Land Court… Me… and the Judge… and God…

Today I had a court date in Land Court.   Blessingly, God blessed me not to have to travel to our state capitol to have to do it.

By the time I got off the bus… jumped the train… then walked up the hill… I could barely walk into the courtroom the last time.  In fact, I could hardly stand when they called my case before the judge.

Seeing that the judge suggested that we do our next  court date by phone in order to make it easier on me.  At first I was resistant to that idea because I felt I could better sway the judge… be more effective or otherwise do more and better  for my case by standing before the judge than I could over the phone.

But I forgot 1 key factor.

It is not me… that I now depend upon when I walk into a courtroom… or anywhere else for that matter… but the Lord.

I have come to know that  if you truly trust Him… then you have to act like you trust Him.  It is not about saying ‘I trust the Lord.’   But it is about putting that into action… showing it forth so that it may manifest to be so.

So, I longer study… or pour over anything pining or worrying about the outcome.  I never try to even think about what it is that I am suppose to dred… because I do not think about.  I do not let it interfere with my days or nights any longer… because God has said ‘cast our cares upon Him.’

And let me tell you… that when you do… you will not believe the outcome.

Truly… truly cast your cares upon Him.

Well, today when I got up… I went about my normal routine.  I read a chapter in my Bible.  But I decided not to eat anything… I just wanted to mediate on God and what was going to be ahead of me in a couple of hours… that court conference call.

For the first time I glanced over the documents that the lawyer representing the City had sent to me.  Pulled out my calculator and started examining the figures for the past 4 years of  property taxes owed.  Trying to find some discrepancies… and when you are dealing with figures there will always be some somewhere.

Finally, the phone rang.   It was the court.

As the judge began to speak to me she informed me that the lawyer for the City wasn’t feeling well.  I’m thinking wow… it’s over there will be a postponement for another date… and it will give me some more time.

I knew I needed time because no matter which way it went I was going to have to come up with some money.  So, I needed time in order to save up an amount that might be agreeable… since there was no issue that  the property taxes due.   And so…the issue would come down to how much can you pay now… if  any… and work out some kind of  payment arrangement.

So, I was happy to believe that the case was going to get pushed back again.

But then the judge said  that the lawyer for the City has laryngitis and is having trouble speaking.  But if  you have any problems hearing or understanding  just interrupt and I will have her repeat it.

When the lawyer talked I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.  I turned up my phone and it was worst.  But I decided to listen as closely as I could.

In order to try and save the voice of the City lawyer… the judge had me do most of  the talking.  In beginning I suddenly remembered our last  court  session and what questions I had posed about the total amount of  taxes owed upon my parent’s property.  There had been places in the statements from the City where the amount owed leaped 2 to 3 thousand dollars from 1 quarter to another.   So, of course… I questioned this along with some other points I had found in the documents sent to me.

By the time our session was over the judge said send copies of  what you have to the City lawyer, and I am sure that the 2 of  you should be able to work out something.  And if  not the court is always here.

And then the judge said-

“And you can get those documents to her when you can.  And send copies to the court.”

So, the judge did not schedule another court date and she left it up to me as to how soon I could send the documents in question.

No payment schedule was set.

No return court date.

Nothing.

And through it all the lawyer for the City never said anything… because she could not talk.  She had laryngitis.

It is amazing.  A few months ago the City lawyer had sent court notices to me and all my siblings that they were in possession of  my parent’s house… and that we had 30 days to respond.   And when I called the number and spoke with the man handling it… he demanded $2,000 now in order to stop the process.

And about 4 months later… that process has yet to see the light of  day.

And the ultimate decision lays in the hands of  the court… and the judge had just finished giving me some more time.

Wow…

God is truly something.

Some may say why do I give all the credit to God?

First,  you would have to know when events are beyond your control  there can only be ONE somebody who can turn them in your favor.  And that somebody is God.

I write this blog for those of  you going through something.  Tons of  people are going through foreclosure still and so many other things.  And though it may seem bleak… or impossible for you to overcome… I implore you to just turn it over to  Jesus and see for yourself … first hand  just what I am talking about.

No lawyer… or  doctor … or even judge…  can beat  God at what He does.   And every lawyer…. doctor … and judge… and everybody in between have to submit to the will of  God… like Pharaoh.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart… until He decided to soften it.  And when God softened Pharaoh’s heart… Pharaoh did as God desired him… he let God’s people go… the Israelites.  But it was all God’s will… the hardening to not let the people… and the softening to let the people go.

And it was God’s will in land court today… what that man working for the City had said to me some months ago has not gone to naught.  I did not have to pay him $2,000 …and that was back in January when he told me that.  It is now March… and I am still here and nobody has a hammer over my head anymore… demanding anything from me by way of  my parent’s property taxes… or other funds.

That is not to say… the taxes or anything else  is not owed.  But it is to say… that time is on my side… through the sheer grace and mercy of  God.  I  yet have time to set my parent’s house in order.   Thank you, Lord God…

Well, God bless…and hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. 

Sometime during the course of  your day just take the time to look up and observe the beauty that God has planted up there  for you to enjoy.

Oh, yeah… been sharing the house with 1 of my nieces.  My sister put her out.

She is only 16 and has gone totally crazy over some boy.

Beautiful girl…smart and everything… and I do mean everything going for herself.  ‘A’ student… on the honor society at school… captain of the school soccer and volleyball team…   And  BAMB!

All of  it down the toilet after meeting this boy.  Who happens to be 17 and in the 10th grade.  LOSER.   And she has had sex with him… and now she is out in the streets with me… sharing the roof  over my parent’s house.

I can’t wait until my sister gets over being mad.   Noooo… but really I love my niece to death.  She is not bad… totally not.  But recently  she has made some very bad choices.

So, currently she is in ‘in-house’ at school because she has skipped tons of  classes.  Her grades have dropped from the ‘A’s’ to ‘E’s.’

How do you do that?

The spirit of  lust.  People have lost their homes and families… marriages… children…  all of their friends etc… etc… all because lust caused them to do some ugly… and bad things..  say some things… and forced everyone who  truly cares for them to turn away from them.. simply  because the person cannot hear… nor can they see.   They have eyes to see… but cannot see.  And ears to hear …but cannot hear.

So,  I thought she was going home Monday…  But my niece slipped up again.  She went missing for 4 hours while she was at school.

Of  one thing I am sure… my niece wants to hurry and get out of  here.  Because her aunt is no  joke.  Sometimes you just gotta seem to meaner than you really are.  And none of my nieces or  nephews  play with me.  But… they love me the most if  the truth be told.  I know they do… and it is because I love them… I have become to be an enforcer.  But I do it all in love… and I can laugh and have fun with them and still enforce.

Now my niece is counting the days when she can go back home… and I know they can’t come soon enough.  It is all she can talk about-

“Auntie, do you think my mom this… and my mom that.”

Mom come and ge your daughter… she is driving me crazy.

 Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…”  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2011

 

Add a comment March 11, 2011

Chyrsler bankruptcy… cause and effect…Ancient African History…

I really do not like people who like to laugh and kajol themselves on the back of other people’s suffering.  As if Chrysler’s going into bankruptcy only impacted the top dogs at Chrysler.  If that was so…then maybe my attitude might be somewhat different too.  But it does not…the top dogs rarely feel much of the ping…when the zing falls hardest upon those at the bottom.  The top dogs get paid out…retire…and go on vacation for the rest of their lives while the poor factory workers get squeezed out of  jobs.   And are left suffering…wondering about tomorrow.

So, I really hate when I hear people laughing and joking about situations which impact poor innocent people…thousands upon thousands of them…just trying to make it…as black folks say…from day to day.

What could possibly be funny about another large American corporation having to declare bankruptcy?

It merely means more re-organizing…further cut backs and down-sizing…and the shuffling of more folks off into the unemployment lines.

It also means more mortgages can’t and won’t be met…due to people loosing their jobs.  Credit card bills that won’t get paid…because…  Well, people have lost their jobs.  Less consumer wares and other items being purchased…because…well…   Yes, people have lost their jobs.  More people waiting to collect unemployment…more food stamps that will have to be given out…more medical problems for Medicare to add to their rows etc…   More…more…more people who will need to be re-trained…for jobs which do not exist etc…etc…etc..

So, what is there to cheer about…concerning Chrysler filing bankruptcy?

And yes…President Obama should do everything he can to help constrain and assist Chrysler from totally going under.

Had I not gone to visit in Detroit last August such things would have never crossed my mind…but I cannot forget all those houses and all those buildings which I saw…street after street in Detroit all boarded up.  There is something about having seen that…that has compelled me to never forget the plight of others. 

Sometimes we get caught up in how big we are and how well we ourselves are doing… and what our family has…what we have…etc…etc…   That we forget all about others…and about what is going on with them.  But this is wrong.  Other people lives do impact our lives…whether we care to believe it or not.

Recently, we have seen a series of shootings…where people just walked into some crowded place…office…church…mall…store…house…neighborhood…and just started shooting.   And as you listened to the story unfold…you heard or read that the person who had done the shooting had just lost their job…been laid off…went seeking help and met up with nothing but frustration. 

When your world comes tumbling down around you…and your family needs to be fed…the rent is due…the utilities are beginning to be cut off…and you are facing eviction…I wonder if you would be laughing because you worked for Chrysler…and your livelihood company just filed bankruptcy…and that meant it was going to cost you your job…your only means of a livelihood…for yourself and your family? 

I doubt it.

The lost of jobs…corporate bankruptcies effect us all.  And though you may view it as a government bailout because Uncle Sam is trying to help these companies out…the situations are bigger than their CEO’s.  That money that Obama is taking to aid these companies is far less than what it would cost taxpayers to sustain those people…massive numbers of people who stand  to loose their jobs.  And I really hate to hear people who have limited vision…short sightedness…and who can’t see beyond their own nose…so much so…that they fail to see the bigger…and much broader picture concerning this issue.  

Trying to re-train people for new jobs…many of whom have no computer skills and only know how to work in a factory…who many may be well up in age…meaning old…too old in fact to actively and with any real hope of ever being hired for a decent job outside of becoming some store associate, perhaps… far from receiving the pay they earned while doing piece work while on their factory job.  Yet, they will be sent to school…enter junior colleges and things…on taxpayer dollars…and into various training programs…still on taxpayers dollars…they will receive unemployment…food stamps…Medicare etc…all of which will add up to far more than the cost of trying to keep Chrysler or any other large company on the verge of sinking from going totally under.

So, what is there to laugh about…and to say-

“There goes more taxpayers money.”

It is pay now…or pay far  more later. 

This recession thing is real.   I may not be feeling it personally…but there are  thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Americans who are.  And they are in dire need of this country’s help and support…without the criticism.

Most people in this country have had a desire for a piece of that American pie…and when circumstances change…they should not be held responsible because of  the curved balls that have been thrown their way.   They only work  for these companies and they should not be made to suffer because of them…ridiculed…or made to feel to blame because of any changes in the global economic environment…or the one here in America.

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13241226&ch=4226713&src=news

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_automakers

Well, it is not something that many black people had not known.    That is the fact that Africa is the cradle of civilization…the place of the origins of all man.  

The first shoes made were made in Africa.  University…library…books…etc…first in Africa.  It is a widely known fact that most of the great Greek  philosophers all studied in Africa.  Africa is also known to be the place where the Garden of Eden had been.   And where it may still well be…as there are still parts of  Africa not yet seen by modern man…as you probably remember that most recently in some South American country recently they had found some unknown tribe of  people who had not seen the modern world.   And that was in South America…a place which is not  two-thirds the size of  Africa.

But none of this should really be a secret  or  surprise…as much of the Bible takes place in what as then ancient Africa…as Africa in ancient times stretched all the way into Asia.   Ethiopia and other current African countries are cited in the Bible.  Haran, a village in Africa, was the original home of Abram whose name was later changed by God to Abraham.  And mentioned a few times in the Bible is the Queen of  Sheba…an great African queen, who upon one time where she is mentioned she paid a visit  to young king by the name of Solomon where she questioned him concerning things of  God…as she was  a woman of God.

So, if you want to read more on this story just CLICK the LINK BELOW.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_sc/us_sci_african_origins

If you want to get an understanding of early African History…CLICK and watch the video BELOW.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/africa/video/x1uic3_lost-civilizations-africa-a-history_travel

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/sheba.html

That being said…then China would really not be the oldest civilization known to man…as history is starting to show…but Africa…the oldest civilization of  all mankind. 

It is funny to me now…as I think back…but in one of my history classes about a year ago…I handed in a paper stating just that.  Not about Africa…but about history…and how depending upon who is writing that history it may or may not bare the whole truth…or even be correct.  I wrote that no matter how much man may try to corrupt history by purposely negilecting to tell some things…or by accidently doing so…that in time all things…meaning the truth…is eventually revealed through time.

Here is the newest African Beauty to emerge upon the stage of the world…and she is a high school student living with her family in Germany…and she is Germany’s next Top Model, Sara Nuru…an Ethiopian.

You must remember that it was a young beautiful…and evidently a very knowledgeable Ethiopian Queen…Sheba, who paid a visit upon King Solomon who brought him gifts and quizzed him.

Now, I am still trying to catch up on my sleep.  So, if  you will have to forgive me.   I got up and out early this morning.   I had to do what I really do not like to do too often…and that is catch the bus.  But I must say…as a writer…it really does give you a great source for acquiring interesting little stories.  

Hope you had a beautiful day…and for some reason I am feeling much anticipation.   I guess because my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE…is due out soon…and then the work really begins.  I will keep you abreast.

