Things that make you go Hmmmm?

Can anyone tell me why the president is willing to try to negotiate with Iran, but unwilling to even consider negotiations with our Congress and Senate? Doesn't that make you go Hmmmmmm?

Things that Offend Me

Why are all travel deals packaged and priced based on double occupancy?

Is one required to travel with a companion? Why does it cost more for fewer travelers?

Everyone is offended by the slightest thing these days?

I want to tell you what offends me.

When I was a girl, I was sure that I would grow up to be Barbie.

I would have the Barbie, corvette, camper, Malibu dream house and a killer wardrobe. I would have legs from the floor up to there and breasts that would never sag.

Obviously, this did not happen and I want you to know I am truly offended. Now who is going to do something about it?

I am also truly offended when I see young men walking around showing their business with the pants down style.

Do they realize this style came out of a prison?

The “pants down” style is a signal that the wearer is available for “relations.”

Really, fellows, is that the signal you want to put out?

Have some respect for yourself and those around you, pull the pants up, put on a belt and be a man.

Male genitalia does not make you a man, respect for yourself and others, plus standing up for what you believe in makes you a man.

No ladies, tights are not pants. Leggings are made to be worn with a shirt long enough to cover your business.

This style looks better on a particular type of figure.

If you are not trim, shall we say, perhaps this style is not for you.

My Mother always said that just because you could squeeze and wiggle into something, does not mean that it fits.

The same goes for low rise jeans.

If you have a high rise like myself, low rise is not for you. Better to run the disgrace of “Mom” jeans than have a muffin top. And I don’t have to tell you how it looks when seated and either your thong or most of  your business is showing.

I do not want to see that. I especially do not want to see it if you are my wait person when I am eating.

Just a Few Thoughts

Does it seem ironic to anyone but me that one of our citizens has applied for and received asylum from Russia? (Snowden)

Does it seem stranger still that Putin is telling our administration that we should unite to end Christian persecution.

Now, the KGB, I mean Putin is the hero of the day with Syria.

How did he go from jackboot thug to diplomat in one smooth motion?

I agree with him on the Christian persecution, I am not such a fan on Syria. Mostly because, I don’t feel like it is our fight, but isn’t that like hearing and seeing the fox smile charmingly and tell the hens that we should all just learn to get along?

If Obamacare is so great, why have the Senate, the Congress and the Congressional staff members asked to be exempted from it?

Yet, it is still acceptable for us regular folk?

Most of us were suspicious of the IRS prior to the current scandal.

Now they have given us solid proof that they cannot be trusted.

They don’t even follow their own rules, and yet we are still subject to them?

Are we sheep or free citizens? WE need to make changes NOW!!

Moxie

(Or the Stuff that Makes One Stick by Their Commitments)

          When I look through the news, and observe those around me, I notice that the majority of folks living in 2013 lack Moxie.

Moxie, an old fashioned term, is that terrier like quality that makes people stand by their word, irregardless of their own comfort or convenience.

Margaret Mitchell’s famous heroine called it “Gumption.”

To her there were few things in the world that could take the place of gumption.

In prior times, if a person’s word was no good, they were considered no good.

They would not be trusted by their peers. They had no credit among the merchants and no one wanted their children to marry into their family. They might be considered boot leggers or horse thieves, or just no account.

Of course, the Hollywood crowd changes spouses like socks, yet are admired by our society like American royalty.

We follow them in their lives and loves, allow them to politicize and mandate to us commoners exactly as to how we should live. They know more than we do, after all, they are rich and famous.

We have come through the “Me Generation,” the Y Generation,” and the philosophy of “If it makes ME happy, do it.”

I do not believe a life of 100% altruism is necessary, but when word is given, or responsibility laid, it should be taken seriously.

I believe there are many, many children in the United States today that have no family anchor.

They have no example of sticking to your commitments.

(Abuse, substance abuse and infidelity cannot be tolerated. These cases are not the examples I wish to show.)

My Grandparents married and started their adult life together on the precipice of the Crash of 29’.

They were farm raised and always said they never knew there was a Depression. They worked on their family’s farms and like most farmers in

the South, they were land poor and cash money short. The food was plentiful, as it was grown or husbanded on your farm.

They got by, like their peers, but stock market crashes and job losses just were not something of which rural Georgia had much experience.

Their lives consisted of labor, both in the fields and house, helping neighbors as necessary. Their tenacity for fixing, repairing and making do was the cornerstone of their existence. One did not buy new things, but saved what money you earned for a rainy day or the future.

Granted, we no longer live on the family farm, and life has become very hectic.

Few adults or children have the comfort of the home place anymore.

My maternal Grandparent’s house was our Homeplace.

These days, what I remember and long for the most is the comfort food.

I miss the dishes my Grandparents always had prepared for us when we would come back to the Homeplace.

