Posts filed under: ‘Out of work‘
THE VERIZON ATTITUDE… changes in the workplace…
I can’t imagine working for anyone who threatened me.
In reading a posting on my facebook page, I read where the daughter of 1 of my facebook friends was told by her employer during Hurrican Irene-
“If any of you leaves, you’re fired.”
Meaning that if any of the employees left the job they would be terminated.
I can’t imagine me wanting to work for anyone who would even consider trying to strong-arm me like that… and particularly in a state of emergency. But it made me think of 9/ll.
On September 11th …on the day that the airplanes flew into the World Trade Center, after the first plane hit the first tower …many of the workers in the second tower were told to remain seated, to continue working.
But friends of mine who were inside the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center that day… told me that when they saw that first plane hit… they didn’t care what their supervisors said… they were getting out of there. And because many people 
had already began evacuating that second tower, as soon as they saw what had happened to the first tower… it for many meant the difference between life and death.
A few days ago while driving down to Atlanta, I happened to catch a news story on 1010 WINS …an all news radio network in New York City. I had seen the picketers standing before various Verizon locations. But I did not know what was going on.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/9/verizon-workers-hit-picket-lines-mass-va/
It seems that the contract for 45,000 Verizon workers had expired… meaning the Verzion worker’s contract is 
now up for renegotiation. Playing hardball, Verizon withdrew their worker’s health plan when the workers went out on strike. Verzion claim that they could no longer afford to pay for the worker’s health coverage because they were losing so much money with them being out on strike.
BALONEY.
Everybody who is doing any business with Verizon should cancel every service …or whatever have you with them.
What money is Verizon losing?
None. In fact, with the workers out… they are saving money. Because Verizon doesn’t have to pay them while they are out on strike.
But the problem we face today is this… IT IS AN EMPLOYER’S MARKET.
Do you hear me?
Can you understand that?
It is like how they say it is a buyer’s market in terms of real estate sales. Because not many people are buying homes …and banks are not lending as much as they used to. So, if you got money …and it doesn’t matter about what the seller is asking 
for …make them an offer. They may just take it… you never know. Because they are not getting many other offers these days. And who knows… your’s might be their only offer.
And you see this clear across the board. Car sales and other large ticket items… because there is less cash flow these days with so many people out of work.
And therein lays the Verizon workers dilemma.Verizon is having its way with the Verizon worker’s union 
because so many people are out of work… and Verizon knows that it has the power to wheel and deal as it pleases because of the way the job market is today.
These companies have no employee loyalty. In fact, most companies today could care less about their employees. This is why most companies today do not even offer full-time employment anymore. Who needs full-time employees when there are millions of people willing… able …and ready to acce
pt part-time employment with no benefits, and wages that amount to little… but beats nothing.
There had been a time when America was sending top executives to China to learn techniques of how to create a happy and more productive working enviroment. It would seem that those executives learned something much more valuable to them. How to take an iron fist and hold it over the heads of your employees… and keep it there. Forcing them to produce more for less… while compensating them little… and forcing them to smile while the company break their backs.
I dislike companies with the Verzion attitude. My cell phone is a Sprint account… but my broadband was with Verizon. I can’t tell you how happy I am that it is off … and has been so for some time now. But I can’t see 
myself giving money to a company that will not do its employees right.
Though these companies may feel that they have the power… the truth of the matter is… no they don’t. We do. 
And our power can bring any company to its knees just as the Montgomery bus boycotts brought that city of Montgomery to its knees in the mid 1960’s, and gave way to the opening of the doors that gave us all the right to vote, sleep and eat … etc… etc… where we wanted to. Today we get on the highway and travel anywhere we want… as African American people in America… eat where we want to eat… and book a hotel and sleep where we want to sleep. But for years this was not the case at all.
I remember listening to Shirley Caesar talking about that very subject on a television show that she was being interviewed on. She said that back then when they travelled… talking about her days as a young singer travelling with Albertina Walker and the Caravan… back in latter 50’s through the 60’s. She said-
“We had to sleep in our car. Because back then they did not allow us (black folks) to stay in the hotels or the motels like they do today. And we just couldn’t pull up anywhere and eat either. Because it wasn’t allowed. If we 
wanted food. 
We had to go back around to the back the door and see if they would give us some food.”
Thank God for powerful people… who knew that they possessed power. Or we would still be sitting on the back of the bus today.
Union busting is not anything new. One of the greatest examples of it is when Ronald Reagon decided to interfere in the air traffic controller strike, PATCO …in August 1981. Reagon 
froze the air traffic controller’s $3.5 million strike fund in order to force the striking workers back to work… saying that they were in violation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifKX9EXSvrQ&feature=related
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/reagan.years/whitehouse/airtraffic.html
And if you remember any facts to this story… you will remember how quickly many of the striking air traffic 
controllers were replaced. While a the powers to be… then trained a bunch of unprofessionals to replace to them.
And our air ways have never been the same. They have found people sleeping and all kinds of crazy things. And we will not discuss what took place on 9/11.
Because if the truth be told… that is still a mystery to me?
How is it that at least 3 airplanes took off from Logan Airport in Boston… and got so far off of their courses. And nobody …not 1 person knew about it until very important buildings began to be flown into?
Something is wrong with that picture. And for the life of me… how was it that the 2nd airplane was allowed to hit the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center? This is even a bigger mystery to me?
Because before it did… every airplane and helicopter in New York City was up in the air that day soon after 
the 1st airplane had flown in the World Trade Center. So then, how is it that nobody saw the 2nd airplane until after it hit the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center?
My niece woke me that morning with a phone call saying that an airplane had just flown into 1 of the towers of the World Trade Center. And as she was still talking to me… some 20 minutes later the 2nd airplane flew into 
the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center.
How could that have happened?
After the 1st airplane into that air space… clearly, a 2nd air craft entering into that same air space should never have happened.
First of all, the air space around the whole area of the World Trade Center and Statue of Liberty was and is…a protected air space. Which means it was supposed to be under the protection of fighter jets anyhow. But notwithstanding the admission of the 1st air craft into that air space… clearly, a 2nd air craft entering into that same air space should have most definitely been shot down…and shot down 
long before coming in contact with the 2nd tower of the World Trade Center.
But going back to the then President Reagon who decided that he needed to step in on the striking air traffic controllers… and teach them a lesson. Reagon, of course, being the idol of ever Republican… the 1 that they most try to exemplify, and proclaim themselves to be the most like. And I wonder if that was before or after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?
But then of course… nobody knows exactly how long Reagon had actually been losing it. Though I must say that most of the Republican Party seems to be fit candidates for an Alzheimer’s examination. Because truly most of them seem to be suffering from some sort of mental deficiency… starting with but not limited to Palin.
Something has to be wrong …mentally with a bunch of people who claim that they love something and seek so vigilantly to destroy it. And I am talking about America.
They claim that they love America. Yet everything they have been doing lately… and I am talking … for years now… has been done to undermine America… if not to utterly destroy it.
One of the most disastrous things to happen to the United States of America was something called George W. Bush. I understand how wars were used in past American History to re-jump start the economy. But George who was 
supposedly an economy major from that great learning institution known as Yale University, in New Haven, CT. George having gotten into hot water somehow either on his own… or via the un-wise thinking of some of his flunkies…they came up with a plan. The plan was to go to war. Start some wars and the economy will take off again… the money you spent will be forgotten… and forgiven… and all will be well.
But there was a problem with the plan. The work place had changed.
In years past America had plenty of factories and factory workers. But by the time George stole his way into the White House all those jobs were gone. Those factories had been closed… and years later turned into lovely condominiums. And if the companies still exists those jobs didn’t… robots had moved in and replaced the workers.
Do you remember when you used to read the Help Wanted Ads and saw a train of Bank Teller jobs being offered?
Look for that now. You won’t find it. Because many of those jobs no longer exist. Bank tellers have been replaced by atm machines.
The same has happened to a position called ‘receptionist.’ When was the last time you heard that word?
It is voice mail… and automated voice activated systems now. No more receptionist jobs almost anywhere today.
Most utility companies have closed down their offices which used to handle bill paying services. They don’t do that any more. Oh, no… If you can’t send it in by mail… or go to a local payment center at your check cashing center …or corner store… then for a charge call them and they will take your payment over the phone.
In 2008 Americans voted for a change. While Republicans are 
quick to say that Obama did not… or has not delivered.
Yet on the other hand Republicans will never say-
“And we have done everything within our power to ensure it.”
On every issue… and non-issue Republicans have done their best to block Obama from even trying to do anything to fix the mess. A massive and highly expensive and burdensome mess… that George W. Bush… a Republican …whom I believe will never ever be forgotten… for the mess that he left us all in. And when President Obama has managed to get something pass them… they … the Republicans attack it like a bunch o
f mad dogs.
Whoever said that Barack Obama was a magician?
Whoever said Obama was Merlin?
Or even had some kind of ‘black magic?’
In case you did think that let me be the first to just say-
“Are you for real?”
Magic is an illusion. It is based upon trickery… cunning and deceit. Thank goodness these are not traits that are found within our President Barack Obama.
President Barack Obama has never lied to us about ‘weapons of mass destruction.’
He has never tried to pull the wool over our eyes… by blinding us with a bunch of codes that meant absolutely nothing… code RED… code YELLOW… (if you have no understanding of this then you would have had to have lived in New York City following 9/11).
Obama has never tried to used 1 fear tactic to keep us up under our beds… or hid in our closets.
President Barack Obama is not the cause for why America is where America is today. He had nothing at all do do with it. He did not bring us here. In fact, as quiet as it is kept… he is trying to fix this mess. It is more than possible that he might aid in bringing us a long ways out of this runt… if we all stop listening to lies. Stop being deceived… and turning every which way the winds blows.
It is Republican deceit and lies that have turned this country upside down… and not Barack Obama.
- Corporate greed and mis-handling of business was here long before Barack Obama walked into the White House
- Job losses many years before Obama
- National Debt was already there… but really began running away after George W. Bush stepped into the Presidential picture
- Problems on Wall Street with the stock market are not new… trace them back into the 1930’s
Several States now have had to fight against Republican Governors who lead people into believing that they were either the man or woman for the job… and would wholly work for them… the voters. Telling them that they were a person with their interests in their mind and in heart… only for those voters to lament a vote that they ever casted in that person’s favor. It ended up costing voters benefits… or their job… or a less powerful union etc. Because that Republican political had an agenda. And that agenda had nothing to do with the people’s minds… or hearts that they con into believing in them with their claims of ‘I want to serve you.’
The Republicans are so slimy they have created a 2nd Republican Party… the co-called Tea Party a group of real lunatics… formed by that lunatic queen Palin and few other crazies. All of whom who have fallen out with one another… that is how firmly rooted they were. Like a bunch of crabs in a barrel… all clamouring to be the top dog… and if they can’t then they pick up their marbles and go home.
They have all… whether they call themselves ‘Tea Party’ or not… they …the Republicans have all developed a seek and destroy attitude. And that attitude did not just get started when President Barack Obama stepped into the White House… it is an attitude that they have long adapted to.
You need only to look at the 2000 Presidential Election between George W. Bush and John Kerry to see how demented the Republicans are. They saw nothing 
wrong …NOTHING…in undermining the entire American practice of our right to vote… and to have ALL our votes counted. And it was not something that they were not bold enough to do so all could see… and dared any of us to do anything about it.
So, don’t blame Obama. This mess is not his. But he decide to champion the cause… to try to set America back on the right course. To raise Her from low depths She sank to under what no one can call ‘leadership’… but just say… George Bush brought Her to.
Don’t look for magic. Look at it as it really is. The world has changed. And the work place and work force has changed with it.
Many jobs that people used to do… no longer exist.
Re-training people has it place… I guess. But when they are re-trained where will they go?
Everyone is learning computers… but there are only but so many computer jobs.
The medical field is good. In a field that had nothing but female mostly… had seen a great emergence of male. Use to be you never saw a male nurse… but today hospitals are loaded with them. Men are entering the nursing field in very large numbers. And to think there was a time that such a thing… would have been seen as being sissy.
One thing is for sure… no matter what happens in this world… we all at some 
point or other need something medical. As long as we are in these bodies the need for the medical profession cannot …or will ever be replaced. But that is not to say that it too… will not evolve. It has.
However, technology is forever changing things. But even so there will still only be a need for but so many people to work in the medical field too… at any given time.
Radio stations have changed… television stations have changed. Most newspaper companies have gone out of 
business… because few people read newspapers any more. They get their news now over the internet… on their ipads… and cells. And if you haven’t noticed… most news companies have cut back drastically on their staff.
For 1 of my journalism classes, my professor… a great woman… had been booted out of her position as a staff writer for a local newspaper… a job she had had for many years. That company’s lost was of course … my great gain. Because she came with a wealth of knowledge, and understanding about the history and future of journalism… and media at large.
But if you have noticed over the internet all the news sources seem to buy their stories from 1 source. You can read the exact same story… word for word from 1 internet source to another. And if you are like me… you always have a need to want to know more… but they don’t have it to give.
And somewhere along the way… they grab ahold of this attitude: THAT LESS IS MORE.
Yeah, right… When I want to know less…or read less… I will just stop. I don’t need anyone deciding for me… when I have had enough.
Which I guess is the main reason why so many people like my blog… www.bsmith101.wordpress.com. For as you can tell… I do not believe in the ‘less is more’ concept. Nor do I just regenerate news items. What a waste that is. If I follow a story… I want to read something I haven’t already read… or at the very least …give me 
some more details …or info on whatever it is I’ve come to your website searching for.
But going back to my thought… the workplace has changed. It is not what it was 20 years ago… or even 10 years ago.
Remember all those customer service jobs that used to be in the newspapers?
Roughly about 20 years ago customer service became such a big thing. There were tons of ad campaigns about the type of service you could expect if you did business with such and such. Companies trained their employees to greet you in a special way, and to service you as quickly and efficiently as they could.
Today all of that is gone to the wind. You can stand in a line for up to 10 or 20 minutes listening 
to someone… who is working the only open window… or check-out line… carry on a conversation with another employee or either with the person who had been right ahead of before they got to the cashier.
Have you experienced that?
You are at the top of the line… but suddenly the ‘ONLY’ open window has a highly talkative employee… or someone looking around as though they are trying to wonder why ‘their’ window or ‘their’ counter is the only 1 open?
So, what do they do?
They slow down… as if mentally they have taken a mental stand in their mind… to not kill themselves trying to serve all the people who waiting in line.