God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…” http://www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009

2 comments April 30, 2009

Condoleezza Rice’s knockout punch… John Hope Franklin… Ryan Moat incident…

See…I said it.  And she hasn’t proved me wrong.

I love her.

I really hate people who don’t know how to go home and just be quiet.

It is not like Cheney and his friends did anything but put this country into a whirlwind spin downward.  And we have yet to set the turbulent waters still.

Cloaked in secrecy since they went into the White House…it is hard to believe that they had not planned this whole mess from the very beginning.  To get in steal what they could…and cause havoc just because they could.

Or maybe all the chaos was just a shield…to cover up the crime.  You know how the criminals do…create a disturbance or some type of confusion somewhere else to divert the attention from what they are really doing.

Man…you know I never thought of that before.

But what if it was?

What if  9/11 had been cooked up by some of our own people…in high places?

It would certainly address the issue as to why they never really went after Bin Laden.

I  hope with all my heart that would never be found to be true.

I personally believe that every covered record, tape and piece of video…recorded phone calls, messages, emails, faxes, text messages…and everything else used to imprint messages on…or engendered dialogue…including documents…should be thoroughly gone over by some high commission seeking illegal irregularities by the Bush Administration…pacifically the lying and untruthful behavior of now ex-Commander and Chief, George Bush,   and his bully, Dick Cheney.  And they should be dragged before some court or tribunal to face charges of some sort…if for nothing else but for all the lives which have been lost and the families destroyed by an illegal war that not only devastated a country but the world economy…as well as, our own.

What a herculean mess the previous administration has left behind.

From 4.2% under Bill Clinton…to 7.6% unemployment by the time George Bush left the White House.

The number of  Americans living in poverty when Clinton left the White House under 33 million…by time Bush left White House 37.3 million.

When George Bush went into the White House…Clinton had left it the country with a $128 billion surplus…while George left us with a deficit…of $1.3 trillion.

So, how dare Dick Cheney sit around on the sidelines now…sipping his champagne and smoking his big Cuban cigars chirping like a canary over what the Obama Administration should be doing…and is now doing…calling it ‘a risk’…in trying to bring this country out of the Bush/Cheney mess…and to get this country back on track again.

Who put us here…where we are today?

Inflated gas prices…highest ever in the history of America.  Unprecedented number of home foreclosures.  Failed economy…massive job losses…daily bodies flying back from Iraq…corporate thief…Enron…Bear Sterns…Halliburton…war…inflated cost of living…etc…etc…etc…etc…etc…

If only Dick Cheney could have been but so wise in the advise he was shoving down his fellow Texan’s throat…while they both were sitting in the White House.

Who put us here?

And then want to question how Obama is running the country?

Are you kidding me?

I know exactly where Obama is trying to take this country.  OUT OF THE MESS THAT YOU GUYS PUT US IN…that’s where.

Thank you, Condi Rice…tell Cheney to put a lid on it again…and again…

He seems to be the type who just can’t seem to stop talking.

I can’t stand big fat hypocrites.  Particularly, when the hypocrites are the ones to blame.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/15/cheney.interview/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/15/cheney.interview/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

How could something like this happen?

On their way rushing to the hospital they get stopped by the police in the parking lot of the hospital while leaping from their vehicle trying to rush inside the hospital.

A cop tells them to stop prohibiting them from going inside.  He tells them that they ran a red light…all this mind you while they had their red hazard lights flashing while rushing to the hospital.

The officer is told over and over and over…”my mother-in-law is dying.”

To which the officer acts as though he is making an ordinary…what they call a routine traffic stop.  And he did so without any kind of concern or consideration regarding the situation of  his captives.  Well, that is what they were to him…because that is what he acted like with regard to them.   He acted as though there was no type of any emergency…and that Ryan Moats was just out joy riding to the hospital.

All the pleading and trying to get the police officer to understand…it all fell upon death ears.  He could have cared less…as you hear in the video because he turned a deaf hear to everything that Moats was saying to him.

The cop threatens to arrest him…tells him that he is going to tow his car…etc.   But the cop does everything but attempt to even try to comprehend…or make any sense out of the situation…as to what is being told him.  Nor did he  offer any help or assistance to the family members of the vehicle of near death mother as they tried rushing to her bed side.

How had this scene might have played out differently…if…

If the occupants of vehicle had not been African Americans but some other race…namely white?

The officer might have ran into the hospital with them.  Maybe…

He might have been a lot more understanding and helpful to them…probably.

But I doubt that the above scenarios…and the way that it actually happened did get played out as it did because of…who they were…or are.  They were black…African Americans.  This officer saw their color…and paid no attention to their situation…or anything else.

And the police chief’s apology wasn’t much better.  Near the end of his apology…he states that to the credit of NFL  player Ryan Moats-

“At no time did Mr. Moats state that he was a NFL football player. Or expect any special consideration.”

What kind of statement was that?

Was that meant to be a compliment?

It is all on tape.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/03/26/lavandera.tx.nfl.player.hospital.cnn?iref=mpvideosview

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/03/26/lavandera.tx.nfl.player.hospital.cnn?iref=mpvideosview

Historian John Hope Franklin…didn’t know him and never heard of him before.  But  just read something about him…how he had a way of  telling our history.  It really made me feel like I would have liked to have known him.  Would have loved to have heard his name before now…and certainly would have loved to have heard him lecture on our history.  There had been a time when I couldn’t read enough on it.

http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/franklin/3050019

There is something about our history that amazes me.  So, many many stories…as varied as the people.  Stories of  lives shattered… broken… and often torn…and yet many victorious.   Stories of a peole who were really a mixture of various people…thrown into chains…transported on ships…carried across the Atlantic…to stand upon auction blocks…and herded like cattle.

Yet, they were able to turn scraps into meals…later called Soul Food.  Messages into songs…that later transformed into gospel, blues and R&B.  People who turned hardship into culture.   People meant to have not to survived…but did.  Kind of like the stories of  the blankets infected with smallpox given to the American Indians.   They weren’t suppose to survive either.

I guess that is kind of why I cried when I saw them riding…strong and tall upon their horses…all dressed up in their traditional headdresses and everything…in the parade for Barack Obama on Inaugural Day.   That was special.   What a sight they were…just like all of us who flocked to D.C. to see…to hear…to cheer…and to cry as we bared witnessed to the dawn of a new American era.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/03/26/pn.anchor.death.cnn?iref=mpvideosview

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/politics-obituaries/5056617/Professor-John-Hope-Franklin.html

Wow…I wish I had heard him.  Had known of  a  place where he had been lecturing…or had booked him myself.

Now, that I have had an opportunity to find more info on Dr. Franklin…I had heard and seen him once.  He was on Charlie Rose…a show I used to love to watch…at a time when I used to watch television.

They said he had a gift…a gift for telling our history.   Wow…I sho’ wish I could have heard that.  Not much of  it going around any more.  Soon, I guess it will all be dead…all our real history…dead and gone…buried when all our elders have all gone to their graves.  Because nobody will be left carrying it on.   Nobody studying it…nobody who thinks that it is now still important…or relavent.

So, now…almost all of the African American Studies departments have been done away with…removed…squashed…vacated…because “ain’t nobody taking the classes no ways.” Yeah, because they need to make room for all of this new stuff…like the history of rapp. ..and hip-hop.

No one taking an interest…too busy thinking about rapp…hip-hop…and baby/mama drama.  I hear those classes are jam packed.

Or maybe we should wait on others…others to come and pick it up for us…and start claiming it for their own.   Like they came and picked  up jazz.   That was on its way out too.  It was dying as the masters began to die.   And would have been dead too…ifin’ they hadn’t.

Our history in this country sprang up out of the toil and sweat…and  out of bearing chains in this country…and there is no reason why we should ever let the memory of those who walked before us…and broke those chains die.  Nor our history prior to slavery ever be forgotten…which so few of us know little if anything about.

Teach it!

Preach it!

Recite it!

Pass it on to your children…because a tree without roots will fade away.   Strengthen the roots.

Don’t let it die.  It is far too important for our children…and the legacy we leave behind.

I had said to myself-

“You are going to go home and go to sleep early tonight.”

And I did get in early.

And I did shower and get ready for bed.

But then I started writing this blog…and here I am at almost ll:30 PM…and I got in before 5.   And I am still not finish yet.

Eleven Native American tribes from all across the country participated in the ceremonies celebrating Obama’s Presidency by marching…or riding if you will…in the inaugural parade and various other events that day and week in Washington, DC.

God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on “

www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009

http://www.aaanativearts.com/article1632.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indians-on-the-Inaugural-March.html

3 comments March 27, 2009

Making the most of my day… Mothership and Parenting… Michelle O’ working soup kitchen line…

I must say…if I have to say so myself…that I am so proud of me today.  Oh…I mean this morning.  I do not know what time I got up but by the time I laid back down…it was only 7:57 AM. 

I got up and had my Cream of  Wheat.   And yes…I am still enjoying it.  I had me a cup of tea…and read my Bible and then laid back down.  A few minutes later…perhaps an hour later…I got up again.  I pulled out my bucket…got the scrub brush…and pulled out the cleaners and scrubbed down the kitchen again…then I hit the doors and wall in the small hall leading towards the bathroom.  I sprayed down and lightly scrubed down the bathroom…and left it soaking. 

Wow…yeah….  I think I should be proud of myself…and it is not even noon yet.

There is something about getting up early.  You will get so much more done for some reason or another…if you get up and get started early.  There is just something about getting up early…there really is.  I do not know what…but that makes you work a little bit quicker and harder…and you just acheve more.  And now I feel so good.  And so…so proud of myself for taking care of my parent’s house in their absence.  For me having gotten up early today..and gotten started the very first thing this morning.

I have been busy working on building my website for the past couple of weeks…and the pages are coming along well.  I am really impressed with the pages that I have created thus far.  A few years ago I decided to begin taking some graphic arts classes. 

When I was in New York and started my own homebased business, an advertising agency, Queen Bee Multi-Media Advertising Agency.  I used to hire students from the campus right around the corner from my apartment…Pratt Institute, to do artwork for me.  Pratt has a very high reputation as a good art school…which I never knew at the time…but the students on that campus turned out some fantastic work for me.  I never went to see a client without feeling proud of our presentations which they had prepared under, of course, my direction.

I represented schools, furniture stores, boutiques, concert promoters etc…  There is little about advertising that I do not know about…having also a history in radio sales, media buying, telemarketing, product placement…etc…etc…etc…  But I had always had an artistic bug.

When I was a child, I had begged and begged my mother to buy me a home study art school course.  After begging for some time my mother finally broke down and ordered it for me.  That home study art school cost $300…and my mother ordered it for me.  As much as I begged for it…I only did one lesson of that course.  

Eventually, I gave away one of the books…of which there had been 3.  They were very big and thick…in a large binder…bound in expensive red binding filled with my untouched drawing lessons…and I gave away one of the 3 large lesson books and never touched those books again.  Something that my mother had sacrificed to buy for me…and that I had begged and begged for it.   And I did nothing with it…short of giving it away…and back then $300 was an awful lot of money…that really had to have been a sacrifice.   But she did it for me.

I guess she always recognized that I had talent…that I was gifted.  Though she would have done no less for any of my other sisters or brothers…and did.  As we all had to take music lessons…and all had various interests.  She had bought us all our own instrutments which she had purchased for us one Christmas. 

I will never forget that Christmas…which was our musical Christmas.  My mother must have bought everything the music store had.  Whoever owned that music store must have loved her.  That Christmas morning when we awoke…we found a large electric keyboard, piano, drum set, guiatar & amp and accordian all up under our Christmas tree. 

Before the day was out I had mastered that keyboard and could play several songs on it.  The next day that keyboard was gone.  My mother replaced it was a real full size organ.  I think back on that now and believe that she did it…because it had posed no real challenge in order to learn.   Today both the piano and the organ are still here in the house with me…and nobody plays a note on them.  That is not to say that they cannot play them…they just do not bother to do so.

My father, who had a saxaphone, a ukalie and a trumpet…which you could hear him practicing on sometimes late at night…he made me play the accordian.  When he would come home from work…I would have to pull it out  after he ate dinner that is when he forced me to practice…night after night.  None of my sisters or brothers had to practice anything before him…but me.  And he always would fall asleep on me. 

The accordian which was under the Christmas tree was my 2nd accordian.  It was the bigger version of what they had already gotten for me before a year or so ago.  And I went out every week to accordian lessons for years. 

I hated the accordian.  I loathe pokas.  I wanted to play the piano…and in the beginning I had both piano and accordian lessons.  But daddy wanted me to play the accordian…and we never argued against my mother or my father’s wishes.  So, then my piano lessons were stopped.  

As I stated in an earlier blog…our piano teacher was also my mother’s voice instructor…a little white woman who used to pay a couple of visits per week to our home…Mrs. Marlow.   She was a very nice lady…and she knew her stuff.   We were fortunate to have her.   And that she didn’t mind coming to the home of black folks…though we lived well.  At that time my parents had bought their 2nd house.  This house had 15 rooms not including its full basement…and the house sat upon a hill overlooking the waterfront…with a long driveway leading in to our house.

I liked the house…but not as much as our other house.   But it was grand…and it was spacious…but it was far more for us to clean…and especially for me…being the oldest. 

Oh, man…the living room had windows all the way around so you could look across at the water no matter whether you stood or sat.  And it had a very big fireplace…where we used to roast marshmellows…as though we were at camp.   It was fun.  And that house also had a raspberry tree growing in front of it, with a big lawn and all these beautiful trees with branchs swirling within it that yielded beautiful blossoms in the spring and summer.  

