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| | A Birth in Realtime... | | | | Friday, December 4, 2009 (12:32 PM) | |
Being the Story of a Homeless Woman; a Birthday, and Healthcare in America....
(Homeless woman; ca. 1930)
This Wednesday, December 2nd, those few who were using Highway 500 in suburban Vancouver, Washington were either heading to or from shift-work or from an evening of recreational drinking. What they didn't know was that in those early hours, in a homeless camp about 100 feet off the highway, high-drama was acted out in a cheap tent among the blackberry vines.
There, an unnamed homeless woman, age 18, was in the process of giving birth.
An unidentified man (most homeless people don't want to be identified by the media; most use 'street names' or other pseudonyms) used what was left on his cell-phone to call 911 for help.
With temperatures hovering around 35 degrees that night, it was a good thing. When the Vancouver Fire Department paramedics arrived, they saw that the woman was borderline-hypothermic; she still had the umbilical cord attached.
Spokespeople at Southwest Washington Medical Center stated that the woman and her child were 'doing well' - further identification was not allowed due to Federal medical privacy laws.
Her 'home' - a tent; tucked back behind a blackberry-thicket - will be cleared out today by Vancouver authorities, along with the rest of the camp, which is home to twenty-odd people.
"Homelessness in and of itself is not a matter of abuse or neglect," Department of Social and Health Services spokesman Thomas Shapley said.
DSHS has stated that that the woman and her child will not leave the hospital without 'resources'.
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(Frankly, I don't want to hear the Right's bogus 'statistics' regarding people in America without health care. I also don't want to hear more about Mr. Obama's bloated and unworkable 'health care reform' bill.
I want to see some leadership.
I want to see America start to care - genuinely care - for all of its citizens.
Especially the newest ones.) | | | 19 Views | 0  Thumbs Up | 0 Comments |  |
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| | A Little History on Computer Telecommunications | | | | Sunday, November 1, 2009 (9:21 AM) | | These days it seems that software engineers are scuttling to turn out new features before addressing the problems they had with the old software. By the time they get to a point where they FINALLY decide to address some of the problems, the code is so lofty that they have trouble digging through all the code to find out where they made the mistakes. My advice to them would be to correct the mistakes in your programs BEFORE adding new features. If you think of a new feature to add, go ahead and write it, but keep it separated from the main program until you get the problems work out. Once you get the problems worked out in both, THEN add the new features to the software.
Some people may scoff at FidoNet, but there were some brilliant and disciplined people involved. Many of them have been hired to create software that runs refineries, chemical plants, and the like. One of my co-coordinators in Region 19 was Bob Davis who owned such a company. I was up for Regional Coordinator, but declined and instead offered to assist the new Regional Coordinator they chose because of the cost involved. Since it was a volunteer network, there was no pay to help with the expenses. Everything WAS done out of the goodness of a person's heart if they could afford to do so.
Due to the cooperation we had in FidoNet in the earlier days, we exchanged much knowledge and were able to help one another when one of us would run across problems. I loathed typing in complete code from scratch, though I often did, and preferred to debug code that people had already written. I had found a non-FidoNet BBS program that had CGA graphcis and music rather than just the ANSI stuff that was prevalent at the time. After some negotiations with Usenet, their groups were added as well. Remember, we just had 2400 baud dial-up by then, so it was quite a feat. The software was bulky, un-uniform, and laden with bugs, so I spent many hours debugging the software and writing solutions and modules. There was one spot I had trouble with and I was able to enlist the help of an extremely brilliant assembly code writer who wrote me a fix. Eventually, I got the problems worked out and added some calls to a couple FidoNet programs to get the email working in it as well. As a result, I had the first on-line system with music, vector graphics, and email. There would be a hacker (new form of the word, not the old form) now and then who would come in and try to screw up the code or steal passwords, but at the time, they weren't as prevalent as they are today. One of them turned into a friend, though, and he showed me where the holes were.
