I had not paid much attention about the debt ceiling until the story broke that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) had to remove himself from debt ceiling negotiation talks due to his short bet against the U.S. dollar.  I first heard about this on Free Speech TV's "The Thom Hartmann Show" over a week ago and since that time, very few people are comprehending the gravity of this situation.  A CONGRESSMAN IS BETTING AGAINST HIS OWN COUNTRY'S CURRENCY AND ECONOMY!!!  Representative Cantor's bet is tantamount to treason and you can best believe that he is the NOT the only congress member betting against America.

Just a few weeks ago, Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was forced by his own party to resign over him sending pictures of his penis to an online acquaintance.  Though he made the fatal mistake of lying about the incident to every news outlet that put a microphone in front of him, the offense had NOTHING to do with his job performance nor did the incident take place during work hours as far as we know.  Yet, this story proliferated every news broadcast for 3 weeks.  Now, we have this bombshell about a congressman in a key leadership position who has broken his sworn oath of office and is actively betting against U.S. currency but NO ONE is calling for Eric Cantor's resignation or indictment!  How could this be?    Well,  the debt ceiling talks is the  latest act in the kabuki theater of American politics and we citizens continue on as a helpless, clueless audience seemingly paralyzed to say or do anything about the unfolding drama happening before our very eyes.

Perhaps a lot of us don't understand the whole concept of our national debt and debt ceiling talks, so let me make it plain for you. The U.S. total debt is currently over $54 trillion and the interest on that debt is well over $3 trillion (source:  U.S. National Debt Clock website).  Currently, the U.S. has a $14.294 trillion credit limit which was raised from the previous $12.394 trillion credit limit back in February 2010 (source:  Treasury Direct website).  Our country is $100 billion away from reaching the new credit limit and we only have a little over $3 trillion in tax and state revenue coming in which will only cover our interest payment.  The gross domestic product or total market value of final goods and services produced in our country which serves as our collateral for obtaining loans is currently at $14.7 trillion.  Looking at this from a personal finance perspective, our country is a horrible credit risk (even though Moody's Investors Service gives the US a AAA credit rating just like they gave all the toxic assets that led to the 2008 financial crisis) and would be extremely hard-pressed to get a loan.  However, congress and the president have the exclusive privilege of raising the country's credit limit infinitely despite our inability to pay off the ever-increasing debt.  Once the new credit limit is agreed upon, our government goes about the business of selling treasury bonds (debt) to individuals, corporations and other countries such as China, Japan, and Russia.  Our country also sells large amounts of its debt to other countries that export oil (Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria) and serve as banking centers (Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Panama and the British Virgin Islands).  The countries that are designated in bold happen to be places that are in conflict either with the U.S. or internally.  Who in their right mind borrows money from their alleged enemies?

Why is it that Republicans are giving President Obama such a hard time  about raising the debt ceiling when it could mean that America defaults on its loans?  I am only calling out the republican party because other than Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Democrats have done little to fire up bi-partisan working class support for increasing taxes on the wealthy.  Most economists and many business leaders believe that an inability to raise the debt ceiling would have damaging and potentially catastrophic economic consequences.  Certainly, an already vulnerable American public would suffer, with increased interest rates, delays in payment for military personnel and the elderly, as well as a suspension of a variety of other vital services.  Since our nation is currently occupying/fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya, there also is a serious risk to our nation's troops overseas and to our strategic international interests. The evidence is strong that our nation would suffer immediate and irreparable harm if the debt ceiling is not raised.  President Obama could issue an emergency executive order to suspend the debt limit since the criteria has been met to do so but what does this mean for our country's escalating debt?  It means that we will continue to wallow in this debt until the countries we owe money call it in and herein lies the farce all of this foolishness.

The world operates on a fiat currency system meaning that the top currencies such as the U.S. dollar, European euro, the Japanese yuan and British pound have no intrinsic value, i.e. they are not based on any physical commodity, but their worth depends on people's faith in them. If people lose faith in a fiat currency, it will stop holding any value and will become no more precious than the paper it was printed on.  Seeing as the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has a bet against the dollar, it would appear that one of the very people who is paid and entrusted with "bearing true faith and allegiance" to his country, has forsaken it.  The deafening silence about this traitorous act leads me believe that the rest of congress is in on the same bet.  Sadly enough, average citizens are the ones who have to shoulder the overwhelming burden of endless debt.  Yet, when it comes time to print up our "funny money"  or borrow it from other countries, that same congress always votes to give the majority of it to banks, corporations and wealthy individuals via bailouts, tax breaks and subsidies aka corporate welfare.  President Obama has proposed $4 trillion in deficit spending cuts (nobody seems to give a damn about the $54+ trillion principal) that come from social safety programs such as Social Security and Medicare.  The diabolical formula is to gradually raise the full eligibility age to 70 for workers born in 1973 and thereafter, that would cut Social Security outlays by 12 percent by 2050, which would equate to massive savings in dollar terms.  But, as the Congressional Budget Office has noted, an increase in the eligibility age is, in effect, a cut in the benefits which people are expecting to get.  “Forcing people with lower-than-average life expectancies to delay claiming benefits would reduce their lifetime benefits.” CBO said in a report last March. “For example, someone who died at 68 would collect benefits for four years rather than six. And because people with lower earnings tend to have shorter life expectancies, they would be more likely to be harmed by the change.” Source:  Reducing the Deficit:  Spending and Revenue Options - CBO March 2011

It would seem that the people who are supposed to be working toward our best interests would rather see us die than to force their obscenely rich friends to pay up on a little income tax.  Instead, they keep citizens at each others' throats with nonsense such as democrat vs. republican, left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, gay vs. straight, red state vs. blue state, etc.   Meanwhile, the entities who have bought our leadership lock, stock and barrel, laugh at how ignorant, apathetic and self-defeating the only people who can put an end to the suffering, oppression, poverty and war that they inflict upon us.  Though President Obama has backtracked on many things he said on the campaign trail, one thing is true -- he can't do this alone.  Everybody needs to get involved in how this country is being run.  Step #1 - Get educated on what's ACTUALLY happening and how the world has been working without the input of everyday people like you and I.   The executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government are being paid by corporations and banks to screw over the very people who pay their base salary and benefits.

Our government has already legalized torture, wiretapping, occupation of sovereign nations, bribery and discrimination via the Patriot Act, foreign policy and the Citizens United decision.  How long is it going to take us to do something about any of the myriad problems we face before we find ourselves unable to do so?  Time is ticking very fast.  I hope that Republicans are not "playing chicken" with our economy and that the debt ceiling will be raised before we go into default.   But until then, Security Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, Congressional Ethics Committee, get your damn hands out of the cookie jar and start investigating, indicting and sentencing U.S. elected officials who are betting against America!!!!

The Working Mans Guide to Managing Lottery Winnings or Sudden Wealth and the Science of Staying Rich.

By Drew Richards

Ok there are a lot of "advisors" out there telling you what to do with your winnings but most of them seem to be either the typical Mr. Potter or your Aunt Nellie from Reno.

Here are some practical guidelines for the Working Stiff.

Ok you have won the lottery you have done your jumping and screaming (Hopefully in Secret).

Getting Your Ducks In a Row

Step 1. Check and Recheck to make sure your not wrong...Then, LOCK up the ticket. Put it in a lock box, or somewhere that you feel is completely safe and secure from loss, theft or accidental disposal...

Step 2. Tell NO ONE, not even family yet...

Step 3. If you do NOT have a Legal Notarized Will that is your first step. Write a simple outline with notes on a notepad or your computer so that you have the basics for your new Financial Team (listed in steps 4 and 5) to flesh out in Legalese who gets what with information on percentages, names, addresses, amounts Ect... This way your Will is knocked out of the way and your new wealth won't end up going to the Government rather than where you want it to go.

Step 4. If you know any millionaires personally or professionally contact them, do not inform them that you have won the lottery (say a modest inheritance instead) just ask them if they know any TAX Lawyers Locally if possible, with a track record of working with wealthy Clients or Corporations. Interview Tax Lawyers and get them to sign Non-disclosure Agreements so that they are legally bound not to call their buddies and hand you off to a Newbie or to disclose to any third parties that you are a Lottery Winner...This first HIRE is your most important one...a qualified TAX Lawyer with a track record of keeping wealthy people wealthy...and their mouth shut...

Step 5. Once you have hired your Tax Lawyer you really do need an Accountant and a Financial Planner...You can get away with combining them but I do not agree with letting an Accountant also play and invest with my Money!...its a dumb move and can potentially lead to Greed, massive Financial Loss and Embezzlement. If you trust your new TAX Lawyer he would be great source for hiring local talent...

Step 6. Through your Lawyer Find out if in your State you can Claim the Jackpot Anonymously or through a Company or Corporation Name...This one step will save your peace of mind, TRUST ME! So your State (Most US States) says you can not claim it Anonymously but a Company or Corporation can claim the prize? Time to create your OWN Fredcorp LLC and new Federal Tax Number. LLC is Limited Liability Corporation. This shields your Personal assets and Name publicly from Corporate assets and has some REAL NICE TAX Advantages...this is why you really, really want a good TAX Lawyer...Once it is established HOW you will claim the Prize then it is time to Sign the Ticket as specified to claim the prize (name and or Corp Name included) lock it back up and Plan for your future.

Managing Your Wealth:

Ok, so your first choice is to take 26 yearly installments at full face value and pay taxes as you go OR Take 60% of the value and then pay state and federal taxes on the initial income...Yes 60% BEFORE TAXES that is about how much you get if you take the LUMP SUM payment from various Lotteries...

Question:

Do you know, for a fact, that you are absolutely going to live 20 years or more?

I didn't think so...

Take the Lump sum...

Claim your prize.

Step 1. Arrange for the deposit of your new wealth into either a State or Federal Credit Union. Or a Trusted Members Bank such as my favorite USAA Bank...Separate the deposits into FOUR different accounts.

A. Interest Bearing Savings or Corporate Account.

This is where you place the bulk of your wealth to bear a steady income for you for life...

B. Interest Bearing Checking or Corporate Checking Account.

This is where you place the total amount of wealth that you plan to Disburse or divide up paying bills, giving to Family, Friends and charities, transferring to the Managing Investments Account, (C) and to transfer to your Personal Checking Account (D) for personal use.

C. Managed Investment Checking Account.

This is where you place an amount from account B to Account C for Dabbling in Bond Investments and recommended Investment Portfolios from USAA or Fidelity...

Do Not Use this Account for anything but Investments and Returns!

D. Personal Checking Account.

This is where you place the amount you are willing to spend to just enjoy yourself.

All personal purchase should always come strictly from this account.

A nice Rule of Thumb for your Personal Checking Account is:

Plan to spend X amount of money but put twice the amount in this account for emergencies...Then force yourself to spend HALF what you originally intended...this will keep you safe and...sane...and hopefully stop you from wasting money on items you will ignore or throw away in a month...remember...even the wealthy can be idiots...

Why a Credit Union, USAA and Members Banks Instead of the Big Banks?

A couple reasons,

1. Financial Deregulation!

You have seen what the Big Banks have done with our money and our economy; why the *&^% would you give them the pleasure of gambling with the rest of your money?

2. Respectable Interest Rates and Low Fees!

Most of the Big banks which I wont name give you less than NOTHING in interest bearing savings (and generate a fee for everything they can get away with) I am talking like .003% interest where most Credit Unions and USAA Bank give 3% up to 5% on interest bearing accounts...Credit Unions and USAA Bank also do NOT gamble with their customers money over a small 20% percentage total deposits...The Big Banks? The Ones We had to Bail Out? gamble still with 120% to 140% of their money, your money and Money that never even existed...

Step 2. Confirm your new Personal Accountant is up to speed with all of the management requirements of your BILLS, Finances and Accounts; and is conversant with all the applicable laws and requirements.

Before you spend a penny of your new found wealth make sure ALL Taxes are paid right away, do NOT wait till the last minute to pay the State and Federal Governments their "Cut". Get it over with and Keep your Tax Receipt SAFE!

Step 3. Pay all of your outstanding Bills! Start with a clean slate and it will simplify the accounting and your understanding of your expenditures...

Step 4. With the help of your Tax lawyer and Accountant decide how you are going to distribute (FROM YOUR CREDIT UNION or USAA CHECKING ACCOUNT) a percentage of your new wealth to your family and or a few friends. PLAN AHEAD! Your TWO choices are...

1. LUMP SUM'S

Giving them a lump sum and telling them to pay the taxes on it and declare the maximum non-taxable gift amount allowed in their State. the Advantage to this is you have washed your hands of any responsibility in what these people do with the instant wealth...which is kind of nice...The bad side are the irresponsible individuals or Minors that blow their new wealth and end up in bankruptcy or massive debt who then...of course, blame you!...and expect you to bail them out again...and again...and again...

2. TRUST FUND'S

Setting up TRUST FUNDS for these individuals in their names that they can collect an annuity from or liquidate at their leisure. Depending on your State this can be done with NO Taxes taken for the initial set up and only a lower percent from the Interest is taxed yearly this is a money saver and helps irresponsible individuals and Minors manage under a budget so that they don't end up in bankruptcy and coming back begging for more money because they mismanaged their wealth...

Investing For the Future

Step 5. Ok this is where it gets a little subjective. You really need an Investment Advisor, you give him the Maximum Investment Amount Minus 20% (personal safety net) of what you are willing to spend on an investment Portfolio and discuss with them what level of risk you are willing to take High Risk...Low Risk...

A Rule of Thumb is take your liquid (cash) net worth and divide it by 5...

Use 1/5th of your net worth for an Investment Portfolio from a reputable group...I like USAA or Fidelity Investment myself...Although once again you MUST read your investment reports and manage the portfolio or be a sucker...

For the newly wealthy individual; Investments, Stocks, Mutuals, Bonds, Derivatives ECT... will be a totally New Vocabulary that you must learn Before you can invest confidently. Do Not Invest Blindly or Trust Blindly or you will deserve getting ripped off!

There are a few investments for the working man that are very low risk, moderate gains and Zero Taxed or Tax deductible!

These are your State, County Municipal Bonds and Series I Treasury Savings Bonds.

Support where you live and the Town Elders will thank you for it...

Municipal bonds are issued by states, cities, and counties, (the municipal issuer) to raise funds. Repayment periods can be as short as a few months (although this is rare) to 20, 30, or 40 years, or even longer. It is extremely rare for a state or Municipality to default and or declare bankruptcy so your money is pretty safe in this investment.

One of the primary reasons municipal bonds are considered separately from other types of bonds is their special ability to provide tax-exempt income. Interest paid by the issuer to bond holders is often exempt from all Federal Taxes, as well as State or Local Taxes depending on the State in which the issuer is located, subject to certain restrictions. Bonds issued for certain purposes are subject to the alternative minimum tax.

Generally these are long term, 5 10 20 30 40 year low yield investments gaining you around 6% annual interest on investment but they almost never are defaulted on, so your investment is secure.

Series I Savings Bonds yield a nice average of 4.5% interest and can be cashed in after the first year rather than waiting for the 5 year maturity. There is a 90 day interest penalty if you cash in prior to maturity but again, your interest is equal to what we used to get from our regular savings accounts.

Ok we have now gone through the Basics of what you need to do BEFORE you ever even think of handing in the ticket and before you even Touch the money for yourself...

Now comes the Fun part...

Step 6. Party Time!

Hmm Maybe you should slow down and rethink that?

Ok family and friends, investments and someone to take care of your bills and the Tax management of you finances are all covered...What should you do next?

NOTHING...

Change Nothing in your life for the first 10 days...(30 days if you can hold yourself back that long I know, I know...that New car is calling and there's a boat you have dreamed of buying...but...)

Give yourself time to write some Plans, Desires and Wishes down...

Cross out the silly ones write some new ones...rinse and rewrite...Give yourself those 30 days to just really figure out how you plan on presenting yourself to your friends, family and the world...

Is it going to be different or are you going to stay the same...will you throw out your Core Values and adopt new ones? will you act Moderately Financially Secure or Nouveau Rich? or Maybe you should just live comfortably and splurge on a yearly trip and a new car?

By no means am I saying don't have a blast with the money you have allocated to splurging on...what I am telling you is that 72% of suddenly wealthy people end up getting picked up for DUI within the FIRST YEAR and from 61%, there was an accident with Serious Injuries...and/or also they get ripped off while under the influence or pressure from Family and Friends to make unsound investments until they find they have financially expended ALL of their ready Capital in the First Year!!!

...And if you did not do some sound investing before splurging you will end up like the 82% of All Big Lottery Winners...Bankrupt and in Debt.

Wishing you NEVER won the Money in the First Place...

May you always find Water and Shade....Drew.

This morning a gentleman and his two girls stopped in to buy a young flop-eared rabbit. I took them into the barn and the girls looked at the bunnies while their father and I talked small talk and watched the girls have some fun. They picked out a young black and white bunny and the one held it close to her and calmed it while the other one closed the cage and asked if they could look around the barn at all the horses, I said "sure you look around all you want". While they walked around and took photos I talked with their dad, small talk but we asked each other simple questions. I found out he was their foster father and that both girls came from abusive homes which is usually why they are in foster homes for in the first place around here. I could tell from his clothes that he did not take care of himself as much as the girls were taken care of. All of his clothes were mended and frayed.

