, just needing to be in one location long enough to notify friends and relatives were they are so that they can be taken in. Others might take longer.

Most not only lost all of their possessions, and sometimes family, they no longer have jobs to go to since the city will not be functioning in the foreseeable future. They must find work to be able to support their families again.

These buses had been turned away from several locations on their way to us. The Tulsa Red Cross had a little over a day to mobilize and find a place for these displaced people.

A couple of ladies told me that they didn't like Texas (actually that is an understatement) and that the people were mean to them and wouldn't let them stay. And then one lady told of a man outside of Dallas that saw the buses and bought a breakfast for each and every one of them.

They could not stop talking. It was 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning before the last one finally went to bed. You didn't need to say much, just listen, pat a shoulder, hold a hand, or give a hug.

One woman was kind of quiet and I went over to sit on her bed, during a not-so-busy moment, and tried to get her to talk to me. She started telling me that she hadn't spoken with her 8 year old grandson since Monday. She said that he knew her cell phone number and that all of the family had been coordinating with a sister in another state, but that no one had heard from this little boy, and then she broke down in tears.

As we stood there with arms around each other crying, I tried to give her what reassurances that I could, telling her that one of the things the Red Cross does best is reuniting family members. I only hope I have told her the truth.

I watched people, old, young, families, and a few pets, standing in line for clean, new, and used clothing for hours, finally coming away with new flip-flops, a t-shirt or two and some shorts or pants. As I walked by this block long line while picking up some things for my women, I tried to take a moment to smile and say a few kinds words to many. This was their first impression of our state and they kept commenting on how nice and friendly we were. I told them that they were now honorary Oklahomans so they had better get used to it.

Dennis's experiences were similar to mine but with many more people, and some angry over all that they had endured. I think that he handled things in an expert way, diffusing volatile situations with kind words that they hadn't heard from anyone in many days.

He said that when he spoke softly and kindly to them he could see the anger and despair drain from their faces. He listened to many of their tragic stories and empathized as much as he could.

We bought some baseballs on the way to Braggs and when he would see someone starting to get upset he would throw them a baseball or football to them and their faces would light up that someone was giving them something to do and entrusting them with a possession for that dorm to share.

I know that I've written a lot, so I will try to get to my point. Maybe I just needed to tell you some of these things.

What the Red Cross DOES NOT need: Clothing and food Don't clean out your closet and donate your baby blue polyester Leisure Suit. No one wants it.

What the Red Cross DOES need:

Money and volunteers The volunteers are generally working 12 hour shifts, but they will take you for whatever time that you have to spare and put you to productive work.

MAKE A DONATION: You can call the Tulsa Area Chapter at 831-1100 to volunteer or donate money or go online to www.tulsaredcross.org. Checks may be mailed to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, PO Box 995, Tulsa, OK 74182-0001.

Remember that you can designate that you want your money to go to the Quatrain Disaster, Fort Gruber, or you can just donate generally.

The reason for this is that even though they need money for the disaster, they still have to meet the needs of their other clients, such as house fires and other local people that need to be taken care of.

With money, they can buy the exact things that they need rather than have things given to them that they can't use.

DONATE BLOOD. Blood is always at a premium. You can donate blood every 56 days and it takes about an hour. I know. I do that very thing every two months. Blood has a shelf life, so what is given at a certain time will have to be replenished after so many weeks. There are two locations to donate in Tulsa, on Memorial between 71st and 81st street and on 11th street and highway 169. You can call 831-1100 to make an appointment or just walk in. There is usually very little waiting.

A few small things that some asked for that could probably be contributed, but call the Red Cross to make arrangements:

Board games, cards, good books, late issue magazines and newspapers - These people will need something to do. Sports equipment, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls, Nerf balls, etc. (for the adults, the kids have lots of toys) -

Same reason as above some of the older women asked for crochet hooks and yarn,nail clippers, shower caps.

NEW men's athletic shoes, especially in larger sizes, 9 - 13, they can probably use several hundred pair (does anyone know of shoes stores with last years styles that they would donate?)

NEW shower shoes - flip flops, again, several hundred pair (most people had sores and cuts on their feet that have to be treated from wading through nasty water.

Thanks for listening to me. Rae

I would also like to recommend OBI, the Oklahoma Blood Institute. They will accept your donation of blood, plasma, or platelets. Call Janet, at 918-477-0413 for more information about how to donate with OBI. - Deb

Julien's List

2005-09-08T23:53:00.000-05:00

I don't even know where to start to tell you what to read from Julien's List. You could easily spend half an hour or more just reading through entries and the articles and visiting the blogs they refer to.

Barbara B's Comments About the Refugees From Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-08T23:40:00.000-05:00

Remember when she said this?
One thing is for sure. She has a way with words.

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths ...? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Barbara Bush

Now, she has spoken again ... to radio people ... so, she said to us all. Read about it in the Drudge Report (quoted below).

BUSH MOM: EVERYONE WANTS TO MOVE TO TEXAS
Drudge Report ^ 9/5/05 Matt Drudge

Posted on 09/05/2005 5:19:27 PM PDT by wagglebee

Former first lady and mother to President Bush said Monday that evacuees from New Orleans have found a home in Houston.
"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston," Barbara Bush told NPR.

"What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckles slightly)--this is working very well for them."

Editor & Publisher notes the former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.

The President's Photo Op Was the Most Important Matter at Hand

2005-09-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

I received a copy of this letter today through an email list. The note said this letter was sent by a listener to the Diane Rhem Show. There was no signature. (The allegations in this letter are things I've already heard a number of times from a number of sources, including a similar story by a friend whose brother tried to deliver 3,000 meals to survivors and was denied access.)

"Dear Diane Reams,

Supporters of President Bush are quick to accuse anyone asking questions about FEMA and Homeland Security of playing "the blame game". That tactic is simply a phony attempt to cover up incompetence or other more sinister motives that give me chills to think about.

Last Thursday I was trying to locate a good friend. In the process I began to realize that the Red Cross did not have any information, were not yet moving forward with rescue or relief effort and were pretty much chasing their tails. I told one lady that all my life (66 years) I had seen the Red Cross be prompt and first on the scene even before a storm had played itself out.

Why were they still not going into New Orleans? She said it was because FEMA would not let them in. FEMA was physically blocking the way. Someone from FEMA told them they were waiting for the President to arrive so he could go in with the convoy of aid.

Does that mean thousands of people were begging for a drink of water and some food with hundreds dying so Bush could have a photo op? The thought of this makes me sick from head to toe. Everyone knows Bush was in California politicking where some musician was presenting him with a guitar.

Then Saturday night on a radio talk show a Ham Radio operator called in to say that Ham Radio Operators were blocked from providing emergency communications by FEMA. Ham radio operators have provided emergency communications for people all over the world since the beginning of radio.

It is a tradition. They were informed by FEMA that if they proceeded with communications attempts their signals would be jammed."

The Diane Rehm Show is an interview show that airs locally on 89.5FM weekday mornings. I have not been able to find the letter (above) on her site, but here's the official link to the Diane Rheme Show. And, here's the information about the 10am topic today:

10:00 Economic Implications of Hurricane Katrina
Last week's storm on the Gulf Coast highlighted what some see as a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in our society. A look at the some of the economic and policy implications of Hurricane Katrina.

If We Don't See the Dead, Maybe We Can Ignore How Little They Care

2005-09-08T09:45:00.000-05:00

Why do we accept it? We have to go to news organizations from other countries to see more of the truth. Be warned, the photos are not pretty. No wonder those who chose to play golf, shop for shoes, and vacation want us not to see the aftermath of the disaster they tried to ignore.

A Reuter's article is below telling how FEMA is limiting news media access to what's going on in New Orleans.

FEMA accused of censorship
By Deborah ZabarenkoWed Sep 7, 4:27 PM ET

When U.S. officials asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, they were censoring a key part of the disaster story, free speech watchdogs said on Wednesday.

The move by the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war, media monitors said in separate telephone interviews.

"It's impossible for me to imagine how you report a story whose subject is death without allowing the public to see images of the subject of the story," said Larry Siems of the PEN American Center, an authors' group that defends free expression.

U.S. newspapers, television outlets and Web sites have featured pictures of shrouded corpses and makeshift graves in New Orleans.
But on Tuesday, FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space need in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead.

In an e-mail explaining the decision, a FEMA spokeswoman wrote: "The recovery of victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect and we have requested that no photographs of the deceased by made by the media."

