Happy 40th birthday Sesame Street!  I enjoy the way Google features a graphic and you can click on the picture to find out more. Loved this show~~~”back in the day”.

We have recently had fun watching The Daily Show (of course) and laughing at the Fox “News” Wars jokes.  I read that BaBa WaWaa is going to have a 5 interview series with sarah palin concerning her new book and personal life. I’ll probably miss that? On purpose.

The World Series and most recent Vikings vs Packers games were fun while they lasted in snippets.

A favorite educational show is about to be cancelled after 26 years on PBS.  I encourage all to sign the petition to Save Reading Rainbow.  It’s a classic!  http://www.petitiononline.com/srr82809/petition.html

I have  a negative take on products to promote breast cancer awareness.  Who is making money off these items?  Does the money collected actually go to research?   I hope so!  It seems to get more and more “out of hand” each October. 

Here is a cause that I can “support”.  It’s “uplifting”!!!!! I really like the idea of seeing a line of colorful, frilly bras stretching down Broad Street! 

There are numerous books out on breast health.   I bought this particular book for my daughters and have found it helpful and also amusing.  It is called Boobs   A Guide to Your Girls by Elizabeth Squires. (2007) She has created a web site with lots of helpful information including video clips on how to perform a self-exam. http://www.booksonboobs.com/

RICHMOND – October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and WRVQ Q94 is partnering up with the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation for the 3rd Annual Q94 Bras On Broad! Q94, along with our participating sponsors, is collecting bras for the month of October and for every bra collected, $1 will be donated to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Foundation. Last year, Q94 raised over $3,000.00 and stretched the bras 2.5 miles down Broad Street and we hope to beat that goal this year! Richmond residents can drop off their bras at Saxon Shoes, Halloween Express (Willow Lawn), Taboo, Kid to Kid (West End), ColorTyme, and Precision Auto Works.

On Friday, October 23rd, please join Melissa Chase from 2-7p as she broadcasts live from Saxon Shoes in Short Pump where Q94 staff and volunteers will be holding the Link of Love by stretching the bras donated down Broad Street. Q94 invites you to join us on this very special day!

Thanks Q94.  Wish I could have been there.

I just finished reading the new autobiography by Chesley Sullenberger (Sully) entitled: Highest Duty  My Search for What Really Matters. (2009)   I could hardly put this book down.  It was the right message for me at the right moment.  I highly recommend it!

Yesterday I took a long walk down to the empty neighborhood soccer field that is now a meadow; a labyrinth of mowed twirling paths .  The sun was shining and the birds were busy.  Colorful leaves were surrounding me as I took time to look up and watch the clouds and appreciate the quiet peacefulness of those moments of solitude.

As Jewel says in her song…”In the end only kindness matters.”

As we were watching our favorite “The Daily Show”  last night, there were a series of off-color commercials for pistachios.  Levi Johnston (baby daddy in AK) was featured.  There is a contest too.  I choose not to eat pistachios or drink the bottled water from the company Fiji.  If you are interested in this topic: go to Mother Jones or You Tube.  I don’t really want to promote it, but it shows how low we continue to sink to advertise a product.  (But we already knew that, didn’t we?)

Of course, I giggled at the inappropriateness of the commercial.  It was shocking and funny.

“Friends,

Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. “No, I don’t think so,” I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he’s now conducting the two wars he’s inherited. “Yeah,” she said, “but to tell him, ‘Now earn it!’? Give the guy a break — this is a great day for him and for all of us.”

I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack’s big day. Did I — and others on the left — do the same?

We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation — financially and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving too slow for most of us — but he needs to know we are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell?

Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to get out the vote last November? C’mon! We’re the majority now — the majority by a significant margin! We call the shots — and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say — or else.

All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is 202-456-1414). But don’t abandon the best hope we’ve had in our lifetime for change. And for God’s sake, don’t head to bummerville if he says or does something we don’t like. Do you ever see Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican presidents and they still couldn’t get prayer in the public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they’ve been driven crazy lately. They’ll never have it as good again as they’ve had it since Reagan took office.

But — do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home.

So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating — that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters.

Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, “What has he done to earn this prize?” How ’bout this:

The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man — a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning — offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn’t attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.

And if all that wasn’t enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.

So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world — and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you’ve got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.

One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio).

The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur — and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as “Barack Hussein Obama”!) — is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. ‘Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us — we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans — and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate — we had all seen enough. It was time for change.

Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.

My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!

Fred (that’s Norwegian for “Peace”),
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/get-off-obamas-back-secon_b_316480.html    “

( I am proud to be an American and be allowed freedom of speech.  Thanks, Michael aka Fred, for sharing your thoughts.  I can’t wait to see the movie Capitalism. A Love Affair.  Fred keeps us on our toes and I thank him for making me think outside the box.  Two of my favorite lines… “right wing hate machine and bummerville“)

For some reason Gilda Radnor’s voice is in my head these days and what I am hearing is:  “It’s Always Something.”