We talked a little about the weather and the sunshine and I asked him if the girls were the only two kids he had and he said "no, we have a three year old also", I asked if it was his and he said "no, another foster child" but this one came with a wheelchair and lots of health problems too. He then said "boy,you really know who you friends are when you need some help", I agreed and then he told me the story behind his comment.

It seems no one would help him build or get a wheelchair ramp built for this family. The state and social services had nothing to give, no help at all. And then one day a friend just showed up with $2000.00 worth of material and all of his tools and built that ramp with him in two days. I told him that was the best thing I have heard in weeks and thanked him for that. He smiled and we talked about what it is like to struggle with foster kids. I told him that I really respected him and his wife for the things they had done. Taking in three foster kids while living and struggling is no easy thing. He has been laid off for two years.

The girls came back and asked to look around outside at the birds and the other horses so we went outside. I asked the girl with the bunny if she wanted to put her rabbit in a box and she said, "no, I am going to hold this bunny all the way home", they had a 25 mile ride.

We both watched the girls laughing and walking around and we both had big smiles on our faces as we did this, we didn't talk after that, we just watched those two girls enjoy themselves for about ten minutes, we chuckled as we watched.

They came back and the one girl said, "you told me on the phone the rabbit was five dollars", I said "yeah but the price has changed, that bunny is a free one".

Her foster father said "oh no, let us pay for this bunny, I know you are not well off and most likely need it". (It is funny how people who are struggling recognize each other right off the bat).

I told him, "you brought some joy to me today, I cannot take the money, I owe you more for just stopping by". He looked down at the ground for a few seconds and turned and put his hand out to shake mine. I think we were both holding back tears. I told him to stop anytime he wants with the girls, even if we are not home, they can always stop to see the animals.

We thanked each other profusely and then they left. I went in and told my wife that I paid for the bunny and I thought she was going to get mad and I put up my hand to stop her and told her the whole story. She was not mad and she came towards me and just hugged me. I got a lot out of that rabbit today, I could not enjoy myself if I had that five bucks in my pocket right now. A little joy is priceless to me.

Sometimes money ain't worth a drop of spit when love is all you need.

I have decided to write some articles that provide more facts and information for us. I feel we need more of this in order to talk to one another using facts and figures instead of other peoples opinions and buzz words.

So here is a list of the biggest earmarkers in the Senate from 2008 to 2010. All of these earmark bills listed were solo bills, meaning they were brought up by that single Senator and not a group of co-sponsers.

The list below is the name of the Senator, the number of their solo earmarks from 2008 to 2010 and the total cost of all of these solo bills.

Kit Bond-214- $343,573,891

Sam Brownback-97- $88,591,099

Robert Byrd-214- $933,540,838

Thad Cochran-308- $541,529,975

Dick Durban-151- $136,952,850

Dianne Feinstein-144- $185,567,505

Tom Harkin-148- $191,880,080

Kay Baily Hutchison-131- $116,888,700

Dan Inouye-210- $655,307,595

Herb Kohl-154- $158,097,560

Mary Landrieu-120- $125,441,385

Patrick Leahy-181- $182,074,385

Mitch McConnell-134- $298,062,000

Patty Murray-150- $343,377,267

Harry Reid-279- $333,594,828

Richard Shelby-202- $80,626,500

Ted Stevens-172- $549,060,750

These are just earmark bills in the Senate, these are the biggest numbers of these Senators. I have not even bothered to list the solo Senate bills of Senators who have sponsered less than 90 bills. Some of those Senators have lower over all bill numbers but have a bigger total of money.

You will also notice that I did not put a (D) or (R) after their name because I really don't think it matters.

Well people, here are the biggest spenders in the Senate for the last few years.

It is very easy to find this information, you can even look at what and where the money went, after that, who knows how it was spent!

It is important that we look at our representatives and what they sponser, where it goes and why. This is how they are spending our tax dollars, this is part of the debt and a larger part of the political argument. Fiscal responsibilty starts with us.

Watch where the money goes instead of those yammering idiots who tell you about waste and fraud and leave out all of the details. They are pulling your tail so you don't watch where the money goes!

One of the things that I keep seeing in the debates about politics, the economy, jobs and opportunity and the basics of survival are the creeping ghost words of the Social Darwinists haunting the discussion. Some, not many, but some have even crossed over into the Eugenics area without even thinking where that road has lead us before.

The arguments tend to de-volve into who is a drag on society and who adds to the society. So I think it only fair to re-visit this discussion again because it has really always been underneath a lot of what people are saying. The idea that only the poorest of us are a drag on society has been out there since even before Darwin wrote of the evolution of the species. many thinkers even tied his theory into a social and economic construct that would describe a way to solve many if not all of our societies problems.

Those who produce and are productive are the best of the best and should be given all opportunites to grow and add to the collective. In fact, some have even suggested that the right to vote be tied to economic status and even intellectual status. That my friends is Political/Social Darwinism at its finest. The best get to voice their opinion while the rest just get to go along.

The idea that only those on the lowest economic sector are a drag on the economy, that rises all the costs of society and that are really a burden to be pointed at is as old as the hills and is a clear deviation from reality many times.

Some of our finest minds came out of those lower social and economic sectors. Artists,scientists, inventors, politicians, musicians, entrepreneurs, business owners and financial wizards have added to our society over and over again. Now, that would suggest that opportunity is there for any one to grab it. Yes, to a certain extent that is true, but there are many other deciding factors that are missed or ignored in favor of believing that opportunity is available to every single person in that society. Opportunity is a social construct but all opportunities are not the same or even available everywhere at the same time. It can be hit or miss all the time.

So, who is a drag on society, who should be the culprit for the economic problems we all face today?

Friedrich Nietzsche weighed in on this discussion and I would like to leave what he had to say.

Whenever progress is to insue, deviating natures are of great importance. Every progress must be preceded by a partial weakening, the strongest natures retaining this type and the weaker ones help to advance it. Something similar happens to the individual. There is rarely a degeneration, a truncation or even a vice or any physical or moral loss without an advance somewhere else. In a warlike and restless clan, for example, the sicklier man may have occasion to be alone, and may therefore become quieter and wiser, the one eyed man will have one eye stronger, the blind man will see deeply inward and certainly hear better. To this extent, the famous theory of the survival of the fittest does not seem to me to be the only viewpoint from which to explain the progress of strengthening of a man or a race.....

I think what Nietzsche had to say back then is still relevent to todays arguments.

We never know who will rise above, who will add to the collective social structure in a positive manner. If money is a deciding factor on who or what type of person gains and who doesn't gain then we are losing a lot of bright and productive members to an artificial social construct that is at best Monatary Darwinism. Those who always have more money get more opportunity, a larger voice and better protections. It would seem that if money is the only social construct that is important, then that will ultimately create the survival of the richest. They will survive till the foundation they stand on crumbles!

We never know where or how growth will come from, it would seem that we have ignored this factor for a while now because we have ended up thinking money always equals growth and productivity. The problem with that is that those who made the money and productivity could and do end up passing it on to less productive progeny. They are also a drag on society but we let them go because they have money, they have arrived to a point where they are considered productive even when they are not. They have the feathers of respectability while showing very little intelligent thought about how they use their money and the power money gives them.

It is not always one social sector that can be a drag on our society.

Well, I am done barking, your turn.

AMERICANS, do you feel powerless, left out in the economic rain storm, drenched with debt and bills, unable to keep up with supply and demand messages creeping into your home that make your kids weep for more stuff? Do you feel that globilization has made you smaller and less important? Are you on a giant rubber tree and you are just an insignificant insect crawling around looking for safe havens? Do you feel weakness and fear about your future? Has your wallet become heavier because the credit cards are heavy with want and debt? Is your pocketbook empty a lot of the times?

I am sure we can all agree with at least one of these questions I pose here. Money, economic power, safety, home, food, heat, air conditioning, fun and family. It is all tied together folks, it is all strands of the Gordian Knot and it describes all of our lives. So why are we powerless or why have we lost the pocketbook power our forefathers and mothers had?

We spend too much, we spend too much on cheap stuff and we do not question the expense in outward terms. Oh Yeah, we complain about prices, but we want it so we buy it.

If you want a rocking chair, instead of going to a big box store, save a little more and buy it direct from the craftsman who made it by hand. You will have bought a good piece of furniture and a historic hand me down to your families and helped an American craftsman and kept the money local. What that takes is a little more time, money and patience, yes patience, that virtue we talk about but we never use when we buy stuff, patience, ahhhh, nice word. Buy a corn broom instead of that crappy plastic broom that falls apart from 1 year of use. Re-darn those socks darn it! Use those tennis shoes till they have holes in them and wash them when they get dirty, don't buy news ones, unless you need them for a wedding ceremony.

Don't buy that cheap 'starving artist' junk. Go to a local art gallery or even to a crafts fair and buy real art, lasting art that your grandchildren will cherish. Artists and craftspeople barter, barter with them.

Don't buy overpriced crafts from those craft stuff parties, over priced junk is just junk that you have been suckered into buying, don't go and don't buy.

Ask the big question always "do I need this or just want this", a simple but honest answer may be yes or be no, then decide what you want to do, save or buy.

No resonable person just buys without looking at the merchandise, is it really a good buy or just cheap and ready to fall apart, are the seams done well, will it hold up over time, is it worth it, will I get long term use out of this item?

If the product you buy sucks when you get it home, take it back and demand your money back or store cerdit!

Look at the label, do you really want to send your money half way across the world and pay someone who uses slaves to do the work, are tennis shoes made overseas worth 200.00 dollars a pair while the shoes are made for less than 10.00, do you want to support evil governments and repressive regimes, look at the label and learn about the working conditions of those workers.

Buy local food, for the health and safety of your family, buy all your food as local as you can get.

Haggle with people, make bargains and trade, barter and try using other forms of payment in kind.

If you want change in your life, it is in your pocketbook, use it wisely, use your power to say no to high prices, cheap knock offs and just plain junk by using your buying power everyday, buy, don't buy, wait for a sale, save and earn and buy better.

Power is money, your pocketbook is your power, change the world by saving your change.

Remember, a penny saves is STILL a penny earned.

Buy good, eat good, live good.

This dog barks for you. If you think this will not make change I will nod my head in agreement and then think in my head,

"I ain't buyin' it"!

Disclaimer: Rated R for Language!

This article includes words, phrases and language that I learned from my fellow soldiers serving with me in Vietnam, in 1965-66, while I was assigned to the 8th RRU, at Phu Bai, east of the old capital of Hue. Until then, I generally followed my parents mandate to watched my "P's and Q's," and, by all acounts was an innocent Christian White Boy from middle America that had had his mouth washed out on an occassion or two.

My parents were old fashioned and would "knock your damn teeth down your throat," if one used profanity in their house. You see, they were Christians, too. I avoided the temptation to "curse" as much as I could, but, on special occassions, celebrating with my friends at the Mildew, Ohio Pub for Malcontents, I might burst forth with a "Pippy damn, fart hell" rant ever now and again just to keep my colors.

Naturally, in 'Nam,' being the Good, All White (from the waist up), Christian Midwesterner that I was, I immediately fell in love with profanity in all of its shapes and forms and incarnations. I loved it! I love the gutteral sound of profanity. It is man's talk. Real He-Man Talk. Black Street Talk - Not Hate Talk - Street Talk . . . with a beat.

The language of profanity to me is colorful, raw, salty, with a powerful ability to evoke a reaction in others. It is the first interactive game. It will make your listener react and sit up an take note even if they don't know what your are talking about. They just want to get in there and mix it up.

Profanity also, has served us well as a sort of unofficial verbal punctuation marks that add emphasis, apply stress and create an intimacy that only soldiers know as they tell each other lies and war stories and shoot the breeze to idle the time away. The "hurry up and wait time" of the modern solider.

Some souls, even in Vietnam, and, many here, "state side", might refer to these artful, descriptive phrases as "curse words,"and turn their pious noses up in the air. I don't define them that way. I see them as "tools of the trade," necessary, at times, to capture the essence of the moment; the feel; the tempo, the beat. They are, to me, preferable to "water boarding" and take less practice.

If you don't agree and the use of this type of language - these phrases that your father or son or mother may have used, or, for that matter, that you do on those rare occasions that you indulge in when you reach back and drag forth one of these thousand year old words and sling it in to someone face, just for fun! - if it offends you, please, by all means hang up! CLICK ON A DIFFERENT ARTICE. Do it now! Before you go any further.

I WON'T BE OFFENDED! I WON'T EVEN KNOW . . . SO, IF YOU LIKE YOUR COLUMN SUGAR COATED, BY ALL MEANS, click now on the X icon.

I'll wait.

I'll still be here for the adult readers that aren't offended by words, but, are deeply offended by wicked deeds. Those are my people: poets, artists, musicians, free thinkers, writers, scupltors, actors, faggots, creative Hollywood types, film makers, satirists, mad ad people, humorists, politicians, community activists, gays, lyricists, composers, sluts and whores . . . those are my soulmates, my people, the tired, the worn, the unhuddled masses of asses - that is who I want to 'rap' with, anyway. Not Uptight White Bread, with their dead heads buried in Glenn Becks ass ell whose eye is looking back at you, Glenn's of their. You know the type, 'ditto heads' so far right - they have Rush's name tatooed next to 'MOM', with their Bibles in One Hand and Their Rifles in The Other.

If you think that you might be offended - and, I sincerely hope that you are, then, please, do yourself a favor and go masturbate - your dick needs you!

DO NOT READ this "@!$%#ing" article! Skip it. No one is holding a goddamn gun to your @!$%#ing head forcing you to read this insightful left-leaning masterpiece about TEA PARTY HATE.

I like passionate speech! It does not offend me. What offends me is sending America's youth to be killed in an unnecessary war so that a very stupid man would be guaranteed of getting re-elected to an undeserved second term in office. That offends me.

What burns my ass is that evil Dick Cheney, while Vice President, helping Haliburton (the corporation that he headed before resigning to become George W. Bush's Vice President) --- helping those bastards make trillions of tax payers dollars from contracts resulting from a war that Dick Cheney manipulated into existence. That offends the @!$%# out of me!

The word, "@!$%#" is from my country, Wales, and it means "to plow (@!$%#) the earth." @!$%#ing doesn't offend me. Neither the word nor the actual act. In fact, I like both. Some times, if I am lucky, I do both at the same time. iI's good for you. It clears out your sinuses, cures acne, removes unwanted warts and makes your hair grow back, if you do it right. I love @!$%#ing and I love the sounds it that word makes. It's poetry in physical form.

What offends the "@!$%#" out of me is that Dick "The Prick" Cheney, as VP, was the "closet decision maker" in George W. Bush's administration, he was, as "Dummy" liked to say, "the in-sider's de-sider!"

That's the kind of bull@!$%# that offends the hell out of me! The Vice President of the United of America calling the shots because the President was too @!$%#ing stupid to make any decisions and was too dumb to known it. That offends me. I hope that it offends you so much, too, that those hatefull, self serving "corksackers "will never again get near 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue, not even on a tour bus!

The tradegy for our country is that Bush, the first know learning disabled President (he is dyslectic) would repeat his 'dis-sider' description hundreds of times on national TV, in print and magazines while visting heads of states of other nations - proudly proclaiming his role.

"I am the de-sider," he ignorantly stated, time and time again, like a "retard." (Sorry, Sarah, I know how sensitive you are.)

"Chit, man, like that really the truck offends me, you know, what I mean, ass wipe?"

- Over heard from anIllegal sneaking into America

Many of my friends and relatives and former teachers, (not currently in prison), find language like that harsh and phrases like the above unnecessary, crude and offensive, but, they don't see anything wrong with the Vice President of the United States manipulating national intelligence in order to create a war that was more about getting "W" re-elected as a "War President" rather than going after Osama Ben Laden, who, every sixth graders knows was hiding in the hills in Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

Sending American troops into Afghanistan on the heels of the Soviets defeat was considered unwise policy, by Bush's pedaphile looking advisor, Karl Rove. It would lead to excessive loss of life for our professional armed forces and this may lead to a long, drawn out conflict that would not have a quick success, argued Satan's assistant, Dick Cheney. "Certainly, not before the mid-term elections," echoed Rumsfield. "Bush's numbers are down," reported the media and it was referring to "W" as a "poetential one term president like his father...". Disaster was looming for the Conservative Christian branch of the Radical Right Wing Republican Party.

So, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Dick Rumsfeld did what any Evangelical, Right Wing Christian would do, they concocted a "fictitious" threat to the national security of the USA and invaded a country about the size of California, a country that we had defeated 10 years prior; a country that we flew over daily with our surveillance planes and satellites; a country, where its President could not take a piss without our intelligence community taking a photo.

I FIND THAT OFFENSIVE! Not the photo of Saddam Hussein relieving himself. What offends me is the known fact that son of a bitch, Cheney, (Satan's Disciple) could intimidate the intelligence community into rolling over and feeding Cheney the information that he wanted: Justification to bomb Iraq and make "W" a wartime President, guranteeing his re-election, despite the low disapproval ratings. Manufactored bull @!$%#! - that resulted in a lot of lost of unnecessary lives and had nothing to do with the war on terrorizm.

