Where Are We Headed?

Little Things That Make a Difference

2005-10-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Little Things That Make a Huge Difference
I recently had a great opportunity to purchase a huge amount of cotton fabric for quilting. I have a friend that is acquainted with a woman that does estate sales. My friend knew I was in to quilting and sewing and let me in on the fact that there was an estate sale coming up in her neighborhood. Since all the friendships were close, I had an opportunity to view the fabrics prior to the sale and I purchased all of them and several quilting notions too. It was held in the home of the deceased lady. As I walked through the home looking at everything being tagged I could not help but feel very sad and I was humbled by it all. It is sad to see a human’s life in front of you and realize it means nothing to anyone except getting a good bargain. I did just that. I looked and touched the many projects this dear lady had left unfinished and even purchased a few of them. I have often wondered as I have looked at the things in my home if they will end up at Goodwill or in a garage sale or a thrift store, because they are not really important to anyone except me. I realize that things are not the important items in life but I did get a different view as I walked through the ladies home. This house and all the beautiful things were part of her life. I am sure that her quilting and needlework had touched many lives over the years. I left with my new treasures loading down my Explorer and drove from Gilbert back into Phoenix. It was a week or so before I even looked in the many boxes to organize the new items into my own material stash. Later after the estate sale ended there had been several things in the quilting area that had not sold and my friend delivered them to me. Some of these items told such stories of what a productive life the woman had led. I was more humbled than before. I began to wonder if I could match her in any way, if my skills would meet with her approval. I had spent a great deal of time wondering about her. In the new items that my friend delivered to me was a Church Directory from 1979 and I thumbed through it to see if Virginia Warren’s picture was there. It was and she was an older woman in that picture with her husband. Buy looking at the age she was then my guess is that she was in her nineties when she passed away. It was a Salvation Army Congregation. This also told me something about her and her husband. They were very giving people and obviously they received a lot in return. I kept that Church Directory and someday when my things are gone through someone will wonder what in the world that it is for. They will never realize it was from one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Now my work is cut out for me and I feel I have a new guardian angle on my shoulder and that maybe I will become a much better quilter than I am. Thank you Virginia for sharing your life with me! I will write an article for our American Sewing Guild Newsletter and honor your passing because I am sure you are missed. I wish I had known you.

Maybe the Chinese are Correct!

2005-10-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Maybe the Chinese are correct!

I sure am glad I found this article. It makes me feel better about the things I have found over the years in my refrigerator. I must admit that upon cleaning the vegetable drawer I have located a few things that might qualify them for an archaeological site. This is an interesting little article on a 4000-Year-Old Noodle Dish Found in China. So just maybe Marco Polo did take noodles back to Italy after his travels. Just something a little off the wall to keep our little minds busy.

2005-10-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

What Part of Illegal Don’t People Understand?

The day Labor problem is one that needs to be addressed. These day laborers are in this country illegally and should not be given any kind of special treatment except a trip to the closest immigration office. The only pick ups these people should be getting is picked up by an immigration bus and taken back across the border they came into this country by. I am sick to death of going to the home depot to pick something up and having them step out at my car trying to get me to take them home with me to do some day labor. Now a Los Angeles City councilman has proposed requiring all new large home-improvement stores to build shelters that would provide day laborers with basic amenities like toilets and drinking water. EXCUSE ME! When are we going to do that for the homeless in this country that are US Citizens? I am sorry, this makes me sick. These people are in this country illegally and the citizens that pay taxes in this country should not have their tax money going to pay to take care of an illegal immigrant. We have enough people that are citizes of this country that need help. I guess I just do not understand why we should be helping illigals instead of helping the people that belong here. In Austin, Texas there are several groups pressing Home Depot to stop threatening day laborers and allow a grassy lot behind one store to be used as a place for them to congregate. An illegal from Nicaragua was standing out side the Home Depot and stated “They’re violating our rights by kicking us away” Well guess what Mr. Illegal from Nicaragua you have not rights in the USA. If you want your rights looked after go back to your own country because that is the only country you have any rights in. What is it going to take to stop this?