Efforts to recover bodies continued on Wednesday. Out in the city's filthy waters, rescue teams tied bodies to trees or fences when they found them and noted the location for later recovery before carrying on in search of survivors.

Rebecca Daugherty of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press found this stance inexplicable.

"The notion that, when there's very little information from FEMA, that they would even spend the time to be concerned about whether the reporting effort is up to its standards of taste is simply mind-boggling," Daugherty said. "You cannot report on the disaster and give the public a realistic idea of how horrible it is if you don't see that there are bodies as well."

'INVITATION TO CHAOS'

FEMA's policy of excluding media from recovery expeditions in New Orleans is "an invitation to chaos," according to Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a part of Columbia University's journalism school.

"This is about managing images and not public taste or human dignity," Rosenstiel said. He said FEMA's refusal to take journalists along on recovery missions meant that media workers would go on their own.

Rosenstiel also noted that U.S. media, especially U.S. television outlets, are generally reluctant to show corpses.

"By and large, American television is the most sanitized television in the world," he said. "They are less likely to show bodies, they are less likely to show graphic images of the dead than any television in the world."

There is also a question of what the American PEN Center's Siems called "international equity," noting that American news outlets cover stories around the world showing the effects of natural disasters and wars in graphic detail.

"How is the world going to look at us if we go into their part of the world and we broadcast these images and we do not allow ourselves to look at such images when they're right in our own midst?" Siems said.

Mark Tapscott, a former editor at the Washington Times newspaper who now deals with media issues at the Heritage Foundation, said the FEMA decision did not amount to censorship.

"Let's not make a common decency issue into a censorship issue," Tapscott said. "Nobody wants to wake up in the morning and see their dead uncle on the front page. That's just common decency."

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

Hard Questions by Karen Zipdrive

2005-09-08T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'm quoting again. Karen asks some hard questions and expresses her feelings about some of what has happened, and she doesn't sugar-coat things. Don't read this if you prefer not to wonder why it took so long for rescue efforts to begin or if you don't want to hear it in an angry voice.

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

The U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.WHY?

And, don't read this if you think people should not swear when they're angry. Ms. Z has a way with words. (I'm even too much of a wimp to post her comments as she wrote them on this blog. I've cut away a few times. Please click the links to catch the points where I wimped out, 'cause I left out important points.)

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Louisiana Is a RED State...and other rants--

Well, Bush has proven once and for all, even to the red states, that he's nothing more than a tool of big business and big money and couldn't care less about ... (more)

True Christians, you know, the ones who equate Christ with peace and think all people are his children? Yeah, them. They should sue Bush and his band of phony Jesus freaks for defamation of character and ruining their religion's image by co-opting and using the name of Jesus as a facade for being hate-filled, racist, xenophobic, war mongering, money worshiping, Saudi loving, bought-off, dirty fucking liars.Now when someone tells me they are Christian and don't immediately add, 'but I can't stand Bush,' I just think they are ... (more)

--Having volunteered lately with Hurricane Katrina evacuees who are primarily African American, keeping track of their kids is a lot easier when their names are not Azzelle, La Fawnda, Damore, Dionysseus, Shayiqua, Mohiquah, Tonika, Antonellique, Shakamalik and those damn 20 versions of the way they spell Shawniqua.Holy Christ, at one point I was tasked with signing little kids into the recreation area, and when a 6-year-old is trying to write out his 30-letter first name and cot number in green Crayola, I get antsy as hell after the first five or 10 minutes.Finally, I just grabbed the Crayola from the three dozen Shawniquas and signed them in with, "SHQA, Cot 912."

--Louisiana is a red state, and black voters were starting to lean toward the right. Ha! Not anymore. (more)

--I shared a smoke break outside with one of the few white couples I'd met at the shelter. The man said- in his N'awlins drawl- that even though he was a union man, he had voted for Bush.Then he took a long puff off his cigarette, exhaled and said, "But I tell you what, that old Bush needs to get his ass whupped for lettin' us standing up there on our roof two days."We was on the roof of a $200,000 house that costs about 12 dollahs now, and where was he?"Then his wife said, "I never did like him and I never voted for him, and now (pointing at her husband) he knows that he was hoodwinked!"

--Several of the evacuees seemed freaked out to discover that many of the 90% white volunteers in San Antonio said they thought Bush was a crooked, lying, racist, too. They were expecting all those Neo-Con Texas Jesus freaks to be there volunteering. Ha! As if! Texas Bush Christians do not work 9 to 5 jobs; they play golf and bark orders at their minions from their homes or cell phones. Their wives attend Al-Anon meetings in between flower arrangement and cooking classes.They do not wade between acres of green canvas cots and pass out hair pomades, picks and clean jockey shorts to Negroes- that's something their husbands might send their mid-management level staff to do for one afternoon, but they'd better be wearing T-shirts bearing their company logos so the group photo looks good in their monthly newsletter.

--The parking lot for volunteers was not filled with Range Rovers, Benzes, Escalades and shiny new Ford F-350 pickups with V8 engines, but it was filled with 10-year-old Hondas and Corollas, a couple of Prius's, and several well-worn Escorts, Cavaliers, Neons and other middle to lower middle class rides.Sure, there were a few nice SUV's and minivans parked there, because nurses and doctors volunteered by the dozens. But they weren't part of Bush's base, that's for goddamn sure.

--Everyone has seen Mayor Naglin and Governor Blanco speak out with great passion and forthright candor. Fuck P.C. platitudes! They cussed and they explained in plain language where and how the feds fucked up, got caught, then lied about it.Who you gonna believe, them or the team who brought you stratospheric gas prices, faux WMD's, war with Iraq, deficits, global warming ignorance, stem cell is baby killing, the jury's still out on evolution, weakened National Guard response and the world's worst bureaucratic clusterfuck, the Department of Homeland Security?

--Hello, Media? Time to start (more) And Fox News? There IS NO good news to put a Bush-sunny spin on. The streets along the Gulf Coast are fetid, steaming, filthy streams of diseased, stinking SLIME.Hundreds of thousands of people who earned less than $8,000 a year are dead, dying, sick or just shit out of luck. Report THAT.-Hello, Democrats?The time to stop being (more)

--Some people tell me to calm down when I start getting political, even Democrats.I tell them, (more)- skip the diplomacy and pleas for passive restraint. (more)

note- Too many bleeps here, and I didn't even remove all the FCC's forbidden words. (Yes, I realize this is not a radio show.) Visit Ms.Z's blog for for a mix of humor and anger as she talks about politics in the USA.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

FEMA: Led by Bush's Good Buddy ...

Just in case you aren't aware that Bush chose his woefully inexperienced college pal Michael Brown to head FEMA, maybe you also need to know that Brown took the job after being fired for ineptitude and "alleged" improprieties while managing a horse breeding farm.

Yes, you read that right.

Brown couldn't oversee horses knocking up other horses. It was just too hard to master.

So get a load of this. (more)

.... aw, just visit Karen yourself, and read her daily rants. :)

I Must Quote Joel Again Today

2005-09-06T23:00:00.000-05:00

Here's what Joel has to say today:

The Pound and the Fury

I started writing an article about being bipolar amid Katrina, but found that I had nothing to say. Someone dug a gritty hole in the air using a leaf blower. The computer hummed in a blanketing, electronic sort of way. And in the face of all the righteously wrathful blogging about the catastrophe following the disaster, the words I found for my feelings were too steady, like a punt being pushed through a greenish bayou in a calmer season.

When you have a mood disorder, people like to say that it is all in your head. They’re absolutely right. The chemical imbalances that cause bipolar illness happen in the brain. They say that you shouldn’t be feeling like you do. A friend of mine likes to say “My psychiatrist agrees. That’s why he has me on medications.”

Excuses for bad behavior or willful neglect come easily to those who exist within the narrow parameters of “normal” moods. It has been with mixed feelings these past nine or ten days that I have watched as the bulk of Americans who have no clue what it means to live with a mood disorder have received a big taste of what it feels to be the utter thrall of your emotions.

