Month: April 2012

Politics

We Have a Food Stamp President

Karen

I used to listen to talk radio every day, all afternoon, but now that I’m working, I only get a chance to listen to the local morning show while I’m getting ready for work, or Neal Boortz in my car at lunch.

I miss it. And I really miss not being anywhere close to my blog whenever I listen to these programs but I GET FIRED UP about this stuff.

So when I found out that the morning talk show I listen to, Nick Reed in the Morning, published segments of their show to MP3, I got excited – now I can listen AND comment when it was convenient for me!

Press “play” on the player below and listen to the segment and I’ll comment below. Skip ahead to the 11:07 mark to hear him talking about the food stamp issue.


(Click the blue arrow to play)

Can you believe we currently have 45 million folks on food stamps??? One in seven people are on food stamps. WTH??? Sure. There are some folks who really NEED food stamps and I’m glad the program exists for those people, but I’m betting the majority of people on food stamps don’t HAVE to be on food stamps and only are because they can be. In other words, they are taking advantage of our crappy system because WHY NOT??

Our social programs don’t exist to HELP people anymore, they exist to SUPPORT people and in essence, make them SLAVES to the system. How so? Because it makes people dependent on the government. Because once they get sucked into the system and start relying on these programs to live, it’s doubly hard to get off them and let’s face it, most are not even motivated to do so … it’s just so much easier to allow the government to take care of them …

Er, excuse me, not the government, THE REST OF WORKING AMERICA.

Let’s not forget that all-important little factoid there – THE GOVERNMENT CONSISTS OF THE REST OF US WORKING STIFFS TRYING HARD TO MAKE IT ON OUR OWN.

People who abuse the system are leeches.

That’s right, I said it!

This gives us really good insight into the different points of view when it comes to what the role of government is in our lives. Within the bureaucracies, and many on the left, when you have a government program that exists to assist those in need, the more people you have in the program, the more of a success it is in their minds. That’s how they view success. They’ll, at times, even brag about it, that we have managed to reach, to manage to cover, ten percent more people this year, and in their minds, that is a success. It is a success to them that our country is eroding to a point where more and more people are not able, or willing, to go on their own and to have assistance. That is a clear contrast to what it is that the successful, not only in this country but successful in their lives, view as what a success is. I mean, imagine that point of view for a moment … when your view of success is when the more people in your country are failing, therefore need you in order to supplement their income, supplement their pantry, that’s a horrible, horrible way of looking at things.

You know those old black and white movies where you see people in line to get soup? It would be like bragging that you have more people standing in line to get soup. That’s how the government views it when more people get on government programs today.

That’s a pretty sick logic, folks. I think calling President Obama the Food Stamp President is justified.

Don’t you?

That’s what he wants. That’s what the extreme left is all about. Their mission is to trick people into becoming more and more dependent on the government so that more and more people have no choice but to vote for them, and their dependent, social programs.

That’s a form of slavery people.

How, exactly, is that a GOOD thing?

Think about it.

Articles:
Food Stamp Rolls to Grow Through 2014, CBO Says
5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama

Sunday Stuff

SOC: It’s Been Two Years

Karen

New Bike
(This beautiful bike only had 200 miles on it before Kevin’s accident. You can see the damage here).

It’s April 22, 2010 and guess where I am.

Living in the Columbia Hospital in Columbia Missouri.

It’s been two years since Kevin had his motorcycle accident. It’s been two years since Kevin completely shattered his pelvis (a bag o’ glass, the doctors compared it to) and two years later, the person who hit him STILL hasn’t been punished.

Oh sure. She had a slap on the wrist, (community service, fine … blahblahblah), but she hasn’t yet been sentenced for leaving him for dead and driving off with nary a backward glance.

I was angry. I was FURIOUS when it first happened. I honestly think I could have killed this woman who hit my husband and fractured my family. What sort of person hits another human being and doesn’t even stop?? What sort of person hits another human being, head on, and acts like she hit a squirrel and oh well, life happens.

An amoral person, if you ask me.

I have since forgiven her. Yes. I still want her to be punished. Because people need to learn there are consequences for their poor choices, and I sincerely hope they take her license away from her, at least for a while, because I worry she will hurt someone else (this woman has several DUI’s and other traffic violations – she’s clearly a menace) …

But I have forgiven her. I’ve had to. Because life is too short to harbor bitterness and hatred in my heart. Because I will not allow her, or Satan, to hang this incident over my head.

Because despite the severity of the incident, we conquered it and moved on.

Kevin is fine today. He will always have physical scars and he has worked through the emotional trauma of that beautiful April morning in 2010 … we shall live our lives to fullest because life is too precious not to.

*ding* Time’s up.

#SOCsunday
This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it?

Abundant Life

Teaching: The Discipline of Forgiveness – Parts One / Two

Karen

Every Sunday I provide videos and valuable links to the Truth or Tradition teachings. We’ve been following the Truth or Tradition teachings for many years now and they have truly blessed our family. We have found peace and happiness through our beliefs and we walk confidently for God. My hope, by passing on this information to you, is that what you find here, or on the Truth or Tradition website, will guide you to a better, more blessed and abundant life.

If you would like to read my views on religion and how we got started with the ministry, you can read this.

Let’s get started:

Thanks for watching.

