ta daa lists

In my e-mail this morning.

This year we're going to experience four unusual dates. 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 and that's not all...Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born -now add the age you will be this year, and the result will be 111 for everyone...!! This is the year of Money..!!! This year October will have 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays and 5 Saturdays.


This happens only every 823 years... These particular years are known as 'Moneybags'... The proverb goes that if you send this to eight good friends, money will appear in the next four days as is explained in Chinese feng shui Those who don't continue the chain won't receive.. Its a mystery, but its worth a try.
Good luck...

Looks like the South West doesn't it, but its Jacks Bay and a beautiful Kestrel

So what do you think, do most people start the day start off with plans for accomplishing various goals on their to do list?  Do you think we all do this or are there some out there who never make a list but function just fine?  i tend to think we all have a to do list, even if its just waking up, turning off the alarm clock and getting ready for work. 

All over the internet you can find ways to organize yourself, 25 to do lists to stay productive, learning how to create a functional to do list, real simple to do lists, and how to follow through on your to do list.

Yum, Yum my favorite fruit

Personally i like the ta daa lists the best. i get a kick out of making a list and seeing how fast i can get to the ta daa part.

Ta daa’s are nothing more than doing what you said you were going to do. If you start off knowing you will never get to the ta daa, don’t put it on the list.  Don’t create failure, its really pretty simple.

Yesterday i was with some really nifty ladies that were talking about tapping. If you haven’t heard of tapping it is a method that is used to reduce stress and free yourself from negative feelings and beliefs. To do lists have the capacity to throw us all into the negative feeling realm, but ta daas can save you. i haven’t ever tried tapping but the two ladies i was with both use it and find it beneficial.

So this morning while opening up e-mail i had a notice from tapping solution. Most times i delete these notices but i decided to open it up and see what was up because i had just been discussing it yesterday.

Full Moon in Frederiksted

Anyway the piece in my inbox had everything to do with what i was going to write about today so i’m copying and pasting it here so you can all enjoy it.

1. General Overwork and Overstress
   
   Karate Chop:  Even though I’m totally overworked,
   really stressed out and have WAY too much to
   do.... I deeply and completely accept myself
   
   (Repeat the above phrase three times while
   Tapping on the karate chop point)***i’m not sure what this means but i think you are supposed to tap on all these spots while thinking about the phrases. The tapping should be rhythmic.
   
   Eyebrow: Way too much to do...
   Side of the Eye:  My “to-do” list is a mile long...
   Under Eye: When will I ever get it done?
   Under Nose: I’ll never get it done...
   Under Mouth: I’m overworked and stressed out....
   Collarbone: When can I relax?
   Under the Arm: I can’t seem to relax
   Top of the Head: Too much to do...
   
   (Repeat the above phrases a couple of times,
   you can throw in your own phrases as well, and
   when you feel significant relief, move on to
   the positive phrases)

   

   Fort in Frederiksted

   
   Eyebrow: I chose to relax now...
   Side of the Eye: I chose to REALLY relax now...
   Under the Eye: I’ll never get it ALL done...
   Under Nose: And that’s ok...
   Under Mouth: I chose to slow down and take a breath...
   Collarbone: I am not my “to-do” list...
   Under the Arm: I am good enough no matter
   what I get done...
   Top of the Head: I chose to relax and let it go now...

Seems easy, give it a try and maybe you will get to the ta daa today.

TA DAA!

Food and Water Safety

Sejah Farm

Over at the Food and Water Watch website a new videohttp://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/ has been put up that alerts all of us living in the US to be aware that some of the safety protections we take for granted are being threatened by this new Congress. 

Independent of each other President Obama and Congress have both proposed cuts in their budgets to food and water safety. “The House GOP budget slashes $88 million from the USDA's meat safety inspections and $241 million from the food safety budget of the Food and Drug Administration, and slashes nearly $2 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency's funds for water infrastructure—money critical to keeping drinking water clean and sewage-free.” This drastic cutting is all going on while retaining subsidies that benefit large corporations and now not paying for three wars.