My fellow bipolars may be doing many things at this time. Some cooly go about their lives, realizing that watching too much of the news — especially the doubletalk and outright prevarications of this maladministration — will only flick them into an episode. So they turn off their televisions and their radios. Others wallow in bed, too weak and tired to rise. They have stopped hearing the reports. They lie in darkness. Still others have jumped into mania — another common reaction to stress. Moved by deep feelings, they have joined in blood drives and given to the Red Cross. These behaviors may be driven by what some call “a sense of purpose” and what we who know them in another way “grandiosity”. Despite the pathological basis of the actions, they do good. As a voice of experience, I merely caution that they observe their moods and take time out for themselves.

Religiosity is another common symptom of mania. I have seen a few lambast FEMA’s response in terms suiting an Old Testament prophet such as Jeremiah or my namesake Joel. Yet what has been most disturbing is that the media has granted the most attention to those who attempt to cast the natural disaster into a biblical plague where God unleashed this storm to punish gays and lesbians. While no fan of the kind of hedonism — homosexual or heterosexual — that takes place in The Big Easy from time to time, I must righteously stand against the kooks who fashion every calamity to meet their own political ends.

Such talk is sly, corrupt, and wicked. A real prophet, I feel, would be joining those calling for justice for the poor. New Orleans was neither Sodom nor Gomorrah. Churches lined the streets outside of the French Quarter. If God meant to punish the wicked, He did one sloppy job because the bulk of the victims were the poor and religious — God’s especially beloved people.

Now I am lost because the wrath pushes me to the brink of my consciousness. The maps that turn Katrina into a rainbow storm, the pictures of bodies floating in Lake Ponchartrain, the stories of the fake food distribution stations conspire to file me down into a nub. What more can I add to the wails of indignation and anger? In the face of catastrophe, the failures of the Right present us with absurd reasoning. When we say that FEMA could have done better, they tell us that nobody could have stopped this storm. As if we rejected that obvious fact.

Psychotically, it is they who reject the facts: that FEMA failed to heed the warnings of Lousiana’s governor and New Orleans’ mayor; that National Guard units who could have been helping the victims were away in Iraq; that even though journalists were regularly shuttling in and out of the city, the federal response team kept telling us that there was no way in. And there is the big message coming out of the wacko Right: that we cannot expect any government to be able to help us in time of crisis. So we have to be able to help ourselves or we must perish.

We who suffer from mood disorders for years have heard similar words: that it is entirely up to us to fix our minds using only our powers of intellect. Some of us drink or take drugs to numb the feelings at the end of a long day so we can pretend to be stable the rest of the time. Others try to live through the feelings, endlessly enriching the publishing industry by buying self-help books. And yet, some of us don’t listen to the lies. We accept that it is through cooperation that we survive. Cooperation takes many forms: our medications, support groups, hospitals. If we are poor, we endure bad patient care from county agencies and drug prices which are beyond what we can pay. Now we watch the rest of America, unmedicated, tempted to surrender to the lies because they cannot stand the pound and the fury inside their heads. And, sadly, lithium won’t help them.

MORE: I tend to see more liberals than conservatives in bipolar support groups. Yet in the media, I see plenty of examples of it in wingnut pundits and Fundamentalist preachers. My suspicion is that it pays to be bipolar and reactionary, that there are plenty of wealthy people willing to support the mentally ill when they are willing to act as apologists for the oligarchy. Liberals find themselves cast out simply because they are not politically correct. Only in politics, it seems, does codependency aid the codependent. For a short time.

MORE: I haven’t heard much news about the fate of patients in mental hospitals and psychiatric wards. Were they left to drown? Last spring I attended a conference here in Orange which talked about how FEMA planned to help the mentally ill in the event of a natural disaster. How many schizophrenics were left to talk to undines in the turbulent waters? How many maniacs were permitted to attempt to fly over the waves?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2005 @ 3:18 pm on the category Disasters, Mania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Thank you, Joel.

The Amazing Karen Zipdrive's Touching Story

2005-09-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

These two entries (below), were copied directly from Karen Zipdrive's web page, and tell her personal story about meeting some New Orleans refugees in her home city San Antonio.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Seven-thousand-five Hundred Amazingly Graceful Souls

My life changed today.

Heading to Kelly USA in a caravan of four cars this morning to see how we could help the largest Hurricane Katrina evacuee center in San Antonio, we walked into a building filled with 7,500 homeless, stunned, hungry men, women and children of all ages who have literally lost everything.

I'd say 95 percent of them were African American.

San Antonio is roughly 50 percent Hispanic, 40 percent Anglo and 10 percent African American, Asian and other ethnicities.

But today, San Antonio's Kelly USA was 100 percent American, and ethnicity didn't matter one bit, not to the evacuees and not to the volunteers.

One hundred percent of our welcome guests from New Orleans were polite, expressed lavish gratitude and waited patiently in blocks long lines for meals, tetanus shots, social security advice, insurance information and medical care.

I saw no angry faces, heard no voices raised and saw no aggression of any kind.

All morning, I cuddled with little children between 2 and 6 while their exhausted mothers, fathers and other adult guardians took showers, searched for clothes or otherwise took care of adult, parental and family business.

The children were sweet, affectionate and mannerly. I bonded with maybe eight or 10 of the little ones and kept running into them from room to room, always having them rush up to me for a hug or a little attention.
Around 10 a.m. I met a young man named Rahim, a 13-year-old with the most extraordinary dignity and maturity I have ever seen in a kid that age.

We sat down and he told me his story.

I am too emotionally spent right now to describe the way this kid told me his absolutely traumatizing story and how he managed to keep his composure like the Dali Lama the whole while.

But I will as soon as I can.

To be continued...

Monday, September 05, 2005

Rahim Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Dali Lama Ramma Jamma
(and the other kid in Cot J-26)

Okay, the kid was named Rahim, but when this dignified little 13-year-old man told me he had been planning to play junior high football this season before Katrina ruined his school, I said, "Whoa, man, you're in Spurs country here, let's talk this over."

I asked Rahim, who resembles child actor Emmanuel Lewis if he were normal sized, if he'd like to sit with me and chat.

We sat at a table in Kelly USA's huge recreation room, filled with recently vacated tables the other kids had left to line up for lunch.

I said, "When's your birthday?"

He said, "November 7th."

"No way. That's my brother Billy's birthday. That makes you a Scorpio," I said.

He raised his eyebrows, curious about what that might mean.

I said, "Lemme see, that makes you a naturally curious type, like a spy or a secret agent who loves to solve mysteries."

He smiled and said, "How'd you know that?"

I told him I had a degree in Scorpiology.

"But let's go over this football plan first, okay?" I asked.

"Okay," he said.

I said, "How tall is your daddy?"

"He's 6'4"."

"Okay then, you'll probably grow up to be about 6'6" and stay lean. That means a running back or some fast position in football, but you know The Man only lets the white boys play quarterback, right?"

He laughed and said, "Mmm-hmm."

"Yeah," I said, "In football, those giant tackles and guards go after you lean, fast types. You want three or four giant fat boys jumping on you every day in practice?"

He pondered it a moment, then looked at me and said, "Go on..."

"Now, you are a good lookin' boy, right?

He smiled and looked down, bashfully.

"How are the chicks gonna see your beautyliciousness if you're all trussed into padded spandex and all helmeted with your face covered?
"No sir, when you're on the b-ball court, those hotties will see that face and those long legs and biceps and triceps and they'll say... what?"

"I don't know, what?" he said.

"They'll say, 'Mmm, mmm, mmm, look at that Rahim, he hot.

"Not to mention, NFL players get good pay- but NBA players get Superstar pay. Now with your looks and a Superstar's money...can you say, 'Supermodel, riding to your mansion in your Benz with you?' "

He smiled and said, "You have a point there, Miss."

So I said, "Okay, then it's settled. You'll play junior high and high school b-ball, then you get a full basketball scholarship to pay for your college.
"In fact, you've even got a perfect NBA name, Rahim."

He laughed and said, "You can call me Rahim Kareem Abdul Jabbar, then."

"Okay, Rahim Kareem Abdul Jabbar, now that we have that settled, what will you study in college just in case the NBA doesn't work out?"

He said, "Got any ideas?"

I said, "Lemme see here, you love mysteries, you love to investigate things, how about becoming a detective, or even a federal agent?

"You see, son, a black man in this country drives down the road, minding his business and a cop can pull him over and shake him down just for the heck of it. Right?"

"Oh, yeah," he said.

So I said, "But when Detective Rahim Kareem Abdul Jabbar rolls down the window on his Benz, he looks at the cop and says, 'Sure, you can see my license, officer, I got it right here, under my GOLD SHIELD."

