Clean-out

Regularly i do a clean out around the computer area and find all sorts of notes i have tucked away for further study. Unfortunately a lot of the time they just get cleaned up and tossed when i realize i'll never get to them. This morning i was doing another clean-out and decided this time to just put up some of the stuff i think important at that time.

i write down little snatches of quotes without the author's name just because i like them. i used to have them pasted up all around the computer area but it was looking so tacky i got rid of them and started a pile. My dad used to write down notes on napkins he got in restaurants so i guess it runs in the family. Here are a few:

“Leadership is about going first and setting an example.”

“Value is the trilogy of all time for it includes morals and will.”

“The reversal of decisions is like a plague placed upon the door saying “We are loath to take risks.”

Further into the mess i must have been thinking about a poem but never put it together instead i have the outline.

lean forward/future ahead

lean backwards/past behind

holding warm coffee/affection and warmth

cold tea/snub

hot tea/acceptance

i don't know what i was going to do with that but out it goes.

i figure if i have paste it here i can get rid of the bits of paper. Here is one that i must have thought would make a good blog post.

“Agnotology...culturally constructed ignorance purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth”

Here's another thought:

There is no fossil evidence of the change in intellectual capacity for it can't be quantified. Transmutation of information was usually internal and evolved as a system of thought that was then externalized.

Sister Mary sweeping up Gallows Bay

Books...i like to read a lot. In fact if i'm not busy i'm always reading. Many times i come across reviews that sound like something i might like and i write the books name down only later to forget what it was i liked about it. Here is a list of some of them i have written on pieces of paper. The titles are intriguing but i don't have time to go look them all up again so i stack the pieces in a pile and paper clip them together with others i've saved. i don't think i will ever have enough time to read all the books i want to.

This clean out i apparently thought these books looked good.

“The Madonnas of Leningrad” by Debra Dean

“The New Jim Crow” no author

“The Blue Books” by Al Kennedy

“Orphan Masters Son” didn't write down the authors name

“Volt” by Heathcock

“The Instructions” by Adam Levin

“The Family Trade” by Charles Stross

“The Sisters Brothers” by Patrick DeWitt

“Fingersmith” by Sarah Waters and

“Beside the Sea” by Veronique Olmi

Movies are big in my list pile too and i have no idea if they are any good. Sometimes, when we go to watch things i've read about, the review is better than the movie and we quickly shut it down. These are a few in my latest stack.

“The Artist” Oscar winner

“A Separation” foreign film

“Saving Face” a short documentary

“The Shore” a live action short

“Blue Valentine” 2010

“Departures” Japanese film

“Submarine”

“Certified Copy”

May be some of you have seen these and can pass on a thumbs up.  Or have read some of the books...let me know so i can weed them out. The computer area is clean now.

See ya next week.

Legalize Medical Marijuana on St. Croix

Christiansted Boardwalk

i have some friends that have a daughter with uncontrollable epilepsy. Her seizures are so bad that the many medications she is on don't stop them. The family has tried every cure they can find for the past 12 years and still nothing has worked. If we had legalized medical marijuana they might be moving home now. As it stands they are in Florida living in a state with laws preventing the use of medical marijuana.

When Colorado declared that marijuana was no longer illegal a group of brothers in Boulder were able to develop a strain of marijuana that doesn't have THC in it. Instead it has a potent ingredient that has been proven to reduce grand mal seizures which my friends daughter experiences regularly. Children that have epilepsy and have used this oil have shown marked improvement in their seizure episodes. So much so that they have come literally back to life after getting off the seizure medications that haven't worked.

The brothers in Boulder would just love to mail it to my friends but can't because it is illegal. This is a major travesty in my book and another reason why we in the Virgin Islands should legalize marijuana yesterday.

We are scrambling around trying to find economic incentives and its sitting right under our noses. Its growing illegally all over the island and yet we don't have enough foresight to push legislation through. Young men here are incarcerated for possession filling our jails with people who could be contributing to society. It could be our new industry. Growing medical marijuana that could help people with epilepsy all over the world.

The video is eighteen minutes long but the inventor of this new breed of marijuana explains on a TED talk in Boulder why children like my friends should have access to this medication. Go watch it...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQ4ErmhO7g

and then speak up all over the island so we can get this legalized and they can come home.

It really could be the answer the island is looking for and i'm going to e-mail this link to all our Senators and you should too so they see how important it is.

i love this island and i want to see every one that lives here prosper. If legalizing marijuana is what will do it then why wait.

On another note i was in Christiansted yesterday looking for a baseball cap i could wear on our upcoming travels that said St. Croix. i found a nice bright orange cap that i plan to wear to get people to ask where St. Croix is or questions about the island.

A friend gave me a great tip for explaining where our beautiful island sits in the Caribbean. She said when she travels she tears the map page out of the back of the American Airlines magazine, folds it up and whips it out whenever someone asks where it is. Its easy to point out St. Croix and helps the questioner locate our little dot of land. i'm planning on doing it this trip because i think all of us that reside here need to talk up the place when we go off island.

So two things this week...push to legalize marijuana...and talk up the place when you travel.

