Whatever you vividly imagine, Ardently desire,
Sincerely believe, and Enthusiastically act upon…
Must inevitably come to pass.

I don't know where this comes from, but it's one of the things I have on my fridge and on the wall where I paint.

I believe in the power of positive thinking.

Whether you believe you can, or you can't, you are probably right.

I don't know where that comes from either.

There are universal truths The above are two of them.

What is your universal truth? I'd like to know, I'm starting a collection.

There were many comments about what I wrote on the tabloid goddess, her rise and fall. Some were about the writing and I thank those readers.

Some were about Ms. Smith personally and some were unkind.

I believe in the "walk a mile in my shoes" way of dealing with people.

Social butterfly that I am, and being on the planet as long as I have, living in many places, I have met, and become close to many, many, people over the years.

I have sat down with senators, governors, PhD's, lawyers, pastors, doctors, teachers, cab drivers, bartenders, window washers, janitors, street urchins, hookers...

Drunks and addicts come in all shapes, sizes, professions, and walks of life.

I discovered one day, quite by accident, my best girlfriend had a serious problem with alcohol. She lived across the street, we went to school together, I was with her every day, and I didn't know she was drinking. (She is more than 25 years sober now)

We had a classmate and friend we both cared about, and still do, who was/is, a binge drinker. Over the years I have watched him go up and down life's ladder. I'm happy for him when he's on the high end, and I always hope he stays there.

I met someone else who was addicted to alcohol. I stayed around until it was too hurtful for me to watch him drink himself to death. It's a slow way to die, and it often kills others along the way. I couldn't allow his drinking to take me down with him.

Alcohol is the most insidious drug of all.

I learned more about addiction, first hand and close up, then I ever wanted to know.

Those people who pat themselves on the back and crow about how wonderful THEIR choices have been and congratulate themselves on how good and moral they are ... and who look down on those souls who are slaves to an addiction, should rather say to them selves....

There but for the grace of God go I.

"Addiction has been defined as being possible only to a psychoactive substance (for example alcohol, tobacco, or drugs), which is ingested, crosses the blood-brain barrier, and alters the natural chemical behavior of the brain. Psychology professionals and laypersons, now feel that there should be accommodation made to include psychological dependency on such things as gambling, food, sex, pornography, computers, work, exercise, cutting, and shopping / spending."

Maybe everyone, before they accuse, criticize, and abuse, should consider first, how it would feel to walk a mile in the other guys shoes?

The moral model states that addictions are the result of human weakness, and are defects of character. Those who advance this model do not accept that there is any biological basis for addiction. They often have scant sympathy for people with serious addictions, believing either that a person with greater moral strength could have the force of will to break an addiction, or that the addict demonstrated a great moral failure in the first place by starting the addiction. The moral model is widely applied to dependency on illegal substances, perhaps purely for social or political reasons, but is no longer widely considered to have any therapeutic value.

Half of all patients diagnosed as alcoholic are born into families where alcohol is used heavily, suggesting that familiar influence, genetic factors, or more likely both, play a role in the development of addiction. What also needs to be noted is that when people don't gain a sense of moderation through their development they can be just as likely, if not more, to abuse substances than people born into alcoholic families.

that which is in blue is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Everything is Anna Nicole Smith today.

Since the shock of her death yesterday, at the age of 39, every TV news story, every news paper, every phone and water cooler conversation is about the life and death of the goddess of tabloid fame. She was far bigger than just any celebrity.

It seems everyone knows her life story, Small town girl, high school dropout, teen bride and mother, Stripper turned model, turned gold digger. She was the girl we loved to laugh at.

We laugh at what makes us uncomfortable.

When Anna Nicole Smith married her sixty some years older oil-rich billionaire, she crossed a line, by attempting to move into too high a place in our society. We laughed at her for pretending the marriage was anything more than an arrangement for cash. For some reason I don't quite understand we didn't laugh as much at the old fart she married? She was an object of our scorn when she didn't profit from the marriage as she, and the rest of us, imagined she would.

Anna Nicole kept on keeping on. On TV, she had her own show for two years, and selling diet pills for which she, and the diet pill company was being sued in a class action. Her life was all grist for the gossip mill.

I always felt bad for the girl, she sold herself shamelessly, and did nothing to maintain her dignity. BUT, the woman did what she had to do, with what she had. She made her mark on this society, and even in death her name will be coming up on the news and in the papers for months and perhaps years from now.

