Here are my thoughts on capitalism: First, to be honest I have not studied capitalism so I do not know the strict definition but I believe my thoughts align with the philosophy, please correct me if I am wrong. First I believe that capitalism most closely mirrors nature (survival of the fittest) and the concept that Life is Not Fair. Second, the rules of capitalism are natural and do not change. The philosophy on socialism is based on man’s opinion of what is right and can change from person to person. Also, man is not perfect so nothing built by man can be perfect.

Second is how I have seen people work and interact. I know that if someone works hard at serving someone (at any job you are serving someone or the job would not be there long) and is rewarded for their effort then they are more likely to keep doing a good job or better thus adding to the progress of everyone. I have also seen where people are given things (welfare for example) and they do not value what they are given so they do not care for it. After a while of being given those things they then begin to believe that they are entitled to those things (I fear this is where our country is going).

In the case that someone is not pulling their weight they would feel pain (no income) and then that would influence them to be of service to society.

The capitalist philosophy is not perfect, one of the issues is that some will be lost in the cracks (handicapped for example) but I know if I find someone in need I want to help support that person because I am a human and I care for others. If my giving is based on caring and not forced on my I am going to have an emotional attachment to the giving and will work hard to support my giving (i.e. I will produce more and serve more people in the process). Where in a socialist system things are taken from me and given to others. In this method there I do not have emotional attachment to this giving so I feel like I am being stolen from. Plus I know my money is being given to people that can support themselves.

I did have a short discussion with someone I highly respect and has a more socialistic view than I do. They were able to articulate socialism without becoming argumentative and emotional. His philosophy of what socialism should be is not what we have now but it is based on people transcending our need/want of things (the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). This requires us to grow beyond our base nature in our society. I cannot argue with his concept of an ideal society but the question becomes “how to most of us transcend into self actualization”?

Socialism is not perfect either. My issue with it is reflected in parts of our society and I am afraid that it has the possibility to be mirrored in the rest of society. Consider the generations of families on welfare. These people have gotten so comfortable they do not know how to support themselves. They have not felt enough pain in their lives to make them change what they are doing (unless there is something mentally wrong with you you will change if you feel enough pain). Welfare is an extreme example but there are other things that most of us believe is an entitlement because we have gotten it so long. I believe that socialism teaches us to be weak because we are given so much. Because of this I believe this has the ability to take down our society. Capitalism teaches to keep striving for bigger and better things so if capitalism takes a hit others will step up and keep progressing thus keeping our society alive.

I know we are in a tough economic time now but no matter what you think this was not brought on by capitalist or socialism, our government is a mix of both and the cause of this problem was a mix of both. Also, the news was putting a lot of focus on wall street, banks, Madoff, etc. which would make people believe that capitalism caused this but these people represent less than 0.1% of individuals you would call capitalists. The problem was caused by you and I, no one else. Banks were just selling us what we wanted and we were not engaged in the process. The government was just doing what we wanted and we were not engaged in the process.

Finally, I am willing to bet my arguments have some weaknesses to them. Please correct me but only if it is fact based. I still have found very few people to have an adult discussion about capitalism vs. socialism and if any is willing to step up then I am issuing you a challenge to prove me wrong. I doubt you will, but you will help me to better consider my point of view and if you are lucky you may change my whole philosophy.

www.Joshbulloc.com

Josh Bulloc

The Bootstrap Coach

Kansas City, Missouri

Did you know that if you want to renovate a portion of a building, you may be obligated (by the Building Code and Federal civil rights law) to upgrade your handicapped parking? Or, the drinking fountain? Or, the pay telephones? Or, ADD an elevator?

Truth is, as a building owner, you’ve been obligated to do so since 1990.

For those who don’t know, the “Americans with Disabilities Act” (A.D.A.) has been in effect since 1990. Most commercial and civic buildings are affected by this federal law in some form or another, but local governments had no jurisdiction to enforce A.D.A. regulations as A.D.A. is civil rights law.  The local building inspector had no authority to require provisions of A.D.A.  In 1999, however, the North Carolina Accessibility Code essentially incorporated the A.D.A. into its pages (with some exceptions), and made it North Carolina Law. As of July, 2009, the North Carolina Building Code replaced the NC Accessibility Code (Volume 1-C) which also includes a provision for upgrades.  These provisions are now being enforced locally. This is a subtle, yet important development.

Here’s why….