Hotel on the Cay

See ya next week

Shutdown payoff?

i'm sorry the loonies in the House really need to have their heads examined. One of them said we are saving money from the shut down and it will be no problem to pay the bond holders if we default. i doubt he even comprehends how reprehensible that remark is. Eight Hundred Thousand people, Eiiiggghhhttt Hundred Thhhooouuuusssaaannnddd are sitting at home so he can play with their lives and income. The party of personal responsibility has gone off the rails actually causing Eight Hundred Thousand people their jobs.

The G-d d-mn Taliban are even referring to the House as blood suckers...taking money from their own people. Don't the Republicans understand that they are destroying any sense of democracy by holding our government hostage? Or are they doing this because a shutdown and default will eventually put dollars into their pockets?

Consider this...interest rates have been down for years but you want a safe investment. Maybe you have a million or some billions you would like to stash in treasury securities but the interest rates have been so low you can't make any money off it. You finance think tanks etc., Tea Party maybe, donate to right wing politicians and hooooo boy those people you are encouraging and paying off to hold fast have forced the government into a default. From what i understand interest rates would rise maybe from 2% to 4%,6%,8% because the gov't failed to pay its creditors? Who stands to gain here? The nation or the 1% pouring money into their "representatives"? 

i read on Politico this morning that the Koch's have donated $500,000 to Heritage Action a group warning Republicans that this is about Obamacare...ha! While an article just below it says the Kochs are neutral...ha!

Forcing a default means everything suffers, military, intelligence services, medicare, medicaid, social security and on and on. Tom Coburn(R) says at worst the default will be a “managed catastrophe” ala Shock Doctrine if any of you have ever read that book. But who gains...because there has to be a reason behind it forcing us into default and there has to be money to be made somewhere...follow the money they always say.

After the default when your house value goes down...who is going to start scooping up the properties at the fire sales? How many more people are going to be out of jobs? How many elders will lose more of their retirement funds, their houses they can't afford? Who exactly gains from forcing a default?

Psychologically the dollar has international value as a stable currency but with our lack of any manufacturing base and a default on top....the R's are going trash that golden egg, interest rates will have to rise and who stands to gain? Its pure madness i tell ya because the entire nation will suffer while only the extremely wealthy will walk away unscathed.

Hey Boehner...President Obama got 65 million votes from all around the country and he wants a clean bill...you only got 246,000 in your state who's representing here? i think the President represents the nation...not you...so stop saying the American people want you to force this shut down because i do not believe you, nor does the rest of the country and we don't want to live through the mess you will cause.

Put a clean bill up for a vote.

See ya next week

PS Is this a Hibiscus Tree? When it blooms it is white in the morning then pink in the afternoon and really pink at dusk.

Shutdown

A few weeks ago i wrote a piece about things i wasn't going to write about...well today i just can't keep my little fingers from pecking away here at an issue that is impacting the nation negatively. 

Hostage taking is when a small group holds people against their will while issuing demands for certain conditions to be met.

If there is anyone out there who can view the current government shutdown as anything other than hostage taking then you should have your head examined. Polls show that most of us know who the culpable party is and if you don't i'll repeat their name REPUBLICANS in the House. Even the fricking Chamber of Commerce has written a letter to Congress that was signed by over 250 business groups urging them not to shutdown.

Federal workers are not some amorphous group of hated government employees. They are real people, with families, mortgages, and car loans that go to work every day to provide services to tax payers. The REPUBLICANS could care less about them or this nation and i hope everyone wakes up to this fact. Killing the Federal government by any means possible is directly affecting the business climate of this nation.

Instead of focusing on a program that will help millions of people in the nation finally have access to health care they should be focusing on reducing our bulging military and intelligence agencies. But no they want to hold the nation hostage over a law the REPUBLICANS couldn't repeal via legal mechanisms in the House. They are a bunch of babies whinning and crying because some in this nation think we should all have access to health care. 

Never before has a debt ceiling or a budget been an excuse to negotiate a different piece of legislation and if you ask me the elephants in the House have definitely lost their grip on reality. The Me Party that is controlling the elephants has really gone off the deep end. Elephants usually operate under herd behavior but i think the lack of any guiding force amongst this particular herd has made them all go bat shit crazy. They really do hate this country and its citizens.

This shutdown is costing the nation billions of dollars so where is the gain??? This has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility nothing at all.

It drives me crazy when Republicans say the private sector will be the driver of prosperity and that government plays no role. When the private sector has been lowering wages for years and excluding medical benefits and overtime how the frack does that create prosperity. How exactly does a man or woman working 29 hours a week get ahead?

Demented children have been given power over the nation and have reduced politics to its crudest form. This process we are witnessing doesn't work, it is a wrecking ball gone out of control. Just the idea of closing down government so millions of citizens can't get health care makes me want to vomit. Is turning the US into a laughing stock all we have left?

You've read this all somewhere else so i won't belabor it, just know it makes me sick to see
Republicans hate their people so.  i leave you with this quote from Johann von Goethe.

“None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies.”

See ya next week