From Dreams To Dust

From My Own Little Corner Well, it looks as if there will not be a cease fire in the Middle East any time soon. Condoleeza Rice is leaving the region after being told that Lebanon's Prime Minister will not meet with her until there is a cease fire and the U. S. has said it won't call for a cease fire, but wants a sustainable solution. Question: How can you work toward a sustainable solution when innocent people on both sides are being killed at an alarming rate? Okay, so the civilians in Lebanon have been told to leave the area. Where exactly are they supposed to go? How are they supposed to get there when the roads are being bombed? What are they supposed to use for fuel, food, water? It would seem to me that the RIGHT thing to do would be to call for a cease fire, if only for a short time, and then work toward this sustainable solution. I understand that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and that the Lebanese government can't seem to control them, even though they are represented in the Lebanese parliament. However, bombing civilian buildings and killing children, women, and the elderly is obviously not the answer. Israel says that Hezbollah is targeting civilians in Israel. That is because they are terrorists. If Israel kills the innocent doesn't that make them just as guilty of terrorist acts? After all, two wrongs don't make a right. We all have been told that particular adage. Today Israel hit a refugee shelter killing over 50 people. Hezbollah launched numerous rockets into Israel. Israel hit a U.N. observation post, killing 4 U.N. observers. Israel says that Hezbollah puts it's rocket launchers in civilian areas and that there will be collateral damage to civilians. What happened to these precision guided, "smart" bombs that they are supposed to be using? Maybe they aren't smart enough or maybe the people programming them aren't being careful with their coodinates. Israel is supposed to be a mighty military power and with such power comes great responsibility. These countries need to put down their arms and start talking. Secretary of State Rice's undersecretary R. Nicholas Burns has stated that Lebanon didn't tell Condoleeza Rice not to come to that country today, but that Consoleeza Rice feels that "out of respect for the Lebanese people" this might not be the right time to visit. What? If anything, diplomacy is needed now more than ever. I am tired of this administration using any means necessary to further their goals. Why must every flare up be a "war on terror"? These countries have been fighting over the HOLY LAND for years if not centuries. They continue to fight for the right to exist. Why not learn to co-exist? That would seem to be the answer. The question is how to go about that. It is painfully clear that our government at this time has no idea. They have no foreign policy, unless you call war mongering a policy. There is no plan for this region, except to let them continue to destroy each other while they sit back and rub their hands. They are like a bunch of buzzards sitting in a tree waiting to pick the bones of the fallen. It is time to stop this insanity. We have other problems that need to be addressed also. While we are all being inundated with the images from Lebanon and Israel, Iraq continues to heat up. Donald Rumsfeld has announced that the soldiers due to rotate out after a 1 year tour of duty will not go. Instead they will be staying and going to Baghdad. The situation continues to degrade in that area. More innocent civilians have been killed there in the last week than in Israel. More American troops have lost their lives than Israeli troops in the last week. I think that Iraq is on the verge of a civil war. Congress is calling for the Iraqi Prime Minister to denounce Hezbollah. He won't. Why? Could it be because he, like Hezbollah, is a shiite? Just a thought. I have serious doubts about the ability of the Iraqi government to perform it's job without causing major divisions among it's people. We continue to push for a democracy in that country when I am not sure that is what they want. We hear over and over that they think that the West is decadent. Why would they want a government like ours when they feel that way? I just don't get it and I don't think anyone else does either. President Bush continues to tell us that he is spreading democracy, freeing the people from tyranny, giving them the freedom to choose their own type of government (as long as it is the kind that we approve of), and still the killing goes on. The world looks at us and shakes it's head. We are no longer the global power that we once were. The countries of the world have no respect for us anymore. Even Great Britain, who has been our greatest ally for years, has lost what respect they had. Tony Blair is referred to as "Bush's lap dog". That sends a pretty clear message. We can't get anything done around the world because we have no respect. When I think about the future of my children and yours, I wonder what legacy we are leaving them. Certainly not the legacy I dreamed of in my younger days. I had a dream...you know the rest. Seems it has turned to dust. I am truly beginning to lose hope for the future that I once envisioned. Please, please continue to pray for peace and enlightenment and may your God bless and keep you and yours.