From the David Letterman ~revelations~ to other news worthy events in the world, plus getting adjusted to working in a new setting, to the sadness of having a death in the family, I am on overload.  Not sleeping too well and yet carrying on.

I am looking forward to some diversions such as the new Michael Moore movie: Capitalism, the Chris Rock movie: Good Hair and of course the kid flick Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

Here’s my opinion on:

 David Letterman~~~I never liked him or watched him anyway.  What a scumbag!

Sarah Palin’s~~~~ new book Going Rogue coming out in November. Are you f***ing kidding me?  I won’t be reading that piece of toilet paper roll.

Congressional cheats and tax evaders~~~~Get Out , shut up and go away forever. Role models~~~NO WAY!  And go without health insurance while you are at it.

To end my rant, I must share this e-mail I received by mistake the other night. I give the golden plunger award to: a former administrator who shall remain nameless.

As our family grieves the loss of Brad’s mom this past weekend, I am reminded of how many wonderful neighbors and friends we have who are willing to step up and comfort others.

I received two phone calls today from Muslim men we know offering polite condolences and wishes for Olivia’s soul.   The e-mails we have gotten and expressions of sympathy are heart warming.

Imsomnia hits at odd times.  Here it is 3 am and I need to be sleeping.   However, I am not.  The mischievious kitten(Shelby) is keeping me company, purring in my lap and running off to find cords to sniff and consider chewing  on.  When I found out that Olivia had died early Saturday morning, I got up.  Shelby followed me to the kitchen.  She found a large green live katydid in the dining room and began to show her true hunting qualities while I sat stupified and also entertained.   Flip-flop- pounce-chase- repeat  and back to my lap for some cuddling and purring.

I found a new resource in town while perusing the Sunday morning paper yesterday.  Long after doing my graduate externship project on Grief Resources for children(2005), a new Grief Center is forming in Richmond.  It is called Full Circle Grief Center.  It appears to be completley different from Camp Comfort Zone.  Remembrances and art projects are encouraged as a way to relieve stress to to express feelings. I will do some research and consider volunteering sometime in the future. 

Dear Readers,

     I have the good fortune of being on a school librarian’s list-serve and found this posting today.  I was not aware of NPR’s segment on the StoryCorps and am thrilled to share this live interview with a man who was influenced in a wonderful way by a school librarian!  Please have a listen and hopefully you will feel inspired too!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113357239

Yesterday I finished a 2 day orientation for county employment.  One of the most fascinating aspects of this training was the mix of new-hires.  Out of approximately 30 people; 20 were firefighter recruits.  Among the new hires were people about to start work as janitors, mental health van drivers,building inspectors,  library workers ,and drug testing officers.  It was a fascinating indoctrination into the big picture of county employment.  I wondered why the public schools never had this type of group training.  We spent time on ethics, diversity, hazardous materials, sexual harassment, emergency prepardness/security issues and other topics related to customer service.    Interspersed in our training were short videos on the topics.  I  became very informed about diversity and sexual harrassment.  Seeing a video with Clarence Thomas made me cringe. 

For the diversity training we did the most interesting quiz as a group of new hires.   Food for thought.  It’s a big world. It’s called A Village of 100.  There are several YouTube videos on this topic although not updated for 2009.  Did you know that out of 100 people in the world, randomly mixed: 57 are Asians, 21 are European, 14 are from the Western hemisphere and 8 are Africans?  Here’s more: 51 are female 49 are male; 70 are non-white and 30 are white; 70 are Non- Christian and 30 are Christian; 89 are heterosexual and 11 are homosexual.  There’s more too:  Out of 100 people : 50 % of the entire world’s wealth would be in the hands of 6 people, all would be from the USA and that 17 million Americans out of the entire current US population have work disabilities?

Out of 100 people 80 live in substandard housing.  70 out of 100 people worldwide cannot read.50 out of 100 people suffer from malnutrition.

One out of 100 is near death, one out of 100 is near birth, one out of 100 has a college education and 4 out of 100 own a computer.

Pretty astounding, isn’t it?

I watched Jenna Bush Hager on the Today Show this morning and I enjoyed her interviewing style.  She interviewed an 11 year old boy, Dalton Sherman from Dallas , TX who recently gave a motivational speech to 20,000 Texas public school teachers. Initally I admit I was annoyed that she got the job and that she got published.  But now, I actually think she has an interesting voice and I will occasionally listen.  I am not a consistent  Today Show fan.  NBC is my favorite news channel unless you count The Daily Show, which is “fake” news I realize.

Here is Dalton Sherman!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9xPy86xhSY

Thanks Jenna.