I FIND THAT OFFENSIVE.

THAT, too me, IS AN "IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE" - NOT CLINTON LYING ON NATIONAL TV ABOUT GETTING A BLOW JOB.

THE BLOOD OF 5000 American soliders killed in Iraq and the 30,000 with serious injuries is saturating their hands and our souls. These cold blooded, ambitious, lying turd face bastards would stop at nothing to get their dumb puppet elected president so that they could carry out their individual agendas at America's expense. (Not one of them ever served one hour in combat or the Armed Forces. How easy it is to send others to their death.)

All three of these dispecable Conservative Christian Republicans have reaped financial and personal gains from their political life, but, none have paid for their "war crimes against America " - Against the Families that lost love ones for a war designed solely to get "W" elected to a 2nd term AND HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH TERRORISM!

These engineers of a faux war killed upwards to 300,000 Iraqis - grandparents, men, women and children over oil profits. That is OFFENSIVE, IMPEACHABLE, A WAR CRIME! A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY and that offends me. Not "Poopy, Fart, Damn, Hell." OR TELLING ME TO, "@!$%# OFF."

- NOT CLINTON GETTING A BLOW JOB FROM MONICA WHO SUCKED HER WAY UP THE AMBITIOUS LADDER.

How in the "@!$%#ing" world did that dumb son-of-a-bitch get his igornant ass elected?

I hope that that sentence is offensive to you! So offensive that we never again elect someone to the highest office in the land that is remotely as stupid as that man or as evil an self serving as Cheney.

Sarah Palin, in my limited view, is close, but, even she is not that "@!$%#ing" stupid or mean. Close, but not that self serving. Agh, again, excuse me, my Welsch is showing. It's in me blood. My people, you see, migrated illegally here from Wales during the potato famine and have been drunk ever since.

"I AM THE DE-SIDER, " an admitted "C" student Bush prouly proclaims like a grinning monkey.

The President of the United States of America sounding like a "@!$%#ing" moron! Now that's what I find intensely offensive. I can not believe that some people would find that I, an admitted, short-changed jerkwad, saying F%^& you! - is more offensive than sending 5000 SOLIDERS to their death to perpetuate a lie: "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction . . . they are aiding and abetting Osama Ben Laden."

Today, in the Streets of Paronoia, I hear disgruntled former Bush Republicans, dressed up in Tea Party garb, shout out,"CHANGE BACK! OBAMA MUST GO." These TEA Pot Political Head Bangers march about proclaiming themselves to be "patriots" waving the most vile and disgusting and offensive signs since Andrew Jackson's election in 1828."

"OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST," scrawls one Tea-Wit's sign. It is high-lighted with the symbol of a hanging noose that the Ku Klux Klan, (the fore runner of the Tea Mobsters), were fond of displaying, back in the day. . . in the not to distant day, when I was a teen.

OBAMA IS A MUSILM! HE'S NOT AN AMERICAN. HE IS A TRAITOR,"clamours the discordant refrain of the The Tea Pot Mob of angry "NON-RACISTS, NON-BLACKS, NON PATRIOTS - THE PARTY OF NONESENSE!" America's New Patriots!

Bull@!$%#, these are whack jobs, financed by Rupert Murdoch operatives! The shouting high school drop outs have more in common with the butchers of the FRENCH REVOLUTION than the American Revolution.

"We didn't bring our guns, this time," writes another partriot on his constitutionally right to free speech.

THIS IS THE PARTY OF TOTAL NONESENSE . . . MORONS WHO BEAT THEIR REFRAIN AAS MUCH AS THEY BEAT THEIR MEAT --- OVER AND OVER - AGAIN AND AGAIN - UNTIL THEY HAVE CONVINCED THEMSELVES THAT THEY ARE NOT "RACISTS"; THEY ARE NOT "HATE MONGERS", THEY ARE NOT AN ANGRY MOB OF SELF INDOCTRINATED "HATE SPEAKERS" - THEY ARE "PATRIOTS!" ALL OTHERS ARE 'TERRORIST, SOCIALISTS, COMMUNISTS, HIPPIES, LEBERAL LEFT LEANING, HOLLYWOOD TYPES!"

THEY ARE JUST LIKE US - THE AVERAGE AMERICAN, JOE, thTHEY CLAIM . . . PUMPED UP ON THE CONSTITUTION AND DEDICATED TO FIXING THE ECONOMY, FIXING HEALTH CARE REFORMS BY REPEALING IT, FIXING THE JOBLESS RATE BY GIVING TAX BREAKS TO BILLIONAIRES - BECAUSE GLENN BECK AT FOX NEWS TOLD THEM HOW TO FIX IT.

@!$%# THE TEA PARTY!

This isn't a polical movement. It's a media hype! It is just a bunch of riff-raff stoked by Rupert Murdoch's firery Fox News Hate Commentators, paid millions of dollars by a foreigner, Rupert Murdoch, and, financed by a Saudi Prince to de-stablize and collaspse the duly elected government of the United State of America - because Rupert Murdoch cannot buy OBAMA. Rupert and Fox News are the real terrorist - The American Taliban of Righteous Mother@!$%#ers who would gladly kill everyone with an opposing idea. Get Ye to a Nunnery, tea partiers.

GO HOME! THE PARTY'S OVER!

The Constitution of the United States of America does not belong to you! I seriously doubt that many of you have read it; or are capable of understanding this complex document; and, most of you are woefully ignorant about economics, government policy, history, or, the rudimentary factors which created the financial meltdown that the Obama administration has turned around in 18 months in office.

And, that's no bull@!$%#, watered down Tea Soup @!$%#, either. That a fact, @!$%# off, jackoff! Obama reformed Health Care, recieved a Nobel Prize for his "positive approach to world collaboration", is in the process of bringing the troops home from Iraq; stepped up border patrols; extended a hand to the better, entrenched Republicans who spat on it; forced action of the diasterous oil spill; created construction jobs in every state in the union with the his Stimulus Bill; saved the American auto industry; and bailed out the banking industry; restored confidence in the stock market; stopped the Republican Generated Recession and restored dignity to the Whitehouse worldwide.

I know to you "Know It All - Tea Bangers", the President will never be acceptable to you because he is Black - but get over it! He is also brilliant. He is in the company of Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and John Quincy Adams, a bright man, with a strong sense of right and wrong. A thoughtfull statesman, not a "phoney, cowboy hat wearing Texan, who says I'm the de-sider."

If it is any consolation, remember Obama is also half White, so its ok to like him, to help him make America a better place for you to eat your Big Macs and read your Reader Digest and listen to your Master, Glenn Beck, when you should be at work - working.

Put your guns down, Tea Banger, no one wants to take your penis extension from you, you can still get drunk every week-end, read your bible and baet your wife - this is, after all America. Chill out, Red Necks in Red States.

Yours is not a REVOLUTION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. IT IS A REVOLUTION OF THE NO CLASS.

Tea Blatherers - GET YOUR COLLECTIVE HEADS OUT OF GLENN BECK'S ASS! He is a high school drop out, and, like Bush, was a drug addict for years. He works for guess who? Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News Network and Clear Corp. MURDOCH is a Triollionaire. He is not your buddy. Murdoch does not have your best interest at heart. He has his own. WAKE UP AMERICA.

While Tea Blabberers criticize the President of the United States of America, "Barracking", with their vast knowledge of the Constitution, that they gleamed from scanning the Preamble, many of them selectively forget that President Obama is a licensed Attorney-at-Law, a former United States Senator from Illinois; a former Illinois state representative; a CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR, a Harvard Law School Graduate, and, the first African-American to preside over the prestigious Harvard Law Reviews.

Of course, Tea Blathterers know a lot more than a constitutional attorney like President Obama because they religiously watch Glenn Beck on Fox News. And, Glenn is a high school drop out like them and that's always good for the mind. Glenn is a high school drop out, like most of them, but, unfortunately, Glenn is not too bright. He's left his lights on all night and his brain is still stuck in the sixth grade, where he is fixated.You see, he was a drug addict for ten years while Obama graduated from High school, went to college and law school and into politic and taught Constituional Law.

Many, too many, out of work, unemployable, angry, displaced workers listen to Glenn Beck on his Talk Hate radio show, and, purchased his Hate Speak books, and, attended his Hate Filled Rants --- aka, lectures. Unfortunately, what Glenn Beck may have failed to tell his sleep walkers is that he dropped out of high school. Didn't graduate . . . Had a drug problem for a number of years. That's always good for the mind.

Glenn didn't get to take Civics in his senior year of high school; missed American History, too, in his junior year; and no he did not take Public Policy, Goverment, Economics, Financing, history of the Financial System or Comparative Literature in college, because, you see, while he was a drug addict for nearly a decade, the only thing that he studied was buying drugs and getting high, so, naturally, he did not go to college and study Public Policy, or World History.

After college, he didn't have a change to study Constitutional Law, Tort Reform, Supreme Court Decisions, or Court Procedures. He did not go to Law school, either, 'cause, you know, he was a drug addict and a high school drop out.

But, he did read the Preamble of the Constitution in the sixth grade and it really made an impression on him, but, not his teacher. Because, Glenn didn't do so well in school. That's why he dropped out and got into drugs, it all in his books.

Glenn Beck is making $32,000,000 per year from Rupert Murdoch's enterprizes and other ill begot gains, and, yet, never graduated from High School, never attended college, never went to Law School, never taught Constitutional Law at a Law School, never worked as a Lawyer, NEVER DRAFTED LEGISLATION THAT CREATED LAW, NEVER GOT ELECTED TO ANY PUBLIC OFFICE IN HIS LIFE!

But, he, andhis half sister, Sarah Palin, know the Constitution better than President Obama because Obama is Black and Blacks can not know more than Whites - even, stupid high school drop out and soccer moms that quit their job in the middle of her term in office to run around America making millions of dollars telling other governors and legislatures what do to, because, you know, they know everything, just ask them.

Yes, Sarah and Glenn know what ails America - Just ask them and for $25-32 million dollars they'll tell ya! They are Partiots, not President Obama who is working night and day to solve problems that affect us all. No Sarah and Glenn raking millions from Rupert Murdoch are Patriots.

Tea Bull Slingers defer to Glenn Beck to explain the Constitution of the United States of America to them, despite the fact that it was written over 225 years ago by very bright gentlemen, and Beck, is no gentle man. He is though a self-proclaimed expert on the Constitution and exhorts Tea Lemmings to get " - back to the Principles of the Constitution," but, Beck doesn't know what the @!$%# he is talking about.

Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Washington and other elected public officials, legislatures, war heroes, free thinkers where all well educated for their time and ours and many had studied the history of England, international law, and, world history. Most were lawyers. (Glenn Beck is no lawyer). Our Founding Fathers developed a document that has endured because it provides for subsequent generations to amend and change it without over throwing the government, or, in the words of Tea-Publicans, "Throw Every Incumbent Out." That isn't the intent of the Constitution! That a symptom of a very disease philosopy of Hate and an indigation of an Constitutionally Ignorant Seeing Eye Ass. Are you such a person?

Glenn Beck, like George W. Bush, was a less than "C" student, but, Beck, the high school drop out, knows a lot about the Constitution - more than most Constitutional Scholars, Law professors, Elected Officials, Attorneys-At-Law because Glenn once studied "The Preamble" in the sixth grade and that has made all the difference in the world.

"THROW OUT INCUMBENTS"- is that's what the Constitution is all about? It all about guns to Tea partiers, and little, tiny government and very few taxes and principles that they know nothing about? Look, I understand that you guy saw the movie Network and you are "Angry As Hell &Ain't Gonna Take It Any More." I get that.

But, you have to focus your anger at the ones that created your situation: REPUBLICANS! Don't let Murdoch millionaires bull@!$%# artist confuse you. They are the ones that shipped your jobs off to China. When you get into one of your drunken rants because you do not have an education or a job - HATE REPUBLICANS. They are the one that sold Main Street Out so Wall Street could make a @!$%# load of money.

Just ask Glenn, or Rush, or Palin or listen to them on their HATE RADIO programs, they'll tell you how little they know and in 5 minutes you will know as much as Glenn, Palin or Rush, and, you, too, can go to Tea Banger Rally and put forth your platform for America:

Smaller Government,

Lower Taxes,

Return to the Principles of the Constitution.

And, then, in November you can solve all of the world issues with your Little Tea Pot platform and the world will be a better place because Tea-publicans are back in the saddle again, and, we all know that they are Christians and what a great time was had by all the last time Republicans were in charge, back when Lobbyists were Free To Be Lobbyists and John Boehner ruled Congress with a often drunken, iron fist - you know, back before the financial meltdown, when you had a job.

The big secret is that America is held captive. She can't rescue any other country because She is held captive too. They are holding the most dangerous weapon of all on Her. No, it's not the atomic bomb, and It's not germ warfare, it's Money! But, can She rescue herself? Who, are Her enemies? Why are they Her enemies and how do they work, is the secret. How to free Her is the biggest secret. It can only be done by the wishes of the people, only they can thwart the tyrant's secret acts. But, for now the People are asking those dictators for money and direction. Passively they dedicate money to those tyrants to spend it for them with taxes. The desires of these dictators is to bring the greatest country to its knees and put Her on welfare as all the slaves in communist countries are.

"The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses... This little coterie...run our government for their own selfish ends. It operates under cover of a self-created screen...seizes...our executive officers...legislative bodies...schools...courts...newspapers and every agency created for the public protection."
N.Y. Mayor, John Hylan.

In spite of the the Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Katrina attacks it seems the people are lulled back to sleep. They are pacified into thinking that those predictors are gone with a new presidency but they are only hid into their many government facilities. Those predictors are laughing and wallowing deep in the money they robbed our country of, from earmarks, Stoical Security, and welfare programs, Enron, and other scams.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 21, 1933.

The people are crying out, let's take our country back! But, From whom? And to where are we taking it back to? The people are wondering what are the politicians going to do to us next? Where can we turn to for protection? Or who's policing the police? . But what can be done? Some Senators are saying, let's change our country to another country. But, not telling us, that that country isn't working so well either. Or, let's take our country back to another era in time, like the 60's or the 20's. But those times, brought on depressions. The wall being built around us is scary too. We tore it down at Berlin, and now building it up around us. How can that keep the illegal aliens that's already here, out? Or will it hold us in? Can we blame it on the American system, or is blaming it, the predictor's counter attack? Their blame darts clear back to the dead, our Founding Fathers, that created our American system. They can't defend themselves but, history can. We can judge them by their fruits.

Luke 6;43-45; For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,

for every tree is known by his own fruit , for of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes, a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil; for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." - Woodrow Wilson.

Although through their secret acts bankers have been controlling our country for four decades, we don't have to be held captive by them any longer. It once drug our country down through a depression for 13 years. When they found our that it was communism that caused it they were able to come out of it. Then like in any disaster the people showed their compassion and helped each other out which brought them out of it.

And, by the 1950's a man worked only eight hours a day and five days a week, to make a living. An average income could afford him a house, car. clothes and have fun grocery shopping, and a thrifty housewife could save his money for medical expenses vacations or college for their children. Wages rose and cost of living went down and working hours were shorter. Sound great? It was, and could be again. Being free is the key word. Yes, this is the USA and we are free but not free enough to work only forty hours a week to make a living. How did he do it ? He stopped depending on the government. He did it his way. With knowledge he had the abilities to figure it out as best he could. .And he did.

1. He studied history clear back to Adam and Eve. - For direction.

2. He studied his delegates and voted. -For peace.

3. He didn't hire illegals. - They cost too much.

4. Lived within his means- for security.

5. He stopped using credit - from experience

6. Understood the constitution - to keep his rights.

7. His wife stayed at home. - To save.

8. He lived the Golden Rule. - To trust.

We can do that and without an act of Congress! It prospered our country then, and the government had no control over those personal decisions. Ours is a fortunate country. We are as free as we make ourselves to be. We don't have to do anything to be free, our founding fathers has done it for us. The constitution protects it. Our greatest weapon to fight with, to keep that freedom, is to obtain a knowledge, of our constitution and history and the morals to apply it. We'll then know what system works what system doesn't work and why. Perhaps we need to learn how to be free.

John 8:32. know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

Ecc. 7: 12.For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.

7 The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

As I am writing this, the National Amthem is being sung at the Saints kick off in New Orleans, and yes I am misty eyed. Americans have shed so much blood to protect the "land of the free" and the home of the brave" and, it is so sad that we are engaged one more time in a battle over freedom, the right of an individual(s) to build a building in close proximity to where the land of the free and the home of the brave was attacked by outside forces.

The why of why has this captured so much media attention is:

My opinion is none of this is about politics, religion or anything else other than which corporations are going to get richer. Somehow, in the great land, "nothing is fought over unless it means someone will get rich from it." (A paraphrased quote from the late, great Will Rogers) And this has been happening since our country's inception and it will go on, and on, and on.

All of these events creating so much media attention (too much in my opinion) are without a doubt in my mind a diversion from what our elected representatives and the mega corporations in this country are up to while we focus on other events. Yes they are always up to something and usually nothing that will benefit the "people."

I for one would like to know how this Pastor in Florida came up with this idea and who exactly alerted the media. He is an insignificant player in the grand scheme of things as is his copycat in another state. And there will be more copycats, that is just the way it goes. But we have to learn to pay attention to what our representatives are up to/legislation they support, what the administration is doing and while it is important to be aware of what the fringe elements are up to it should not consume us as it has.

