Military Service

I am not quite sure why or how a person's level of patriotism came to be measured by whether or not that person served his country in the military. Making such a judgment, for centuries, has concluded that on the basis of military service alone, men are therefore more patriotic than women. I am not sure I agree with that, nor am I certain that military service should be the only requirement to join the club.

There was a time, in this country, when young men were drafted into military service whether they wanted to serve their country or not. Forced patriotism, so to speak, begs the question, if you force someone to be patriotic, are they really patriotic?

There was also a time in this country, when the judicial system offered four years of military service in lieu of jail time. Now, I am not in favor of bringing back the draft. I am, however, in favor of bringing back the military option for first time non-violent criminals, like illegal aliens.

There is a difference between forcing a person to serve in the military and offering them the option of serving in the military in lieu of something else. Critics will say what they have always said, the U.S. will end up with nothing more than an army made up of illegal aliens and other various and asundry criminals.

Those critics better watch out. Iraq and Afghanistan have proven, if nothing else, that the good old U.S. of A. still produces some mighty fine patriots, home grown, good citizens, top of the line patriots, who are fully capable of showing those who are less patriotic, exactly how it's done.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Anarchy

By definition, anarchy is not chaos, but rather a lack of leadership. People who are not in favor of anarchy tend to believe that anarchy will lead to chaos.

It is an unfortunate truth that in every society there is a criminal element. It is the criminal element that necessitates a form of government. Somebody has to deal with the murderers and rapists. Not everyone is capable of defending themselves. Think about the elderly and the handicapped.

If anarchists were to compromise by admitting their position is unrealistic, they might make good Republicans. After all, the Republican Party traditionally stands for less government and lower taxes.

There is a way to accomplish the common goals of both the Anarchists and the Republicans. It's called voting and it starts on the local level. If you truly want less government in your life, then you have to keep up with the government in your town. Laws vary from city to city and state to state and the reason for that is because of people who vote in their local elections. That is why some cities allow the sale of alcohol and some don't.

Whether you are for or against anything, if it is an issue in your community, the first thing you have to do is know about it. It is your responsibility to know when your local elections are held and what items are on the agenda. If there is nothing on the agenda you care about then fine, don't vote. If, however, there is anything on the agenda you are either for or against, then let your voice be heard where it matters, at the polls.

Now I've hesrd a lot of people say one vote doesn't matter. Well guess what, when thousands of people, who each have one vote, believe one vote doesn't matter, then you have thousands of votes and thousands of votes do matter!

For those of you who vote in your local elections regularly and still don't believe your vote matters, then perhaps it is time for you to step up to the plate and be a community organizer. Help get out the vote in your town. Find those other voices that are just like yours on your block or in your neighborhood. Maybe someone simply needs a ride or a voters registration card.

If you vote, you have the right to complain, however, complaining won't really change anything. If you truly believe in what you say believe in, then do something to promote your agenda besides complaining.

One person can make a difference, but of course, to be that person, you can't be lazy.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Community Organizers

By definition, a community is a group of people that live in the same place, under the same laws. That would seem to suggest that the smallest community to organize is the family that lives under the same roof.

It takes a certain amount of skill to organize a family. There are work schedules and school schedules to balance, meals to prepare and eat, social activities and obligations to be met, bills to pay, errands to run, a household to manage. Parents are in fact community organizers of a sort.

To be an effective community organizer one must, therefore, keep up with what is going on in one's community. To be a good citizen one must also keep up with what is going on in one's community. To raise good citizens, parents have to help educate their children about their local government.

Community activities are a good place to start. I know there are only so many hours in a day and most of us are busy attending to the needs of our families, but attending local parades can be a form of cheap family entertainment.

People with internet access really have no excuse for not knowing what events are taking place in their communities and when because most communities have websites that announce such things.

It doesn't cost anything to take your children to a city council meeting and let them experience first hand how their local government operates. Of course, I'm not talking about infants or toddlers. Nor are you required to go to every city council meeting. But is one city council meeting per year really out of the question?