No body cares about customer service any more. And so… gone are these jobs.
Switchboard operators are a thing of the past too. A little company in your area that hired local people… mostly women to man the phone lines. But then it was for mostly doctor’s offices. Today those people can be 
anywhere in the world taking tons of calls for everything from subscriptions to publications, orders for books or other products, complaints, messages, prayer requests …you name it. But small companies in your town probably do not offer this service any more because it has been farmed out around the world.
Most of the manufacturing companies long departed …going into Mexico and other countries where the labor was cheaper.
This country really does not have a great number of blue collar workers any more. Most of the automobile
workers were replaced by robots… or companies that sent large divisions of their manufacturing into other countries as well.
So where are the jobs?
Where are the openings that are available …or will become available for all the displaced workers who are currently out of work… and have been so now for years?
There are none. And nobody can do anything to change that… because of computers coming into the marketplace. They… computers brought about an unpresidented change to what was our workplace.
The only thing you can do is look for the next big wave in the future. That will
More and more colleges are offering on-line courses. Have you noticed that?
Some schools are over the internet only.
I am dropping hints here. Personally, I hate on-line courses… and feel that they are a huge waste of time. 
If you are going to sit in isolation… with no classroom interaction… then you might as well just read the book and be done with it.
But if you were considering a teaching career. Great… but you should also consider this fact. That soon many of those teaching jobs too will soon be gone. Due to on-line classes and on-line classrooms… and schools… cities… colleges and universities looking to cut their budgets. It is coming… and soon the classroom as we know it today will be gone forever too… just like yesterdays work force.
And with it will be gone… tenure. Tenures will bite the dust just like pension plans… and all other full-time employment; and whatever else they can do away with for the sank of the bottom line.
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Soon even common currency as we know it will be gone too. They are already talking about stop minting the $1 bill. Soon it will just be all plastic… be it a debit card …or credit card…. or something else. But the coins will be gone …and the paper bills.
Bet all those folks working at the Mints all felt that their jobs were well secured. 
We have all better start to think again.
Who ever thought there would be no more pension plans?
Or health care benefits on your job?
I didn’t.
You really have to be a visionary. You have to look deep into the future. You must go beyond your nose… if you truly want to have a chance in the future. You have to look deep beyond what you
see. The future is what you cannot visually see… but something coming.
Many people now do not even go into the office any more. They can do all their work from home. They write their news articles at home… edit news copy at home… edit books at home… and mother-frames and inter-locking networks are big things in corporations now.
I do see computers… and our dependence upon them growing.
In New York City they have all most totally done away with ticket booth operators down in the subway system. They too have been 
replaced by machines… which can dispense to you fare tickets. And while in Boston not so long ago… I noticed that they were doing the same in their subway system.
The world is becoming a place of less working people… and more automated machines. And unless you are 
prepared to service these machines… or program these machines… your work history will too soon come to an abrupt end. And you will find yourself with a need to be re-trained… to nothing.
So, when George W. Bush thought that he could jump start the economy by creating a war… with the hope that the war would create jobs. He and his people forgot something. All those factories were gone… and so weren’t those jobs. And even if the jobs could be revived… robotics still had replaced the manpower that used to produce the goods.
So, the wars didn’t work. But only sunk us deeper and deeper into debt as the years have dragged on. But of course …the Republicans will never tell you any of this. Any more than Verizon will tell you that they were 
happy for any old excuse to rid themselves of paying their employee’s health benefits.
Irene hit the East Coast hard… and it seems that my cousin who informed me of the storm was right. Sadly there were a few deaths. But thank God He saw most of us through it safely.
My cousins and friends in various places… including my brother had to deal of electrical outages. But that is 
the least. Many suffered damages due to flooding and/or falling trees.
The good news is Irene wasn’t as bad as what had been expected. To God be the glory.
The New York subway is up and running once again. Though on our way back from Atlanta… I did notice where many of the over-passes in the New York area were being worked on. And that was following the earthquake that hit us… before Irene came bouncing and blowing in.
Well, God bless…and enjoy the rest of your week. Amazingly we are at the end of August already. Schools and colleges are already in. I pray that all are safe and do well.
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 August 28, 2011
Rev. Bernice King to head SCLC…Haiti…
I have been so busy lately trying to stay warm…that I really haven’t 
thought about much of anything else. But checking through my stats for this blog I did notice that a lot of folk had come on my site looking for information on the Kings.
So, thinking that maybe something new had come up with their legal battles…Bernice and Martin the 3rd against Dexter…I decided to go up onto the internet to find out if there was something new. And to my surprise…I saw nothing new about their court battles…but that the stories were about the baby girl. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr’s 
youngest child was now going to head up the organization which her father had not only headed in the 60’s, but was also one of its founding members… the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
It has not been easy…and my guess is Bernice would say that would be an understatement. What with watching their mother battle illness… then her passing… and then just about on the heels of their mother passing…
Yolanda died too… her only sister and the oldest sibling. And 
on top of all of that… Dexter started acting up and getting crazy. Which forced her and Martin the 3rd to have to go into the courts against him…and thereby thus bring private family matters came out into the open… opening them… a very private family… up to public scrutiny and commentary. That had to be hard decision to make.
No, it could have been easy. But yet she kept on going…and doing. And I have no doubt praying.
It is amazing.
She was just a very young child when her father was so brutally shot down
and killed during the summer of 1968. The summer that saw so many riots around the United States upon the announcement of his death. A man who had stood for non-voilence and peaceful resistance…he 
had been murdered.
Bernice was all of 5 years old only when it happened. 
Hardly able to clearly understand… much less comprehend truly what it all meant…or how even her father’s dying was destined to change a world…and this country for ever. But
I’m sure she heard her mother crying many a night over it.
Now, today she is stepping into her father’s shoes. At age 37 Rev. 
Bernice A. King, who holds both a Divinity degree and a dregree in law has become the first woman to ever hold the top post at SCLC. What a great way to honor the 
memory of Dr. King as we all celebrate his birthday this coming Monday.
Though there has been much controversy 
among the remaining members of Dr. King’s immediate family… his children… Martin the 3rd, Dexter and 
Bernice… this I am sure would make him smile. They both would be.
Poised…confident… well spoken… and a member of the 
New Birth Ministry under Bishop Eddie Long… as well as having been a law clerk under Judge 
Hatchett… and of course having been under the mentorship and leadership of her own mother, Mrs. Coretta Scott King… I see a new era in black leadership rising in this country. It has 
been long over due…a new guard is on the horizon. And it feels like a breath of fresh air.
It gives me great pleasure to write this on the King family… or a member of it. And I look forward to writing many more.
I had seen some of the headlines…but had just not taken the time to read 
anything on it…mostly because it just kept slipping my mind. I would get busy reading or doing 
something else...and then…well, you know… I would forget… that is until my son called me and began speaking to me about it. He told me that an estimated 500,000 people had been killed. For such a small island that has to be nearly a quarter of Haiti’s population.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010787604_haiti14.html
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/americas/HAITI-RECOVERY-81427942.html
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/special-reports/Haiti-Earthquake-81317947.html
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Thousands-Feared-Dead-After-Haitian-Earthquake-81311282.html
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/americas/Scientists-Explain-Haiti-Earthquake-81356387.html
Many many stories of are pouring out of Haiti of untold thousands upon thousands still being trapped. The Richter Scale hit 7.0
with a series of after shocks measuring at 5.9… with the International Red Cross saying that perhaps over 3 million people have been affected by the massive earthquake.
We can all remember still…I am sure… that massive mounting wave that rose up out in midst of the Indian Ocean back in 2004…which hit 11 different countries with so much force that everything near the shorelines for 25 or so miles inland was wiped out into the sea… including families, businesses, homes, belongings etc… perhaps leaving many of them feeling the affects probably still, while additionally trying to recover from it mentally and physically after having lived through such a terrifying and destructive thing.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1227_041226_tsunami.html
I guess before it has all been said and done…we are bound to have much more devastation to come in our lifetime…and beyond if there is a beyond. The forces of nature are reaping havoc upon us in ways we are incapable of fighting. And Kartrina was just another example of it.
It can surely not be argued that we have not been one of Mother Nature’s best friends. And we are starting to see… and feel the a
ffects of it.
Or you can look at this way.
Prophesy coming to pass.
There is no dispute that within the text of the Bible all these things… including wars have been prohesied long before we got to this point , some more than 2,000 years ago. When I think of both Haiti and New Orleans…I 
think of 2 places steeped in the culture of witch craft and voodoo. When I think of those 11 countries hit by the Tsunami…I think of child sex trades and exploitation.
It is not a secret that many people get on airplanes flying out from this country to foreign shores, to indugle in many things illegal here in America…such as having sex with children. Though such laws have not stopped a lot of people from doing so… such as…Roman Polanski. A man who should have been locked away years ago…when he confessed to having sex with a 13 year old girl. Film director or not…the man should have been locked away. And the same for Woody Allen.
I once watched a film produced by some independant filmmakers. The most beautifully shot film visually that I had seen in a while. I was very impressed by it…visually. The lighing…the colors…just everything about it. But…
It was a 
movie about young children…very young children…super young children…some younger than 4 who were put into the sex for hire business. Children standing in shop windows waiting on someone to walk by and pick them out…like they were buying a suit or a pair of shoes. And shop window after shop window with little 
children standing in them…bunches of them…as if they were live little manakins on display.
It is hard to believe that such places assist…much less that they can so freely exploit their children in such a way. With families making decisions to give out their own children for a few dollars claiming that the hardships in their countries left them no other choice.
It is not hard to believe that God would destroy such places.
Most of these countries trafficing children… or where such practices are openly
allowed… are 3rd World Countries… such as Africa… Indonesia (which less than 2 years ago was hit by its own major and highly devasting earthquake)… China etc.
Even in terms of Haiti…besides the witch craft and practices of voodoo…it is routine to see one tele-evangelist after another showing pictures of children while pleading 
for financial support from viewers… and not only while in Haiti but other countries as well. When I look at those pictures of those little children I feel sorry for them. 
Because I know that many times these children are not only being used as a means to pull upon people’s sympathy. And I have no doubt that once those camera lights go off and their little pictures are taken… most of children fall prey to sexual abuse by the the very ones who claim they are their to help them.
It is sad all the way around. It is sad…very.
We… I have no doubt that we cannot begin to imagine the vastness of the devastation
which has hit Haiti.. .nor its awful after affects now and for years to come. Not to mention the danger that many Haiti’s people have fallen into by criminals and others who seek the exploit this time and Haiti political problems.
Many American artists…and partically all Haitians living in this country still have roots in Haiti…by way of love for their country and family members still there…such as Lauryn 
Hill, Wyclef Jean and others. It is very likely that within the whole of Haiti there is not one family whose lives have not been touched by this earthquake…whose strong and very high magnitude shook that small French speaking island just off the coast of Florida this past Tuesday…with such force that it almost virtuely destroyed Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince.
Those who can please let us all remember them is our prays…and send support to Haiti.
The images and stories flowing out of Haiti since the earthquake are saddening. Limited medical supplies and those who can care for them coupled with criminal elements…make it even harder upon those who somehow managed to survive…barely escaping with just the shirts upon their backs. Little children left orphaned… amputations…shortage of water…and no place to lay for the night or out of the blistering sun during the day. Missing persons…destroyed property…everything gone. Encompassed by the smell of death…while listening to the wailing crys…screams and moans of emotional and physical suffering all aound…while wiping at your own tears at the very same time. How hard it must be to go through such devastation.
If you would like to donate CLICK this LINK…http://cogic.net/cogiccms/default/
It is a little after 4:30 in the morning and I stayed up all night doing this. 
Well, I didn’t really get started until after 1. And now I am hungry…and need I say it…have to go the bathroom.
The bathroom is not going to hold out…but my stomac
h will have to. Because as much as I hate to say it…I desparately need to shed some pounds. My hair is falling out. My nails are getting too long. I think my teeth might be a touch too yellow. My toes are freezing. And…oh, I am a disaster. I truely am.
Will this weather ever break?
My son tells me on Friday…we are scheduled to get into the 50’s. Do you think it might be a bit too soon for me to begin singing ‘Happy days are here again...?’
Do you think?
Well, I just signed up for a blogtalkradio slot. This should be fun.
Perhaps since you have been reading these blogs…you have often thought about what it would be like to talk to me personally. Judging by reading some of the responses to my Juanita Bynum blog…and perhaps my blog on Chastity Bono…some of you may just be dying to get at 
me. Well, soon and very soon…you may just get that chance. Because yes…your girl will soon be coming to you live, baby. Bet you’ve been waiting for that.
Well, have a beautiful day. I hope you got a whole lot of warmth wherever you are. And please let us pray for all these people who are going through hard times right now. There are so many people suffering from all type devastating thing…earthquakes…loosing homes…loosing their jobs…speaking of which. I spent most of day today observing an on-line class on how to make 
ice cream. I actually have had the idea rolling around in my head for a couple of years now. But somehow I fell upon this internet site…and the next thing I know they were emailing me about a ‘free training session.’
Did somebody say ‘free?’
Yes, I did. And you know I took advantage of their offer. 
Today could not come fast enough. Though I over slept and missed the first hour and half. I managed to learn enough in the remainer of the session to more than make up for it…and to let me know that my consideration of the idea was not a bad one…not at all. I tell you this… in this time of unsurety you really have to be looking at your future options too. Look into the future…. and see where you would like to be. And what you will need to do to get you there.
Now, start working towards that.
I am a believer that everybody should consider going into business for themself. Or perhaps you have aspirations of being a writer. Go for it. Do it…but you can’t if you don’t start somewhere. And I am one of those people who strongly believes that you can’t wait to start something…or hold back talking about ‘waiting on until you get the money to do it.’
You will be waiting forever.
I’ve got to wait… until I get the money…or some money 
to do it…is one of the biggest excuses for never doing anything.
Sometimes as the door closes in your face…because you have lost your job…or can’t find one…or had some other set back… then it just might be because it is time for you to become your own boss… run your own company… do something that you really like to do.
Think outside of the 
box… and don’t despair… there is something special waiting just around the corner for you. And it is that success you have always been looking for… had hoped would come… that real career that you have been putting off.
Just do it. And I would love hearing about it.
I’ll give you more information about when, how and where you can link up to me regarding to my blogradiotalk broadcasts… on both your ipod and by listening in to me right here over the internet. You know… try as best I can… I just cannot seem to get out of radio…and stay out of it. Oh…well..