One lesser-known provision buried in this section is “Disproportionality.” When an Area of Primary Function (i.e. the dining room in a restaurant, the lobby in a bank, the retail area in a store, etc.) is renovated in an existing building, the Path of Travel to that area must be brought up to Code, unless the cost and scope of such alterations is Disproportionate to the cost of the Area of Primary Function renovation. And the level at which costs become disproportionate, is 20%.

An Example: You are remodeling a Conference Room and a few offices in a 3-story office building. The budget for this renovation is $100,000. That’s all you want to do. However, in front of the building, handicapped parking spaces exist, but without the wider van space. A ramp exists up to the front entrance, but doesn’t meet current Code. The restrooms have grab bars, but the stalls aren’t wide enough. The drinking fountain is not a high-low arrangement. There is no elevator.

As of July 2004 (and continuing under the current NC Building Code), you are obligated under NC law to remove those barriers up to a cost of 20% of $100,000, which is $20,000. So, you will be adding a van-accessible parking space and re-striping the parking lot. You will renovate the ramp and restrooms. You will replace the drinking fountain with a pair of fountains that meet Code. You will remove all barriers up to 20% of the original project cost.

Chances are, you won’t have to install the required elevator for the above example, since that cost would far exceed 20%, but if you come back next year and do another project, you’ll have to look at it again.

Of course, if no barriers exist, you are not required to do anything.

http://www.vapost364.org/index.html  Post 364 Website

American Legion Post 364

3640 Friendly Post Lane

Woodbridge, VA  22192

703-494-4304

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Hello World! 

I’m a whale! Not even a proper big whale where everyone knows your a whale, more  like a baby whale that gets laughed at, I’m, like, a sperm whale erh! Blergh!

So why am I a socially handicapped/ridiculous whale then?  Well I’m twenty years old (just out of my teens! kinda -  well, facing my 21st birthday in a few months!) and i’m a finalist at college here in England.  And, well more than anything, Im just starting to get what being a woman is all about. 

But I have one more thing I think I need to get a handle on before I leave uni as an adult woman.  My eating habits.

These posts are here to be many things, hopefully, to many people.  But most of all they are here to be a record of my progress as I endeavor to get super skinny! And ultimately super healthy with it!  How I feel, what i’m eating, how i’m exercising, if i’m even exercising! 

It’s all going to be here on this blog!  Words, photo’s, comparisons, everything! I am by nature a very lazy person, but even my sleeping paterns have gotten beyond a joke recently -who needs 14 hours every night?  Really?!

So, please take a good look around my site.  If you have lost weight, are mid plan, whatever!  Hopefully this site can hold some relevancy to you from a confirmed gym loathing, diet hating, cheeseburger munching, chocolate loving fat pig.

This is going to hurt, probably lots, feel free to coment! go on!  …point and laugh at my wobbly thighs! my jiggly bum! my delightful bingo wings!  Say your worst, -and hopefully they won’t be there too much longer haha!

Lots of love, your new favourite Sperm Whale,  

Jiggly

xoxo (I couldn’t resist!) 

Alguien tiene una idea de como y con qué materiales podría hacerse una prótesis como la de la imagen (pero para perro de raza pequeña), tengo una perrita llamada Freya, que tuvo un accidente hace 1 año mas o menos, y entre las complicaciones que tuvo, fue que los veterinarios tuvieron que amputarle parte de su patita izquierda. Por favor si saben como podria hacer una o donde fabricarla, haganmelo saber

Ésta es una prótesis que tal vez flutua en un valor de $500 dls, la página donde encontré esta imagen es:  handicapped pets

Sería bueno que supieran que Freya (mi perrita no la llama xD) a roto o desgastado muy rápido cualquier clase de “zapatito” que le hemos hecho, desde el “zapato” de cuero, cartón, yeso, plástico, forro, todos han sido inservibles, ya que es una perrita muy hiperactiva.

Me gustaría saber mucho sus ideas, o si pueden fabricar una similar a la de la foto me dieran un presupuesto. (pongánse en contacto conmigo para ver detalles). Gracias.

That is what this man was,…..crippled.  He was lowered down through the roof by some friends.  He was desperate.  Jesus was teaching and as the man lay there on his mat, lame, unable to get up….  Jesus told him that his sins were forgiven.  The man did not ask for that, he came for a healing.  He wanted to walk but he got words.  He wanted to be healed and all Jesus said…at first was….your sins were forgiven…  This man was not worried about sins….he was worried about walking. 

