Support the USA

Wasn't it last Christmas that Target refused to let the Salvation Army ring their bells in front of their stores?

Dick Forrey of the Vietnam Veterans Association wrote:

"Recently we asked the local TARGET store to be a proud sponsor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall during our spring recognition event.

We received the following reply from the local TARGET management:

" Veterans do not meet our area of giving. We only donate to the arts, social action groups, gay & lesbian causes, and education."

So I'm thinking, if the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and veterans in general, do not meet their donation criteria, then something is really wrong at this TARGET store. We were not asking for thousands of dollars, not even hundreds, just a small sponsorship for a memorial remembrance.

As a follow-up, I E-mailed the TARGET U.S. Corporate Headquarters and their response was the same.

That's their national policy.

Then I looked into the company further.
They will not allow the Marines to collect for 'Toys for Tots' at any of their stores.
And during the recent Iraq deployment, they would not allow families of employees who were called up for active duty to continue their insurance coverage while they were on military service. Then as I dig further,

TARGET is a French-owned corporation .

Now, I'm thinking again. If TARGET cannot support American Veterans, then why should my family and I support their stores by spending our hard earned American dollars!

And, have their profits sent to France.

Without the American Vets, where would France be today?

"They, most likely would be speaking German and trading in Deutsch Marks"

Sincerely,
Dick Forrey
Veterans Helping Veterans

(This was sent to me in an e-mail. Check it out. If you are interested, copy it and plug it into an email and forward it on.)

Having Problems With Landlords?

In the State of Texas there are protections for tenants in dealing with difficult landlords. You just have to know what you are doing.

If you are having problems, start now documenting everything. That includes keeping a copy of every letter you send, every conversation you have, lots of pictures, repairs requested, repairs not made, etc.

I have another blog dedicated to Texas Tenant's Rights.

I had a very difficult landlord who refused to make repairs over the space of 1.5 years. Due to his negligence, I was bitten by a venomous spider and spent time in the hospital, and lost wages.

Fortunately, I have a plethora of evidence, and have become well educated on how to deal with a difficult landlord. I'm taking this landlord to small claims court, suing for $9,995.00. Of course, he is counter-suing.

If you would like to go through my journey with me, check out my new blog dedicated to this issue. Again, you can find the link on the side of this blog, Let's Talk About Texas Tenant's Rights.

My Sweet Puppy -- Maxx

My sweet little puppy -- I should say, he's 90 pounds of pure white fluff, and 10.5 years old. Maybe not so much a little puppy, but so very sweet.

I want to tell a story on him. Last spring break (3/07) my youngest son and I went to Florida leaving my puppy in the capable, kind hands of my neighbor. She also had a dog and worked as a home care provider for animals. Very qualified. I never worried once about Maxx being in her care.

What I did worry about was how Maxx would respond with us being gone. Before we left, he would eat hard food from his bowl. Always had. I left bones for Ashley to give to Maxx, and his pills for the arthritis in his hips and legs.

We were gone ten days. We had a great time. Not so good for Maxx. When we got home Maxx was not eating, and hadn't the entire time we had been gone, except for the bones Ashley had given him.

For the following three weeks, he continued his fast. Until, he began throwing up bile. It was no longer a matter of who was in control here - me or my puppy. He had to eat. So, I bought soft food, he wouldn't touch it. Then I tried canned dog food and put it in a bowl, thinking he would eat.

No. He turned his nose up at that too. I had one option left. Hand feeding. Since April 2007, I have been feeding my sweet little puppy canned dog food (which, by the way, he changes his tastes on an almost daily basis), from a fork. Not just any fork. It had to be a plastic fork. He didn't like the feel of a metal fork in his mouth, so plastic it was.

There is a picture of him on the side. Imagine a 90 pound Great Pyrenees 10.5 year old dog eating off a plastic fork! Needless to say, there won't be any more vacations for quite awhile - unless of course, we can take my puppy along.

As he has gotten older, he has become even more particular about what he will and will not do. This morning was a great example of that.

It has been raining for the last four days. He will not go outside in the rain. If it's a small sprinkle, that doesn't bother him, but this morning it has been anything but a small sprinkle. He sits in front of the window and looks outside, barks at whatever seems to catch his attention, lays down, goes to the window again, and may even go to the door.