I can't help but wonder if she will ever rest in peace?

There are crimes, and then there are CRIMES.

The Washington Post had an article today by Sonia Geis. I also visited Downwinders.com and pasted some of their information here. Anything in blue is from the Washington Post, anything in purple is from the Downwinders site. My thoughts are in this brown that I like so well.

It's about the nuclear testing that was done in Nevada and about the big bomb they want to test there now. Beginning in the 1950's until early in the 1990's, there were 925 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. 825 of them were underground (There may have been many unannounced underground tests as well.)

Here is where the CRIME comes in. Our federal government assured the people of the little town of St George, which is East of the test site, that they were in no danger, as it detonated bombs in Nevada over forty years, just as they assured the folks in Washington, Oregon, and Utah, that the Hanford site was safe.

But thousands of people who lived downwind of the test site got radiation-related cancer.

This sounds much like the story the Hanford Downwinders tell.

The following is from the downwinder web site.

"In 1955 there were eight reactors in operation along the Columbia River. They used the river water to cool the intense heat at the core of the reactors. The water became contaminated with radioactivity, toxic chemicals and excessive amounts of heat. Within as little as 15-20 minutes, the contaminated water was released back into the river, allowing radiation to concentrate in the bodies of fish and other aquatic life. Local game animals, especially waterfowl, also became contaminated. People were then exposed when they ate the fish or game, drank the water or swam in the river. Hanford's operations discharged over 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquids into the ground, resulting in approximately 200 square miles of contaminated groundwater beneath Hanford.

Radiation exposure can occur either externally or internally. External exposure occurs as radioactive by-products descend from the sky as fallout from the stacks at Hanford and are carried by the wind in different directions and speeds depending on the size and chemistry of the material and the weather conditions. Internal exposure occurs by the direct inhalation of airborne radioactive material or by ingestion principally through food or water that has been exposed to radioactive material.

In Nevada, the government wants to test a huge bomb that will send radioactive dust from from earlier tests thousands of feet in the air. The people in St Georges are worried, and rightly so, that the dust will fall back on them again.

"The Nevada Test Site is one of the best-studied areas in terms of meteorology," said Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Site Office. "We know the volume of dust picked up from the explosion. We took the weather for the worst time period: January, with the highest winds. When you model to that, it stays on the test site.

Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), whose district includes St. George, is not convinced. Declassified documents that show the government did not detonate nuclear bombs when the wind blew toward Las Vegas. They waited until the wind blew toward St. George.

The recent release of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) study on the atmospheric testing of atomic weapons confirmed that areas of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho received radioactive air releases from the above ground nuclear tests conducted in Nevada in the 1950s. One of the primary fission materials in the fallout is iodine-131. Thus, some people were exposed to radioactive materials from both Hanford operations, and weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS).

http://www.downwinders.org/

The above site says; Welcome America, we are all downwinders now.

So what's the crime? Our Government wants to set off another bomb. To test to see if below ground bunkers can withstand the force of a 700-ton conventional weapon. I agree with Rep. Jim Matheson, who said, "there is no such thing as a 700 ton conventional weapon."

I have a question? Who or what is going to be hunkered down in those bunkers the governments is so worried about. I think it's a safe bet, that it won't be you or me.

Defense officials have looked at moving the test to another site, but they say the alternatives would cost $100 million and take three years of planning. Holding it in Nevada could be done this year for $5 million.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to spend all that money to work towards a ban on all nuclear weapons, so all the Earth's children could live a safer and healthier lives?

Last month I logged on to my computer and instead of my desktop on the screen, there was a notice that Qwest had to reconfigure my modom.

I tried to use the page with it's boxes to be filled in with my user name and email address, to help Qwest reconfigure my modom, to no avail.

Qwest, MSN, and I have been together for eons. Except, I don't much care for MSN and haven't ever used hot mail or visited their home page.

Now what was my user name and password?

Who knew? Not me. Not Qwest. MSN knew but they weren't telling me online, because I couldn't get past the Qwest pages.

I then called the Qwest phone number listed on the page and spent three hours, time I will never get back, with a young man in the Philippines. A very mannerly fellow who called me Ma'am, at the end of each sentence. "I am putting you on hold now Ma'am, is that all right with you Ma'am? I will be right back with you Ma'am, is that all right Ma'am?"

After putting me on hold many times, and together, many times, we typed code, and were shuffled back to the first, "Qwest must reconfigure your modom" page, we did our best to help Qwest reconfigure my modom.