Sadly, with the onset of the Internet, unsavory people turned it more into Fight-O-Net and much of the good was lost. It's sad when assholes try to screw up things for everyone. | | | | 29 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | Emily and Mickey | | | Thursday, October 22, 2009 (9:49 PM)
(I'm feeling amused) | | Emily was a high-class call girl. Her strawberry hair and graceful moves brought top dollar from her clients. She worked for her pimp, Mickey, who fathered her children starting from the time she was a young teen. He had found her starving on the street and took her in for a few "favors." He then hooked her on cocaine and forced her to "visit" the clients he would set up for her.
Mickey was big and most people feared him, but he wasn't as bright as he should have been. He got greedy and started using her to con people over the internet. He knew that they couldn't resist her charming smile and her elegant beauty. This in the end would be his undoing.
Emily was successful much of the time, getting what she wanted from others, but somewhere, deep down, she knew what she was doing was wrong, which led her to making mistakes. One day, she attached herself to the wrong patsy. The man, as it turned out, worked for the Internet Crime division of the FBI known as IC3.
Shall I continue?
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| | Alan Moore of Musicians and Fine Artists for World Peace On Radio Today | | | Monday, September 21, 2009 (3:05 PM)
(I'm feeling happy) | | Dear All
One Love for Music, our newest member, invited me to be on their show today
at 7:15 Pacific Time for "on line with andrea" in honor of the United
Nations International Day of Peace. Lee Waterworth will be on to discuss his
global campaign to get radio stations to play the Bob Marley hit One Love on
this special day. Hosted by Andrea R.Garrison. See www.oneloveformusic.com
and www.myspace.com/onelove4peace
Here is the link for the radio show:
www.blogtalkradio.com/onlinewithandrea/2009/09/22/One-Love-for-Music-with-Lee-Waterworth
BTW, for the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock, we will be doing a butterfly
release at West Fest in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on Sunday, October
25, 2009. Please see www.2b1records.com/woodstock40sf You can also check out
our Woodstock anniversary committee at
http://passion.edu/elearn/mod/resource/view.php?id=1712
May Peace Prevail on Earth & In Space!
Alan Moore
Musicians & Fine Artists for World Peace - Founder & director
www.butterflyspirit.org/projects/mfawp_list.php or
http://passion.edu/elearn/mod/resource/view.php?id=1612
http://www.myspace.com/musiciansforpeace
Butterfly Gardeners Association - Founder & director
www.butterflyspirit.org
PO Box 1511, Vallejo, Ca 94590
415-424-7238 bflyspirit8@aol.com | | | | 52 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | The Change of Presidents and Their Effects On the Disabled | | | Wednesday, September 9, 2009 (12:56 AM)
(I'm feeling contemplative) | |
Kent's job rotated from two weeks inside working the control boards to two weeks outside working the Vapor Recovery Unit and the pumps. Kent was doing his usual 4th week job at the refinery, working the outside pump job when he came upon a barrel of chemical that needed to be pumped into the cooling tower. He scouted the whole unit for a hand pump or air pump, but they had all been removed. There were air operated pulleys that could lift the barrels, but his work order to have them repaired were ignored as was his work order for having a cover built over the pumps to prevent the cooling tower mist, which caused the air pumps to corrode and freeze up, from getting on them. Kent decided to report the problem to his Chief Operator.
Kent told the chief that the only pump still on the unit was the pump used for the main air compressor. The chief, as expected, told him that the air compressor was too important to risk using that pump for the cooling tower chemical.
“Well, I guess I can't put the chemical in the tower until we get a pump,” said Kent.
“You get over there and get that chemical in the cooling tower!”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Lift the barrel and dump it in the cooling tower.”
“It's 1.2 tons.”
“If you don't get that chemical in the cooling tower, you're FIRED!”
Kent had a step daughter fixing to get married in 2 weeks and he couldn't afford to lose his job, so he sighed and went off to try to get the chemical into the tower. He crossed the street and headed back toward the cooling tower basin where the barrel was.