I've opened the door for him to show him the rain pouring down, and he will simply walk away. Now, you should understand he has a fur coat so thick it would keep any rain from getting to his skin, but, no, he won't go outside. He won't step in the puddles, and he doesn't like the rain in his face.

I can't say I blame him. I don't like it either, but today I had to go to work. But, I couldn't go. So, I had to call in. What could I tell them but the truth.

"I can't come in today because my dog won't go outside in the rain."

You should have heard the laughter on the other side of the phone. I'm so glad my circumstance was the source of so much joy.

It's a day of lost wages. I can make up the money. That's not what's so important. Taking care of my sweet little puppy. At his age, I never know when his last day is going to be, and he's been a part of my life since he was six weeks old.

Then there's the way he looks at me. He has these deep pools of black eyes. He sits in front of me and implores me to read his mind - and somehow I do. We communicate so easily. Who could possibly look in his face, his eyes, and not want to hand feed him with a fork?

Presidential Election - BEFORE You Vote --

From Dreams of My Father:'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father:'There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father:'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope:'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

* If you have never forwarded an e-mail, now is the time to Do so!!! We CANNOT have someone with this type of mentality running our GREAT nation!! I don't care whether you a Democrat or a Conservative. We CANNOT turn ourselves over to this type of character in a President. PLEASE help spread the word.

Ethics Test

I recently came across this ethics test given to a group of high school students. The questions are straight forward, and should be simple enough to answer. Did you note the key word there, "simple"?

Here are the questions:

1. Would you sell a story to the tabloids for $5,000,000.000, knowing it will ruin the life of a celebrity you don't know personally? YES / NO

2. Would you receive too much change from the Wal-Mart clerk; would you return the money to her? YES / NO

3. Do you agree with the following statement? "If drugs were legal, I'd totally do them." YES / NO

4. You accidentally run over a litle dog with your car. Do you:
Keep driving;
Contact the owner and explain the situation;
Contact the owner, but say somebody else did it;

5. Your best friend tells you they stole $10,000.00 from a charity. Do you turn them in? YES / NO

6. Do you agree with the following statement? "It's okay to steal from huge corporations, because they're inherently dishonest themselves." YES / NO

7. Would you exaggerate your losses on an insurance claim? YES / NO

8. You have the opportunity to obtain the answers to a test in your most difficult class. YES / NO

9. You find out that your friend cheated on a test, would you turn them in to the teacher if there was no possibility of them finding out? YES / NO

10. You work for a business and have an employee discount at that business. Your friend comes in and asks you to purchase a product for him/her using your employee discount. Would you make that purchase? YES / NO

How do you think your student would respond to these "simple" questions? The test I came across, and I'm not going to tell you who the test belonged to, revealed the following answers:

1. YES
2. YES
3. NO
4. Contact the owner and explain the situation;
5. NO
6. YES
7. YES
8. YES
9. NO
10. YES

I found the responses interesting. When I questioned the respondent as to the answers, I was told, "It was all a joke."

I'm sure the teacher asked the students to consider the questions because of the ethics involved. The students were not to turn the papers in, and evidently there was no class discussion. Maybe, there should be a semester specifically on ethics.

If students don't learn ethics at home, and school is their next primary environment, perhaps - as the above answers indicate - ethics have not gotten a home in some high school students heads.

Perpetuity

The Internet is a wonderful tool. Used properly it can be a great resource and, the benefits can be enormous as a tool for income.

But, if you forget, or don’t recognize that whatever you put on the Internet is always, and I do mean always, it can and will come back to haunt you. Not in the supernatural way, of course, however, it can be just as haunting.

In my own naiveté, as a newbie on the Internet, and I confess to just not considering what I was doing, I have placed things on other peoples web sites, and they are coming back on me now. I have asked that they be removed, but, to no avail. It would seem when my name is now Googled, their sites are now coming up and that makes it good for them.

It is unfortunate for me, but it is what it is.

I am learning an excellent lesson here. Not only am I using more wisdom on what I place on the Internet, but, I am using more discretion on where I place what I write. As a writer that limits my venues, but it also makes me more discerning on my choices.

I have also discovered that I am not the only “Debby Willett” in the world. Who knew?! One is a realtor, one is a belly dancer, one is a college teacher, and I’m not exactly sure about the others. It has been an interesting search.