Yes, it does take a little effort to keep up with local elections, but knowing when they take place and taking children with you to vote is one way for parents to lead by example. After all, community organizers for Barack Obama focused their attention on getting people to vote and look what they helped accomplish.

Schools can educate students on the basics of how government works, but teachers cannot tell your children what you support or don't support or why. Only you can teach your children that.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=valleyranchlady1" target="_top">

Free Counter

California

It seems to me, after thoughtful reflection, that smokers have at least two things in common with gay people. Both groups pay higher taxes, smokers have an exorbitant sales tax on tobacco products, and gay people are denied marital options on their income tax. Smokers and gay people face similar discrimination when it comes to health insurance also.

On the political level gay rights are about money, and those issues should be addressed. It is an unfortunate truth, however, that there just isn't room for the gay marriage issue at the federal level at this point in time.

If you followed Barack Obama through his first 100 days, then you know he's a pretty busy guy. North Korea is being a pain and the Somali pirates have been upstaged by a Supreme Court Justice nomination. The auto industry problems are not helping Wall Street. I'm sorry gay people, but there is nothing wrong with gay marriage being decided on a State by State basis. Decisions are being made.

Compromises, however, still need to be negotiated. Perhaps states who vote against gay marriage should not be allowed to charge a state income tax. That would at least give gay people some tax relief, which is one of the things they are asking for. Sorry California.

There's a lot of talk right now about restructuring the way California operates. They might want to take a look at the money section I wrote earlier if they need a few ideas getting started, but California has a lot of creative people living there, surely they can come up with something better than another federal bailout.

I remember hearing about several states that turned down their portion of the recovery money. Perhaps we could use the money they rejected to help California. Perhaps California will legalize and tax marijuana.

Every state contributes to the federal process, but every state also has the right to it's own individuality. We don't all have to be alike. It's okay that we're different.

Gay people can get married in Vermont and Iowa and last time I checked we honor marriages from each other's states. I know that's not a perfect solution, but for right now, could we just be happy with it? Personally, I think gay people will win the battle if they simply get gay marriage to be legal in Vegas.

I will say that I do not support the issue of gay marriage on the federal level at any point in time, simply because it is not an issue that can separate church and state no matter how hard it tries. The money arguments are in fact a matter of civil rights, however, the marriage aspect is historically a religous sacrament instituted by churches. I do not believe any church should be forced or coerced into performing marriages that go against their church doctrine. You have to keep in mind that the U.S. of A. was founded on freedom of religion. The Mormons have a right to their beliefs, as do the Catholics, the Methodists, the Muslims and the Jews.

I realize some people believe being gay is a choice and some people believe being gay is matter of biology. It seems to me that being gay is much like being an alcoholic. Nobody chooses to be an alcoholic, however, a lot of people choose not to drink. Those who know they are alcoholics and choose to drink anyway suffer the consequences of their own actions.

I suppose it might be different if being gay were acceptable worldwide, but it isn't. In some countries being gay is punishable by death. Even the ancient Greeks who promoted homosexuality among men in order for older men to teach younger men about sex believed that after a certain age homosexuality was not acceptable, according to Plato's Republic. And just so we're clear, Plato's Republic was the first major work ever written on the subject of political philosophy some 2500 years ago, before the existence of Christianity.


I don't believe gay people should have to pay higher taxes, or face job discrimination, or be the victims of hate, but then I'm a smoker.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Security

When 9/11 proved that our national security was an illusion, we began to work harder to achieve as much security as we could for our country. It is much wiser to be cautious and safe, than to panic and live in fear, however, being cautious does not necessarily mean we have to be paranoid.