Children Learn What They Live

From My Own Little Corner We are going to have an election in November. I know, I know, the news is full of all kinds of news about what is going on overseas. The killings, the bombings, the conflict that is ongoing in the middle East, Iraq, famine, and oh so many other things. Here in this country, things are really not much better. Just yesterday, an U. S. citizen from Pakistan opened fire on a Jewish center in Seattle. He killed 1 woman and wounded 5 others, 3 critically. In my small town they just arrested a group of juveniles for doing more than $25,000 in damages in two subdivisions. They painted racial slurs and vulgar language on vehicles and houses and tampered with mailboxes. This was done in a 2 day period. One has to wonder where they learn this stuff. Could it be that they are inundated daily with stories of intolerance and hatred on television, radio, and maybe even in their own homes? I have heard so many people ridicule the religious and political beliefs of others, that at times it turns my stomach. What happened to the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, and the right to an opinion? I have a friend that is a Latter Day Saint, her son is one of my son's best friends. They are truly very kind and generous people with great senses of humor and would give the shirt off their backs if asked. Yet, they are told almost daily that they are going to hell because they are not Christians, by the people that claim to be Christians. Is this the message that we are sending our children, that if others don't believe as we do that they are not only wrong, but also damned? I hope that I have taught my children that all people are equal, that they all deserve the right to voice their own opinions and beliefs, and that they should respect the God given rights of all peoples. This is sometimes hard to do when they are confronted with bigotry and hatred on a daily basis. Still, I try, and I try to set a good example. The only intolerance that I have is with ignorance. Ignorance comes from opening your mouth before you know what you are talking about. My father-in-law used to say that your teeth are like a gate, if you don't open them nothing stupid gets out. We need to teach our children that even though all of us don't have the same beliefs and ideals, we are all still equal and deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect. I can only hope that they will learn this lesson and pass it on to their children. Maybe someday all the leaders of our world will learn this lesson and teach it to the people of their countries. Then they can pass it on to their children. I know that there millions who also believe in this doctrine and maybe soon they will all stand up and be heard. One can only hope. Then we can all live in a world without hate and war. Until next time, pray for peace and enlightenment and may your God bless and keep you and yours.

The Faces Of Our Children

From My Own Little CornerI just saw a commercial that ticked, ticked, ticked into my brain. It was unusually effective. The children in this particular ad were ticking off the time left if nothing is done about global warming. How much time do we truly have left to change the course of our planet? Probably not very much. The polar ice caps are melting. Heat waves that are more intense and last longer are becoming the norm. In the Netherlands they are recording the highest temperatures seen since they began keeping records. The droughts are longer. Our coral reefs are bleaching out and dying. If we don't stop doing what we are doing and begin to turn things around, we won't have a world for war to destroy. Global warming will do it for us. Already life is changing. Here we just experienced some very fierce storms. For the second time in a year, there were hundreds of thousands of people without electricity for almost a week. New York city is also in the midst of a major blackout and California is experiencing a massive heat wave and will need to institute rolling blackouts to keep up with the demand for electricity. Wild fires are burning at record rates and destroying vast amounts of forest and homes. I saw that in the beginning of June, Germany was experiencing a major SNOW storm. The temperature of the oceans continues to rise. Hurricanes are not only more numerous, but also stronger. We only need to look around us to see that global warming is affecting all of us. Maybe that is why it seems as if no one cares about the wars raging in the Middle East. After all why worry about a little war when we aren't doing anything about the huge war that is being waged on our environment. Sure, not everyone believes that global warming is a threat, but those people have their heads buried in the burning sands. The heat of those sands may have cooked their brains and the temperature continues to rise. Why don't they see what is happening right before their very eyes? Are they truly blind to the effects we are having on our planet? Or is it that the greed is affecting their sight? It sure seems that our government has blinders on when it come to this particular subject. They are so worried about the fight on terrorism that all the other things that our government is supposed to take care of are going by the wayside. There is an election coming up in November. I can only hope that this campaign season sees the candidates tackle some of the other problems facing our country. Problems like poverty, corruption in government, stem cell research, and global warming just to name a few. We are in the midst of the most difficult times of our world. I know that some think that the end is near and so this doesn't matter, but just in case they are wrong, we need to tackle these and many other problems. After all, only God truly knows when the end will come, and in the meantime he gave us this planet to TAKE CARE OF, not abuse. We are supposed to love each other, not kill each other and we need to start doing the right thing. As Stephen King says in the Gunslinger series, "We have forgotten the faces of our fathers." I think that maybe we have also forgotten the faces of our children. So please think about some of these things and pray for peace and enlightenment. May your God bless and keep you and yours.

Give War A Chance????