And I almost forgot 1 other very important thing about my up and coming blogtalkradio program… You’ll able hear it right here too… right on this blog page…as I plan to add a link to the program. However, if you listen via your ipod or directly over the net to the live broadcast…you will be able to call in and talk with me over the air. It should be interesting. I look forward to chatting with you soon. And yes…there will be guest…perhaps you would like to be one. Send me a note via my comment box.
I
just love these pictures. So, I may just leave them up all winter long.
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
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. 
4 comments January 14, 2010
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 d
oing… 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.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 t
hat no matter how much man may try to corrupt history by purposely negilecting to tell some things…or by accidently doing so…that in time all things…meaning the truth…is eventually revealed through time.
Here is the newest African Beauty to emerge upon the stage of the world…and she is a high school student living with her family in Germany…and she is Germany’s next Top Model, Sara Nuru…an Ethiopian.
You must remember that it was a young beautiful…and evidently a very knowledgeable Ethiopian Queen…Sheba, who paid a visit upon King Solomon who brought him gifts and quizzed him.
Now, I am still trying to catch up on my sleep. So, if you will have to forgive me. I got up and out early this morning. I had to do what I really do not like to do too often…and that is catch the bus. But I must say…as a writer…it really does give you a great source for acquiring interesting little stories.
Hope you had a beautiful day…and for some reason I am feeling much 
anticipation. I guess because my book, THE BISHOP’S WIFE…is due out soon…and then the work really begins. I will keep you abreast.
God bless…
Thank you for reading this blog…and my others. Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on…” http://www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009
2 comments April 30, 2009
Condoleezza Rice’s knockout punch… John Hope Franklin… Ryan Moat incident…
See…I said it. And she hasn’t proved me wrong.
I love her.
I really hate people who don’t know how to go home and just be quiet.
It is not like Cheney and his friends did anything but put this country into a whirlwind spin downward. And we have yet to set the turbulent waters still.
Cloaked in secrecy since they went into the White House…it is hard to believe that they had not planned this whole mess from the very beginning. To get in steal what they could…and cause havoc just because they could.
Or maybe all the chaos was just a shield…to cover 
up the crime. You know how the criminals do…create a disturbance or some type of confusion somewhere else to divert the attention from what they are really doing.
Man…you know I never thought of that before.
But what if it was?
What if 9/11 had been cooked up by some of our own people…in high places?
It would certainly address the issue as to why they never really went after Bin Laden.
I hope with all my heart that would never be found to be true.
I personally believe that every covered record, tape and piece of video…recorded phone calls, messages, emails, faxes, text messages…and everything else used to imprint messages on…or 
engendered dialogue…including documents…should be thoroughly gone over by some high commission seeking illegal irregularities by the Bush Administration…pacifically the lying and untruthful behavior of now ex-Commander and Chief, George Bush, and his bully, Dick Cheney. And they should be dragged before some court or tribunal to face charges of some sort…if for nothing else but for all the lives which have been lost and the families destroyed by an illegal war that 
not only devastated a country but the world economy…as well as, our own.
What a herculean mess the previous administration has left behind.
From 4.2% under Bill Clinton…to 7.6% unemployment by the time George Bush left the White House.
The number of Americans living in poverty when Clinton left the White House under 33 million…by time Bush left White House 37.3 million.
When George Bush went into the White House…Clinton had left it the country with a $128 billion surplus…while George left us with a deficit…of $1.3 trillion.
So, how dare Dick Cheney sit around on the sidelines now…sipping his champagne and smoking his big Cuban cigars chirping like a canary over what the Obama Administration should be doing…and is now doing…calling it ‘a risk’…in trying to bring this country out of the Bush/Cheney mess…and to get this country back on track again.
Who put us here…where we are today?
Inflated gas prices…highest ever in the history of America. Unprecedented number of home foreclosures. Failed economy…massive job losses…daily bodies flying back from Iraq…corporate thief…Enron…Bear Sterns…Halliburton…war…inflated cost of living…etc…etc…etc…etc…etc…
If only Dick Cheney could have been but so wise in the advise he was shoving down his fellow Texan’s throat…while they both were sitting in the White House.
Who put us here?
And then want to question how Obama is running the country?
Are you kidding me?
I know exactly where Obama is trying to take this country. OUT OF THE MESS THAT YOU GUYS PUT US IN…that’s where.
Thank you, Condi Rice…tell Cheney to put a lid on it again…and again…
He seems to be the type who just can’t seem to stop talking.
I can’t stand big fat hypocrites. Particularly, when the hypocrites are the ones to blame.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/15/cheney.interview/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/15/cheney.interview/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
How could something like this happen?
On their way rushing to the hospital they get stopped by the police in the parking lot of the hospital while leaping from their vehicle trying to rush inside the hospital.
A cop tells them to stop prohibiting them from going inside. He tells them that they ran 
a red light…all this mind you while they had their red hazard lights flashing while rushing to the hospital.
The officer is told over and over and over…”my mother-in-law is dying.”
To which the officer acts as though he is making an ordinary…what they call a routine traffic stop. And he did so without any kind of concern or consideration regarding the situation of his captives. Well, that is what they were to him…because that is what he acted like with regard to them. He acted as though there was no type of any emergency…and that Ryan Moats was just out joy riding to the hospital.
All the pleading and trying to get the police officer to understand…it all fell upon death ears. He could have cared less…as you hear in the video because he turned a deaf hear to everything that Moats was saying to him.
The cop threatens to arrest him…tells him that he is going to tow his car…etc. But the cop does everything but attempt to even try to comprehend…or make any sense out of the situation…as to what is being told him. Nor did he offer any help or assistance to the family members of the vehicle of near death mother as they tried rushing to her bed side.
How had this scene might have played out differently…if…
If the occupants of vehicle had not been African Americans but some other race…namely white?
The officer might have ran into the hospital with them. Maybe…
He might have been a lot more understanding and helpful to them…probably.
But I doubt that the above scenarios…and the way that it actually happened did get played out as it did because of…who they were…or are. They were black…African Americans. This officer saw their color…and paid no attention to their situation…or anything else.
And the police chief’s apology wasn’t much better. Near the end of his apology…he states that to the credit of NFL player Ryan Moats–
“At no time did Mr. Moats state that he was a NFL football player. Or expect any special consideration.”
What kind of statement was that?
Was that meant to be a compliment?
It is all on tape.
Historian John Hope Franklin…didn’t know him and never heard of him before. But just read something about him…how he had a way of telling 
our history. It really made me feel like I would have liked to have known him. Would have loved to have heard his name before now…and certainly would have loved to have heard him lecture on our history. There had been a time when I couldn’t read enough on it.
http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/franklin/3050019
There is something about our history that amazes me. So, many many stories…as varied as the people. Stories of lives shattered… broken… and often torn…and yet many victorious. Stories of a peole who were really a mixture of various people…thrown into chains…transported on ships…carried across the Atlantic…to stand upon auction blocks…and herded like cattle.
Yet, they were able to turn scraps into meals…later called Soul Food. Messages into songs…that later transformed into gospel, blues and R&B. People who turned hardship into culture. People meant to have not to survived…but did. Kind of like the stories of the blankets infected with smallpox given to the American Indians. They weren’t suppose to survive either.
I guess that is kind of why I cried when I saw them riding…strong and tall upon their horses…all dressed up in their traditional headdresses and everything…in the parade for Barack Obama on Inaugural Day. That was special. What a sight they were…just like all of us who flocked to D.C. to see…to hear…to cheer…and to cry as we bared witnessed to the dawn of a new American era.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/03/26/pn.anchor.death.cnn?iref=mpvideosview
Wow…I wish I had heard him. Had known of a place where he had been lecturing…or had booked him myself.
Now, that I have had an opportunity to find more info on Dr. Franklin…I had heard and seen him once. He was on Charlie Rose…a show I used to love to watch…at a time when I used to watch television.
They said he had a gift…a gift for telling our history. Wow…I sho’ wish I could have heard that. Not much of it going around any more. Soon, I guess it will all be dead…all our real history…dead and gone…buried when all our elders have all gone to their graves. Because nobody will be left carrying it on. Nobody studying it…nobody who thinks that it is now still important…or relavent.
So, now…almost all of the African American Studies departments have been done away with…removed…squashed…vacated…because “ain’t nobody taking the classes no ways.” Yeah, because they need to make room for all of this new stuff…like the history of rapp. ..and hip-hop.
No one taking an interest…too busy thinking about rapp…hip-hop…and baby/mama drama. I hear those classes are jam packed.
Or maybe we should wait on others…others to come and pick it up for us…and start claiming it for their own. Like they came and picked up jazz. That was on its way out too. It was dying as the masters began to die. And would have been dead too…ifin’ they hadn’t.
Our history in this country sprang up out of the toil and sweat…and out of bearing chains in this 
country…and there is no reason why we should ever let the memory of those who walked before us…and broke those chains die. Nor our history prior to slavery ever be forgotten…which so few of us know little if anything about.
Teach it!
Preach it!
Recite it!
Pass it on to your children…because a tree without roots will fade away. Strengthen the roots.
Don’t let it die. It is far too important for our children…and the legacy we leave behind.
I had said to myself-
“You are going to go home and go to sleep early tonight.”
And I did get in early.
And I did shower and get ready for bed.
But then I started writing this blog…and here I am at almost ll:30 PM…and I got in before 5. And I am still not finish yet.
Eleven Native American tribes from all across the country participated in the ceremonies celebrating Obama’s Presidency by marching…or riding if you will…in the inaugural parade and various other events that day and week in Washington, DC.
God bless…
Thank you for reading this blog…and my others. Please be sure to continue to share this blog site with your family, co-workers and all your friends… “pass it on “
www.bsmith101.wordpress.com ©2009
http://www.aaanativearts.com/article1632.html
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Indians-on-the-Inaugural-March.html
3 comments March 27, 2009
Making the most of my day… Mothership and Parenting… Michelle O’ working soup kitchen line…
I must say…if I have to say so myself…that I am so proud of me today. Oh…I mean this morning. I do not know what time I got up but by the time I laid back down…it was only 7:57 AM.
I got up and had my Cream of Wheat. And yes…I am still enjoying it. I had me a cup of tea…and read my Bible and then laid back down. A few minutes later…perhaps an hour later…I got up again. I pulled out my bucket…got the scrub brush…and pulled out the cleaners and scrubbed down the kitchen again…then I hit the doors and wall in the small hall leading towards the bathroom. I sprayed down and lightly scrubed down the bathroom…and left it 
soaking.
Wow…yeah…. I think I should be proud of myself…and it is not even noon yet.
There is something about getting up early. You will get so much more done for some reason or another…if you get up and get started early. There is just something about getting up early…there really is. I do not know what…but that makes you work a little bit quicker and harder…and you just acheve more. And now I feel so good. And so…so proud of myself for taking care of my parent’s house in their absence. For me having gotten up early today..and gotten started the very first thing this morning.
I have been busy working on building my website for the past couple of weeks…and the pages are coming along well. I am really impressed with the pages that I have created thus far. A few years ago I decided to begin taking some graphic arts classes.
When I was in New York and started my own homebased business, an advertising agency, Queen Bee Multi-Media Advertising Agency. I used to hire students from the campus right around the corner from my apartment…Pratt Institute, to do artwork for me. Pratt has a very high reputation as a good art school…which I never knew at the time…but the students on that campus turned out some fantastic work for me. I never went to see a client without feeling proud of our presentations which they had prepared under, of course, my direction.
I represented schools, furniture stores, boutiques, concert promoters etc… There is little about advertising that I do not know about…having also a history in radio sales, media buying, telemarketing, product placement…etc…etc…etc… But I had always had an artistic bug.
When I was a child, I had begged and begged my mother to buy me a home study art school course. After begging for some time my mother finally broke 
down and ordered it for me. That home study art school cost $300…and my mother ordered it for me. As much as I begged for it…I only did one lesson of that course.
Eventually, I gave away one of the books…of which there had been 3. They were very big and thick…in a large binder…bound in expensive red binding filled with my untouched drawing lessons…and I gave away one of the 3 large lesson books and never touched those books again. Something that my mother had sacrificed to buy for me…and that I had begged and begged for it. And I did nothing with it…short of giving it away…and back then $300 was an awful lot of money…that really had to have been a sacrifice. But she did it for me.
I guess she always recognized that I had talent…that I was gifted. Though she would have done no less for any of my other sisters or brothers…and did. As 
we all had to take music lessons…and all had various interests. She had bought us all our own instrutments which she had purchased for us one Christmas.
I will never forget that Christmas…which was our musical Christmas. My mother must have bought everything the music store had. Whoever owned that music store must have loved her. That Christmas morning when we awoke…we found a large electric keyboard, piano, drum set, guiatar & amp and accordian all up under our Christmas tree.
Before the day was out I had mastered that keyboard and could play several songs on it. The next day that keyboard was gone. My 
mother replaced it was a real full size organ. I think back on that now and believe that she did it…because it had posed no real challenge in order to learn. Today both the piano and the organ are still here in the house with me…and nobody plays a note on them. That is not to say that they cannot play them…they just do not bother to do so.
My father, who had a saxaphone, a ukalie and a trumpet…which you could hear him practicing on sometimes late at night…he made me play the accordian. When he would come home from work…I would have to pull it out after he ate dinner that is when he forced me to practice…night after night. None of my sisters or brothers had to practice anything before him…but me. And he always would fall asleep on me.
The accordian which was under the Christmas tree was my 2nd accordian. It was the bigger version of what they had already gotten for me before a year or so ago. And I went out every week to accordian lessons for years.
I hated the accordian. I loathe pokas. I wanted to play the piano…and in the beginning I had both piano and accordian lessons. But daddy wanted me to play the accordian…and we never argued against my mother or my father’s wishes. So, then my piano lessons were stopped.
As I stated in an earlier blog…our piano teacher was also my mother’s voice instructor…a little white woman who used to pay a couple of visits per week to our home…Mrs. Marlow. She was a very nice lady…and she knew her stuff. We were fortunate to have her. And that she didn’t mind coming to the home of black folks…though we lived well. At that time my parents had bought their 2nd house. This house had 15 rooms not including its full basement…and the 
house sat upon a hill overlooking the waterfront…with a long driveway leading in to our house.
I liked the house…but not as much as our other house. But it was grand…and it was spacious…but it was far more for us to clean…and especially for me…being the oldest.