Then I mimed the cop sliding back away from his car, saying, "Oh, sorry Detective, my mistake, sir."

He laughed like hell at the thought of that scene.

After we had bantered like that for a few minutes, I asked, "Would you like to tell me how you came to be here in San Antonio?"

His posture got straighter, his smile faded and he said, "Yes, nobody has asked me that yet."

It seems Rahim was in his grandfather's house that awful day with his grandparents, his mother and his younger brother, a 9-year-old in recent remission from leukemia.

He and his brother had been playing a video game on their TV when the power went off.

His grandfather suggested they play cards, at the table by the window.
Rahim had repositioned his chair, and when he put his feet back down, he felt water slosh up through the carpeting.

He told his grandfather, who looked out the window and saw water rushing down what had been their street.

Quickly, Rahim hoisted himself into the attic, where he had the presence of mind to dislodge the vent fan and squeeze himself up through the opening to get to the roof.

He looked up and down the river that had been his street and saw a boat flowing toward the house.

He cried out for help.

The boat driver said he'd come back around, and to gather up the rest of the family, quick.

Rahim jumped back into the attic and called for his family to get up there. As they climbed the ladder, Rahim took the time to bust out the dormer window in the attic and clear all the sharp glass away before the family reached the attic.

One by one, Rahim and his family jumped off the roof into the river below, then swam to the rescue boat and climbed aboard.

The boat taxied them to the nearest street still above water and dropped them all off.

From there, they walked 12 miles to the Superdome, which by then was already filled to capacity.

So, for two days, Rahim and his family lived on the sidewalk outside the Superdome, without toilet facilities, minimal food and water, and watching people die in the sweltering mugginess of the post hurricane weather. His brother was weak. They worried he might be too weak from chemo and radiation to survive the elements.

While his grandfather was walking around the crowded, squalid sidewalks of the Superdome looking for food, a bus came to take a crowd including Rahim, his grandmother, mother and brother to San Antonio's Kelly USA. It was now or never and they had to leave- without his grandfather.

His eyes misted at that point, but he inhaled deeply and continued his story.

He didn't mention that all his family had on that San Antonio-bound bus were the clothes on their backs. I had to ask.

After hearing that, I remembered the three boxes of clothes and shoes I had gathered the day before to take to the tented collection area my goofy friends had mentioned. Turned out the collection tents were not a collection site, it was a fuckin' Labor Day barbecue cookoff.

Once Rahim had told me his story, I took him out to the vending machine and bought him a Coke. On the floor near the machine were his mother, grandmother and brother, huddled together in stunned silence.

I introduced myself to them, saying what a fine boy Rahim was.
Then I asked if one of them could accompany Rahim and me out to my car to select some new clothes for their family to wear.

Kelly USA had a clothing area but it was disorganized, stuffy, crowded and filled with clothes a hobo would scoff at. I mean, who the hell would donate a tuxedo jacket to hurricane victims in the 100º summer weather of South Texas?

Anyway, at my car, I gave them all the best stuff: the J Crew T-shirts, the Liz Claiborne casual wear, the outgrown Discovery channel's special safari shorts I paid a fortune for- back when I had a personal trainer, a full client roster and could afford such frivolities.

Rahim was so amped up over the Discovery channel, steel gray, vented pocket, hidden zippered compartment, totally cool shorts made of high tech ripstop nylon and other fancy shit, he actually slipped them on between the open front and back doors of my car.

The color matched the banded collar and cuffs of his bright orange T-shirt perfectly.

There's nothing like a hot new outfit to boost the morale of a handsome boy.

My heart was pounding from the joy his broad smile gave me. His grandmother was praising God as she carried away an armload of other stuff.

The kid had just crawled out of Hell, yet this simple exchange made both of us feel like we had formed a lasting bond.

I would have adopted him on the spot had he not had a strong mother and loving grandparents.

As the day wore on, a giant Catholic church service was about to start. I took that as a sign that it was time for me to go. As the Archbishop and his nun groupies were arriving, I was leaving.

Unless they were carrying in a trunk filled with cash, I wasn't interested in hearing any sermons.

On the way out, I paused in the hot sun to watch a group of high school age boys playing a pickup game of hoops. One kid had a long range shot sweeter than Robert Horry's.

I said, "You boys are in Spurs country now- better kick your game up a notch! I wanna see some above the rim play- this ain't the N'awlins Hornets up in here."

So the kid with the sweet 3-point shot got the ball, plowed through three aggressive defenders in the paint and launched a perfect slam dunk...wayyyy above the rim.

I told him he'd just won one of my vintage Spurs championship T-shirts. I got his cot number and wrote myself a reminder to bring it to him when I could.

I could tell many more stories of people I met yesterday, but I haven't got time.

I am heading back out there today to pitch in again.

I'm taking that Spurs T-shirt, neatly folded and wrapped in tissue. The kid in cot J-26 earned it.

To be continued...

These two entries (above), were copied directly from Karen Zipdrive's web page, and tell her personal story about meeting some New Orleans refugees in her home city San Antonio.

Musical Tributes to New Orleans ... and "The Death of the Common Good"

2005-09-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today, I turned on the radio and heard musical tributes to New Orleans. One of the songs I heard yesterday was "Louisiana 1927" by Randy Newman.

"Louisiana 1927" was quoted in an article I received in email a couple of days ago (below, by Chris Floyd). The comment at the end (by Darla Sparks in Yukon, Oklahoma) was with the article. There are links to both authors if you'd like to contact them.

------------------------

September 1, 2005

The Perfect Storm - New Orleans and the Death of the Common Good

By CHRIS FLOYD

"The river rose all day, The river rose all night.

Some people got lost in the flood, Some people got away all right.

The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemine:

Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

Louisiana, Louisiana,They're trying to wash us away, They're trying to wash us away."

-- Randy Newman, Louisiana 1927

The destruction of New Orleans represents a confluence of many of the most pernicious trends in American politics and culture: poverty, racism, militarism, elitist greed, environmental abuse, public corruption and the decay of democracy at every level.

Much of this is embodied in the odd phrasing that even the most circumspect mainstream media sources have been using to describe the hardest-hit victims of the storm and its devastating aftermath: "those who chose to stay behind." Instantly, the situation has been framed with language to flatter the prejudices of the comfortable and deny the reality of the most vulnerable.

It is obvious that the vast majority of those who failed to evacuate are poor: they had nowhere else to go, no way to get there, no means to sustain themselves and their families on strange ground.

While there were certainly people who stayed behind by choice, most stayed behind because they had no choice. They were trapped by their poverty and many have paid the price with their lives.Yet across the media spectrum, the faint hint of disapproval drips from the affluent observers, the clear implication that the victims were just too lazy and shiftless to get out of harm's way.

There is simply no understanding not even an attempt at understanding the destitution, the isolation, the immobility of the poor and the sick and the broken among us.This is from the "respectable" media; the great right-wing echo chamber was even less restrained, of course, leaping straight into giddy convulsions of racism at the first reports of looting in the devastated city.

In the pinched-gonad squeals of Rush Limbaugh and his fellow hatemongers, the hard-right media immediately conjured up images of wild-eyed darkies rampaging through the streets in an orgy of violence and thievery.

Not that the mainstreamers ignored the racist angle. There was the already infamous juxtaposition of captions for wire service photos, where depictions of essentially the same scene desperate people wading through flood waters, clutching plastic bags full of groceries were given markedly different spins.

In one picture, a white couple are described as struggling along after finding bread and soda at a grocery store. But beneath an almost identical photo of a young black man with a bag of groceries, we are told that a "looter" wades through the streets after robbing a grocery store. In the photo I saw, this evil miscreant also had a gasp! pack of diapers under his arm.

Almost all of the early "looting" was like this: desperate people of all colors stranded by the floodwaters broke into abandoned stores and carried off food, clean water, medicine, clothes. Perhaps they should have left a check on the counter, but then again what exactly was going to happen to all those perishables and consumer goods, sitting around in fetid, diseased water for weeks on end? (The mayor now says it could be up to 16 weeks before people can return to their homes and businesses.) Obviously, most if not all of it would have been thrown away or written off in any case.

Later, of course, there was more organized looting by criminal gangs, the type of lawless element of every hue, in every society whose chief victims are, of course, the poor and vulnerable. These criminal operations were quickly conflated with the earlier pilferage to paint a single seamless picture of the American media's favorite horror story: Black Folk Gone Wild.But here again another question was left unasked: Where were the resources the money, manpower, materiel, transport that could have removed all those forced to stay behind, and given them someplace safe and sustaining to take shelter?

