Monday, October 7, 2013

As our governments shutdown continues.... One must ask WHY & WHO is it costing the most?

As our governments shutdown continues... 



One must ask "WHY?" 
"WHO is it costing the most?"



Its become apparently clear (to my under-educated and limited perspective) that the decision makers, debaters, and politicians are probably not affected financially, emotionally, or physically to the same degree as all the "workers" during this "shutdown."  

Four quick questions: 

1) If the situation was reversed what would they be desiring, wanting, and hoping for?


2) What is the greater cost: 
(a) Daily cost to the American people for the government shutdown, 
(b) the daily cost of unemployment + the government shutdown, 
-or-
(c) is the greatest cost found within losing a debate?


3) Can any small steps be taking on a daily basis that puts the everyday worker back to work within daily operations of our government?

4) Can the American people decide the outcome?  Can the America people make the decision and put an end to this debate? (How, via digital voting system, facebook poll, etc...)


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In the midst of chaos.... believe... in YOURSELF!

In the midst of chaotic times, seasons, or moments.... breathe... and believe in YOURSELF
There are those days when you get up in the morning and things aren’t the way you
had hoped they would be.
That’s when you have to lift your chin up slightly and tell yourself that things will get better. 

There are times when people disappoint you and let you down.
But those are the times when you must,

remind yourself to trust your own judgments 

and opinions, 

to keep believing in yourself and chasing your

dreams.
There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.  For, you are responsible for your action & reactions.
Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you by asking good questions.

Do you love your business as much as your family?
You always have to love and provide for your family. However, there are times--especially in today's environment of hand-to-hand combat--when many of your normal family experiences have to be put on hold in order to tend to your business. You have to maximize profits in your business so your family life can continue on a reasonable basis.

Do you work on weekends?
If not, why not? You can use the time to meet with employees, order priorities, and attend to financial details you've neglected for the last few weeks (and fantasize what you'll deal with next week). Weekends are also a good time to meet prospective employees because you'll find out what they're made of.

Do your workers respect you?
I didn't say like you. I said respect you. Whether or not they like you is irrelevant. What's important is that you are making money and they will share in that directly or indirectly. Serious profits get everyone's respect.

(The above questions are taken from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/205206#ixzz2Zu4xxc72)

Are you satisfied?
You should and shouldn't be. There's always some way to make things better, but watch out as unsatisfied individuals often deal with more anxiety and additional stress.  It's true that the little extra that makes the difference between just another struggling business and a resounding success and failure isn't a defining moment - only a teacher showing you what did not work.


Do you work the majority of evenings and on weekends?


What drains you?



What do you enjoy doing?  


What good experiences has life given you along the way?



What bad experiences have been your greatest teachers along the way?


What have you done well the past few months?

What were your biggest challenges you face?


What would you do if anything was possible in this next season of life?




It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle or success through asking questions you will find a stronger sense of who you are.

So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilitiesremember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be.
Because the challenges and changes just may help you see that which is truly most important and find those goals which are closest to your heart.



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Is this still the home of the brave and land of the free? Why has the Government shutdown? What the HELL is REALLY GOING ON?

It's trending: #governmentshutdown 

It's reality: #government #shutdown

Is this still the home of the brave and land of the free?  Why has the Government shutdown? What the HELL is REALLY GOING ON? 

Let's cut through the bull shit and ask two basic questions: 

QUESTION #1: 
What's the take on our current situation? 

The U.S. government began its first step in #federal #government #shutdown over 17 years.  In common terminology this can be defined as 800,000 federal employees jobs might come to an end.  

Cause:
#Conservatives & #Obamacare
OR
#Obamacare & #Conservatives 

Really?
Yes!

The back story:
The shutdown was spearheaded by tea party conservatives who backed a House bill tying continued government funding to a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of a tax to pay for it.

*A side question we must stop and ask - despite our opinion, preconceived ideas, or emotional state is, Why?

A) Why are tea party conservatives backing a house bill tying continued government funding to a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act ( #Obamacare ) and the repeal of a tax to pay for it?  

*This has to be bigger than myself, family, my son / daughter being without insurance!  It's has to be bigger then than my 27 year old friend with cancer  getting turned down multiple times by insurance companies because of a preexisting condition.  

I don't think we can afford not be that selfish and small minded.  I know that sounds harsh, but often emotions blind us from discovering the answer.

B) Why, the Affordable Care Act? ( #Obamacare ) What's not being said?
.... .... .... I don't know.... .... 