Oh, man…the living room had windows all the way around so you could look across at the water no matter whether you stood or sat. And it had a very big fireplace…where we used to roast marshmellows…as though we were at camp. It was fun. And that house also had a raspberry tree growing in front of it, with a big lawn and all these beautiful trees with branchs swirling within it that yielded beautiful blossoms in the spring and summer.
I liked it…but it was a lot of work that house…and none of my sisters or brothers had to do more of it than me. I never held that against my parents though. But I did against my sisters and brothers though. They could never just drink from ‘one’ cup…or ‘one’ glass…I was washing dishes all day and night long. I truly know how Cinderella felt.
My parents were hard working people…who always did things for 
other people…and were always doing for us. Their lives centered around us. Which is why I regret never appreciating them as much as I should have.
I appreciated them…in that I never once caused them any problems…(well…except for the time I thought I could drive…I will tell you about that in some other blog, I am sure). I can’t say I may not have been a heartache…because I am sure that my being gay was not something hard for them to deal with…though they never once spoke about it. I am sure they would be surprised that I am no longer in gay life. But perhaps they had already known that at some point God was going to change my mind and my heart.
But I never gave them as much as I should have. Though they gave us the world…and everything else. There was nothing new that came out that they didn’t buy…from dishwashers on. As we became of age they bought us all cars. And we were always going on trips.
We went to the World Fair…
Do you remember that?
It was here in the states…in New York City that year. Now, only the big globe of the world remains at that site as a reminder of that very huge event. The location today is where they play the US Open.
But we were going to this place and that place…by train mostly when we were smaller…as we grew and learned to drive…mostly by car…and on by plane. They took us everywhere…and everything was a family thing.
I guess they lived the life that people who work…live for. To be able to buy whatever they wanted…when they wanted it…and to do as they wanted. And then…to be able to educate and provide for their children…which they certainly did. And they did it well…as well as, for their god children, neighborhood kids, church people…and those in need.
My parents had 8 of us…and spared nothing…including correcting us when it was called for.
Today, I think my mother would be proud to know that her $300 investment in me…really didn’t quite go wasted. As I later taught art in high school…which is so funny that should have happened…but it did. But I don’t think my mother saw any humor in my wasting her $300 the way I did…because I didn’t even try to pretend to do any of those lessons from that home art school once I got pass the 1st lesson.
One day…I think I was asking her for something else and she flared up at me suddenly saying-
“You are too talented and that is why you will never do nothing.”
Which was the tail end of whatever else she had said…I cannot remember the first part of it. But she was mad when she said it. And I was quite young…but somehow that always stuck with me. I don’t know if I quite understood what she meant…but I had somewhat of a clue. That statement has made me look at everything I have ever done…or thought to do…and it governs the things I am now doing.
Everything I have ever done is in media. From that day…when my mother told me …‘that is why you will never do nothing’…I have sought to not half learn anything…or half do anything…but to become proficient in everything I lay my hands to…no matter how long it takes me…or how many hours in a day or night. But if I set out to do it…then to stick with it.
I had to learn how spend the time learning to perfect things. To not get up from anything that I am doing…becoming readily interested in other things…other gifts…practicing something else.
I do not eat or drink when I am working on something. Nor do I take lunch breaks…or go to the bathroom…nothing. I am throughly engulfed.
Someone, an ex-, told me that I have tunnel vision. Meaning whatever it is, at that point or moment of my life, that I decide that I am going to do…I become so emerged and engrossed in it. So much so…that I only see it…think about it…and in some cases dream about it. I eat…sleep…and drink thinking about only what I am doing…when I am working on something. When I had my advertising business…which I still do…there have been many nights when a client’s project concept came to me in my sleep.
A wise elderly woman…my friend who passed this pass August…whom I have wrote about in a couple of these blogs…she told me that my habit of not eating or going to bathroom from morning into the very late hours of the evening was not a good thing. She told me that I would ruin my stomach…if I continued that practice. So, I have since been working on adjusting myself…my schedule and my body. I would hate to cause myself any medical conditions that I could have avoided. I had always found her wise in her counsel to me.
Yes, I was too talented…like my mother said. I could do a lot of things…and still can. And there is a trap to being able to do so. Most people are good at just one thing. So, they focus on that one thing. But to be multi-talented or gifted…you have to struggle with balancing your gifts.
I had to learn to direct all those gifts…or I would have become a ‘jack of all trades…and a master of none.’
My mother saw that…and that is what caused her to flare up at me telling me what she did that day…and how she told it to me. From that moment I began to focus upon everything I do…like these blogs which to date I have written nearly if not more…than a 130 of them since starting in mid to late June of last year. So, if you have just started reading them…you have alot of catching up to do. And you will have an exam in the morning…
I have always had to direct everything…just so I wouldn’t be all over the place. Though I do not think I have quite been so successful at doing that…I have endeavored nonetheless. But the most I can say…is that it has all been media related. But thank God for my mother saying that to me…and at a time when I needed to hear it…or I would have never been aware of something that was so crucial for me to grasp…and to have graspped it early.
It did not prohibit me from being more or less talented. But made me aware that I needed to channel those talents and not be flighty with them…but to engage them…focus them…and develop them to their highest levels. So, through my years that is what I have been doing. And from time to time…I find myself taking classes here or there…just like my mother.
That is so funny…when I think of. That I continue to take classes just like my mother…which is also something that I wrote about….in a blog or 2 prior to this one.
So, a few years ago, I decided to take some graphic art classes. The marketplace has changed so vastly with the influx of computers and software…everything is done totally differently today no matter
what field you are in. So, I began taking these classes…and when I take classes I invest many after hours outside of the class to master the thing.
I do nothing without mastering it…and I invest the time to do exactly that…and the effort. Which when I decided to learn video production… it required me lugging around tons of heavy and very bulky equipment. It was not uncoummon to find me shouldering a 3/4″ video recorder deck, tripod, large light kit and large video camera trying to board a bus. And people wonder why I have muscles now…(smile). And I learned all that equipment…every piece of it…every cable connector…every cable…every kind of editing system, software etc…everything.
It was a joke then…people would see me coming and say-
“Here comes Spike Lee’s sister.”
They don’t laugh any more though. No, not today…instead they ask about my film projects and what I’m getting ready to do next. I am no longer a joke…but it did not come without struggle. Hours upon hours of vested time, training, exploring…learning what I was doing wrong and trying to trouble shoot on my own…and sitting there until I got it done. Never looking for pay…but always looking to assist others so that I could learn more and sharpen my own skills. But I did what it took…and I still do.
Sometimes even in writing these blogs…I work on them straight for more than 6 or 10 hours…if not more…and it is usually more dependng upon what I am writing about…including searching for pictures…seeking out errors etc.
A professional is what I am…but a perfectionist is what I seek to be.
So, to date the classes I have taken in graphic arts are these…Photoshop, Quark and Illustrator…and additional software I have learned is FinalCut, Adobe Primere, Director, Flash, Dreamweaver, Avid, Fireworks…not to mention being able to write and read html…and having learned also all the latest stuff in radio studios. Though I played a bit with Freehand and at some point will try my hand at InDesign. I love playing with this stuff…exploring the capabilities.
So, I am proud of myself for having gotten up early this morning and gotten off to an early start with my cleaning. I am proud that the website is coming along too. And here is a preview , at the bottom of this blog, of something which I did this past week using the skills I have learned in graphic arts. Those Pratt students can eat their hearts out now. But those kids taught me a lot though…when they used to come for our conferences to discuss what my clients wanted.
Thank God for my mother and father…which is why I cannot understand that girl in Florida who killed her daughter and posted drawings of skeltons and other things symbolizing her acts. Clearly, she was troubled. But a guilty conscience will trouble you everytime.
There is something about mothers…real mothers…that when their child is missing nothing in this world can contain them. They act in a certain way…they become obssessed…and there is no consoling 
them. They are overtaken by grief and concern…and they are not interested in anybody or anything other than finding their child.
Once my son got separated from me. You will not know the sheer horror that ran all through me during that very brief span of time…but it seemed to me to be enternity. I was terribly horrorified. I was overcome and on verge of perhaps loosing my mind. I had lost my child in a large crowd of people at an outdoor affair which was quite crowded. One second he was right there with me and the next he was gone.
I felt someone had stolen him. And that was all I could think. I did not know which way to turn. People were all about me. I thought to scream out…but suddenly I looked up and across the field. It was as though a path had opened up…and there was my son. One of our neighbors had found him somewhere in the midst of all those people…and was bringing him back to me.
I dropped to my knees and embraced my son so hard…I know I must have been crying. I was so relieved…so happy…so overjoyed that someone had found him…and that it was one of our neighbors. I never experienced another moment like that…as I learned like every good mother who loves her child or children…how to keep my eyes or hands on my child at all times.
So, I certainly know the state that a real mother can fall into just believing her child is gone. She begins grieving immediately…because she will only think of the worst scenario.
That is what I thought about the Susan Smith case. The mother down in South Carolina…or somewhere south…that said that some black man had leaped into her car while she was stopped at a stop light. She said that he had stolen her car and drove off with her 2 small children in the back seat. I do not think that many people had to think twice about that story…but it was her actions following the supposed incident which gave her away. And likewise…were the actions of this young woman in Florida. She was out partying and having a good time.
http://news.aol.com/article/caylee-anthony-documents/373178
When I thought of this young woman’s actions following the supposed disappearance of her 2 year old daughter…it made me think of that teenager who was at the prom and gave birth to her baby in a bathroom stall. And how she had walked off and left the bady there in that stall. She had returned to prom dance floor…and continued to dance and enjoy herself as if nothing had happened. For which she only got 2 years…or something…might have been counselling.
I understand denial. I understand that mothership may be difficult for many. But what I do not understand is when someone…a mother…or who be it…commits such acts as these young women against innocence. I cannot understand it. I just can’t…I just can’t… There are so many other options.
Parenting is a process…but some people they are just not equipped or mature enough to handle the responsibilities that it brings. This is the reason…that I know that young kids should never be bearing children. Everybody deserves to enjoy their youth…and have a time to grow up before taking on the task of motherhood and fatherhood way beyond the grade school level…and many times even beyond college. I was 48 years old before I realized that I had become a woman…and that I needed to grow up and start acting like one. Truthfully.
Not to say…that I did not mother my child. Oh, no… I was at doctor’s appointment, dentist appointment…sitting in the back of of my son’s classes when I had to…at every open house almost…and when I wasn’t my mother was. You have to stay on top of your children (just a frame of speech…not literally)…and certainly not in a bad way. But you have be conscious of them…what they are doing…who they are with…caring of them…and for them. And you should never feel that they are an inconvenience to you…and 
certainly never give them to feel that.
Therein lays the problem for the 3 young women whom I mentioned above. They felt that they could just rid themselves of their unwanted burdens by doing away with them. How sad for their children. How very very very sad…….. Sad.
I was checking through my blogs today…I watch to see what people are reading and who has linked up with me etc… I came upon this link in which the blogger found fault with a person who was standing in a soup kitchen line…and that person having a cell phone. The blogger felt outraged because the person was supposed to be down and out…yet he had a cell phone.
I found that to be as selfish…as a time I was waiting in the grocery checkout line. I never pay attention to what other people are 
buying…but this person near me…I believe she was just ahead of me but after the person who was checking out. I overheard her saying-
“Did you see that? She’s buying shrimps with foodstamps. And do you see her pocketbook? Honestly, buying shrimps on our money.”
Overhearing that, my curiosity was pricked…so I leaned a bit and saw that the woman had a Louis Vuitton handbag…a very nice and big one…and very nice expensive coat. These are things I 
also never pay attention to. What do I care about what people have on…as long as they have on clothes…or what type of pocketbook or handbag they have?
It doesn’t make a difference to me.
But I thought it a bit aburd of that the woman making the comment…that she was upset about the shrimps being purchased with the government supplied foodstamps.
Now, how stupid is that?
Even if she had gotten upset over the woman’s handbag…that would have been stupid too.
But she got upset…as if poor people can’t…or should not be allowed to eat shrimp. And that is not to say that that woman was poor…as none of us standing in that line knew her circumstances. But to question what people can or cannot eat depending upon what is or is not our preceived notion of them and as to their place or circumstances in life is absolutely foolish.
Why should that woman in that line…or anyone else in that line…or the whole store, for that matter…care whether or not that woman paid for those shrimps with her foodstamps?
Or whether or not she should eat shrimps or not?
She can eat whatever she wants. And she had legal tender by which to purchase it.
Perhaps, it is just me. Maybe, I’m the one obssessing. Could be…
But I think that some people concern themselves with so many things that really…that they have no right to be thinking about. As it is simply not their concern…or any of their business…nor their place to assess who can eat or cannot eat whatever.
Just how dumb is that?
But that is how I felt about that blog about a supposed poor person standing in a soup kitchen line taking a picture with his cell phone. And here is that picture…
Yeah, he was standing in a line that Michelle Obama, First Lady Obama, was assisting in at a shelter 
kitchen feeding needy people in Washington, DC…which I believe she does every Friday. I imagine a bunch of people were taking her picture including the camera crew that got these shots. If I was there…I would have taken her picture. And then asked her-
“Can we get one together?”
And whoever wrote that blog probably would have done the same thing.
How many times do you come face to face with the President of the United States…or his wife?
“Better start snapping, baby.”
But why should anyone feel that other people…black… checkered….green…poor… or otherwise are not entitled to have certain things?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/05/at_miriams_kitchen_michelle_ob.html
That really seems stupid and quite selfish to me…and certanly demeaning.
It is the way I feel when I hear someone say-
“Well, if they couldn’t afford the mortgage they shouldn’t have bought the house.”
And I have heard this more than a few times…particularly following the last bailout of the banks on Wall Street.
Did not your parents struggle?
Don\’t we all struggle to pay off stuff?
Most people do. And they are not wrong to do it.
I believe that everyone wishes they had the money to buy and pay for everything that they want…when they want it…or need it. But that is not how life is.
The unfortunate thing about it…is that no one knows what tomorrow will bring. And we are all looking towards tomorrow.
When I looked upon house after house..and business after business boarded up in Detroit…I know that those people had been looking towards tomorrow. But none of them realized that when tomorrow came it would mean that jobs would be cut back. They did not see that the company they worked for…that their father and grand father had worked before them…that they would be downsizing or laying them off. Or as they call it now…’re-organizing.’
Who thinks like that?