Where, indeed, were the resources that could have bolstered the city's defenses and shored up its levees? Where were the National Guard troops that could have secured the streets and directed survivors to food and aid? Where were the public resources the physical manifestation of the citizenry's commitment to the common good that could have greatly mitigated the brutal effects of this natural disaster?

"President Coolidge came down here in a railroad train,

With a little fat man with a notebook in his hand.

The president say, "Little fat man, isn't it a shame

What the river has done to this poor cracker's land?"

Well, we all know what happened to those vital resources. They had been cut back, stripped down, gutted, pilfered looted to pay for a war of aggression, to pay for a tax cut for the wealthiest, safest, most protected Americans, to gorge the coffers of a small number of private and corporate fortunes, while letting the public sector the common good wither and die on the vine.

These were all specific actions of the Bush Administration including the devastating budget cuts on projects specifically designed to bolster New Orleans' defenses against a catastrophic hurricane. Bush even cut money for strengthening the very levees that broke and delivered the deathblow to the city. All this, in the face of specific warnings of what would happen if these measures were neglected: the city would go down "under 20 feet of water," one expert predicted just a few weeks ago.

But Bush said there was no money for this kind of folderol anymore. The federal budget had been busted by his tax cuts and his war. And this was a deliberate policy: as Bush's mentor Grover Norquist famously put it, the whole Bushist ethos was to starve the federal government of funds, shrinking it down so "we can drown it in the bathtub."

As it turned out, the bathtub wasn't quite big enough -- so they drowned it in the streets of New Orleans instead.But as culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed.

For more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated "consumer units" whose political energies kept deliberately underinformed by the ubiquitous corporate media can be diverted into emotionalized "hot button" issues (gay marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn, abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big Money's bottom line.

Again deliberately, with smear, spin and sham, they have sought and succeeded in poisoning the well of the democratic process, turning it into a tabloid melee where only "character counts" while the rapacious policies of Big Money's bought-and-sold candidates are completely ignored.

As Big Money solidified its ascendancy over government, pouring billions over and under the table into campaign coffers, politicians could ignore larger and larger swathes of the people. If you can't hook yourself up to a well-funded, coffer-filling interest group, if you can't hire a big-time Beltway player to lobby your cause and get you "a seat at the table," then your voice goes unheard, your concerns are shunted aside. (Apart from a few cynical gestures around election-time, of course.)

The poor, the sick, the weak, the vulnerable have become invisible in the media, in the corporate boardroom, "at the table" of the power players in national, state and local governments. The increasingly marginalized and unstable middle class is also fading from the consciousness of the rulers, whose servicing of the elite goes more brazen and frantic all the time.

When unbridled commercial development of delicately balanced environments like the Mississippi Delta is bruited "at the table," whose voice is heard? Not the poor, who, as we have seen this week, will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the overstressed environment. And not the middle class, who might opt for the security of safer, saner development policies to protect their hard-won homes and businesses. No, the only voice that matters is that of the developers themselves, and the elite investors who stand behind them.

"Louisiana, Louisiana,They're trying to wash us away"

The destruction of New Orleans was a work of nature but a nature that has been worked upon by human hands and human policies. As global climate change continues its deadly symbiosis with unbridled commercial development for elite profit, we will see more such destruction, far more, on an even more devastating scale.

As the harsh, aggressive militarism and brutal corporate ethos that Bush has injected into the mainstream of American society continues to spread its poison, we will see fewer and fewer resources available to nurture the common good.

As the political process becomes more and more corrupt, ever more a creation of elite puppetmasters and their craven bagmen, we will see the poor and the weak and even the middle class driven further and further into the low ground of society, where every passing storm economic, political, natural will threaten their homes, their livelihoods, their very existence.

"Louisiana, Louisiana,They're trying to wash us away

They're trying to wash us awayThey're trying to wash us awayThey're trying to wash us away"

Chris Floyd is a columnist for The Moscow Times and regular contributor to CounterPunch. A new, upgraded version of his blog, "Empire Burlesque," can be found at http://www.chris-floyd.com/.

**********************

Darla's comments were attached to Chris Floyd's post (printed here with her permission) -

Those of you whose lives are comfortable, secure and enjoyable must understand as the last good German did in Europe during the 40s....this cancerous growth within our country and our government will soon overtake you, too.

When observing the human suffering of this past week and feeling secure and safe in your current world, you surely can grasp the idea that if your peers do not assume some responsibility for the lessers of our society and assume much responsibility for the corrupted stink of our country's governing elitists, you will eventually join those less fortunate.

Your comforts and security created by your labors and factors of birth that have produced savings, upper bracket taxable incomes,assets and luxuries will be eroded by this very small, obscenely wealthy, utterly ruthless class of rulers. Eventually you will also be washed away.

What will you do then if you don't assume some responsibilities, duties and moral obligations to take action now?

Darla Sparks
Drsok1937@aol.com
Yukon, Oklahoma

Whatever you think of Michael Moore ... he said what a lot of people have been thinking

2005-09-05T20:23:00.000-05:00

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Vacation is Over...

an open letter

from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans.

That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

http://michaelmoore.com/

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

WELCOME !!!

2005-09-03T12:23:00.000-05:00

Welcome!

If you've come here because you typed in http://countrybunnybathandbody.blogspot.com , you've come to the right place. :)

This is my 'bunny blog'. This is the web log I created in order to talk about Country Bunny Bath and Body products. I do not work for the company. I am an Independent Representative. I'm number 7733 (If you call 1-877-66-BUNNY to order something, be sure to give them my number - Rep 7733.)

Most of my entries have been about my interest in the medical field and my experiences with paramedic school and the beginning of nursing school. Some of the entries are about Country Bunny Bath and Body products.

What about Country Bunny Bath and Body products? They're great! Once you use them, you won't want to use any other bath and body products. Some ingredients you will find in some of the CBBB products are: beeswax, aloe, shea butter, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, Vitamin E, and cocoa butter. (Some of the ingredients are in some products, and some are in others.) Country Bunny Bath and Body product ingredients do not contain petroleum products. The woman who developed the products created them to put on her children, so she has been careful to use high quality ingredients and create products that feel good and smell good.

If you want to read more about the Country Bunny products, please check out my letter to the Herland Sisters. If you'd like to read more of my adventures and feelings about medical things, please feel free to look through my archives (in sidebar to the right). The entries go back to mid-April 2005. If you'd like to explore my online store, you can click one of the 'bunny' icons in the sidebar, or just click here. I'd love for you to leave comments if you like a post. And, if you'd like to comment privately, Send Me A Note.

Fingers over Ivory

2005-09-01T10:19:00.000-05:00

I've copied Joel's entire entry for August 31st, 2005

Fingers over Ivory

Filed under: Disasters on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 by Joel

I’m here, fingers hovering over the plastic keyboard like darker fingers hovered over ivory in jazz clubs in the Big Easy. The world gasps at the loss of New Orleans — America’s rustic Venice — which as everyone knows stands flooded with sharks swimming through the streets where automobiles coursed. New Orleans, a Sodom and a Jerusalem just like San Francisco, where bars stand beside churches, where the depraved rub elbows with the holy, where one cannot tell by a face or gender orientation, which is which.

Katrina saved her brawn for the towns of Southern Mississippi. I was in a Garden Grove coffee shop yesterday. The old fashioned kind where you had a nice, long and slick sit down bar where you could watch the cook working at the grill through a wide slit in the wall. I ordered pancakes and polish sausage from a thin waitress who wore her dark hair in a pony tail. She was about my age. Worry lines ran across and down the sides of her face.

Waitresses usually listen to customers’ woes. She told me about her sister who lived in Gulfport, Mississippi. Katrina silenced the whole of the Mississippi Delta and the coast to the east of Nawlins. For two weeks there would be no power, no telephone communications. And this woman did not know if her sister was alive or dead.

We discussed topography. Did her sister live on a floodplain or on a hill? The waitress did not know: they’d just bought a new house and she hadn’t been there. That southern Mississippi was seldom more than a few feet above sea level was a fact that I kept to myself. I told her to contact the local Red Cross. Ask them if they could take her sister’s name and address, check the evacuation centers. Then I paid my tab, left an extra dollar, and went off to help move the belongings of a hospitalized friend.