As far as the Mosque in NYC, questions that should have and need to be asked:

-why there, exactly?

-who owns the property, when did he/she purchase it?

-was it always the intent to build a Mosque or interfaith center?

-who is funding this project?,

-why and what is the endgame/goal?

It is of interest, at least to me, that with so many other locations this Imam and his followers could choose to pray in/at, they chose the specific spot so close to Ground Zero. Of further interest is, that now, they have decided to build, what we are now told, is an "Interfaith Center." I must have missed that memo.

Was it not only a Mosque originally? Let me know how the interfaith project has come about. And, what is the alternative if they do not, after it is built, have an interfaith center with rooms for the various faiths to pray? And further, no non-Muslims allowed. They do have that right. So tell me, what if anything is going to happen?

History has also shown us that what the Republicants are doing to the Democants is nothing new. Republicants are in a snit because the middle class is not completely destroyed, the devastation of Katrina brought in its aftermath hope for a new and better New Orleans for its residents. Yes I really believe that the Republicants end game is a two class America, the rich and the rest of us. And to that end Republicants and their various supporters and followers will not be happy until America looks like Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year.

Each political party has and will continue to beat up on each other in an effort to win power, control and hence money! It is also interesting at the least, and hopeful at best that individuals who are usually at each others throats condemning each other to Hell and beyond because of their parties policies, agree on this. Had they done this for the last couple of years, just think how much improved our economy would be, and how many millions of our presently unemployed citizens just might be employed.

As far as the comments that we wanted the book burning stopped out fear of Muslim reprisals, the world over, how about instead, stating that common sense prevailed? I do not like to be threatened. I am guessing that many of you out there in the Newsvine ether world do not take to threats either. But somewhere that concept reared its ugly head. I would like it to stop here and now.

In the interest of peace, harmony, kindness, compassion, and understanding towards all living creatures, let us say and believe that instead of fear, common sense prevailed. I pray that it continues to do so

What say you?

This next installment of the the running 'Mouth' thesis will again be about Sarah Palin, she has become the amiable Princess who lets us use her as an example of American Politics in action right now.

I just finished the Vanity Fair article by M. J Gross and I have to tell you that the part getting the most attention, is not the most interesting part. The boring parts were about trying to define her, her and Todd's life together or whether or not she is a stone cold fox or a stone cold B&^&tch, or both.

She is what you want her to be.

The most interesting part was about the mysterious fake PACS that appear and then disappear when a new speech is being planned and then created. The question is "WHO BENEFITS?" The interesting facts are who is running the background show for Sarah so that she can stay in the foreground. Who else wants us to see the Maiden on the edge of the fiery pit that is the jaws of Hell?

My last article about Sarah was that she is the symbol today of the older symbol of the female, She is Hecate, the three faced Goddess. This is her first face, the maiden, the waxing moon.

Sarah is symptom and symbol and nothing more. We shower her with flowers all year, feed her well and give her clothes, jewelry, underwear and money that seems like praise and paradise on Earth. She is the one we look at and admire, the one we get jealous over, the one we are glad we are not. Because my dears she is sacrifice and we are not.

She is the Sacrifice, the body fed to the flames of fame and infamy. She is the female version of the Year King who was slaughtered in the fields in Fall. She is the raven and the white dove sent to find land. A hope for renewal by some and the croak of the undisciplined black bird by others.

In the end we all know the final outcome, Sarah knows it too. Someone will be burned. Will we push her off of the ledge, will she just jump or lose her balance and fall or will those who support her behind the scenes just pull the rug from under her garlanded feet?

It is the show to watch on our tiny island.

Next installment "The MOTHER of ALL mothers".

I have just finished reading a very good book that is very well written, informative and interesting for anyone who wants to learn more about the US-Mexican border and the issues involved.

The title is The Border-Exploring the U.S.-Mexican Divide by David J. Danelo.

he writes with ease of readability that it almost seems like a travel book. He takes you through parts of Texas, Arizona, Mexico and California, the places that are relevent to the issue, the states that create the border with Mexico.

Large parts about the history of the area and the border in order to show how this divide has been a problem for a very long time. The cast of historic figures is well rounded, Pancho Villa, Judge Roy Bean, Geronimo and many who were not famous enough to be included in any history book or history lesson.

You will meet agents of the Border Patrol, local officials, everyday people and even panhandlers and Mexican fixers. You will learn about the drug cartels, the people who may have assisted them and those who hate them. You will meet entrepreneurs, business owners and people on the street. There are old timers and people who moved there later. You will hear stories of some of the illegals and the stories of people who help and assist them and you will meet those whose job it is to stop them before they enter.

There are two ride alongs, one with a local sherrif and one with a border agent., Mr. Danelo crosses the border a few times and meets some who once lived in America and then were deported. He visits some very scary places and some very beautiful natural areas. There are stories that show how local and federal officials work together and how they butt heads. There are stories how the miltary has helped and created problems

NAFTA is shown in both a good and bad light. How it has helped towns on both sides of the border and how it has hurt both sides.

You will see the numbers of illegals and drug runners and the estimates on the quantity of drugs that get through and how much is stopped.You will learn where the fence helped and where it will never help.There is information about water issues, farming issues and the problems associated with the two. Social problems, environmental points and other issues invovled with two countries that share a common border made up mostly by a web of waterways.

Did Mr. Danelo provide answer to these issues and problems? No, he did not. Did he try to encapsulate alll the things he learned on his travels? Yes he did that with exceptional quality and clarity.

I have learned much from reading this book and I feel that I can understand the complexity, the fear and the anger about much of this.

I have leaned much from this book and it has opend up new areas for me to learn about the area that is the U.S./Mexican border.

I jhope you will learn more about this issue, it is imporant that we go beyond the informatuion provided by media sources and poltical manipulators.

"Times may be tough for book sellers, but for Stephen King, James Patterson and Stephenie Meyer, the money keeps rolling in.

So what is the real value of college education? Does it open minds and increase knowledge, on one hand, while stifling creativity on the other? Can real creative geniuses be well served by a structured and predictable time table of hand-me-down fare? Where does creativity come in all this? And what is the real reason why many of the best brains don't complete college?

What do you think about this question and the top 10 college dropouts?

I certainly wish I had their money!

Fire away.

I was going through the channels today and came across one of those court shows. A woman was suing her husband for divorce. I didn't watch long, but I watched long enough to realize this guy was a moron.

Right up front I am not running down all strippers/dancers. There are professional strippers/dancers that make a good living, do not provide "extras" and could one day be your boss if she saves & invests properly now.

That is NOT what this guy was dealing with. She was what we used to call in the business a "temporary dancer", or "part-timer". She reeled this idiot in with her body, and she definitely was impressive, and sex. All she wanted in return in a never ending well of money to spend on whatever she wanted to spend it on. She also continued to strip, even though one of the few reasons to continue doing that work was to hustle other stupid men.

Why the hell did this dude marry this woman? I can only deduct that either momma dropped him on his head when he was a baby, or he is just plain old fashion dumb. That would explain the little head taking over his thinking for him.

I spent several years managing, hiring, firing and bouncing in gentleman's clubs. If that is your thing now and then, go for it! But be warned these girls really do not think your the most sexy man they have seen since "they jusy got to town". They are looking you up and down, gauging how much money your ATM holds? There is one right there in the club. Tecnology & Sex, patners to the end!

Unless you are dealing with one of the professional strippers/dancers I mentioned above....... Enjoy your evening out and go home to a video or the wife, whatever you need to do. Just don't fall in love. You will end up broke, and my percentage never changed, so I wasn't too quick to warn anyone before. Now, all grown up, take the amount of cash you are willing to give away, call a cab or sober friend if you plan to drink and HAVE FUN!

Maddad

The American Dream, what does it mean to you?

At one time it may have meant a decent job that pays the bills with a little left over for savings. For some it was a way to escape tyranny and poverty or religious persecution.

It may have been the dream of the individual over the state, worker over boss, monetary gain without any oversight, unlimited access to success. It may have been about acquiring more goods and products. It may have been a way to elevate oneself to a higher social status. it could have been the safety of insulating oneself from others.

Or it could have been as simple for some that they were able to live quietly and pursue their lives with little interference from others. They could educate their children the way they wanted, they could pursue higher education or not, they could develop the values in their family and feel no persecution for their choices.

In the end it could be as simple as the amount of freedoms this country has to offer anyone who wants to join.

I have always wondered what this "American Dream" was and what it means to me. I grew up seeing the images of the happy family, tooling down the road in the brand new Ford or Chevy, mothers who bake pies with pearls on, children always cheerful and full of fun, their apple red cheeks all aglow, the brand new home surrounded by green yards pristine and manicured, the street line festive with large sentinal elms and friendly multi-armed maples. I lived in something that was not even close to that image. That is why I have alway thought of what the "American Dream " really is

For me it is many of these things and more. It is a promise of growth through determination, forward thinking, learning from our mistakes and not repeating them. It is knowing that I am an important part of the machinery that this social experiment needs in order to succeed.

I am at the age where reflection is a daily occurrence, evaluating what is really important to me. These important things are what makes my "American Dream" possible.

A place to live that says "Home'. A sense of security in that home. A little land surrounding that home where I can feel a sense of ownership in something important. I want to till the soil, grow the crops and provide for others. I want to see growth and change that is healthful for all of us and not for just the few. I want to be able to care for myself and my wife without too much strife from the government, religious groups or corporations.

I want our country to grow and earn, but I also want our country to preserve the nature beauty and wonders. I want to know that those other things that are living with us are treated as a treasure that should not disappear. These gifts that are around us should not be wasted. Our soil should be rich with the natural elements, our water should be pure and sweet, our food should be healthful and provide nutrition and be as free from additives as possible.

I want to see good service from the service industries, I want to see craftsmanship in our products. I want to be able to trust financial institutes to do a good job with our finances. I want to see those who rob and cheat and steal treated fairly but firmly. I want to see actions produce and reponsibility taken.

I want to see us all prosper and also learn to save for a rainy day.

I want to feel less fearful and more fearless and I want to hear that others feel that way too. I want to see difference and I want to hear all. I want real issues to talk about that are not used to provide partisan ammunition only. I want people to not use a persons appearence, or words or actions to become more important than the issue. ( I know I am asking the near impossible on this one but it is a dream after all.)

I want to meet and learn from others, I want to hear their voices ring with pleasure that they too "have the dream".

So, fire away, give me your interpretation of your American Dream

I was just accidentally subjected to about 20 minutes of this reality show centered around toddlers and their families that participate in beauty pageants....(deep breath)....

I hope I do not lose any friends on this one. As usual you know you are free to disagree, and as long as it is civil it will stand. But come on!

These little girls are obviously being harmed here. They rebel against the constant "training". They are manipulated with constant and unreasonable verbal praise, whether or not it is merited. The toddlers throw fits before the pageants, demanding not to go, and are forced to anyway. One is pressed to ask why?

One little 4 year old girl has already won dozens of crowns and over $5,000 in winning. So I am forced to conclude that these parents are on a base level "pimping" there adolescent girls to satisfy whatever hole needs filled in their lives.

The only people that can possibly be enjoying this garbage is other insane parents and perverts. I will not even include one of the untold number of images of this crap that is on-line. AND WE HAVE IT PLAYING ON TV AS ENTERTAINMENT???

Stop feeding it. I took as much as I could and said what I had to say. It may not be illegal, but that dosen't mean it is not criminal.

Just My Opinion.

Maddad

Everyone of us dreams of being rich at some point. It is always great to live the fantasy and conjure up ideas of what we would do in such circumstances. But suppose it became a reality, with conditions, how would you handle it?

Suppose someone offered you you a choice of the following items, but you could have ONLY ONE, which would it be and why?

The items are:

1. Large mansion

2. Fabulous car like Ferrari, Aston Martin etc

3. Sizeable sailing yacht

4. Helicopter

5. Private plane

Fire away but do stick to the condition!

"The Money Myth Exploded" was one of the first articles of Louis Even, and remains one of the most popular to explain how money is created as a debt by private banks.

Have you noticed how much our nest eggs resemble bubbles, even the cracks. I can't help but to wonder what the hatchlings will be once they finally erupt. Will they be free birds with the spirit of Eagles, or maybe serpents that slither in the grass and bite us in the A$$?

President Barack Obama's proposal to improve education standards, initiated by Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, aims to broaden the focus beyond math and reading.
Reading and math are important, but so are social studies, science, the arts and recess, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

School systems are getting stimulated to improve their bottom line production goals: teaching our kids survival skills.

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.

How should we begin to make amends for raising a generation obsessed with the pursuit of material wealth and indifferent to so much else? Perhaps we might start by reminding ourselves and our children that it wasn't always thus. Thinking "economistically," as we have done now for thirty years, is not intrinsic to humans. There was a time when we ordered our lives differently--and that time falls within many of our lifetimes.

FROM being the face of the P5 coin to sharing half the theme of the P10 coin/bill, the Philippine's other national hero, Andres Bonifacio y de Castro, has suffered a devaluation over the last few decades. Corollary to the Supremo's apparent (and unofficial) demotion is the promotion of his revolutionary nemesis, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. From having absolutely no presence in neither bills nor coins, the country's supposed First President responsible for the Proclamation of Philippine Independence and, as well, the killings of at least two nationalist heroes, displaced Bonifacio from the No.2 spot in Philippine money.

Supremo Andres Bonifacio

Gat Andres Bonifacio was the founder of the Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan (KKK), a secret revolutionary society aimed at liberating the Philippines from the yoke of Spanish colonial rule. Open to prospective members from both the peasantry and middle class, it made use of Masonic rituals to give the society an atmosphere of sacred mystery.

First Philippine President?

The Supremo has also been referred to in history as the Philippine's First (Revolutionary) President. While certain historians have tried to downplay or dispute his formation and leadership of the earliest national government by and of the Filipinos, there have been clear evidence that Andres Bonifacio was Filipinos' truly first President.

After the Katipuneros launched the uprising against the Spaniards, hero set out to transform the secret national organization into an open and de facto revolutionary government. The founder of the Katipunan became the president and formed a cabinet composed of men he trusted, including Emilio Jacinto, Secretary of State; Teodoro Plata, War; Aguado del Rosario, Interior; Briccio Pantas, Justice; and Enrique Pacheco, as Secretary of Finance.

Surviving official letterhead communications dated 1897 point to Bonifacio's various designations that include being the"Supreme President, Government of the Revolution." Perhaps the most telling proofs come from non-partisan sources of his period.

Nineteenth century Spanish historian Jose M. del Castillo, in his 1897 work "El Katipunan" or "El Filibusterismo en Filipinas," describes the first national elections in the Philippines from which Bonifacio emerged as the President, and Plata, Jacinto, del Rosario, Pantas and Pacheco as cabinet officials. This is corroborated by the February 8, 1897 issue of the international publication "La Ilustracion Espanola y Americana" in its article about the Philippine revolution and which featured an engraved portrait of "Andres Bonifacio, Titulado 'Presidente' de la Republica Tagala, clad in a dark suit and white tie.

Noble Courage

At any rate, that Bonifacio is the "Father of Philippine Revolution" is undisputed, and his courage legendary. During World War II, his name even was even used by American propagandists to inspire anti-Japanese resistance. His persona was even adopted as a strong theme in the Hollywood World War II movie, "Back to Bataan," which starred John Wayne and Anthony Quinn.

History of Philippine Notes and Coins

The Philippine peso dates back to the Spanish colonial period with the royal decree confirming the creation of the first public bank, Banco Espanol-Filipino de Isabel II (later the Bank of the Philippine Islands) and giving the same the authority to print paper money. The first Philippine bank notes, collectively termed PF or peso fuertes or "strong pesos," were issued on May 1, 1852.

In the next few decades, PF paper money and, later, coins gradually replaced Mexican coins then in circulation. The original PF bank notes carried the portrait of Spain's Queen Isabella II, after whom the bank was named.

During the short-lived First Philippine (Revolutionary) Republic, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo issued new currency called Republic Filipina Moneda de un Peso as a way of asserting the country's independence. Printed were five-peso and one-peso bank notes and three variations of 2-centavo coins backed by the natural resources of the country.

Under the American Occupation, Bank of the Philippine Islands or BPI retained the right to issue bills and coins although no longer on a non-exclusive basis. Pegged to the gold exchange standard, the peso became known as "Philippine Currency" or "Peso Conant."

In World War II, the Japanese colonizers introduced currency known as "Southern Development Bank Notes" for Philippine use. Banks and local governments also issued their own crudely-made "guerrilla pesos" designed for redemption with silver pesos after the War. The Japanese-sponsored government of President Jose P. Laurel, however, prohibited the issuance and possession of guerrilla currency.

In 1944, notes printed with "Victory" on the reverse side were printed at the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. They were designed to be used upon the expected return of US Gen. MacArthur.

Central Bank of the Philippines

As the Allied Forces triumphed in World War II, the Philippines was granted independence from American colonial rule come 1946. On January 3, 1949, the Central Bank of the Philippines or Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was created, empowering it with the exclusive authority and power to issue currency.