I liked it…but it was a lot of work that house…and none of my sisters or brothers had to do more of it than me.  I never held that against my parents though.  But I did against my sisters and brothers though.  They could never just drink from ‘one’ cup…or ‘one’ glass…I was washing dishes all day and night long.  I truly know how Cinderella felt.

My parents were hard working people…who always did things for other people…and were always doing  for us.    Their lives centered around us.  Which is why I regret never appreciating them as much as I should have. 

I appreciated them…in that I never once caused them any problems…(well…except for the time I thought I could drive…I will tell you about that in some other blog, I am sure).  I can’t say I may not have been a heartache…because I am sure that my being gay was not something hard for them to deal with…though they never once spoke about it.  I am sure they would be surprised that I am no longer in gay life.   But perhaps they had already known that at some point God was going to change my mind and my heart. 

But I never gave them as much as I should have.  Though they gave us the world…and everything else.  There was nothing new that came out that they didn’t buy…from dishwashers on.   As we became of age they bought us all cars.  And we were always going on trips. 

We went to the World Fair…

Do you remember that?  

It was here in the states…in New York City that year.  Now, only the big globe of the world remains at that site as a reminder of that very huge event.  The location today is where they play the US Open.  

But we were going to this place and that place…by train mostly when we were smaller…as we grew and learned to drive…mostly by car…and on by plane.  They took us everywhere…and everything was a family thing. 

I guess they lived the life that people who work…live for.  To be able to buy whatever they wanted…when they wanted it…and to do as they wanted.  And then…to be able to educate and provide for their children…which they certainly did.   And they did it well…as well as, for their god children, neighborhood kids, church people…and those in need. 

My parents had 8 of us…and spared nothing…including correcting us when it was called for. 

Today, I think my mother would be proud to know that her $300 investment in me…really didn’t quite go wasted.   As I later taught art in high school…which is so funny that should have happened…but it did.  But I don’t think my mother saw any humor in my wasting her $300 the way I did…because I didn’t even try to pretend to do any of those lessons from that home art school once I got pass the 1st lesson. 

One day…I think I was asking her for something else and she flared up at me suddenly saying-

“You are too talented and that is why you will never do nothing.”

Which was the tail end of whatever else she had said…I cannot remember the first part of it.  But she was mad when she said it.  And I was quite young…but somehow that always stuck with me.  I don’t know if I quite understood what she meant…but I had somewhat of a clue.  That statement has made me look at everything I have ever done…or thought to do…and it governs the things I am now doing. 

Everything I have ever done is in media.  From that day…when my mother told me …‘that is why you will never do nothing’…I have sought to not  half learn anything…or half do anything…but to become proficient in everything I lay my hands to…no matter how long it takes me…or how many hours in a day or night.  But if I set out to do it…then to stick with it. 

I had to learn how spend the time learning to perfect things.  To not get up from anything that I am doing…becoming readily interested in other things…other gifts…practicing something else. 

I do not eat or drink when I am working on something.   Nor do I take lunch breaks…or go to the bathroom…nothing.  I am throughly engulfed. 

Someone, an ex-,  told me that I have tunnel vision.  Meaning whatever it is, at that point or moment of my life, that I decide that I am going to do…I become so emerged and engrossed in it.  So much so…that I only see it…think about it…and in some cases dream about it.   I eat…sleep…and drink thinking about only what I am doing…when I am working on something.  When I had my advertising business…which I still do…there have been many nights when a client’s project concept came to me in my sleep.

A wise elderly woman…my friend who passed this pass August…whom I have wrote about in a couple of these blogs…she told me that my habit of not eating or going to bathroom from morning into the very late hours of the evening was not a good thing.   She told me that I would ruin my stomach…if I continued that practice.  So, I have since been working on adjusting myself…my schedule and my body.  I would hate to cause myself any medical conditions that I could have avoided.  I had always found her wise in her counsel to me.

Yes, I was too talented…like my mother said.  I could do a lot of things…and still can.  And there is a trap to being able to do so.  Most people are good at just one thing.  So, they focus on that one thing.   But to be multi-talented or gifted…you have to struggle with balancing your gifts. 

I had to learn to direct all those gifts…or I would have become a ‘jack of all trades…and a master of none.’   

My mother saw that…and that is what caused her to flare up at me telling me what she did that day…and how she told it to me.   From that moment I began to focus upon everything I do…like these blogs which to date I have written nearly if not more…than a 130 of them since starting in mid to late June of last year.   So, if you have just started reading them…you have alot of catching up to do.  And you will have an exam in the morning…

I have always had to direct everything…just so I wouldn’t be all over the place.  Though I do not think I have quite been so successful at doing that…I have endeavored nonetheless.  But the most I can say…is that it has all been media related.  But thank God for my mother saying that to me…and at a time when I needed to hear it…or I would have never been aware of something that was so crucial for me to grasp…and to have graspped it early.

It did not prohibit me from being more or less talented.  But made me aware that I needed to channel those talents and not be flighty with them…but to engage them…focus them…and develop them to their highest levels.  So, through my years that is what I have been doing.  And from time to time…I find myself taking classes here or there…just like my mother.  

That is so funny…when I think of.  That I continue to take classes just like my mother…which is also something that I wrote about….in a blog or 2 prior to this one. 

So, a few years ago, I decided to take some graphic art classes.  The marketplace has changed so vastly with the influx of computers and software…everything is done totally differently today no matter what field you are in.  So, I began taking these classes…and when I take classes I invest many after hours outside of the class to master the thing. 

I do nothing without mastering it…and I invest the time to do exactly that…and the effort.  Which when I decided to learn video production… it required me lugging around tons of heavy and very bulky equipment.   It was not uncoummon to find me shouldering a 3/4″ video recorder deck, tripod, large light kit and large video camera trying to board a bus.  And people wonder why I have muscles now…(smile).   And I learned all that equipment…every piece of it…every cable connector…every cable…every kind of editing system, software etc…everything.

It was a joke then…people would see me coming and say-

“Here comes Spike Lee’s sister.”

They don’t laugh any more though.  No, not today…instead they ask about my film projects and what I’m getting ready to do next.  I am no longer a joke…but it did not come without struggle.  Hours upon hours of vested  time, training, exploring…learning what I was doing wrong and trying to trouble shoot on my own…and sitting there until I got it done.  Never looking for pay…but always looking to assist others so that I could learn more and sharpen my own skills.  But I did what it took…and I still do. 

Sometimes even in writing these blogs…I work on them straight for more than 6 or 10 hours…if not more…and it is usually more dependng upon what I am writing about…including searching for pictures…seeking out errors etc.  

A professional is what I am…but a perfectionist is what I seek to be.  

So, to date the classes I have taken in graphic arts are these…Photoshop, Quark and  Illustrator…and additional software I have learned is FinalCut, Adobe Primere, Director, Flash,  Dreamweaver, Avid,  Fireworks…not to mention being able to write and read html…and having learned also all the latest stuff in radio studios.  Though I played a bit  with Freehand and at some point will try my hand at InDesign.  I love playing with this stuff…exploring the capabilities.

So, I am proud of myself  for having gotten up early this morning and gotten off to an early start with my cleaning.  I am proud that the website is coming along too.  And here is a preview , at the bottom of this blog, of something which I did this past week using the skills I have learned in graphic arts.  Those Pratt students can eat their hearts out now.   But those kids taught me a lot though…when they used to come for our conferences to discuss what my clients wanted.

Thank God for my mother and father…which is why I cannot understand that girl in Florida who killed her daughter and posted drawings of skeltons and other things symbolizing her acts.  Clearly, she was troubled.  But a guilty conscience will trouble you everytime.

There is something about mothers…real mothers…that when their child is missing nothing in this world can contain them.  They act in a certain way…they become obssessed…and there is no consoling them.  They are overtaken by grief and concern…and they are not interested in anybody or anything other than finding their child.

Once my son got separated from me.  You will not know the sheer horror that ran all through me during that very brief span of time…but it seemed to me to be enternity.  I was terribly horrorified.  I was overcome and on verge of perhaps loosing my mind.  I had lost my child in a large crowd of people at an outdoor affair which was quite crowded.  One second he was right there with me and the next he was gone. 

I felt someone had stolen him.  And that was all I could think.  I did not know which way to turn.  People were all about me.  I thought to scream out…but suddenly I looked up and across the field.  It was as though a  path had opened up…and there was my son.  One of  our neighbors had found him somewhere in the midst of all those people…and was bringing him back to me.  

I dropped to my knees and embraced my son so hard…I know I must have been crying.   I was so relieved…so happy…so overjoyed that someone had found him…and that it was one of our neighbors.  I never experienced another moment like that…as I learned like every good mother who loves her child or children…how to keep my eyes or hands on my child at all times. 

So, I certainly know the state that a real mother can fall into just believing her child is gone.  She begins grieving immediately…because she will only think of the worst scenario.

That is what I thought about the Susan Smith case.  The mother down in South Carolina…or somewhere south…that said that some black man had leaped into her car while she was stopped at a stop light.  She said that he had stolen her car and drove off with her 2 small children in the back seat.  I do not think that many people had to think twice about that story…but it was her actions following the supposed incident which gave her away.  And likewise…were the actions of this young woman in Florida.  She was out partying and having a good time.  

http://news.aol.com/article/caylee-anthony-documents/373178

When I thought of this young woman’s actions following the supposed disappearance of her 2 year old daughter…it made me think of that teenager who was at the prom and gave birth to her baby in a bathroom stall.  And how she had walked off and left the bady there in that stall.  She had returned to prom dance floor…and continued to dance and enjoy herself as if nothing had happened.  For which she only got 2 years…or something…might have been counselling.

I understand denial.  I understand that mothership may be difficult for many.  But what I do not understand is when someone…a mother…or who be it…commits such acts as these young women against innocence.  I cannot understand it.   I just can’t…I just can’t…   There are so many other options.

Parenting is a process…but some people they are just not equipped or mature enough to handle the responsibilities that it brings.  This is the reason…that I know that young kids should never be bearing children.  Everybody deserves to enjoy their youth…and have a time to grow up before taking on the task of motherhood and fatherhood way beyond the grade school level…and many times even beyond college.  I was 48 years old before I realized that I had become a woman…and that I needed to grow up and start acting like one.  Truthfully.

Not  to say…that I did not mother my child.  Oh, no…  I was at doctor’s appointment, dentist appointment…sitting in the back of  of my son’s classes when I had to…at every open house almost…and when I wasn’t my mother was.  You have to stay on top of your children (just a frame of speech…not literally)…and certainly not in a bad way.  But you have be conscious of them…what they are doing…who they are with…caring of them…and for them.   And you should never feel that they are an inconvenience to you…and certainly never give them to feel that.  

Therein lays the problem for the 3 young women whom I mentioned above.  They felt that they could just rid themselves of their unwanted burdens by doing away with them.  How sad for their children.  How very very very sad……..  Sad.

I was checking through my blogs today…I watch to see what people are reading and who has linked up with me etc…  I came upon this link in which the blogger found fault with a person who was standing in a soup kitchen line…and that person having a cell phone.  The blogger felt outraged because the person was supposed to be down and out…yet he had a cell phone.

I found that to be as selfish…as a time I was waiting in the grocery checkout line.  I never pay attention to what other people are buying…but this person near me…I believe she was just ahead of me but after the person who was checking out.  I overheard her saying-

“Did you see that?  She’s buying shrimps with foodstamps.  And do you see her pocketbook?  Honestly, buying shrimps on our money.”

Overhearing that, my curiosity was pricked…so I leaned a bit and saw that the woman had a Louis Vuitton handbag…a very nice and big one…and very nice expensive coat.  These are things I also never pay attention to.  What do I care about what people have on…as long as they have on clothes…or what type of pocketbook or handbag they have?  

It doesn’t make a difference to me.  

But I thought it a bit aburd of that the woman making the comment…that she was upset about the shrimps being purchased with the government supplied foodstamps.

Now, how stupid is that?

Even if she had gotten upset over the woman’s handbag…that would have been stupid too.

But she got upset…as if  poor people can’t…or should not be allowed to eat shrimp.  And that is not to say that that woman was poor…as none of us standing in that line knew her circumstances.  But to question what people can or cannot eat depending upon what is or is not our preceived notion of them and as to their place or circumstances in life is absolutely foolish. 

Why should that woman in that line…or anyone else in that line…or the whole store, for that matter…care whether or not that woman paid for those shrimps with her foodstamps?

Or whether or not she should eat shrimps or not?

She can eat whatever she wants.  And she had legal tender by which to purchase it.

Perhaps, it is just me.   Maybe, I’m the one obssessing.   Could be…

But I think that some people concern themselves with so many things that really…that they have no right to be thinking about.  As it is simply not their concern…or any of their business…nor their place to assess who can eat or cannot eat whatever. 

Just how dumb is that? 

But that is how I felt about that blog about a supposed poor person standing in a soup kitchen line taking a picture with his cell phone.   And here is that picture…

Yeah, he was standing in a line that Michelle Obama, First Lady Obama, was assisting in at a shelter kitchen feeding needy people in Washington, DC…which I believe she does every Friday.  I imagine a bunch of people were taking her picture including the camera crew that got these shots.  If I was there…I would have taken her picture.  And then asked her-

“Can we get one together?”

And whoever wrote that blog probably would have done the same thing. 

How many times do you come face to face with the President of the United States…or his wife?

“Better start snapping, baby.”

But why should anyone feel that other people…black… checkered….green…poor… or otherwise are not entitled to have certain things?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/05/at_miriams_kitchen_michelle_ob.html

That really seems stupid and quite selfish to me…and certanly demeaning.

It is the way I feel when I hear someone say-

“Well, if they couldn’t afford the mortgage they shouldn’t have bought the house.”