From My Own Little CornerWell, I haven't written in a few days because I didn't know what to say. I get up early every morning because I can't sleep. I am scared. For the first time in my life I am truly scared for the future of this world and for the future of my children and yours. The violence in Israel and Lebanon continues. I get up and turn on the news and pray that I don't hear that WWIII has started or that some idiot has decided to use something other than conventional weapons. According to NY Post, the U. S. is rushing a shipment of precision guided bombs to Israel. These bombs are part of a multi-million dollar arms sale package that was approved LAST YEAR and which Israel can TAP AT ANY TIME. They are burying the Lebanese civilians in mass graves. The images bring to mind other pictures of mass graves that I have seen. One family lost 22 members at the same time. And while our attention is diverted by the war between Israel and Lebanon, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on. According to the numbers released by the U.N. this week 14,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first 6 months of this year. 5,818 in May and June alone. This does not include the Iraqi Security Forces deaths. The number of bombings and and shootings daily for the week ending July 13th was 34 PER DAY. That number is up 40%. Then there are the kidnappings. We hear about the kidnappings of Iraqi Olympians and Iraqi officials, but what about the everyday citizens. One of many is the story of a 12 year old boy. He was kidnapped and held for $30,000 ransom, which his parents paid. He was found by the Iraqi Security Forces in a plastic bag. I won't give the details here as they are too gruesome. Then there the number of U.S. military members that have lost their lives in this needless conflict. The number grows daily and the last number I saw was 2,560. That is 2,560 too many. Then there are the 18,000 plus that have been injured and maimed. And let's not forget Afghanistan where the Taliban is enjoying a resurgence. Seems we didn't defeat them, they were just waiting in the shadows for the next opportunity to retake what they feel is theirs, namely Afghanistan. They retook several small villages in southern Afghanistan, running off the police and security forces that were stationed there. How much longer before that region erupts into the kind of violence that we are seeing in Iraq? And while we are being bombarded with the images from the Middle East, the oil companies have issued their projected net profits for this quarter. World demand is at an all time high, 82.4 million barrels per day, generating $500 billion for the petroleum producers. This is roughly the equivalent to the gross domestic product of South Africa. What are the profits, you ask? 33.6 billion dollars in quarterly profits, up 32% from the same time last year. That is divided among 5 major petroleum companies, namely BP PLC, Conoco Phillips, Exxon-Mobil Corp., and Royal-Dutch Shell PLC. There was one more thing that caught my attention as I was reading the paper yesterday. Did you know that there was a massive earthquake off the coast of Java on Monday? The death toll from that particular disaster stood at 659 with 350 still missing. Well, I can only say that I am becoming more disappointed with the human race every day. I was cleaning the house with the television on and heard some idiot say "Not to sound flip, but why not give war a chance?". We teach our children that violence never solves anything. If they fight in school they are suspended or expelled. Wouldn't it be great if we could suspend or expel these people that think that war is the answer? It is not. It only exacerbates the situation. It is truly a sad world that we live in when the war mongers have control. So please pray for peace and enlightenment and may your personal God heap blessings on you and yours.

What Would He Think?

From My Own Little CornerI just returned from town, having bought some liquid gold for my vehicle. The price-it went up over night by thirteen cents-was $3.05.9/10. Well, I just hope whoever (we all know who it is) are enjoying the huge profits they are reaping. I am almost ready to return to the good ol' days of horse and buggy. Of course, if we all did that the price of hay and alfalfa would just go up even more. What are our farmers going to do? The price of fuel for farm equiptment affects us all and we should be hollering loud and long. Soon, and I think it will be much sooner than later, the prices of food-all food-will be out of reach for our most needy. The people who work hard to provide for their families, the elderly, the disabled, and our youngest and most vulnerable-the children-will be in even more trouble than they already are. It is time to stop this insanity. We need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. The middle class is in peril of being eliminated. Then there will be the lords and their serfs. We will be working to keep THEM rich and struggling to put food in the mouths of our families. What has happened to the country that I love? I watch our senior citizens, the keepers of the history of this great country, the ones who fought to keep this democracy alive, struggling just to live. They must choose between food, electricity, medications, and fuel for their vehicles . If they don't have fuel they can't get to the Dr. to get the medications they need for quality of life. If they buy the medicine, they can't afford food. If they buy food, they can't afford the electricity to keep cool. It is a vicious cycle with no end in sight. I watch these wonderful older people at the grocery store, trying to decide if they can afford to buy meat, bread, and other staples and it breaks my heart. They are proud of their independence, have fought and worked hard for it, and it breaks their spirit when they feel that they need handouts. They would rather sit in stiffling heat and do without food than ask for help. After all they have taken care of themselves all their lives and don't understand why they can't any longer. I was listening to a C.D. on my way home by a group called Lake and one of the songs always strikes a chord in me, but never so much as now. It is called "Jesus Came Down" and the refrain states: "Jesus came down and the word got around. He wasn't pleased with the famine and war. Thousands of years full of blood, pain, and tears; Yes He found that the world hadn't changed.". So true, so true. We ( the whole world) continue to fight, maim, and kill in His name, this man, the Son of God, who preached tolerance, peace, and love. All over the world people are starving. They are dying of diseases that should have been wiped out by now. We have the resources to stop this. We have the manpower, money, medicine. Why aren't we doing something, anything? We are the greatest country in the world and we are using our resources to fight wars in countries where we aren't wanted. We need to begin to divert the billions of dollars that being spent to fight and use it for food and medicine for our people and all peoples of the world. THE TIME HAS COME FOR CHANGE!! Let's all get of our collective duffs and let our voices be heard. Tell the world and our government that we don't want war, we want peace. Use diplomacy. Talk, shout, anything, make all the leaders of the countries of our planet listen. It's a longshot I know, but we never know until we try. Can't never did anything. Someday, ( probably not in my lifetime, but I can always hope) maybe we will see a world where all people work together, everyone has adequate food and potable water, and all these nasty diseases are wiped out. Then maybe when Jesus comes down, he will smile and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servants."! May your God bless and keep you. Pray for peace and enlightenment.