Those around Jesus, especially the religious leaders, were outraged that Jesus could declare someone could be forgiven.  So, Jesus posed a rhetorical question to those who wondered what he could do.  He posed the question, “would it be easier for someone to forgive sins or to tell them to take up their bed and walk? ”

Words are cheap.  Jesus knew that and everyone around knew it too!  So, as they looked on and as Jesus was exhaling the last syllable of the answer, he turned to the crippled man and told him to take up his bed and walk.  And he did. 

I think about the things that cripple us today.  We may not be on a mat, in a wheelchair or use a cane, but I suspect that there are things that cripple us today.   I have had a lot of things that crippled me….and I am healthy.  Got stuff that cripples you today?  I do!  Get this stuff out.  Present yourself to Jesus…  right now.  He can handle it.       Read this account in Luke. 

 louie

Read the story of great handicapped accounting professionals at here .

Check out this amazing UK Times article. (H/T ECM)

First, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold:

“Harris wore a ‘Natural Selection’ T-shirt on the day of the killings. They made remarks on video about helping out the process of natural selection by eliminating the weak. They also professed that they had evolved to a higher level than their classmates. I was amazed at the frequent references to evolution, and that the press completely ignored that aspect of the tapes.”

[...]As the attorney for the families of six of the students killed at Columbine, the Denver lawyer Barry Arrington has come across more in a similar vein. “I read through every single page of Eric Harris’s journals; I listened to all of the audio tapes and watched the videotapes? It became evident to me that Harris consciously saw his actions as logically arising from what he had learnt about evolution. Darwinism served as his personal intellectual rationale for what he did. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Harris was a worshipper of Darwin and saw himself as acting on Darwinian principles.”

And Pekka-Eric Auvinen:

Before he embarked on his shooting spree, Auvinen posted a lengthy apologia on the internet. Styling himself a “social Darwinist”, he said that natural selection appeared not to be working any more — had maybe even gone into reverse. He had noticed that “stupid, weak-minded people reproduce faster than intelligent, strong-minded ones”. The gene pool was sure to deteriorate if society continued to guarantee the survival of the second-rate. He had pondered what to do about this problem. He understood that life was just a meaningless coincidence, the outcome of a long series of random mutations, so there might not be much point in doing anything at all. But eventually he had decided he would do his bit by becoming a natural selector, aping the pitiless indifference of nature.

Auvinen left a special plea for his motivation to be taken seriously and for the world not merely to write him off as a psychopath, or to blame cult movies, computer games, television or heavy metal music, before concluding: “No mercy for the scum of the Earth! Humanity is overrated. It’s time to put natural selection and survival of the fittest back on track.”

The article continues:

One conclusion implicit in evolutionary theory is that human existence has no ultimate purpose or special significance. Any psychologically well-adjusted person would regard this as regrettable, if true. But some people get a thrill from peering into the void and acknowledging that life is utterly meaningless.

Darwin also taught that morality has no essential authority, but is something that itself evolved — a set of sentiments or intuitions that developed from adaptive responses to environmental pressures tens of thousands of years ago. This does not merely explain the origin of morals, it totally explains them away. Whether an individual opts to obey a particular ethical precept, or to regard it as a redundant evolutionary carry-over, thus becomes a matter of personal choice. Cheerleaders celebrating Darwin’s 200th birthday in colleges across America last February sang “Randomness is good enough for me, If there’s no design it means I’m free” — lines from a song by the band Scientific Gospel. Clearly they see evolution as something that emancipates them from the strict sexual morality insisted upon by their parents. But wackos such as Harris and Auvinen can just as readily interpret it as a licence to kill.

Darwin himself thought that his theory warranted racism and genocide:

Darwin looked forward to a time when Europeans and Americans would exterminate those he termed “savages”. Many of the anthropomorphous apes would also be wiped out, he predicted, and the break between man and beast would then occur “between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon; instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla”. He took a sanguine view of genocide, believing it to be imminent and inevitable. “Looking to the world at no very distant date,” he wrote to a friend in 1881, “what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”

Convinced that the various races of mankind had travelled different distances down the evolutionary highway, and that two races could be fairly described as more or less evolved even when both had a track record of cultural achievement, Darwin insisted that natural selection explained why the Europeans had been able to see off serial invasions by the Ottoman Turks. Some of today’s Turks understandably resent being designated as genetically second-rate, which perhaps explains why the editor of Turkey’s most popular science magazine was instructed by his proprietor to cancel a special edition celebrating Darwin’s anniversary.

