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

Mind games…

After meeting up with the religious nut in the back of  my parent’s yard… I strongly believe that people today are looking for some ray of  hope… some divine saviour to remove all their woes and care away.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/645182.stm

The man spoken about in the above news LINK… looks very much like the image we have all come to recognize as Jesus Christ.  He walks around barefooted and in a robe.  His hair is about the length of  the hair we have all seen in those pictures and statues of  the supposed Jesus.  And he leads people to believe that he is Jesus… but he never discloses his true name.

They call him “What’s his name.” 

They marvel at him and look upon with reverence… as if they truly believe that this man walking around trying to pretend in the most obvious ways that he is Jesus re-born or something.

Well, going back to our neighbor in the house behind us.   This man believes that he is Jesus too.  Truly.

And not only does he believe it… but he tries to force the thought down my throat.

There is but 1 God.  And clearly whether most people believe it or not only 1 Jesus Christ… who will eventually return.   But he is not here yet.

I am not foolish enough to believe that the guy behind our house is the second coming.  Who often tells me that God spoke to him and told me that he should come and rake or otherwise clean our yard.  All this… while asking me to kiss him.

What kind of  God would have me to do that?

Not the 1 that I know.

So, I do not entertain the man.  Because I recognize that something clearly is wrong with him.  And something is wrong with the guy in Hazelton, PA… who believes he can walk around in a robe, wear his hair down to his shoulder, while walking around barefooted , speaking in  a soft voice while all the while pretending in some less than subtle kind of way that he is Jesus Christ.

It is a con job.  And it comes at a time when many people are unsure about a lot of  things… such as whether or not their house will be foreclosed on… how they will get the money to  heat bill… or will their children be able to stay another semester in college… or whether or not they will be able to find another job.

In times of  hardship, distress and unrest we all look for something.  But it is not the time to reach out to people pretending to be something which they clearly are not.  And could never be.

Perpetrators come in all sizes, shapes and forms.  And 1 of the biggest type of  perpetrators… even since

Biblical times have been those who wanted to pretend like they were and are holy… while seeking to do evil.

In the Appalachian Mountains of  this country live some of  the countries most tested people.  People who have been used, abused and exploited for more than just capital gain. Made to drink and bathe in dirty contaminated water, while sucking in air full of cancerous and poisonous pollutants… in places that used to be so pristine, so pure and so clean.

Now, in walks this man… “What his name.”

On the political front I received a call from a friend of mine last night saying-

“What do you think about your President?”

I really didn’t at first know what she meant.  But as she went on she expressed her disapproval of  Obama caving in to the Republicans concerning the Bush tax cuts.

It seems she had been watching a lot of   TV lately… following closely those debates where everybody sits around debating every turn or statement and action that Barack Obama does.

I told her that it seemed to me that there were a lot news shows lately that seemed totally dedicated to critiquing any and everything Obama did or said… especially every policy and word he utters.  Yet, as dumb as George Bush was nobody sat around dissecting every little thing he did.  And clearly somebody should have.

If we voted Obama in…then we should be willing enough to allow him to do his job without all of  us standing over him with a whip.   Or by allowing others  to get  us to try and second guess him… on everything.

Who can work like that?

Who wants to work like that?

Oh, ye  of  little faith.   Politics is about making concessions.  It is all about give and take.   It is the first rule of  lawyering and anything else where there are 2 opposing sides.

Without subcoming to part of  what the Republicans wanted millions of  poor people and out of  work people would  suffered otherwise while Republicans having a majority vote would still be able to push through whatever they want to.

I believe Obama to be shrewd and a strategic man.  A man who makes no moves or plans without thoughtfully weighting them out fully and all their possible ramifications.  With all of  that being said…

“Let us all please let him do his job without all of  us falling prey to what news media  and so-called would-be experts would have us believe.”

As dumb as George W. Bush was… and as much of  a liar he proved himself  to be… he never suffered this much scrutiny and lack of  confidence as is being levied against Obama.  Or disrespect either.  Far be it that a black man should succeed or prove to be successful in the office of  the President of  this country.

I am very sick of  hearing… that Obama does not know what he is doing.  It is very  very easy to sit in a seat over in a corner  or somewhere and say that.

Don’t fall for the lies… and fake analyses.  They are only meant to belittle and berate him.  And to make Obama appear ineffective and unknowing… and worst of  all  ill-informed.   He’s bigger than that.

I’m looking forward to great things from what history will prove to be a great man… and perhaps our greatest President.

It has  started snowing here.  And it has been soooooo cold.

Today I stayed mostly in bed.  But finally I started feeling guilty.  So, I got up and started stirring about.

I have got a ton of  boxes laying about.  I am trying to clear up the house a bit.  I figure if  I do a little a day I might just get it all done.  So, I am working on it.

Forgot to mention that last Saturday… are you ready for this?

Last Saturday I got my first royalty check for my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE.  Can’t believe it.  Wasn’t much… but it is just the idea that somebody read… or is reading my book.  I really hope to get some feedback on it if you are 1 of  them.  Thanks so much.

And I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.  Ours was great… filled with lots of  family, friends and food.

And I do note the passing of  Elizabeth Edwards who loss her battle against cancer just a couple of days ago.  There is 1 thing about strong women they never let anything take them down.   Not heartache or disappointment… or  even sickness.

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  ©2010

Add a comment December 11, 2010

Racism in America is alive and well… and growing… Beck in the dog house…

Who in the world is Glen Beck?

I had never heard of  him before until coming across this internet article on him during his radio program imitating the President’s daughter.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/glenn-beck-apologizes-for-making-fun-of-barack-obamas-daughter-malia/19496426?icid=main|hp-laptop|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fglenn-beck-apologizes-for-making-fun-of-barack-obamas-daughter-malia%2F19496426

Upon listening to the radio program in question…as it is included in the article…  all I could think of  was the black face comic skits that white people used to do of  black people.  They would mimmick our voices making us sound as dumb and as ignorant as possible…while having covered their faces with some kind of  black oily face paint.  And then they would paint on their faces some excessively big lips.

All of this they did in stupid attempts at making fun of  not only how we talk, pretending to think and reason like us aloud…and, of course,  supposedly depicting what our facial features look like.  It was all done to belittle us as a group of people, and also to make Black folks feel unequal, backwards and ignorant people.  All of which was and is a lie…then and now.

The fact that Barack Obama may well be the most intelligent man to hit the White House… which maybe the root to this whole problem.