The Obama administration accelerated its push attempting to persuade individual Americans to sign up for the most extensive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system in 50 years, even as the program's foes in Congress fought to delay its launch with the threat of a federal government shutdown.
The new online health insurance marketplaces at the heart of President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, are set to open on Tuesday. The marketplaces, or exchanges, will offer subsidized health insurance to low-to-moderate income families in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
On the eve of the launch, Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged millions of uninsured Americans to ignore the battle in Congress and instead focus on the access their families need to medical services.

"Come Tuesday, Americans will be able to see for themselves that the Affordable Care Act isn't actually about Washington politics," Biden wrote in an opinion piece printed in local newspapers including the Des Moines Register in Iowa and the Birmingham News in Alabama. "It's about regular people shopping for insurance they can finally afford, and purchasing security and peace of mind along with it." By E.J. Dionne (Real Clear Politics) 

E.J. that pulls on my emotional strings but does not answer the, Why?

What's next?
Roxana Tiron with the #Bloomburgpost said, "Congressional leaders have scheduled no further negotiations on spending legislation, raising concerns among some lawmakers that the shutdown could bleed into the more consequential fight over how to raise the U.S. debt limit to avoid a first-ever default after Oct. 17."

What the HELL!!!???!!! 
The #american #fatcat eats it's food and sleeps warmly at night; while, many hard working, ass-kicking american workers are sent home hourly - over the #affordablecareact or #obamacare?

What's the presidents response,
Obama said yesterday he wouldn’t negotiate under the threat of a government shutdown or a default on the U.S. debt.  “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job, for doing what you’re supposed to be doing anyway or just because there’s a law there you don’t like,” Obama said at the White House yesterday.
Obama immediately labeled it a "Republican shutdown." He said by closing much of government an out-of-control faction of House Republicans was putting the nation's fragile recovery at risk of an "economic shutdown."
"They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health care to millions of Americans," Obama said in a Rose Garden speech, surrounded by people he said were dependent on the new health law.
"None of us want to be in a shutdown," Cantor, R-Va., told reporters. "And we're here to say to the Senate Democrats, `come and talk to us."
There has to be better ways to run the government than to get to a standstill like this.... ....


The cost to the American people.... 
Truth be told, we can't measure the total cost....  

We can guess and project. 
*if you play this out far enough it may begin to look like a Hollywood doomsday movie.

A partial federal government shutdown would cost the U.S. at least $300 million a day in lost economic output at the start, according to IHS Inc. (IHS) That’s a fraction of the country’s $15.7 trillion economy, and the effects probably will grow over time as consumers and businesses defer purchases and expansion plans.  During the partial government shutdown, many essential government operations will cease. 
Which operations (jobs) will stop?  
Internal Revenue Service call centers will close and more than 90 percent of Environmental Protection Agency workers will stay home. National parks and museums will be shuttered.
Other services will continue uninterrupted. Social Security and Medicare benefits will be paid. U.S. troops will remain at their posts around the world and will be paid under a bill Obama signed yesterday. Air-traffic controllers and airport security screeners will keep working.
The shutdown comes on the first day of enrollment in the exchanges mandated under the health-care law at the heart of the fight. Enrollment will continue today even as the government shuts down, because it’s paid for out of mandatory funding not affected by the lapse, U.S. officials said.

Glimpse of a global prospective:
Abroad, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party is a traditional Republican ally, said the U.S. political crisis poses a threat to global growth.
“It is a risk to the world economy if the U.S. can’t properly sort out its spending plans,” Cameron told the BBC in Manchester today. In Korea, the finance ministry said it could make investors more risk averse and fuel capital outflows from emerging markets.


QUESTION #2: 
What's our plan of response; 
despite, the unknown outcome? 

I'm not going to sit on my butt while, the future is decided by someone that I don't know or trust with my life.  I hope some has guts to state the truth unbiassed & not swayed by money....  .... 

For now my response is to hold fast to my constitutional rights and do the best I can to provide a future and hope for my family and the community in which i live.