In 1949, the Central Bank first issued Victory notes, which were overprints of the pre-WW II-liberation notes. Its first official banknotes, though, were issued two years later and called the English series. Filipinization began with the Pilipino Series. Subsequent series replaced the previous: Ang Bagong Lipunan series (ABL); New Design; Flora and Fauna series; New Design series; BSP series.

English series - 1951; coins 1959
Pilipino series - 1967; coins 1967
Ang Bagong Lipunan series - 1973; coins 1975 (Flora & Fauna coins 1983)
New Design series - 1985; Flora & Fauna coins improved version 1992
BSP series - 1998

Andres Bonifacio Devaluation

Philippine banknotes and coins wholly featuring national figures, symbols, sites, and flora and fauna began with the creation of the Central Bank. With regards heroes and heroines, the rule, albeit unwritten, has mostly been that the historic figures appear on the front or obverse side in descending order of importance beginning with the lowest peso denomination. The rationale is that the greater the hero/heroine, the more his/her face should be /propagated in denominations with greater circulation, which are, of course, the lower-valued notes and coins.

This apparent trend began with the Pilipino series where Jose Rizal has for a long time been the face of the P1 bill, and continues up to the present (P1 coin). Thus, Rizal, the acknowledged official national hero, is currently on the obverse of the P1 coin while the largest banknote, the P1,000 bill, carries patriots Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, Gen. Vicente Lim and Josefa Llanes Escoda.

Bonifacio in Philippine Money

A rather recent and glaring deviation from this trend has victimized no less than Gat Andres Bonifacio, Also referred to as the "Great Plebeian," he happens to the Philippine's "other" national hero. According to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts:

Aside from Rizal, the only other hero given an implied recognition as a national hero is Andres Bonifacio whose day of birth on November 30 [Bonifacio Day] has been made a national holiday.

P10 design, BSP series

In the latest P10 bill design, the BSP series (1995), Bonifacio was lumped with Apolinario Mabini. The leftward profile of Mabini is at the far right adjacent to the serial number of the face of the bill while that of Bonifacio is positioned right next to him.

At the back are found a close-up view of the Barasoain Church and a smaller image of the "Blood Compact of Katipuneros" with a dividing spherical broad (brush) stroke in between. The design of the bank note's obverse side is reflected in the cupro-nickel P10 coin with Bonifacio at the forefront and Mabini behind him.

The BSP series issued in 1995 represented a devaluation for Bonifacio because the Supremo was the face of the Philippine five-peso bill for nearly two decades (1967-1985) under the Pilipino and Ang Bagong Lipunan series. He was consistently next in line to Rizal, featured in P1 bill (Pilipino series) and P2 bill (ABL series).

Even under the New Design series when the P2 and P1 paper money were demonetized, Bonifacio retained his importance: his image continued to be minted on the obverse of the P2 coin (under the improved Flora & Fauna round P2 coin design) while Rizal continued to be on the P1 coin.

Mabini, also referred to as the "Sublime Paralytic," has consistently been on the P10 bill (and later, coin) beginning with the Pilipino series (1967). He is often considered as the "Brains of the Revolution," possibly for his role as the right-hand man of Aguinaldo and his role in effecting the revolutionary government. While Mabini is undoubtedly an illustrious hero and patriot, he doesn't have the national hero status of Bonifacio.

Bonifacio and Mabini Themes as Separate Historical Animals

Beyond representing a devaluation in terms of money-related "circulation"--so to speak--of the recognition of Bonifacio's heroism, the current BSP design of the P10 banknote/coin is historically incongruent. The themes of Bonifacio and Mabini are unmistakably separate periods of the Philippine Revolution for independence against colonial rule. The clear dividing line is the execution of Bonifacio upon Aguinaldo's order, and highlighted no less by the Philippine-American War which came much later.

Before the BSP series banknotes were first printed in 1998, only Mabini (front) and Barasoain church (back) occupied the P10 bill. The use of the Sublime Paralytic and the Barasoain Church, being one of the prime movers and the proclamation site, respectively, of the Malolos Republic (First Philippine Republic), has been a consistent design of the P10 bill under the
Pilipino series, Ang Bagong Lipunan series, and New Design series (in the English series, the theme formed the design of the P1 bill).

It is not to be denied that Bonifacio and Mabini know each other. Gregoria De Jesus, Bonifacio's widow, even recounted a talk between her late husband and Aguinaldo about Mabini. However, they are not officially associated as Mabini was not a part of Bonifacio's set of Katipunan officers; the "Sublime Paralytic" only became part of the power circle when he was summoned by Aguinaldo, who had by then already eliminated Bonifacio and taken over the leadership of the revolution.

It can be argued, of course, that Katipuneros' blood compact and, thus, the revolutionary movement, served as the foundation of the Malolos Congress and the First Philippine Republic. However, such an argument begs the unpalatable question: How did Mabini react and, later, morally justify Aguinaldo's coup against, and elimination of, Bonifacio?

Bonifacio & Jacinto?

If there is a hero that perhaps historically deserves to be joined with Bonifacio, it is Emilio Jacinto, the "Brains of Katipunan." Jacinto was Bonifacio's confidante and author of Katipunan's moral code, the Kartilya. His principled loyalty to Bonifacio extended even after the Supremo was deposed and murdered: he continued to fight the Spanish soldiers while refusing to join Aguinaldo's forces until his death in April 1899.

This theme actually had a precedent--under the English series design of the Philippine peso when Bonifacio and Jacinto were actually together on the face of the P50 (Mabini was in the P1 and Rizal on the P2). Jacinto is undoubtedly a patriotic hero with exemplary revolutionary morality, as reflected in the Kartilya. Bonifacio, the Philippines' other national hero, however, deserves no less a solo place in a bank note or coin right next to Rizal.

Aguinaldo's Symbolism & Appearance in Philippine Money

Gen. Aguinaldo only began his appearance in Philippine currency in the P5 bill under the New Design series during the mid-1980s. His solo profile was on the face of the banknote, while the "Declaration of Independence" in Kawit, Cavite was on the reverse side. The coin equivalent of this denomination also carried his profile. In the current BSP series, the P5 bill was demonetized but the coin continues to bear his profile.

It is perhaps understandable that the theme of Aguinaldo had to finally, if belatedly, make its appearance in Philippine money as it represents the country's assertion of independence from Spain. The image of the proclamation of Independence at Kawit represents a nullification of America's protracted claim that there was no Philippine-American War.

For a long time, the US justified its imperialistic turn-of-the-19th-century annexation of the Southeast Asian archipelago by claiming that the Philippines was no nation and was still a Spanish colony when it was 'ceded 'via the 1898 Treaty of Paris. Aguinaldo's presence in Philippine money can thus well symbolize the post-Bonifacio phase of the Revolution against Spain and the country's assertion of independence and first attempt at self-governance as a liberated nation.

Aguinaldo & Mabini Instead

If Mabini needs to be joined by another figure, it should be no other than the President he served, Gen. Aguinaldo. This is because their roles in Philippines history are actually inseparable.

Aguinaldo can well join Mabini in the face of the P10 bill, along with the images of Kawit's Independence Day side by side with Barasoain Church on the back side should give a faithful recounting of the events of 1898 and early 1899. Compared to today's anomalous P10 Bonifacio-and-Mabini design, such a theme of the continuum of the Declaration of Philippine Independence, and the subsequent Proclamation of the First Philippine Congress/Republic, which took place in Barasoain Church, would be much more historically real.

Bonifacio's Devaluation Came with Aguinaldo's Promotion?

It is worth noting that the apparent devaluation of Bonifacio in Philippine currency took place after the "EDSA I Revolution" and the ouster of Marcos. With all Apo Ferdie's human rights violation, and even having an Aguinaldo descendant as his Prime Minister (Cesar Virata), Bonifacio's place in Philippine money was well secure.

Aguinaldo began appearing in Philippine money at the twilight of Marcos' administration. However, Marcos ensured Bonifacio's promotion closer to Rizal by having the Supremo assume face of the decagonal P2 coin with the 1983 release of the Flora and Fauna coins (apparently under the ABL series).

The point is: does Aguinaldo's promotion need to come at the expense of Bonifacio's demotion? From being the face of the P5 bill and later, the P2 coin, Bonifacio was relegated to splitting the P10 bill/coin with Mabini.

Aguinaldo and his Kawit theme were already accommodated in the P5 even with the seeming effect of relegating Mabini's position in the pantheon of Filipino heroes and patriots. Why should Bonifacio, a national hero, be effectively relegated by Aguinaldo's historical rehabilitation via Philippine money?

Aguinaldo's Rehabilitation

It should be emphasized that Aguinaldo was never on any Philippine money until the New Design series. Despite the fact that he took over the leadership of the Revolution after having Bonifacio killed, bringing it to near success against Spanish forces, he was not deemed worthy enough to grace any bill or coin for over 80 years following the Malolos Republic or 20 years after his death (February 1964). His mid-1980s appearance in Philippine money seemed to signal the start of the rehabilitation of his stained name in Philippine history.

At least four reasons explain Aguinaldo's shady or suspect role in Philippine history.

1. Top of the list is Aguinaldo's execution order on Bonifacio, not infrequently interpreted as murder within a planned coup.

Bonifacio seems to have been tricked by the Magdiwang chapter of Cavite's KKK into joining the Tejeros convention where he was elected Interior Secretary and Aguinaldo, the President.The Katipunan leader was sport enough to accept his lesser position but was enraged (or deliberately made enraged?) when Caviteno Daniel Tirona humiliated him by questioning his qualifications and even suggesting some lawyer was better fit to handle the position he won.

A shooting incident was avoided and Bonifacio left. When he and his brother were taking breakfast while on their way back, they were captured and later executed by Aguinaldo's men on May 10, 1897 in a mountain in Maragondon, Cavite.

2. Just three months since the start of the Phil-Am War, Aguinaldo had another valiant revolutionary killed, Gen. Antonio Luna.

The assassination of this very effective military strategist on June 1899 appears to confirm the theory that Aguinaldo had Bonifacio eliminated for no other reason than for him and his elitist group to take over the leadership of the Katipunan. According to Juan Nakpil:

(D)riven by his patriotic fervor, he (General Antonio Luna) did not conceal his desire to be the head of the cabinet with the portfolio of war to prevent the autonomists or pacifists from controlling the government of the republic....

They slandered him of wishing to wrest the presidency from Emilio Aguinaldo, and for that purpose they invited him to enter the rattrap of Kabanatuan to enable the very ones whom he had disarmed for cowardice in different war actions to deal him the deathblow...

When General A. Luna was dastardly assassinated on the stairs of the Convent of Kabanatuan and already fallen on the ground, the mother of Emilio Aguinaldo looked out the window and asked: "Ano, humihinga pa ba?" (Is he still breathing?)

3. Aguinaldo refused to fight his captors to death.

On March 23, 1901, American soldiers posing as prisoners of the traitorous Macabebe scouts were led to the whereabouts of the President then on the run. Instead of choosing heroic death over capture as a way of sustaining the morale of his soldiers still valiantly fighting the new colonizing forces, Aguinaldo became a cooperative US Prisoner of War.

Unsurprisingly, his capture led to a succession of surrender of a number of Filipino guerrilla leaders. They include the man responsible for the death of US Gen. Henry Lawton, Gen. Licerio Geronimo (surrendered barely a week right after Aguinaldo's capture).

4. Only nine days after American colonizers got him, Aguinaldo swore fealty to US flag

His easy capitulation to the American imperialists was supposedly made under plea that his life be spared. His allegiance to Uncle Sam also caused the Anti-Imperialist League to drop him as their 'poster boy' or rallying symbol for their opposition to the annexation of the Philippines. Aguinaldo's swift betrayal of the First Philippine Republic sharply contrasted with Mabini's adamant, repeated refusal to swear allegiance to America, earning the latter the punishment of exiled in captivity in Guam.

Aguinaldo's Possible Regret

In fairness to Gen. Aguinaldo, his controversial support of the Japanese forces during World War II has been interpreted by some as an expression of regret or dissatisfaction over America's annexation of the Philippines (which he, of course, did not fight to the end). Moreover, while on his deathbed, he supposedly expressed regret, if not apology, for what he did to Bonifacio. His dying confession or apology is not officially accepted or hardly mentioned but this piece of information was broached no less by certain history professors from the University of the Philippines.

The General's Less than a Hero

In promoting Aguinaldo via the combined familiarity and symbolism of Philippine money, real or more principled heroes like Bonifacio (and Mabini) have suffered undue demotion before the obtaining national consciousness. While Aguinaldo surely deserves some credit for being a revolutionary leader, his greed-for-power-driven murderous acts, colonial vacillation, and even gullibility that allowed the swift entry of American colonial forces in the islands, definitely makes him no bigger than the Supremo.

Fact is, Aguinaldo is barely considered a hero even today when the reality of the Kawit Independence and the Malolos Republic are a staple in Philippine history textbooks. In his later years, he seemed to have regretted his controversial revolutionary acts, which should merit for him kind understanding from students of history. However, the murders he authorized, if not actually planned, and his swift oath of fealty to the American flag following his capture have forever etched for him a place lower than that of genuine Filipino heroes.

Return Bonifacio to the (revived) P2, or P5 coin

It is historically and logically disconcerting to have the Bonifacio and Mabini themes together in one bill or coin. The incorporation of the disparate themes in the P10 bill/coin must have elicited bewilderment among the more astute students of history, which this author thinks she is one of. When the said banknote first appeared, I was in disbelief, yearning to ask what Mabini could have thought of the execution of Bonifacio in an apparent Aguinaldo coup d e tat mode.

It is even more disconcerting to promote Aguinaldo at the expense of national hero Bonifacio. To honor Aguinaldo more than the Supremo, or even over Mabini (or arguably, even over Jacinto and Gen. Luna) in the field of Philippine currency is to adulate vacillation/capitulation to foreign powers, murder and power grab (no wonder Gloria Arroyo's EDSA II coup d e tat over Joseph Estrada was tolerated?).

If the intention was not to demote Bonifacio while promoting Aguinaldo before the public consciousness, shouldn't the BSP have simply maintained the P2 coin? How difficult or problematic would having a P2 coin be anyhow, given that the almost valueless c5 and c10 coins, along with the P1 Rizal coin, have been kept? Question is, was the P2 demonetized so as to find an excuse to demote the Great Plebian, patriotic Father of the Philippine Revolution, in the consciousness of present-day Filipinos?

It would be a lame excuse for the BSP to claim that Bonifacio's devaluation into sharing the face of the P10 bill/coin was unintended and merely a result of the demonetization of the New Design P2 coins. Why demonetize the denomination in the first place (all previous series were demonetized in 1998)? If the government can continue to mint practically value-less (5 and (10 centavos coins that public utility drivers prefer not to accept, why not the P2 coins with the Supremo's face?

New Series - Hoping for Bonifacio's Restoration

There is no question that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has "the sole power and authority to issue currency, within the territory of the Philippines." However, under what direction or authority are the BSP officials rehabilitating Aguinaldo's image too much and/or demoting Bonifacio's place in history and national consciousness via circulating Philippine money?

The BSP is said to be preparing a new design series for release this year. The upcoming design is said to constitute a major overhaul of the country's banknotes and coins. Will Bonifacio be restored to his proper place in Philippine currency? I say let the public be consulted in the design process. Vox populi, vox Dei.

__________

References:

156 Years of Banking Leadership. http://info.bpiexpressonline.com/bpiprod/BPIAbout.nsf/150th+Anniversary/Trivia+on+Philippine+Banking?OpenDocument
Andres Bonifacio: 1863-1897. United States Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/bonifacio.htm
Andres Bonifacio: "Titulado Presidente De La Republica Tagala". http://www.geocities.com/umalahokanstribe/EXHIBIT.html
Arguelles, Randolf. The Image of Emilio Aguinaldo. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~epf/1997/arguelles.html
Back to Bataan. (2009, December 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:46, December 31, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Back_to_Bataan&oldid=332164430
Constantino, Renato. Veneration without Understanding. Third National Rizal Lecture, December 30, 1969. 13 January 2008. PinoyPress Site. http://www.pinoypress.net/2008/01/13/jose-rizal-veneration-without-understanding/7/
Guerrero, Milagros, Emmanuel Encarnacion, and Ramon Villegas. Andres Bonifacio and the 1896 Revolution. In Sulyap Kultura. National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 1996. NCCA Site. 16 June 2003. http://www.ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/articles-on-c-n-a/article.php?i=5&subcat=13
Mabini Finds Champions; Anti-Imperialists Demand Release of Filipino Statesman. Messrs. Adams, Schurz, Smith, and Welsh Hold That His Detention at Guam Is Illegal. Special to The New York Times. 24 Dec. 1902, http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9D03E3DC163AE733A25757C2A9649D946397D6CF
Medina, Isagani. "Heroes of the Philippines Revolution." In The Great Lives Series, Andres Bonifacio, Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Bookmark, 1992. Bakbakan Site. http://www.bakbakan.org/heroes.html
Philippine Coins and Banknotes: 2 Peso Coin - Improved Flora and Fauna Series. http://philmoney.blogspot.com/2007/01/2-peso-coin-improved-flora-and-fauna.html
Philippine Currency During World War II. http://www.guerrilla-money.com/JIM/
Philippine peso. Absolute Astronomy. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Philippine_peso
Republic Period. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/about/history/story7.asp
Revolucion filipina (1896-1898). Museo Oriental de Valladolid Site. http://www.museo-oriental.es/ver_didactica.asp?clave=138&loc=0
The Philippine Republic. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/page7.asp
Trivia on Philippine Banking. http://info.bpiexpressonline.com/bpiprod/BPIAbout.nsf/150th+Anniversary/Trivia+on+Philippine+Banking?OpenDocument
'Victory' series. http://www.guerrilla-money.com/Victory_series/

Photo Credits:

http://manilagalleontrade.webs.com/
http://philmoney.blogspot.com/
http://philippine-revolution.110mb.com/
http://tetp.wordpress.com/2009/03/English Series Notes. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/BSPNotes/EnglishSeries.pdf
Pilipino Series Notes. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/BSPNotes/PilipinoSeries.pdf
Ang Bagong Lipunan Series Notes. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/BSPNotes/ABLSeries.pdf
New Design Series Notes. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/BSPNotes/NewDesignSeries.pdf
BSP Series Notes. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. http://www.bsp.gov.ph/bspnotes/evolution/BSPNotes/BSPSeries.pdf

Trucking Company in Tulsa Oklahoma...Arrow Trucking...abruptly shut its doors leaving drivers stranded on the roads just before Christmas with no way home.