 And I have heard this more than a few times…particularly following the last bailout of the banks on Wall Street. 

Did not your parents struggle?

Don\’t we all struggle to pay off stuff?

Most people do.  And they are not wrong to do it.

I believe that everyone wishes they had the money to buy and pay for everything that they want…when they want it…or need it.  But that is not how life is. 

The unfortunate thing about it…is that no one knows what tomorrow will bring.  And we are all looking towards tomorrow. 

When I looked upon house after house..and business after business boarded up in Detroit…I know that those people had been looking towards tomorrow.  But none of them realized that when tomorrow came it would mean that jobs would be cut back.  They did not see that the company they worked for…that their father and grand father had worked before them…that they would be downsizing or laying them off.  Or as they call it now…’re-organizing.’

Who thinks like that? 

 The wrong does not lay with them…most of the people who find themselves in foreclosure…it lays with the mortgage companies which preyed upon people with over inflated interest rates…red lining, offering higher rates to certain people…higher closing costs…a bunch of double talk and small print…with high late payment penalties…and absorbent legal costs which they love attaching to their costs.

I don’t know if any of you have ever had anything repossessed.  But once they repossess your vehicle or house or whatever…the company then comes back at you to extract the money even though they repossessed and sold off whatever it was…and they leave it sitting on your credit reports for years upon years hindering you from getting anything else.   This clearly is double dipping…and these companies…none of them should be allowed to do that. 

Once they have repossess the object…and they have sold it off that should settle the debt.  But no…they come back after you.  And not for the debt minus whatever they got for it…but the entire debt plus all other costs. 

A friend of mine who worked for Greyhound buslines once told me how she had been sold a faulty vehicle.  She said it was a real lemon from the day she pulled it off the dealer lot.  So, she returned the vehicle several times to the dealership who in turn never did anything fix the problem. 

Finally, she became tired of trying to deal with the auto dealer…and just returned back to the car to the dealership where she had bought it.  She said that she drove right up on the lot in the middle of the day and left it there.   She stopped making payments on it…telling them as she left the lot that they could keep their car. 

Years later, however, she noticed that her pay was being garnished…it was the dealership.  They had kept the car but now they were forcing her company to withdraw payments from her pay check in order to pay them for a car which she had given back to them.  And at this point…she just folded her hands and gave up.  She let the company take her money…because she felt that it was a hopeless situation.  

There is something seriously wrong with the system that allows companies to use these kind of tricks to get over on and rob people.  Companies like that dealership abuse…exploit and use the system…to their benefit…a company that knowingly sold her automobile which was not in sound operating condition…and they knew it.

I had asked her if she hadn’t gotten the notice to go to court?   And she told me that she had not.  Without going into court to defend yourself…as I have stated in another blog…the other side wins automatically.  If summoned to go to court…go.  It is scary…yes, but go.

The most that can happen is that the judge won’t decide in your favor. 

There is always a case that you may not receive the  summon…if they have it sent to another address.   These are games that people play.   It is the game that CitiMortgage played against my parent’s property.   But they had not counted on the fact that I knew…by the grace of God…to go into court and file my own complaint against them…to stop the auction…and have since gotten that mortgage nullified and made void.  And believe me when I said…by the shear grace and mercy of God.  That is how it was done.

In closing let me just say…

“Stay away from bad deals.”

If you are interested in something…or getting ready to sign a contract for the purchase of  something and that contract is not in your favor…do not sign it.  Do not go into a deal…or debt…in any type of an agreement in which you are not at least a partial winner.  Or at the very least…where the pain is not so great. 

Sometime, we have all had to swallow a little pain…until we can fix things…like our credit.  But yet beware of the sharks…stay away from them.

In the claim I had to file against CitiMortgage…they claimed that my father had taken a loan against the house for some $27,000 at a 16.20%  interest rate.  This total agreement netted CitiMortgage over $60,000 in interest money…making the total contract for over $97,000 worth of debt against my parent’s house. 

My father would have never made an agreement like that.  And the other part of it is…he wasn’t much of a borrower.  Didn’t have any charge cards or anything like that…because he earned money to pay for what he wanted.  And that is what he did.

Nobody in there right mind would have signed a deal like that.  The company was making 3 times as such as it was giving out…that is robbery no matter how bad your credit may or may not be.  And my father did not have bad credit.  

I knew that document was a forgery even before I saw the signature upon.  So, I took the case to court…claiming that they had preyed upon my father, if indeed he had signed it.  At the time that contract was supposedly sign my father had been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s which would have rendered him as being legally incompetent to enter any type of legal or binding agreement.  Plus my father had several bank accounts and definitely had at least one which had more money than that in it.   So, I sued…of which I wrote about in a prior blog also.

I continue to pray for you and whatever situation or condition you are facing.  Be encouraged.   And stay away from bad deals.

Well, my little siesta is over…it is time for me to go back to work.   Actually, it ended hours ago.  

I have to finish scrubbing down the bathroom.  And I am getting a bit hungry now too.   But enjoy your weekend.  

I just finished looking out and it looks like snow…again.  But it is warm on the inside.  Though it might be that I am running a slight fever.  Been fighting off a dry cough for the past few days…but I am winning.  Well…some times…I think.

Maybe, I will just finish the bathroom…take a shower and crawl back into bed…and forget about mopping the floors tonight.  It’s late now.

Well…God bless…

Oh…yes, here is a taste of what the website will look like.  Now, you tell me whether or not if  you think some of those classes that I have taken are starting to pay off? 

Thank goodness for a mother who was not afraid to speak truth into the life of her child.

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on “  www.bsmith101.wordpress.com  ©2009

4 comments March 8, 2009

Court issues…Family dilemma… praising the Lord

Sometimes I just become so overjoyed that I can’t keep it to myself.  And this is one of those times.  I am suppose to be working on launching my website…which should be up this week.  But I just couldn’t not before writing this blog…to tell you just how good God is to me.

I know that many many many people are currently facing foreclosure and until I started taking care of my parent’s property it really never mattered much to me.  But following the passing of my father the 2 mortgage companies which had mortgages against our property put us into foreclosure.  But not being on the mortgages the companies refused to tell me anything…and I was the only out of my 7 other siblings who felt our parent’s property was worth fighting for and eventually paying off. 

But because my name is not on the loans for the mortgage (which of course it would not be…since the house belonged to my parents and it was their loan).  So, the mortgage companies legally did not have to give me any information regarding my parent’s account…and for the most part that is what they did.  They refused to share any information on their account with me…even though they knew that my parents were now both deceased.  And the kind of information I wanted was a copy of the payment history of the entire loan and all other information concerning it…the whole history of mortgages.

Finally, CitiMortgage, one of the mortgage companies…the one with the highest balance and most difficult company to deal with…they sent me a copy of my parent’s mortgage.   After going over the documents it showed that supposedly that mortgage had been refinanced in 1999.  But my father by that time had been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s.  Besides his left hand shook badly…which meant that his signature would have been severely affected when he wrote.  But that copy of the supposed mortgage refinanced by him showed no signs of a wobbly hand.  And even if it had my father’s mental capacity being what it supposedly was at the time…he was not legally competent to enter into any such contractual agreement.

So, I filed papers disputing the foreclosure by CitiMortgage against my parent’s property based upon it being a false document…and as being such CitiMortgage’s foreclosure was being based upon a fraudulent document which would nullify that contract and halt their foreclosure based on the amount outstanding due to that document.

Well, after I don’t know how many months…and after receiving information from CitiFinancial that they were in possession of my parent’s property.  I went back to court.  Because CitiMortgage/CitiFinancial had failed to answer my complaint against them.  So, I entered a default against them.  Today, I received my notification that my default had been granted.

I cannot tell you how overjoyed I am.  Through the grace and mercy of God…I had won.  This decision totally knocks out a mortgage which added over  a hundred thousand additional dollars onto my parent’s prior loan. 

I knew in my heart that my father would have never placed an additional $100,000 of debt upon our property.  That money was supposedly against a loan of nearly $30,000 at an interest rate of over $60,000 making CitiMortgage a mighty big winner in that contract.   My father would have never done…and particularly since he had already had more money than the alleged near $30,000 the loan approved for…as he had more than that already in at least one of his several bank accounts.  So, I went into court Pro-se as a heir to the estate of my father…and went to fight.  But God fought that battle for me.  And I cannot thank Him enough.

I wrote this blog because I know that many people are going through much of the same.  It is very difficult trying to go to bed night after night…and not know whether or not tomorrow you will be deposed and kicked out into the streets…because some bank or mortgage company took over your home.

One of the biggest frauds going…happens when people in mortgage companies find out that there is a dispute among family members following the death of someone of whom they hold a loan against their property.  This opens the door for all kinds of things to happen if the people or a person within the mortgage company is a distrustful crook…that might shock some.   But it is very true…and not just with mortgage companies but lawyers also…anyone sitting in a position they see where they can take advantage of. 

Anybody sitting in a position who can take advantage of  such a situation many times does.  Because they seize upon the family members lack of communication with one another and their inner turmoils and conflicts to keep the family members too busy at each other’s throat…and it allows the cheats the freedom to do whatever they will.   It is for this reason that I asked to see the complete history of my parent’s mortgage from the initial mortgage on.  For which I never got because they refused to release to me.  Nor did any notices of court dates come to house regarding the foreclosure hearings. 

By not getting those notices…the notices regarding the foreclosure hearings…I could not appear in court to defend my parent’s property.  And since none of my other siblings cared…they didn’t go either.  This meant that that by default the mortgage company won their foreclosure because nobody showed up on our side of the table…or who represented us in court.

I tell people all the time…the worst thing you can do in a court case…is not show up.  By failing to show up the other side automatically wins.  Give yourself a fighting chance.  Show up and tell the judge your side of the story…you may be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  It could make a difference.

If you have been reading these blogs then you also know that I had entered a case in the Appellate Court. 

Perhaps you are familiar with this…and are guilty of the same.  Though I must say as a rule I am not a procrastinator…but for a couple of weeks I had been walking around with the letter from the Appellate Court unopened.  I get tons of mail…and there are some pieces that I put off opening simply because I don’t want to think about it…and I am afraid of what it might be informing me of.  This was the case regarding my default notification from the court and this letter from the Appellate Court…both of which I finally decided I couldn’t put it off any longer.   So, I opened them up this morning.

It turned out I had been dreading good news from both courts.  The notice I got from the Appellate Court was to inform me that I would not have argue orally our case before the judges.  Though I had requested to do so…I really didn’t want to do it.  But from where I stand nobody can better present my case than me…and particularly since when my son had gotten a lawyer…the lawyer told him to settle for $1,800.   Our car had been totaled, my son suffered back injury (which still plagues him today)…and on top of that the repairs that the insurer of the other vehicle (the one that caused the accident) authorized were not sufficient considering the amount damage sustained to our vehicle. 

So, I filed the papers myself…when you do this it is called “Pro-Se.”  But it was not because of any of the reasons I have already listed that drove me to file suit.  No, I filed because they had returned to my son a faulty automobile which could have killed him…and they didn’t care.  The car shook…the bumper would fall off while he was driving…and at the time of the accident my son was away at college in a town which had no public transportation…not even cab service…which is why I had to buy him a car in the first place.

So, I filed suit in conjunction with my son against Allstate Insurance.  And today I heard from the Appellate Court…because if you recall, also in a prior blog, I explained how my son had really won the case…but how the whole thing had been a set-up and ended up in front of a judge who was friendly with the other side.  Don’t act shock to hear this…it happens everyday…watch LAW & ORDER.  It is regular practice for lawyers to call the clerk’s office to find out which judge is in what court and when. And try to schedule their hearing before judges who are very lenient or favorable to them.

Had we lost our case in court fairly…I would have accepted that decision.  But I could not knowing that we had not been unjustly treated and all our evidence and testimonies had been overlooked.  So, I filed a Notice of Appeal…and to the Appeals Court we were a going. 

One of the most involved documents I have ever had to put together was the legal brief that was required of the Appeals Courts.  It was over 100 pages in length and required many hours of research in a local law library and several days of typing…but I did it.  By the time our case finally got heard…following all the hearings for the various pre-hearing court dates for…Motions to be entered…and Mediation…etc..and all our travelling back and forth…many times when we barely had the money to go and come back.  But we did it any ways by faith…over 900 miles each time.

Now, the notice from the Appeals Court today informed me that we would not have to present our case orally before the Appellate Court.  I had covered everything so completely in that brief…and in great detail…including the court transcript to back up my statements.  I am so happy that we do not have to go down and stand before them.  Standing before several judges dressed in black robes…would have been a bit un-nerving for me.  But if I had to…I would have done it.  I had prepared myself to do it.  Because from the on-set…I had not filed the papers to lose our court case.  And I always knew it was just a matter of how much…because we had all the documentations, receipts, invoices, pictures etc. to prove our case.  Many times in court just having truth on yourself is not enough…you must have hard evidence…and we had both truth and hard evidence.  Then they next thing is to be capable of delivering that evidence before in a logical and as near legal manner as you can master.

I tell you this…because I do believe that if more people sued for wrongs and injustices…maybe some of us others would not have to.  We live in an area where they want to make you feel guilty for having to sue.  But believe me…many times a law suit is necessary to resolve many matters.  The problem is most lawyers won’t take any cases that they believe they won’t make any money on…or that may tie them up for too long.  This leaves those who can’t go into court for themselves with no choice but to drop the matter.  And even I have had to decide whether or not something was a battle to fight or not. 

I have not sued everybody…though my son and most of friends believe I have.  But I have not.  Some of them I have left for God to deal with.  He can do things to them that I cannot.