.html&usg=__3aZP5NkLF75E00IrvvgXP-Kjc-Q=&h=100&w=133&sz=5&hl=en&start=8&um=1&tbnid=trSE7NI5gntjGM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=92&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpictures%2Bof%2Bcitifinancial%2Blogo%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1)
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
$789 Billion reached… its February…
At last they have reached an agreement on the stimulus bill which will 
hopefully create jobs and get this economy back up and running. Though I must admit to not being one of those who was hit by the problems going on with the economy…I must always say that I am concerned about others.
Many people did suffer and are suffering because the economy took a deep plunge under George W. Bush. I doubt whether gasoline prices will ever get back down to $.99…but it would be nice.
Wouldn’t it?
We take so much for granted until it is gone. We never knew just how good we had it until gas prices at the pump started getting over 
$3.00…and when they neared $4.00…and did hit $4.00 and over in some places…we suddenly realized the party was over.
Food prices went up…everything…you name it and it all went up…due to some lousy war in Iraq that nobody wanted in the first place but George Bush and his people. If the after-effect could have been seen before hand I doubt that little ol’ George would have stood a chance at getting that war started. Well…maybe I should take that back.
The fact is…is that there were some pretty greedy people pushing for that war. You saw them at the Republican National 
Convention…they were holding up signs that read ‘prosperity.’
You do remember seeing those signs all actively displayed around the
Republican National Convention floor this past August? Many of those very people realized what the outcome was going to be…long before hand. In fact, they were hoping for it.and began buying like crazy whatever they could on the stock market. They care about nothing… but… prosperity …at any cost.
They went into the stock market and started buying up everything that had to do with heating, utility companies, insulating, home improving, coal mining, oil drilling, trucking, food…etc. Oh, they saw it coming…and they knew it would come big. So, what did they do…they pushed for the war.
They were going to go into Iraq and squander it…rob it…pillage it…destroy those museums and take every artifact, painting, golden vessel and piece of pottery they could find…and smuggle it out of that country.
Then they were going to set themselves up as the saviors and peacekeepers of the place…while all the while looting it and the American taxpayers too with bogus invoices…and double billing ploys…while thousands of American people innocent sons and daughters lost their lives fighting in a senseless war brought about by greed.
It did not make sense for the United States of America to arbitrarily begin a preempted strike on Iraq…when all the world was against it
and most of the American people. Iraq had not done anything to us. Nor were we under threat by them.
What?
For a man and his 2 sons. Two ton bombs were unleashed upon those people, their homes, their businesses, their infrastructure, their schools 
etc…night after night upon building after building.
That could not have been about Saddam Hussein and his 2 boys. It was
greater than them…it had to be. The expense and tally was too great to just desire to depose a tyrant and his sons.
Could it have all been for profit?
As Barack Obama came into office as President of the United States…72 hours later Blackwater pulled out of Iraq…and the others are following. And a country is being left in devastation.
I have heard somewhere about how ‘leaving something in a better state 
than when you found it.’
The state of the Iraqi people has 
changed…but many would argue whether or not it is a better state than when George Bush and his boys went into it.
So, yes…I am happy that the Senate has finally stopped hemming and hawing. Everybody is trying to make some points…it is so…so…like politicians. The Republicans held it up…so the Democrats couldn’t get the credit…when they knew all the time that they were going to have to pass the stimulus package or else face the music again come another election period.
You would think those dog gone Republicans would learn.
They can stop the band…but they can’t stop the music.
Hooray, for the passage of Obama’s stimulus package. Now, maybe some of these companies will not have to continue to lay people off or fire them. Jobs are very much needed…they help to pay the bills. And they are good when you want to go somewhere…you’ll have money to do it with.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congress_stimulus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/us/politics/12stimulus.html_r=1&hp
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11990303&ch=4226716&src=news
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3089379.stm
Well, First Lady Michelle Obama will grace the cover of Vogue magazine next month (March)…making her only the 2nd First Lady to do so.
I have been trying to find a picture somewhere on the internet…but alas…to no avail.
I has to be out on newsstands by now…not to mention out in the mailboxes of thousands who subscribe.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/10/AR2009021001579.html?hpid=topnews
February is just one of those months…I suppose that much of it has to do with the passing of my mother during the first of this month some years ago…as to why I tend to be quiet and rarely have much to say. I had been wondering why I had so much to do…and seemed to not want to do any of it. I had forgotten that it was February.
Even with these blogs by this time during a regular month I would have done at least 4 to 5 of them already…but this is only my second since the month
has begun. Oh, I am not as bad as I used to be…there was a time not so long ago either that every month and every day was just like the day she had passed. Even my being able to form and shape the word ‘passed’…in my mouth or mind in connection to my mother is something new for me. I could never put the 2 words together…‘she passed’ for years upon years.
I never wanted to accept that she was…was…was gone.
I am who I am because I was given the very best of everything by God. I had the best mother…and the best father.
My parents never discussed with me the fact that I was gay. There was never a mention of it…though they knew. I had bought most of my girlfriends by the house…so, they had met some of them. But they never discussed anything about gayness or gay people with me. They never called anyone names…or talked negatively about anything.
When I called home from Chicago…to tell my mother that I was pregnant. Yes…gay me…pregnant. It is a rather long story…but in short it happened because I became depressed over loosing a lover. I began thinking that maybe the life (gay life) was not for me. So, I decided I would try the other side. And the one time I did…BAM. I was pregnant.
Being gay I was very naive about straight life. I would have never have thought about protection or anything like that…because… Well, because I had never had a boyfriend…and had never dated in my life until I got into gay life…which was sometime during the age of 25. And I had my son when I was 28.
I must say that I am a strong advocate for ‘pro-choice.’ Without choice I may have chosen differently. I did think about abortion…even called 
the abortion hotline. But when that lady started talking about ‘full anesthesia’ or ‘partial anesthesia.’ And I thought if it was going to hurt either way…then I might as well have the baby.
So, much for my analytical process at that time. But I thank God…I made the right choice. I could not image life without my son…who is the best thing that ever happened to me. And he is definitely a far better person than his mother…honestly.
So, I called home and I tell my mother. I don’t even know what I said…or how I phrased it or whether I just came right out and said it. Nor can I remember what my mother said to me upon hearing that. I am sure that perhaps she may have believed that I might not ever have any children…as I was gay.
Nor can I remember how long it took me to pick up the phone to call my parents to tell them that I was pregnant. I had to have been months…because I knew that they would be disappointed.
But I remember what my father said upon my arrival home during my 7th month of pregnancy…after my mother had sent one of my sisters to Chicago to bring me home.
My father said-
“Now, you will never be alone.”
That was the extent of it.
“Now, you will never be alone.”
He was right. I am not alone. I am now the matriarch of our family…which continues to grow even in their absence. And they would proud.
But during the entire period of my mother’s lifetime…I had never shown 
much interest as an older child or an adult child in church or church matters. I rarely went…and was so happy when I finally moved out of my parent’s house…just so I wouldn’t have to continue going to church.
Today, the church is my whole focus. I can’t imagine what my mother would say. But I know she would smile and be happy. Because it is true…it is what you put into your children that matters. Yes, they may wander but somehow…what was pour into them when they were young will surface in their lives at some point.
It’s February…Black History Month…and as tears stream out of my 
eyes as I write this thinking about my mother. I am so thankful for those who walked before us…they poured something in…and today it has surfaced. Many years of insults and 
degradation. But today…the number one person in the world is a black man. I am so happy…that my nieces, my nephews…my
son…and us…we are all here to bare witness to this time in American History.
Pictured above is…the grave stone of Benjamin Banneker, Dr. Charles Drew and Dr. George Washington Carver. You can CLICK on the LINK right below to find out as to who they are, their accomplishments and those of other black people in American History.
It is February…
The weather has broken for a spell…and we are getting a break from the 
cold…the ice and the snow. The sun has been shining for the past 2 days so lots of snow has been melting. But today…was absolutely beautiful. It felt like spring. And the house has not been quite as cold. I look forward to spring…I actually love all the seasons. Winter…spring…summer…and fall…
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
CLICK LINK BELOVE to trailer to Michael Moore’s lastest film on the bank bailout.
http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie-trailers/?g=f359d88a-4848-43c3-be13-bf505c57cc30>1=28101
Add a comment February 12, 2009
True to his word…Let the Presidency begin..
Already getting started President Obama signed the order to close Guantanamo Bay, 
the high security prison housed on the shores of Cuba…where thousands of detainees had been stored and warehoused since post-9/11…not to mention where they had been tortured by the Bush Administration.
Obama also ordered a review of all the trials and then placed a banned upon the harsh methods of interrogation used to extract 
information from detainees within that prison.
http://news.aol.com/?feature=310532
The behavior of the Bush Administration concerning enemy combatants and those 
thought 
to be enemy combatants…or possessing information went against the Geneva Convention concerning the handling and treatment of detainees, combatants and non-combatants. The time has long been overdue for Bush’s policies regarding such matters to change…and the standards lifted once again as to how America carries herself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012102009.html
The problem, however, that arises with the closing of Guantanamo Bay is what to do with all those angry prisoners?
And, yes…I can see them being very angry…particularly those who may have been housed 
in that high security prison system for years now…who may have been innocent of any wrong doing. But are now more than ready to blow America to smittereens due to what happened to them. That is what a bunch of bad policies can do. It creates long time and hardened hatred…and lasting enemies
Two semesters ago I had to pay a visit to the court house in regards to some family matters. While before the judge…I was ordered to put my hands behind my back. I could not imagine what was going on.
They were arresting me…and the charge was… Well… ‘Not serving Jury Duty.’
The only problem here was…was that I had served my jury duty. Not only there but in New York a couple of years earlier.
I protested before the court. I called it an ‘outrage.’
I called it an ‘injustice.’
I proclaimed my innocence.
But no one heard me. In fact, they took my actions for a joke.
I was outraged.
I was enraged….I was mad…insulted…and had been made to be embarrassed.
And I knew while I sat down in that cold jail cell after they un-handcuffed me and bent to remove the shackles…that that day was going to be revisited. And I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Because yes…I had already made up in my mind that I was going to sue them.
So, I can understand the outrage and anger of people treated badly or unfairly…and those even treated in such as way…without due cause. You don’t forget.
http://news.aol.com/article/obama-signs-order-to-close-guantanamo-in/314749?cid=12
Well, Hillary Clinton is looking happier these days…and certainly more confident. And 
there is little wonder. Today she was sworn in as Secretary of State.
Though Hillary was indeed truly a heated contender in her fight to the White House…it is evident that the President saw something in her. Perhaps he admired her aggressiveness…or maybe her doggit determination. I imagine that these type of qualities are much needed when dealing various world leaders and other big time politicans. If so…then she certainly has all the right credentials.
…and in a vote of 18 to 5 of the Senate Finance Committee Timothy Geithner was approved as consideration as Treasury Secretary of the United States of America. Now, his confirmation goes up for a full Senate vote in order for him to take over that position.
http://news.aol.com/article/clinton-takes-the-reins-at-state/314201?cid=12
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-clinton,1,3732593.story
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/clinton
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11658795&ch=4226716&src=news
Caroline Kennedy has withdrawn her name from consideration as the replacement for Hillary Clinton’s old Senate seat, as the Senator from New York. Though the Governor of 
New York, David Patterson, had been toying with who his decision would fall upon…he has now allowed too much time to slip by. What seems to me…should have been a fairly easy decision by way of choice…he now longer has.
Having spent much of her younger years growing up on 5th Avenue in New York…I am sure that Caroline would have brought much to the State of New York. Whatever the reason…it is New York’s great lost. Too bad it was not seized upon earlier…it might have made a difference.
Boy, it is amazing that little Carline Kennedy is now 51 years old. Seems only like yesterday when she and her brother, John, were the 2 little kids in the White House.
http://news.aol.com/article/kennedy-associate-says-decision-was/287640?cid=12
CLICK on this LINK BELOW to see how Obama’s team is shaping up and where they currently stand in the process of their confirmations.
http://projects.nytimes.com/44th_president/new_team
I bought an IBM computer a few years back…but haven’t seen any more of them around since. So, I knew that IBM had folded her hand in the desktop business. But who knows what IBM sells any more?
UNIX…Servers…LINUX…Power Systems…massive digital storage systems…
So, I guess IBM is still pretty much in the computer industry…and as they have pretty much have been in the past…more corporate use…and less commercial consumer use. Maybe, IBM needs to get it’s feet back into the everyday consumer market again.
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 January 22, 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/
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
More Dexter King drama 5…Thanksgiving jetlag…
That Dexter King is a greedy little boy.
What I have never liked about some people…I really have a distaste for people…grown children who can’t make it through this world without living on others…namely their parents.
They have been educated…sent off to school. But still they can’t make it on their own. Or maybe they don’t want to. They want everything that the parent has got…and actively set out to get it. And many times while the parent is yet alive.
They desire to live off their parents…be it on the memory of their parents…on their parents earnings…or financial resources…or businesses. Whatever it 
is…and however it is. They seek to do it. If the parent has a business which the parent got started then the child decides they will take it over. And they (if more than one child) set about removing the parent.
That whole removing thang…is really the main problem. Because if an aging parent is not careful the child or children will remove their name from off of their own bank accounts (the parent’s name from the parent’s bank account)…and off everything else if they can.
And I am not crazy. It is true.
I have seen it first hand and have had documentation of it.
Over time the chid takes over handling all the parent’s personal business…the putting in or pulling money out of the bank for the parent. They start writing the checks drawn against the parent’s bank account…at first supposedly taking care of the parent’s bills for them. Which at first all might seem helpful and quite loving and attentive of the child. And it may even be very convenient for the parent. But parents beware.
It is a set-up for disaster.
It is the biggest mistake any parent can make. Before they know it nothing is their’s anymore…everything has been changed. And the child has taken over.
The parent will be standing around wondering how did it all happen?
It hurts.
Yeah…I imagine that it hurts really bad when you see the people that you breath life into…fed and clothed grow up to be your own worst enemy. But it does happen.
It’s family matters.
Sometimes it starts as the parent starts aging. Sometimes it starts after one of the parents passes. But it does happen. And before long the parent will start fearing the child who now begins to terrorize them…and telling them that they aren’t dying quick enough.
It is sad. And there is really no real way to protect against it. It has to go to the nature of the child. And oftentimes this nature is never revealed until it is too late.
Enter Dexter King. There was a point where his mother, Coretta Scott King, had removed him from being the head of the Martin L. King, Jr. Non-violence Center. Dexter at that point claimed that she had done so because “they had had differences in opionions.” So, it would seem that his only two remaining siblings 
share those same differences now also.