[...]Nowhere was the toxic doctrine of racial superiority more enthusiastically taken up than in the Third Reich. The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was already the most highly evolved, but could evolve further if defective genes could be eliminated. To purify the German gene pool, they decided to exterminate all the physically and mentally handicapped.

Darwin summed up his moral philosophy by saying that a man could “only follow those ideas and impulses that seem best to him”. Darwinian ideas, eugenics and its ugly sister, eugenic euthanasia, were accepted by the mainstream of the German scientific and medical professions. Indeed, so convinced were the staff of the clinic at Kaufbeuren-Irsee in Bavaria that they were acting rationally that, even after Germany’s surrender in 1945, they carried on killing handicapped people under the American occupation, until a US officer led a squad of GIs to the hospital and ordered them to desist.

The modern pro-abortion movement is rooted in the thought of Darwinian eugenicists like Margaret Sanger, who was quite explicit about weeding out the poor, the “unfit” and “inferior” races. Many people on the secular left believe that some people are not fit to live, and that these people should be weeded out by force. For example, Obama’s science czar advocates controlling the reproduction of undesirable people and that born babies are not human beings.

After you finish reading the UK Times article, check out this post over at Uncommon Descent. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

When we teach our children that their existence is an ultimately meaningless accident and that morals are arbitrary byproducts of random genetic fluctuations and mechanical necessity, should we be surprised that they place a lower value on human life than someone who is taught that all humans have inherent dignity and worth because they are made in the image of God?

[...]There are three and only three options.

1.  We can continue to fill our children’s heads with standard Darwinian theory (which Dennett rightly calls “universal acid”), understanding that at least some of them are going to put two and two together and realize that the acid has eaten through all ethical principles – and act accordingly.

2.  We can try to come up with a secular noble lie.  “OK kids.  You might have noticed that one of the implications of what I just taught you is that your lives are ultimately meaningless and all morals are arbitrary, but you must never act as if that is true because [fill in the noble lie of your choice, such as “morality is firmly grounded on societal norms or our ability to empathize with others”].

3.  We can teach our children the truth – that the universe reveals a wondrous ordered complexity that can only be accounted for by the existence of a super-intelligence acting purposefully.  And one of the implications of that conclusion is that God exists, and, reasoning further, He has established an objective system of morality that binds us all, and therefore the moral imperatives you feel so strongly are not just an epiphenomenon of the electro-chemical states of your brain.

This reminds me of the essay “Men Without Chests” in C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man”. Lewis writes that moral relativists undermine objective morality, which cannot be grounded rationally by atheism, and yet they are surprised when people actually act as though moral relativism is true.

The good news is that Darwinism is false. The bad news is taxpayer money from working parents is funneled into politicized government-run schools that teach children that Darwinism is true. High taxes ensure that parents are kept away from their children, since they must both work to pay for the government-run schools. The left’s opposition to stay-at-home mothers and fathers, (e.g., sex education, abortion, unilateral divorce, same-sex marriage, subsidies for single motherhood, etc.),  ensures that the government-run schools have more influence on children than the parents do.

I think my 2nd All Freakin Night truly solidified my love for Olympia.  Drinking tepid rum and cokes out of Dasini bottles while leaning forward to throw trash off a 2nd floor balcony, all the time attempting to slur out a quip at a theater screen (as loud as fucking possible), which is playing a movie about space slugs that turn people into zombies; I even turned down taking mushrooms that night.  The funny thing is that there were at least four more movies afterwards.  What I’m trying to expertly transition into is my love for Night of The Creeps.

.

This is one of those movies I always saw sitting up on the rack at the local video/liquor store when I was a kid.  I’d go into the stagnant shop once a week with my Dad to rent a NES game and if I’d been good that week I could maybe get a movie too.  When my Dad would browse the “walk-in closet” sized section of ever so fine spirits (always coming out with rum) I could be found gawking at whatever creepy or crazy VHS caught my eyes.  Some of my favorites that I can still remember today are:  Dead Alive, Evil Dead 2, and Nightmare On Elm Street 3. Of course I was never allowed to rent any of these movies and probably didn’t see most of them until I was 18.  My Mom told me about seeing The Exorcist in theaters when my oldest brother Andrew was a toddler (he just turned 40).  The movie fucked with my Mom so bad that she sped home right when the end credits started to roll, convinced my brother was most likely speaking in tongues and telling the babysitter that his/her mother sucks cocks in Hell (he does love Motorhead).  Anyways, it makes sense that I wasn’t priviliged these gems as a child.