I have considered changing my name. To what exactly I’m not sure, and that may seem a little extreme.

So, my warning to you, as you surf the web and leave messages, or pictures, here and there. Consider how you may feel two years from now, or even five years from now. Will you still have the same opinions? Or even more, will you want the world to read what you wrote five years ago, not realizing that the seemingly innocuous message you are writing now, will be available for perpetuity. That is, forever, and ever. It will never go away. Someone at one point may Google your name, or your picture, and it will come up.

That may not be your concern now, but your concerns will change as you get older. I guarantee it. When you do, as I am now reconsidering what I wrote then, I wish I could go back and change it, or even better, just delete it.

Hate Mail

I received in the mail today my first piece of hate mail.

It was rather benign -- but still, I would classify it as hate mail. This is how it read:

"THEY ARE CALLED THE RAT (underlined)
PACK,,,,,NOT THE BRAT (underlined) PACK

LOOKS LIKE YOU NEED TO DO A
LITTLE MORE RESEARCH"

There was no signature and it was delivered in a plain #10 envelope with simple computer printed address, that was outdated and the post office had to forward it to me.

There was also no reference to what the writer was referring to, and the most important, there was no signature. That makes the writer, a COWARD.

If you really believe in the conviction of what you are writing, have the strength, the intestional fortitude, the guts, to put your name to it. Or else, your opinion really doesn't have much merit.

Not only that, this writer doesn't understand the use of ellipsis. When writing,
"THEY ARE CALLED THE RAT
PACK,,,,,NOT THE BRAT PACK,

the writer should have written,
"THEY ARE CALLED THE RAT
PACK, NOT THE BRAT PACK.

Ellipses are reserved for text, "to indicate an omission or suppression of letters or words (Dictionary.com)."

The second sentence:
LOOKS LIKE YOU NEED TO DO A
LITTLE MORE RESEARCH

The writer didn't pay any attention to the indent of the first line or the punctuation, again.

If you want to send me hate mail, please be accurate, and at least reference what you are talking about. Sending me an anonymous letter with poor punctuation and no indication of what you are referring to does no good to get my attention other than to tear your letter apart.

Comments

I covet your comments.

Really I do. If you have read anything I have posted and want to make any comment regardless of whether you liked what I posted, or disliked what I posted, I covet your comments.

However, please don't send your comments to my email addy. They WON'T be opened. Your comments must be made on this blog only. If you have the conviction of your opinion, then put them on the blog.

Those of you who have sent emails to my personal addy, I apologize. But, I have had far too many viruses, and I am avoiding them like the plague.

If you post your comments on my blog, I will read them, and if you want me to respond, I will. Simply leave me with an addy.

Random Thoughts

The article below was written by syndicated columnist, Thomas Sowell, a black man. He wrote it in a humorous way this past week in a column titled "Random Thoughts" and published it in newspapers nationally, so maybe you've already seen it. If not, be my guest:

Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.

After long and serious thought, I have decided to endorse Senator John McCain for President.

I have always voted for the person and have not voted for anyone because some political party was telling me who I should vote for.

We all know the choices by now and, that said, I do believe that the process of selecting a chief executive is deeply flawed. The words "money" and "special interests" come to mind, among many others.

Here's the way I see it:

Barack Obama, you are a fine public speaker. You are also an extremely liberal Senator from the State of Illinois, which has a long and rich history of political corruption of the first magnitude. You are indeed a child of that system.

You have finally insulted my intelligence far beyond my capacity to tolerate your insults. It has nothing at all to do with your skin color.

As a matter of fact, it would be so COOL to finally have an African-American for President. What a great statement that would be to the entire world that we are indeed the greatest country on earth!

But, unfortunately, General Colin Powell is not running, and YOU are NOT the man for this job!

Barack baby, you want me to believe that you have never heard the sermons of your own pastor, the Right Reverend "God Damn America" Jeremiah Wright. It is a matter of record that this has been your church for over 20 years. It is a matter of record that you were married there by this very pastor, and that your children were baptized there.

The good Reverend saw fit to visit Khadafy in Libya with you and to give a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan, of all people.

We have all now seen excerpts of his sermons all over the airwaves by now. And you have publicly stated that this man IS your "spiritual mentor."