Cutting up the Jelly Nuts

"Food and Water Watch works to ensure the food, water and fish we consume is safe, accessible and sustainable. So we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of where their food comes from, keep clean, affordable, public tap water flowing freely to our homes, protect the environmental quality of oceans, force government to do its job protecting citizens, and educate about the importance of keeping shared resources under public control."  Their Mission Statement

"At least 14 Americans died and many thousands became ill from tainted meat, spinach, peppers, peanut butter and eggs in recent years," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, said in a press statement. "Now, Washington is seeking to slash the budget for our food and water protections, which will put more people at risk."

Eating a Jelly Nut

There are all sorts of cutbacks on inspections that are getting the ax under the Republican budget. Cattle that are slaughtered may carry more E. Coli, salmonella and other bacteria’s without adequate inspections occurring. Food in the supermarkets may go inspection free because cutting the Food and Drug Administration by $241 million could mean 8,600 inspectors out of a job.

Yum Fresh Dolphin

Only one percent of the imported food is inspected as it is. As more and more of our food comes from other countries, the gutting of these food and safety departments leaves us all at risk.  The Centers for Disease Control has reported that one out of every six Americans gets sick each year from food-borne illnesses, how many more will that increase to without inspectors on the front lines? How much does that cost in medical expenses that are unnecessary?

No one company will ever do the job that government can perform in ensuring safe, edible food and drinking water. Relying on companies to recall their own tainted food is a fool’s errand. Remember the corporations that sold peanut butter, chicken, pork etc. until they got caught? Selling food that is substandard may be good business if you can get away with it, but its not good for the population as a whole.

Cocao

Regulations, inspections, and fines are a necessary part of government to keep spoiled and infected meat,contaminated water, and e-coli riddled vegetables out of our homes. Without government playing a role in protecting these public resources all of us place ourselves and families at greater risk of illness and or death.

When you see your representatives cutting these vital services, call a halt. We can slash and burn in other areas of the budget, but food and water safety should be a priority for all of us.

rain

In the water at Green Cay squall a comin

i’m going to rain on the parade with a little history that refutes the talking point concerning how this nation got to where it is today. For the record, Business did not do it alone. For so many the interactions of government and private enterprise in churning our historic economy is minimized in favor of private enterprise being the sole creator so to speak.

Many don’t know that the United States of America would not be where it is today without government and private enterprise working together.

Elk Horn at Green Cay a National Park

Lets take Alexander Hamilton for instance. When he was Treasury Secretary of the US government he instituted programs that would churn the economy. Harbors and river navigation were integral to moving goods from point A to point B.  Hamilton understood that for business to thrive smuggling had to be under control. Then as now smugglers detested customs collectors and like all business people everywhere they avoided paying duty (taxes) on their goods.

Hamilton asked Congress to commission a fleet of vessels that would patrol offshore and stop the flow of contraband and keep tallies on goods coming into American ports. This new service of revenue cutters would later morph into what we call the Coast Guard. Everything that moved on the water was fair game for Hamilton’s revenue taxes and as a result of his attention to detail he improved harbors, dredged rivers and kept pirates at bay with “government money” so commerce could flow.

Octupus at Cane Bay

Hamilton beefed up river navigation, sent out survey crews to explore water borne paths to the Pacific and created safe new paths for commerce to move west(the Lewis and Clark expedition was initiated under Hamilton) and although they never found a river path that would connect the Pacific and the Atlantic they did initiate new trails that would become major arteries in the movement of goods across our nation.

Octopus Eyes. Can you find him?

“After Hamilton’s initial forays into the west, dozens of other expeditions were sent out, from after Lewis and Clark, right through the 1850s, when the Army assisted or outright ran surveying expeditions to select the various routes for transcontinental railroads. The transcontinental railroads themselves were capitalized by massive grants of public lands in the west. And before those, the earliest railroads in the East were almost all surveyed, planned, and built by officers of the Army Corps of Engineers, which was the ONLY repository of knowledge of civil engineering in the country, so government had a huge hand in expanding commerce.