Sci-fi horror is the basis of many of my nightmares growing up.  Once Andrew blossomed into the old brother that wished to enlighten/terrify his uncultured sponge of a sibling, I found – very bluntly – the ingredients to being frightened via film.  Let’s all give a hand for John Carpenter at his cinematic raping of the senses: The Thing. Even to this day I can’t think of a movie that hucks bundles of dynamite at the caveman side of human nature as his remake did.  I know at some point in my youth Andrew threw on what would become a film that rests comfortably in my top ten favorites and I couldn’t shit right for a week.  No joke; my Dad had to sit in on all my bathroom endeavors for a bit because I was afraid of Charles Hannahan’s detached spider fuck-me-I-never-ever-wanna-see-that-thing-whether-in-real-or-fucking-Oz head.

Aliens is right there with The Thing when it comes to a movie that caused me to always run and jump on my bed when it was lights out.  How was I to know there wasn’t a facehugger under the box spring;  didn’t fuck about.  It also spawned my HATE for Paul Reiser even though I know Burke was just a character, but I don’t care.  Every time I watched Mad About You (don’t even ask me why, I don’t even know) I would stare at Reiser and think, “You lied to Ripley and so many good people were killed because of it.  I wish I could have punched you to death before that alien got you… prick.”  Guilty by association:  I hate Helen Hunt too.  Whatever, she sucks.

So when my parents would leave me home alone I’d dig through the pile of copied VHS tapes (my favorite had The Great Mouse Detective, Wayne’s World, and Addams Family on it) and usually end up with Aliens because The Thing disappeared once Andrew left for college.  Between the releases of these two sci-fi horror titans I was missing out on the teen/college equivalent:  Night of The Creeps.

Doofy college freshmen – whose best friend has polio – attempts to take out his dream girl for the formal, but of course zombie jocks/bros who are afflicted with space brain slugs derail the evening.  Solution?  A shotgun, flamethrower, revolver, lawnmower, and Tom Atkins.  I know for a fact I would have grown up to be a better person if I had this movie in my possession as a youngster.  I probably would have been nicer to people with disabilities too, but my parents insisted I play t-ball.  Thus it’s not my fault that I love Christopher Reeves jokes, but Mom and Dad’s.

Horror is the genre that I can’t get tired of and am always willing to watch.  If I wanna have trouble sleeping I’ll put on The Changeling (I’m actually a little uneasy right now just thinking about it) and keep thinking I see something just out of my peripherals.  How about bad people getting exactly what they deserve?  Then it’s Sleepaway Camp, just make sure no one spoils the ending for ya.  What keeps horror fresh is the blending of genres.  I’m trying to stay on the subject of sci-fi horror, but what makes a film watchable over and over again for me is the humor.  Re-Animator is a rare title that I could easily watch every day because it’s funny as shit.  A roommate justifies hiding a dead cat in his mini-fridge because he didn’t wish to leave a sticky note that read “cat dead, details later”.  Dr. West is a gentleman and don’t you forget it.

I’ve heard “splatter comedy” tossed around when talking about movies like Creeps, but The Return of The Living Dead was the first movie to be labeled by this sub-genre to my knowledge.  Without going off the deep end about it, they’re films that use gore and violence – not just funny dialogue – to heighten the comedic qualities as the story pans out.  To someone who isn’t big on horror it can sound perverse that laughter can come from someone being blown up, but with the right line delivered, piece of music used, or sometimes even the lack of both, humor can come spilling out in bloody abundance.

The real appeal in Creeps is writer/director Fred Dekker’s stew of a tale that involves so many aspects in cinema.  You got two buddies who are bumbling around a college campus and all they really want is some lady-loving, which leads to partying.  Apparently getting into a frat gets you laid, so just like any “sex comedy” whacky antics need to ensue; a prank.  The prank brings us to a previous flashback of the cliche 50’s that is familiar as Hell because of old throwback black and whites.  An object jettisoned from an alien craft streaks over make-out point and of course it lands nearby; it MUST be investigated.  It’s a perfect catalyst to the ridiculousness that object – a singular space slug – will cause years later.