The 2nd problem for some of these back in the Dark Ages back woods ignorant racists…is that President Obama may also prove to be a greater President than Franklin Dalano Roosevelt.  Oh, no… that can’t possibly happen.  But based upon the set-up left behind by George W. Bush it could become true.

Roosevelt’s fame as a President came from the mess he stepped into as a President.  Stepping into the White House following Herbert Hoover, a Republican and the 31st President of the United States…he sank the country into one big mess.  Therefore, Roosevelt inherited an United States that was suffering.  The Stock Market had crashed and dire poverty covered the land from coast to coast due to the Great Depression.

http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/hoover/essays/biography/1

Roosevelt was the creator of ‘The New Deal.’   With the New Deal Roosevelt ushered in a new America…a reformed America and a series of new social programs designed to aid and assist the needy, and to strengthen and mobilize America back onto the road of  recovery.

Often we have heard that history repeats itself.  If this is indeed so…many then can see where President Barack Obama is set on the path to do for America what Roosevelt did for America some 78 years ago.

There is no doubt also that America when Barack Obama was elected in as the President of the United States a year ago,  had been left in a questionable place  and a time of vast uncertainty and downcline around the world.  Allies around the world questioned our stability, truthfulness and fortitude as a still world leader after years of rule under the moral degradation and lies of George W. Bush as President of America.

Obama inherited a crashing Stock Market, a collapsing World Banking system, a rapidly dwindling American dollar, skyrocketing fuel and gas prices, the highest ever in America… record numbers of out of work Americans, soaring health and medical costs with record numbers of Americans without any form of health care policies, corrupt leaning and borrowing systems, with record numbers of Americans being forced into the streets due to foreclosures, and soaring out of control country financial deficit fueled by 2 wars without a seemingly end…and much more.  All of which had happend under the 8 years of  administration and rule of George W. Bush.  And also under the Bush Administration, America for the 2nd time in her history was attack on her own soil…September 11th, known as  9-11.  Where thereafter all kinds of  other attempts, boomings and plagues came about.

If you examine the mess that Obama inherited including those things which generally come up during the term of a President… such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf…and when Russia decided to invade Georgia, in the Baltics… you find that Presidents have to deal with all kinds of  things…including unforseen natural disasters.  But it doesn’t make it their fault.   Though much of  what happened under George Bush’s watch was.

Now, I am going to vent.

I am so tired of reading all these articles where people refer to our President Barack Obama using a small ‘p.’  It is so annoying to me.  I absolutely hate reading anything about him written this way.  It  is so disrespectful to Obama.

I know that Obama being the man that he is pretends that it does not bother him…but he is an intelligent man, a historian and a man of letters.  Meaning he has read all kinds of documents and articles past and present on all past Presidents of the United States, as it was for 1 thing…his field of  study.  And I am sure he has also noticed that at no other time has any other President of  this country ever been referred to in any form of  text using a lower case ‘p’ as has become the practice when writing articles about Obama.

Thus, to do so when referring to Obama is not only disrespectful but an act of racism.  An act of out and out racism and I do not care what anyone else says.  And it is all a campaign purposefully set to down grade and minimize Obama, his efforts, his effectiveness and his success.

But I want to let you know… every last one of you that it won’t work.  Just like they say in that gospel song…it just won’t work.

Obama is going to be great in spite of  you.

And he is going to be as successful…if not more successful than Roosevelt.  And that if for no other reason than because some many racists want to see him fail…with Palin and that whole Republican machine riding in the front car.

But the Bible says…that he whom the Lord has blessed is blessed indeed.

And Obama is blessed…his family is blessed…his children are blessed…and this country shall  be blessed because of  him. 

If anyone has any doubts about whether Barack Obama is blessed just go back and look at those photos of  his inaugural.  Look at all those people who flowed into Washington, D.C. to celebrate with him and his family.  And check all his record numbers…record number in the amount of money contributed to his campaign…the most money ever given to any political campaign ever.  Record number in contributions from people who have never contributed to a politician ever.  Highest number of  voter turn out ever.  And the numbers continue on and on in regard to Obama’s accomplishments.

He shall be like Solomon because God has set his course for him over this nation.  And if you doubt it go back to his mother, and how she used to wake him up at 4 AM in the morning to go over and learn American History.  Obama’s path was laid for him long before Obama was born.

Therefore, as it is said in the Scriptures…no weapon formed against him shall prosper.   Meaning all the evil works being performed against him will come to nought.  Every vote meant to hold him back and hinder a bill that he is trying to put through will be turned around, and go against those who are trying to oppose him and stop his progress…or hold up his candidates for offices.

Another Scripture says this…that what the devil means for evil God will turn it around for your good.  Meaning the all the name calling, opposition and hindering in Congress and the Senate will be turned around for Obama’s good.  Already I can see this happening in that Obama is becoming a lot sharper and more posed when attacks come against him publically.  He is definitely far more Presidential now, and I am sure he would have more of a targeted response for anyone who should suddenly decide it smart to call him ‘liar’ again while he is speaking before the Senate.  I have no doubt of it.

I am proud of  Obama and I know that he is no joke.  And he is not going to continue to allow people to treat him as one.

And as far as this Beck person goes…  Well, I just hope that he has no children.  I cannot imagine what he would do if  someone so cruelly and purposely poked fun at his little daughter…and made a joke out of her.

I also hope that none of the children in Obama’s daughter class have  heard that stupid radio clip.  What an ignorant thing to do.  And these people call themselves adults…but are too afraid stand up in front of  Obama and say what they have to say.

No, they’ll do it from behind a microphone…and then issue out an apology from somewhere.  A bunch of cowards.  That is all they are…a bunch of  racist ignorant cowards.

But then I guess I can kind of  understand why some should be jealous of  Obama.  I mean after all…not only is he a great husband… but also a very loving and caring father.  He is also handsome…and looks well in everything he wears.  He’s smart…tall…and doesn’t have a problem with his weight.  He’s athletic…and he has a beautiful and highly intelligent wife.  And 2 very beautiful and intelligent…and very well behaved daughters.  And oh, yeah…also an important part… a mother-in-law who loves him as well.

So, yes he is well on his way to be the most powerful and successful President of  this country of all times…who will be spoken of and the measure that those who follow him shall be measured by.   Of  this I am sure.

So, yes…you who want to see Obama fail…I can see why.  But instead of  attacking Obama you should start working on your own life…and get it in order so that you too will have something to be proud of .  Because I can tell you are a bunch of  very sad and lonely people…and highly disappointed people… out attacking a little girl?

Come on, now.   And you call yourself a man, Beck?

Go stand in front of  Obama and mimmick his daughter…and I want to see what happens to you.  I bet you are afraid to do that.