Kent was able to tilt the barrel enough with a dolly to roll it closer to the 3 metal steps up to the basin, but he wasn't sure how he was going to get it up the steps. After leaning the barrel vertically on the steps, he walked to the bottom of the barrel, bent his legs down, and backed against the bottom of the barrel. He pushed with all his might, moving the barrel a little at a time until the bottom caught on the bottom step enough for him to stop and rest for a few seconds. He then repeated the process until he finally got the barrel all the way up to the basin. With the last push, something gave in his back.
Kent used his hands to pull himself to the front of the barrel, then opened the screw tops on the barrel, letting the chemical drain in. He lay there on the metal grate in pain until he could rest enough to start moving himself toward the control room.
When Kent made it back to the control room, the chief refused to get Kent to medical. The chief didn't want to lose the caps that they were going to get for having a safe record in the refinery and the Superintendent was in the control room. Their advice to Kent was to go home, rest, and see if he felt better in the morning.
Kent shook his head, pulled himself out using only his hands across the empty storage yard, past the guard at the gate, and into his car. He wasn't sure how he was going to drive his car home, but he was resourceful. He reached for the umbrella which he kept in his car and used that to operate the pedals. When Kent got home, he pulled himself to the door with his hands, opened the door, then pulled himself into his bedroom and lay in bed. Kent prayed for his back to please get better by the time he woke up.
The next morning, Kent swung his legs off the bed and tried to stand. He wound up on the floor. His legs were useless. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
Kent went through surgery trying to have his back repaired, but the surgery left him in worse condition. The doctor had operated even though the autoclave was out and used dirty scalpels. As a result, Kent developed Arachnoiditis.
The refinery refused Kent his Workman's Compensation and said that they would rather let Social Security handle his case. Even when Kent got a lawyer to fight the decision, the lawyer suddenly dropped the case without explanation. Kent was on his own.
Kent filed for Social Security Disability and was turned down the first two times. He finally got a lawyer and was granted his Social Security Disability. At least Kent could now pay his bills again.
A few months after Kent started receiving his disability pay, the president made a change in policy to reduce the frequency of the cost-of-living increases in Social Security. This made things a strain for Kent and his family, but Kent tried to assure himself that the president getting the country back in the black would reduce the overall cost of living in time. He was still surviving.
The next election, another president from another party got into office. His radical changes and his war-like ways increased the strain on Kent and all the others who had been disabled. The country went well into the red again, people were losing their jobs due to corporate cut-backs, and there were far fewer people willing to do anything for anyone but themselves. Even the nurses who came to help out started demanding pay from the disabled, stating that what Social Security paid them was not enough.
As if this weren't enough, Kent's wife was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Kent ended up having to take the money out of his retirement plan to pay the doctors for the expensive treatments she needed. By the time she died, Kent was broke. To top it off, his mother was being raped and beaten by one of her neighbors in her area, so she moved into a trailer park where things were even worse.
Kent decided that it was too difficult for a single disabled person on his own to keep up a house and a yard in a city, so he sold his house, bought a trailer and an acre lot in a country neighborhood, and moved his mom into it. He figured that his sister would help with his mom and that he would be able to hire someone with a riding lawnmower to cut his yard.
Things were manageable for a couple years, then the oil company, who was raking in record profits during the war, canceled his insurance. When he called to inquire, he was told, “You can file an appeal to try to get it back, but if I were you, I wouldn't bother. You would just be wasting your time.”
Kent found himself depressed over the situation, but at least he had Medicare to fall back on since he was on Social Security Disability and it didn't cost the $450 a month that his corporate plan charged. His mother's insurance was soon canceled as well and she had retired from the oil company.
“That's just like the corporations, trying to maximize their profits by cutting off those most in need,” Kent sighed.
After that president's reign of terror, a new candidate got in office. He was trying to push for a national health care package similar to what most other industrialized nations have had for years. Kent thought this was a good idea, so he started helping with the campaign.