President Obama made a true apples to oranges comparison yesterday when he tried to equate the failures of the Obamacare rollout to the glitches Apple experiences when it rolls out a new iOS.
OBAMA: "Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system. And within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it. I don’t remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads — or threatening to shut down the company if they didn’t. That’s not how we do things in America. We don’t actively root for failure. We get to work, we make things happen, we make them better, we keep going."
Apple kind of has a track record. I don’t know, a $400 billion company that sort of works. And the U.S. government has a record of the Public Housing, DMV and Postal Service... income makers? I think not! 
Although the American people have witnessed the failure of government over and over again, most people remain hopelessly optimistic that things will somehow improve. We have witnessed failure, but very few people are actively rooting for it.
Glenn Beck said this about President Obama, “He’s not just comparing Apple to the rollout of Obamacare. He is also comparing himself to Steve Jobs. He’s Steve Jobs.”
Unlike President Obama, Jobs was known to put projects on hold that were not up to his standards. For example, the Mac program of the early 1980s was not rolled out late and over budget because Jobs refused to release something that was flawed.
Does anybody really believe that if [Obama] could come up with a system that could beat the American healthcare system we had, is anyone going to fault him? If the President could actually come up with a system that beat the healthcare system, but he would have to be such a genius.
Given the number of failed socialized medicine experiments we have seen throughout history, President Obama and his team would have to be pretty brilliant to figure out a way to avoid the typical pitfalls of such a program.
Let’s put this into perspective and ask an honest question or two, 
If, Obama [and his team] are smarter than every communist country, every socialist country, and smarter than anyone who has ever run anything in Canada, anything in the Netherlands, anything in England, Cuba, China, Russia, anybody North Korea, South Korea.... Why, can't it be explained it to the American people?  Why, is it all wrapped around emotional heart stringed stories? 
They can’t even make the first step of sign up smooth. Come on!
Perhaps the largest problem with the President’s comparison, however, is his failure to remember that Apple is a private company with shareholders and customers who can take their business elsewhere, if/when they are unhappy with a product. Obamacare, on the other hand, is a law of the federal government that Americans are forced to abide by.
Steve Jobs, if he was so clueless that he took an iPad or iPod and said, ‘release it’ and the architect of it and came out and said, This thing is a train wreck. This thing is going to bankrupt the company… As a shareholder, I would root against Steve Jobs. In fact… I would give it just a few days and I would sell my stock.
But in this scenario, we can’t sell our stock. We’re trapped. We can’t opt out. We’re illegal, if we don’t have it at birth now. So, we can’t sell our shares.

Questions I'm asking myself:

- Since this problem had to start years ago, why aren't there multiple solutions and / or options? 

- What are my personal options as the government shutdown continues and Obamacare rolls out?

Is this still the home of the brave and land of the free?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Two Individuals Who Continue To Influenced The World - One Person At A Time....

Two Individuals Who Continue To Influenced The World - One Person At A Time....


Influencers, trending names, hot topics, and individuals you should know about.  

Let's first sit down and get to know,  



Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolentcivil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.



What's the snap shot story on Martin Luther King, Jr's life?



Born Michael King, his father changed his name in honor of German reformer Martin Luther. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found theSouthern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. With the SCLC, King led an unsuccessful struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, in 1962, and organized
nonviolent protests inBirmingham, Alabama, that attracted national attention following television news coverage of the brutal police response. King also helped to organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. He also established his reputation as a radical, and became an object of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO for the rest of his life. FBI agents investigated him for possible communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to government officials, and on one occasion, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter that he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.



How has Martin Luther King, Jr. "Influenced the World"?


On October 14, 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. In 1965, he and the SCLC helped to organize the Selma to Montgomery marches and the following year, he took the movement north to Chicago. In the final years of his life, King expanded his focus to include poverty and the Vietnam War, alienating many of his liberal allies with a 1967 speech titled "Beyond Vietnam". King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., called the Poor People's Campaign. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting, and the jury of a 1999 civil trial found Loyd Jowers to be complicit in a conspiracy against King.



King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor. A memorial statue on the National Mall was opened to the public in 2011



Today the thoughts are shifting like the shifting of the sands blown by the wind; however, in the midst of things another man seems to be rising up and taking a simple stand.  It's imperative that we next sit dow, have a cup of tea, and talk with, today's Catholic Pope - Pope Francis.  

What's the brief story on Pope Francis life?
Francis (Latin: Franciscus; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936) is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church having been elected Bishop of Rome. He is thereby also the Sovereign of Vatican City.
Born in Buenos Aires as the son of Italian parents, Bergoglio worked briefly as a chemical technician before entering seminary. He was ordained a priest in 1969. From 1973 to 1979 he was Argentina's Provincial superior of the Society of Jesus. He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, and a cardinal in 2001. Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, on 13 March 2013 the papal conclave elected Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Francis in honor ofSaint Francis of Assisi. Francis is the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere.


How is Pope Francis "Influencing the World"?
Throughout his life, both as an individual and a religious leader, Bergoglio has been noted for his humility, his concern for the poor, and his commitment to dialogue as a way to build bridges between people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and faiths. He is known for having a simpler and less formal approach to the papacy, most notably by choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace formerly used by his predecessors. In addition, he is known for favoring simpler vestments void of ornamentation, by starting to refuse the traditional papal mozzetta cape upon his election.
Pope Francis has affirmed Catholic teachings on sexual morality. He said that while homosexual acts were sinful, the homosexual orientation was not. He favours a wider active role for women in the Church, but believes the ordination of women into the Catholic priesthood is impossible. In addition, Pope Francis said that it was necessary to listen to young people and admired their non-conformism. In general, he is seen as advocating a more merciful attitude than his predecessor.
What is Pope Francis doing today?



