When do you fight, how do you fight?

There are so many injustices in this world until it is hard to know where to start. One would think that you would start in your own backyard, and I have a few issues there that I could definitely address and they would benefit many others as well. Then there are those injustices, like cut back in education that are taking place in California, that are just unthinkable. So where do you start? Yes you can take on a couple of things at a time, but then there is the time required and the research necessary to start to address these issues. Yes I could probably figure out where to start but where do I find the time to start.
Collectively, the average working person was able to override the political machine and elect a man to the highest office in this country, who was not the forerunner. This makes me believe that we can do anything together. We need to continue this fight because President Obama is not going to make this all happen alone, and he is not going to be able to do all through the Executive Office. As he has said many times, we need to get together and continue to fight, continue to make our voices and desires heard.
Today I was able to watch the town hall meeting that President Obama held in Costa Mesa, California, and behold, there was a teacher in the audience to ask the necessary questions in reference to the cutbacks in education. She has been teaching for over 20 years and received a pink slip last week. She also told of another teacher in the same district, an Urban district, who had received the Teacher of the Year Award and was also given a pink slip. Can anyone see the problem here. I was under the impression from watching the news last week when there were a number of teachers gathering with picket signs in various parts of Los Angeles that it was mostly the newer teachers that were receiving these pink slips, not that this is acceptable, but veteran teachers. This is something that just tells me that our education system is just business as usual. The business of getting rid of the teachers that are making the higher salaries and hiring newer teachers at a much lower rate. I do believe that our education systems need fresh ideas and change, but the the teacher of the year. She is obviously doing something right. President Obama stated that most of the money in the stimulus package was for retaining teachers, as well as upgrading the infrastructure, but most was for retention. This particular teacher that addressed President Obama also expressed that the average number of students in a classroom was 36 to 44 students. It is impossible for one teacher to teach that many students when the students have various skill levels. There needs to be a major overhaul of the education system because it is obviously not working and has not worked for at least 25 or more years. This needs immediate attention just like the economy and the health care system in this country.

Now where and when do we start to make enough noise about our education system, how it is effecting our future and our present. How we are presenting another generation of people that are not going to be equipped to run this country, keeps it's promises, and propel it into the next century.

The Not Perfect but Wonderful Barack Obama and Family

President Obama is to me more than an extraordinary man, I am still sittiing around with my mouth open in awe of what I see in him, in his wife Michelle, and even their two beautiful daughters. They are what an American Family should be. This couple have genuine love, admiration, adoration, and mutual respect for each other. They are just a pleasure to watch together and equally as inspiring when they are going about their individual tasks. They are determined to make the White House the peoples house and in only 6 weeks in, they are doing just that. They are inviting the ordinary man into their home, especially children, to see what their lives are like, as oppose to just reading about it. President Obama is also doing everything he can to keep the American public aware of what he is doing in his administration.
Of course there are many critics and many that will pick apart the President and his administration. That is to be expected because the more he reveal of himself the more these critics are going to attack him. I know that I will not agree with everything that he does or attempts to do as President, but watching this man at work and his comfort level in this position makes me believe that he was born to fill these shoes.
I am obviously a supporter and a fan, and hoping the day will come when I can return to the ground from my elevated state and close my mouth from being awe struck by what is taking place in my lifetime. The excitement continues.

My Bike Ride

Today I decided that I was going to get back on my bicycle and start working out again. I had it tuned up at the bike shop and took it for a test ride the other day and I was ready. It was a great to feel the sun and wind on my face. I decided to take on the bike path that is near my house and one of the stops along the trail is a place called Lake Balboa. I decided today I was going to ride through this park and it was beautiful. At one point I took a wrong turn after passing the golf course and ended up in an area where there was a flyers club. I first hear all of this buzzing above my head after looking up, I immediately thought there were kids with some remote control air planes, then I saw the flyers club sign and saw a scattered group of middle age men. They were the ones flying the planes and they looked really happy with themselves. This was the moment that I wished I had my camera, but of course I didn't. It still amazes me that people are still fascinated with the simple things in life.
I remember my Uncle Smithy who loved playing golf more than anything. I never understood the fascination with hitting a little ball and being out in the middle of no where. It was not until I sponsored a corporate golf tournament and was out on the green driving the golf cart that I got it. Being one with nature was so hypnotizing. It was not the hitting the ball alone , but where you were while hitting the ball. In the middle of green grass, beautiful trees, birds singing and the Peace, this was all addictive. Needless to say I started playing golf, and I even have my Uncle's clubs now that he is teeing off on the big green in the sky. It is definitely a game that requires a great deal of patience, not to mention a little bit of money. I have not played in awhile now, but I still have his clubs and can go and enjoy this game with a friend that is in love with golf.

Food and Fitness

It has been some time since I have posted anything here. I have been working a great deal lately so everything has been put on the back burner. I am going to try to do better because I do enjoy writing this blog as well as the others.

Lately I have been doing research on eating well. I have always been a pretty good eater and love good food, but I have been trying to learn the right foods to eat to give my aging body what it needs to stay healthy. Learning the right combinations of foods as well as the healthiest way to prepare these foods. I have also started juicing and it has made a great deal of difference in how I feel daily. It is mostly trial and error to find out how often to juice and what to juice. Your body will tell you what works for sure if you pay attention.
I have also started a yoga program, but have not been doing this part as often as I would like to. I am steadily trying to work all of this around my work schedule, which has increased. Again, this is all trial and error. I have even gone to a Chinese herbalist to help with the symptoms of perimenopause, and I must say that it has been quite helpful. All of this is a process, so I am trying to take the time to learn what works for me and what does not. I really want to incorporate this all into my daily life in order to make it a permanent part of my routine. This is why I am doing just a little at a time.
I have discovered some really good recipes on line for various foods as well as juicing. This has been a great deal of fun, and I will keep you posted on what I learn.