Where Are Our Priorities?

From My Own Little Corner I have been watching and reading the web for any news of the conflict in the middle east. Yep, sure enough, there it is. It's all over the place. Hezbollah, Isreal, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. But let's not forget that we also have our own sons and daughters deployed in some very dangerous places. In Iraq there have been more bombings and yesterday five more of our children, fathers, mothers were killed. In Afghanistan the Taliban is making a comeback. Are we ever going to be able to bring them home? I am beginning to wonder if the violence will ever end. We must remember that democracy is an American concept and you cannot force it on people who don't want it. It is a grass roots movement that must begin from the roots and grow up, not be forced on other people from the top down. I would hope that the people that our troops are dying for truly want a democratic society, but it appears to me that they all want their own particular form of government based on religion. When you have religion ruling government, you can never have a true democracy because the ruling party will always try to force their views on those that don't agree. In order for a society to be truly democratic, there must be equality for all peoples, regardless of their religious or political views. All must have an equal voice. That having been said, I will move on to other things that I have noticed in the last few days. I watched with astonishment the video of our esteemed leader, GWB, at the G-8 summit luncheon. I was taught as a young child, the daughter of an Air Force staff sargeant, that there are certain manners associated with eating. First and foremost never chew with your mouth open and second don't talk with your mouth full. Seems that President Bush missed that particular lesson in etiquette. Every time I watch this man represent my country in meetings with other countries, it seems that something he says or does embarasses me and makes me ashamed that he is our leader. The other thing that I took umbrage with was the fact that the whole world is in a state of total chaos-starving children, people being killed and maimed daily, tsunami, earthquakes, diseases such as aids-and there sit the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world eating enough food to feed a third world family, or even one in the U.S., who struggle daily with the problem of feeding their family, for a year. Where in the world are our priorities? We must begin to see that until we tackle the problems of poverty, starvation, and disease that plague the world nothing will ever get better. We must also begin to see that until we take responsibilty for our poorest citizens we will never be truly rich as a nation. Sure there will always be rich people, but we will never know the true meaning of the word until we begin to spread the wealth. So here is my challenge to all of you that read my blog (I know that it is not a large number, but every one counts), go today and donate 5 cans of food to your local food pantry, then try to do that every week when you grocery shop. Next, change 1 light bulb in your house to a long -life flourescent bulb. If every household in the U.S. changed just one bulb, the amount of co2 emmisions would be dramatically reduced. If I told you the numbers you would be amazed. Well, I have rambled on for long enough today. So until next time, remember to pray for peace and enlightenment and may your personal God bless and keep you.

Just A Short Hello

From My Own Little CornerWell, I have never done anything like this before, but here goes. I am going to start writing a little everyday and maybe get some things off my chest. I am doing this because my ancestors (at least a few of them) have started rolling in their graves. I have been watching what is going on in the world and decided that I can't remain silent any longer. We have unlimited poverty, war everywhere we look, terrorism is running amok, and I fear for the future of my children and every child in this small world that we are trying to survive in. Hopefully, if we can all yell with a loud, collective voice, someone in "power" will listen. I have been watching the developments in the middle east with growing horror. I am horrified by the death and destruction that I see every day, but what appalls me the most is the thought that all these groups think that they are doing the will of GOD. If God, Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, or whatever deity they pray to were to return today, He/She would be disappointed at the least and furious at the most. It is time to stop saying that we are fighting to free people, in the name of God, for the sake of righteousness, or whatever other excuse we are giving and admit that it is plain old greed and stupidity. Now, more than ever , the time has come for all you good people to stand up and say "NO MORE!". We want peace now, we want diplomacy now, we want the starving to be fed, and we want the people making money off the misfortunes of others to step down. I'll sign off with one more thought: whoever you are, wherever you are, may your God bless and keep you. Pray for peace and enlightenment.