We would gather there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and any time we could.

However, it was not just a place to gather, it was a place to return, where you were always welcome. A place where you could go to lick your wounds when life threw all it had at you, letting blood and wreaking havoc on your well laid plans.

The house was a white, wooden, constructed from an ancient dog trot cabin and a section of a house that had survived a fire. These pieces were cobbled together into a five room house that my Grandparents purchased in the 1930’s.

To this end, they had worked and saved for the small house where their love and support resided.

We could always come home to them and rest.

The things they taught me were both by example and in stories of the past.

I remember my Grandfather walking with me through the woods and telling me stories of his Mother, who was an herbalist.

He pointed out things that looked like weeds to me. He patiently explained their uses and to which maladies they were best applied.

If we visited a steakhouse that decorated its walls with antique farm tools, he would point and explain the purpose and use of each one. I thought I wasn’t listening, but it sunk in and stayed with me.

My Grandmother taught more by example.

I watched her cook, learning how to make the favorites we all loved. I helped her wash dishes.

Dirty clothes went into the plastic laundry basket my Grandfather had repaired with a green limb and twine when the handle had cracked. After they were washed, she hung them on the line to dry. She had a dryer, but it cost electricity, so she rarely used it.

She ran the finances and a frugal household.

They weathered each other’s differences and often fought about silly matters, or did things just to be contrary to the other. They did not feel that such things constituted divorce. They realized commitment was a promise they made long ago. If it wasn’t always comfortable, it was just borne with stoicism.

When my Grandfather died in 1990, the beginning of the end came. Little by little my Grandmother needed more help and soon my Mother moved in with her.

The house was still there, but it was home no more.

There was no fresh cornbread or drop biscuits set on the table.

Breakfast was not being prepared when you walked sleepily into the kitchen. Family meals became extinct.

Without my Grandparents, the team was finished.

My immediate family did not last. There was little cooperation for the next generation.

The emotional hard times that were coming would find no refuge in the white house where love and support used to live.

The Great Recession and Crash of 2007 took my two businesses and great job.

The moxie I had learned from my Grandparents pushed me to get off of unemployment as soon as possible.

I took the first position I found.

It was alien to me, outside of my adult career, education and training.

Luckily, my early work history was in fast food. That coupled with my restaurant accounting experience landed a job as an assistant manager in a greasy fast food chain that enjoys local success in Georgia.

My co- workers were unlike any people I had ever met.

I cried daily after work due to the stress and verbal abuse from my demigod district manager, but I never gave up.

I did my best,  though at 46, the physical, dirty work was too hard for me with my health problems.

I would never have had the will to continue if I had not had the strength and conviction I had observed in my Grandparents. My family needed me to work.  I stayed for them. It was a living nightmare, but I could not give up and quit. I was not raised to be a quitter.

Through perseverance and over time, opportunities began to surface.

I  returned to my accounting career, a much more thankful and humble person.

I have heard people complain that they will not work for less. They are too experienced to start over, etc. Many are glad to hold out their hand for the government to support them.

(Where does this money come from anyway? You and I, we are the government.)

What makes one person better than the other that they should not stoop to work hard?

As a society, I feel that we have given up on the best qualities we once exhibited. (This is not meant to be a sweeping stereotype, those who do the right things know who they are and should not be offended.)

We do not want to work hard.

We do not want to stick to an uncomfortable commitment and raise our children.

We do not want to get involved in community.

We refuse to hold our leaders accountable for their actions.

We put no societal pressure on the immoral.

My Grandparents would be ashamed and outraged at society in 2013.

Yet, I like to hope that they would be proud to see the value of their example in me.

Their legacy remains in the person I am today.

So, my friends and fellow Americans, please I beg.

Reach down deep and see if any Moxie remains within your soul.

If you remember back far enough, you might find an example like my Grandparents.

These times we are having now require moxie, strength, faith and perseverance.

If the next generation is to thrive, we will have to clean up the mess we have made, trying to make ourselves momentarily happy.

We cannot sit idly by and let all that is great and good go down the drain from nothing but pure apathy and sloth.

The American society will have to find the gumption to stand for something.

Right now, we are falling, and we will not get up without MOXIE!

I KNOW WHY

A great songwriter once wrote,

“I am empty and aching, and I don’t know why.”

The emptiness of a poet is a vacuum that pulls,

By centrifugal force, upon the beauty of the words.

The poet is always drowning in the melancholy that is reality.

His fellows are unable to perceive the achingly beautiful things that he sees.

Lamenting with loneliness at the isolation of the pure vision

The poet cries.

And he writes

As do I.

Cowards!

I would like to comment on whoever planted the bombs at the Boston Marathon.

Aren't you tough guys?

Isn't it impressive to hurt women and children?

I guess you couldn't take on someone your own size.