(Comments have been turned off. The information is here to inform and bless you. God granted you the gift of free will – take it or leave it).

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More from Write From Karen

Band

Jazz Lessons This Summer?

Karen

Jazz performed his Spring Concert in both Advanced Band and Jazz Band these past two weeks.

Here’s one of the songs from the Advanced Band concert:

And here’s a video of Jazz’s solo in the Jazz Band concert:

I’m actually trying to talk Kevin into uploading the last song the Jazz Band played – it was fast paced and quite good. The kids all played really well. Hopefully, I can post that one soon.

Jazz LOVES jazz band. (Hence the reason I call him Jazz on this blog. Ha!) I mean, he LIVES for the spring when he can play his favorite type of music.

jazz4

What made this year’s jazz band concert cool was the fact that they had a professional jazz player accompany them. The gentleman’s name is Kim Park and he spent a lot of one-on-one time with the kids teaching them the tricks of solo playing.

After the concert, everyone had a chance to purchase Mr. Park’s CD, which we did, and have him autograph, which we did, and when we asked him to make it out to Jazz and told him Jazz was our son, he immediately brighten and complimented us on what a great player Jazz was. “He wasn’t afraid to play,” he said. In fact, Mr. Park liked Jazz so much, that he gave Jazz one of his business cards and encouraged him to contact him for lessons this summer.

(And no, he didn’t give one of his cards to every student).

Which we will likely do, actually. Jazz will not have a summer class this year (the first time in three years he won’t be taking a summer class), so these lessons will be something that Jazz can do to keep himself busy this summer since Kevin and I will be working and Dude will be taking a summer class and HOPEFULLY land a part-time job somewhere.

It really warms our hearts to see Jazz taking his playing so seriously.

jazz3

This is the first year he has really acted pretty serious with his playing. In the picture above, you can see how he’s preparing for the upcoming song. He’s actually tapping his knee in rhythm and mentally preparing himself to play it.

I told Jazz, after the concert, that we are going to have some serious discussions this summer about applying for music scholarships/grants and to make a game plan for whatever college he chooses to attend. He wants to go to Mizzou (Columbia, Missouri), but I’m not sure if we can make that happen since he hasn’t taken all of the courses they require for admission. He may have to attend a few semesters at OTC first to earn his credits before transferring, but that’s just one of many things we’ll have to look at this summer.

There are big changes for both my boys on the horizon, I can see those changes, it’s just a matter of how long it’s going to take us to reach that horizon now.

Work Stuff

The Aloha Girls

Karen

Our clinic has a new boss.

It’s one of those, “WHO you know instead of WHAT you know” people because he’s young, enthusiastic and absolutely clueless on what we do and how we do it.

He’s clueless, but charming, friendly, and eager to learn.

Which is a not a BAD combination, I suppose, but still – WHY do companies do that?!? Is there no wonder there are underlying tensions and buried jealousies? Not from me, I haven’t been there long enough, nor do I really know enough, to feel threatened or jealous, but I assure you, there are a few who not only feel that way, but are vocal about it, too.

Which is stupid and counter productive because how do these people hope to advance within the company when they are vocal with their criticisms?

So our boss is new. And he’s on a mission to impress the big-wigs at the company with his new and improved ideas. Which, to be fair, are quite good and I’ll be honest, the clinic could use a little organization (remember how chaotic it was when they trained me? Actually, I was never “technically” trained, I just sort of watched people and was smart enough to pick up on it faster than most).

One of the ideas he’s been implementing lately is a whole “we’re one big happy team” agenda and again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because we all have to work together and a lot of our job responsibilities DO bleed into each other, it’s a good idea to not only get along, but to get to know one another, too. There are two floors to our facility and it might be weeks before I see the girls downstairs and vice versa – though we all talk to each other every day, several times a day.

The boss man (because I have a boss woman, too), suggested we come up with ideas on how we could better “bond” with one another. One person suggested we dress up on Friday (it’s the slowest day of the week for us since we generally never have doctors in the clinic on Fridays – though it’s busy for the rest of us because we’re frantically trying to play catch up from the rest of the week).

The boss said, okay, fine, dress up, but you have to still wear your scrubs, just accessorize in some way.

The front desk girls come up with this attire:

aloha1

These are the Aloha Girls.

Cute, right?

And no. You don’t see me in this bunch because I was part of the “party-pooper” group. I HATE dressing up. Especially at work. I feel uncomfortable and foolish and I opted out of the “fun” exercise.

But the other girls loved it. We had a contest – each area competed with each other, but it only ended up being two areas that participated, so it wasn’t much of a contest.

The Aloha Girls won.

Another “thing” that was suggested was a secret pal sort of thing. We all filled out surveys about ourselves and then we drew names. We were not allowed to draw anyone from our areas because the point of the game was to get to know someone NOT in your immediate area. I am participating in this and I’m looking forward to leaving little surprises for my secret pal from time-to-time. We’re supposed to keep it a secret and then we’ll reveal who we have at Christmas. (I’m assuming this means we’ll have some sort of Christmas party).

Leave it up to new management to pull out all of the silly “games.”

Though it’s nice to break up the monotony now and again.

(By the way, the third woman from the right? Is my immediate boss. She has the heaviest, and most charming, southern accent I’ve ever heard).