Friday Peace Vigil, Hubbard, OH, and surrounding area:

PEACE VIGIL
HUBBARD, OH
Friday, October 12, 2012
4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Rt. 616 (Hubbard Rd./S. Main St.) & Rt. 304 (Liberty St.)

Ray Nakley (330-506-1999) and Ron Dull (330-518-9881) will hold their weekly Peace Vigil this Friday, October 12, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., at the corner of Rt. 616 (Hubbard Rd./S. Main St.) & Rt. 304 (Liberty St.), Hubbard, OH. They invite anyone who is interested in showing their support for ending conflict in the world to join them. Hold out positive thoughts for that!

　

This week: 

Well, last week I put my plans to be more productive in writing, virtually speaking, and as I predicted at that time, God laughed. I guess I shouldn’t be upset about that development. It could mean the relationship between a woman planning and a riant deity confirms the existence of the Mother God who enjoys the antics of Her earthly creations.

To reality: After an appointment with our primary-care doctor tomorrow morning, the week will come to a close with all those loose threads that had earlier eluded order now neatly tied and tucked. Next week, a brand-new fresh month as well, and no one knows what the future holds.

So, I’m just going to end on that note. September was the sort of month that could be called "interesting," as in the ancient curse: "May you live in interesting times." At least one has no right to claim boredom." So, I will wish better on all the world, and sign off until my next post, sometime between new and next week . . . maybe!

Positive thoughts and, for those who are believers, prayers for all the suffering souls all around the world!
 

Friday Peace Vigil, Austintown, OH, and surrounding area:

PEACE VIGIL
AUSTINTOWN, OH
Friday, September 21, 2012
4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Rt. 46 (Canfield Niles Rd.) & Mahoning Ave.

Ray Nakley (330-506-1999) and Ron Dull (330-518-9881) will hold their weekly Peace Vigil this Friday, September 21, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., at the corner of Rt. 46 (Canfield Niles Rd.) & Mahoning Ave., Austintown, OH. They invite anyone who is interested in showing their support for ending conflict in the world to join them. Hold out positive thoughts for that!


This Week:


I’ve been sticking to my plan to write and post at least a couple of articles on this blog each week. Meanwhile, I’ve also been organizing my notes for one of the novels that have nagged at my creative brain cells for far too long. If I can get that going too, I’ll probably try to do one article and a couple of chapters every few days.

Then of course, there’s that age-old saying, "Man plans, and God laughs."

Of course, nothing was said about how a woman fits into that paradigm.

Positive thoughts and, for those who are believers, prayers for all the suffering souls all around the world!

And if I don’t manage to finish and post the article I hoped to have done by tomorrow, I wish everyone a positive and hopeful Peace Day, September 21. Keep on sharing and spreading the message that we must end poverty in order to achieve true peace throughout the globe.

What Republicans Fear Most

 



Republicans fear the Goddess

in every Woman and her Cats

 

 

Earlier today I was reading another article on cnn.com discussing the Republican campaign against women’s rights, and I happened to see something in a photo that made me think of my cats.

Hmm.

So I made a little note, found the perfect picture that’s safely in the public domain, added a bit of text, and . . . Voila!

Check it out:

What REPUBLICANS Fear Most

PUSSIES They Can’t CONTROL
 

Feel free to share this message as far and wide as you can. We all have to make as much noise as we can to stop the GOP from doing everything in their power to move us back to the nineteenth century, or worse! There are many things we can do, but the most important action we must take is VOTE!

On November 6, be sure to vote against dragging our nation backward in history.

Better yet, contact your local official who manages voter registrations--in Arizona, it’s county recorders--and sign up to receive early mail-in ballots. They’ll let you know when to expect ballots in the mail for every election throughout the year. Then when the big envelope comes, study the candidates and issues, mark your ballot, and put it right back in the mail as quickly as you can. That’s the best way to ensure that you don’t miss voting on election day and your vote will be counted.

And to the Goddesses and their cats: Let’s all keep up the fight against the oppressors!

Forward to VICTORY!





Defining the real 'Elite'

Elite: a group of people regarded as superior in some way and therefore favored (Oxford American Dictionary, 1980)

Among the elite would be owners of sports teams, corporations, dressage horses that compete in the Olympics, i.e., people with tons of money and outsized bank accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, etc.

Wait. Don’t Republicans hate the ‘elite’? Obviously, they’re confused about the true meaning of the word ‘elite.’