Until in his frustration and to my relief to get away from the phone, he informed me that the modom was broken, and I needed to call the Qwest business office on Monday and order a new modom.

The modom couldn't have been broken. I was online. The Quest page would go from one Qwest page to another and back. The modom showed I was online, and the MSN broadband status showed that it was active. I was on line and the modom was working.

Which didn't matter because Qwest wouldn't allow me to get past it's page.

On Monday, I spent another two hours while Qwest reconfigured my modom. More time I will never get back,

Which wouldn't be so bad, but for the awful, cheerful, electronic voice that told me how important my phone call was to Qwest and to stay on the line while she informed me over, and over, and over, in that oh, so, cheerful voice, how I could save money if I bundled my services with Qwest.

I wanted to bundle Qwest into a box filled with Rocks and that too cheerful woman and throw them both into the river.

I'm old, I have more money than time, and not enough of either from my perspective.

The questions are? and I still want to know... Why did Qwest need to reconfigure my modom?

Why does Qwest outsource their customer service and tech support?

Most importantly, Why do they have the annoyingly cheerful voice, repeating ove,r and over, how important my phone call is to Qwest and how Qwest would be so happy to save me money if I used more of their services?

If my call was so important, why was I sitting on hold? and since I am trying to get one of their services to work properly, and it's not, why would I want more of their services?

I am waiting patiently, and have been for quite some time, I believe some soft and soothing music would be in order, or just some quiet, with a soft, sincere, "Sorry for your wait." every five minutes or so. Or some sort of a refund for my time.

I may have to send Qwest a bill.

Real people can be too chipper early in the morning before the second cup of coffee. I don't have to deal with most of them. A disembodied, voice recording, with that much cheerful should be against the law, at least before noon, and probably always.

The Indiana University Campus Writing program has a great page on plagiarism.

Here, college students can learn everything they need to know about Plagiarism.

Important stuff if you are a high school student, college student, political speech writer, news paper reporter, Ummmmm.... author of a book of some kind or another, or if you are a blogger who has the ego, and wants some kind of recognition from the world wide web.

Me? This is a junk drawer. I put stuff here that I want to keep, for what ever reason, to share with my family and friends, to come back to from some future date and remind my self where I was then. I don't much care who wrote it, if it wasn't me.... If it came unsigned in an email from my favorite brother, or a friend, and I like it, I'll copy and paste it without thinking twice about doing research to hunt down the author so I can give credit.

Does credit have to be given for every email forwarded?

Intent seems to be the issue.

I didn't intend to make anyone think I wrote the sand & stone piece, or the man/dog/heaven piece, and not even the Enough piece.

They were all just sweet thoughts delivered to my inbox from someone who cares enough about me to email something they know I'd like.

Should I accuse my friends and family of plagiarism for not quoting the author?

Nahhhhhhhhhhh, I'm smart enough to know that my brother didn't write the "enough" story.
I know my friend Betty didn't write "sand & stone." Donna may have written the man/dog/heaven bit, but I believe she would have claimed credit for it if she had. Donna has that kind of ego.

Since this blog is meant mostly for myself, with family and friends more or less poking around just to see what's stashed in here, I really don't see what the fuss is about plagiarism? It's not like I have the kind of ego that is looking to take any kind of credit for anything, especially for anything online. Most likely I'd be blamed, not given credit.

The point is, This is my disclaimer, Anything you read here, either I wrote, or I cut and pasted it here.

If I know who the author is, I'll be sure to let you know.

If it sounds like me, talking to myself, then I wrote it.

If you read something here that is really well writen, lovely in it's thought, has a message , or is in any way important, then I didn't write it.

This is one of those things that people send around the net. I don't know who wrote it but my favorite Brother sent it to me and I wanted to share the lovely thought.

To my family, who have been aghast but have supported me, and my friends, the 3 ladies who are dealing with their own challenges, each in her own way. To the fellows who stay quiet, and then email me...

To all my friends I wish you enough...

Recently, I overheard a Mother and daughter in their last moments together at a regional airport. They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and she said, "I love you. I wish you enough.

She in turn said, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom." They kissed and she left.

The elder woman walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," I replied. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges a head and the reality is, the next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.

"When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, "I wish you enough. May I ask what that means?"

She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." She paused for a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more. "When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them," she continued. Then, turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye."

She then began to sob and walked away.


My friends and loved ones, I wish you ENOUGH!!!