Once bursting heads start spurting out legions of wiggly-jiggles that dart across tile floors looking for an open orifice (my God that was fun to type) we need a hero and we get one:  Tom “Thrill Me” Atkins.  His character Detective Ray Cameron easily sits alongside dudes like Reggie, Peter, and Ash at the big boy table for bad asses in horror.  He’s full of one-liners, a fucked up past, and finishes every sentence with a shotgun blast (I’m on a God damn roll).  That’s the issue I have with many hero characters these days, is that they can’t be fun and kooky.  The ones that are a little odd-ball are typically very young characters, but rarely are they the old-timers with age in their face and stories to tell.

And don’t let me forget J.C. played by Steve Marshall (he was also on 21 Jump Street, so you know this guy is big time).  Now I always say he had polio in the movie – even though there’s no mention of it – so maybe I’ll just switch to “handicapped”… even though I wanna say “cripple”.  Having a character with a disability for no good God damn reason does add some realism to a film that is so far passed the limits of normality.  I hate when every actor in a film looks like they just got done tanning in the OC and are on their way to getting frap-a-fucking-chinos at some coffee shop before they zoom off to blow each other while watching Friends. The characters in this movie look like normal to partially awkward people, just like every other random you pass on the street.  Dekker threw in a guy who should easily be a shut-in, but J.C. turns out to be one of the better characters in the movie.  He pushes his buddy Chris (the actor Jason Lively was also on 21 Jump Street; P.I.M.P.) to actually talk to a woman and not be such a pussy that bitches about everything wrong in his life, but actually assists him in fixing all the bullshit.

I don’t think I ever wanna have kids.  I’m already too damn selfish as it is and if I have to fork out cash to some free-loader that can’t even walk or talk; don’t think so.  But if I ever become “responsible” and “stop peeing in the sink” which – God forbid – leads me into parenthood, my kid would get a VHS tape (yup, just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean I’m NOT poor) with three titles on it:  The Thing, Aliens, and Night of the Creeps.  Because isn’t the whole point of having kids so as not to be your parents or do I have that backwards?  I really don’t know.  Well I’m off to get a vasectomy; wish me luck.

Photographed by Brent and MariLynn

I think this sign is a lot more fun when viewed out of context.

In reality, this sign is used at one of Nashville’s Greenways. Almost all of the Greenway system is wheelchair accessible, but some of them have level places to rest spaced along any kind of incline. This is at Kelly’s Point Battlefield.

Hello to anyone who found this picture here:
baccarati.livejournal.com/591845.html

– License

RTA Furniture or “ready to assembly” is the choice of many consumers. Not only is RTA Furniture much more attractive than ever but it offers consumers an affordable choice of instant gratification. With RTA you don’t need to schedule a delivery window- you load it into your car or shopping cart if ordered online and take it home immediately or get it delivered to you in the comfort of your own home.

But how can RTA mean accessibility? Well- think outside the box!

Traditionally a console table is used in an entry way but what about as an attractive table for medications in the bedroom? You normally see end tables on either end of a sofa in a living room but it also makes a great night stand in the bedroom or a ‘catchall’ table in the hallway!  Place an attractive basket on it and use it in place of a dresser for socks and unmentionables.

TV Stand? Even that can have other uses! It can be a stand alone unit for storage in the bedroom or kitchen.  Store shirts and slacks. Use the open shelf and the top of the stand for toiletries and other sundries that you need every day and are within easy reach.

Just because a piece of furniture has a typical usage a little imagination will let you see it in a whole new light. So the next time you feel the need for a little change in your home and don’t want to paint your wood furniture or are on a budget- see what is available at www.adaptmy.com. What we have available and our  inspirational ‘ideas’ might be just what you need to add a bit of spice into your room.

Caring for Disabled Senior Citizens: Managing the Mother-in-Law Issues
We are caring for my elderly disabled mother-in-law. As we are learn about caring for senior citizens, we’re passing it along. Today’s Sticky Wicket: Persuading senior parents to allow the in-law child to help with care.
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Senior Citizen and Elderly Care: How to Manage Medicines and Drugs
Most senior citizens take a least one form of medicine daily. Many take multiple medicines. If you have to care for an elderly person, particularly a disabled person, keeping track of medications can be difficult. Here’s how
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Must-Haves for Handicapped Accessible Apartments
As part of my on-going series on senior care issues, we explore handicapped accessible assisted living apartments. This guide will help you choose appropriate housing accomodations for handicapped persons.
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Caring for an Ill or Disabled Senior Citizen: Choosing an Assisted Living Facility
The next installment in my on-going series on senior care addresses considerations for choosing an assisted living community. Pricing, accommodations, facilities, transportation, security are important factors.
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With New Moon about to hit theaters, all that I’m hearing about lately is vampires (luckily not from my wife). Now, I realize that romance is the largest selling genre in the book industry and I also realize that millions of tween girls are going crazy for the movie. What I just can’t stand is the mass of people trying to jump on the vampire band wagon. Let’s just list off some of the new vampire media since Twilight premiered:

