Rest In Peace, Ms. McDaniels

Another co-worker lost his mother today.  He suffered through her illness this past year and lost other family members along the way.  Pray for Michael for strength and divine help to guide him through this new phase in his life.  Yes, my connection is the loss of any mother and the closeness to Easter is also a factor.  He will never forget it because Easter is the Resurrection of Our Lord, Jesus.  My mom loved all of the holidays but most of all Easter.  She loved singing on Easter Sunday.  I guess that's why she waited until Easter was gone before she left.  Michael's mom fought long and hard and left during Holy Week!  The heavens are singing and praising because all of God's children are coming home!  Celebrate the reunion of souls!

We’re Pissed Off, Again!

The Republicans are pissed off with the President this time over his ability to circumvent them blocking the appointment of key positions in the administration. 18 months have passed by and they intend to hold up everything. Some of us that are working are already doing the work of 2-3 people. It’s called burnout! Is this what the Republicans are looking for? Keep in mind that the Republicans have been blocking every move that he has made to appoint anyone. Now this time, the President found a way, which has been used in the past. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have made recess appointments, which circumvents the Senate's authority to confirm nominees, to overcome delays. President George W. Bush made more than 170 such appointments in his two-term presidency. President Bill Clinton made nearly 140. Obama had even warned everyone that he would do it. The bottom line is, let’s be honest, please. The Republicans have been pissed off ever since Obama was elected. During his campaign, they have done everything possible to derail him. Since he’s been elected, they have done everything possible to make him fail and look bad to the nation. Now, if I don’t like you, I don’t care what you do to make things right and fair for everyone, I will still not like you. I don’t hate anyone, but if that was my character, as it is for some people, I would pray that you would fail and slip up. The problem with wishing bad things on others will initiate Karma’s duty to return the same to you. There are sayings in all cultures that relate to digging a grave for your enemy will result in digging two, the other for yourself. I just can’t seem to understand why the ultras (Moderates are being phased out) are so bent on destroying this administration despite what is beneficial. I don’t agree with everything that’s being done in Washington, but our elected officials can’t even discuss problems civilly. They are too busy passing the blame. Personally, I think jobs should have been the first issue, but when I began to think about it, I can see why Healthcare was even more important. We can work through this domestically, in other words, a local issue. It’s not perfect but it is helping others. The legislators aren’t complaining about their socialistic benefits, are they? Jobs require a great deal more because we will have to deal with Multi-National Companies (MNCs) who found a way to satisfy their shareholders by outsourcing products for cheaper labor and larger returns on profit. The Republicans will never stand for that because that is who they represent and defend. We don’t need unions! As a stockholder, I understand and would want it that way, too. But when you die, you will die alone, and all that you own will be left behind. So no matter what you got, you won’t be able to keep it. Age has a way of reminding you about mortality. Now outsourcing is cheaper in so many ways, buildings, locations, materials, people, and most importantly, cost. If you constantly spend and not build revenue, and there is no supplements coming in, you will eventually go broke. But if you don’t spend, you will not be able to obtain the necessary items to live. Wars created jobs but they cost and the people are fed-up with wars and loss of lives. We don’t want higher taxes but we do want what we like. It would cost a fortune to bring jobs back and to have a Made in the USA label. Bringing jobs back in America would cost and invite unions and we know how the right side of aisle feels about that. While we are whining and complaining we should be thinking ahead. What can we do about unemployment and jobs? Let’s present a proposal and get back to doing our job! Instead, we’d rather gripe and hope that mid-term elections will make a difference. It won’t matter who’s elected what will they do to get this country back on track and moving in a positive direction? I am disgusted of the code words and actions to separate the races and classes. If we thought Healthcare was a tough battle, wait for the jobs argument.

Rest In Peace, Corporal D. Kevin Cusack

A SC Highway Patrol Trooper, Corporal Kevin Cusack passed this morning in a traffic collision.  It is still under investigation.  He was a veteran of 21 years.  God bless him and his family.  I was going to write about the 2010 Heartwalk this morning because even though today turned out beautiful for us.  It's not always the same for others.