“The evolution of transportation continued through the centuries, with wagons and stagecoaches, flatboats, canals, steamboats, and railroads providing increasingly efficient, ever faster service.” Weingroff

"Modern metal working machine tools were developed in the early 1800s in the national armories. Their contractors, in response to a War Dept. requirement for interchangeable parts for firearms, came up with the new methods for making tools.  Studies have shown how the foremen and supervisors of these armories spread out into other companies, creating the modern metal working industry, and eventually leading DIRECTLY to the breakthroughs in systemization of industrial production by Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

Ocean at Green Cay

Maritime steam navigation relied heavily on the discoveries of Admiral Benjamin Isherwood of the Navy's Bureau of Steam Propulsion in the 1840s-50s.

The automobile age was made possible by the Good Roads movement, which directed local, state, and federal governments to grade, maintain, and pave roads and highways. Then there was the Interstate Highway System begun in the 1950s by Eisenhower.  Today without our system of highways and interstates, manufacturers would spend obscene amounts of money moving their goods on private toll roads.

The aircraft industry was almost totally dependent on military funding at its beginning. This industry was basically created and underwritten deliberately by federal air mail programs.

Radio, at first called wireless telegraphy, was almost entirely funded in its industrial infancy by the Army and Navy.

Green Turtle at Cane Bay

Computer technology was developed under the auspices of the Army and Navy for purposes of gunnery control. After World War 2, the Navy in particular informally sponsored Seymour Cray and his development of super-computers. The internet, of course, began as the Defense Department's ARPANET.

For some in this nation it is extremely unfortunate that they continue to close their eyes to the vast improvements government has made on American lives.  That government has contributed and worked hand in hand with business to move this nation forward, needs to be hammered home.

We were not a wealthy Nation when we began improving our highways... but the roads themselves helped us create a new wealth, in business and industry and land values... So it was not our wealth that made our highways possible. Rather, it was our highways that made our wealth possible.

Thomas H. MacDonald
Chief, U.S. Bureau of Public Roads

Today we need to understand that government has a real place in moving the economy forward. We need government to invest our tax dollars in renewable energy, to invest in drug research and science, to invest in education and a whole host of other things that benefit all Americans. Private enterprise cannot do it alone.

Nurse Sharks at Cane Bay

Drowning government in a bathtub will not be good for America, we need government and as soon as we realize this as a nation we will begin to move forward again.

Notes: The list of government created aspects of our lives after Hamilton i copied from other sources. i unfortunately lost who to credit it with.

American Jobs at risk

People have different asset management skills. For some saving for the future is an integral part of their lifestyle whereas for others just getting the basic necessities paid for is an overwhelming burden. Those without a formal financial education are at a disadvantage and experience a lack of funds more frequently.

A lack of funds is becoming more and more pertinent as income instability and income inequality raises its ugly head. As the rich become richer, the middle class is getting squeezed at a rate not seen since the 1930’s. More and more people that had been living comfortable lives are experiencing a reduction in income.  The middle class in particular experienced a 4.8% drop in income between 2000-2009, this during a Republican dominated government.

Competition for jobs is happening on a global scale rather than on a strictly local level. There is now an equal lack of the right circumstances(demand) for job growth all over the country. Employment is moving in a negative direction, becoming less secure rather than more secure. There are fewer good paying jobs available like the ones we used to think of with pension benefits, health insurance, and retirement. Today we see less and less of these jobs being offered.

"There is mounting evidence that economic growth is less effective in reducing poverty in the face of rising trends in inequalities," Danesh-Yazdi said. "These forces combined have created a world where young people without privilege and wealth are unable to get a foothold in the labor market, and older persons whose proportion throughout the world is increasing rapidly enjoy less and less security for a lifetime of work." The US is moving faster and faster in a negative direction.

According to job statistics there has been an uptick in employment levels lately but we still won’t see the economy getting back to 5% unemployment levels until approximately 2033 according to the Americans for Progress website. Those who state that everyone can find a job are delusional, there aren’t enough jobs available to employ everyone that is looking.

Conservatives in the House have proposed cut backs in spending all across state and federal governments. These cuts in spending will directly impact jobs all across America and may do considerable damage to an economy still reeling from the banking excesses of 2007-2008.

Goldman Sachs estimates that the Republican controlled House proposed cuts to spending could reduce economic growth by 1.5-2%. Now does this sound like the gang that believes in creating jobs?