The below articles only prove my point about ol’ Dexter boy. CLICK on the LINKS BELOW to read.
What a shame. Imagine how powerful he could be…if only he…and they could live up to the legacy.
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/11/14/king_obama_images.html
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/10/30/king_siblings_book.html
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/18/king-siblings-open-about-rift/
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2007/05/16/0516king.html
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/2006/01/MLK_CENTER_0117_COX.html
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/10/24/king_mlk_dispute.html
Fees sought for King images on Obama items
T-shirts featuring President-elect Barack Obama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are shown for sale on an Atlanta street. The King family wants a share of proceeds from such items.
Who wouldn’t have expected black folks to create t-shirts and other merchandise with both Dr. Martin L. King, Jr and Barack Obama side by side.
Are not they both icons in the black community?
Aren’t black folks equally as excited about Obama as they now celebrate Martin?
I can understand being ridgid about it…if say Nike was doing it. But not just some brothers and sisters trying to spread the word and generate some bread (money to put food) on their kitchen tables. I think Martin would be proud and properly smile about it.
Imagine the long miles Martin L. King, Jr. walked. The amount of churches he had to visit. The number of 
preachers he had to try to placate just in order to get one little thing done. And to have it calumniate in a ‘Barack Obama.’
Oh, yeah…I know he would smile…and be proud to be on that t-shirt or that cap…or that carrying bag with his picture right up ther next to Obama’s picture.
Baby…yeah….he smiling…
So, yeah…I think he would smile to know that some 40 years later…after his “I have a dream” speech that a tall tan black man would stand up in a square of Chicago and be accepting the nomination to be President of the United States. In fact, he would not only be smiling…but poking out his chest…saying-
“Yes, I always knew it wasn’t going to be in vain.”
I know he would.
I know that Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. be down right proud to be displayed on a t-shirt or on a baseball cap…or on a silk-screened carrying bay…his picture right there…right next to that of Barack. And nobody can tell me differently…because I know Dr. King would be proud indeed.
As in the words of Langston Hughes…who wrote “A dream deferred.” It ain’t deferred any more, baby.
And yeah…I said it.
Dexter King is a very greedy little boy. And I do mean ‘boy.’
Instead of trying to chase down folks and trying to get his share. He really should be out scouting down the best t-shirts and other merchandise and striking a deal for the copyrights. Some of those t-shirts are fabulous.
Well, God bless. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
I am so tired I don’t know what to do. I stayed up until 5 AM this morning working on a class presentation. But I got it done. Missed my 8 o’clock class though. But the presentation went very well. It was worth 
the 
lost of a little sleep.
Now, I can close my eyes…without having to worry if I will get up on time. My next class is not until 9:25 AM tomorrow morning. And I’m going to get some much needed sleep now.
And needed it is.
I made 10 apple pies this past holiday and boiled the sweet potatoes for the 14 pies that my son made and baked. We had more than enough…and we are still enjoying them. Plus everybody got to carry home at least one apple and one sweet potato each. We have a very larged and highly blessed family. All praises be to God most high.
…pass it on…’ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com
God bless…and thanks for reading ©2008
Add a comment December 1, 2008
BAILOUT….the ‘Big 3’…America’s Automobile Companies…Obama & Bush… Gulf War Syndrome
Gulf War Syndrome
For some time the US government has failed to accept responsibility for having placed US Troops in harms way. Part of the problem is that this country has boldly and somewhat routinely experimented on unsuspecting US citizens without consideration to them, their quality of life, or the effects such experimentation would have on their families. And many times this experimentation has been on those serving in our own military…as well as, on some minorities in this country.
Chemical warfare is real and this country engages in it as much as any other.
During the Gulf War the US forces released certain chemicals without regard to our own troops. This wa
s something which occurred also during Vietnam and various other periods in the history of this country. Very rarely has the US government ever accepted any culpability for these actions. But finally, after numerous charges and group action suits brought on behalf of the Vietnam Vets against the US government the government finally owned up to having dropped Agent Orange during the Vietnam war which left thousands of American service men and women with all types of health issues and irregularities, e.g. various respiration problems, children with birth defects, increased incidences down syndrome, body rashes etc.
Now, after hundreds of thousands of complaints the Gulf War viets will finally find some relief after their long battle against America’s denial that they too have been injured and are suffering various ailments due our countries non-caring attitude when it comes to her own people…and particular to those serving in uniform trying to protect this country…our own troops. Who have found that their own country was more deadly to them than those they were sent to fight. It is called the ‘danger from within.’ The one which they certainly should not have suspected…nor did.
But while our troops were busy down in the Gulf under the orders of the first George Bush…he had the military dropping a bunch of dirty little bombs filled with all kinds of chemical warfare. And never whispered a word of it to our own troops…after which thousands upon thousands on this side of the battle became contaminated…and for have been suffering the paining affects of…all to the denial of this country until just recently.
It is sad to say but Sadom Hussein wasn’t the only person who ever hurt his own people. And for a country who is the only country to have ever dropped an atomic bomb…this country not only has much to apologize for to other countries…but also to those living right here in America as well.
Last week Tuesday was Veterans Day. Every so often we really do need to stop and consider them and their service to this country. Without them where would this country be?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081117/ts_nm/us_usa_health_gulfwar
WELCOME TO MY HOME….
I had to chuckle when I read the article below.
It is about body language. It says that Obama and Bush may not have taken questions from the press but their body language spoke volumes. You have got to read the article…I think you will enjoy it too. Just CLICK on the LINK below to read it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20081111/pl_ynews/ynews_pl148;_ylt=ApgRill4SpzF1QfaMXlCDbQGw_IE
OBAMA and MCCAIN meeting…
The one thing you have got to say about Barack Obama…and that is that he is no fool. And he is not afraid to 
extend a hand and seek…to solicit the aid the help he feels he will need to help him to put this country back on track.
He is a person who doesn’t think party when he is looking for the best people or when seeking the allies he knows he will need to assist in getting things through Congress and the Senate when he finally takes over the White House. Even though the Democratics made significant gains in both the Senate and Congress during this past election…I agree with Obama. It still doesn’t hurt to have friends on both side of the aisles.
It is just unfortunate that more politicians fail to share his perspective.
THE BIG 3…give them what they need.
This whole thing about bailing out the ‘Big 3’….GM, Ford and Chrysler reeks of partisanship if ever I have heard of it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081117/ts_afp/usautoeconomypolitics
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24668402-31037,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24668402-36418,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/business/19auto.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22887392#22887392
When you examine the map of this country you will find that the states whom the failure to bailout the big 3 will impact the most are those states which were ‘red’ and 
that turned ‘blue’ during this past Presidential Election 2 Thursdays ago. If you want to talk about sour grapes and cry ‘foul’…now is the time.
When those Republicans rushed back to Capital Hill to bail out Wall Street a few weeks ago…it was in the hopes of trying to save a sinking ship called the “Republican Party.” It failed because…well, because John McCain did not win the Presidential race and a lot of their buddies and friends…and even some of them got voted out of office. Now, as their last official act…that bunch of stub nosed politicians are targeting everyday people…who dared to go to the polls and voted them out. And really…if the truth be known….they absolutely should have voted them out.
Had it not been for the Republican domination of the US Senate and Congress for 
nearly the past 8 years the Bush Administration may not have gotten away with as much…and we just might not be in the dire straights that this country is now in.
But why should that bunch of sour grape Republicans be upset?
They wholly deserved to be voted out of office because they failed to properly execute their positions properly. Nobody voted them into office to ‘okay’ a bunch of failed Bush policies. Then as a ‘new day’ came upon the horizon they all realized that they were in deep trouble…as well as they should have been for failure to represent their constituents. But they were busy serving themselves, vying for higher and higher positions, and seeking ranking offices in their party rather than caring for what their voters had sent them to Capitol Hill to do.
So, Wall Street hit the wall and began to crumble a few weeks ago and they all 
went running in to Captiol Hill like a bunch of wild animals pretending that they hadn’t a clue…hadn’t expected it…didn’t know what to do…but knew that ‘no matter what Wall Street had to be bailed out.’ Now, those same nice little gentlemen with their righteous indignation say-
“Why should we bailout General Motors…or Chrysler…or the Ford Automobile Companies?”
I’ll tell you why…because it has nothing to do with one Corporate executive but everything to do with millions of soon to be displaced and out of work Americans who have depended on those companies to provide them with a living. They are taxpayers…homeowners…and they deserve the same consideration and sense of emergency afforded to Wall Street.
How could we dare to be so jaded that we would dare to turn our backs on the workers upon which this country runs?
The blow to those people living in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio loosing any more jobs will be a shot heard around this country. This country cannot afford to turn her back on these hard working people.
I will not forget visting Detroit this past summer and seeing first hand every other house boarded up and every other business closed. It is something that you will really have to see for yourself in order to understand just how extreme this thing was…and I do mean every other. This was not a fantasy and I was amazed looking out at it street after street…main streets and side streets…all alike. It is the 
reality that these hard working everyday people live in…many of them having already seen their neighbors loose everything due the downsizing and the shutting down of many automobile factories across this country as well as in Detroit, Indiana and Ohio.
And what industry was the one that has opened up in Detroit?
Casinos.
Even GM has one which bares its logo very largely on the building.
For some reason every state and every politician believes that the cure all for the economy is to give people any kind of job…by the way of casinos. They look at casinos as the new trend for job creation. But somebody has to walk into those casinos and take some risk. And usually it is those faced with what they believe is the last resort to saving their house or business. Those who should least do it…but feel trapped and that there are no other options for them in oder to hold on to what they already have.
So, they go into the casino which has opened up while their jobs vanished…and they bet everything. They bet it all. And they end up loosing it all. They gambled it all away.
Sooner rather than later, they found themselves without a job, had gambled away their severance pay…and then have no money left to even try to meet the debt on their homes or businesses which they had gone into the casino with the hopes of trying to save in the first place. They are now in a worst state than they started in.
In Detroit many of factory jobs are gone…and yet that city has 2 very large brand new casinos…and a third, if you consider the casino across the waters from them in nearby Canada. I had never been in Detroit before but I was amazed by all the houses that were boarded up and all the boarded up businesses…unbelieveably so. In fact, between every boarded up house stood a house which wasn’t…and those people represented those who still had a job at GM. And soon if something isn’t done for the ‘Big 3’ those people too will be out in the cold, and their houses will be boarded up as well…and other businesses will go under along with them.
That group of angry gentlemen Washington, DC…those Republicans seeking to pay back Americans for voting them out of office for their lousy job at co-governing this country and as the supposed ‘check & balances’ of this country. They sincerely need to step back and take a deep breath to consider the millions of people who will suffer if they fail to vote in favor of bailouting the ‘Big 3.’ And it will hurt and it will reel some dire consequences upon us all if they don’t.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/19/news/companies/gm_failure_consumers/index.htm
But of course, such things really don’t matter to them…they live in other states and will soon be back home fishing or flying off to some remote island to retreat.
I think that there is just too little love of neighbor these days. No one cares about anyone else anymore. The populous is beginning to become just like the bunch of selfish and self-serving politicians. Whom many of us are starting to emulate in every possible way…and look just like them too.
Recently in one of my history classes we hit upon this subject…of how during the building of the EU (the European Union) many of the opinions about what is wrong or right with the EU are shaped by those in charge of media and in power. Don’t let these same groups shape you or your opinions of others…or what is or isn’t right.
There was once a time that neighbors looked out for one another. But those days are 
sadly long gone. And it really is too bad.
Oh, yes…before I end this blog.
Let me just say…that the automobile industry started in this country. It is as American as apple pie. It is a part of Americana…because other countries have entered the marketplace does not mean that we should forfeit an industry that belongs to country to foreign interests. This is how we got into the mess we are in today with the foreign oil countries. We forfeited that industry too. We found it easier to buy from other countries than to continue to build upon our own reserves and resources. And look at the state we are in because of it.
There is no question that the American automobile companies should be bailed out. There is no question that the automobile industry in this country would be suffering…who is buying anything these days?
Who can afford to?
We are all suffering from this current climate of failed economic management. But is that any reason to desert our own people and an industry which this country single handedly created.
If the airlines and Wall Street have been bailed out…the auto industry certainly should be too. To thousands from New Jersey and thousands in other states around this country upon whom there will be a great impact in lost of jobs, there can be no other answer. But ‘bailout.’
Not to mention the lost that every US citizen themselves will suffer. Heaven forbid that every American citizen should have to turn to foreign imports only as possible vihicle purchases whenever we decide we want to buy a car or SUV. And that the only selection we will have is a foreign vehicle. If this happens…this country will really be in big trouble.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080827/AUTO01/808270408
For an industry which has done over $70 billion worth of business in this country, with millions of car owners on the roadway today who all would stand to loose big, not even including the police departments and large companies who are invested in U.S. autos…if these companies were forced out of business by not being able to service, get parts or have any recourse when problems arose with their vehicles imagine the problems. This would be a very great problem for tons of us. And it is certainly something to be considered.
BAILOUT the BIG 3.
Well, have a beautiful day…and thank you, as always, for reading.
In memorial of Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham…I take this time to thank her for 
all of her dedication and love that she showed to our President. And the aid that she gave him in becoming the person whom he is. We applaud you and celebrate you…along with Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Fanny Lou Hamer,
Harriette Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune and 
many numerous other women for whom we owe much…and upon who’s shoulders we certainly now stand.
Thank you Lord God for them.
God bless…and thanks for reading ©2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/
…pass it on…’ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com
Please be sure to share this blog site with all your friends, family, co-workers…just everybody. 
And again thank you for reading.
…pass it on…’ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com
God bless…and thanks for reading ©2008
1 comment November 19, 2008
Cleopatra Jones, Yolanda King …and me
Since purchasing my first computer I have found that I actually watch little TV…actually I watch no TV at all now. Not that I have ever been big on watching television in the first 
place…because I am always too busy. But growing up it was one of my favorite things to do. I sat in front of the television a lot watching ‘Gun Smoke’, ‘Mission Impossible’, ‘Secret Agent Man,’ ‘Julia,’ ‘Sanford and Son,’ etc…etc…the Saturday Afternoon Movies, the After School Movies, the Sunday Night Movies etc. Those were the days that TV actually had something on it. And today with over 100 channels to choose from it is very much not the ca
se. Of all of those channels that you have to choose from you still can’t find anything good to watch…except maybe re-runs and old television shows…and network TV…which doesn’t offer very much any more either.
So, then what are you wasting all your money on?