Copyright © 2009 Cal Jennings
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| | Notes from the Organizing for America Meeting with President Obama | | | Thursday, August 20, 2009 (1:21 PM)
(I'm feeling accomplished) | | I was multi-tasking and didn't get everything, but these are the notes that I came away with:
You can keep your doctor
You can keep your insur Inboxance
Those with no insurance will be given options from which they can choose
1) Public Option - Choose your insurance
2) Forces insurance companies to abide by the laws
No pre-existing condition limitations
No lifetime or yearly caps
You can keep insurance when you lose or change your job
Donut hole in prescription programs will be closed
Premiums have gone up 3x faster than wages and inflation.
No one is talking about cutting senior's benefits
Medicare is a government program
Medicare is being strengthened
When FDR proposed Social Security he was accused of being a Socialist and turning America Socialist
When Medicare was proposed by JFK and Johnson, they said that it was a government takeover that would take away your rights.
Volunteer Questions:
Q: What do you think is the most compelling argument we can make for health reform?
A: The status quo is unsustainable. If you like what you have, you won't have it if things go as they're going. Premiums have gone up 3x faster than wages and inflation. Companies are cutting back and raising rates premiums. We're going to be running out of money.
If you don't have health insurance, we aren't forcing you to go into a government plan. We're giving you a choice similar to the plan Congress has. There will be a public option, but the choice is yours.
This will be a set of consumer protections that will insure that you will be provided for if you get sick. You can't deny pre-existing conditions or deny them when they get sick. Only 15% can go to administrative costs. Over time, prevention and wellness will be covered and the costs will be reduced in the long run.
We'll be paying $5,000 - $6000 less per person.
Even if you live in a strong Democratic district, convincing people more broadly is very important. We are not reducing benefits under Medicare. We want to strengthen it by closing the donut hole and by extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund. Insurance companies have been getting money out of the Medicare Trust Fund through Medicare Advantage. They need to be made to compete for that money.
No plan under health care reform covers illegal immigrants. No plan covers abortions. There is no planned government takeover of health care. No one is going to take away your health insurance. We don't want government or insurance companies taking away your benefits.
There is no "death plan." They are given an option to get good counseling on end of life decisions just as the wealthy do. End of life counselling was first proposed by Republicans. Suddenly it became death panels.
This will help small businesses that can't afford to insure their employees. They will be able to pool their insurance programs with other small businesses to get rates that better compete with the insurance programs of large corporations.
We want to make sure that insurance companies treat their insured right. They must accept pre-existing conditions, they can't have caps. If there is a public option providing a good deal to the public, the insurance companies will be compelled to offer plans that will provide what the public option provides.
They want to get fresh fruits and vegetables into the school lunch program to increase the health of the students. It will help local farmers as well.
The number of years a young person can be on their parents' health care plan is being planned to be extended to 25 or 26 so that they have a chance to get a start and get a decent job so that they can afford health care. There will be plans for hardship exemptions where people are very poor and have disabilities.
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| | Mortgages, Banks, the Economy, and Why You Should Be Concerned Now.... (by AstraNavigo) | | | Thursday, August 20, 2009 (12:34 PM)
(I'm feeling accomplished) | | Mortgages, Banks, the Economy, and Why You Should Be Concerned Now.... Aug 20, '09 12:39 PM
for everyone
"All the way to the bottom, son, if we don't do something to stop her."
This was the response I received at age twelve when, in the 'tow' of my father while touring a submarine, I asked the question, "How far down will she go?"
(As submarine operational statistics are considered classified, this is the stock-response to that question. It's also a piece of gallows-humor - because every submariner knows that a submerged submarine is, in essence, a sunken ship - it may be operating in a form of balance and harmony with its environment, but it's also underwater - and because humans can't breathe underwater, the time the ship can spend in that environment is limited -- which means that when the plug is pulled, sufficient resources have to be in place to bring it to the surface again - or the crew dies.)
It's that simple.