By David J. Hudson

I need a job. Unemployment is not only hard on the checking account it is also taking a toll on me. I am going to take you through my day.

6 to 7 am...fed the cat, cleaned the litter box, and ate a bowl of cereal.

7 to 11 am..scrubbed bathrooms, changed the sheets and made the bed, did the general pick up and put away, dusted furniture, took all the blinds down and cleaned them, washed dishes ( no dishwasher) cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom including cleaning out the fridge, cleaned the stove and oven, swept, mopped and vacuumed,
and took a shower.

11am to 1pm ...went to post office, bought groceries and put them away.

1pm to 3 pm...baked cupcakes for my granddaughter's debate club, washed, dried and put laundry away and ate a piece of cold chicken.

3pm to 4pm...picked up my great-nephew from ball practice and took two of his friends home then dropped him off
because his mom was not feeling well.

4pm to 5pm...checked e-mails, balanced checkbook and paid bills.

5pm to 6:30pm....made dinner, ate dinner and cleaned the kitchen.

Tomorrow I will rake and burn leaves, pull weeds, and clean up the back porch. I still have closets to clean out, kitchen cupboards to reorganize and some mending to do. I need to sort things out that are in the storage shed, make and freeze pie shells for Thanksgiving, and give the cat a bath as well as clip her claws.

Now I do not want to give the impression that I did not do any of these things while I was working. But since I have been without a regular job I no longer put anything off until "next" weekend. And because of the money situation my partner has been taking all the overtime they offer at her job and so I have also taken on the chores she used to do. I do not mind that because she is working long hours but it has certainly reinforced how lucky I am to have someone who has always done her fair share around the house when we both worked. One other thing has changed since I have all my days "free",I am now the only one that everyone calls for a "favor.'
Mom used to split her requests between my sister and myself, now it is just me ( my sister works). I have been drafted into making Christmas decorations for her senior citizen center, my sister gets me to do things for her that she used to handle herself after work, my granddaughter has volunteered me for all kinds of things at her school, and I am helping organize a class reunion. I used to complain that I wished I had more time to do some of these things and the old saying of " be careful what you wish for" has taken on new meaning. I have always helped my family and friends. I have always cooked and baked. I have always done my share of the household chores. Now I wonder how in the world did I find the time while I was working to do what I did. But what really has me scratching my head is the fact that it did not seem as tiring as it does now. I can recall doing a lot of this stuff at night or on the weekends and I just can not understand how it has managed to fill my days up so completely that I am more tired at night now than I was then. My cell phone rings three times more than it used to, I have yet to take a day just to be lazy ( I used to make sure I did that at least once every two weeks or so), I seem to have less time to read, and of course there is no paycheck.

Anyone who thinks a stay at home parent or spouse does not deserve compensation needs to try it for a while. If you have never been the one who handles the home or the kids or both, you should give your other half a break and do it for a week. I will bet you will never look at their " job" the same again. As for me I hope I find employment soon before I am totally exhausted.

Success to many of us can mean anything. For the dynamic and ambitious executive it could mean climbing the greasy pole of corporate achievement and finally sitting pretty at the top. For a new singer it could be having a record produced for the first time and watching its progress in the charts and for an actor it could be getting that coveted part on television.

For those in the public service, like a doctor, it could be saving another person's life, especially one who was not expected to live. For a writer it is likely to see that first idea in printed form, and how it is received by the readers, while for a lawyer it could be winning the next courtroom case. Yet again, for the budding entrepreneur, it could be making his/her first millions and the feeling of being rich.

Those are all tangible, material form of success. They are difficult to miss, they spell success in big, bold, sweeping letters to the rest of society, and they provide visible means for measuring one's potential, one's progress, one's journey and one's destination.

But what about the person who judges their success by other parameters? For example, by their own values and standards? By simply living up to what they believe in? By the effect they have on others? By the difference they make to their world? By the degree to which they affect other people's lives and, most of all, by the level of happiness and contentedness they feel? Is their feeling of genuine success any different from those who wish for material accolades? And how do they tangibly measure such success, especially when they cannot see the end product of their actions? Is it according to the way they feel each day?

Finally, what about people in retreat, the ones who remove themselves from their community/society to live lives of quiet mediation and peacefulness; to live by their own ideas of fulfilment and are quite happy not to even come in contact with others, or to have any material things? Are they being successful in any way?

Which form of success applies to you the most, and what would be your individual definition of success?

Let's have it.

Seeking a new job, is a very important life-changing decision, but a necessary thing to do. Any change means growth, development and evolution, and can only make you a better person. When we dread change, we hang back in fear and lose the opportunities for surprises, personal fulfilment and even greater success. Eventually, we are then steeped in regrets.

The first essential tips for changing your career are the following:

1. Make a list of up to 10 things that a job SHOULD give you (the PROFESSIONAL points).

Your ideal, no matter how unrealistic they may sound. This could include type of job, pay, location, perks etc. The things you dream of. Experiment with the priority order of that list as much as you can, until you have got it in exactly the order that reflects the importance of each desire for you.

2. Draw a line under your top five, to clearly demarcate them from the rest.

There is a very important reason for this. You can always compromise with the last five items, but if the job does not provide the top five desires, especially the first three, DON'T take it. You will only feel good at the beginning, then get progressively disillusioned as things do not add up to what you expect. And they won't. If you have identified what you really want and what makes you happy, then go against it, you will still be unhappy.

3. Make another five point list (the PERSONAL checkpoints), clearly identifying the following important aspects:

A. Who you really are? (what you stand for, how you see yourself, your true personality).
If you don't know who you are, your job cannot reflect you, enhance you or develop you. For example, what is the point of gong into the Armed Forces/military because the pay is good and you can lord it over others if you cannot stand taking orders from anyone, or don't like the idea of killing others? You'd be going against who you are.

B. Where you are going or wish to go (if you don't know where you're heading in your life, your job cannot take you there). We don't get into a car and drive aimlessly. We always have a destination in mind and we tend to get there safely. The same with our lives. If you don't have a direction, you can bet your last dollar that someone will find a direction for you, which is unlikely to make you happy!

C. What you seek in life (what is your real PURPOSE, what makes you sing and smile to do it?).
If you don't know what you want, how on earth are you going to recognise it when you see it?

D. Your level of self belief and confidence. If you have very little, not even the best sounding jobs will provide the opportunities and achievement you seek because the barrier to such success would have already been inside your head.

E. Whether you are a 'people person' or feel more comfortable with 'things'. That is very important for your direction in life. If you are the quiet, introverted type, who tends to feel uncomfortable with others, it is pointless getting a job to manage people. You are probably better with projects/technology.

So, armed with your two lists of exactly who you are and the essential things a job must give you, every time you see a job that you like, rate the job against your first list of elements, perhaps using a scale of 1-5 for each. If you get a lot of fours or fives, especially for your top five items, then move on to your personal list and see how the job aligns with your personality, purpose and direction etc; whether it boosts your confidence and self belief. If it is also high on these, that's the one to go for.

If you follow this simple plan every time, you won't allow yourself to be blinded just by pay, perks or location. You will keep a steady head as you assess something even more important: the job's capacity to excite, develop and enhance you in ways you really dream of on an emotional level. You will then stop playing to someone else's tune purely for money or the convenience.

Elaine Sihera (Ms CYPRAH)
Emotional Health Adviser
"Respect and love begin with the self. If we have none, how can we give away any?"

I might just be a moron, because I seriously do not understand what people do day in day out. Men and women are constantly searching for love or someone they can spend the rest of their lives with, sometimes love fades, but even when love is found sometime one or the other will sabotage that partnership. For those lucky ones that find love and get married, the natural step is to have children. Some couples don't want offspring which is great, but I think that is the progress of nature. If you are lucky you will be in debt to your eye balls because you purchased a house.

Anyways maybe I missed this class in high school, but why is everyone so worried about their retirement, savings, leaving enough for the children, buying more property or stocks, etc. I have a few friends that are married and have a home, good cars, some savings in the bank, 401k, and are thinking of buying a bigger house. Why? Ok I understand about having a roof over your head and the head of yours, but need everybody be so obssessed with having enough for the future. The future will come and leave us behind in a whole, or we might never gt to the future, hell I might not get to finish these article because I might choke on the gum I am chewing. I know saving for a rainy day is good but why not have the fun now instead of when you have arthritis, or something even worse. Enjoy now when we can get around without any help.

Why leave your kids so much, as much as posible. If we had nothing and we worked hard and were able to get some wealth, could they not do the same? Ok, you don't what them working so hard, fime leave them enough to survive until they get through school. Am I wrong, with this? Don't get me wrong, I want money, I enjoy wasting it, I want love, I would enjoy well everything. I don't think I will search for that special someone any more, I will just wait to see if it ever falls in my lap. About making money, yes I am going for it, I will fork my butt to get some wealth and when I die if there is enough,I will leave some to everyone in my family not just my daughter, but for her just enough to find herself. What about the rest, spend it now and haqve a little fun, first to make some because I have but 40 dollars in my pocket.

Yes, when time is needed to reflect there is nothing better than losing your jovb to be able to refect and think about you your life, family, fiend, goals, dreams, fears (what fears, yeah those), everything that might come up into your mind. I now understand a few things, not thhat I did not understand before, but would just ignore or push towards the back. I now know that this country needs a serious change, a change in the way it does its business and the way it treats their citizens. Two months to the day before I got a response from the unemployement department, and with a mistake first they tell me I am not eligible and then two days later after I was gettting rezdy to appeal, I get another letter the letter of unemployment award. Two months, I have been working since I was 13, nothing special, i am sure lots of people have done as me. Excatly what I am supposed to do for two month with no pay check. I was about to go to social services and get cash aid, but I was holding off, not because I would be embarressed to do that or because it would make me feel bad, but rather because I always complain about people that abuse the system and I am not at that point of despair yet, I have a friend who has been helping out, it truly is amazing to me the way he has helped me out. I would hate that because of me someone truly needing would not get the aid, but wait I need it. Should I get aid simply because a table says I qualify? Should those table be reformated?

I have learned that true friends stickk by you in your time of need and will give youtime to resolve your issues and give you slack to be upset and carry some anger and disconnection around your neck I certainly hope that I am that kind of friend also.

I have learned that you family is your blood and if you need to separare from them you must and should but you can never cut all ties not matter what you think of them. To cut ties you are not only cutting ties with them, but with a lot more people. Separation might be necessary, but they as you will need to know of each other from time to time.
I have learned that there are far better individuals in this world than me, and that makes me feel great. People that are more gracious, responsible, intelligent, giving, strong of conviction.

To search for what you want or desire is not esy but one must do a little sould searching just to make sure that you are happy and moving forward because there is no treason to keep sagnant.

Yeah it is easier to lie than to tell the truth sometimes. I think I was already starting to believe it myself, now that will not do. by many standards I am middle aged, hell no! What, no way. I am at the best physical an d mental form of my life.

In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" — investment bank Goldman Sachs

Not an easy question for anyone because most of us, if we are honest, would love them all. The money makes life easier, the fame makes us feel achievement and significance, the love is inspirational and enhances the quality of our existence and the long life enables us to enjoy all the others.

However, as I can't have them all my personal choice would have to be LOVE. Somehow, Love seems to make everything else happens, including a longer life too through less stress and greater fulfilment.

Money and Fame without Love is an arid existence and having a long life as well without it means lots of loneliness and feelings of exclusion and neglect. I would prefer a short life full of love and enhancement than a long life without it. So Love is paramount for me.

What about your choice, and why?

Hamilton, Ohio, my home town, is installing these nefarious red light cameras to take pictures of cars and then send out tickets. Are red light cameras simply using technology to enforce the law or are they the latest scam for local governments to extort money from out-of-towners and commuters that have to travel through their area?

There are a number of things that someone applying for a job can do to make getting a job more likely. Follow these tips and it may help you get hired on at a company.

- You must not only alert your references that calls about you from possible employers will be coming in to them but you also must coach them on what to say about you. Make sure what they are saying is consistent with what you have listed on your resume. It also helps if your reference is a former boss to encourage them to talk employer-to-employer about why you were a good employee and what you accomplished for them in your former position.

- You absolutely must tailor your resume to the job for which you are applying. Highlight skills and experience that will allow you to fit in at your new job and do a good turn for your new employer. Also try to be enthusiastic about the company that you are applying to for a job. If you show them that you would be grateful to work for their company they are more likely to hire you.

- You shouldn't just look for "Help Wanted" ads to find companies that are hiring. If you want the best chance of getting hired you need to identify many companies that operate in your sector of expertise and send your resume to them. Many jobs do not get to the stage of being advertised to the public and are filled in-house either by promoting someone that already works at the company or by hiring someone whose resume the supervisor received, liked and set aside for the next opening at the company. Be that resume that is held to the side waiting for the next opportunity.

- Don't jump the gun when it comes to discussing potential salary or wages. It is best to let the person interviewing you broach the subject because if you are seen to be too eager to discuss money you will likely want more money than other applicants and that perception will put you at a disadvantage relative to other people that have applied for the job.

- Don't jump to reply to generic advertisements for jobs or advertisements that sound too good to be true because they are probably traps. Clever con artists are using the poor economy to create opportunities to lure people in and swindle or scam them. Be aware of what you are getting into and don't become a victim.

- Don't talk about yourself too much. In fact, don't talk in your interview too much. Answer the questions put to you in a clear and concise manner. You can't offend your potential employer if you never say the offensive thought out loud. You also cannot manuever the interview into thorny territory that will torpedo your chances.

Cliches To Avoid While Compiling Your Resume:
- Proven track record
- Problem solver
- Cutting edge
- Results oriented
- Fast-paced

Avoiding the above cliches will help you show yourself to be a creative and original employee that will represent the company well and not make it appear to be just like its competitors. This is especially important in an industry where the employees deal with the public on a regular basis or in the customer service industry itself.

Follow these tips to make your resume look more attractive to the Human Resources directors that have to look through dozens of resumes that come in for each position. They will be looking through even more resumes now that the economic crunch is on. Making your's stand out is your path towards an interview and, with luck, an eventual job.

There is growing concern over the upcoming G20 Summit in London this Thursday as well there should be. I believe that the average citizen shies away from the subject of money/economics on a country-wide or global scale because of the overwhelming amount of complexity that has been created around trading of stocks and other investment activities. However, it is very important that we not be intimidated by all the various financial/economic concepts because in the end, they merely serve to strengthen the grandest of illusions under which humanity has been spellbound for a few hundred years – money.

The first thing you need to know is who the players are in this summit. The finance ministers and central bank governors of the twenty economically wealthiest nations comprise the membership that includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, and also the European Union who is represented by the rotating Council presidency and the European Central Bank.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the body that officiates and provides leadership over the G20 Summit, consists of the same 185 countries that are part of the World Bank. Since the IMF has 185 members, why are only 20 being invited to a meeting that has goals of overhauling the global economic/financial system? Both the IMF and the World Bank have their origins based on actions by a precursor group to the United Nations to fight economic instability and poverty yet, there are still seven nations who are UN members but don't meet the criteria to be a member of the IMF and World Bank. The problem such a gathering presents is the exclusion of 176 countries (there are approximately 195 countries recognized by the U.S. but the U.N. only recognizes 192) that are left out of this process and have no voice in the how monetary/economic policy is developed. There is an even higher level of banking power known as The Bank for International Settlements that provides leadership, policy guidance and loans to the world's central banking systems exclusively.