Which is why I have really never had cable. If I bought cable I would have to sit in front of the television all of time just so I could feel I was getting my money’s worth. As shameful as it may be, I am that kind of person. I need to feel I’m getting my money’s worth.
While my son was going to school in North Carolina, I had gone down to visit him which is something I did usually once a month…just to double check that he was taking care of all of his bills. As I had to get him an apartment since his campus didn’t have any dorms…which meant that he had for the first time in his life he had utility bills and rent to be paid among other things.
So, I would go down to make sure that everything was being taken care of…which really is something you should do when your children are just graduating from high school and going off on their own for the first time in their life…as was the case of my son. Because for one thing…since they never had to pay for anything…particularly bills…they start off not being very good at tending to their priorities. Which really was the same way we were growing up.
While down in North Carolina on this particular trip, my son took me to some buffet where you could eat all you could eat. It was some place that he liked but I thought it was a bit 
high. And if you know about buffets…for some reason or other after spending all that money you find out that you really aren’t very hungry. Then there is this other thing too…for some reason these places all seem to have the very best bread on the planet. So, you sit and sit…eating bread…and lots of it. So, by the time it comes to the food you have no place to put it.
But this place was expensive…and I just was not going out like that. I had spent all that money and I felt that I needed to at least eat my money’s worth. If I had had a couple of plastic bags on me things might have been very different…I would have eased some food into the bags and taken it home…but I didn’t have any plastic bags or anything else. So, I had to eat it. I was determined to get my money’s worth. And I did.
I became so filled…I was sick. I tried drinking some water hoping that it would force the food down…but it only made it worst. I had no room for nothing…and the little water I drank made me feel sicker. I was filled from all the way where the stomach begins up into some place near my tongue at the back of my throat.
I told my son, “I think I’m going to be sick. We need to leave.”
I was so stuff…I was miserble. I wanted to do anything that would give me relief…but 
nothing was working. I was doubled over and definitely not feeling well. And the ride in the car back to my son’s apartment only seemed to make me feel worst…and I felt like I was now getting nauseated.
I was terribly miserable that day. And of course…I learned my lesson in a very big way. I don’t care how much it costs…I am not going to try and kill myself eating anything. It is one of the worst feelings.
I am not a big eater. My problem is and has always been…that I eat at the wrong times…usually right about before going to bed. During the course of my life my schedule has always been too busy for me to want to break it up going to lunch.
When you’re in LA working on a project or outside of LA working on a project (film or pushing out a script)…all the vendors and movie studio people will call you (if they know you are working on something) saying-
“Lets do lunch.”
They do this because everyone wants to be a part of your project. They either want you to spend money with them…or as in the case of the studios and acquisition people…they want “first look”…meaning they want to see your movie first…before anybody else…in case it is really worth buying.
But who has time when they are trying to complete a film project…or get it up off the ground…to be sitting around and having lunch with a bunch of people who really want to take from you. That’s LA, baby.
Most of my life I have been involved in the creative arts particularly when I started editing. I would go into a editing session early in the morning and literally leave out when they kicked me out sometime later that night when the facility would be closing.
During my editiing sessions which were from Monday thru Saturday…I never got up to go to the bathroom or eat anything. Because once you are involved in the creative process of editing you never want to break up your momentum…(really that goes for anything that takes a lot on concentration)..and you just never seem to have enough time as time always seems to fly by so quickly. So, you never want to waste one moment of time by getting up to do anything…and you don’t.
But having this conversation with my friend, an elderly woman from our church…the one whom I informed you in my blog entitled ‘Losing a friend…’ where I state that we believe she is in the process of passing…she informed that I had to change my eating habits or otherwise I would ruin my stomach. There is nothing like wisdom…hearing that made me immediately consider my eating habits and make an adjustment in them.
I try now not to eat anything after 7 PM…whereas before I only ate one time a day and it
was usually after 11 PM…just before I would crawl into bed…to get up and go back to editing, or writing, or to the radio station, or film classes or whatever it was I was doing the very next day until 11 PM the next night.
The one thing about me…whatever I am doing I become grossly involved in it. I sank all of my energy into what I am immediately involved in. I have been told I have tunnel vision…meaning when I am involved in whatever I am involved in or doing something…it consumes me and all of my attention.
This was never more apparent than when I started my advertising business, Queen Bee Multi-Media Advertising Agency and Consulting, Inc.. It is so funny…because I would go to bed and iterally dream up ad campaigns for clients…really. And amazingly could remember them that morning upon awakening. I was so engrossed with creating work…creating whole advertising campaigns for my many clients…that I eat, drank, slept and dreamed the thang. I loved it…and still do. There is something about the creative process that is highly intriguing to me.
I spent a lot of time developing concepts, sitting with artists and discussing client ad campaigns, and planning new stragies, figuring out rates, where I wanted commericals slotted, which publications we were going to buy etc… But every moment was worth it…and New York provided with an wide open playing field. Bud I just loved the work…and besides all the projects represented a part of me. They were me.
I love the creative process…seeing a beginning and an end of a thing. Something that starts from nothing…an idea then blossoms into radio spots (commercials), magazine and newspaper copy, booklets, journals, posters, sold out venues, concerts, plays, screenplays, radio dramas, television programs, radio programs, and other various types of productions, film stuff…etc..etc… It is…exciting…just seeing the end product, figures, responses etc… Hearing what the copy sounds like, or reads like etc…amazing.
Everything I have ever done…I have to perfect it. I have to get to be the best at it…which to me means putting in the time required to make that happened. And that is just what I do…I live, sleep and eat it…until I perfect it. And I constantly keep challenging myself…by taking whatever it is that I am doing…to the highest levels of mastery.
When I learned video editing…and I am proficient in the use of all 3 of the top professional softwares…Advid, Premerier and Final Cut…but when I learned it I nearly slept at the editing facilities where I was working. After a time people would walk by and begin asking me-
“Ooooh, how did you do that?”
Then they started saying-
“When I shoot my footage I want you to edit for me.”
My belief is…if you are going to do…then perfect it. Become proficient in everything you do and take pride in your work. And always work towards excellence.
Just a quick story.
Once I was a manager…one of 8 at this particular place where I was working. I shared with you earlier in another blog of mine how one day while in downtown Brooklyn, I ran into one of our employees whom I hadn’t seen in while…who hugged me and I said-
“I thought you didn’t like me.”
And she said-
“Yes, but you were fair.”
You can read that blog somewhere amidst my now many blogs…right here @ www.bsmith101.wordpress.com …pass it on.
At any rate…When you have so many managers in a small high paced space…the atmosphere becomes very competitve.
Since I am a 
person who works towards excellence in everything I do…so, on this job I was not very well liked. Because my way of working really meant that all the other managers would have to step up in order to contend with my overall job proformance. I, of course, never realized that…because I had never encounted that type of thinking before. And since I was the new kid on the block…meaning I was new on this job compared to them…they weren’t having it. They liked things just as they had been…not that I was trying to change anything. I…well, I just worked differently from them. And somehow they felt threaten by that.
At first I thought it was because I had the highest level of education among them…but over time I came to find out it was that too, but more so…that they just didn’t like me because I was me…a person who sought to do her job ‘well.’
I was not trying to show anybody up…nor was I trying to impress anyone. But it was just how I worked. I worked towards excellence. It is the only way I know how to work…even on my own projects. I commit myself.
On this job I was the one who hired all the new employees. To do this properly sometimes (actually on almost 1 day of all of my 2 days off I would go in to inview folk)…as I would usually have to hire as many as 30 to 40 people at a time to keep up with the company quota for our location. So, to do this I usually went into work on one of my days off. As I not only had to hire them but I would also have to train them, issue them their uniforms and in many cases have them ready to hit the floor the next day. I did not mind using one of my days off to do this as I felt it was something I had to do in order to keep up with the company requirements in term of staffing. But the other managers…looked upon me as an over achiever. And they did everything they could to sabotage me…including forging my name to company documents.
The whole affair was quite disconcerting to me. I had never in my life been anywhere where people didn’t like me. But I did my job any how…and I continued to do it the only way I knew how…with excellence. And in the end I won.
At some point I am sure I will share that whole story. But God has been exceedingly good to me. He took me out of that situation…but not before making the company pay me. And He made them pay me well. From August of 2000 that company has been paying me…and I have not had to work one day since.
Through all the problems on that job, all the lies, deceits and falsehoods…I continued to be me. I continued to be the worker I had always been…someone who goes in to her job to get it done…and to do it to her best ability.
My bantra is…do it well. Don’t do it good…but do it well…to its highest level…the best that you can do it.
If it is anything worth doing…and you should only be doing things worth doing…then why not do it well?
As stated earlier I am not much of a television watcher…so therefore I was surprised when 
somewhere over the internet I ran across the fact that actress Tamara Dobson had died in October 2006. She was absolutely beautiful and I had thought that I had heard she had gotten into ministry. But during the last 2 years of her life she was in a nursing home suffering from MS, Mulitple Sclerosis.
That was very hard to read considering how tall she was, 6’2″, and knowing the debilitating affects of MS…having lost a good friend to it.
My friend had just completed college…and a group of us were in Jersey for a wedding of another college friend when someone said to me-
“When was the last time you’ve seen___. I think you need to go see her. I hear she’s drinking or something. They said that she was pretty tore up when they saw her.”
For the whole wedding that stayed on my mind.
I loved my friend. She had been the very first person in my class whom I had met on the campus…we met my first day on campus and we became very close friends. When we started hanging out…she took me to this club in Connecticut called “Mr. Peas.” That place was fabulous…black lights, bubble machine and the best music. I was, of course, a wall flower…and I had never been in any club or disco anything until my friend brought me to Mr Peas. And I was quite a wall flower…but that was okay…I didn’t mind it. I loved the place…I found the disco thang exciting…but my friend…well, she was beautiful…so, she was always on the dance floor. We always had fun…and I loved it at Mr. Peas. Neither of us were drinkers so we didn’t drink at all. It was a lot of clean fun.
I remember once how my friend…how she had bought us these matching 
glittering tops to wear to Mr Peas. It was fantastic. It was like we were sisters or something. She was the best…my friend. I would have never have thought to buy her anything…but the sheer thought that she did in regards to me meant so much to me.
She was a lot of fun…but after graduating from college, I later found out following the conversation at the wedding, that she started having problems holding onto things. Pencils and pens would just fall from her hands…and gradually the problems continued to grow.
After that wedding I sought my good friend out…whom I had not seen in a while. When I visited her…I cried. As I have already stated in another blog of mines…I am not the best person to go and see anyone who is sick…because I become too emotional. I just cried.
She did not look anywhere close to the person whom I had known. She was confined to a wheelchair now and didn’t have the strength in her legs to keep her from falling much less walk. Her eyes were going in 2 different directions.
I could do nothing but cry.
But she was strong…and kept trying to console me. I could still understand her somewhat…as her speech was a bit slurred…but later on I could not. And even then she was trying to console me as best she could. Imagine…her trying to console me…and she was the one who was dying from that disease. That was the kind of person she was…and had always been. She was beautiful. And I am happy to have been graced by God to have known her as ‘my friend.’
They say that MS is not hereditary…but not only had my friend had it, but come to find out her sister also suffered from it and has since passed too only a few years ago…and most recently I have found out that my friend’s daughter, her only child, now has MS also.
When I think of them, my friend, her sister and her daughter…whom I keep continu
ously in my prayers…I think of the electric reactors I saw by her apartment when I went to visit her on that first time following the wedding conversation. For some reason when I looked over and saw them across the street from her house…I don’t know what I thought really…but for some reason those things stayed in my spirit. And now as we become more informed…we have to stay away from areas that have large energy sources. They just look unhealthy…and they are.
There is just no way that this stuff cannot affect you…if you live somewhere near it. All this energy is going through your body and is being absorbed into your body. That being the case it stands to reason that sooner or later it is going to affect you healthwise.
And most of the time these things are located where the poor people live…electrical receptors or contaminated waste dumps…the folks whose lives are put mostly into jeopardy by such installations are poor.
When I used to walk around with all the video equipment, cameras and things…as I would walk pass the television at home it would mess with the reception…just because I had passed it. I knew from that that all the equipment I was operating and sitting around in the televison studios and editing suites for all those prolonged hours really could become potenially hazardous to me.
My body had soaked up some of that energy…enough to radiate off of me and distrub the television signal whenever I neared the television. I didn’t think about that at the time…but I do now. I recognized it…and what was happening but it had never dawn on me what overall effect it could have upon me physically or mentally.
It is energy and your mind is made of electronic impulses sending signals to various areas of your brain which enable you to speak, walk, talk etc…etc. Inducing other electric signals into your system could technically cause it have some type harm or malfunction…or interruption. Which in case if you haven’t been listening or reading over the internet…they are saying that your cell phone could be hazardous to your health…for the exact reasons I have just laid out.
There are all kinds of nervous disorders…and some of it can be attributed to the meats and other things we eat…some to where we live and what we live near…some to (hold on to your seats) the microwave or your cell phone etc. I didn’t think that you would want to hear that. Not about your microwave…and cell phone too.
They are saying that about the cell phone now…but I do believe that in a few years we will hear how the microwave causes health problems too…because that process is just not natural. Think about it…microwaving causes the molecules to speed up and rub against one another at such a rate that it generates heat causing that generated heat to cook or warm up your food (depending upon how you use your microwave). I use microwaves very little…because I just don’t trust them…they have a tendency to change the texture of the food and alter its taste…and I just feel that that is not only un-natural but also will prove to be quite unhealthy.
When I thi
nk of MS…I always think of my friend…and I also think of Congress Woman, Barbara Jordan, who was quite an eloquent speaker, being highly gifted in oration and as well as well educated. It was during one of her speeches that I first heard the word ‘xenophobia’…but she also early in her life had to battle the crippling affects of Multiple Sclerosis.
Who gets MS…women mostly between the ages of 20 to 40.
Symtoms of MS…blurred vision, eye pain, possible double vision, lack of coordination, weakness of muscles, partial or mild paralysis, slurred speech, involuntary contraction of muscles (jerkiness), partial numbness, pain without apparent cause etc…
Now, that I have given you these symtoms please don’t go around trying to self-diagnose yourself. That would be a foolish thing to do. Sometimes we can work ourselves into a state just believing we have something…when we don’t.
If you care to read more on Multiple Sclerosis please CLICK on the LINKS below.
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/mssymptoms.html
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/multiple_sclerosis/detail_multiple_sclerosis.htm
Well, today I finally opened up some mail I had put off opening for a couple of weeks now. Sometimes I just don’t want to read anything that I don’t think is going to be good news.