Only cowards would perpetrate such a low handed, sneaky, black hearted deed.

American, rise up against such actions. If they are only able to hurt women and children from afar, I know

we can take them.

When this act that was done in darkness comes to the light, we must force the courts to act within the fullest

extent of the law. No quarter must be given. No sympathy for their causes, religions, creeds etc. They are

violent cowards and bullies who will only understand force.

We must demand justice to these innocents with one voice!

Happy Days?

Happy Days Are Here Again?

According to a headline and accompanying article on MSN, Friday, March the 8, 2013, we are now sitting in the high cotton of the years prior to the 2008 crisis.

The headline read:

The Stock Market and Rising Real Estate Market Have Returned Wealth to pre 2008 Levels

A picture illustrated two men of Wall Street giving each other a high five showing their glee.

Happy days are indeed here again.

However, I read the entire article twice, hoping for a phone number that could tell me where I could find my lost businesses, good credit and high paying job.  

Maybe, a 1- 800 – return it to me number or a website. No luck, though, it is too bad, I guess I won’t be able to find it that way.

The article from News Center headlined:

US adds 236K jobs, unemployment falls to 7.7%

Isn’t that just great news?

However, if you continue reading the article, it can be quoted as saying,

“The unemployment rate, which had been stuck at 7.8 percent or above since September, declined mostly because more people found work. Another factor was that 130,000 people without jobs stopped looking for work last month. The government doesn’t count them as unemployed.”

If the government does not see these 130,000 workers as unemployed, what do they see them as, particles out there like the cosmos floating around in space?

This is another example of misinformation and bias that comes from the media.

The article goes on to state that the economy is now generating more higher paying jobs, such as accounting, engineering and information technology.

My career is as an accountant. I am still at 40% of my pre 2008 salary. My colleagues are in the same situation. In fact, one, holding a master’s degree, was asked last year to take a cut in pay where he is underemployed in order to continue to have a job. It may not be that way all over the US, but it is that way in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the same vein, Conservative Byte.com, can be quoted as, “The number of Americans designated as ‘not in the labor force’ in February was 89,304,000, a record high, up from 89,008,000 in January, according to the Department of Labor.”

This is an increase of 296,000 from January to February.  

Conservativebyte.com also gives this statement for clarification.

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics label people who are unemployed and no longer looking for work as ‘not in the labor force’ including people who have retired on schedule, taken early retirement or simply given up looking for work.”

So, how are we in the money again?

Supposedly, we have higher paying jobs and as the same MSN internet articles states, “robust sales in the auto industry and a steady housing market are spurring more hiring, which could trigger more consumer spending and stronger economic growth.”

“Hourly wages rose 4 cents to $23.82 last month. Wages have risen 2.1 percent over the last year, slightly ahead of inflation. Higher pay is vital to the economy because consumer spending drives 70 percent of the economic activity.”

Wow, once again, I am amazed. My house is still on the tax records at about 45% of its original appraisal from 2003. That appraisal was made when it was an extreme fixer upper listed by HUD.

I had to put another $ 25,000 into it in order to make it livable and up to code.

The $ 23.82 an hour wage would be welcome to me and my peers. We are all still at about half or less of pre 2008 wages. Some are the ones who have stopped looking for work, or have had to go to other states to find a job.

Wayne Allyn Root, former 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential Candidate, writing for Townhall.com can be quoted about the March 8^th unemployment figures as follows:

America under Obama has become a vast wasteland of lousy part time jobs with low pay and no benefits. If we had a Republican president, don’t you think the media might be mentioning this? Is it possible the ‘good news’ in Friday’s job report is actually terrible news? It isn’t actually 236,000 Americans returning to work. It’s simply about 100,000 desperate American workers each taking three part time jobs, plus dipping into their 401K, plus maxing out their credit cards, to survive for another month. Or didn’t you hear that Americans are dipping into their retirement accounts in record numbers?”

He goes on to say, “According to a report released February by the National Employment Law Project, higher-wage industries are accounting for 40 percent of the job losses in America, but only 14 percent of the job growth. Lower wage industries are accounting for 49 percent of the job growth. Back in 1980, less than 30 percent of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40 percent of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.”

As for the high stock market, that is so easily manipulated by the uber rich. They can pump it up or deflate it at will. Don’t buy it. It is just 1987 all over again. The big dogs play and the little dogs pay. Everyday people lose their investments. The stock market is a game no one should play. In fact, I would recommend pulling all monies out of the stock market and buying gold and silver coins. At least, it has value whether the economy is up or down. Worst come to worst, you can trade it for food and other necessities.

I don’t know what others might think of this media data, but I am reminded of an old saying, “Don’t pee down my back of my neck and tell me it is raining.”

Read, my friends and neighbors, read all the reports from the lame stream left and the free thinking independents.  Make your own decisions and trust your own judgment.