Media's Mad Max Comedy Hour

2005-10-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

I have not written anything recently and it has not been because there was nothing I thought needed saying. Sometimes when events are so very upsetting it is better to stand off and let oneself cool off before jumping on the band wagon. So much about the aftermath of the Katrina Hurricane upset me as it did many people in our country. This has not been a good year. As a matter of fact life has seemed a little surreal since 9/11. I think I even have a problem with putting a numerical tag on that tragedy. As Americans we have learned so much since then. At lest I hope we have. As a baby boomer I am a little skeptical about the future. Some of the things I have read and heard on what seems to be the MAD MAX Comedy hour of news reporting has done nothing more than shock me. That people in our country can be so stupid always amazes me. Everyone knows that if the government had sent in troops then the country would have been up in arms over STATES RIGHTS being violated. If those troops would have tried to enforce laws people would have been crying about Marshall LAW. Someone please tell me how any president of any country could be responsible for a Hurricane? Oh I understand the Global Warming Issue! The thing I do not understand is how anyone could possibly think it came on since President Bush was elected. I am sorry folks but it has been coming for a long time through many Presidents. This one we can not lay at the feet of the Democrats or the Republicans nor the right or left wing. We need to lay it just where it belongs and that is on all of our backs. We have been using and abusing our environment for decades and now we are going to have to address what we have done. I must say that I found something to laugh about on this very weird but interesting site. My since of humor was just off enough when I found this that I just had to laugh. I think is we can’t laugh about this we are in trouble or maybe the cheese has slipped completely off my cracker today. I do not want this to offend anyone. It is just my way of saying it is not wise to believe everything you read or hear.

2005-09-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

Where are we headed?This has been a giant learning curve for our country. Yes some things went very wrong. We must take this opportunity to use this as a model to develop new and improved plans for every major city in this country. We as individuals should use it to help us decide what we need to have ready in our homes for a quick get away. Above all we need to realize that in a time of disaster via terrorist or a natural one, we must first count on ourselves and our resources to survive. Just as in time of fire in our homes we must have a plan on what to take and how to get out of the city. These things should be put in an accessible place in our homes and things like batteries should be replaced and kept fresh at all times. I am not panicked over this but I am now much more aware. 9/11 shook me awake and now this has given me more valuable information. I do not think we can afford to be complacent in our daily lives. We need to be prepared. One way to help be prepared is to be more active in our community. Our neighborhood association just recently sent out the information for the FEMA classes that are being offered in Phoenix.My husband and I have already signed up for them. I now have a strong need to know what to do and to be able to carry it out quickly. I was heated when I thought that New Orleans must not have had an adequate evacuation plan. I kept wondering why they had not loaded the people without transportation onto city buses and school buses to take them out of there. When I saw all of those school buses under water, I could not help but wonder why they were even still there. When I learned that the hospitals had not been evacuated, I was appalled. I kept sitting there looking at the TV and thinking how stupid it was. This was not FEMA’s fault. It was the lack of implementing a proper evacuation plan by the city and the state. I do feel FEMA could have moved a little faster. We as a nation have never faced a natural disaster quite like this one so now we know and now we must move forward with this knowledge and make it work for us in the future.

Will we be seeing Ch

2005-08-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

Will we be seeing Chinese Soldiers Next Door?

This is a very interesting article. It is an article that some may have missed or brushed off as not to important. This is something that could jump up in our face down the road. Check out this article from the New York Times international section by Juan Forero. One of the things that caught my eye was mention of Chinese Troops and how it might affect drug traffic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/international/americas/19immunity.html?th&emc=th
As you may have guessed drugs are a big thing on my hit list. They undermine the future of this country because they are taking away our youth and the crime rate caused by drug importation is horrendous. Of course the illegal trafficking across our WIDE OPEN BORDERS of these drugs is a major concern. One of the new statistics on the movement of drugs and illegal aliens across the border is also overwhelming. Eight percent of all new crime along the border with Mexico is commented by illegal aliens.