Her Letter

The envelope lay with the address side face down so

that it would be protected from onlookers. Looking at its back

I felt an emptiness that showed no character, no feeling.

She was hunched so intently over the letter that her position

seemed discomforting to this observer.

One trembling hand was holding the letter

while the other held her head.

Not even her eyes released any emotion

that could be judged.

This observer walked several times

in front of the quaint outdoor café. The bare wrought iron tables

and stark display of the scene

gave a surrealistic, melancholy, feeling to the unsmiling,

unemotional, attractive young woman.

Her beautiful, smooth, young face showed

no signs of happiness or sorrow.

Almost as if she believed by succumbing to the reading it would

cause her to be duped into something

she was unwilling to participate.

Somewhere in the all of this,

life was still for her.

She was oblivious to her surroundings, which

seemed to meld with her mood absolutely.

What she was going through, this observer will never know.

She appeared to stare at every word as if expecting them

to their true meanings.

Around the block, this observer walked, and yet each time,

she was seen reading the letter over again.

I sensed a of kind of sadness deep within her

but it was only a guess.

Something was not right.

When I came around again, she and the few pages were gone.

The wrought iron table in front of the café was again empty.

A Part of Things

By Ejothian S. Litman

March 24th & Thursdays

March 24th marked the two anniversary of my mother's passing.  It also marked the 7 year anniversary of Lt. Wilson's father.  I have also learned that it is the day that a co-worker in another department, lost her father, too!  Now we all will have to encourage each other as LT supported me last Wednesday.  But I have a problem with Thursdays now, I can't sleep.

Opinions Are Like *******s, All Of Us Got One!

Efforts were made to pass this historical health care reform bill recently. It wasn’t perfect but it was a start. After nearly a hundred years, the nation has once again made a leap into the future. The problem is resistance to change. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had the same benefits our politicians have, the bill would have still been wrong. Someone will still complain about it. I will address that later. Everyone has an opinion but where these same people years ago? Reform does not come easy and change is even harder. Even in the Clinton years when the bill failed, why didn’t people speak out? Those of us that have insurance see it costing more every year and we’re not getting any cost of living raises at all. Yet, we’re not cursing and spitting on anyone. We’re not even calling our local representatives, and heaven forbid that we call our state representatives and senators. Why didn’t we raise all of this raucous during the Bush years? Where were the Tea Party folks then? I can make an educated guess. It appeared that once Obama became President, the Republicans made a concentrated, strategic decision to find ways to make the administration fail. Words of Waterloo and I hope he fails became a mantra among the ultra-conservatives. Who by the way, no longer consider moderate republicans as republicans. These mindless, Rush Limbaugh followers only complained about everything this president did. They offered many complaints but were unwilling or unable to offer solutions. They lied about willing to work with the president, it was a front. All along hidden forces and even conservative networks and radio stations begin agitating the ultra conservatives, who never like the president and will never like him, into a boisterous, mean, hate-filled, and combative mob. And while this baby was being born, our republican leaders stood on the sidelines and watch this undisciplined baby grow. Yet, they did not even bother to intervene when the newborn became threatening, disrespectful, and mean towards anyone that did not look like them. Stir them up! So are our politicians representing only certain groups? Then if so, they are not standing up for the people! If these politicians were thinking about the people even a year ago when the debate began, why didn’t they offer us the same federal benefits they have? How can they call this bill unconstitutional? Of course, they said that about the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Seems to me, these politicians are only representing a certain segment of the people. I guess they don’t realize that minorities voted for them, too! I am too disgusted. I can’t believe that these educated representatives of the people can’t stand up to the Limbaughs, O’Reillys, and Becks or anyone that preach divisiveness or teach hate. I’m guessing because these media personalities have a large listening audience that will mindlessly obey them who to vote for. We can all make rational decisions between right and wrong but we don’t. Who tells the best lie or who makes the best case even though it is still a lie will determine the votes. Education is so important but too many people just won’t read. And we can’t believe everything we read except the Bible. We believe that if so and so said it, it must be the truth. I say it’s time to vote them out and find representatives that can work together for the good of this nation. The world will leave us behind and we’ll wind up looking like a bunch of dummies. The lobbyists have paid these chaps too much money and it is time for them to go! Violence is not the answer but it’s being pumped up and the media seems to walk this kind of news.

