History is Happening Today

"This is not a budget. This is a cause."

This is how Paul Ryan, Tea Party-backed GOP budget plan author describes their proposal.

Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (WI-01) announced the Republican’s budget proposal. It is unbelievably bad - literally. The GOP budget not only repeals the new health care law, it also eliminates Medicare and Medicaid as we know it.

The Republican’s proposal gives millionaires huge tax breaks, but seniors and hard-working families pay more for health care and get less coverage. Paul Ryan’s plan would radically undermine the economic security of America’s middle class. Yet it helps Wall Street-run health insurance companies make record-breaking profits! While the CEOs are paid outrageous sums to deny people the care they paid for and need.

As part of this radical ideological crusade, seniors will be force to clip coupons if they want to see a doctor. It includes huge tax breaks for the ultra wealthy and giveaways to Big Oil companies that are making record profits.

Nowhere in the Republican plan is there any shared sacrifice. There’s no fairness. The big corporations and super-rich are not asked to pitch in. Instead they get even richer while most families are struggling just to make it month to month. This budget would eviscerated programs that everyone in this country depend on. Republicans are attacking the people while pretending to be fiscally responsible!

This budget changes the rules and reshapes this country in a dangerous way. The Republicans and Tea Party backers think they can use the budget as cover to pursue their radical agenda to end Medicare and put seniors’ health care in the hands of Big Insurance CEOs.

But they aren't done with their outrageous demands. They want to do even more to hurt the people!
In this case women specificly - Thursday, April 7, thousands of Americans will descend on Washington, DC, to defend women's health from the extremists in Congress that are determined to roll back access to reproductive health care.

This assault is unprecedented and covers multiple areas. Several amendments have been added to what was already voted on weeks ago in an attempt to push these changes through the Senate. An ammendment that would eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood offers cancer screenings to protect women's health. They offer education, contraceptives and seek to prevent unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. They help those that have been victims or are in hard situations by getting them professional help. Cutting these programs will put more women at risk.

But not one has mentioned how much it costs to raise a child that is placed into the system. No one talks about the many children that wait sometimes without hope for a family to adopt them. Why defund a program that keeps many unplanned pregnancies from happening?

They want to pass legislation that would impose an abortion tax on small businesses who want to provide abortion coverage in health plans. They have bills that would prevent elected officials from using local funds to pay for abortion care for low income and at risk women. This attack on women's rights must stop! Across the nation, people will be standing up for women's health.

Hidden in the budget is more cuts on funding to the Enviromental Protection Agency. This is our one defense against more BP disasters. It's the agency that protects the people by enforcing safety regulations. Protects the environment, the people and our ecology from the "profits before people" greed of these big Corporations. In Pensylvania the water resources are being contaminated due to the coal companies fracking to get at gas reserves. This is causing water to become flamable and not fit to drink. This practice needs to stop!

Already the big Oil Corps are pushing to drill for oil again. Why? With the technology we have right now - technology we've had since 2006 - we could have been using hydrogen for power. We've had the technology to use solar power, wind power and water power! Yet the greed and profit of "black gold" pushes the Corporations - Deep Water drilling has already been given the green light. The guy in charge of the energy commission in D.C. is an Oil Company shareholder. We need the EPA has the funds to function!

Congress MUST hear our voices and know that enough is enough!

Democrats have already ruled out defunding the year-old health care overhaul or to deny Planned Parenthood all federal money. And Reid has said he will not agree to any of the curbs Republicans want to place on the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats will not just roll over without a fight.

In D.C. this week, hundreds of Tea Party demonstrators rallied outside the Capitol calling for budget cuts and to shutdown if necessary to get their way.

"Shut the sucker down," one yelled, and the crowd repeatedly chanted, "Shut it down."

Is this the America we want to live in? We need to stand up to the bullies on the Hill and take back our rights and our freedoms!

Check out these links:

1. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/04/ryan_budget_preview.html

2. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-06/ryan-s-budget-proposal-would-aid-insurers-a-top-source-of-campaign-cash.html

3. http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/billofright/patient_bill_of_rights.html

4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/republican-budget-plan-de_b_845256.html

5. https://dccc.org/page/contribute/shutdown3?source=040611_si,alld,med

6. https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3056&s_subsrc=110406_rally&JServSessionIdr004=rudkaoryj1.app217a

7. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/efficiencity/index.html

8. http://video.pbs.org/program/1305364341/
(especially this one: Hydrogen Hopes) http://video.pbs.org/video/1335040144 

Be a part of history - get involved and make sure the changes that are happening are the ones that you want.

Carpe Diem!

My son's birthday

Time sure does slip away, it seems like only a short time ago he was just a little boy that was always hungry, even right after we ate!
I finally figured out where all that food was going...he shot up to 6' after his 14th birthday! He's been holding steady at 6' 4" since he turned 20, so I think he's done.

But seeing him sometimes makes me wonder where all the time went...
It feels like we have forever, running in the fields chasing butterflies, wading in the shallows to find tadpoles, and then as I turn, the moment's gone, it's over. And there's a young man who towers above me, he smiles that lost little boy's crooked smile, as he head's out again to look for work.

Has it really been so many years? I look at my daughter, my little tech artist takes after her grandmother and at 18 isn't quite as tall as myself. Yet, I tend to forget that she's a young woman now who's due to get engaged this summer, if all goes according to their plans. And I wonder at how quickly my nest is growing less crowded.

My little one is still here with his endless singing, humming and sound effects. He sings about whatever he's doing; nonsense sing songs that are equally out of tune and in. He talks for his toys in a dozen different voices. He puts them through adventures with a barrage of sound effects that seeks to join the current cacophony of my daughter's pounding music and the blaring noise from the television too.

It is a small comfort, because it keeps at bay the deafening silence that will someday descend when they have all gone. I do not relish that moment, so for now...I join in the symphony of dueling sounds and turn my own music up just a little. Perhaps I seek to drive that day of silence farther away into the future...or at least, believe that I can, even though I know that nothing I do will really stop it.

Time goes on no matter if we pay attention or let it slip away...but if we try to make as many memories as we can in the time we have...maybe it won't be so bad when there are no more memories to make...and we'll have left a treasured legacy behind, within those that shared them with us.

Elusiveness of Time

No matter how many hours pass within each day, there never seems to be enough to complete all that I've the need or desire to accomplish.
My list of projects and chores go forever on...
My time is claimed before it arrives. I find that even when I complete a task or two - that several more yet await my attention.
My days feel unending as I tend to the endless things that need to be done.
Three a.m. and 7 p.m. hold no difference as I work through my chores.
Sleep is something that descends upon me at unscheduled times as my exhaustion claims my consciousness for a few hours.

I can still recall my youth, of fresh cut grass and lazy summertime days that seem to go on forever.
Of fresh strawberries and whipped cream, swimming and catching tadpoles and tiny frogs.
I remember the early days of my motherhood, of walks to the boardwalk and playing in the sand.
Lullabies and little giggles, playing in the waterspout and having riding the carousel at the park.

I recall these memories out of time, I can relive them in a moment.
I see my children as they laugh and cry, play and work over the years as they have grown.
Yet I don't remember growing old myself, as I've watched them mature and go off on their own.
Following the path they have chosen for now, though I've still the younger ones safe at home.
I watch as they are changing, growing and I know that it won't be too long before they too will fly off into the world on their own road.

But time for all it's forever constant, it's eternal flow... It seems ever elusive to claim.
To mark the moments and save the memories, it's all I can do.
For I feel that no matter how many things I try to fill into those moments, someday I'll have none left to use.
And all those things I've wanted, desired or needed to do will be left undone.