2005-08-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping up with the FOX news reports on the Mexico Border and am a bit miffed that the New Mexico Governor now thinks he should declare an emergency. I think that all of a sudden the fire has been turned up by the citizens about the issue and these politicians realize they are going to have to come up with different tactics or they just may not make it back into office. One of the things that have been brought out in Florida is astonishing. $4.1 billion spent on illegal immigrants in that state. That is a lot of tax dollars. I know I have mentioned before that .40 out of each dollar spent buy the State of Arizona on medical care, is spent on illegal immigrants. I have a son that had to move him and his wife in with me when he crushed his hand on the job. There was not a lawyer in this town that would take the case although it was company negligence. It was a workers compensation case. By the way workers compensation is to protect the employer not the employee. The state of Arizona would not even give him financial aid in the form of food stamps. He was off work for two years and received $750. for the two years. Now if he had been an illegal immigrant he would have been taken care of. I have very strong feelings about this issue. I continually say we have to wake up. Our country is being meticulously manipulated by this and I do not believe it is accidental. We have seen films on the local news here in Arizona of the night movement across the border and many people were shocked to see the night film of a wave of immigrants walking through the dessert. A line shoulder to shoulder for as far as the camera could focus. This was a nightly occurrence. The violence along the border is horrible. In some of the small towns people will not come out of their homes after dark and if they do they are shot at by the drug lords and the gangs that bring the drugs in through this same area. I am not talking about being shot at with a hand gun I am talking about AK-47 and that kind of equipment. Now that FOX has been airing the news about the borders and the Minute Men it is attracting a lot more attention. Nuevo Laredo which is a border town in Texas is considered on of the most violent towns along the border. This has been a bad place for many years. I can remember when we still lived in Houston my brother-in-law was stationed at an Air Force Base there and the Airmen were not allowed to take their cars across because the drug gangs would watch for the cars with the Air Base Stickers on them. They would plant the drugs on the car and the ones on the US side would watch for them to come back state side. It became a huge problem. Now FOX reports that the last Police Chief in that border town did not even make it for one hour before he was killed by the drug gangs. Sure you might say that is on the other side of the border. Well guess where those drugs are headed and where those gangs are headed to pedal the stuff? This situation is also destroying emergency medical treatment. In certain areas of California they are driving across the border and dropping people off at the emergency room doors, leaving them for treatment. They drop off the pregnant women so the babies can be born over here on our tax money. They are enrolling in our schools and destroying the education system because we have to hire bilingual teachers to teach them. They are causing our auto insurance to go up because they get drivers licenses and drive like they are still in Mexico. They have wrecks run back across the border or just dig in somewhere because they do not have insurance. Here in Arizona they are subsidized in opening businesses and buying homes. There are areas here in Phoenix now that use to be nice clean areas that now look like little Mexico and all of the signs are even in Spanish. WAKE UP PEOPLE we have to stop this. It was just announced that Arizona is the next State to become a minority majority state. Why is this happening? Because the politicians know they can count on that vote. They do not have to prove citizenship to register to vote. DUH! WHY NOT? Contact your congressmen and your senators. Find out how the politician stands on the issues before you help put him in office. Make a stand for ENGLISH ONLY too. This country is wasting an enormous amount of money on printing everything in Spanish and having every other government clerk bilingual. If I drive in to the local Jack in the Box or Burger King and am ask in Spanish what I want I simply drive away. I AM FED UP!

2005-07-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

I was sent this link today from a friend. Click here: Take Me Back To The Fifties
Wow what memories it brings back. I was a child of the 60’s but cut my teeth on the 50’s music. I remember when we got our first TV in the 50’s and some of the neighborhood kids would come and we would all sit out on the front porch and watch it through the window. There were too many of us to go inside. We ate pop corn that was popped on the top of the stove in a kettle not in a microwave. We also spent a lot of time chasing fire flies on those quite evening in that small north east Texas country town. The life style was completely different and yes, I do wish I could have stepped back in time and taken my kids with me to see a different kind of life. Mrs. Media Matters check out the War of the Worlds Advertisement. I hope everyone that reads these checks out this link. If you are a child of the 70,’s, 80’s or 90’s just remember this music set the pace so you could listen to your version of Rock and Roll.