Days Gone By - Leave Them Be!

Night riders, Sons of the Confederacy, Ku Klux Klan, and others are just few of the reminders of hatred and the use of fear at its best to keep minorities in place. Horrible deaths towards blacks were accepted or were not even considered illegal because blacks were considered animals or second class citizens. Catholics and Jews were a little better off because many of them around these thugs denounced their religions and/or changed their names to be accepted among the supremacists. They didn’t have to change their skin color to be recognized. These techniques worked and state rights were held sovereign. Those people were determined to maintain the status quo, keep things as they are and vowed never to change. Look around you and you can see that there are still those unwilling to change and accept peace. They miss those old days where they had power and everyone knew their place. Well, those days are gone and believe me they will never come back! Media personalities, politicians are hiding behind their podiums secretly supporting these hate filled mongrels. They are closet racists because they are afraid to admit who they really are. They are outnumbers by peaceful human beings and know that their fate is cancerous and only destroying themselves. So now they are vowing to destroy what is good for the country, making their last stand, while enticing the gullible to follow them into oblivion, but at the same time making an excuse that they are doing what is right for the people. These fake politicians are doing only what is good for them and using others. We see that they are not interested in civility, decorum, or respect. Rush Limbaugh wants to wipe out the peaceful folk because he has a radio platform to reach the undecided. If he didn’t have that who would Rush Limbaugh be? Peace does come at a price. While we are fighting against each other here in the United States for equal opportunities, our soldiers, men and women, are dying abroad. The freedom we once held so dear is also a barrier that is beginning to surround us.  When will we ever learn that being insensitive and oblivious to our fellowman’s plight will eventually affect us?  Horace Mann once said, ""Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."  Education is so important to progress without it, you won't be able to determine rationally who's right or wrong.  John Avion a writer for The Daily Beast said, "We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country."  Too many of us can't see that someone is making a ton of money off of others and calling it news rather than it's true name, entertainment.  Pray for our President, leaders, country, each other and ourselves!

It's Done! Health Care Reform Passed!

Like I said in earlier blogs, we are given the opportunity to live in historical times!  The Health Care Reform was passed by Congress!  This has marked almost 100 years since 1912 when first introduced.  It has taken this long for our nation to look at other people needs and deficiencies.  What is worse, some people truly believe as long as they got theirs, let others worry about themselves.  No man is an island, but we tend to believe that we can make it on our own.  Yep, we still like to fool ourselves, most of the time lying.  Somewhere in this hodgepodge of "we say, they say", we'll find the truth.  Some people will never come together.  This time it looks like our political parties and representatives won't either.

What Is Wrong With a Little Respect?

This is a day of historical proportions! Today is March 21, 2010, the day the Health Care Reform will be decided for the better or worse. And all of the stops have been pulled out. I’m not even looking at the news. The last I read was that some Tea Party activists had spit on a congressman, called a few minority congressmen the n-word, and called another the f-word for homosexuals. As I have always said, many of these so-called activists are really opportunists who’s using healthcare as a front for their racial and hateful agenda. What is worse is that the opposing party knew that this racial groundswell will be uncontrollable and never bothered to keep them in check from the very start. Yet, we here so much how they are representing the American people who want them to block the reform. Never mind, polarizing the races and classes, this is the time for another Waterloo and collateral damage will be necessary. This is not the party of Lincoln but of hypocrites and I am ashamed of them.