1. Cirque du Freak: The Vampires Assistant
2. Lesbian Vampire Killers
3. The Vampire Diaries (CW)
4. True Blood (HBO)
5. Day Break (2010)
6. Rosencrantz (2010)
7. Gildenstern Are Undead (2010)
8. Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire (2000 Disney show that’s been rerun since Twilight premiered)

Sadly, vampires have lost a lot of cool point with me from all of this. All I can see that this is doing to sending a message to tween girls that they won’t get with any hot guys unless their broodingly emo and wear far too much black eyeliner and eyeshadow. As if twelve year old girls didn’t have enough to deal with, now they have to do it all while being depressed. I don’t see a very good combination here…

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If you hadn’t noticed I updated the header picture on the blog! It felt a little self serving to put my ugly mug on it, and more than once I wanted to quote Disney’s Hercules by proclaiming loudly, “I haven’t seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself!” I think it looks good regardless of my inclusion, and it helps to make this blog uniquely mine.

Because my friends and I had so much fun doing this, I’ve added a slide show to this post so you can check out some of the other pictures that we took. They may end up as banners later on too. Also, make sure you keep an eye out for my completely inappropriate pose with a handicapped Bloomsday participant.

-Rich

!!!

Because Stony Brook holds adult learning classes there, you may see a few foreign-looking people flocking around the S.A.C.  Their skin has lost that youthful glow and their eyeglass sizes seem to compete with lenses on the Hubble:  They are old people.

They further clog the congested hallways with their slow, arthritic gait.  They further mess things up in the cafeteria because they don’t know where the lines begin.  They travel in packs of 50 because they’re afraid some young hooligan will kick their canes out from underneath them.  Yes, they are old people.

They further slow the process of loading up the bus because they don’t utilize the handicapped spots by Javitz, and they’re too cheap to pay the meters.  Yes, they are old people.

But you really shouldn’t shove them out of the way when you are boarding in the morning.  If some old lady and her husband are hobbling over to the door, DO NOT PUSH THEM.  I realize you may need to be a bit aggressive with the masses, but, really,–Step back and give the little old lady a break.

Remember, that could be YOUR grandma some hooligan just cut in front of.

P.S.–It’s also a nice gesture to give up your seat if you see an older gentleman struggling to reach the hold-bar.  You’re young and spry, and you probably sit in front of your computer all day.  Build up some arm and leg strength.

My house smells terrible… Like vinegar.

For reasons I cannot fully grasp, my wife is cooking/dying yarn with vinegar in one of our crock pots.

In short, I would rather fist fight a horse than smell this foul odor. But, I suppose I should just blog instead of going fisticuffs with a member of the equine family…

Slug That Horse!!!

So,… before I go too far, I suppose I should toss this in for anyone who may care.

*Ehem!*

_________THE FOLLOWING BLOG WILL NOT BE POLITICALLY CORRECT AND MAY WELL OFFEND MANY. BEWARE!_______

In church we’ve been viewing and discussing a series of DVDs called “Speechless: Silencing the Christians”, wherein cases of Christians and their rights have been assaulted.

This stirred a bit of thought within me and got me to thinking…

Why is it that Christians are the least protected people under the Constitution and under the federal government as a whole?

Bear in mind, I DO NOT feel that Christians should get special privileges above and beyond secular American citizens. However, I DO feel that Christians should garner the same protection and privilege that is held by so many minority groups in this nation.

This past week, President Obama signed into effect the Matthew Shepard and James Boyd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. In this bill, several things are addressed, many concerning what one would perceive… hate crimes. In this instance, I refer to hate crimes against individuals of race.

But, in passing this bill, amendments were made to it to include sexual persuasion as a race…

Now, I’m all for individual protection under law. But I’m not for laws being passed by means of playing dirty (i.e. amendments being added to bills after their initial acceptance as written). Nor am I into fraudulent definitions of any people group.