Likewise, economies are fragile things - a deep moral discussion of just-when bankers decided to become the New Age version of Dark Age bandits is well beyond the purview of this post, however. Frankly, the ship has taken on too much water; it's going to sink, and it's up to me to tell you why, and why you should pay attention to the next few months.
Here's the good news: There's going to be a recovery.
Here's the bad news: It's not going to last.
While the trigger to all of this is likely hyperinflation (as I've mentioned earlier, you'll first start to notice this when gasoline goes from $2.50 to $8.00/gal in the next twelve months), you'll also see it in a rapid increase in credit card rates (Tip #1 for you - if you haven't already, get rid of your credit-cards. Pay them off, cut them up, and send them back. Now.)
The underlying causes are more insidious - inflation was the government's means of answering the question, "What do we do now?" after the credit-markets dried up.
A Brief History....
When Greenspan lowered interest rates to near-zero in the early part of this decade to ameliorate the recession, what he put in place was a chain-of-events which led to too much money, too soon, spun up from nothing and put in the most-convenient place - real-estate.
This drove the price of real-estate to unsupportable levels. People were talking about retiring on their real-estate portfolios, and in '06, the new head-of-the-Fed, Ben Bernacke, said that there wasn't a 'housing bubble'; things were fine.
I didn't share his enthusiasm then, and I see no reason to support his sunshine-and-puppies predictions now.
In late 2007, due to the large banks having taken on far too much debt, the credit markets dried up. Banks simply could no longer capitalize loans - they were underwater by any standard - and there was no way to bring the 'ship' to the surface again.
With no credit, American business simply ground to a halt.
Enter Obama....
Bush, having all but given the order to 'dive' by pressuring Greenspan to prevent a recession on his watch, did nothing while the crisis materialized. The nation had taken on debt well beyond its ability to pay, and this debt had pushed the banking system underwater. A crisis of international proportions loomed.
After election day in 2008, the new president announced his 'stimulus' packages. In essence, he was going to crank up the press and monetize the debt of the Wall Street banks, favoring them over the regional and local banks which are responsible for the loans which create most of the jobs in America.
Doing this was like fighting a fire with gasoline.
When done, Obama had 'monetized' (that's a roundabout way of saying 'printed') nearly five trillion dollars. The total of the stimulus packages actually exceeded America's GDP.
I'll say this plainly: There's no way our economy - or any economy - can support this.
What They've Done With It......
For their part, the Wall Street banks favored by Obama have sat on this money - you see, they know something we don't: Serious inflation - probably hyperinflation - is right around the corner.
Most small and intermediate banks are still in trouble. The mortgage-mess is still there. The prior decade saw the dismantling of the regulations put in place after the era of J.P. Morgan and the banking crises of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. In fact, during Bush's watch, there have been an astonishing number of regulations abolished - banking leverage has been increased; money can flow between commercial and investment banks, and the prior controls on the SEC have all but disappeared.
Putting the fox in charge of the nation's financial henhouse wasn't enough - the Bush administration, having created the perfect petri-dish to breed this mess, turned the economy over to the next group - who administered the coup-de-grace in the form of printed money.
Where We Are Today.....
Banking: The banking system is underwater. (1) Banks simply aren't doing enough business to keep going; an annual growth rate of 2% isn't enough to keep them alive; (2) If you watch CNN and read any financial news at all, you're seeing that banks are failing at a rate unprecedented in the nation's history (annualized bank-failures have almost gone vertical); (3) The FDIC is bankrupt - holding only $41B in reserves as of March of this year, with four regional banks having failed this month; (4) Defaults are projected to increase through 2011, further impacting bank balance-sheets; (5) We are at or near historic lows in bank credit at 2% growth.
Real-Estate: In March of this year, one in four American mortgages were underwater (more was owed on the home than it was worth). With the economy still shedding jobs as an outgrowth of the credit crisis, fully 50% (one in two mortgages) will be underwater by the middle of 2010.