My opinion is this. It goes back quite far, too. It doesn’t matter if our people (Africans) sold us into slavery. The slave traders brought us here via the trade routes and finally to America under the worse conditions ever imagined and done to a people for the purpose of using Africans as slaves. When these slaves arrived they were still treated unacceptably worse than the indentured servants that left Europe. The differences were one group treated as humans, the other; as animals. The slave descendants remained under that same label even today. Not all people are prejudiced and bigots, which was soon exhibited with the Civil War. Even after being freed, the slaves were still treated as second class citizens are as animals in some places. An effort was made after Reconstruction for freed slaves to serve in the political arena but again a surge by the hate groups fought against it by using the same fear and lie tactics that are being used today. Any advances to progress were halted and stalled until the 60’s with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Laws. Now if the playing field was equal and level from the very beginning, I think that either we would have a true representation of all in the tea parties or there wouldn’t be any tea parties in the first place. Voting Rights? Yes, we are still the only minority that can vote provided that laws are passed to allow us to vote. How equal is that? Government takeover! The government is too big and getting into everybody’s business, right? If it wasn’t for the federal government, I guess Wallace would have had his way; schools in the south would remain segregated and impoverished. Oops, many are still that way! Freedom fighters would still be dying and the KKK sheets would still be flying. They still are, too! Again a level playing field is still pretty hard to obtain even in this day and age. To me, if the federal government doesn’t step in, we would stay in slavery days. Now we’ve come to one of the biggest showdowns since OJ. So don’t ask me how I feel. Accept the fact that because we all have been brought up in different circumstances that we all will think differently. It’s call respect, something quite a few people seems to be lacking right now.

Problems, Problems, Problems!!!

I'm having problems with my website and it's been a chore to get back to it.  The old version is http://whatsyourexcusenow.blogspot.com/

I'll keep working at it to make things convenient for everyone.

It's Time To Stop The Madness!!!

A fellow member in the same organization I belong to sent me an email regarding a Baptist minister venting his distrust for the President and that Catholics should beware of him. Obama is now being blamed for the split among Catholics! Remarkable! Catholics have been split for various reasons for years and now this so-called minister who is on the internet is ranting that we need to be aware of this evil man who has an evil agenda to destroy the whole world! We were split on abortion, excommunication, accepting gays, women preaching, other religions and priests married. Overall, the majority of churches everywhere seem to have a problem with women being in the clergy. But here’s a minister that is able to find the time to preach hate and distrust instead of prayer for lost souls. The sad thing is, people believe this guy. The information highway is once again going too fast for conditions. I’ve always said people will believe if the story is shown on the internet. I can not agree with everything you say just to get along with you. Now if you can’t be honest with me that’s your problem, not mine! But I have seen so much hate displayed since Obama has been President. America voted for change but powers-that-be refuse to. And they will fight tooth and nail with everything at their disposal to keep it that way. Hate is another form of cancer, not only does it destroys, it spreads to destroy others.

Thank you, Vivian!