I don't believe many will argue that the whole Guantanamo Bay situation is a mess from start to finish, however, I also believe that all sides are to blame for the mess. An investigation, at this point, would be a waste of time and money. I blame the Bush administration for not being more discreet and promoting fear. I blame the Obama administration for making things worse by releasing memos that only prove transparency in government is a useful tool to distract the masses when you don't want them watching what you are doing, and I blame the media for having bad taste in promoting the whole sordid mess. I sincerely hope the courts have the good sense not to make pictures available to the public. No good can come from doing such a thing.

As much as I don't like the whole issue of waterboarding, the fact of the matter is that Al Jazeera, our enemies television station, broadcasts the beheading of their prisoners. I think we are by far the more civilized people and I find it very doubtful they don't already know we use waterboarding. Releasing the memos wasn't a matter of national security, it was simply a matter of poor taste.

The primary question we have to ask ourselves is do we want to wait for terrorists to come to us, or do we want to hunt them down?

If we wait for them to come to us, then we have a lot of work to do securing our borders. Just because one exercises patience doesn't mean they have a death wish. We already know what their intention is. It's up to us to prepare ourselves for their return.

If we hunt them down, then the second question becomes, what do we do with them when we catch them? The assumption is that we're hunting them, so we can find Osama Bin Laden, therefore, we kind of need to ask them what they know about him. We have to have someplace to ask our questions. Since it's not likely they want to talk to us, they might have to be our guests for awhile, unless of course we simply want to have a polite conversation and let them go on their merry way when they don't answer any of our questions or give us any useful information.

Now I admit, I'm not certain exactly what all the legal ramifications and responsibilities are in this situation, but I am fairly certain that we do have laws that only allow people in this country to be detained for questioning for a certain number of hours or days. These laws make it impossible for us to keep suspected terrorists in our police stations for any length of time, but I don't know if these laws necessarily have to apply to any of our military bases. I believe a military base of some kind is the appropriate place to put the people we catch. It isn't right to put anyone in prison that hasn't been convicted of a crime. I also think it wouldn't be a bad idea for the military to conduct terrorist trials. We all know how backed up our public courts already are. I don't believe the military has that problem.

As for which military base, I don't know. I'll leave that up to my elected officials, at least for now. I'm not sure there are many Americans who live on military bases that want the terrorists on their base, but I could be wrong. I know we have military bases in other countries, but I don't know if other countries will let us take our detainees there.

Yes, it is politically correct to use the term detainees, but the people we catch are really prisoners of war. We declared war on terrorism. We are fighting an army of terrorists. Did you really think we wouldn't take any prisoners? Do you really think using nicer words will make war more tolerable? Waterboarding may not be pretty, but think about what they do to their prisoners of war. I am by no means suggesting we stoop to their level. War will always be ugly. Deal with it. People choose to give up their civil/human rights when they choose to fly planes into buildings full of other people.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Government

The theory that supports the existence of all forms of government is that government exists in order to take care of the segment of the population over which it rules that cannot take care of themselves. Babies cannot take care of themselves. Therefore, government exists, at least in part, to take care of babies.

President Obama has proposed spending money to provide home visits to low-income, first-time parents by trained professionals.

I do not support this initiative. In the first place, this sounds to me like an increase of power for Child Protective Service agencies. They already have too much power to destroy families. The State of Texas proved that when more than 400 children were taken from their families over one phone call. If you want to arrest men for practicing polygamy because it is illegal in this country, then go for it, but do not traumatize the women and children who haven't done anything wrong. You don't have to agree with their beliefs any more than they have to agree with yours. But no one should have the right to traumatize countless families over one phone call. It's just not right.

If we want to make sure our babies are taken care of, then yes, we do need to make sure the parents have the necessary skills to accomplish this goal. I, however, believe that investing more money in public school education and community sponsored parenting classes is a better way. Keep CPS out of it.