The Political Implications:
Big banks in America now have a power they didn't have before - they've been favored with more money than the nation can support via GDP. In spite of the support they're getting from the Right, they're not opening those purse-strings and creating jobs.
That's because the large banks no longer believe in America. They believe in more profits - and they've monetized their own debt, improved their own balance-sheets, and invested in other currencies to hedge their bets.
What Obama has created is a form of nascent National Socialism; a modern-day feudal system not unlike what was created in Germany in the late 1930's.
Summary:
The good news is that the leaks have stopped; there's pressure in the hull, metaphorically speaking - likely, the recession has hit bottom.
However, as with a submarine, once you've repaired the damage and you're not losing your air-supply, you still have to take stock of things and get the water out of the boat - or she'll still keep going down - all the way to the bottom.
Ending the recession is well and good -but it's not what's needed here. What's needed is a recovery of near-heroic proportions. I'm doubting it'll happen - the forces at play here are going to push us back down into recession, and probably depression.
Over 40% of America's wealth has been erased - thus far. If the government were to add up everyone not just on unemployment, but those for whom benefits have ended and those who have simply given up looking, the unemployment rate is nowhere near 10% - it's more like 20%.
The Obama Administration has seen fit to behave in banana-republic fashion, purchasing key industries, printing money and shoveling it into the economy via the large Wall Street banks, who now enjoy an oligarchy-of-sorts not seen since the 1870's.
I'd hate to think that, having sufficiently turned things over to the large banks by default, we're going to see a repeat of the banking crises near the turn of the last century - but there's little in today's news or the stats (go click on the links) which tell me otherwise.
Remember that the pumps buy you time - but minutes only. Everyone; get to a lifeboat. Red lights lead to green lights; green lights lead to exits, and exits lead to an uncertain future - let's all hope it's better than the alternative. | | | | 23 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | Recipe for a Revolution..... (by AstraNavigo) | | | Sunday, August 16, 2009 (9:22 PM)
(I'm feeling disappointed) | |
Today, the Obama administration announced that it will likely abandon a government-paid option for public health care in favor of privately-funded 'health co-ops'.
Congratulations to everyone who fought so hard on behalf of the large insurance companies, corporate hospital interests, and big pharmaceuticals -- you won!
America will remain in a Class All By Itself -- the only industrialized nation with no national health-care system.
Half the nation's workforce will have to go to a foreign country to purchase pharmaceuticals at a price they can afford - some which cost pennies to make, and are sold for hundreds of dollars here in the U.S.
An unemployed person in Cuba will still have better medical care than an unemployed person in the U.S.
Now - I'd like one of the aforementioned supporters of big business to answer me a very, very simple question:
When 40,000,000 Americans have no health care because they cannot pay for any form of insurance, and when twice that number are underinsured, how is it going to help them to establish 'health co-ops'? What part of 'they cannot pay' do you not understand?
In the light of that announcement today, herewith find my Recipe for a Revolution:
1. Start with 60,000,000 people with no health care or marginal healthcare.
2. Add nearly 20,000,000 mortgages which are 'underwater'.
3. Fold in 28,000,000 unemployed people.
4. Add $5,000,000,000,000 in printed money.
5. Increase the inflation rate to 150% in four years.
6. Place all ingredients in a pot labeled 'Polarized Nation'. Tie the lid down tight.
7. Turn the heat up to 'medium', so everyone will have a chance to get used to it.
8. Now, pick a side (either side of the pot will do nicely; the outcome will be the same.)
9. Wait. It won't be long.
______________________________________
Folks, we all have a ticket to the upcoming show. Me? I'll take the cheap seats; they're farther from the action, and frankly, I've got less chance of being hurt.
I'll bring the bulletproof vests and the Kevlar helmets.
You bring the popcorn.