And is it true that BP stands for British Petroleum?

And is it also true that Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s former employer and big time war profiteer and scam artist… is over the operation of  BP in the Gulf ?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37519216#37521148

Could possibly be a set-up?

Anything to make Obama look bad.  With all the talk and Obama blaming you would think that Obama owned BP.  And that he could automatically go down and just plug up a hole nearly 5,000 feet below the water surface…leaking over 5,000 barrels of oil each day.

It is not a pin hole.  And the problem really belongs to BP…without a doubt it is a major concern to not only President Obama and those people down in the Gulf/Atlantic Ocean area.  And probably might affect us all…but  it is clearly a concern of  Obama’s youngest daughter just as well.  We can all tell that she is well briefed…and is growing up quite civic minded.

And we should all have a sincere appreciation for all children who cares about others…not make a joke or poke fun at them for any reason.

Monday is Memorial Day.  We should all take a moment or 2 to reflect on the sacrifices of others, that we might all live here free and out of  harms way.  Thankful for all the freedoms we hold so dear…never forgetting the price paid and being paid so that we might stand in our liberty here in the United States.

I hadn’t thought about it for a while… but I had all but forgotten about the war.  Since stopping even turning on the television to watch the news… so those images are no longer before me.  It sadden me reading the list of names per week of  young men and women who were killed in Iraq.  Many of  them just 19.  And every so often you would see a name with an age of  28…or 29 and above…and I would think of  all their families that they left behind giving of  their lives for an America not yet quite grown up.

While they huddled together with bullets flying over heads… or booms dropping nearby… or right in their midst…  yet they marched on…  fought on… for an America not  yet totally grown up.  A place where division and strife still lives on …while they struggle in foreign lands that we might proclaim peace …while we yet still pull against one another.

I salute them and pray that one day this country will live up to what was the dream and the creed to which those men who signed their names…signed their names… to which they all marched off to war and became involved for… those soldier who fought and died in our name.

Well, enjoy your day off.

And…God bless.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE  is now on sale…

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  ©2010

2 comments May 30, 2010

Corporate greed…re-organizing… retraining…America’s work force…

I had not noticed it until my son pointed it out to me.   But recently a very large car dealership here closed.  One day their lots were full…and the next everything was gone.  It happened so fast…I hadn’t even noticed that it had.

The MG bankruptcy is very impactful upon us all. 

What happened to all those mechanics…sales people…parts people etc….?

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090613/AUTO01/906130324/1148/auto01/58+Michigan+dealers+axed

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23198.html

The dealership was large and had been in business for years…many years.  And I would have never guessed anything going on in the middle of this country would have effected it.   But it did.   And now a long time city company is now gone.  A city tax contributor…and employer is gone…a community event sponsor and underwriter is…very gone.

Now, one has to wonder what has happened to all those people who worked there?

Did they go to another dealership?

It is highly unlikely.  Even if one or 2 or…even a few of them managed to get a job at another dealership…the vast numbers of them did not.  Because every dealership is suffering from the same thing.  And all of them are fighting to keep their heads above the water.

Why?

Well, lets face it…who has money to buy a new car?

Everybody is trying to sit back and watch how things are going to work out.   So, it really isn’t a good time to go out and try to buy or make any large investments right now.  There is just to much…uncertainty.  That’s what people are thinking.   And rightly so.

So, there is an air of apprehension…and unsurety everywhere in this country…and probably around the world.

So, if people really aren’t spending money right now…every industry and company in this country is going to suffer. 

Then there is the other side of the coin too…

Many people have found themselves out of work and without any real prespects for future employment.

So, how is this thing going to work itself out?

How can it work itself out?

One of the most booming business is in the market today…is the computer…or better put is the internet.  Now, that is not to say that we are seeing the number of millionaires being churned out of it…as we did some years ago when interest in the infant stages of the internet initially started to take root.

What you see is a booming in wthe eb social sites…such as facebook, youtube, myspace etc….   And things like blogging, tweeting etc.

But people need jobs.  They need to be  able to meet their daily responsibilities and needs.

What about jobs?

What good is retraining people when they have nothing to be retained for?

It is  just a process with no real hope of a positive outcome for those who are being retained.

I recalled talking to someone who was in the process of graduating from a jr. college after being in a retaining program there.  She had worked many years in a factory doing piece-work.  So, she had to learn about computers…their operation and so on…and a bunch of other things which she never had to have a knowledge of before…nor had to worry about learning before.  She was happy and looking forward to a progressive and shinning future following her graduation and all the time she had invested in her retaining.

But after coming across her again some months later…all that hope and enthusiasm was gone.  It had turned into desperation.  She had been retained and was hoping to get into medical billing…but there were no jobs in our town or any of the neighboring towns in the field.  And her other problem was…her age.

Retraining people sounds good…but where do they go after they get retrained? 

Are they just being sold a bill of goods…false hopes…with no real relief once they have been forced out of their old jobs.

The first problem with the retraining system is that employers  need to be honest with the people they push out of  jobs.  Stop selling them a bill of goods…and false dreams when they know that there are no jobs out there for all these people.  And that those workers will never get back what they are loosing…by way of their old jobs…not to mention the pay…or benefits.

The only real way of fixing this problem is to bring  jobs back into America.  All this farming out of  jobs abroad has to stop.  Manufacturing has to be brought into this country.  There must be a recreation of  jobs in America.

All these American companies have gone abroad…where they can get labor cheaper…and this has seriously hurt the workers in this country…our economy…our neighborhoods…ownership of homes…and means of providing for our familes.

Jobs that millions of Americans used to get up and go out to daily are now gone…vanished into the thin air.  While their factories…and buildings…and compounds…sit abandon…or have been rehab into condominiums…or artists lofts. 

And the internet didn’t help any either.   It made it easy for companies to employ foreign workers…by merely writing a deal and providing them with phone lines.  It was just that easy.  They made a deal with someone sitting in a house or some back room somewhere…who you can’t even understand…and sounds like the exact same person from company to company whenever you have to contact a customer service department for any reason.   Some guy with a thick accent handling customer service for a lot of different companies.  

Forget about the fact that…you can’t understand them…rather him…because they (he) can’t understand you…and if  it’s not him…then it is her.  They must be related or a husband and wife team.   Because they have the exact same accent.  And you get them all the time…just him…or her…no matter what company or product you think  that you are calling about.

So, you call trying to work out a problem and hang up with a headache…having resolved nothing.  Because neither of you could understand the other.  Perhaps, the company who make deals with these type of service providers in various countries…and it sounds like one specific person…handling many different lines…but maybe the companies that farm out their customer service departments to entities such as these…really shouldn’t be getting our business in the first place.  Because they could care less if we get helped or not.   