My fingers tremble over the keys as I think of that woman’s sister and all the people floating in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain who I will never meet . I think of a time when news of a disaster such as this would not reach me for months here in California and when I would not hear of the tsunami which hit South Asia a few months ago. The residents of southern Mississippi and Louisiana have returned to that world for a few weeks. Back to a time when the sound of fingers hitting ivory could only be heard in the room where the piano was being played.

Do Not Call List ... for your CELL PHONE number

2005-09-01T00:15:00.000-05:00

This entry is lifted from Karen Zipdrive. It's for real. I called the number today and put my cell phone number on the Do Not Call list for telemarketers. Telemarketers beware! :)

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Cell Phones Numbers and telemarketers:Don't Let Telemarketers Eat Your Minutes (Special thanks to Anna)

Thirty days from today, cell phone numbers will be released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive unsolicited sales calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS. These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes.

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone:1-888-382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list.

It will only take a minute of your time and blocks your number from annoying telemarketers for five years.

PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS!You can also register on line at: http://www.donotcall.gov

Pray for the People of New Orleans

2005-08-29T07:47:00.000-05:00

Ms. Julien speaks from personal experience, reminding us to hold the people of New Orleans in our thoughts, prayers, and wishes for their safety and the safety of their city. She says,

I went through hurricane Andrew and lost everything I owned. I just recently went through Katrina (which was only a category I, but a very mean one at that). I am very, very scared about the situation in New Orleans area. There is not enough room for all the people who need shelter, and the safety of those crowding in the Super Dome is nebulous at best, as the stadium sits right near the river.

Nursing School

2005-08-22T23:14:00.000-05:00

Nursing school officially started today.

I already took two one-week classes this month, and had a full day of orientation last week, but today was the official start date.

I've Joined the TulsaTrade Yahoo Newsgroup

2005-08-22T18:47:00.000-05:00

I just signed up to be a member of a Tulsa, Oklahoma online Yahoo group where members post items for sale. I'm hoping this Tulsa Trade Yahoo Board will provide a way to connect with people who are looking for someone who sells Country Bunny Bath and Body products.

Here's my first post to the TulsaTrade Yahoo Newsgroup:

Date: Mon Aug 22, 2005 6:28 pm
Subject: Country Bunny Bath and Body - www.cbunnyrep.com/7733

Hello Bath and Body fans,

I have Country Bunny Bath and Body products available to sell.

I've purchased Lotion Bars and Satin Shea Body Butter in these fragrances -

Pearberry, Sugar Sweet Pea, Grapefruit and Lime, Oatmeal Milk and Honey, Peach Mango, Lavender and Eucalyptus, Coastal Blue, and Mountain Fresh. I also have these items available in the Naturally Unscented variety.

If you like the fresh, clean scent of C-Spa, I'm offering $5 off your purchase price when you buy one each of C-Spa Lotion Bar, C-Spa Satin Shea Body Butter, C-Spa 9 ounce Shower Gel, and C-Spa 9 ounce Spritzer.

I also have Salt Scrub, Spa Polish, Bath Paints (for kids), Glycerine Soaps (in pearberry, mountain fresh, and lavender and eucalyptus scents), and gift sets (Oatmeal Milk and Honey gift crates and Kids Premier Product Set).

If you purchase $100 in products directly from me, you can pay me $90 at the time of the transaction as my personal "$10 Thank You" for your $100 purchase.

Please contact me about having a spa party or a 'book party', too, if you'd like to receive free and discounted products.

I'd love to show you the products. If you'd rather shop online, or if you are not close to Tulsa, Oklahoma, please visit my online store at www.cbunnyrep.com/7733 .

All inquiries are welcomed.

Deborah
www.cbunnyrep.com/7733

What Are We Going To Do With Dad?

2005-08-18T22:55:00.000-05:00

What Are We Going To Do With Dad?
No Pat Answers For the 'Old Old'

By Jerald WinakurSunday, August 7, 2005

My father is 86 years old. He was never a big man, except perhaps to me when I was his little boy. At most he was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 160 pounds.

Today he weighs barely 120. Maybe he is 5 foot 2. He teeters on spindly legs, a parched blade of grass in the wind, refusing the walker his doctor recommends or the arm extended by those of us who love him.

He doesn't know what day it is. Shaving exhausts him. His clothes hang like a scarecrow's. He is nearly deaf but won't wear his hearing aids or loses them as often as a kid might misplace his marbles. He drives my mother -- five years younger -- crazy to tears.

My only sibling, an architect, asks me every time we are together (which is often because we all live in San Antonio) and every time we speak on the phone (which is almost every day because we are a close family now in crisis): "What are we going to do with Dad?" As if there must be a definitive answer, some fix -- say, putting a grab bar in the bathroom or increasing the width of the doorways.

He asks me this question not just out of fear and frustration, but because he figures that his older brother, the physician, should know the answer. I do not know the answer. I do not have a pat solution for my father or yours -- neither as a son, a man past middle age with grown children of his own, nor as a specialist in geriatrics who is also a credentialed long-term care medical director.

In the United States today there are 35 million geriatric patients -- defined as over the age of 65. Of these, 4.5 million are older than 85, now characterized as the "old old." Yet the American Medical Directors
Association, which credentials physicians in long-term care, has certified only 1,900 such doctors in the entire country; only 2 percent of physicians in training say they want to go into geriatric care.

As we baby boomers go about our lives, frozen into our routines of work and family responsibilities, a vast inland sea of elders is building. By 2020 there will be an estimated 53 million Americans older than 65, 6.5 million of whom will be "old old." Many of you will be among them. America will be inundated with old folks, each with a unique set of circumstances, medical and financial.

Compounding all of this is the sad and frustrating fact that our government appears to have no policy vision for long-term elder care. It's as if our leaders wish -- perhaps reflecting our collective yearnings as a vain, youth-worshiping society -- that when the time comes, the elderly will take their shuffling tired selves, their drooling and incontinence, their demented ravings, their drain on family and national resources, and sprawl out on an ice floe to be carried off to a white, comforting place, never to be heard from again.

For the past nine years I have been the medical director of my hospital's skilled nursing unit, or SNU. This unit receives patients from other parts of the hospital who no longer need acute care services yet are unable to return home. Sometimes it is obvious what we have to do: finish out a course of intravenous antibiotics or provide a few more days of rehab to a competent elder who has just undergone a hip replacement. But more and more, as our patients grow older and more frail, it becomes clear that the attending physicians have referred their patients to the SNU because they don't know what else to do with them.

Each week I attend the SNU team care conference. Every staff professional who has a role in patient care attends. The nurses provide up-to-the-minute reports on each patient's medical progress; the therapists discuss whether the patient is meeting goals set the previous week; we hear about the situation at home, what help we can expect from family or other caretakers, and what the patient's insurance may or may not provide. Our main goal is to answer one question: What are we going to do with this patient? Where can we safely send him -- given his medical, social and financial circumstances -- and expect him to maintain his highest level of functioning, his remaining dignity? Very often, we don't know.

Families are encouraged to join us after our review. Most do not -- often, I think, because they are afraid we will tell them there is nothing more we can do. They are already despondent, overwhelmed by Dad's (or Mom's) decline and the acute event that led to hospitalization (the pneumonia, the fall, the stroke); bewildered by his mental decline (the confusion, the weakness); frustrated in dealing with the hospital staff (the inattentive aides, the callous nurses, the harried attending physicians who often drift in and out like white-coated apparitions).

So now your dad's physician -- maybe the one person you trusted to solve all of this (although less and less so in these days of managed care, because it is hard to trust someone you might have just met or whose name was picked at random from a list of names) -- comes into his room and says, "I don't think there is much more we can do for him here."

Your mind reels. Nothing more to do? In America? Home of the most advanced health care in the world? You think about all the glowing seniors -- continent, smiling, sexually active -- in those drug ads on TV or the aging but robust movie stars on the cover of the AARP magazine. Nothing to do?! You gotta be kidding, doc! And anyway, he was just fine until he came to the hospital!

The doctor sighs. She has been through this many times and still doesn't quite know how to handle it. Even though the ravages of aging are not her fault, she feels the stern gaze of Hippocrates on her back and wants to do more. She might remind you -- tactfully -- that this patient, your father, lying with sallow distorted face, partial paralysis, a Foley catheter draining his urine into a bag clipped to the bedrail, was not fine when he came to the hospital. He was not shanghaied from home while smoking his pipe and reading the Wall Street Journal. Rather, he arrived in the ER at 4 a.m., hypertensive and gurgling, brought in by ambulance after he passed out and hit his head on the toilet.