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| | Hypocrisy | | | Wednesday, August 5, 2009 (5:28 PM)
(I'm feeling disappointed) | | Hypocrisy. It's an ugly thing, especially when someone is accusing someone of doing horrible things and ignoring their own faults, which are often worse. For instance, a woman came into my room and made a fuss about someone in my room turning his clothed behind around to the camera and pressing the fart button on a sound board to make it appear that he farted.
"He farted in my face!" She conveyed the message through her husband who was also in the room. Since I wouldn't chastise the person for doing something silly and perfectly harmless, I was removed from her friend list. This same married woman had been hitting on me the day before, complaining that her husband had been talking with another woman and had made plans to meet the other woman. When she arrived this day, I had the opportunity to talk to both her and her husband about how I dislike married women hitting on me. Perhaps that was the real problem and the guy using the fart soundboard was an excuse. Pretty feeble excuse, though, wouldn't you say?
I get tired of self-righteous morons like these. They're quick to point out someone else's faults, but NEVER see anything wrong with the things that they do that hurt more people FAR more than some harmless farting sound effect. People like these want to condemn single people for flirting with one another on cam, like they didn't flirt to get to know their mate. People like these want to condemn any sexual behavior they see, yet they are engaging in adulterous behavior that not only hurts others, but their own families.
You have people with twisted minds who seem to think about nothing but sex who don't want anyone over 18 talking to an underage child. Since my mind isn't always on sex, I have no problem talking with people under 18. I don't talk to them about sexual things. They're usually friends of friends or want to talk about Superman or comic books. People who think that there's something perverse about that are perverse minded themselves. Oh, they grandstand and get people cheering them on and agreeing with them about how bad adults talking to children is, but you know what they say... "He who smelt it, dealt it."
It reminds me of a man I worked with at AMOCO Oil. He was the biggest drug dealer on the unit, yet he talked about the evils of marijuana and said things like, "Anyone who smokes marijuana ought to be shot!" He had them whipped up into a frenzy and attacking anyone who even looked like they might have smoked a joint in their life. The rednecks on the unit would cheer him on and pat him on the back, unaware of what he really was.
Chances are, if you're following someone around attacking others, the person you're following is far worse than anyone he or she points you to. Their motive is to condemn others so that others don't notice the horrors that they commit. Jesus addressed people like this:
Matthew 7:5
International Standard Version (©2008)
You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
There is no end to the trouble that hypocrites cause. They spur people to gang up against others and create general havoc in the community. They aren't doing it to better the community or to help others. The only purpose it serves is their own. These people are willing to lie, distort truths, take things out of context, or do anything else they can come up with that they think will make them look good in the eyes of others. All the time, they are committing far worse atrocities than anyone they condemn.
The next time someone urges you to attack someone for something, think. Think hard. Rather than jump on their bandwagon and attacking others with them, consider taking that beam out of your own eye first, then you might get a good look at the one who's urging you to do such things. The gang mentality is not a healthy one.
Love, Hope, Peace, & Christ Is With Us All,
Cal-el
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| | Rest In Peace, John | | | | Wednesday, July 29, 2009 (6:01 PM) | | Please pray for Mistressoftheundead and for Anubis2John's family. Mistressoftheundead is very upset because he O.D.'d after she told him to get out. It was just a stupid fight like every couple has from time to time, but hearing that from her was very devastating.
Don't play with people's feelings. Some of us do love so deeply that it seems better to us to die than to live without the one we love. Remember that sometimes resolution of a conflict takes time. Don't just give up. You never know what tomorrow may bring. As long as you both still breathe, there's still a shred of hope.
John was struggling with his addiction very hard, but it is a hard addiction to beat. John had accepted Christ and was struggling to find a deeper meaning to Christianity in his life. He got involved with Mistress through his desire to get her out of the Satan worship she was involved with. In a sense, you could say that he gave his life for her.
I'm dedicating this James Taylor song to John. It meant something in our friendship. James Taylor wrote this song after a friend of his died of a heroin overdose.
Fire and Rain
Rest in Peace, John.
Love, Hope, Peace, & Christ Is With Us All,
Cal-el
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