Getting the economy to roar, getting people to spend and demand services means creating more jobs, not cutting back on jobs.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says we need to spend over a couple of trillion dollars over the next five years just to upgrade our infrastructure to where it should be. This means investing in roads, bridges, water systems, electrical systems, communication systems, schools, hospitals etc. Could the private sector come up with this kind of investment that we need now, trillions to upgrade? I don’t think so, but it is something government has the capacity to do. Those who always discount government need to wake up.

Republicans complain about taxes, small government, deficits and the free market, well it’s a sham. Government size exploded under Reagan and G.W.Bush. Deficits grew under Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.  The “free market” has consistently caused income inequalities, huge market volatility and severe financial collapses.  “In fact, the Great Recession we are now climbing out of should have been strike three for the Free Marketeers.  Strike one was the Panic of 1893 and the depression which followed it.  Strike two was the Great Depression of the 30’s.  In all three cases, these collapses were preceded by conservative, laissez-faire policies featuring deregulation, low taxes and weak governments.” John Atcheson

Giving money back in taxes to people who don’t need it is doing grave harm to our nation. We are looking at more job losses, more off shoring, more reductions in hourly wages, just so some can make obscene profits.

Taxes are shared social investments that yield significant benefits for all segments of society which in many cases outweigh the cost, they are not some abstract burden.

Think where this nation is headed, if we continue down the conservative path we could be looking at an oligarchy staring us in the face. i don’t think any of us want that, remember we are all in this together.

Doing your part

Hybrid Hibiscus

i pick up little snippets from around the web that may or not have any meaning for you but did for me when i collected them.

Recently i read a piece by Robert F. Kennedy that explained why Canadians had voted against allowing FOX to have access to their TV bandwidths; apparently truth is very important in Canada and FOX coincidentally has a problem with truth.

The Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) prohibits the broadcast of false or misleading news.  This law was passed to prevent political parties from spreading propaganda and as a result Canadians enjoy an exemplary level of news and journalism. Canadians are some of the most informed in the world.

  

Squid

“Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio.” R.F. Kennedy

Here in the US we used to have a law(The Fairness Doctrine) that required news stations to present both sides of any topic.  The law required news outlets to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced.  Equal time was not a requirement of the law.

Roseway passing by

PBS’s Lehrer News Hour is one of the few that still make an effort to let both sides have air time.  In 1987(during Reagan’s term in office) the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine claiming that it was unconstitutional.

Today, there is no law on our books demanding that news stations tell the truth.

On to another subject from the Associated Press:

NATO apologizes for killing 9 Afghan civilians. . . Local officials say nine boys, ages 12 and under, were killed as they were gathering firewood. . .Top NATO commander Gen. David Petraeus said the coalition was "deeply sorry" for the tragedy. . .

Gentle Winds

Hmmm is this a lesson in how to make friends and influence people or is this a sure way to make more enemies?  How would “deeply sorry” feel to you if that was one of your children?

Next up…..last Saturday over 100,000 people came out to support union workers in their fight to keep collective bargaining on the table in Madison,Wisconsin…all over the rest of the country thousands of supporters turned out in their cities and towns but if you were watching CNN, FOX News, or MSNBC you wouldn’t have known so many people were concerned. It seems whenever liberals demonstrate it is not news but when conservatives demonstrate it’s all over the news, i wonder if it has anything to do with those corporations being anti-union?

i was having a talk with my husband last night about the problems with budgets all over the nation when he rightly pointed out that teachers, firefighters, policemen and other hard working government workers are not responsible for the current government deficits. In this politically charged time of demonizing government workers the fact that Wall Street caused the economic recession seems to be left out of the hard discussions.

Another Squid

Balancing the budget on the backs of these government workers who had nothing to do with the state we are in and will cause more job losses seems misguided. Why aren’t we discussing cracking down on tax loopholes and tax dodgers or the special interest tax breaks given to corporations some of which have paid no tax at all?

So to end this piece i picked up this anonymous quote:

Why is it that a 3% tax increase for the wealthy is considered "socialism" and
an 8% wage cut for the middle class is "doing your part?"