But just in time, Rick Santorum explains it all for us. He said " . . . we [conservative Republicans] will never have the elite, smart people on our side."

Ah, now that makes sense. Anyone with a working brain cell is obviously not going to vote for any of those anti-intellectual Republicans.

Thank goodness we were warned!

Friday Peace Vigil, Youngstown, OH, and surrounding area:

PEACE VIGIL
YOUNGSTOWN, OH
Friday, September 14, 2012
4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Downtown on the Square (Federal Plaza E. & Wick Ave.)

Ray Nakley (330-506-1999) and Ron Dull (330-518-9881) will hold their weekly Peace Vigil this Friday, September 14, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., at the corner of Downtown on the Square (Federal Plaza E. & Wick Ave.), Youngstown, OH. They invite anyone who is interested in showing their support for ending conflict in the world to join them. Hold out positive thoughts for that!

 
This week:

We finally signed another tenant to our vacant rental house in Arizona City. That means I can finally get back to my real work again, writing about my dream of a world without poverty and war. Meanwhile, I would be remiss if I didn’t give some reasonable attention to the momentous choices ahead for the country in early November.

I’m old enough to remember a time when one could vote for the person rather than the party. Sadly, that option disappeared almost overnight when Grover Norquist gained so much power over an entire party beginning in the 1970s. I hate to make this sound political, because I really never believed in the assumed obligation so many people have to the group ethos. My driving principle is to preserve and protect the basic rights of every human being. As I wrote in my book, The World I Imagine: A creative manual for ending poverty and building peace:

" . . . conflicts are bound to occur when laws and their application deny the rights of people based on gender, age, skin color, economic class, physical or mental disabilities, or other superficial and irrelevant factors. However, putting an end to poverty would no doubt improve the tendency of people and organizations to respect every individual’s civil rights, no matter their station.

"That is why in the world I imagine, no law would conflict with the inherent rights of any person or group, and no law could be enacted that benefits any person or organization to the detriment of any other individual or group of people."

So I’m going to continue writing, no matter how much or how often, whenever I can. And as I have done for the past three decades, I will reserve my vote for Democratic candidates and continue to do so until enough people associated with the Republican Party stand up for true conservative values, which includes staying out of the private lives of free citizens.

Then I’ll consider voting for people who truly want to use the power of their office to assure that everyone enjoys an equal opportunity to partake in the fruits of prosperity and peace, regardless of the politician’s party membership.

Positive thoughts and, for those who are believers, prayers for all the suffering souls all around the world!

“Rizzoli & Isles”: Sending wrong message about disabled vets

I tried watching "Rizzoli & Isles" off and on from the beginning but couldn’t help feeling the show was ripping off too much from the far superior "Bones," one of our absolute favorite crime series. But finally, the last part of the episode entitled "Welcome to the Dollhouse" made me start asking myself why I bothered to watch "R&I" in the first place.

What bothered me was the final scene in which Jane (Rizzoli, played by Angie Harmon) learns that Casey (Sgt. Major Jones played by Chris Vance) was severely injured in the war. He tells her he doesn’t want to be in her life until he’s a ‘whole’ man again. Then he hobbles away on crutches while Jane watches with a look of pitiful suffering.

Give me a break!

The message here is that disabled vets should be hidden away and not mix with ‘normal’ people. It’s an age-old prejudice. Society has always tried to make disabled people hide from the outside world. I know, because I’ve suffered from several hidden disabilities just about all my life, and the majority of people who learn about my illness treat me with the same type of discrimination.

Before people discover the truth of my illness, they enjoy my company. But when I have to explain that my condition prevents me from being able to perform or socialize to the extent they demand, they almost consistently turn their backs on me. Some people even try to punish me for the ‘crime’ of being disabled.

And the situation is no different for people with overt disabilities like that dramatized on "Rizzoli & Isles."

I confess, I tried watching the show for several more weeks, hoping they would change course on this misguided plot development. But I finally realized the producers of the series are demonstrating the same mean-spirited bigotry toward people like me, and most of the disabled veterans of Bush’s wars of choice, that has been practiced throughout history. That’s why I refuse to watch any more episodes of "Rizzoli & Isles."

I hope other people who understand the importance of this negative message regarding disabled people in general, and disabled veterans in particular, will consider not only tuning out the series, but contacting TNT, as I will with this message, to let them know how wrong-headed this message is.