The next thing you need to know is the shift in the balance of economic power based on currency that Brazil, Russia, India, and China are proposing that has everyone worried about the possibility of a one-world currency. In 1969, the IMF created Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to support the fixed exchange rate system in which participating countries needed to have reserves of gold and U.S. dollars in order to buy domestic currencies on the foreign exchange market. Since there was not enough gold or dollars available internationally, SDR currency was changed from gold and U.S. dollars to a mixture of widely-accepted currencies that include the dollar, the sterling pound, the euro, and the yen. Each country receives an allotment of this currency mix which also translates into voting rights within the IMF based on a series of five, complex formulas. Of course, the U.S. has a whopping 16% share while nearly all other countries have less than 1% (Germany has the 2nd highest level of voting rights at a little over 5%). Consider what is being discussed at the upcoming summit as a very slight adjustment to accommodate the allocations to emerging economies. Special Drawing Rights are supposed to be based upon a country's creditworthiness and currently, the U.S. has the largest national debt in the world. Given the fact that Brazil, Russia, India, and China own a great deal of that debt, this gives them leverage to eventually have the currencies in the SDRs on par with their own currencies.

The last thing you need to know is that in a world where most countries use a fiat currency system (money not backed by reserves of gold or other widely-accepted commodities but by faith), there should NEVER be a shortage of money or credit in the banking system since they are the ones that make the rules and control the supply of money. They can print up as much money as they like and pass it out to EVERYONE (they're already doing it for everyone except regular citizens) and that would actually help them actually eliminate the poverty they claim they want to end. Let's look at the mission statements of the world's top banking organizations:

IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 185 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

World Bank

At the World Bank we have made the world's challenge—to reduce global poverty—our challenge.The Bank's focuses on achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that call for the elimination of poverty and sustained development. The goals provide us with targets and yardsticks for measuring results. Our mission is to help developing countries and their people reach the goals by working with our partners to alleviate poverty. We address global challenges in ways that advance an inclusive and sustainable globalization—that overcome poverty, enhance growth with care for the environment, and create individual opportunity and hope.

If these powerful organizations were sincere about their missions, there would be a LOT more progress made toward that end. However, they are in the business of perpetuating debt and with 185 countries/central banks as members, I think the utter failure in achieving their missions speaks volumes about the true intent of banks and governments toward the citizens of this planet. They could end so much suffering at any time by making rules about money that benefit the many instead of the few. Add all the economic rhetoric you would like but it still boils down to an elaborate ponzi scheme that keeps most of the world's population oppressed.

The public's dander is up about the $165 million worth of taxpayer bailout money that AIG utilized to distribute bonuses to the employees in the AIG department that was responsible for betting on the assets that would later trigger the company's collapse and create cause for the government to step in and try to stabilize the fast-moving financial catastrophe. The situation has spawned a "Bonus Army" of its own, however this Bonus Army does not consist of WWI veterans camping in Washington D.C. and demanding the checks that the government promised them in return for their combat service. Today's Bonus Army consists of American taxpayers that are angry and have made the trek to upscale residential Connecticut to protest the AIG bonuses at the residences of AIG executives. Imagine how angry they are going to get when, in all likelihood, the rumor that $215 million (rather than $165 million as originally reported) was used for bonuses is confirmed. However, that's a different topic for a different article.

The response of the Congressional Democratic leadership, headed by Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D - California) and Sen. Harry Reid (D- Nevada), to the media's publication of the $165M in AIG bonuses and the resulting public anger was to try to get out in front of the problem with a fundamentally flawed and unconstitutional piece of legislation called H.R. 1586 and S. 651 in the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively. The legislation essentially hooks a 90% tax to those bonuses to cut them down to the size that the sponsors of the bill think they should be. There are a number of problems with this approach:

1) This is a bill of attainder. Bills of attainder are unconstitutional (and, thus, against the law) and they are so for good reason. A bill of attainder is "an act of the legislature by which one or more persons are declared to be attained, and their property confiscated." Source They were set forth to be illegal in the Constitution because they were a method by which state legislatures and the Congress could (and did during the Revolutionary War) seize all or part of a specific person or group's property or declare them guilty of a crime and imprison them without due process of law. The reason that they would want to circumvent due process is obvious: it is likely that a court would not uphold the confiscation of property by the legislature or the guilty verdict that resulted in said confiscation and/or imprisonment. Although the law is written broadly enough to escape a strict legal reading out of the original context, when you put the law in the context of public outcry over the AIG bonuses it becomes clear that Congress is targeting AIG employees with a massive tax because the public is angry. Furthermore, it is fruit from the poison tree because at the root level this money was loaned to AIG from the government. If the government wants to impose a 90% tax on all bonuses in every financial company that makes it more palatable from a Constitution standpoint, however.

2) This is an ex post facto law and, accordingly, unconstitutional. An ex post facto law is a law that is passed after an event has happened that pertains to a punishment or tax on the original event that activates retroactively and confiscates property or imprisons someone. The problem with an ex post facto law is that the person being punished did not know and had no way of knowing what they were doing originally (which was legal at the time) would be proscribed by the government at a later date. Therefore, the government has no right to retroactively punish someone for an act that was made illegal after the person had committed the act. H.R. 1586 and S. 651 are clearly ex post facto laws since there was no law at the time (December 2008) which prohibited companies from using government bailout loans as bonuses for their employees nor was there an exorbitant excise tax levied on salaries or bonuses paid out of bailout funds through financial institutions.

3) This is a clear and disturbing violation of contract law. AIG entered into a contract in December 2008 to pay its employees these bonuses and neither Congress nor President Bush voiced opposition to the use of government funds for these bonuses prior to or at the time that the contracts were signed. The government can only dissolve a contract when there is a compelling legal reason to do so, such as the contract paying salary in return for illegal services rendered like human trafficking. Giving a bonus to employees does not even begin to approach being illegal, even if it is being paid for with government bailout funds. The only way that this contract should be unbound is if the government put rules in place about how the company could not use its infusion of financial support to pay bonuses to employees and no such clause was ever brought forward until a few days ago.

Those three points are just the legal hurdles that this bill failed to clear. From those problems stem the further fallout of the economic ripple effect if this bill were to pass Congress, be signed into law and be upheld by the Supreme Court despite the sticking points mentioned above. The first problem would be the widespread effects of #3's perversion of contract law and the government's vastly lower bar that it must clear to obtain the right to declare a contract null and void between two parties. Who will trust upon entering into a legally binding contract that the government will enforce that contract if the protestations of the public are enough to goad Congress into nullifying a contract between a large employer (with an experienced legal staff) and its employee? I certainly would not. If the government can nullify a perfectly legal contract because it is unpopular with the public then contract law and the courts are moot in this country because the precedent will be set that Congress (and by extension all 50 state legislatures) can arbitrarily dissolve contracts at their whim or at the public's whim if the legislators are afraid of being voted out of office in the next election. Furthermore, the Bush administration and the Obama administration have both worked exceedingly hard to avoid a stigma in the public's minds about financial institutions that the government has bailed out. They have worked to avoid this because a financial institution without a shred of credibility with the public is simply forestalling inevitable bankruptcy by taking the government's money as they will not garner enough business from the public to remain solvent. Working from that economic fact the question then becomes "Who wants to work at a financial institution that the public does not trust (which will drive it bankrupt)?" and "Who wants to work for a bailed out financial institution when the government can interfere with its payment to its employees, unlike financial institutions that have given the money back or never taken it in the first place?" The answer to both of those questions is fast and dirty: nobody. This excise tax will not only be a detriment to the economic recovery, but it will undercut everything that the Obama administration has done to restore consumer confidence in the financial sector and economy as a whole.

The most foolish aspect of this excise tax by far, however, is the political gamesmanship that has led to it. It turns out that embattled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was the government official that made the decision to keep the loophole for bonuses in the legislation authorizing the bailout money. It was reported as early as January, to my knowledge, that AIG would be disbursing bonuses and that Treasury was who authorized it. Smelling blood, Republicans picked up on public anger about the AIG bonuses, put 2 and 2 together and came up with 4: their next political strategy. Help the public to get angrier about the AIG bonuses (as if the public had not gotten angry enough over the economy), the public would realize that Geithner was the government official responsible for allowing them and the pressure on Obama to sack Geithner after less than two months on the job would grow to a level too great to ignore and force a political loss on Obama by forcing his hand to accept Geithner's resignation. Instead of accepting the situation playing out that way (which it undoubtedly would without some kind of proactive stance on the issue by Democrats) the Democrats in Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took action: they slapped a 90% excise tax on the bonuses which effectively reclaimed the money for the taxpayers. Republicans in the House, painted into a corner and faced with a decision between a very popular excise tax and a very unpopular "Nay" vote, had 85 of its members jump ship and vote "Yea" on H.R. 1586. Overall the vote was Yea with 243 Democrats and 85 Republicans (328) and Nay with 6 Democrats and 87 Republicans (93). The bill passed with a veto proof majority as a result in the House. The bill then proceeded to the Senate as S. 651 and was debated but not yet voted upon. Senator Jon Kyl (R - Arizona) called for members of the Senate to slow the legislation down, ostensibly to prevent a rash decision, according to Senator Kyl. However, the way that it has been played since the start of the imbroglio, Kyl is probably calling to slow down the legislation so that Republicans in the Senate (most likely Kyl himself along with others) can rail against the legislation. After they rail against it, go on the Sunday morning talk shows and the cable news channels to decry it, they will allow a vote and it will pass with most Democrats and possibly 10 Republicans with an outside chance of more. Nearly all of the Republicans will be up for re-election in 2010. Bunning (R - Kentucky) will figure prominently in the "Yea" votes as he is up for re-election in 2010 and was already on the ropes with the voters in his state before this issue came up. The Republicans will then win again when it passes because Obama will be faced with signing the bill and making the economic mess worse to preserve his political capital or vetoing it on the grounds that it is a bad idea on several levels and sacrificing a certain amount of political capital at a critical time in pushing his agenda when he needs public support the most. An economic crisis instigated, even caused, by partisan politics.

On a side note, the $165M number is approximately .000097% of the bailout money that AIG received from the government. It is also worth noting that the department at AIG responsible for the majority of the acquisition of troubled assets, Financial Productions, is in the process of being phased out at the company. All FP employees are basically working to tie up loose ends in their jobs (and not all sectors were responsible for the catastrophe but they are being phased out just the same) at which point they will be let go from AIG. Many of these people were counting on the bonuses to make up a significant amount of their salaries running up to their termination. While AIG management probably should have known better than to distribute such a large monetary sum in such a short period of time for bonuses, changing the rules will force them to raise permanent salaries if they want to distribute the money to their workers. Salaries they will have to pay in perpetuity to employees that hire in. AIG may be on a government-sponsored ventilator but that is no excuse for the government forcing the company to make foolish decisions that impoverish the employees because the public is angry.

I'll admit that I'm not the one to come to if you need money management advice. But like many other Americans, the idea of AIG handing out bonuses to executives after being bailed out with taxpayer monies, just doesn't sit well with me. And I'm unconvinced by AIG's claim that they are contractually bound to make these bonus payouts; the employees hit certain goals for which the bonuses were promised.

Personally, I think company on the verge of failure should have no obligation to fulfill any such contract. It seems to me that the bigger necessity would be to keep the business running, so it can do what it was saved to do. I mean...if the sales and revenue were worth bonusing, wouldn't the company be healthier?

On this point I'm conflicted because I was recently laid off from a company that went under through no fault of its owners or employees. But during those last few difficult months, we employees felt the struggle for the company to stay afloat, in reduced hours or pay. The CEO hadn't taken a salary for months before he was forced to cut the author pay and eventually the time for which he could pay internal staff. It was painful, but how else was he supposed to sustain his business?

I think the same principle applies for this situation with AIG. Sure they may have these contracts, but the company can't actually afford to pay employee bonuses - however deserving that employee may or may not be - in its current condition.

On the other hand, I can see AIG wanting to retain the people they consider valuable; their top talent so to speak. There may well be a few folks wondering what their incentive is to stay at a company when they have to settle for not getting the compensation they were promised and believe they deserve. However if taxpayers have to save a company from failure, the employees should have to shoulder some of that responsibility as well.

I can see how for AIG this might be a very difficult decision to make; I certainly don't envy their HR departments who are probably fighting to save employee comps. But since the company can't really afford those comps - to the point of needing government/taxpayer assistance - no, employees should not be awarded bonuses. If I'm missing something, please explain it to me, because it seems rather simple to me.

Cross posted from KymleeIsAwesme.net

© 2008 Kimberlee Morrison. Some rights reserved.

I wrote this article to spark some courageous thinking and action that will get us out of the manufactured global economic crisis.

This is about our favorite Texan, Mr. Ross Perot. He made every attempt to warn us of the current financial and economic meltdown we are currently in during his run for the Presidency. He warned us about the "Devil being in the Details".

"WE are the definition of Society and WE are the makers of History" Daniel Slack

Corporations are notorious for taking theories, discoveries, and technology, to hide them. Through out the history of business in the United States, there are various examples of unfair business practices being ignored and endorsed by our fair and equal government. From the confidence tricks that Edison ripped off Nikola Tesla with, to the buy out and dismantling of the electric trolley system by General Motors, most corporations are singularly interested in anything that makes a profit. They only want to promote technology that keeps their profit coming, regardless of any benefits to humanity any new technology may have. Even the FCC have made claims and taken steps to try to discourage the potential that open source software offers the public. But there is hope......

The concept of free software grew from the philosophies of cooperation and openness long established in academia and science. Many teacher and scientists believe in the idea that any knowledge, whether it be mathematical, scientific, or mechanical in nature, should be allowed to benefit society in the maximum possible way. Their expectations of monetary gain is often limited to the hopes of just living comfortably and funding their new research projects. The contributions and discoveries are often displayed openly for the good of humanity.

The software sharing community at MIT existed for many years, even predating the internet. Software was produced by academics and corporate researchers working in collaboration.
Operating systems, such as early versions of UNIX, were widely distributed and maintained by the community of users. The Source code was distributed with software because users frequently modified the software themselves to fix bugs or add new functionality, and because programmers couldn't possibly create executable machine-code for the wide variety of hardware that existed. Thus in this era, software was free in a sense, not because of any concerted effort by software users or developers, but rather because software was developed by the user community.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, companies began routinely imposing restrictions on programmers through copyright. They saw a way to make money by blocking rights and selling them back. The Founder of Microsoft signaled the change of the times in 1976 when he wrote his now-famous Open Letter to Hobbyists, sending out the message that what hobbyists called "sharing" was "stealing". In 1979 companies for began to enforce its restrictive licenses when the company decided it might profit.

During the following decades, the beatnik and hippy ideals of old had emerged into a more cohesive community, thanks to the internet. The ideals of human fellowship, social consciousness and sharing of knowledge seemed to have gained real-world expression. One form of this expression is the ability to create open source free applications that not only contribute to the free expression of ideas, but also do not put a dent in the pocketbook as well.

I now present to you a list of quality software developed by those with a social conscience.

1 Open Office: Microsoft Office's Archenemy

OpenOffice is the result of over twenty years' software engineering. Designed from the start as a single piece of software, it has a consistency other products cannot match. A completely open development process means that anyone can report bugs, request new features, or enhance the software. The result: OpenOffice does everything you want your office software to do, the way you want it to.

OpenOffice is easy to learn, and if you're already using another office software package, you'll take to OpenOffice straight away. Our world-wide native-language community means that OpenOffice is probably available and supported in your own language. And if you already have files from another office package OpenOffice will probably read them with no difficulty.

Best of all, OpenOffice can be downloaded and used entirely free of any license fees. OpenOffice is released under the LGPL license. This means you may use it for any purpose - domestic, commercial, educational, public administration. You may install it on as many computers as you like. You may make copies and give them away to family, friends, students, employees - anyone you like.

Open Office a very comprehensive software suite, it includes:

OpenOffice Writer: A word processor similar in functionality to Microsoft Word and WordPerfect. It can export Portable Document Format (PDF) files with no additional software, and can function as a basic WYSIWYG editor for creating and editing web pages.

OpenOffice Calc: A spreadsheet similar to Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3 with a roughly equivalent range of features. Calc provides a number of features not present in Excel, including a system which automatically defines series for graphing, based on the layout of the user's data. Calc can write spreadsheets in PDF format.

OpenOffice Impress: A presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. It can export presentations to Adobe Flash (SWF) files, allowing them to be played on any computer with a Flash player installed. It also includes the ability to create PDF files, and the ability to read Microsoft Power Point's .ppt format. Impress lacks ready-made presentation designs. However, templates are readily available on the Internet.

OpenOffice Base: A database management program similar to Microsoft Access. Base allows the creation and manipulation of databases, and the building of forms and reports to provide easy access to data for end-users. As with Access, Base may be used as a front-end to a number of different database systems, including Access databases (JET), ODBC data sources and MySQL/PostgreSQL. Base became part of the suite starting with version 2.0. Native to the OpenOffice suite is an adaptation of . While Base can be a front-end for any of the databases listed, there is no need for any of them to be installed.

OpenOffice Draw: A vector graphic editor comparable in features to early versions of CorelDraw. It features versatile "connectors" between shapes, which are available in a range of line styles and facilitate building drawings such as flowcharts. It has similar features to desktop publishing software such as Scribus and Microsoft Publisher.

OpenOffice Math: A tool for creating and editing mathematical formulae, similar to Microsoft Equation Editor. Formulae can be embedded inside other OpenOffice.org documents, such as those created by Writer. It supports multiple fonts and can export to PDF.

