Politics and their hosts make strange bedfellows

I saw the following blog item a good while back and thought, after hearing President Obama speaking tonight, that it would be an appropriate fill for me this evening.  These people are really making a serious mess of this world and it's as if saying "you've had it up to here", is no longer meaningful.  I'm hoping maybe I can get a little feedback as to why more people aren't stringing greed and poverty to the same headboard; they certainly go together like kismet bedfellows.

Time for us to grade you Mr. President

Housing: fail...People still getting a hell of a hard time from banks. How does it make sense that banks hold on to their properties instead of selling them to people willing to buy them in this economy? Wouldn't they get them back at some point anyway if buyers default down the road?

Jobs: fail... Do you realize how many people are still out of work? What is to be expected when the quid pro quo was for many years to send jobs and companies overseas only so that millionaire CEO's could fatten their pockets even more?

Healthcare: fail... It still costs me less to feed myself better and exercise than any healthcare plan your government can come up with. Yes, in the event that I need emergency surgery I might be flat busted, but hell at least I won't go broke the 10 or 20 years prior paying for benefits that I never use. Apple a day, brush your teeth and get off the damn couch...

I really don't think much in this world will change until the heads of these companies who have been fleecing the public generally and poor people specifically are called to and held accountable. If that means publics hangings or executions of another nature, well that will probably be the beginning of new corporate attitudes. How much damn money do you need in your pockets? When your employees can't afford to take care of their bills without having to work extra hours, extra jobs and put spouses to work as if they are being put on the stroll, how is that any different from SLAVERY? The emperor only has new clothes.....


MY 2 cents...

Blessed Earthday Emperor Haile Selassie I

Ethiopia, an island of Christianity, is recorded in history as having received first the Old Testament, and then the New Testament earlier than most of the countries of the world. When, in Old Testament times, she received the Law, and when in New Testament times, she received the Gospel, she ensured that the Scriptures were translated into the ancient language of Ge’ez. From those times to this, various books both of spiritual and material profit have periodically been compiled and written in Ge’ez. We remember with deep gratitude those fathers of old who, as time and opportunity allowed, worked with much care and labour and have left us books for the preservation of the Faith and for the increase of learning and knowledge.

Can you feel the love?

"We must act while we can, while the occasion exists, to exert those legitimate pressures available to us lest time run out and resort be had to less happy means. The great nations of the world would do well to remember that, in the modern age even their own fate is not wholly in their own hands. Peace requires the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse? The stakes are identical for all of us. Life or death. We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease."


Haile Selassie the 1st

We will fight, if necessary...

"On the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa conference taught, to those who will learn this further lesson, that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nature; that until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race. That until that day the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained. And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola in Mozambique and South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good will; until Africans stand up and speak as free human beings equal in the eyes of all men as they are in the eyes of heaven, until that day the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight if necessary.  And we know that we shall will as we are confident in the victory of good over evil."


HIM Haile Selassie I

The End of War

"Obviously war is one of the major problems which bring disaster on the life of mankind. In spite of the differences of color, race, creed or religion between women in this world, they all hate war, because the fruit of wars is nothing but disaster. War exterminates their beloved husbands, their brothers and their children. It destroys and eliminates their families. We would like to bring to the attention of all women of the world that it is their duty to voice and express solidarity against such acts."

Empress Menen of Ethiopia

"Women are like teabags... "

"Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!"
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength."
-- Author Unknown

Several conversations over the last few days had me remembering something I heard while having some high spirited communion with my family recently.  Actually, I've heard it often amongst this set of souls set adrift after being sold into bondage, who have found back one another in this time, to share bread and fellowship.  One man, not much older than me yet still esteemed as an Elder, had been ministering some upright reasoning while the rest of the group was sitting down to lunch.  "All Nations should and shall be judged by the way in which its treats its' women and children."  Simple and plain, truth without pretense.

Happy Earthday Nelson Mandela

“When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.” Nelson Mandela There is a whole lot going on in the world today: police shot execution style in Pakistan, tsunami heading for Japan, drought and famine taking hold of East Africa, a whole lot of political drama here in the States and all around the rest of the world for that matter.  But I really only want to take a moment, albeit brief, to acknowledge and extend a heartfelt Earthday (birthday) blessing and greeting to President Nelson Mandela, who turned 93 today. Born in 1918, he has already lived a most interesting as as appropriately, an awe inspiring life.  My memories of the anti-apartheid movement are few.  Not that the movement hasn't had a lasting impact on my life, quite the contrary.    We just didn't live in a 24 hour news cycle and instataneously accessed information world in those days.  My access was in the form of Cosby Show and Different World episodes that briefly spotlighted the apartheid regime of South Africa.  And well, the news and culture programs, broadcast by Caribbean radio that I got to hear while travelling back and forth to work with my dad in his 1980s bronze Dodge Colt.  I didn't come to appreciate programs like Like It Is until I was a few years older.  Anyway what I do remember more vividly, are the images of this African man being released from prison, after having been locked up for some 27 years.  The number sticks in my head because I was born on the 27th.