This reminds me of a time when I was in grade school.  While in the cafeteria one day just as I was about to sit down…this girl took her foot and snatched the stool from up under me.  I fell flat…and everybody laughed at me. 

I was so mad that I began praying to God to do something to the girl.  And a couple of years later I realized he had.  The girl is very unattractive…and I have always thought God did that to her because of me.  Truly, I have.  From that point on I have never prayed to God to take care of anybody else for me.  I thought His punishment to her was a bit too harsh. 

So, for the cases I decided not to pursue…I have just left it up to His discretion if He wants to do something about it or not.  The Bible says…He rights every wrong.

But I will keep you posted on the Appellate Court decision. 

The reason behind this blog is to encourage those of you who are facing foreclosure…or any other problem…legal or otherwise.  Do not give up.  Go back through your paperwork…there may be something in it which can turn your situation around.  You may find a loop hole…lawyers use them all the time.  But if they can so can you.

Always remember that God has the final word in all situations.  And that He is faithful.

My parent’s property is still in foreclosure but now all the  money paid on the property from the date of that refinance date that I disputed to present will have to be reverted to the old mortgage…and with interest. 

The Bible is true…God is always working it out for our good.  I am just so happy.

God is good.  And I am so happy that he is a friend of mind.

It is still Black History Month…Ida B. Wells…W.B. DeBois…Billie Holiday……Marion Anderson...Sweet Honey in the Rock…

http://mirroronamerica.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

As I have said in my other Black History Month posts…the reason I have not given you any information on the people that I list is so that you will be motivated to research who they are.  This will prove to far more helpful to you…and to your ability to remember their accomplishments.

Well, God bless…

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009

1 comment February 24, 2009

Water problems… Foreclosure…

It is freeeeeeezing. 

I have been up half the morning trying to get the oven to light up.  And finally it got started…but then I went to turn on the faucet and nothing came out.

Oh, nooooooo!

The pipes can’t be frozen…I left the water running all through the night.  I only turned it off at about 9 something this morning.  I rushed to the bathroom…the hot water was running but the cold water….

I started praying.  

There was no way I could stay in my parent’s house without water.  Then I thought maybe the water had been turned off…and the only reason the hot water was running was because it was what had been left the hot water tank. 

But I kept praying…and trying the cold water faucets.

And finally the cold water started running a little tiny bit…then a little bit more…and finally it gushed through.  I had come so close to the water pipes freezing.   So, bright me…I went upstairs to the vacant apartment upstairs which has been vacant since one of my sisters moved out a couple years ago.  I went up to check the water upstairs…the kitchen and the tub faucets worked…but there was no water in the toilet and the basin faucets didn’t work. 

So, I left the 2 faucets that worked running a little…only to be walking downstairs and hear what sounded like water dropping in the basement.  And that is exactly what it was…water was running out of a pipe. 

And all I could think about was how was I going to pay for this?

First, the furance and now this.

And then on top of everything else…I had gotten a letter last week from the lawyer of the mortgage company saying-

“We’re in possession of the property.”

Could it get any worst.  But I am a believer…my faith and trust is in God.

I had already gotten an injunction against the mortgage company and had filed a complaint against them…Citifinancial or CitiMortgage as they call themselves are crooks.  The unfortunate thing is that many people do not know how to go into court and file their own complaints against these companies.  If they could some of these companies would think twice about some of their practices and their treatment of people.

But I will not complain.  As cold as it is…it is still not as cold as it was in this house last winter when the gas had been shut off.   Without gas…there was no hot water in the house.    So, I can bare this…as long as I have hot water.  But now this water problem…that could be questionable.  

But I am believing and trusting in the Lord.

I used to go to auctions…and still do.   But I no longer seek out distressed property.  Because I now realize who the people were who were distressed before that property became distressed.  If people stopped going out to bid on auction property many of these mortgage companies would work harder with people to keep their property from going into foreclosure.

So, no…now I no longer go to view or bid on distressed property where people were forced out of the property and cast out into the street.   No, I do not want any property like that.  And I am determined to fight for my parent’s property.

I know that there is nothing free.  Bills do have to be paid.  And I understand extenuating circumstances…and many times there are extenuating circumstances behind why people fall behind in their debts.  Everybody is not trying to get something for nothing.  And not everybody is trying to take advantage.  But many people have this attitude about everyone in foreclosure…and it is just not so.

Whatever your circumstances I pray that God opens a door and pours relief into your situation.  There is nothing worst than worrying over something that you have already put into your mind that you are on the loosing end of.  I serve a mighty God…you should try Him.   He was the one…not me who  got that injunction against CitiMortgage…and it was an unbelievable situation.  The lawyers never showed up. 

The judge then sent me out and had me to have them re-summon to court a second time.  And the 2nd time the lawyers failed to show up again.   I know it was God.   I have never been in court where the lawyers didn’t show up.  Lawyers, of course, get paid to appear in court for their clients…but they did not on these 2 occasions…and they probably still got paid.   But I got the injunction…and I have no reason to believe that God did that just so that later on I would loose my parent’s house.  

No, I do not.  I don’t think so.

Be encouraged.

I can’t believe the pipes upstairs are burst.  It never dawn on me to go upstairs and turn on the water up there to keep those pipes from bursting too.   And I would not have realized that the pipes had started to freeze if I had not gone to fill back up the pots I have been boiling on the stove with water…with the hope of aiding in keeping the kitchen to stay somewhat warm.  If  it hadn’t been for that…man…   Thank the Lord.

I don’t care about the pipes upstairs right now…just as long as the pipes down here are not affected.  It just means one more thing I will have to get fixed later.  But first things first…and that is…get my parent’s property totally out of foreclosure first…and settle all the legal matters that need to be settled on this property.

It is soooooo cold.  

I have not been keeping up with the weather…because who wants to sit up in a cold house watching television?

But I was just sitting up trying to type this…and my baby toe on my left foot started freezing.  It has to be terribly cold outside.   And if you know anything about a cold house…it is always colder inside than it is outside.

Once, Iwent to visit someone…I can’t remember for what but I think it was during a time when I was doing door-to-door sales.  The woman answered the door…both she and her husband were wearing coats inside the house and I could tell why.  Their house…or apartment…whatever it was was freeeezzzzing.  And I really couldn’t see at the time how they could bear it.  But I understand now…you do what you got to do when you have to do it.   And you do it when you can’t do any better.

God bless…

Boy, what I wouldn’t do to be cuddled up in front of a big beautiful warm cabin fire…right about right now.   That day is coming.  But for now…I am happy to be here…on and in my parent’s property…just keeping watch over it. 

But I will tell you one thing…living in an apartment…and trying to maintain property are 2 different things.  Having for the most part grown up in this house until my parents decided to purchase a second house…one that was bigger by at lease 9 additional rooms and sat on a hill overlooking water.   But my father did everything.

I could not imagine marrying a man who couldn’t do anything. 

Daddy was the plumber…the electrician…dry-waller…painter…wall paper hanger…automobile mechanic….bike fixer…    Daddy was eveything…including a great cook, great  Kool Aide, lemonade and ice tea  maker…ice cream maker…gardener…   Wow, there was  nothing that daddy couldn’t do.

I only wished I had recognized it before…I might have bought him less neck ties and socks…and more of  more expensive things.  He truly was worth it…and so much more.

Thank you for reading this blog…and  my others.  Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on” www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009 

1 comment January 17, 2009

Last night…house problems….

Last night after getting in from an affair I smelled a funny odor in the house.  At first it was faint and I didn’t pay much attention to it.  But as the night worn on…nearly an hour or so later…thesmell became more and more evident to me.

Finally, I got up and started sniffing around.  It is funny how much like animals we are.  But that is what I did.  I started sniffing and began discounting area after area.  But the smell was growing.

I started thinking about the possibility of a fire being inside the walls.  We have all heard those stories.  How for nearly a week the family smelled something and didn’t know what it was.

Besides, I had recently had to unplug my diesel truck when I had smelled something upon awakening in the middle of the night…something that very much smelled to me like fresh popped pop corn.  It wasn’t fresh popped pop corn…but turned out to be the outlet that I had plugged to the truck.  More to be exact it was one of those multi-plug things we all use for our computers and everything else we have to plug in.  But the extension cord running from inside the house to truck is constantly on…and I guess the outlet just couldn’t take it.

Upon sniffing…I found out I didn’t have a pop corn problem but an electrical outlet problem.  Which I quickly solved by unplugging the cord and cutting off the multi-outlet.  But because I have seen so many Christmas news stories about electrical outlets and Christmas trees…and of course those electrical extension cords causing fires…that I didn’t hestitate to unplug the whole thing for good.

When I smelled what I smelled this time…I immediately began to assume that maybe I hadn’t solve that problem at all.

I thought that maybe even though I had unplugged the truck and killed the outlet switch…that perhaps it had caused a fire to start in the inside of my parents house’s wall.  So, I sniffed and I sniffed but when I went near the area of the shut-off multi-plug outlet there was nothing.  Now, Sherlock really had to go to work because the smell was getting stronger…and I felt an urgent need to find it.

While I was sitting in a certain area of the dinning room the smell seemed it’s strongest.  But there was nothing there.  And when I sniffed the area…I could smell nothing outside of a whiff of the smell.

That is when I decided I better go check downstairs in the basement.

When I opened the door leading towards the back hallway of my parent’s house the smell suddenly grew stronger.  Now, I knew…I was on the right track.

As I started down the stairs, I felt heat like I had never felt before from down there.  I was hit with like a wall of heat.   Immediately I headed for the furnace.  And the furnace it was.

It was all lit up…bustling red hot…it was as I had never seen it before.  The coils running out at the bottom of furnace were red hot…and this was something that never was before.

I tried to look and see if the furnace was out of water.  And as far I could tell it was.

So, I reached up and took the knob to the water pipe and began to release water down into the furnace.  But the furnace response to water was violent. It started making all kinds of weird noises.  I feared that the furnace was going to blow up.  Which is exactly what I thought upon seeing how red hot the elements on it were.  It looked like it was going to explode.

So, I quickly turned off the water upon hearing its reaction to the water being released into it.  And I ran up the stairs.  Well…I tried to get up the stairs as quickly as I could.  I went directly to the thermostat to the furnace, and I turned it all the way off.  I hoped that this was going keep the furnace from blowing up my parent’s house…which upon looking at that furnace that was exactly what I thought would happen.  I definitely felt that the furance was well on its way to exploding.

We have all read stories about furnaces blowing up…leveling the house and killing everybody inside.  That is just what I envisioned.

All I could think about was my parent’s house…and how it had no insurance on it.  If it were to blow up…where would I go?

What would I do?

Where…what..how could I…

Not to mention…I would have been the cause of blowing up my parent’s house….something that they had work hard for…and made all kinds of sacrifices for.

So, I prayed…and I prayed…and asked God, “Please don’t let my parent’s house blow up.”

When I awoke this morning the house wasn’t as cold as I thought that it would be.  It hadn’t blown up.  But I knew I had to call the furnace people.  Because I was not going to dare turn it back on without calling someone to come and check it out first.

I was so happy that the house hadn’t gotten leveled to the ground…and that God once again had stepped in on my behalf.  And He did…as always.

So, a few minutes ago the furnace guys came and ran water into the now very cold furnace.  And after a while the water ran out of furnace onto the ground of our basement…which was the thing what they were looking to see if it would happen.

They then informed me of what they knew I really didn’t want to hear.  They told me that I should not have turned on the cold water but rather I should have turned off the furnace and then allowed it to cool all the way down first.  This is message to those of you reading this as to how not to end up costing yourself an additional $4,000 to $5,000 bill by having to replace your furnace.

Yes, that is what I have to do.

I must pay to have a whole new furnace put in because I reacted without thinking before turning on that cold water.  This was something we have all learned in our grade school science class…but who remembers this stuff when thrown into a situation many years later?

Though I must say…I am not sure that I may not have turned on that water anyway.  Sometimes we all learn best…when we end up having to pay for it.

This is a lesson I have now learned…and learned it the hard way (much like that other story I told you in a prior blog when I stuck a fork into an electric toaster while the toaster was on…you’ve have got to read that blog).  But I have now well learned this lesson too.  And I am not subject to ever forget it again.

My parents used to take us to Florida during the summer to spend some time with our grandmother.  Once, while driving to Florida many years ago when we were still kids.  I had just started driving at this paricular time.  On road down to Florida, our car overheated.  I clearly remember now…how we sat along side the road waiting on the radiator to cool down before daddy poured some water into it.  I also now remember him risking burning his hand to take the cap off the radiator so the heat that had built up inside the radiator could escape.

None of that came to me last night.

Daddy was sure something.  He really was.

Somehow, I appreciate him and all the things he did and could do a lot more now than ever before.  And it grieves me to say that…because I certainly didn’t appreciate him as much as I should have when we had him with us.

Daddy did burn his hand.  But after a while we were soon back on our way.  And everytime we stopped…daddy got out and kept checking the radiator from that point down and all the way back home.  And he never complained about his hand.

I am so happy I didn’t blow up my parent’s house.

Who cares about that furnace….that can easily be replaced.  Yes, it will take me some time.  And yes…I may not have any hot water either for a while.  But at least I still have roof over my head.

Let us all pray for the homeless and those facing foreclosure…and those who’s problems are not so easily fixed.

Early this morning I had the chance to meet Nikki Giovanni…and I took it.  I cut my History class and found my way down to the auditorium where she was speaking.  She was all of what I expected and much more.  But while there I ran into an old friend.