Homosexuality is a sexual lifestyle,… not an ethnic group.

But, who knows? Would a bill specifically intended for the protection of people of varying sexual persuasions have passed on it’s own? Maybe… But the fact is, it should have been presented as such and not as a tack-on to a previously existing proposal.

Not a big fan of deception…

As I was saying, under federal law there is special protection given to African Americans, Hispanics, various groups of Immigrants, the handicapped, Muslims, women, and now people of alternative sexual preference, as well as many, many other groups. Only Christians seem to be left out in the cold in all of this. Ironic, as this nation so dead-set in protecting everyone BUT us was, in fact, founded by Christians. Puritans, no less.

I have no problems with the welfare of individuals being protected… whether I agree with them and their points of view or not. I believe that EVERY  human should be treated with the SAME fair measure of human dignity…

Where my problem lies is that for all of the efforts being put forth to protect every sort of person, the freedoms of Christians are being stripped away.

This so-called “hate crime” legislation that keeps bleeding through the walls of our Senate and House of Representatives has begun making matters of faith issues of legal concern…

Children and/or faculty praying at school, mentions of the name of Jesus Christ from public platforms, refusals to participate is classes featuring the Theory of Evolution, defenders of traditional marriage, proclamations of salvation through Jesus alone, peaceful protests  against acts violating God’s law, home schooling, and pastors preaching against matters of sexual immorality (including homosexuality) from the pulpit are all issues coming under fire currently in our government and in our courts.

Matters of the heart and conscience. Matters of faith and reliance on Scripture.

While there are bad individual examples in every people-class, Christians seem to have been painted as hate mongers because of some lunatics perpetrating acts of violence and such in the name of God, although we, as a majority, want nothing of this sort of nonsense.

Though, make no mistake. If our Lord commands that we not tolerate certain things, we should by no means quietly accept whatever sinfulness is spoonfed to us.

We cannot deny or refute Scripture and in certain cases, Scripture is very blatant about certain things…

⁹Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (homosexual), nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

¹²All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

¹³Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

¹⁴And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.

¹⁵Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

¹⁶What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

¹⁷But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

¹⁸Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

¹⁹What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

²⁰For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. -1 Corinthians 6:9-20

God doesn’t approve of sexual sin. Yes,… including homosexuality.

While he doesn’t tell us to go out with machine guns and open fire on GLAAD members, God doesn’t want us endorsing what they do either.

If this means preaching against sexual sin or standing in opposition of homosexuality being taught as the norm in our schools, Christians, under the First Amendment should have the right to do so.

Instead,… that right is suppressed and we have gay-rights activists allowed to picket churches.

Where is the justice in that?

Do we, as followers of Christ not have the right to speak that which God has told us to speak?

According to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution we do. Under this amendment, only “speech explicitly inciting the forcible overthrow of the government remains punishable”, and Christians speaking out against that which defies the will of God does not make that effort.

Be mindful of what’s going on around you. We, as the Body of Christ must do everything within our means to maintain our civil liberties. According to the Bible, soon enough, we won’t even be able to meet together to worship legally.

All sin is detestable in the eyes of the Father, and we must forever proclaim the Laws of God. Even in the face of adversity.  Pray that our Lord empowers us.

When he first heard about Buud, Jerry, my very good friend, came running over to see him and came with toys and cookies. Buud loves toys and cookies and Buud loves Jerry. We refer to him as Uncle Jerry.

It’s hard to figure out what makes dogs click. Buud took to Uncle Jerry immediately. To everyone else he gives a quick paws-to-the-legs waiting to be petted. For Jerry, it’s a leap from the floor to Jerry’s arms followed by continuous kisses. You have never seen such a love connection. I think when my back is turned Jerry kisses Buud back.

I get no attention. Maxine says I’m a little jealous but I don’t mind sharing, a little.

The next time Jerry came over to do some work with me he brought Buud a Frisbee and more cookies. He spent most of his time playing Frisbee with Buud and again I got no attention. At least he could have brought me some cookies.

Taking his Uncle status seriously, just recently, Jerry came over with hammer, nails and wire to fix all the spots under the fence where Buud could get out. That’s a good Uncle! Now, lately, he has been giving me advice on Buud’s proper upbringing. His advice includes character and spiritual development. I didn’t mind the advice but isn’t that a godfather’s job?

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