They just want to say that they have customer service…because it makes people feel better when they buy a product or service to know that if their is a problem or question they can hound somebody about it.   So, these companies just want to say that they offer customer service…not intending to actually provide it.  So, they hire someone who can half speak English to help us.  

These companies…that gave away those jobs that Americans used to have in their customer service departments…they only look at the bottom line.   What do they care about service…or whether we get some or not?  Or whether the guy understands you or not?   They don’t have to talk to him…but we do. 

These companies really shouldn’t be getting our business…because in fact when they farm out jobs abroad…they are in fact…destroying this country…by destroying the job force here…by deleting more and more jobs in America in pursuit of  cheaper and cheaper labor.  It is really unfortunate that we never experience their poor customer service departments…until after we have bought into the service or purchased their products.

I understand that we live in a capitalistic society.  I even understand global capitalism…and that for capitalists the bottom line is everything…but not if you cut off your own nose in spite of your face.  And that is exactly what sending America’s  jobs abroad has ended up to being. 

Without jobs…people can’t buy…anything.   The whole country is at a stand still…because everything has been farmed out…outside of our own borders.  And though those countries are getting the jobs…but they are not earning enough money to uplift them or their country.  Therefore these companies seeking the cheap labor cannot create any other potenial customer markets for their companies which are taking advantage of these pooper countries…by under paying them.  Because they can’t afford anything…either…though they have the jobs.  But they are making no real money…or better put…earning.

GM dealership closings by state

Ala —.33; Alaska — 0; Ariz. — 11; Ark. — 17; Calif.— 65; Colo. — 15; Conn. — 11; Del. — 2; Fla. — 35; Ga. — 24; Hawaii — 2; Idaho — 8; Ill. — 66; Ind. — 48; Iowa — 46; Kan. — 29; Ky. — 23; La. — 10;.
Maine — 14; Md. — 21; Mass. — 29; Mich. — 58; Minn. — 39; Miss. — 14; Mo. — 38; Mont. — 16; Neb. — 21; Nev. — 3; N.H. — 6; N.J. — 33; N.M. — 10; N.Y. — 60; N.C. — 36; N.D. — 6.
Ohio — 79; Okla. — 17; Ore. — 21; Pa. — 90; R.I. — 3; S.C. — 24; S.D. — 16; Tenn. — 30; Texas — 55; Utah — 6; Vt. — 26; Wash. — 18; W.Va. — 25; Wis. — 50; Wyo. — 6.
Nation — 1,323

Therefore, greed just does not pay.

What seemed like a great idea…going abroad to obtain cheaper labor has in fact worked against these American companies.  So, it seems that the only way of rectifying the problem is to bring the jobs back to America…which is still the largest customer market in the world…when we are working.

So, yes…THE BISHOP’S WIFE, my book is due to be out soon.  A matter of a couple weeks now…and I am so excited.  I will keep you abreast.  And soon you will be to see the youtube ad for it.   Haven’t completed it yet…but I am working on it.  In it you actually get a chance to hear me.  I don’t think you will see me…but you will hear me…and perhaps see a phone.   As I see that many of you have checked out my ABOUT page…seeking to find out more info on me.

I am media…that is what I am.

 Well, enjoy the rest of your weekend. 

Just finished getting my hair done…and plan on being in church tomorrow.   And yes… I am still trying to catch up on my sleep…and will be doing so for quite time as I have a weeks of sleep to catch up on.

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

  THE BISHOP’S WIFE  is now on sale…CLICK this LINK to purchase my book.  You do not need a paypal account to purchase, and you can purchase using a debit card.  Thank you. 

2 comments June 14, 2009

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

Off the road… Wilmington… Aging… Swine Flu… Obama’s first 100 days…

Well, we  are just getting back in from our weekend little road trip.  The weather was beautiful all the way down and back…90’s, baby…and felt like it.

One of my nephews preached his first sermon in his very own church this past Sunday…and we all went down to be with him for his opening ceremony…a monumental Christian event…in a place where I could see he was much needed.  In Wilmington, DE…which is a much bigger place than I ever expected and has a very sizable amount of  black folk.

While there I could not help but marvel at most of the homes…which were mostly made of stone and brick.  They looked very historic…and I remembered that Delaware was an old State that has a very long and rich history due to George Washington having travelled and stayed there.  And I could see that many of those homes dated back to that period in history…and had been well kept up and cared for through their long history…and still are.

But Wilmington reminded me of  Detroit except for one distinct difference…there were no boarded up houses or boarded up businesses there…as far as I could see.   Very much to the contrary was it to the situation in Detroit…in which as I stated in an earlier blogs on Detroit…that  every other building and house was boarded up in Detroit  due to foreclosures, down-sizing and massive  job losses.   Detroit was consumed by boarded up and vacated buildings and homes due to the shutting down of  many of the factory jobs of  its chief industry and job producers…the Big 3…the motor industry.  And it looked every bit of  it.

But contrary to Detroit…it seemed to me that Wilmington’s future was bright…the city that sits back off of  I-95…but not too far off…just far enough off the main North Eastern throughway so you can’t see it.

But who knew that was really back there…down that short stretch of road where the signs lead you over to.

Little has been and is ever said about Wilmington, DE.   But then I remembered as I glanced across and looked at the old beautiful mansions that our Vice President, Joe Biden and his family,  also lives here…in that quiet little place which isn’t really all that little…and certainly not little at all compared to where I come from.  Just 20 minutes South of Philly and not far from Baltimore.  Wilmington really struck me as a great place to invest in…if you could find property to   buy.

It has all the pluses… Wilmington does… including sitting on the banks of the Delaware River...you do remember that great picture they had in your history book of  Washington standing on that boat looking very regal and General-like as he crossed the Delaware.  It is funny the things you will remember years later from when you were a little grade school child sitting in various classes at school…of which none of  it meant anything to you at the time.  You just had to rememorize it because of the test tomorrow…and that was the only reason you placed it somewhere in your memory bank.   Who knew 20-30-40-50-60 years later you would still be able to pull up and access that information stored somewhere in your brain?

This is why education is so important.  Nothing in school ever seemed important to me.  Teachers failed to be able to show the true value of why you should learn something.  For some reason they cannot link anything that you do in school with real living.  And then later in life you find out that it was all relevant to your everyday living.  Like learning how to get up and go to school.   Relevance: Getting up and going to work.   If you never learned how to get up and get out to school on time you will certainly have problems at getting up and getting out to work on time.   Therefore, it is relevant to real everyday living.