2005-07-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

My Blog today is about a peaceful weekend. Living in the heart of Phoenix can be a bit stressful from time to time. I live in a historic district of what is called Uptown Phoenix. If you look at a map of the metro area you will notice it encompasses a huge area. Where the dot is that says Phoenix is where I live. I ride my bicycle down Central Avenue on Sunday’s to the Deck Park which is built over the Deck of the Tunnel that extends from 7th Avenue to 7th Street and carries traffic down I-10. It is very peaceful and quite on Central Avenue among the high rise office buildings with no people or cars bustling about. It is a good time to remember how the city has changed since I moved here in 1976. I use to say that building was not here when I moved here. Now I tend to look for the ones that were here. I-10 and the Deck Park (Margaret T. Hance Park) also were not here. You could drive for many miles around Phoenix and see huge Orange Groves and there were many flower farms. Most are gone now and have been replaced with Ticky-Tacky houses that all look the same. They are beautiful but most have no character. The city has developed the downtown area and continues to do so. I can remember when you did not want to go downtown at night. That is not so anymore. It is a vibrant city with a live downtown that beckons you to Bob or the America West Center. Bob is the nickname for the stadium where the Diamond Backs Play and America West is where the Phoenix Suns Play. There are fantastic restaurants, upscale bars and shops open and people walk about everywhere without the fear of the old days of being mugged or worse. The Phoenix PD is always visible and friendly. They are on bicycles, horses or in their cars. They are friendly and have a great since of community. Even as nice as it is one needs to escape the heat and go to the high country once in awhile. That is what we did this week end. We cook Chili for Charity. We had a cook off up in the Mountains north east of Phoenix near Show Low. The name of the town came from a card game. The person that showed to lowest hand won. Leaving Phoenix with the temps around 113 and spending the weekend in the Pine Top Lakeside area with temps down around 57 during the night and enjoying a good thunder storm was just what I needed. After the cook off we just curled up in our room and relaxed reading and listening to the rain and the smell of all the beautiful pine trees. IT WAS WONDERFUL. Those are the freedoms that we take for granted each and everyday of our lives in this country. We can choose how to spend our days and weekends and those are the freedoms that our fighting men are trying very hard to insure. Please remember our troops and our government in your thoughts and prayers everyday. We may not all agree with everything our government or our politicians do all of the time. The one thing we must all agree on is that we are free to elect those politicians and will be free to choose news if those do not work out for us. We have a government that is “by the people and for the people”…we are free....God Bless America. All Gods! I will hang a Star of David on my door and put a Buddha on my shelf because we are free to choose in this country. We must respect the beliefs of all people in our country and their freedom to choose too.

2005-07-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Flip Flop Flap! Click here: AOL News - Team Sparks Flap Over Flip-Flops at White House
Give me a break. I can not believe that this subject even came up. Please, News People get a life. These women were all nice clean cut American women and were dressed well and looked great. WHO CARES if they were wearing Flip Flops. It is not as if they were the old rubber beach kind. Buy the way there have been a lot worse things worn or not worn in that White House. The White House belongs to the people in this country and if those young women want to ware Flip Flops in it then I say more power to them. It did not show any disrespect. Clinton showed the most disrespect for it that I can possibly remember right in the Oval Office.

2005-06-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

I must say the Minutemen have my vote on this one. I am not for any group taking law into their own hands but as I can see they are working within the boundaries of our laws. I was on my way to work this morning and heard one of our local Phoenix radio stations mention that Al-Jezzera had intended to film a documentary along the Arizona Border by following the Minutemen around. I almost wrecked my car. Click here: The Official Minuteman Civil Defense Corps That was all I caught of what the news caster said. I tried to find out on the headline news about it and found nothing until I located this site. Of course this is an issue close to my heart. As I have mentioned before our border is open to the world and it is not just Mexicans that are crossing it. The Minutemen were able to get this stopped. GO MINUTEMEN! I do not have a problem with the Minutemen being there as long as they stay within our laws. We do not need a bunch of vigilantes down on the border and I am glad that the minutemen are proving to be a very professional group with the security of this country upper most in their minds.