BUT, your pastor is NOT the reason I am NOT voting for you. His words were disturbing enough, but it is your own HUGE church congregation, seen jumping, hooting and howling to his words in the background that disturb me the most. And please don't tell me you attended church there and never once heard a "discouraging word" in the 20 years you attended there.

Don't tell me, that in addition to the good reverend, that you are now not having anything to do with all those other people seen hooting and howling out in the audience in the background of his fiery tirades.

Even Oprah Winfrey got disgusted and walked out on your campaign. I am no Oprah fan, but still she did the right thing.

Now you look me in the eye and ask me to believe that you never heard such language in all the years you attended there! This is like me telling you that I attended dozens of Klan rallies and never once heard the "N" word.

Yep. And Bill Clinton "did not inhale."

Yes, Mr. Obama, we all have friends who have said stupid things that embarrassed us, but NOW you have asked me to believe something that is so incredibly stupid that you are telling me that I am just stupid enough to believe you. THAT is the main reason that I will never vote for you.

I am deeply sorry, that in a country teeming with enormously talented African Americans who would make a good President, that the political system has chosen YOU. You are a pathetic and plastic excuse for an American, who will not even salute the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance. God forbid you ever get near the Oval Office.

Which leaves us with Senator John McCain.

John, you are a flawed man. You are a bit old, a bit loony, and you have a notoriously bad temper. This perfectly qualifies you, in my humble opinion, to lead us for the next eight years. I WANT your trembling hand on the nuclear button.

Think about it.

We have Kim Jong IL, Chavez and Ahmadenijad all running around like lunatics, threatening America and threatening to plunge the world into nuclear Armageddon. We have Putin and the Chinese blustering and rattling their sabers at us. I want John McCain in the Oval Office and I want him to be really ticked off at all these other nut jobs around the planet.

John, once you are elected, I want you to go into the Oval Office and throw one of your perfect FITS. Jump up and down and throw something through a plate glass window. Rip the drapes down and foam at the mouth a bit.

And I want the whole thing on camera so that Ahmadinejad can see it. I want ALL of these "world leaders" to lay awake at night and to break out in a cold sweat every time they think of messing with the United States of America.

I want the nuclear button sitting right next to the alarm clock on your night stand. I want pictures of this to be sent to Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and those other dopes in the sheets, the Saudis.

On the domestic front, poor John did try and reach across the aisle to the opposition in a desperate effort to compromise and to get the Congress to do something. You may not agree with his efforts, but at least he TRIED.

For all his efforts, all he got handed to him was his head in a basket.
The liberals are ticked at him and the conservatives are ticked at him. Just my kind of guy.

I predict that John will select Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Good choice. I want a Jew whose memory of the Holocaust is still fresh in his mind and who is royally ticked off at all of these towel-headed morons in the Middle East to be the next in line if something should happen to John. Shalom, Vice President Joe. One heartbeat from the Oval Office.

Finally. John McCain knows on a most personal level what it is to suffer horrible torture for years and to see others die, right in front of you, for their love of America. When you ask him about it, he will tell you that what he did was "nothing special."

Even more incredibly, he states that ANY American who truly loves his country would do exactly the same as he did in that situation. You and I will have a hard time believing that, but the real point is that John McCain believes that about the "average American," and that, dear friends and neighbors, is why I will cast my one poor ballot for on election day for John McCain -- warts and all."

Do You Know Where Your Gold Jewelry Comes From?

I read something today that has startled me so much I am ready to bury every piece of gold jewelry I own. That's right. Bury it. Not sell it, not melt it down, not give it away -- just bury it.

There is an article written by AP journalists, RUKMINI CALLIMACHI AND BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, that details the life of children who mine for gold in the three west African countries. Some of these children are as young as four years young.

The title of their article, AP IMPACT -- Kids working in African gold mines, is searchable and easily found. I hope you take the time to find it and read it and then do the right thing.

Don't buy any more gold.

Don't sell the gold you own.

Don't wear it, and don't melt it down. Don't give it away. Just put it so far away in your closet that you will never remember where it is.

These children - perhaps you have a four year old child at home - are being exposed to liquid mercury to fetter out the gold from the mud. They are inhaling the fumes from the mercury and their lungs and their skin are being irreversibly damaged.

Is your gold jewelry worth a child's life?

This is not the time to be passive. This is not the time to sit back and say, "Let someone else step up to the plate and do something."

This is YOUR time. Save these children. Stop buying gold.