Pope Francis recently began his first visit to the town of St. Francis of Assisi that he would
use personal, intimate gestures to send a strong message to the world at large.  Shortly after dawn, at the Serafico Institute, a religious charitable institution in Assisi, Italy, that treats seriously disabled children, the pope stopped to greet every child gathered in the institute’s chapel — there were more than 100 in all — kissing some, bending an ear to a whispered greeting, making the sign of the cross on the foreheads of those unable to speak.




Later, in the room where St. Francis famously stripped off his clothes to dedicate his life to Christ, living in poverty, the pope used similar warm gestures addressing a group of poor people challenged “by this savage world, that doesn’t give work, doesn’t help, doesn’t care if there are children in the world who are dying of hunger.”




Then, in an impromptu moment — one of several delivered Friday — he appealed to the Roman Catholic Church and to all Christians to divest themselves of worldliness, which leads to “vanity, arrogance and pride,” because “it is bad for us,” he said. “It is the cancer of society and the enemy of Christ.”




With the world’s media as his megaphone — officials said more than 1,000 journalists were accredited for the visit — Pope Francis spread a message that would have reverberated with St. Francis, who was entrusted nearly 800 years ago by God to “repair my house.”
The church and Christians everywhere must look to St. Francis as an example for their own lives, eschewing personal comfort to care for those less fortunate, the pope said. They must strive to become “instruments of peace,” and not “instruments of destruction,” respecting everything that God has created, he said in his homily.




Referring on Friday morning to a day of national mourning after the shipwreck of migrants off the island of Lampedusa on Thursday, in which at least 110 people died, the pope said: “Today is a day of tears. Such things go against the spirit of the world.”

The pope’s carefully choreographed pilgrimage to the hilltop town of Assisi on the feast day of St. Francis retraced the footsteps of a holy man beloved throughout the world and widely respected even among people of other faiths. The pope visited the site — now a shrine — where the saint is said to have heard the voice of Jesus and was converted. He prayed before the tomb where the saint is buried, in the lower church of the frescoed Basilica and was scheduled later Friday to visit the hovel where the saint lived and the hermitage where he prayed.




“In Assisi, everything speaks of Francis and today everything speaks of you,” said the bishop of Assisi, Domenico Sorrentino, at the start of a Mass in a square next to the Basilica attended by thousands.




From the moment Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio announced last March that he would be known as Pope Francis, he has repeatedly manifested his intention to follow in St. Francis’s footsteps. This came through in small gestures, like his decision to live in a guesthouse at the Vatican rather than in the more luxurious apartments in the Apostolic Palace.
And it came through in his intent. Since his election six months ago, the pope has steadfastly initiated a series of measures aimed at reforming the church, reeling under years of criticism for the way it mishandled sexual abuse scandals involving the clergy, and under more recent allegations of mismanagement and corruption within its administrative bodies.
The pope has made changes within the Vatican hierarchy and he has instituted commissions to examine the inner operations of the Vatican’s financial institutions, which have drawn the attention of Italian prosecutors.




This week, a group of eight cardinals picked by the pope to be his advisers began meeting at the Vatican to discuss how to make changes to the 2,000-year old institution. On Thursday, at the end of a three-day meeting, the Vatican announced that the cardinals planned to produce “a new constitution with significant new aspects” to regulate the curia, as the administrative arm of the Vatican is known.




The intent is to place the curia at the service of the universal church, “in terms of subsidiarity, rather than the exercise of centralized power,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters on Thursday. “The intended direction would be to put this into practice in the service of the church in all her dimensions.”




“It is very moving to be in Assisi on the Feast Day of St. Francis with Pope Francis, there is great expectation and joy in the church,” said Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, one of the eight advisers, who were all present in Assisi on Friday.
The cardinal accompanied the pope to his visit at the Serafico Institute for children.
“The Holy Father wanted to present to people in their moment of need, to show the merciful face of God in a moment when they are suffering,” the cardinal said. “That’s why his presence is so important. It challenges us to love more deeply.”




What do these two have in common?  Why are they having a global influence?  

Both men have simple life principles,, both of them are living them out one day at a time, both men have NOT dictated or come across like they are God, and both of these individuals are not seekers of fame...

Why would these elements lead to having a global influence?

Because the power of love, acceptance, and a simple truth are deeply impacting and life giving. 
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tags: Martin Luther King Jr, Pope Francis, Influencers, Naya Rivera, Miriam Carey, Sinead O'connor, Chuck Smith, Influential, Influencers, government, global, impact, power, love, acceptance, truth, hope