(2) Math…this is a big one (well, learning to get up and go to school was big too…)   Relevance: Being able to keep track of your money…count your change…add up your groceries before you get into line…monitor your daily spending and align it with your budget and your pay check etc…   I told you it was big.   But for some reason teachers cannot appropriately inform students of the real value of learning math.  There is not one kid…or child…or teen in school who doesn’t like money…and if  they realized that math had something to do with money there would not be one student failing math.

Well, I guess you can tell that I am really tired from our trip to Delaware the place where George…oh, never mind…I’ve already said it…how he crossed that river and made history right there in that little…well…not so little town.   Yeah…I am real tired.

When we were through in Delaware…my son and I hit Philly.   I could not get so close and not drop by and visit with the true matriarch of our family…my mother’s Aunt Kate.

Having talked often with Aunt Kate…it was not hard for me to tell when I first realized her mind was not as sharp as usual.  You used to could say a name and she filled in all the blanks.  I loved talking with her…and each time I learned more and more about our family.  Her mother…was my grand-mother’s mother.  She was a woman who had somehow ended up owning a very large portion of  land…and I do mean very large.  It ran along the shores and back a ways off from Lake Okeechobee, the 2nd largest lake in the United States…2nd only to Lake Michigan.

I found this out once during one of our last annual summer trips to Florida…when suddenly my mother began crying saying-

“You see this land it all belonged to my grand-mother.”

I was surprised…as my mother rarely became so emotional over such things…and certainly not out of the blue as she had that day.  As many times as we had passed through that little town and across that bridge heading over to where I was born and where my grand-mother at the time stilled lived…my mother had never before said anything regarding the size or proportion of any of  that land.

That day she told us that as far as we could see and as far back as we had just come…how it had all belonged to our  great grand-mother.  I had not realized until that moment that seeing where this town now absorbed all of what had been our family’s property…nor had I  realized that seeing it as we drove pass it sadden my mother so until that day…as she sobbed loudly over her grand-mother’s property.  She had spoken of  it before but never had I any idea of  the vast amount of property that was involved.

It is from that moment that I started paying more attention to those programs that I saw on PBS about black families going back through city records and trying to regain property which had been stolen away from their families during the mid-40’s through the 50’s…which included very large farm lands…by various people in those towns who simply just re-wrote the deeds to those black people’s property…giving themselves ownership over it without even bothering to purchase the property from any of the black families.

Very little has ever been said about my great grand-mother except for how extremely religious of a woman she was.  But Aunt Kate had began sharing with me more about her.  She told me of her giving nature…and how she had owned a restaurant.   She told me that there had been people during the course of my great grand-mother’s restaurant business who could not afford to pay for the food…but she fed them anyway.  She had even opened up the doors to her home and raised a child or 2 which was not her own…because they had been homeless.

“One little boy,” Aunt Kate said was a friend of one her brothers…whom they had found out that when they thought he would leave to go home…that he was actually sleeping down under their house.

Aunt Kate said, “Well, mother, wasn’t going to let him stay down there.”

She raised him along with her own children.  He became another brother to our Aunt Kate and my grand-mother along with their other siblings.

Back in those days the houses in those areas of Florida were built raised up off the ground and sat upon concrete blocks.   This was how they built all the houses back then down in Florida…raised up off the ground because of flooding.   If the waters came up over the banks of Lake Okeechobee…it was hoped that they would not rise above the height of the concrete blocks.

Because Zora Neale Huston stayed in my great grand-mother’s area once upon a time…in fact, her book “Their Eyes Were Watching God”…takes place in a little town sitting on Lake Okeechobee.  Imagine my great grand-mother being the great land Baroness that she was…and owner of  the black folk’s only restaurant in that town…and just based on how folks lived down there…and still do…I imagine that they…my great grand-mother and Zora Neale Hurston may have known each another.  Nobody lives in any of those little towns without knowing everybody…so much so…that they all become very much like family…caring and knowing everything about everyone and everything about them.

But Aunt Kate now being the last of all her sibling…out of 10 of them…was my source for much family history…which seemed to just pour out of her.  I never had to ask any questions of her or try to coax her into sharing it with me…very unlike my own grand mother…who always seemed suspicious if  you asked anything about  our family history.  Why I do not know…but it was something that I accepted thinking that perhaps there was something which I should not know.

But upon seeing Aunt Kate for the first time in years…I was somewhat surprised.  She was much smaller now…though she had never been a big woman as she always kept herself up, as they say…meaning she always kept herself  looking good and in good condition.  But she wasn’t looking so good yesterday…most of her hair had thinned out…and she had this large black…what looked like smut smudge straight across her forehead.  She had on no shoes or slippers on…of which I had never seen her walk  around barefooted before…as Aunt Kate was quite prime and proper.    And her feet were terribly ashy…meaning…well…you can look that one up…as I do not want nor wish to continue talking about my aunt in such a way.

But it was her mind…the thing most recently I had noticed in the last few phone calls we had had…her mind was slipping.   She was not getting lost…but she had started forgetting things…and who such and such was…when she had always been so sharp about such things.

Aunt Kate was now in her 90’s…and though throughout all of these years age had somehow managed to not show up on her…yesterday was different.  She seemed older than her 90 in fact…and she was now walking with a cane.  That strong little woman was now…an aged shadow of  what she had been…and though I smiled and was happy to see and talk with her and my cousins…it was hard for me not to notice the vast difference in our Aunt Kate yesterday…from the Aunt Kate I had last seen just about 3 years ago and throughout all the prior years.

I often think of  the little church mothers in our church…woman who proudly proclaim their ages with such glee…because none of them looks anything near the age that they truly are.  They are strong and fit…able to get onto and off  buses…walk around their blocks…run errands on their own.   There is a distinct difference between them and women who are not in the church.  And it is very recognizable.

Though her mother had been an extremely religious woman…Aunt Kate may have been…and may still be quasi-religious.   Until a few years ago…Atlantic City had become her friend.  She had gotten bitten by that bug…called gambling.   And if someone had not stolen some money from her…she still might be going…as it had become a weekly habit for her.

I really do believe that there is something about being in the church…and living a life separate from the ways of the world that will make a difference in your life…as witnessed by the many mothers who are in various churches around the world.  There is just something about trusting and living your life as God intends you to live it…that will make a difference.

Yes, I am tired…but I am so thankful that God gave me the opportunity yesterday to finally go and visit with my very kind and loving Aunt Kate…through all the years this has never changed about her.  I suspect that it comes from her mother.