I propose putting a daycare center in every high school and allowing students to learn first hand about child care from taking a class that will increase not only their knowledge, but their job skills. Who knows, an hour a day with real, crying, diaper changing needing babies might be a good way to help high school students decide getting pregnant isn't something they want to do while they're still in school. It's just a thought.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Reality

When looking at the big picture, reality is global. What we do will have an effect on other people in other countries. Our economic crisis proved that. What other people in other countries choose to do will have an effect on us. Cuba, Mexico, Pakistan, North Korea, China, all prove that. Still, no matter what does or doesn't happen, the worst thing we can do is panic. Swine Flu proved that.

So what do we do now? Well, first thing on my list, is pray. I pray to God, to the Universe, to whatever powers that be that might be listening. Hope requires faith of some kind and I have a lot of hope. Second thing on my list, is to take care of my own personal medical needs. If I want to be useful, then I have to be at least moderately healthy and moderately clean. What we all need to be doing now is paying attention to our own realities without fear.

I've noticed that the media uses fear to make money. I've stopped watching my local news. I don't think criminals deserve to have their names broadcast in my home. I don't want to be suportive of murderers and rapists. I don't want to be a part of their 15 minutes of fame. But that's just me. I still watch the world news. I want to keep up with what's going on in my country. But I have learned that there is such a thing as watching too much television news, so I limit myself to thirty minutes per day.

Reality is that I've got a guy that's getting paid to pay attention to the big picture for me and his name is Barack Obama. He doesn't look scared. Looks can be deceiving. That's why I keep an eye on him. He does, on occasion, get mildly annoyed with reporters. I guess that's one thing he and I have in common.

Reality's not as bad as it looks or seems. Not when you have hope, mixed with a little faith, and some self-respect thrown in for good measure. I hope I live long enough to watch my grandchildren grow up. I have faith that whatever is meant to be will be. I respect myself enough to not want to live my life in fear.

People who use fear to manipulate other people are by definition, terrorists. I don't want to be a terrorist and I don't want to know any terrorists. Just knowing that they exist inspires me to pray. People in other countries are not as fortunate as I am.

Reality is, no matter how bad things might be for people in our country, just about everybody here has it better than a lot of other people in several different countries. Reality is I live in America. I am very lucky. I just hope I remember everyday to be grateful for that.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Recovery

In February of this year, President Obama got a $787 billion stimulus package through Congress. This money is supposedly going to stimulate the economy, help the people that elected all the politicians and put our country back on track....sometime within the next 10 years.

It is interesting to note, that while this stimulus package, also referred to as The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is attached to the 2009 fiscal year budget, not all of the money will be spent in 2009.

In keeping with his promise for transparency in government, however, Barack Obama has made certain that we can all have access to where and how this money is spent.
Supposedly, if you're interested, almost every penny will be accounted for here:
http://www.recovery.gov/

If you're interested in just how much money went to each government department and how much of it they've spent so far, you can go here:
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/investments-agency

If you're interested in how much of the stimulus package was made available to your state and for what purpose, you can go here:
http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/investments-state

If you want to read the actual Recovery Act, and compare it's intent with it's actual outcome, you can go here:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1enr.pdf

If, after reading the Recovery Act you have anything to say about it, please, by all means, put your comments here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ARRA_public_review/

I heard a lot of complaints about the stimulus package in January and February, before it passed, but I haven't really heard the media report much about the actual spending of it, other than a couple of states that didn't want their share of the money. I really hope Texas does not secede from the union. I'd rather have Barack Obama as my President than Chuck Norris. No offense.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Family

Family is a good thing. We don't always think so, but it's true. All families have issues. Nobody's perfect. Our new President seems to be big on families. A large portion of his budget proposal, as well as his stimulus package is directed towards "middle-class" families. In fact, President Obama is so big on families that he put Vice-President Biden in charge of the White House Task Force on Middle-Class Working Families.