This old friend was a woman whom I have known from the days when my parents used to pack us up and send us off for 2 weeks to camp.  She was then one of the little campers…just like me.  But she told me how her daughter had died instantly in car crash on her way to the airport.  Then she commenced to tell how her sister, Darlene, has just passed.  Darlene had been a little camper with us…she was just a couple years older than her sister telling me the story.  She also told me how Darlene prior to dying had been in intensive care for 2 months.  And then she told me how she had also just buried an uncle.

She ended it all by glancing over at me with a pair of the saddest eyes and saying, “This has been a very bad year for me.”

When you think that times are bad…or that you have it hard.  Just keep this in mind.  That there is always someone going through something worst.

Enjoy your weekend…and be bless.

Before closing let me thank each of every one of you for reading these blogs.  About a week ago my stats for these blogs were barely over a 1,000 hits.  But that isn’t bad considering I had only gotten started blogging back in June of this year…and who ever thought I would be blogging.  I didn’t even know what blogging was…much less how to do or that I cared to do it at all.  But within a weeks time from last week I have neared almost 4,000…and that is because of you.  By some time Wednesday it may be 5,000 if not more.

When I started I wondered about how people would find my blog?

There were times when only one or two people read them…but now…it is over 200 hits per day.

I think that is wonderful. I certainly would not have thought anything like that.

Who could be interested in reading anything I have say…on anything?

I just hope that I am saying something that makes sense to you, that may inspire you…or even give you reason to pause and consider some things.  But most of all I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share with you…and be able from time to time to tell you just how good God is to me.

Thank you so very much.

I found this picture and loved the colors so much I just could not resist including it along with this blog…it is simply called “The Wedding”…

TUESDAY…TUESDAY…TUEDAY!!!!!   Just can’t wait.

 Even the little ones support Obama!

Have a beautiful day…and thank you for reading.

Add a comment October 31, 2008

$700 billion bailout …Republican nightmare

Somebody should have seen this coming.

A $700 billion government bailout?

A need for a government bailout this big didn’t just happen over night. 

A bailout of over hundreds of millions of bad mortgages…gotten through greedy companies who sought only to enrich themselves causing much pain and devastation across the United States.  Americans have really been suffering…but not until Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac hit the rocks did the Bush people seriously seek to do anything.

And now we, the taxpayers, are going to have to suffer from yet another Bush Administration fumble.  In light of the upcoming elections, just about a month away, it is with good reason that the Republicans are taking a lead on this one, and seeking to push as much as they can push through before the election come November in order to try to ensure no landside in Obama’s direction. 

And why not seeing they were the ones who caused it in the first place. 

So, there is little wonder why the Republicans are rushing…trying to solve this massive problem which could potentially destablize the entire American Economy.

Poor upper govenment management on the part of the Bush Economic people has caused this country to sink to levels it has never seen before.  The amounts of money sought to rescue Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are unheard of…and far exceed anything during the Great Depression.  Though Bush and his people have refused to call this time what it is…and it certainly is not just some kind of a ‘slow down.’ 

No, it is far more than that…and far greater than that.  And people thought that Bush’s father was out of touch.

From the on-set of George Bush taking control of the United States government, we have had nothing but problems…as if 9/11 and a un-necessary war costing us millions per day were not enough.  Now, the most unpopular President in the history of the United States…a dunce who should have never been allowed into the Oval Office in the first place has sent this country reeling out of control financially and otherwise. 

Everything is out of control and from day to day the average American doesn’t know what new mess they will awaken to that has been brought on my George Bush and his people.

What an out and out shame.  To think that some poor guy…and it will be some poor guy who will be going into the White House following the November Presidential Elections…to think that he will have to try to clean up…rectify…and restore this country as best he can is a travesty after the mess that his predecessors, the Bush Administration, has left him with. 

Because if it is Obama…those Republicans will certainly claim that Obama was the cause of it…just the way they tried to say Bill Clinton had done certain things which was why George Bush dwindled the surplus that was left behind.

But careless thinking got us here.  It was definitly the cause…and without any form of opposition.  For some reason the Republicans have been allowed to run a muke for the past 8 years…doing whatever they willed.

Yes, carelessness got us here…and since going into the White House, George Bush has been nothing but careless, carefree and cared about nothing.  So, just how was that kind of thinking going to do anything for America…and/or her people?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=government%20bailout%20of%20fanny%20mae&st=cse&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21econ.html?scp=3&sq=government%20bailout%20of%20fanny%20mae&st=cse

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/09/post.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26827357/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26827357/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7617186.stm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26821963#26821963

Lets get out the vote.   Every vote counts.  And…yes, it’s definitely time for a change.  Not just a change in the name of the person who occupies the White House…but an overall change in thinking and doing.   This country needs people genuinely interested in America for the masses of her peoples sake…not a chosen few.    VOTE….OBAMA

Please be sure to share this blog site with your friends.

…pass it on…’ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com 

God bless…and thanks for reading  ©2008

Add a comment September 22, 2008

McCain… Republican Convention… Lies

 

Reform…Change …McCain????

The real agents of change…McCain…or Obama?

It was interesting hearing the Republicans talk about change during their convention as though they were the first to conceptualized that idea of change…or that America was in need of a change.

And man do we need a change.

And that change is by way…of removing the Republicans out of office…getting their hands off of regulating the business of the United States of America.  Under Bush this country has hit rock bottom.  It has gone to places where it hadn’t been since the stock market crash of the 1930′s bringing about the Great American Depression, which lasted into 1940′s.

How could one group of people do so much damage?

From a huge surplus left by Bill Clinton to a massive deficeit that continues growing moment by moment as another bullet is shot or a war tank is moved through the dessert sands of Iraq.

Under Bush has come war, attacks on American soil, home foreclosures, U.S. takeovers of huge companies  with the hope of trying to stablize a highly flautering economy.  Companies like Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae…who ever thought anything would happen to her…or them?  

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21cong.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/20/AR2008092000883.html?hpid=topnews

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/lehman_brothers_holdings_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org

And they say that Bush was an Economics Major. 

Well, that is one degree that Yale should go back and reclaim quick before everybody starts wondering just what is Yale teaching its Economic Majors?

It is easy to preach change…but without it being actually in your heart…or having the heart to actually implement it….change just becomes a catch phrase…a means of merely trying to get elected without the hope of making any change.  And that is exactly what ‘change’ means to the Republicans.  It is a catch phrase…a practical joke that everytime they said it…they almost choke trying not to laugh.

Those Republicans…they have no real desire to change anything.  And why would they want to?

From what I heard at the Republican Convention….they’re all happy with the way things are.  And why not…they have reaped the benefits from this mess that the Bush Administration has sunken us into. 

Who ever heard of paying $4.00/per gallon for gas in America before George Bush got into office?

Even under Bush senior…this country still was under 90 cents per gallon for gasoline.

But when you go into office and the first thing you do is increase your own salary that really should speak volumes to everybody in the country.  Bill Clinton as President of the United States only received $200,000 a year…but George Bush felt that wasn’t enough.  So, the President’s salary went up to $400,000 a year.  That meant that within the first 4 years of Bush’s term he was paid all of what Bill Clinton got for the whole of 8 years Bill was in office.  And Bill Clinton never took any 4 week vacations at any time while he was in the office of President of this country…a thing George Bush really loves to do  (that’s that party boy attitude he’s had all his life)…and he started taking them shortly after he stole his way into the Oval Office.

Honestly, when you look at the American Economy…Bush has really been on vacation for his entire 8 years that he has been in the White House.  Well, maybe if he had…then maybe we wouldn’t be here where we are right now. 

What a mess!

So, yes…drinking champagne and watching their stocks vested in fuel, food goods etc. go soaring through the roof those Republicans loved that. 

Why shouldn’t they?

They’re making money.  That’s why they are against better health packages for employees, more taxes for the richer Americans, help to the poor, disabled, sick and disenfranchised

When you get right down to it….those…those…those REPUBLICANS are a selfish bunch!

They could care less about anybody but themselves.

So, for the most part they enjoy their standing in America…they are vested.   Vested in things remaining just as they are.

When you looked out upon the people who filled the coliseum where the Republican National Convention took place…it looked more like a meeting of the Wall Street Klan.  They for the most part looked like a bunch of stuff shirt business people (who all by the way looked sad to be at their own convention).  The Republican Convention certainly didn’t seem to have a cross section of people from all sectors of America as were the people that attended the Democratic  National Convention.  And besides that…the Republican Convention didn’t have one person who was just an ordinary Joe or Jane who came up to tell their story…like the Democratic Convention did.  And all of those stories were quite moving and compelling…as to what the Republicans have done to the American Economy and how people…everyday people are truly suffering.

Not only did there seem to be a deep difference between the 2 types of crowds attending the various Political Conventions…but also…the Republican National Convention was geared towards personality and had nothing to do with what the maverick McCain would do differently for America.  In fact, the whole Republican Convention was one big war hero story.  It would have been great for Memorial Day or something…but it didn’t speak to what McCain plans to do for America.

The Republicans attacked Obama…his eloquence and ability to rally the crowds.  But they failed to offer up any meat on a Republican agenda.  They talked ‘change’…and spoke about ‘reform’…but never said ‘how’…or what differently they were going to do.  Because the reality is…it is all talk as it has always been when it comes to the Republicans. 

The Republican make promises…but only continue to enrich the rich and could care less about those who are struggling to keep above the water…as the Republicans steadily watch their bank accounts grow having invested in energy, oil and whatever else that is bleeding us into nothingness…we who don’t have their deep pockets…and have to work hard at trying to make every dollar stretch as far as we can get it.

McCain may well have been a hero…but having served in the military and making the decision to stay with his troops is not something that many others also did not decide to do when they had the option of doing something else.  I have watched stories of such people all the time on PBS.  And no one has said of them-

“This qualifies you to become the next President of the United States.”

If so, then we would see more military people running for political office along with mostly lawyers and other professional types who choose to become Senators, Governors, Mayors etc…  But no, you don’t see them…those just plain military people…and if they were to stand up and say-

“I can do a better job than of those guys.”

Somebody would tell them to sit down….and that they just did not have the experience or whatever else it takes to be in politics. 

So, therefore, military service is no prerequisite to be President of the United States…nor can it be a substitute for qualifications or experience.  When your military record is all that can stand on or all that can be said about you…one really has to wonder about John McCain.  And believe me that Republican Convention was all about John McCain’s military record.  Not once did I hear about some bill or anything else he managed to push through.

I say, give me a person who knows what it is to serve people though he may have not have been Governor or a corporation executive…but a honest caring person who has made it his life work to serve the everyday woman and man.   And that is the history of Barack Obama.

“Drill, baby…drill.”

Sounds like the Republicans don’t mind destroying what little lands this country has set aside in order to protect certain eco-systems and various species of wildlife, foliage etc.  As long as they can make money the Republicans could care less about anything else. 

Is this not the very reason that the investigators laid claim to about Hurrican Katrina?

Did they not say that that if the wet lands had not been removed that perhaps New Orleans might have had the flooding it suffered?

It was the eco-system that had been destoryed in order to increase the city limits…and in the end nature dealt New Orleans a death defying blow by the name of Katrina.

But destorying the eco-systems mean nothing to the Republicans.  Because they reap all the benefits and none of the fall-out from such decisions.

Money is the only thing most Republicans put first.

That sign being waved by many at the Republicans at their National Convention which said ‘Prosperity’ looked so much like a Hersey’s Chocolate wrapping…to me that I started craving a Hersey’s bar for the remainder of the night.  And finally got one just this week.

Prosperity…not change is what the Republicans want.  Its their same old game…they’re just trying to repackage it and give it a new name.   And during their own convention those Republicans were bold enough to display large signs reading just that…”Prosperity.” 

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761584403/great_depression_in_the_united_states.html

Remember to get registered if you are not…the clock is ticking.  And be sure if you are registered to go down to the Voter Registration Office in your city or town and double check on your registration…just to make sure you won’t run into any problems on election day.  You vote counts.

Well, God bless…and enjoy the rest of your day.  And thanks for reading…and please remember to share this blog address with your friends….‘…pass it on…’ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com 

God bless…and thanks for reading  ©2008

Add a comment September 20, 2008

Detroit, Chicago, Abortion, Choice, hotels…

Well, it is 8 something in the morning and we’ve just gotten back into town. After Detroit we drove on into Chicago and stayed at the most fabulous hotel. But we drove and drove until 5 a.m in the morning trying to find a hotel outside of Chicago…because Chicago hotels are just too expensive…any hotel really inside a reasonble distance of a major city is. So, we really had to hunt for some place…and it got later and later and later. And after a while we were just pretty much burning gas.

But we continued looking. We drove and drove…all the way back into Indiana (which isn’t that very far, but seems endlessly long in the wee hours of the morn when you are very sleepy). We pulled in anywhere we saw a hotel sign. And there were times when we wished we had not even bothered as trying to get to some of them was just so convoluted with barren and long darken dangerous looking passageways.

Bates Motel…

The first hotel we pulled up to did have rooms but it just didn’t look clean and the cost was high. But it was the look that cancelled it out for me. Who wants to stay in a hotel room where you will be itching and scratching all night because you loathe the place?

And having just heard a news item over the radio about the number of hotels which have bed bugs…really didn’t help.

So, we continued our search for a nice clean hotel at a decent price.  After that first hotel everything was booked solid.

Well, it was Friday night…so, what really could you expect?  On weekends hotels load up like crazy. After hitting at least 10 hotels..and not a room in the bunch was available except for that dump where we had first stopped at and some other dump shortly after that…and they even wanted more money than the first dump…so, we were getting pretty flustered. 

Finally, I decided to drive out to O’Hare Airport knowing that we would be able to have our pick of hotels out there. And the first hotel we drove up to was this large grand looking hotel, Marriott Executive Suites Hotel, that I just knew we were not going to be able to afford…but I decided we would try it anyways.