"I think perhaps we can transfer your father to our skilled nursing unit for some rehabilitation," the doctor says. I say it all the time. Family members are uncertain what this means but temporarily grateful: The doctor has postponed answering the "What are we going to do with Dad?" question for a while longer.

Every Medicare patient has coverage for 100 lifetime SNU days if the criteria outlined in thousands of pages of regulations are met. Past the first few weeks or so, these criteria usually can no longer be satisfied -- not because the patient recovers; very few get well in the SNU -- but because the patient is "no longer making progress." No documented progress, no Medicare reimbursement.

Much of the time, there is no "progress" except toward the grave. And the next way station is chronic custodial nursing home care. Family members will soon discover, if they haven't already, this essential fact: There is no Medicare coverage for long-term custodial nursing home care. Unless, of course, an elderly loved one is destitute, in which case he might qualify for some state-sponsored Medicaid assistance.

And typical of our government, even as many medical practitioners are using SNUs more and more in answer to the "What are we going to do next?" question, Medicare has cut the reimbursements to these units drastically (but not decreasing the benefit to the patient, of course, which might anger the consuming public). As a result, many hospitals are closing them. My own unit shrank to half its size before being shut down by its sponsoring hospital last year, even as I was working on this article.

Although the CEO told me that this was done because my hospital needed more "acute care beds" -- certainly true -- closing the SNU coincided with the change in Medicare reimbursements that made it financially advantageous for acute care hospitals to jettison SNUs in favor of more acute care beds.

Three years ago my father, a longtime heart patient, was admitted into the hospital with congestive heart failure. This is the hospital in which I have made rounds almost every day since the mid-1970s. The CEO is my friend and patient. My father's physician is one of my young associates, well trained and eager. I was confident that my father would receive the best medical care available in America today. Yet I would not leave him alone in his hospital room. If my brother or mother or I could not be there, I had a hired sitter by his bed.

It's rarely talked about, but hospitalizations are the most dangerous times for the elderly. Even if they have never manifested any signs of disorientation, it is in the hospital -- in a strange and threatening environment, under the influence of anesthetics, pain pills, anti-emetics and soporifics -- that many elderly will meet their match. Add to this the treatment mishaps (caused by the "normally expected" side effects and complications of standard medical procedures) and the human errors (mistakes in drug dosing, the right medication given to the wrong patient), now multiplying in our modern hospitals like germs in a Petri dish, and it is almost a miracle that any elderly patient gets out relatively unscathed.
Every night, I slept in the reclining chair by my father's bed. I got up when he did; ran interference with bedrails, side tables and IV poles; guarded his every move to the bathroom; looked at every medication and every fluid-filled bag plugged into his arm. Yet each day, my father descended deeper into paranoid confusion. He was restless, and intermittently unsure of who I was.

At first I could calm him with my voice, talking about the old days, reminding him of our fishing trips on the Chesapeake Bay when I was young. Then he needed the physical reassurance of my hand on his arm or shoulder at all times. Finally, so that he could get some rest, I got in the bed and held him, comforting him as he once -- in a long-ago life -- did me.
After four days and nights his doctor told me that his heart failure was better and that his dementia evaluation did not show a treatable or reversible cause. But he didn't like the way my father looked -- agitated, sleep-deprived and deconditioned, a perfect candidate for time in the SNU. And, after all, here I was, his senior associate, the SNU medical director. Surely, my dad would get good care there.

Instead, I took my father home. I knew that if I didn't get him out of the hospital at that moment, he would never come home again. The SNU would have been a way station to a custodial nursing home. I arranged for a home health agency to provide my father with physical therapy and to assist him with his bathing, dressing and grooming -- something Medicare covers, but for only a limited period.

I went to the pharmacy and filled the eight prescriptions he was given as he left the hospital. Then, when I realized that my mother was having trouble reading the labels and following the instructions, I went back again to buy a plastic container divided into daily dosing compartments. How long, I wondered, had this been going on?

When I visit my father these days, if he is not asleep, I sit down beside him and talk at high volume into his hearing aid, if he has remembered it. Our conversations go something like this:

"How are you feeling today, Dad?"
"Not so good. You ought to come around more often."
"Dad, I was just here yesterday."
"Why are you calling me that? You're not my son."
"Of course I'm your son. That's your wife, my mother, sitting over there."
(My mother, shouting at my father: "What are you saying! Of course he's your son!")
"I like you and all, but you're not my son."
"Well, I love you anyway."
"You're older than I am. How could you be my son?"
"I love you, Dad."
"You ought to come around more."

Once in a while, though, he will surprise me: "Remember those big rockfish we used to catch off Thomas Point Light?" he might say. And then nothing.Between my brother and me, one of us is there almost every day. We have been fortunate to find two dedicated women to help my mother in attending to my father's daily needs.

My brother and I help with the cost -- $1,500 a month, but still only one-third of the expense of custodial nursing home care. I often wonder: Why isn't this kind of care covered by Medicare or Medicaid? After all, when my parents use up their meager savings (which they will, just like most families with a demented elder), they will become eligible for Medicaid, and the state of Texas will then pay the entire cost of custodial nursing home care. But the longer we can keep my father at home attended by aides, the cheaper his long-term care cost will be to society as a whole.
Drinking the nutritional supplements my brother brings to the house by the case (another non-covered cost of several hundred dollars a month), my father has actually put on a few pounds. But every week he gets worse, harder to deal with, more bizarre. Recently, he has begun to holler at my mother every time she tries to help him change his clothes, which is often because he wets himself. "You're my sister! You're not supposed to see me naked!" he screams at her.

At first, my mother didn't believe that my father was demented. Most of us do not recognize the reduction in the mental capacities of our spouses or parents unless something unexpected happens. My mother continued to see his stubbornness and withdrawal as purposeful acts of belligerence against her -- until the day she realized he could no longer figure out how to unlock the front door by himself.

From my years as a geriatrician and now as the son of an "old old" man, I recognize that there is one inescapable truth: Our parents will become our children if they live long enough. Perhaps if we looked on our elderly in this way, we would be kinder to them.

I don't know what else to do for Dad at this moment, but I can imagine what is likely to happen to him if he does not die in his sleep (a heaven-sent coup de grace that I know, from long experience, is unlikely to occur). One day I will get a frantic call from my mother that my father is on the floor and crying out in terrible pain. I will race over there. I will find that one of his legs is shortened and externally rotated. His hip is broken.

I will call my brother and tell him all the reasons why we should not send him to the hospital: He might not recover from the surgery -- indeed, he might die on the table, given his bad heart. If he does survive, he will spend days in the ICU, probably on a respirator. At best he will end up in a nursing home, bedridden, at the mercy of overworked, underpaid aides. He will descend deeper into disorientation, require medications to keep him from harming himself, and die anyway in a few months -- or perhaps a year or two if he is unfortunate and the care is better than average.

My brother will hear my mother crying and my father hollering. He will feel guilty that he is not there with me. He will remember the time Dad took us on a vacation to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks, and we all huddled on the swinging bridge in the mist, as the Ausable River roared through High Falls Gorge. Then he will say, "Maybe it won't be as bad as you think. Maybe we can set up a hospital bed in his room, and it won't take much to alter the shower to accommodate a wheelchair." There will be a moment of silence. He'll say: "I don't know. You're the doctor. What do you think we should do?"

I do not tell him that often, in fitful sleep, I dream that when the time comes, I go to my father's bed, quietly fill a syringe with morphine and stroke his arm as I tie the tourniquet. I tell him I love him and what a good father he has been to me as I slip the needle into his antecubital vein. Then I say how much I will miss him and goodbye, Dad, goodbye, as I push the contents into his bloodstream. In this dream I tell my mother and my brother that he has gone peacefully in his sleep.

Yet I have not until now given voice to this dream because I know, in the end, I could never do this. Not to my demented, suffering father. Not to anyone. I know there are some who disagree with me, and perhaps this is one way our society will ultimately deal with its flood of elders in this age of limits. I will by then, I hope, be old and no longer on the front lines.