There is little wonder that Obama’s approval rating for his first 100 days has been and is high…as he is actively pursuing to achieve exactly what he went into the White House knowing what he had and needed…and said he would do.  Handle the business of the American people…and try to undo and dark mark the Bush Administration had put upon this country.  And thus far…as my father would say…he has been doing  just fine.  But what I really like is the fact that the dynamic duo which we put into the White House are both getting high marks.

I always knew that Michelle was going to show herself to be simply wonderful as both First-Mom, First Lady…friend and confident to the man that sits in the top seat and wears the heavy crown…or in this country…heavy hat…President Barack Obama.

I really like reading all this good press about them.  He was media darling prior to entering the race…media darling after entering the race…and still media darling after having won the race.

I like people who are consistent…don’t you?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obamas-first-100-days-the_b_191831.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/the-secret-to-michelle-ob_n_191677.html

As you know…I do not watch much television.  But often while sitting around in a hotel room…I find little  else to do.  So, this is how I happened to hear about the ‘Swine Flu.” As far as I can tell…it is very much like most of the other flu’s…causing diarrhea, vomiting, fevers, headaches…etc.   But thus far it has killed 81 people in New Mexico…and a series of people…up to 40 cases have been diagnosed here in other parts of the United States.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8021384.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8022437.stm

To protect yourself they say that you should continuously wash your hands…and when out in public keep your hands out of your mouth and eyes.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/27/swine.flu/index.html

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090427/BREAKINGNEWS/90427003&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090428/swine-flu-and-travel-what-should-you-do

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/med_swine_flu

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=161469997

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13188442&ch=4226723&src=news

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Swine-Flu/ss/events/hl/042409swineflu#photoViewer=/090428/ids_photos_wl/r3827649806.jpg

Could not resist this story…CLICK the LINK BELOW to read it and see the video.

It is about a southern preacher who believes that having ‘good sex’…or as this pastor puts it “great sex’…is something which the body of Christ should be preaching about.

I know you do not want to hear my opinion on that…because you probably already know it…if you have read any of these blogs at all with any degree or level of understanding.

But it just goes to prove…just how overboard this whole sexual revolution has become.   And I am not shocked…as it seems to me that there are some in the church…or seemingly of the church…who have great interest in the subject and are doing everything they can to spread that interest.

Though, I have to admit that my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE… certainly touches upon the subject.   It is…I guess important…but not something which should be preached or for that matter…needed to be taught in church…any more than sex education in school.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20090427/NEWS01/904250314/1086

Speaking about my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE…between it and counting down the days to when it is ready for sell…launching my website…blogging…and hitting the road to promote my book…and menopause…it is wonder that I am anything but tired.

Now, I think I am going to get some much more needed sleep, thank you.   Being on the road somehow drains me these days.  I love it…but it tires me.   I think it throws my whole internal clock off…as I usually am the one driving through the night…and most of the day.  But I love the road, baby.   Ain\’t nothing like it.

So, if you will excuse me…I am going to rest now.   Good-night.

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

Add a comment April 28, 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

Condoleezza Rice…the clock is ticking…

Well, she has decided that she is ready to go back to life in the regular lane…forget the fast lane…or the jet lane.   No, she doesn’t want that any more.   She is tired of all the lights…TV cameras and microphones being thrown into her face….and everybody holding their breath for her every word.  She is giving up getting up early on Sunday mornings to go Meet the Press.  She has finished shaking the hands of State leader  after State leader.  No, she is giving it all up to now go to greeting college students. 

Yeah, it is back to teaching.  And I can only believe she will be looking forward to it.  

But after a while will she still enjoy it?

That is the question.   It is hard to believe that going back to teaching will be something that will able to hold her for long.  After having the life that she has lead for the past 8 years…can you really go back to teaching and ever be satisfied again?

One thing you can really respect about Condoleezza Rice besides her poise, brains and quiet professionalism…is the way she has managed to keep her private life out of the media.  Having such a high profile life…it could not have been easy at all.   Because I am sure that they have all been looking…to spot Condi and somebody. 

But she mastered it…somehow.  Because I am sure that she has not spent the last 8 years alone.  When you are in the eyes of the world….somebody in going to try to catch your attention.   So, I am sure that there have been many suitors vying for her attention.   Yet, somehow she managed not to get tangled in one media story after another over her love life and who she was or is dating now.  

And on top of it all…no one will ever be able to say…that she did not do her job well.

“Bravo to you, Madam Secretary of State.”

And good luck at Sanford….I am sure your classes are all going to be quite full with long waiting list of students waiting on stand-by to get in.

I really admire another thing about Condoleezza Rice…and this whole new breed of black folk who are in positions of power and prestige.    They are no longer afraid or ashamed of their blackness.   They  love who they are…and celebrate their lives and history as black folk in America.    And we do have much to be very proud of…years and years of it…and all kinds of black folk who lit our way. 

Besides walking the halls and grounds of Sanford University…I am sure that there are plenty of book deals waiting on Condoleezza Rice.  And I am sure that she has many rich stories to relay…without the lost of her dignity or integrity.  You can just tell that about her…can’t you?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/26/AR2008112603232.html

http://www.wkrg.com/local/article/future_plans/12602/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/telegraphtv/tvplayer/?ID=News&bcpid=1137942530&bclid=1155254697&bctid=1730134653

Everybody should not be allowed to have a gun permit and I don’t care who they are.

Saturday I was in the beauty salon getting my hair done when this peddler came in.  He was towing a suitcase loaded with incense, oils and various special soaps.  I had seen this guy for many years and never said more to him than ‘hi’….or him to me.

But on this particular day he took a seat beside me and began talking to me as if we went way back as friends.  He began to tell me how he and his wife had broken up a couple of years ago and how foolish she had been.  To my surprise I had known his wife…and he knew that.   I didn’t really know that this guy knew me.  But he not only knew me, but one of my brothers and my father. 

Needless to say, I was quite surprised by all of this.   But what surprised me even more was when he lifted up his jacket and showed me a pistol he was packing on his side.

I don’t like guns…and I don’t trust people who carry them.

After having seen this guy for years standing out on the streets peddling his wares I never once thought he had a gun…or anything close to a weapon on him.  I never really ever thought the guy was…   Well, was all there…if you know what I mean.   There was just something about him.  He never smiled…and certainly never seemed to have much of a personality.

The person whom he had been married to…  Well, I was surprised when he told me that she had been his wife.  I wouldn’t have thought that she would have married someone like this guy.   Not that I knew him…but he just didn’t seem to have much going on.  And she was nice and smart…and not someone who I thought would have fallen for a guy such as this guy.