It just goes to show what God has for you no man can put assunder.

At the lowest price offer of the night, under $100, and an extended check out time because we were checking in so late…we ended up in one of the most fabulous hotel rooms I have ever stayed in or seen or knew that they had. First of all you would really have to see it to believe it. But I will try my best to describe it to you.

This hotel room was like walking into someone’s very expensive one bedroom apartment on the lower East or Upper West side of New York City or something. It had 2 televisions, 3 rooms, 2 glass doors leading to the bedroom section, a separate room for the closet which had French doors, combined with 2 sinks and a long mirror in it.  The bathroom had a tub and a shower area separate of each other, and it was quite large with a beautiful Italian Marble floor.  The bathroom all by itself was huge and gorgeous.  I just kept staring at the bathroom floor wondering how much would it cost for me to have my partent’s bathroom done like that.  I loved it.  

In the bedroom were 2 large very very comfortable beds with the crispiest sheets and a view of the planes flying in and out of O’Hare Airport…which you could lay on the bed and just watch through a big floor to ceiling length window that ran the whole width of the bedroom. And this hotel room, our room, was a corner room…so, imagine the views.  Fantastic.

In what would have been the living room area of an apartment, there was a beautiful sleeper couch, coffee table, 2 arm chairs, and a large desk…which still had enough room for a few more pieces of furniture. And, of course,  the room came complete with an under the counter refrigerator and few other things like that.

After I showered and finally laid down between my wonderfully crisp sheets, I slept like a new born baby right up to 12:30 in the afternoon…though I had intended to get up early and go to church. But it just was not to be…we had been on the road most of day and night as we had done some sight seeing in Detroit before leaving.

Finally got to go to Motown and walk through that building. We arrived there just about the time it was closing. But the gentleman who met us in the hall virtually gave us our own personal tour of the place. It was interesting learning that the artist walked through that house, which today is a museum called ‘Hitsville U.S.A.’, to go to the garage in the back where the recording was done.

It was also very interesting to find out that as his company grew Berry Gordy bought all the houses next door to him to expand his business into, and each house represent an individual arm of the business. One house was artist development where they trained and polished the acts. Another house was for bookkeeping and clerical duties…and I have forgotten what the other houses were for. But they were all in a row right next door to each, about 6 or 7 houses all together. Oh, yeah…they had a house for the musicians, a house for wardrobing…Gordy had it set up almost like a movie studio lot with its various production houses.

Undoubtedly, Barry Gordy was a very smart man. He developed and grew an empire out of his garage, called Motown from which sprang forth a bunch of super stars the likes of Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, Lionel Richie and the Commandors, the 4 Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, the Marvelettes, Jr. Walker and the Allstars, Gladys Knight and Pips, Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell, the DeBarges etc…etc…just to name a few. And I just had to go by there and see that little house…and little it was but my oh my…look what came out of it.  From $800 which he borrowed from family members Barry Gordy launched the careers of many a super stars and himself.  What a success story.

I didn’t say much in my blog about Black Music Month, last month, but Motown more than makes my statement for me…what a history when you consider Motown, the Philly Sound, those who came out of Chicago, New York City, Louisiana and everywhere else.  And that is not including gospel music…or jazz, swing, blues etc.

After going to Motown we had to go into Canada which is right across a bridge or through a tunnel depending upon which way you want to travel. And Ontario is that part of Canada which is right across the Michigan River from Detroit. It was clean and very much set up for tourism with lots of restaurants and little shops to walk into all along its tiny little streets. But it is the coming across or going back which might present a problem if you are not properly prepared with an appropriate ID and your birth certificate.

When we got into Chicago it was late and I just had to drive down onto Lake Shore Blvd as soon as we hit Chicago…something I have always loved doing. It is so beautiful with the city to the left and the lake to your right, I have forgotten what great lake that is…it has been a long time since I have been in Chicago…but amazingly I still remember how to get around in it. I remembered all my stops on the “L”…that’s short for elevated train (Detroit doesn’t really have a subway system…but they have this thing they call “The People Mover.” It only circles the main points in downtown Detroit.)

While in Chicago, I would have loved to drive by Oprah’s production studio…just to see what it looked like. But when I tried to call friends and ask them…no one picked up. So, I didn’t get to see it.

For the most part we only had beautiful weather during last week straight through to the 4th and into the 7th. But Chicago was much hotter than Detroit and it was also very much congested. And I could see tremendous growth in the size of the city, its skyline and that Chicago is booming as opposed to Detroit which is suffering from urban blige. Almost every other building in Detroit was boarded up and abandoned…both commercial property and resdential property.

When I asked our long lost relatives which I had just met while there in Detroit, they said that it was due to foreclosures and closings at General Motors and Ford. You would really have had to see this to clearly understand what I am talking about when I say it is like every other house is boarded up on all the streets…and on along all the major road ways sometimes the entire line of stores, gas stations, beauty salons, grocery stores etc…

You see it on the news but we don’t really get the full sense of it when they show those signs sitting out on people’s lawns reading ‘for sale.’ It is terrible that so many people have lost so much. I have never equated the closing down of whole plants or the relocation of companies with the lost of property due to not having a job that vanished into the thin air shortly after you just purchased it. Now, when I hear over the news that Ford is considering laying off another 2,400 people or shutting down another plant…I will equate that announcement with realizing that it means that those people…those ex-workers may well loose their homes, automobiles etc. because their company is downsizing or moving and leaving them with nothing.

While in Detroit our church convention was being picketed somewhat outside by a small group of people who were anti-Obama because of his stand on abortion. As we pulled to a stop at a stop light just outside of Cobo Center, the location of our church convention, I spotted the sign and a picketer, a pastor, whom I asked if he had picketed outside the courthouse against R. Kelly a known paedophile?  Of which he said ‘no.’  Not intending to be rude, we started to have somewhat of an exchange as to how he could pickete against Obama while living here in Detroit with a known paedophile, (though I now remember R. Kelly lives in Chicago)…someone who could pose some type of danger or possibly hurt to some child in his church, or one of his nieces or daughter, and he had not gone to the court to pickete against R. Kelly a known sex offender and paedophile and was yet out picketing in front of our church convention against Obama.  Needless to say, I thought his priorities were a bit out of order…but I was not overly obnoxious.

The issue of abortion, I know, it is a heated topic. But God gave us choice…the ability to choose right from wrong. And God has given us all choice in everything that we do…why then should a few try to restrict others by limiting their choices about anything when God has not?

Secondly, Obama did not write the legislation on abortion. He had nothing to do with it. It was written into law many years before him.  When that law was written and passed there were many many women seeking out abortions in back alleys and butcher shops etc…and for the most part these women were poor and they were loosing their lives in large numbers behind blouched abortions.  While rich women could fly aboard and have abortions done safely and return home to America where here at that time abortions were illegal.

In this day and time when so many women were so pro-Hillary for being a woman and a likely President…but yet so anti-women making such an important choice as to bare and bring forth a child or not to…on their own accord shows some lax in thinking.  If a woman can stand up and make all kinds of decisions concerning this country…then why should she be denied the right to make her own personal decisions as well concerning issues dealing with her body. 

I am certainly not for abortion but I am for women’s right to have a choice and freedom of will.

There are many things that I don’t agree with but I don’t try to go around and force them upon others. We all have to live with the choices that we have made…good and/or bad. Every day we make choices…some of us moment by moment. Now, who would I be to try to hinder you from doing that?

In the same token if I knew that you were doing something wrong and I failed to say something in order to have you consider your options…then I would be wrong in not doing so. But the choice is yours…as well as the costs, or penalties, or benefits. And if I were to try to impose my will upon you, I would be wrong in trying to take from you something which God himself has clearly given onto you…your ability to have freedom of choice. It is God given. He only asks that we endeavor to make the right choices.

I have a lot more to say…but I can’t think of it right now.   I’m tired.

Oh, yes…I heard Venus won Wimbledon on Saturday.  I was too sleepy to watch though I had on the TV…but it was mostly watching me.  Besides the match started off really slow and wasn’t very interesting…hopefully it picked up and that if you watched Venus and Serena on Saturday, hopefully you enjoyed them.  And I hope and trust that you all had a good 4th of July. 

And before I close let me say that my prayers are with Rev Timothy Wright and the entire Wright family as I along with entire COGIC Family and the gospel world mourn with them…when I heard the news of the car accident Saturday morning I immediately began to pray and hoped that it was not true…but so sadly…it was.

The Bible says that we are only here but for a twinkle of an eye…and that no man knows the hour…lost hurts and senseless lost all the more.   We pray for the parties involved.      God bless…  ©2008

4 comments July 8, 2008

Bear Sterns, Vice Pres, Obama…

BEAR STERNS EXCE’s…

How many of these stories about insiders ripping off investors are we going to hear and bear? No pun intended but at the end of the day tax payers end up having to pay for it…that’s what really gets me. These guys always end up walking away with millions and leaving poor everyday people (tax payers) to bear the burden of their misdeeds while they always get to keep most of the money that they stole while perpetrating crimes.

Oh, sure we could say, “shame on you”…but they’ve heard that already. Or we could say, “Let’s make ‘em sign a pact to stop lying, cheating and stealing, and never do it again.” But didn’t we do that too?

You do remember that don’t you…Bush organized it and issued the code of ethics that all the executives were suppose to sign. But then let’s face it…would you cease to be a fraud, liar, thief and a cheat if George Bush gave you a document like that? Even Bush himself probably had his eyes closed with his fingers crossed behind his back as he put his signature on the document putting that supposed code into affect. And you know what…we haven’t heard anything about it since. And that all happened the first or second year after Bush stole, lied and cheated his way into the Oval Office.

But let me go to Martha Steward…how is it that she was ushered so quickly into prison when these Bear Stern exec’s (that they caught with their hands in the cookie jar…lying to investors while cashing in on their side of the table aiding in destabilizing the countries housing market). Just how did these two Bear Sterns exec’s manage to go off on vacation and spend millions in stolen hard cold cash while partying? What happened to freezing assets and not allowing crooks to put a hand on anything before their day in front of the judge?

Talk about some double standards…and the same thing with those Enron guys. It was the exact same scenario…and look how perfectly timed that was. The big Enron chief died before the trial and the jurors could be seated. How perfectly timed that was…couldn’t have happened by accident. And poor Martha they couldn’t rush her off to prison quick enough. In fact, it happened so fast it’s a wonder Martha didn’t get whip-flash.

Integrity and honor were something applauded and celebrated years ago. But today you can barely find them…either of them. Lying and cheating have become part of today’s culture. It is not just in the corporate world or Wall Street…it is in government, the court house, the school yard, college campuses, homes, churches…relationships, marriages, operating rooms, hospitals…television, news, internet…everywhere. And some of the places where lying, cheating, stealing, abusing etc. dominate the most are some of the most shocking.

VICE PRES…HILLARY????

Noooo, not Hillary. I could care less what Hillary wants. She does not even deserve a consideration. Anybody who would single-handedly try to railroad any political party in this country to forcefully submit to their will…their demands…their-their…(SIGH) can’t think of anything else…but she should not be lauded or applauded and touted as some type of national hero…or should I say she-ro.

All along the campaign during the Democratic Primary, Hillary refused to play fairly…even down to the end. Had not the Political New York Heavy Weights gone after her and forced her to surrender, submit, give-in etc…etc…she would have gone before Judge Judy seeking out recourse and some type of resolution in the courts…of which she may still try to do as she merely suspended her campaign as she voiced. This, of course, had been a consideration of hers all along the campaign trail that even those close to her were disclosing all over media if Hillary failed to get the nod from Party. And they were all very clearly angry (Hillary’s people) and did not mind trying to get people to cross over and cast their votes for McCain in light of Hillary not becoming the nominee of the Democratic Party Presidential Election 2008.

Shame on Hillary for causing such discourse by trying to motion women and poor middle class Whites to cross over to the other side and vote for McCain. And she wants to purposely break Obama’s bank roll by having his people pay off her campaign debts which she so unabashedly, shamelessly and recklessly continuously kept pouring into her sinking ship of a campaign knowing that she would be looking to hit up Obama for the reimbursement. And we thought Nixon was tricky. He could have taken some lessons from Bill and Hillary.

If Obama were to choose Hillary as VP, and he won’t, but if he were to do so…he really wouldn’t be able to sleep. Talking about having to keep one eye open and a finger on a trigger…and I don’t even believe in guns. But if Obama got a phone call in the middle of the night it wouldn’t be about how he would handle the situation or the crisis. No, that would be the least of his worries…he would first have to be careful to stay away from all the windows…and remember to keep low because Hillary could be out in bushes.

I know Hillary is dangerous.

There is this saying about a woman scorned…maybe you know it.

If Obama chose Hillary…well, let’s just say it this way…the brother would have to start packing. Let’s face it…she has put out the code word and everything else against Obama. And all this, mind you, while she wasn’t even VP but just another person in the race.  Imagine just how much more dangerous Hillary Clinton would be to Obama if she were his VP.

OBAMA ON FATHERS…

Finally got a chance to hear the speech which Obama gave at a church in Chicago on Father’s Day.

Personally, as always Obama gave a great message…and that is what it was. He was invited to speak at a church on Father’s Day. So, what else would he have talked about? And it was a Black church…so, why wouldn’t he talk to them about Black Men stepping up and being responsible.

But clearly anyone hearing that speech by Obama could apply it across the board to men in almost all the various groups. Many men today totally disregard their responsibilities…whether it be inside or outside of marriage. What better day to have such a dialog than on Father’s Day. And Obama is destined to become one of the great fathers of this country.  So, who better than to take the time on Father’s Day to give it…in this day where we need leadership to step up to the plate and lead not only in words but by example.