I was reminded today if I intended to stop entries to my blog. I knew some people read it because I get comments on them from time to time. I guess I didn’t expect my co-workers to read them. In fact, Vivian even remembered the date of my last entry. I’ve had some major projects going on at this time and have actually immersed myself so deep in them that I didn’t want to think about the negativity and memories that surround all of us everyday. I need to thank Vivian for jolting me back to reality. I have no excuses but I do have an explanation. Two years ago during this same time period, my mother was rushed to the hospital. Two years ago during this same time period, there was nothing else that was so important to me that she recovers. She didn’t. On March 24, 2008 around 10:00 p.m., the day after Easter, my mother went home. Even now, it still seems so fresh in my mind and I am openly weeping. One of the projects that I am working on ends the 25th of March. I enveloped myself totally so that I did not, would not have the time to think about anything except making this project a success. Yes, I was aware of the dates, the 6th, she was rushed to hospital, two weeks later transferred to the hospice. Mentioning the hospice to me cuts to the bone, but she had the best people, I feel in the world, to make her final days as comfortable as possible. My mother did volunteer work at that same hospice and they all knew her and we all cried together. Is it any wonder that I withdraw from everyone around this time? Time will not allow me to get over my hurt. I have these beautiful memories of her but I also have those memories of her lying so helplessly, defenseless, and so small in that bed. That was my mother who could tell me to get a switch for my whipping and afterwards, tell me how much she loved me and why she spanked me. This was the same woman that could cook a dinner that could be sold in restaurants. This was also the same woman that made sure the other kids in the neighborhood had food and clothes and that the shut-ins would have the same. My mother loved everybody, black, white, red, or yellow, protestant, Muslim, or Jew. Everyone had a mother and they were old children of God. That’s how she lived and that’s how she taught us. As a retired RN, she knew what families faced with a loved one in the hospital. She worked in pediatrics for years and would come home and still cry for those little babies. I could go on but there are so many of us that feel the same way about our parents. Everyone is always closer to one than the other and you share that special bond. A bond that is eternal. It is tough during this time of year, in fact, in 2008, I only made 2 entries. I just didn’t want to write. If there are any spelling and/or grammatical errors it’s because I have taken my glasses off and will not proofread any of this. Please forgive me. Well, this is my explanation. There are other things that I need to talk about. My brothers and sisters in Christ, God bless you always in good and troubled times.  He will never leave us!

Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil!

All poor people are not lazy and all lazy people are not poor. We seem to hear a lot of negativity about the unemployed that are receiving federal benefits. “They can find a job at fast food place.” “Lazy people shouldn’t get unemployment that I’m giving to the federal government.” How shameful!!! What goes around comes around. There are plenty of Americans that are looking for work, that want to work, that want to provide for their family but can’t find any jobs. Not many people are hiring. But these naysayers can’t seem to understand that. All they seem to do is complain and whine about how much they are paying into the federal system and that their great-grandchildren will be paying for this huge deficiency in the economy. Why couldn’t they protest about outsourcing and buying American? We are all at the leisure of our employers. They can go out of business, cut back, or move to another location. Hopefully, not overseas. But our protesters are so concerned about where there money is going now where were they when it was being spent on wars and fleecing America? What about not knowing where it was being spent, but still everything was fine? There were no mass protests then! Well now, with a new president, that does not look like the them, these protesters are now up in arms and supporting selfish politicians that are hell bent on watching this country fail without contributing a single action to dam this flood of hate and hostility. To borrow a phrase from one protester when asked, “Why did you join this movement?” The answer was, “We all hate the same thing!” Damn what is good for this country and damn this new president who wants to make this country better for all people! We have an image in this world to maintain, right? We are a super power, superior above all nations! We have our attitudes to show for it, too! That’s why there are those in the country willing to divide this country and repeat our past failings and problems and those willing to allow it to happen. The general consensus is they’re angry with Washington but should be ‘fess up to being angry with the President because he is who he is. Labels such as socialists and liberalists abound when it comes to helping your fellow man. How many of us actually know the inner workings of the political process unless someone tells us? How many of us can tell the difference between the truth and lie? It’s harder to tell the truth, you might not get the results you want. But, lies can have severe consequences. The “old folk” used to say “Tell the truth and shame the devil.” In other words, the devil hates truth and honest and he’s working hard to impress his evil on all of us. By telling the truth, you showed him how strong God’s Will is over his. It looks like too many people are giving up hope and not feeling God’s Will. Let me tell you something! God is in control! Don’t forget it! How many people believe that everything they read or see in the internet is true? Most importantly, how many people want to believe in something? There is a class war going on besides the racial war underneath. Yes, a class war. The Middle-class is shrinking. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. The protesters can’t see it because they are so blinded by hate and lies. We are being led to the slaughterhouse and don’t know it because we are all pawns for the powers-that-be. Reapportionment is designed to keep the incumbents in so how can we vote them out? Is there actually a conspiracy theory? I have a lot of questions in this entry but I’ll doubt I’ll get answers. I suppose it is easier to criticize others than offer a real solution.

RIP Captain F. K. Lancaster, Sr. (Retired HP)