Well, I finally read a letter that came to me fromt the North Carolina Court of Appeals. I thought it was a letter informing me that the court was rejecting our appeal…but it was not. But the letter only gave me 10 days to respond…and I had sat on it for 2 weeks before opening it…(you do the math).
I was late.
Yes, I was. And very late…which meant I had to really kick it into gear and get going on it.
So, I immediately called the court trying to get an extension of which I was given 7 days…this meant I had to interrupt my vacation today.
It is summer and I am on vacation. I don’t even leave the house unless I have to. After all, I spent all of last semester, Spring Semester, carrying 21 credits of school courses…dealing with foreclosures, courts, got arrested and wrote a book…all of which you can read about in some of my other blogs. So, clearly I need a break. And if I say so myself…I am definitely entitled to one. So, I was taking it…but now today…
So, today I had to interrupt my vacation and leave out of the house…because it was paramount that I get that Appeals Court information to Charlotte and then on Raliegh, North Carolina. And I had to do it today…via express mail. Because I had no intentions of missing my 7 day deadline…not if I could help it…now the court…well…the judge has to sign it, it has to be entered into the record, then sent to Raliegh…I’m praying on it because that means that there are whole a lot of other people involved and they may not have my resolve in handling this matter. But I did what I had to do…I got out and got it do done.
Now, I have to follow up with Charlotte to make sure my package made to that court and that they get what I need done and out to the court in Raliegh hopefully all within the same day.
In a prior blog I told you how the car I had purchased so my son could get around 
while in school down in North Carolina…how that vehicle had gotten hit and was virtually totalled in that accident…which caused us to have to file suit against Allstate Insurance Company and the car dealership, Parks Chevrolet, who was suppose to do the repairs.
In that blog about the trial I informed you how when we finally got around having our court date…the actual trial…how the other side tried to steal our case from us…you have really got to read that blog. Which is how we were forced to appeal the case by taking it into the Court of 
Appeals to have our dismissal overturned.
My son tells me…that I don’t do anything but sue people.
But you know what?
Some people need to be sued.
Allstate and Parks Chevorlet needed to be sued…if for no other reason than they knowingly endangered the life of my son. Of which I just could not let that go.
You can read more on my trials and tribulations with Allstate and Parks Chevorlet in my blog entitled ‘Tired…’ And also please keep in mind to share this blog address with your friends, neighbors, co-workers…just everybody…. www.bsmith101.wordpress.com pass it on….
You do have to pick your fights…there will be some you fight and some you just have to pray over (and I guess that really goes for all of them). There will be some that you just want it on the record but know that you won’t win (don’t go into any case that you know you won’t win with a lawyer)…but your putting on the record (because all court cases unless they are sealed by the judge are public record).
However, since I handle all of my own legal affairs…I do not have to worry about lawyer fees and things like that. If you can’t handle it yourself…and most people can’t…and I am not great at it either (because they try to make it very hard on you so that they won’t have a bunch on non-lawyers handling their own cases running all over the court…and they will do nothing to help you). For the amount of time and effort you would have to put going to a law library and researching whatever information you need to know to handle your case as properly as you can…takes up an awful lot of time and diligence.
But if you can do it and know that you might not win…because believe this too…nothing beats a failure but a try…you may win…if you back up whatever you want to sue over…if you have concrete evidence…but believe me that putting it on the record goes a longs way and can be a powerful weapon. It may not be all that beneficial to you if you decide it is a battle you have to take on but may lose. Doing so may make you feel a little better over the situation…but one thing is for sure…you are exposing someone or a company for what they are and that could prove to be very helpful to someone else.
Most recently I had to file something in small claims also.
After having all those problems with Allstate and car I bought for him to take to school down in North Carolina…my son finally bought himself a new car. But not having any credit meant getting one of those ‘no credit or bad credit’ deals. Which when you get it…you are just happy for the transportation and that you finally got something that you needed.
But with these people who financed this SUV for my son…they would never credit us properly. My son would always pay more than what his monthy amount was for…and usually before its due date. But the company would always call and say-
“Well, you’re 30 days late.”
Or they would say, “You are 61 days late.”
How could this be when he had just finished making a payment…and it was before the due date…and far more than required?
It was by continuously rigging their books to seem that what they were saying was true in order to make it appear that we were always behind in order for them ‘the company’…United Consumer Finance…to pad their pockets. Which is illegal and considered by law an ‘unfair trade practice.’
My son was trying to build his credit so that he would not have the problem a credit problem the next time he wanted to buy something or another car.
But these ‘bad credit/no credit’ deals are not as good as they seem. Going into a deal with them and getting a vehicled financed by these kind of people who prey upon the needy…may just work against you rather than work to your benefit.
The company, United Consumer Finance, never credited my son’s account with any of extra money he was paying against his car loan. Nor did when he paid off his car loan…which he paid it off in advance of its due date by several months…but the payoff amount was no lower than had he made all the payments through to the duration of the loan. And then during the course of time my son had had the loan…each month they charged him late charges though he was overpaying his monthly payment and was usually sending in the payments ahead of their payment date. There was not one month that a late fee had not been applied to my son’s account.
And on top of all of that…they ruin my son’s credit too.
I think this company, United Consumer Finance, deserves to be sued.
Don’t you?
So, I filed the papers on them. Later this month we will meet them in court. I will keep you posted on the outcome.
Smile…and have a beautiful day.
Oh, yes…not only had I not known that Tamara Dobson, Cleopatra Jones, had died…but I was never aware that Yolanda King had also passed. I was shocked in fact to read that story. To have lost her so close on the heels of losing their mother, I know had be hard on the 
entire King family. Be encouraged.
I hear the thunder outside. So, I guess we are in for a rainy day. God bless… ©2008
Add a comment July 31, 2008
Starbucks closings…Obama …Sir Barley
Since I see that so many people have come here to read about Starbucks closing of several of their stores, I decided to give you a bit more info on those closings.
But let me begin with this…I really can’t see myself paying $4.00 for a cup of anybody’s coffee. Sorry, Mr. Starbuck…but it is just the way it is. It’s…it is how I feel. I just can’t see it.
I know people are all wrapped up in image…but does holding a cup with ‘Starbucks’ logo really have more value than a cup with ‘Dunkin Donuts’ logo on it.
I mean all through the Decocratic Primaries…people were saying that Obama attracks the Starbuck crowd…and Hillary the Dunkin Donuts people. Huh????
Why all this division?
Breaking people down by coffee lines…it is all a bit too much.
Maybe it is just that I am not a coffee person.
My father being Jamaican…and Jamaica being a British Colony once upon a time…so what do the Brit’s drink? Tea, of course. And so that is what most Jamaicans drink…and Chinese too. So, our household is basically all tea drinkers…following right after daddy and our Jamaican hertiage and tradition. And it extends all the way down to daddy’s grand-children and great-grand children…and since they are basically still kids we haven’t gotten to the fourth generation yet. Who will also undoubtedly also mostly be a bunch of tea drinkers too, I am sure.
Starbucks has to have the record for being one of the fastest growing companies in America. I have never seen a company grown so fast.
But then they seem to have made all the right moves in the beginning. They started off with statilite stores…branched off into deals where they went into places like Virgin Records and other high traffic locations which proved to be excellent decisions for them. Because people who purchase $13/$15 CD’s certainly also have enough to buy a $4.00 cup of coffee. And they did.
Starbucks a Seattle based company has 7,100 company owned stores across the country. Some time this year the company plans to close 600 of its under producing stores. Which means they will be laying off some 12,000 employees…which the company says it will try to place as many of them as possible at other store locations.
In February of this year, Starbucks fired some 600 other employees and is currently periodically shutting down stores during some regular business hours in order to do some re-training of its employees.
It is probably safe to say…that if you work at a Starbucks that is inside a Barnes & Nobles or a Virgin Records location…or any high volume/high traffic area…your store will probably not be closing.
For a listing of the closing stores Click Link below.
http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/USStoreClosureInfo.pdf
Or go to…
http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=882
And to read more on the story via ABC News Click on the Link below.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5288740
These youtube videos may need some loading time…if so lower the volume all the way and read the blog or all of my blogs until it loads completely. The stop and go will drive you crazy otherwise. Thank you.
And while I am sharing…don’t forget to share this blog address with all your friends, family, church, the people upstairs and down the street too… www.bsmith101.wordpress.com the place to be when it comes to staying on top of what is important…interesting…and insightful. Pass it on….
Barack Obama is quite a family man…a man who clearly loves his wife and his children as is evident in his pictures with them, everytime you see him with his wife and in his comments concerning them. For such passion to extend itself into the public and political area is a gift to those of us who shall soon reap the rewards of it…which shall also be reaped by those of the whole world also when he becomes President of the United States of America in November of this year.
Clearly the people in Germany, France, England and Israel who gathered to hear him speak recognized that Obama is an extrodinary person…that kind of person only goes around once in a lifetime.
So, to have been on this planet to have seen and heard the likes of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Nelson Mandela etc. we can truly say that we have been blessed. Because we have truly be blessed to be here in the company of some very extra-ordinary people who have shown us what true love and commitment is all about.
Now, in walks Barack Obama.
From the time he hit the world stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. They saw it then…the press…they all saw it…and when he stepped from the stage they touted him ‘The Future of the Democratic Party.’
It was upon that stage as he addressed the members of the convention that Barack Obama literally looked out and saw his destiny. And from the moment he stepped off that stage he began working towards today and where he will be come November of this year, 2008…the President of the United States of America.
Some people don’t trust him because they look at him as not being black enough.
Others look at him and say he is too black.
The hispanic say he will only do for black people and forget about us.
It is quite clear that Barack Obama does not wish for his children or grand-children to inherit the chaos and fear that the Bush Administration has ushered into the United States.
He does not want his daughters…nor their children to live under the cloud of uncertainty
of what tomorrow may bring for this country or this world.
Through all of its current troubles, Barack Obama has chosen to shoulder the burden…to take on the responsibility of trying to right this country again…to rewrite the history of American that George Bush and his people so callously sought to undermind and undo.
When he left Harvard, he hit the streets of the ghetto working to undo social ills and injustices. It is in his nature to champion the cause of the people. When you read about his mother, you see that it runs in the blood…the seeking to unify the world and caring for others. It is what Barack Obama is all about.
This week in Germany, we got a chance to see that the world too sees something special in Barack Obama. To hear those people in Germany chant ‘change’ and call out his name was more than moving.
They say that Barack Obama doesn’t know enough. He has no experience…no. And they are right. He has not had any experience running with the liars and the cheats who have made up this country’s government for years.
This country needs somebody who isn’t down with the ‘crew.’ Somebody not afraid to make his own decisions. Not afraid to be wrong if he thinks it is in the best interest of this country. Not afraid of second guess himself and yet comtemplate the decision and 
its overall impact.
This country needs somebody who is not afraid to stand alone. Who is not afraid to say wrong is wrong.
Give me somebody young and yearning for training. Don’t give me somebody who thinks he already knows everything…and doesn’t know nothing.
I don’t care who goes into the White House or who has gone into it in past…they all had to learn on the job. It is not like going to work from one fast food place to another…or from one corporate office into another.
It is not…it is the White House…the Presidency.
Until you get voted in…you can’t possibly have all of or a fifth of the capabilities to do it. Most of it comes with on the job-training. For anybody to say anything else is a lie. No corporate CEO has ever been under the pressure of the President of the United States…nothing is like the job of being the President of this country.
Barack Obama not only looked Presidential in Germany…he spoke Presidential. He speaks with authority, leadership, knowledge and a zeal for this country that we have not heard for a very long time. Give me that any day…because I know the rest will follow.
Unlike any other President of this country…Barack Obama has lived as a child in several other countries. Having done so he understands other people, their language, their cultures…that 
gives him a greater sensitivity to other nations that no other President of this country could have possibly had. On the world stage or on domestic politics Barack Obama is head over heels beyond Senator John McCain. There is no contest.
For the problems that Bush has brought to America’s door…we are going to need somebody who can think outside of the box…not trying to hide within the box. But a real thinker and doer. Someone with temperance and perhaps even some tolerance…and between Hillary and Jesse Jackson…and Rev. Jeramiah Wright…Obama has shown lots of that. And certainly for one thing for sure it will, also, take more than politics as usual to straighten up the Bush messes that we are in.
Just a quick note on Charles Barley. Like Reggie Jackson and so many other athletes that chose to do for others, Charles Barley while recently out dining came across a young man who was waiting on his table whom he recognized was in need of some help…in order to go on to college. Barley stepped in and told the young man he would take care of 
his full college tuition…brings tears to my eyes. I love these kind of stories.
And I love Charles Barley in that television commercial…he is so annoying.
Great for you Charles Barley…and you can read more on this story by Clicking and Link below.
Okay, you China Olympics bound people…here is another Chinese word or saying…
Bu yong xie…pronounced Boo you shay… Remember that I told that ‘bu‘ is the Chinese negative… well, in this case too…but it depends upon what you want to say…
It translates into 2 meanings… 1. You’re welcome
2. No problem…
‘No problem’ is a popular saying or phrase in China.
If you remember ‘xie xie’… pronounced ‘sure shay’ ….meaning ‘thank you.’ then you recognize ‘xie’ (shay) in Bu yong xie, as well.
Ni hao….you are saying ‘hi’ to one person Nim hao…you are saying ‘hi’ to a group or more than one
Ni hao ma… Knee how ma …..it means hi, and how are you? or how are you doing.
Nim hao ma…means the exact same thing except you are addressing more than one person. And ‘nim‘….is pronounced as you think …as nimb.
Now, I am going to advance you a little bit….
Wu chew chin sway…. means I want water (this I forgot to write out in the actual Chinese spelling…I was great for sitting in class and writing down ‘what it sounds like’…it was the only way I could learn the language. Other than that…in less than 30 seconds I would forget).
So, this means ‘I want water’ but remember it is not written in the actual Chinese spelling…and of course the Chinese do not really write this stuff out….no. They use characters…or what we call Chinese characters. And you have seen what Chinese characters look like…but we have never been able to make them out…or knew that each character symbolizes a Chinese word…and there are thousands of characters…and some even have a gender…to reference male or female.
Now, you have learned something else. And remember that “wu” ….means ‘I’ or ‘me’… first person singular. pronounced “woo.”
Well, I am suppose to really be doing some work today. So, I better get to it.
Have a beautiful day… God bless…. ©2008
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