It is unfortunate, however, that every time Obama speaks he is going to have to be dissected not only by White folks but by Black folks as well…believing that everything he says is politically motivated or that he has some kind of special agenda.

Enemy Combatants…

Labeling is everything…and the Bush Administration knows how to get around everything simply by refusing to call things what they are or as they are. This might just be a little something that the Bush Administration, however, picked up from the Clinton Administration when Clinton refused to called the Rwanda Genocide a genocide until some 100 days after it had begun and came to an end, in 1994.

Bush has been such a good student in learning how to not play the call it what it really is game…you can actually see how well it works by his phrasing of our current economic depression as a mere “Slow Down”…not a recession but just a little ol’ slow down.

So, Bush has applied the same little trick to how the US has classified various prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. By classifying prisoners as detainees rather than as enemy combatants has allowed the US Government to squirm around and not have to adhere to any of the codes of ethics or of conduct instituted by the Geneva Convention in regards to treatment of prisoners, the interrogation of enemy combatants etc. These little games, however, and that is what they are…games…fool no one…foolish…and are fools play.

The tarnishing of America’s image is something in which the Bush folks have not spent one night losing any sleep over. It is truly a very sad commentary on the legacy of any so-called President of the United States. However, to put at the jeopardy thousands of innocent enlisted men and women lives who risk being captured, tortured and/or killed every day in places where dismay and mayhem was perpetrated by this country under the Bush Administration is incomprehensible. And to heighten the likability of them being tortured and butchered because our government, the US government, refuses to play by the rules and adhere to the Geneva Convention is a grave mistake.

In every discourse, someone has to take the high road…and it will never be this country under the rule of Cheney and Bush.

Really, at the end of the day what would it hurt to allow detainees in Guantanamo Bay to have their day in court? Not unless this government has scooped up a bunch of people who really knew nothing and have had nothing to do with terrorism…just people used to make it look good by having large numbers imprisoned to aid somehow in the appearance of the Bush group seemingly looking good and as being effective in its war on terrorism. Truthfully, do not put this pass them.

That would be an outrage wouldn’t it…to find out there may be a bunch innocent people grabbed up and carted off to Guantanamo Bay for years and detained there with no kind of recourse or time table…or possible no way out. To allow anyone out who has been detained falsely under the Bush Administration would certainly guaranteed the possibility of future problems for the USA…as some of those detainees (who may have been falsely imprisoned) are bond to come out very bitter and harboring great hatred and resentment towards America now even if they may not have before.

What a mess the Bush Administration has gotten us into…and so foolishly.

TOMATOES…

I haven’t gotten over the spinach thang to tell you the truth. It is not that I have been eating spinach all that long. I really started about, I don’t know, maybe some 20 years ago…and I won’t tell you how old I am but that is far less than half of my age. But once I started eating spinach, mostly in salad…can’t really stand it cooked…I kind of grew to like it. And wouldn’t you know it…once I finally started eating my spinach it comes up being tainted…and I haven’t touched it since.

Now, tomatoes have hit the list. One good thing about tomatoes…you can always grow your own…cheaper that way too. And it doesn’t take a lot to grow them or to get them to grow. Funny the home grown tomatoes actually taste better anyway. And if you never noticed…and I hate to tell you this…I never noticed it either until somebody pointed it out to me…today when tomatoes rot they start rotting from the inside out. That never was…well, back in the day. (for some reason while writing this blog I’m beginning to feel old…real old)

All the un-natural techniques of growing fruits and vegetables today, as well as, pumping up everything…cattle…and those poor chicken. I really feel sorry for them. I can’t imagine being shut-up in a dark sealed off in a place where they are feigning night 24 hours, all day and night, to continuously have me producing eggs…ughhhh! It just doesn’t sound right. And the size of some chickens today can rival the size of a small turkey. (can’t get away from that word ‘today’ for some reason)

Salmonella is all over the place…tomatoes, spinach, chicken, hamburgers etc…etc… And if that doesn’t get ya’ there is Mad Cow disease, Bird Flu, Foot and Mouth disease and who knows what else…they never tell us everything until it is upon us and at least twenty or more have come down with it. I remember sitting at home in New York afraid to go out because the city would out all night busy spraying mosquito’s.

If you have noticed nothing tastes the same as it did years ago. Sometimes you just want to shout enough is enough…these scientist have just gone too far. Whenever I look at steak I never know if I’m eating one of poor ol’ Dolly’s off-springs…that could account for why most meats taste old and lack the favor of foods from yesterday. At lease those in Africa were wise enough to say no to bio-generated foods. Who would want it? That’s is how they got into trouble with AIDS. Nobody talks about it…but do you remember that ship they used to call the Good Ship Hope that used to carry thousands upon thousands of bags of blood to Africa.

Nobody of course talks about it…but that ship did used to exist and they even used to run commercials about it and their great humanitarian deeds. Nobody calls that ship’s name now…not since Africa suffers so heavily from HIV and AIDS. So, of course, the Good Ship Hope’s name has not been brought up, especially not since it has been discovered that blood is the number one means of transmitting AIDS.

But going back to the foods that we eat it is little wonder people are suffering from all kinds of nerve and other disorders…it’s all the chemicals in our water and our food. Everything is shot up with this or that. Yes, larger is better in some things but not in all things. And not matter how you try to get away from it…it really doesn’t matter who plants what or where…because chemicals are everywhere…in all our water, in the soil…everywhere…even in the air we breathe.
We have truly messed up this planet…little wonder Mother Nature is striking back. (I don’t actually believe in Mother Nature…but I do believe in God and retribution)

GAS PRICES…

No matter how much we try not to acknowledge it this gas thing could get a lot worst. Based upon the prices that other countries pay we have really had it easy, and that really goes for everything…just talk to some foreigners. But who cares about other countries…we live in America!

Greed being what it is…it was just a matter of time before our prices started to catch up with the rest of the world. We, Americans, after all, have had the most disposable income in the world for a very long time…and for the most part our government has held back the super dogs from ripping every penny out of our little ol’ hands. But today our government is in bed with many those super dogs and just doesn’t mind passing legislation to help them, themselves and their friends to get richer.

A lot of things have changed since the influx of the Bush Administration into the White House. When you consider how rapidly under Bush the gas prices have blown-up…it is not just Exxon or Sunoco who should be called in to chat with the Senate and be investigated…but Bush and his gang too.

It is not a secret how closely tied Bush is to the companies making all these stellar millions while we have all have had to tighten our belts and go without. Think about it…when Bush went into the White House where were the gas prices…maybe at what…a $1.39/gal for regular gasoline…think about where it is now? Just how did that happened and so rapidly?

Nothing can happen as fast as our gas prices skyrocketing without some inside help. For one thing by going in and invading Iraq, Bush more than orchestrated this. At the very on-set when Bush started talking about invading Iraq most people here in America and elsewhere saw the invasion for what it really was…that it was all about oil. Not quite in the way as we all thought though. It was about the stifling of the oil market by disrupting the oil output coming out of Iraq thereby causing the oil world to go bonkers…and push up prices by destabilizing the Middle East even further and the OPEC Moguls.

If you think for a moment that they, Bush/Cheney and everybody around them didn’t have stocks in Sunoco, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco etc. and everything else having to do with basic home utility services and fuels…then you are living in the Dark Ages. They are all making out like a bunch of bandits drinking pina coladas waving a finger in the air with a hand on their hip dancing around the glow of the ol’ camp fire while singing songs and occasionally taking breaks to punch up their accounts on their Blackberries to see just how much more their fuel investments have grown within the last 15 minutes.

When you can manipulate the market…you can also help yourself to lots of the benefits and rewards of doing so. And as President of this country George Bush and Dick Cheney have been able to do pretty much anything and everything they have wanted to do including torturing prisoners which is clearly against International Law, eavesdrop and spy on American citizens etc. They launched a pre-empted strike on the Iraqi people, instituted wire tapping, torture and the Patriot Act which in essence gave Bush and his crew carte blanche as to whatever they wanted to do almost without limits as long as they framed under the guise of being in the best interest of National Security.

When you consider the gas shortage of the 70′s…it paled in terms of the prices we see at the gas pumps today at prices well of over $4.20. When the gas shortage of the 70′s was over it was finally disclosed to the American public that there really hadn’t been a gas shortage…because the government had never come close to having touched our own gas reserves…this mind you after a very tremulous period in American history where people were being killed at gas pumps fighting over gasoline…and then there was the gasoline rationing instituted by the government where depending upon the last number on your license plate you could or could not buy gas only to find out that we had not really been in a gas shortage after all.

Our government from time to time has been cruel without measure or reason…what was the purpose of having done that?  Money.  Then like today.

Bush having gone into Iraq and disrupted the oil supply by bombing everything was a very good way of ensuring a certain desirable outcome…like escalating gasoline prices. Before going into Iraq the outcome undoubtedly had to been weighed and the consequences probably had been of great consideration by the Bush Administration. So, the only logic for making such a decision could have only been if the benefit of obliterating Iraq outweighed the consequences of not invading Iraq.

There is this saying that the rich only want to get richer.

Surely, all that effort was not solely for the removal of one man and his two sons. There had to be something more to the invasion of Iraq. And we all know it was never about weapons of mass destruction.

Here is what it was…the idea was to make the rich richer…and if anybody among that group wasn’t rich prior to the bombing of Iraq…they quickly pulled together some money from somewhere, invested it in Sunoco and anything else that had to do with fuel, oil, utilities etc…and have made a bundle. And they are still making bundles of money on the Iraqi War while it is costing us over a billion dollars per day. And as if financial cost were not enough…consider the innocent lives on both sides. And here we are in America fighting to keep our heads above the water as the prices for everything shoot up due the inflated costs of oil and gasoline.

Now, Bush is calling to end the band on off-shore drilling as a means to decrease the rising cost of fuel from abroad. He says that now that gas prices are climbing over $4…”…it is now time to end the bands.”

Well, who caused the increase in the first place?

Now, Bush wants to turn it around? What in the eleventh hour? Yeah…and at what costs? And to whose benefit?

They’re in the oil business, folks. The Bush’s are oil barons. George Bush and the Republicans got us into this mess and he is not in business of turning anything around…but more money.
When was the first time you got into your vehicle and had to decide upon what errands you could afford to run that day…and what you could do along this or that route while carrying out some other errand?

It is called bundling…and you’re doing it…and I am doing it. This is something we never really had to think about before. But when you consider that nearly $4.50 gives you what you used spend $1.05 at the pump a few years ago…bundling is the only way to go.

My mother used to take us in the car and drive us through the countryside on beautiful summer days stopping by fruit and vegetable stands along the way. And many times we would find ourselves out on the Connecticut shoreline taking in the sun and racing through the rushing ocean waters lapping at the beach sands. But who can afford it today at the prices we pay at the gasoline pumps at today’s prices. To get in your car and go anywhere is like going on vacation now…we have ended up paying $100 to $300 or more a week just to get around town.
Think about it…putting $5 worth of gas into your tank today is just a little above putting in a dollar’s worth yesterday…I mean years ago. I understand that we live under the domain of inflation but something seriously wrong with this picture.

Perhaps we can’t say it all started after George Bush got into the White House…but these soaring runaway prices have. And the funny part about it is…everywhere he goes he rides for free.

REALITY CHECK…

Did you know that prior to George Bush presidents were paid only $200,000 a year. That was up until Bush stole his way into the White House. After Bush took over the country the presidential pay shot up (just like our gas prices but faster) to $400,000 a year.

To think we pay Bush double the amount of money Clinton was paid during his 8 years in the White House is mind bobbling. Talking about an over paid executive.

That’s not all…we not only pay him all that money but with every bite he takes, every piece of toilet paper or tissue he sneezes into we pay for it. So, to think that Bush is the one responsible for our fuel shock at the gas pumps, our food shock in the grocery stores, and our shock over prices in department stores and pharmacies etc. around the country is…is…is…(you fill in the blank…I can’t think of anything right now because many people are hurting…and really hurting from what this man and his administration has done). And it is a shame.

Thank God a new day is just ahead. Change is in the atmosphere.

THE MORTGAGE CRISIS…

When I read the newspaper and see all the foreclosures, forget about around the country, but right here! Right here where I live…it is hard not to feel for our fellow Americans who are faced with foreclosure, high education costs, runaway medical expenses etc…it is hard not to feel some level of empathy…and even more so if you have to go through some of this yourself.
Foreclosure is no joke. You do not go to bed and sleep…because you never know what you are going to wake up to in the morning. The fear our home being sold over her head is quite frightening. So, I have come to remember to pray for everyone going through this process.

I also had to go through most of my winter, last year, without heat or hot water…that too taught me how to pray for others going through that…for those without a home or roof over their head. I can’t imagine it…but I do know that it has to be a grievous state to be in.

It is funny if you don’t have to go through some of these things yourself you will never know just how much others have to contend with…and just how disconcerting it all can be.

But thank God we serve a mighty God who is true to His word. He will never forsake you…and it is true that the righteous never ever have to beg for bread. So, if you are going through something be encouraged. I’m thinking about you and praying for you. Remember it is only a test…you will come through like pure gold.

It is funny as I now more than ever thank God for all that He has done for me…and is doing. And my appreciation for the simpler things in life has grown…as they give me my greatest pleasures. Sometimes I can just sit and look up at the sky for great periods of time and just marvel at the goodness of God. And I am constantly thanking God every time I get into the shower for the hot water and the warmth in the house…and how He straightened out our mortgage situation.
He is good…and good all the time. God Bless…  ©2008

 

1 comment June 23, 2008