But the guy went on talking to me about his gun.  How he could pull it apart and how quickly he could put it back together again.  How he had taken it apart when he boarded the train to come back to our town…and how he had wrapped it in a special plastic so that it would not be detected. 

This guy was dangerous.

Then he started pulling out his gun permits.    Yes, I did say gun permits.

All of this this guy did…and he had never in his life every spoken to me before.  And he did this while he continued to talk to me about his wife.  Needless to say…when he finally got up and I thought about it over a few hours…I have come to the conclusion that that guy was a walking time bomb.   And that the clock was ticking…

Because I could hear and see that he was depressed over the divorce of his wife…and he was walking around carrying a very dangerous weapon.

We never know from one moment to the next…who we are standing beside or what they are going through.  In the world we live in today with all the problems of people being out of work, laid off, job closing, forclosures, evictions, divorce, separations etc…etc… there are a lot of time bombs walking around.

I really don’t want to come across the guy again…because I recognized that he was unstable as well as being dangerous.

Well, it is beautiful today.  Still plenty of snow and ice though.  And all I can think about is how nice it is not have to get up for any more 8 o’clock classes…in fact classess at all.  I am so happy…I just keep smiling….‘free at last…free at last…thank God, I am free at last.’

God bless…and thank you for reading this blog…and  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 

Add a comment January 12, 2009

Trying to keep warm…

As I lay here trying to keep warm…and happy about not having to go outside and shovel any more snow.   But I love it.

I am so thankful that my parent’s house is still standing…that water is not leaking down through the roof…that the raccoons are blocked off from traveling downstairs to meet me in our back hallway…and that God  blocked my parent’s house from going up on the auction block earlier this year in March.

I have much to be thankful for…including not having suffered what I thought was an on-coming stroke or heart attack last week when my right hand started shaking very badly, and then just froze up on me.  And ultimately forced me to have to rush from my class to go directly to a hospital emergency room.

But after having endured that…this past weekend I was out shoveling snow straight up to the day before yesterday.  We are buried in it.  And I am loving every minute of it…and I am so blessed not to have to be spending my holidays in a hospital.

Though the weather is cold…freeeeezzzing to be exact.  It looks pretty.  No, beautiful to me…because if I take a notion…I can get up and go outside and walk through it…when I know that I should not be able to do so.

But in regards to my warmth…I keep looking at our fireplace wishing I  could make a big bustling fire in it.   But I am afraid of risking starting a fire in the wall of the chimney since we haven’t used it or had it cleaned out for a while.  But a big bright and warm fireplace lighting up our living room would be nice…and especially on days like this.  And even more especially since the furnace is still not fixed. 

So, yes the house is cold…but not as cold as it should or  even  could be.  Though the oven is on (and I am being very careful monitoring it)…and most of the doors are closed to block off the cold.  And I do have a portable electric heater (which I am also keeping a close eye on) which you really have do when you run electrical items overtime.  And then on top of it all…I still have hot water.  

So, I’m doing pretty good.  Thank God for the hot water.

And believe me having hot water is important. 

I will not forget how last year this time I was almost in the same situation though the circumstances were different.  From August straight through the  1st of January we had no gas.  This meant that there was not any hot water either…which is a very hard situation…and particularly for women.   Because unlike men…women must bathe.   Washing up is okay…but it is not the same.   And to do it for months…in freezing cold water… 

Well, let me just say it again…women must bathe.

So, I was forced to have to bathe in freezing cold 2 times a day…once in the morning before leaving out from the house and again once I got back in.  And this I did religously in the freezing cold of the house…and cold water only gets colder as it runs.   It was quite quite quite freeeezzzing cold.  In fact, it was far colder inside our house than it was at any point outside of it.  

I know I was miserable during all those days.   But thank God…He brought me through it.  And I got through it without a sniffle or a sneeze.

And so though I can’t light a fire in our fireplace…I am not as cold as I should be either…and no where near as cold as I was in this house  last year. 

I am blessed.   

And I am finally finished with all my classes and their assignments…I got everything in even though at times my right hand continued to occasionally act up.  But I made it through…and yesterday I returned to the school library 2 books that I owed them.

 So, I am in the house for the duration of the holiday…short of having to go back out to shovel more snow…or throw down some more salt if it gets slippery again.

I can’t imagine what the temperture outside is today.  But  I know it is in the low something.    It looks very cold and dark outside.   There is no sun anywhere to be found…nothing but snow upon snow. 

It is like a freezer outside.  So, I am inside…trying to keep warm.  But I am loving it…because God has been good to me.

Remember those who have less than you and who may or may not have a roof over their heads…or a car in their garage…or food in their refrigerator…or in their pantry…or a coat to put on…or electricity…or gas to heat their home.    Let us pray for them…and keep them lifted up in our prayers throughout the year.   They would love to be in my situation I have no doubt.   So, I have nothing to complain about.   I’m blessed. 

Yes, I am blessed…and very highly favored.  And I thank God for His ever loving mercies.

So, whatever your holiday plans are…be careful and enjoy those whom you love.  And may God grant you to step into a wonderful 2009.   I am looking forward to it…and all the God has in store for me.

And always be mindful…that there is nothing like family.  And nothing at all like a good family…definitely worth more than gold.  

We pray also for family unity…unity from this point on…in Jesus’ name.

God bless….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And may your Santa give you exactly and everything that you are hoping and looking for.   

Praise ye the Lord…for He is mighty in all things.   And I am sure He has so much more for you…in 2009.

Well, God bless…and thanks for reading this blog…and  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 ©2008

Double CLICK the screen above in order to view the second video…ignor the text on the screen monitor

Happy holidays…and may God richly bless you too.

Just DOUBLE CLICK the screen to view the above video.

Add a comment December 24, 2008

Bush failed economics… and 9/11

After 8 years of essentially nothing but a bunch of failed economic schemes on the part of the Bush Team where we have seen one large company after another go under, Enron, WorldCom, AIG, Bear Sterns…now Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and many large banks are headed for the drain.  Somebody needs to call in the plumber…and I guess that is what that $700 billion bailout is all about.

But what could have led George Bush to possibly believe that anybody in their right mind was going to underwrite for him a blank check giving him what would have amounted to a have virtually amounted to a $700 billion free roller coaster ride with taxpayers money with no oversights written into it…no promise of ever getting back…and was earmark directly to Wall Street.