2005-06-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article on AOL and it really struck me the wrong way. Click here: AOL News - Court Declines to Rule on Reporters' Refusal to Testify There are times when journalist do a good job of digging out a story and do fine journalism. There also is sloppy journalism and sensationalism being dumped on the public daily. Often when these journalists are digging for their great story in order to make the front page the definition of integrity is forgotten. They are like wolves after one piece of meat and do not consider the consequences of their actions. We raise our children to know there is a difference in tattling to get someone in trouble and tattling to prevent someone from hurting themselves or someone else. This is an over simplification of how I feel about these journalist that dig out a story that causes great damage or loss of life to another human being. I do not find many journalist or news reporters to be very humanitarian. In the instance of this story, Judith Miller of the New York Times, says “journalist simply can not do their job without being able to commit to sources that they won’t be identified”, well does that mean that Judith thinks that she should be able to put someone’s life in jeopardy? Does she think that her part in it was okay because she is a journalist and needs to hide her unscrupulous behavior behind Freedom of Speech? My humble opinion is that the journalist and the source should bare the responsibility. Any kind of journalism or news reporting that will put our countries security, our troop’s security or human life in jeopardy is not acceptable. These two have done nothing that others have not done. Accountability has to start somewhere and get us back on the road to honest journalism that the public can trust to be accurate and truthful, not just sensationalized stories to get points for the reporter and their particular media organization. I believe in Freedom of Speech but common sense must prevail.

2005-06-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

Recently, I received an e-mail from someone and it contained information on an incident that had happened in Baldwin Park California. Because of the tension along the border here in Arizona I decided to check out all of the links within that e-mail. There were a few things I found that surprised me. I have had people accuse me of living in a Rose Colored World. I choose to be an optimist and try and find the good side. As for as the national media goes, I like to do a little research on my on if possible. The sensationalism that is practiced by the media in this country can not really be called good journalism or good news reporting. I will add a link to this story about Baldwin Park. I think it deserves to be noticed. Baldwin Park riot by illegal aliens screaming 'go back to Europe', May 14, 2005 - THE AMERICAN RESISTANCE FOUNDATI I do think there is always two sides to every story and decided to see what else I could find. Click here: Racist fringe groups revisited Living in Arizona and having been born and raised in Texas, I find this all very interesting. There is a real issue with the U.S./Mexico Border. It is not the Mexican’s that are the issue. It is the services that they are using in our country that we as tax payers are providing and it is not just Mexican people that are crossing the border. The healthcare bill alone in Arizona is staggering. The real issue that we all need to concern ourselves with is the OTM’s and the drug traffic crossing that border. Check out immigration facts here. Click here: Team America PAC Dedicated to Defending Our Borders and Protecting American Jobs Our government needs to crack down on the drug traffic and stop turning their heads. For those of you that are not familiar with this, OTM is other than Mexican’s making there way into this country thought Mexico. Once they are caught, they are issued a piece of paper that says they are to report to a hearing in front of a judge on a given day. Of course they do not make that hearing. Having been released on their on they just go deeper into the U.S... These are the people that we have to be very careful about because they are coming from everywhere. It is the perfect way for terrorist to come in to our country. The Mexican’s don’t want to leave their home’s just so they can come up here to work in our kitchens and do the jobs none of us want to do. They just want to make a better life for themselves. The only way that will happen is for their Government to establish more jobs and more equality within their country. It is possible that is where our government needs to focus. Giving amnesty to those that are already here is not the answer. They need to enter legally and go through the proper channels. When our forefathers came here there were indigenous Indian tribes here but most of them came here from somewhere else across the Bering Land Bridge to what is now Alaska. It took all of our ancestors to build this country and they were from every corner of the world. It will take all of us to make it work. Securing our borders is not about one race. If you go to any of these links and follow the links within I think you will see a little of both sides. I do believe that the Mexican’s crossing our borders are the least of our concern with the issues that are presented by our open door policy.