Peacefulness

2009 has brought some wonderful changes to my life. It has brought an end to a great deal of things that I had been struggling with for the past four or more years. Growth is often painful as well as change, but there has been a great deal of good that has come from my struggle. The growth is phenomenal as well as the peace that I feel because of change. There are also a few changes that I am working on such as nutrition and yoga/meditation. The latter I have not quite incorporated yet, but the nutrition has been fun. There is still a great deal more to learn, but I am reading several books on nutrition simultaneously. I have started juicing which is something that I love thus far, all except the clean up.

The Spirit of Christmas

This is a picture of my daughter Whitney with Santa at 20 months old.

Christmas is here again and it brings with it a great deal of change for a great deal of families. The economy will force some to be more creative for Christmas and others will feel a great deal of pain. Using this time to count your blessings is the best thing that one can do, because if you have life and health, you are truly blessed and have the chance to once again accumulate stuff. More than likely, accumulating stuff will become less and less important, other than the stuff that you need to be comfortable in this life; and many will do with out those for now. America has come back from the Great Depression and we will again recover from this economic down turn.

The meaning of Christmas started to change for me many years ago when my daughter was about six years old. We had been living in Atlanta, Georgia and I had been laid off from my job at MCI about five months before, forcing me to move my young daughter back to Savannah, Ga. to live with my parents. Well that move was a strain on all involved. Seeing the disappointment in my parents eyes was extremely painful, but something I had become accustomed to. In the early days of December I ran into an old friend that was now a psychologist and shared and office with another psychologist in a beautiful old house in Thunderbolt that faced the water. She invited me and my daughter to a Christmas party that they were having at their office for many of their patients and their families who either had no family or were away from family for various reasons. I decided to go and she said the only requirement was to bring a Christmas ornament for the tree and a potluck dish. This party was taking place on Christmas eve and it was quite cold that night, but the sky was clear. I was in a house full of people that I didn't know, where we decorated the tree, chained popcorn, laughed, talked, and ate all sort of food. After the kids chose a present from a grab bag, we were all going caroling through the neighborhood, and the smallest kids road in the back of an old pickup truck with wooden railings, filled with hay. We walked from door to door singing, badly I might add. The people came outside to greet us with hot chocolate and candy canes for the kids. It was the first time that I had done anything like this, but it was the most wonderful experience. I was with people whom I didn't know until that night and have not seen since. But there was a beautifully warm connection of peace and love like I had never felt before. It really restored my faith in people and love. I then realized that blood didn't equate to family, that you can have the sense of family with perfect strangers. I know it was only one night, just like you have chance meetings with people on the street, but that immediate connection, warmth, and acceptance you feel is something you carry with you through out your life.

This experience showed me that Christmas was not about shopping for that hat and scarf, sweater, or whatever gift you are buying for friends and family, it is mostly about what is on the inside than what is on or for the outside. That Christmas warmed my heart and has remained apart of me, and to me that is what Christmas is really about, that is the true spirit of Christmas. As each Christmas comes and goes, I want less and less of that tradition my family has created, which was wonderful for many years, but things have changed and I want to change with it. It has become about giviing of yourself instead of giving of stuff. Oh yeh, I know that giving of stuff can also be memorable, when someone gets something that they have been wanting for sometime, a new car, a new baby, a marriage proposal, etc., but most of these things are also for the heart. Most things that are purchased and put in a box are not. Christmas has also been a time of great loss for some and reconnection for others. It is important for us to reconnect to what is important in our lives and celebrate that. Always!

17.4 Million Dollar Emergency Loans to Only Two Auto Companies.

This is a first for me, but I applaud President Bush's decision to bailout GM and Chrysler on Friday. Chrysler is a privately owned company and after the parent company has dumped millions into its struggling entity, it decided no more. I don't blame them for not wanting to continually dump good money after bad, but I do blame them for allowing all of this bad decision making by the top executives to continue. The liquidation of these companies would have destroyed the American economy and many hard working American people with it. Even though most of their demise is from their not following the trends of today or merely listening to its consumers, these are decisions of a few, that would destroy the lives of many. It was important to give them a chance to make things better. It was a surprising decision of this administration to, for once, look after the interest of its people. This is mostly because of the outcry from many politicians to do something to help the people of this country and stop putting the business sector first, allowing them to continuously exploit its workers and its consumers.
Gratefully so, this decision came with quite a few restraints on the auto companies, which were completely necessary. Bush's decision was very much in line with the plan proposed in Congress earlier in the week that met with strong Republican opposition, who believe that the companies should go bankrupt. Even Bush, a Republican, believed that under ordinary circumstances these companies should not be bailed out by the government and should be allowed to fail. That is one Republican view that I agree with. Unfortunately, these are not ordinary circumstances, they are extraordinary ones, and to keep the economy from completely spiraling out of control, Bush is giving these companies a chance to restructure and help themselves with a short term loans. The way that this differs from Congress is that the money Bush is using comes from the 700 billion dollars already set aside by Congress for the financial markets as opposed to the 25 billion previously set aside for the auto makers in the plans to update the auto industry, with more fuel efficient cars, alternate fueled cars, and possibly electric cars.
This also holds the roof up long enough for the new administration to come in and make some decisions as oppose to having to undo one more thing, or shovel up one more pile of Bush dung, Making Obama look even more like the House Negro.