Paulson had real cause to get down on his knees in the Senate and beg Nancy Pelosi to bless him with what evidently his boss, George Bush, had sent him to Capitol Hill to do…beg for it.  And as he dropped to his knees he was probably snickering to himself thinking about the big bonus he was going to get for brokering the deal.   And everybody…including large number of Republicans (well, it is an election year even for them…and many of them would like to return to Capitol Hill after November too)…so, they hemmed and haa-ed until finally all slowly broke down and gave him a yes.

Henry Paulson declaring that we were in a dire straits and if we didn’t act quick the walls would come tumbling down…sounded much like what Bush spewed out while rushing Capitol Hill into signing in that thing that…thereby ingratiated George Bush with the first blank check…called the Patriot Act.  And there was nothing Patriotic about it…it just gave Bush and all his little men much to much power, infringed upon our rights of privacy, allowed them to essentially set up a dictatorship right here in America.  And they had wrote it in a way that no one could…either say anything…or pose them any opposition.   They in effect have had total and absolute free reign.

At that time the powers that be on Capitol Hill…blindly turned everything over to a bunch of crooks worst than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the George Bush Administration gang.  The Senate gave them everything but the kitchen sink without any restraints, oversights or means of appeal.  George and his people got to do whatever they wanted to…and they did.  That is exactly how he happened to order a preempted strike against Iraq…which unarguably has been one of the biggest financial mistakes in Presidential history…and World political suicides since Woodrow Wilson launched the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Bush and his crew put us into a war without end that has been draining this country of manpower, lives and absolutely huge unheard of amounts of money per day.

Since George Bush stole his way into the White House in 2000 this country has suffered one calamity after another.  Today America is in its worst financial condition since the Great Depression with both the Euro and the Chinese yen outperforming the American dollar.  Eight years of Bush Economics has virtually put this country in receivership to both China and Europe.

Since George Bush’s cooked the books on weapons of mass destruction throwing us into ‘yes’ a very un-necessary war inflation has ran wild in this country in ways we would and could have never imagined in the years prior to Bush taking over the country after Bill Clinton.

Who would have thought we would have ever seen nearly $5/gallon of gasoline at the pumps in this country?

When the gas went up…the food costs went up…clothes…medical expenses…everything went up.  And they are not going to come down…even if the cost of gas temporarily has .  The cost of gas as we once knew it is gone.  It will never be anywhere near where it used to be…$1.99 to $2.50/gallon ever again in this country…thanks to George Bush.

Everybody around the world, at the time….realized that when Bush had declared he was going to strike Iraq that the decision was for one primary reason…that decision was for the oil.  He sent troops in to plunder and destroy the infrastructure of that country…that could have never been about just a single man and his 2 sons.  The orders were too broad, too vast and far to destructive to have ever have been just about Saddam Hussein.

Halliburton was sent in….and a bunch of Halliburton sub-companies…all companies with special ties to Bush and his Administration were the only companies given contracts to enter Iraq to supposedly rebuild that country at a cost of billions of dollars to America’s taxpayers.  While Halliburton and others sent back to the U.S. Pentagon a bunch of bogus invoices and padded bills…filled with lies stealing from everyday people like you and me millions upon millions of dollars…for which they suffered no penalty and/or penalties for and are still on the Pentagon payroll.

Bush stole his way into the highest seat in this country…and immediately ate away the Bill Clinton surplus plunging America in a deficit his very first year in office.

Once he stole his way into the Oval Office, America came under attack for only the second time in her history…but this time it wasn’t some small distant South Pacific island that was hit.  A strategically planned and deployed attack on America took place on September 11, 2001… the likes this country or no country has ever seen.  It was a day I will never forget along with millions of other Americans and millions around the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/29bailout.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/29markets.html?hp

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-bailout29-2008sep29,0,855202.story

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/20/bush-asking-for-700-billi_n_127926.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/28/congress-white-house-reac_n_129964.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-080928bailout-deal-reached,0,2436591.story

9/11….2001

At the time I lived just on the other side of both the Brooklyn and the Manhattan Bridges, in downtown Brooklyn. 

I remember awaking to one ambulance and siren after another…non-stopping all day. 

I remember looking out my bedroom window and watching the Twin Towers engulfed by heavy black smoke that soon became white/grayish billows of smoke as they went down. 

I remember the congestion of that day of all the roadways being block, train service being suspended, people having to find their way out of darken train tunnels all over New York City.   No cabs or buses allowed through the police barricades posted all through the city in every borough…nobody could drive anywhere. 

I remember looking out the window and watching as people lined the streets passing out bottles of water to those laden with ashes from their heads down who were walking the streets in disbelief trying to find their way home from Wall Street. 

I remember sitting near the radio listening and waiting most of the day…and all of the night to the reports…the questions… and people searching for answers. 

I remember hearing that the Pentagon had just got hit…and then how a plane went down in Pennsylvania.  And everyone was trying to figure out how many more planes were out there…and wondering what would be the next target…and where? 

I remember getting dress and walking into the Brooklyn Mall area with droves of people rushing pass me…stopping to stare into the window of an electronic store to watch the TV monitors along with many others who gatheed around…just watching the towers getting hit time and time again.  And hear in disbelief “Just like in the movies.” 

I remember trying to find my way to one of the medical emergency centers set up all over New York for victims so that I could volunteer.

I remember going to the medical center they opened up in downtown Brooklyn near where I lived…and nearing the location seeing the staff standing outside their door turning droves of people away who had all come to volunteer just like me.   But they had no victims…there was no one to help.  Because they had either gotten out…or they were gone…as if they had never been.

I remember crying and wondering about friends who worked in those buildings…if they had survived? 

I remember my utter and complete feeling of lost and being lost during that whole day. 

I remember how everything had been turned upside down…and I was sitting in the midst of it less than a mile from Wall Street and the World Trade Center.

I remember the days that followed…how there was not a sound down in the subways. 

I remember how no one spoke…not one word…not even a whisper.  There was no laughter or mirth on the trains, or buses or anywhere in New York.  Every face was like stone…expressionless, empty, devastated and shocked beyond all words. 

New York was in shock for months…and New Yorkers rallied behind each other as never before during that day, and days to come.  Every fraction and group was dissolved…everything that had separated them was gone…they were all now only New Yorkers and they had been attacked.  And nothing was as unusual.  But nothing would ever been the same ever again…the towers were gone.

The towers lit your nights…gave you direction if you got lost.  They stood beautifully…long tall and straight as could be.  From Jersey to Far Rockaway…from Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan and the Bronx…the towers stood as beacon on a hill lighting the way home…and now she was gone.   And nothing would ever be the same.

 

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1 comment September 29, 2008