For more information or to download this wonderful Productivity Suite:
http://www.openoffice.org

2 Gimp: Open Source Software For The Professional Photographer

Gimp is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many features that is equal to, or even surpasses the venerable Adobe Photoshop.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an on line batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Gimp has a full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, and many others. It Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing. Other features include

Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool

Supports custom brushes and patterns

Tile based memory management so image size is limited only by available disk space

Virtually unlimited number of images open at one time

Advanced Manipulation

Full alpha channel support

Layers and channels

Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace)

Editable text layers

Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip

Selection tools including rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy

Foreground extraction tool

Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections.

Transformable paths, transformable selections.

Quickmask to paint a selection.

A Procedural Database for calling internal GIMP functions from external programs as in Script-fu

Advanced scripting capabilities (Scheme, Python, Perl)

Plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new effect filters

Over 100 plug-ins already available

Load and save animations in a convenient frame-as-layer format

MNG support

Frame Navigator (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)

Onion Skin (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)

Bluebox (in GAP, the GIMP Animation Package)

File formats supported include bmp, gif, jpeg, mng, pcx, pdf, png, ps, psd, svg, tiff, tga, xpm, and many others

Load, display, convert, save to many file formats

SVG path import/export

This software can be downloaded at:
http://www.gimp.org/

An Online Manual and Usage Guide can be found at:
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

3. Scribus: Professional Publishing at a Pittance Price

Even with the best office suites, it is sometimes hard to incorporate complex page layouts and feature rich content. Microsoft created MS Publisher to cater to the "Newsmen," those who wish to endeavor to create professional grade publications. Unfortunately, MS Publisher was cost prohibitive for most amateurs to start their own home based magazine.

Scribus is a highly versatile and useful tool for desktop publishing and can handle all the functions of MS Publisher with relative ease. It gives you the ability to create all of those image rich documents, such as magazines, brochures, newsletters that depend on flash and creativity to look appealing to a mass audience. Your magazines and newsletters that were white pages and black text would now have professional pizzazz and interest.

Scribus has a wonderful interface, but as you use it you will discover dozens of options hidden in the menus. The Scribus Wiki's offers an excellent tutorial. The walkthrough on the magazine creation process will help immensely for you to grow familiar with the tools Scribus has to offer. In only a few hours, you'll be throwing out professional documents like you never have before.

You can download it at:
http://www.scribus.net/

The user guide can be found at:
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Get_Started_with_Scribus

These titles are just the tip of the iceberg for what is available. In these hard economic times, it is nice to know that your creativity and productivity does not have to be effected. I implore you to search for the free alternatives to your future software purchases, you will be happy you did. Here is a list of current Open Source software:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages

Once again I wish to close with the wisdom of our forefather, Thomas Jefferson:

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. "

Not understanding the world of high finance i have been asking questions and trying to learn...in order to understand in a simple way why bush pushed the fear and panic button...about the colossal impending doom to our financial system and that of the rest of the world...bush ask …

Financial Crisis of the United States from the Great Depression to today. A look at the cause, the action taken, and the results.

Give our 700 Billion to us, to pay our mortgages, and the financial "crisis" will be over. Bush and the forty thieves have proved that Trickle Down ideology does not work, why, in the name of common sense, would we try it again.

Who is Bush/McCain going to give our 700 billion to?

Lets go to the Video Tape.(Sept 24, 2008)

My plan is simple, take the 700 Billion and give it to home owners and let it trickle up. If Bush wants to go in my pocket for 700 Billion, this will cost me one to two trillion. Why would I believe him or his people, remember Iraq. This is what I would do with the money, cut any past or present foreclosed mortgage in half. Keep the family in the house with affordable payments and fixed interest for 30 years. Return families to houses that have been lost. Mandate that only banks can hold mortgages. End mortgage based derivatives. Tightly regulate the financial industry mandating internet based transparency.

We the people should take over the "Federal" Reserve and print our own money for the purpose of lending it to the financial sector. Any company with a people's reserve loan would agree to a salary freeze and rollbacks where needed. These companies would give no raises or bonuses, or pay any dividends, until the peoples reserve loan is replayed. Government representatives would sit on their board and in the interest of transparencies they would agree to provide full computerized financial reports every 90 days. These reports would be published on the internet in accordance with Obama's Digital Vision. Any violators of the agreement or the public trust go to jail.

The way to put America in sound economic shape is not a short term fix. It is in launching the Obama Green Moon Shot with a ten year drop dead date for our future.

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I remember walking down the street in my fur coat a few years back and having someone ask me if I knew how many minks died for my fur. I stopped wearing fur. I stopped because I did not need it, it was a luxury, it was a sign that I had made it – it was ego food.

"Be careful," the folks at abebooks.com write this week, "what you use as a bookmark." They report on the things booksellers have discovered in books, from a letter by C.S. Lewis to a baby's tooth to Mickey Mantle's rookie baseball card.

I started on my Internet freelance writing journey by building up a following on Ezine.com. It promises to give you lots of publicity, but no money, for your writing. I thought that, with the Internet being new to me (I had only written for print) I would ease myself in gradually and develop my freelance reputation that way. So free publicity it was, and the site was darned effective. Online publishers could have a maximum of 25 articles from Ezine per year. Seemed reasonable to me.

Six months down the line, I changed my mind about the publicity when I saw a huge website proudly boasting 80 of my articles, surrounded by glorious Google Adsense, and not an exploitative conscience in sight. Obviously making a fine living from my efforts, with not a penny for me. I was told by Ezine that I would have to chase after them myself. But that is not really on, otherwise what is their policy about? I stopped writing for them immediately and joined Newsvine soon afterwards.

However, I was just reviewing my work on the site, and what had happened since I stopped submitting articles, when I noticed something very interesting. The articles that the online publishers were most interested in taking for their readers were not the articles the ordinary readers were interested in!

For example, my top five articles on the site are as follows:

1. Why Do Some Men Cheat? 12,618 since it was written

(also the most emailed and the most clicks to my website)
2. The True Meaning of Respect 2,607
3. Should You Have Sex on The First Date 1,894
4. How to Recover From a Broken Heart 1,653
5. How Do I Make My Man Love Me? 1,639

As you can see, apart from No.2, all the articles deal with relationships, that little bugbear that affects our lives daily; the angst and pain of loving someone that is always haunts us; the anxiety of unrequited love or the feeling of rejection and anger when we are betrayed. It is all there in the titles. But what are the top 5 that the online magazines have taken? So far, nearly 4000 magazines have taken my articles (jeeeps!) ad these are the most popular for them:

1. Can Men and Women be 'Just Friends'?
2. How to Recover From a Broken Heart
3. What You Must Have to Be a Millionaire
4. Understanding the Real Causes of Ageing
5. Birthday Thoughts: 59 and Counting

Apart from the first two articles, nothing else matches. Yes, there are always people interested in getting rich, and there are far more older people in our world now who are also worrying about their age, but relationships is where it is at in our modern world. The goal posts have changed, old traditions are proving useless and people are unsure of how to treat each other, so there is lots of fear and bewilderment. People are seeking new assurances about relationships because they feel inadequate in dealing with them. But these magazines don't seem to be addressing those concerns in nearly enough measure. They are still back there in the land of cosy nests and undisturbed connections.

Even Newsvine, a 'news' site, is still ignoring the kind of news/ articles that tons of people might be interested in because it has no People/Society or Relationship main categories. Yet, one of my three most popular articles, which had over 600 page views on one day was on relationships. That is the main concern of the modern age, as shown by Helium, which has a different audience, that the trend is no different.

My top 5 Helium articles that have earned the most are:

1. Tips for dealing with disrespectful teenagers (a surprising and consistent top earner!)
2. Why Some Men Cheat
3. How to tell your man you love someone else
4. The main reasons couples are unfaithful
5. How and when to end a friendship

Mmmmmm....Is someone trying to tell those magazines something and they're not listening?

If you are absolutely sure you have a best seller on your hands, and the signs are certain, then a 'legitimate' publisher with a much wider market and promotional resurces would be a must. However, if you are like 95% of the rest of writers and bloggers, vying for recognition in a very tight market, you should self publish every time. The only things another publisher would be able to give you more than you can give yourself is more volume in printing and and their expertise in finishing and marketing. However, apart from having no rejection of your work, going it alone also gives you five very important things.

1. Confidence in, and affirmation of, your own ability: No one will be deciding the level of your talent, artistry or competence except the people who matter: your public readers. There is no need to dread the rejection because there will be none, especially if you print just a few, to begin with, to gauge reader reaction. You are at no one's mercy, or subjected to a single person's judgment as to your potential, which should help your talent even more to develop.

2. You can publish whenever you choose: You don't have to wait for months or years to get a slot in a publisher's schedule. You can choose a deadline to suit you and work to it. One of my most successful books, 10 Easy Steps to Finding Your Ideal Soulmate! was self-published within 8 weeks! I could never have got such a quick turnaround from another publisher. I wanted to align it with Valentine's day, yet only decided to do it the Christmas before! It was finished in the last week of January and doing the rounds. I wouldn't recommend that as a usual practice but the sense of achievement, especially seeing the attention it has attracted since publication, has been just wonderful. I cannot believe I did it in such a short time.

3. You can create your own website for it and market it whichever way you choose. You might not have access to the outlets that the established publishers have, but by driving traffic to your site, and writing related articles with the appropriate links to your books, you can get a lot of attention over time. Furthermore, you can also set up a stall on places like Amazon to sell directly to the public. You don't have to go through a third party.

4. You keep most of your royalties. You can set your own price and keep most of it. Most publishers give a pittance for royalties to their writers, maximum 10%, unless you are a huge author who can negotiate better deals. Naturally if your book is selling in millions the small percentage of royalties do build up dramatically, but most authors are not that famous. At least with self-publishing you get most of the cover price back, except where you have to pay any commission to outlets which help you to distribute it.

5. Best of all, is the total satisfaction and feeling of achievement of seeing your creation come to life and being read by others. There's nothing to beat it. As long as you have gathered professional advice on how to put it together, get it proofed, edited and printed, the sky is your limit. With practice you will certainly become perfect, like me with 6 books published already. The most successful one to date, which was aimed at businesses, cost me $22,000 to publish and market and sold $76,000 worth of copies, as well as a further $1100 in copying license fees. It helped me to pay my staff in the final months of my business.

I am very happy with that!

I know Wikipedia has problems, but check out this new one! They haven't even responded to a request I made a year ago for their Form 1023 information, let alone provided it. I try to avoid the site after unfair treatment about a lot of work I did on an article.

I don't like its prominence in search engines, and articles aren't accurate, credited to aliases/anonymous users with no accountability. The "online encyclopedia" has teenagers as "admins" in power, and it has unfair and biased mechanisms for redress such as the one Jimmy Wales gets accused of using in helping a girlfriend with her article. I even began a group to discuss problems there, Wikipedia Problems, but other groups abound.

Wikipedia has room for improvement. I don't know if Jimmy Wales actually did anything wrong. He's definitely kind of a guru with them and could be a good guy who's busy, but a Wikipedia co-founder also began a service called Citizendium to correct some of the problems with Wikipedia, another one being its "anti-elitism."

Jimmy Wales, the Internet whiz famous for creating the online, user-edited encyclopedia Wikipedia, is facing allegations on two fronts that he abused the trust of the community he helped build.

Former Wikipedia employee Danny Wool is alleging that Wales misused money from the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the site...

If you are one of those Viners - and there are tons- who have not yet got the supreme accolade of a top story on the front page (I was privileged twice!) you would have been sorely disappointed. You have probably spent sleepless nights trying to find out how to get that elusive top story, to invent new algorithms to rocket it to the top, to challenge Killfile or Epiphany Sorbet to become a Newsvine celebrity, to bring big traffic to your page, to boost your audience and be be talked about all over the Vine. Many a writer has racked their brains trying to get that elusive prize but few have even come near it. Those who do, have got it down to such a fine art, they are the only ones guaranteed coveted top story spots every day while mere mortals like us can only look on with tongues lolling out and eyes green with envy.

Well, after much research, burning the midnight oil and working many years to find the pesky formula, I think I have finally got the answers that I can now share with you, though when I started my research I was quite young and now I am old and grey with all that effort! But the reward is worth it.

It seems there are 5 guaranteed ways to get that article noticed and, in reverse order, I present them to you with a flourish! Enjoy, take note and go forth and make a fortune! PS..Don't forget my cut!

Here you go:

Winner 5. Religion: Any article on religion, especially challenging atheists, and atheists challenging the fanatics, will get you there. The more controversial the better, the more mudslinging there is and holier-than-thou stances, the more opportunities for attracting the crowd, for raising the temperature to scalding levels and for getting those winning votes. You really have to get stuck in, and no holds barred. The more smug and all-knowing, the better. You could always start with the great leveller and attention-getter: You're an infidel like Osama bin Laden, then stand back and watch the scrum!

Winner 4. Race: Anything on race, colour , disadvantaged minorities, white and black (and especially if you don't understand anything about it and wish to sound 'victimised' and self-righteous), will get you flying up the Vine. Supporters from all sides, mainly those who believe they are not racist but you are, and those who believe discrimination is a figment of your imagination, will flock to demonstrate their brand of justice and equality in this amazing place called Utopia, where they are lords and masters. Overnight, you'll be so famous, you won't know how you did it, as white and black combine to fill your coffers!

Winner 3. Politics: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich. Get cosy with these politicians now. Hunker down with them at every opportunity and don't let them get out of your sight because they can make you LOTS of dosh. Doesn't matter what you say about them, considering that there is a limit to what can actually be said about them, just drop those golden names into your titles and you're off. Better still, slag off one them, especially lauding Clinton and putting down Obama, like one illustrious pundit keeps doing, and watch the cavalry charge to their defence. Then sit back and marvel at how your page becomes a popular hosting site, a huge magnet, for the blind worshippers of the fab four.

Winner 2. Polls: News? What News? Newsvine is not about news. It's about polls! Make up a Newsvine poll today. You don't even need a subject. In fact, asking something like: Are you really there? and: Do you know how to vote? and Is this a cool poll or wot? could be really good starters. Polls are just the thing because they get everyone galvanised, especially when they clearly have nothing better to do, and wish to see how many others Viners are bored as well and missing two cells short of a brain!

But forget those four great ways to get your story noticed. Forget trying to be like Killfile to get on top of that Leaderboard. Forget everything you might have seen, and even forget what you are going to write/seed next. The greatest sure-fire way is coming up and, guys, it is awesome with a capital A.

FANFARE!! Winner 1. Become Jeromy Wo: Change your identity and writing style to be Jeromy Wo, the man of brevity and depth. The unknown Green Houser who, within four days, has taken Newsvine by storm to become it's latest celebrity. Just FIVE WORDS from him have generated no fewer than 220 comments and nearly 80 votes all round. How does he do it, guys? We obviously have much to learn from the great writer, so much that even the illustrious Celestina is taking notes and O.K looks very worried indeed! Keeps asking lots of questions in disbelief. People are already memorising his works, writing about his achievements, fighting to get interviews with him and voraciously finding out every little detail about him. They are hungry for information and association with the great Muse and I have even appointed myself as his agent, not to miss out on the action!

In fact, if you don't know who Jeromy Wo is, you are yesterday's Viner, old news, scrap metal, and well out of it, with not a hope in hell of getting that top story!

So what are you waiting for? Form an orderly queue to his page, please!

"From cat pictures and celebrity gossip to tech news and politics, the stars of the blogosphere earn plenty of dough, regardless of subject. Some bloggers start their sites intending to make big profits.

It wasn't the day he died that struck me; rather, it was the day he lived. That morning he stood by the railing and spread his arms wide while the sky changed into violets and pinks. His long sleeved shirt flapped on his lank body as the wind hit him, and he sang, but the words were drowned out by the growing flux of morning traffic. I don't know what he said, but it must have been enough. He bowed his head and placed his hands together so that he seemed to be praying. Then he looked up, tears stained his face, and he turned and smiled at me.

"Kaya heard," he said.

"She always hears. Double wide and twice as high."

"Twice as, high..." he said. He bent over and grabbed an empty beer bottle, smashing it on the steel railing. Amber-tinted glass shards scattered around us both unequally. "Take a spin."

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out three nickels. My eyes closed, and I reached out, fingers loosened. Their landing was muffled by the parade of cars from below. When I opened my eyes all but one had touched the glass pieces, both near him.

"Choose," I said.

He grabbed both pieces and handed the smallest one to me and threw the other nickels over the railing. My fingers closed tightly over the small piece of glass. Jagged bumps bit into my skin the harder I squeezed. It wasn't enough.

He walked towards me then and placed the glass in the palm of his right hand. The rays of the morning sun flickered off the glossy surface as he tipped it slightly back and forth. In the distance the bell sirens from the local church penetrated through the bustle of the waning traffic."This," he said, "will please Kaya."

When I looked at him his eyes were heavy. Dark lines snuck in underneath his lower eyelashes, and his brown eyes were a bit less clear. "Anything would." I said.

A lingering stillness overcame us and we held hands for the rest of that day. The next there was no trace of him. Only Kaya remained. Kaya and a tape they found on his bed that contained a song. When I played it I recognized his voice, gentle but strong. Play it for my goddess his voice sang. A tenor's voice singing in adoration, singing Ave Maria.

© Yasmin E. Voglewede 2007 All Rights Reserved.