When my time comes -- before it comes -- I will choose for myself. But for now, as long as I have the will and the strength to practice, I am a physician firmly rooted in the art and tradition of healing, of comforting.So instead, I will tell my brother that I will handle it and hang up the phone. Then I'll pick it up again and dial 911.

Author's e-mail: jwinakur@aol.com

Jerald Winakur, a Maryland native, has practiced internal medicine and geriatrics in San Antonio for almost 30 years. He is an associate faculty member at the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center. This essay is adapted from a longer version in the July-August issue of Health Affairs, available online at http://healthaffairs.org/.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Biking Toward Nowhere - New York Times

2005-08-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

Biking Toward Nowhere - New York Times

August 17, 2005
Biking Toward Nowhere
By MAUREEN DOWD

How could President Bush be cavorting around on a long vacation with American troops struggling with a spiraling crisis in Iraq?Wasn't he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm's way?

"I'm determined that life goes on," Mr. Bush said stubbornly.

That wasn't the son, believe it or not. It was the father - 15 years ago. I was in Kennebunkport then to cover the first President Bush's frenetic attempts to relax while reporters were pressing him about how he could be taking a month to play around when he had started sending American troops to the Persian Gulf only three days before.

On Saturday, the current President Bush was pressed about how he could be taking five weeks to ride bikes and nap and fish and clear brush even though his occupation of Iraq had become a fiasco.

"I think it's also important for me to go on with my life," W. said, "to keep a balanced life."

Pressed about how he could ride his bike while refusing to see a grieving mom of a dead soldier who's camped outside his ranch, he added: "So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

Ah, the insensitivity of reporters who ask the President Bushes how they can expect to deal with Middle East fighting while they're off fishing.The first President Bush told us that he kept a telephone in his golf cart and his cigarette boat so he could easily stay on top of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. But at least he seemed worried that he was sending the wrong signal, as his boating and golfing was juxtaposed on the news with footage of the frightened families of troops leaving for the Middle East.

"I just don't like taking questions on serious matters on my vacation," the usually good-natured Bush senior barked at reporters on the golf course. "So I hope you'll understand if I, when I'm recreating, will recreate." His hot-tempered oldest son, who was golfing with his father that day, was even more irritated. "Hey! Hey!" W. snapped at reporters asking questions on the first tee. "Can't you wait until we finish hitting, at least?"Junior always had his priorities straight.

As W.'s neighbors get in scraps with the antiwar forces coalescing around the ranch; as the Pentagon tries to rustle up updated armor for our soldiers, who are still sitting ducks in the third year of the war; as the Iraqi police we train keep getting blown up by terrorists, who come right back every time U.S. troops beat them up; as Shiites working on the Iraqi constitution conspire with Iran about turning Iraq into an Islamic state that represses women; and as Iraq hurtles toward a possible civil war, W. seems far more oblivious than his father was with his Persian Gulf crisis.

This president is in a truly scary place in Iraq. Americans can't get out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance Armstrong on Saturday.

The son wanted to go into Iraq to best his daddy in the history books, by finishing what Bush senior started. He swept aside the warnings of Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell and didn't bother to ask his father's advice. Now he is caught in the very trap his father said he feared: that America would get bogged down as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," facing a possibly "barren" outcome.

It turns out that the people of Iraq have ethnic and religious identities, not a national identity. Shiites and Kurds want to suppress the Sunnis who once repressed them and break off into their own states, smashing the Bush model kitchen of democracy.

At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning," the official told The Washington Post.

They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as "a tribute to democracy."

The president's pedaling as fast as he can, but he's going nowhere.

E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
Thomas L. Friedman is on vacation.

Adam Tendler's Free Piano Concert Tour

2005-08-05T19:38:00.000-05:00

I heard an interview on the local NPR station about 8pm last night. The guy sounded really enthusiastic. He was talking about traveling across the USA.

At the end of the interview, they said, “He will be performing tonight at the German-American Society” at 7pm. It was almost 8pm, but I was near there, so I stopped by. I arrived at the end of the intermission.

He’s a pianist and he performs classical and contemporary music. (Contemporary meaning Aaron Copeland, not commercial radio music.) He’s calling his tour 88 x 50 (I think! the program is in the car).

I talked with him afterwards. He’s performed in about 15 states so far. He’s still looking for a piano and a group to perform for in GA. (We did not discuss which other states he needs.) He did say he is willing to perform more than one concert, or in more than one city, in a given state if his schedule allows.

He seems like a cool guy. His name is Adam Tendler. You can get in touch with him by writing adam.tendler@gmail.com. if you'd like to talk with him about performing.

He's living a dream he's had for years. I only heard part of his story in the radio interview and part of the story at the end of the intermission, but it sounds like he's doing a neat thing. He sells CDs at his free performances to help cover the travel costs. (He's driving through the USA.)

He might make a good subject for a local news story or a magazine article, too. He’s energetic and idealistic and has a lot to say about what he’s learning about people and places around the country.

Jordan Essentials: Bath, Body and Spa Rep #10522 http://jordanrep.com/10522

The Country Bunny Bath & Body Shopping Experience

When asked, enter rep number 10522.

Christmas Gifts - Bath*Body*Spa - One of My Alter Ego Interests ;)

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You can look at the products here:

http://jordanrep.com/10522

.Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.

.You can order online through the web page or by calling the customer service number. Be sure to place your order by December 14th in order to receive the items in time for Christmas.

.REMINDER:

.Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.

update: date correction

items need to be shipped by December 14th

Giving Thanks

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, a national holiday in the USA.

People who live in other countries do not share this holiday. And, many who live in the USA do not spend Thanksgiving Day consciously giving thanks. I’d like to invite each of you to make today your day for giving thanks for all that is good in your life.

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It is so easy for us to see bad things happening all around us, both personally and globally. I would like to invite you to join with me in taking a moment to notice all that is good.

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I also want to invite you to join with me in consciously choosing to live with gratitude while continuing to work to make our personal lives, our communities, our countries and our planet safer, healthier and more peaceful for us all.

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Yesterday, I was with some of my family for this holiday for the first time in years. This is one thing for which I am grateful.

My song “Lean In For A Kiss” is one of the 12-free-mp3-downloads available now in Volume 3 on eFolkMusic.org

The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering

Prince Charming is Dead

Honeybees Vanishing

Country Bunny Bath and Body is now Jordan Essentials

Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly

Happy New Year!

God Bless Tracy

Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?

Trail Mix Recipe

How To Avoid Losing Your Lunch

Give Blood

Peace House Tulsa - Grand Opening September 23, 2006

What Advice Would You Give to Someone Half Your Age?

I'm happy to announce my first digital album.

Stained Glass Design

“I Smile Again So You Won’t See Me Cry”

Residential panhandling ... follow-up to the 'homeless' post

Social Commentary

Visitors From Muslim Nations

* 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812 * 8812* 8812 * 8812 * 8812 *

Homeless and Hungry

mp3 or jpg?

Compassion = Happy

Stunned - It was all just right - Singing at the Saffron

Mosquito Repellent Testamonial!!!

Cool Story About A Cat - Orange Tabby Chased A Bear Up A Tree

Father's Day Special

Eight Songs Are Posted on efolkmusic.org

Clarification About eFolkMusic Free Downloads

Free mp3 Folk Music Downloads

Improbable.com

Deb's House Concerts

Quote of the Day

First Aid Guide

Embrace Your Crisis

NEW REP ID NUMBER 8812

Draw A Pig Personality Test

Calm Water

Spring Break

Ash Wednesday

Purchase Country Bunny Bath and Body Products Online

Cold Day In ... My House

Bipolar Life

Listen to the Rhythm of the Falling Rain

Flack Jackets and Funerals

Fabulous Truck Art

You mean so much more than you realize.

"Can We Have Letters of the Day?"

Microsoft Is Now Claiming Ownership of the Content of Personal Blogs???

What's the Letter of the Day????

Martin Luther King, Jr Day Parade

... The Light Will Soon Return

Transformation

Fantasy Weekend

Pray For Rain

The Case of the Disappearing Teaspoons

Thank You Christmas Shoppers!

Christmas Gifts - BathBodySpa - One of My Alter Ego Interests ;)

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Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.

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You can order online through the web page or by calling the customer service number. Be sure to place your order by December 14th in order to receive the items in time for Christmas.

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REMINDER:

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Order by phone or online by December 14th to have items delivered by Christmas. Call 1-877-662-8669. You will be placing an order through Rep ID number 10522. Deborah Hord.