I've been wondering what the Vice-President's been up to and now I know. His task force has a website. http://www.whitehouse.gov/StrongMiddleClass/

Now the stimulus package that was passed in February supposedly contained money to subsidize COBRA insurance payments, cover the Child Tax Credit, give $2 billion to the Child Care and Development Block Grant, $1 billion to Head Start, and $1.1 billion to Early Head Start, $20 billion for Food Stamps, funding for food banks and WIC. In addition, the stimulus package included $5 billion to help low income families make their homes more energy efficient, and $3.95 billion for the Workforce Investment system,to support green job training, summer jobs for young people, and other opportunities, $25 per week for Unemployment recipients and incentives for states to expand unemployment eligibility, as well as an extra $250 payment to Social Security and SSI beneficiaries and new resources for the TANF program.

I tell you these things so you'll know what families are already supposed to be getting. The Vice-President and his task force have asked that you send them your ideas on the following subjects:

1) How can we make retirement secure?
2) How can we make child and elder care affordable?
3) How do we improve workplace safety?
4)How are we going to pay for college?
5) What can we do to help parents juggle work and family?
6) What jobs of the future can we begin to create?


No offense, but in my opinion, I think both the stimulus package and the task force failed to address the very first question they should have asked which is: How do we keep more families together?

Perhaps we might consider raising the legal age to marry to 21.

Perhaps Wal-Mart, or Target, or K-Mart, or somebody will give away board games and popcorn on "family night." After all, if Milton-Bradley really wants to promote "family-night" then they might want to consider mass give-aways of one board game to entice cash strapped families to invest in other board games.

Families that have family-night might want to invite friends or neighbors. Who knows, block parties could make a comeback.

I think I'll send some of my ideas to Mr. Biden. I hope you do the same. If we all work together, maybe we can solve all the problems. You might have the best idea. It would be a shame for you not to share it.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=valleyranchlady1" target="_top">

Free Counter

Civil Rights

In this modern era of information technology, one of President Obama's major "changes" is providing the American people with "transparency" in our government.

In order for all of us to keep up with how well he's keeping his campaign promises, the OMB website has a link to the President's agenda. This agenda is the President's list of things he wants to do while he is in office.

The first issue on President Obama's to do list is Civil Rights.

In his first 100 days in office, the President believes he made progress in the civil rights arena by signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This "act" is said to restore "basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers."

I found that interesting. In the first place, as a woman, I didn't know my basic protections needed to be restored. That would imply that at one time women apparently had these protections and then used them or damaged them in some way that they needed to be put back to their original condition.

I appreciate the President looking out for me, and I understand his drive to accomplish as much as he can in his limited time in office, but I'm not sure he did women any favors. The current job market is tough. I know people who are less concerned with pay discrimination than they are with finding a job that will keep their electricity turned on.

Minimum wage jobs look more attractive when they're about the only jobs available. Doesn't minimum wage already apply to everybody? (except migrant farm workers, of course). With so many employers going out of business these days, are there really so many women on the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, that they need Lilly Ledbetter?

Here's the kicker. For decades women have been waging a campaign for equal rights. To legally bind an employer, in the current job market, to pay a woman the same as he does a man, takes away one small edge women have in finding jobs. Good luck single moms, the job market just got tougher for you.


I think I'll keep an eye on President Obama's civil rights agenda and see what he does in the second 100 days. He intends to give the Justice Department more money to protect voting rights,and fight discriminaton in his 2010 budget. He also seems to be in favor of "Gay Rights" so he might "restore" something they don't know they've lost. That could be interesting. We shall see.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

The Cabinet

Now that the first 100 days are over, it's time for a crash course in government. We've seen what our President can be capable of, now we have to figure out exactly what we want him to do.

First, it would seem that the one thing we all agree on, is that our primary focus these next 100 days has to do with our money. We can't do anything about the past. What's done is done. Fiscal year 2009 ends September 30th. We have to have a better budget to work with in 2010.

The federal budget is our nation's list of priorities and goals. The currently proposed budget lists our priorities and goals as follows:

Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Defense
National Intelligence Program
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Department of the Interior
Department of Justice
Department of Labor
Department of State and Other International Programs
Department of Transportation
Department of the Treasury
Department of Veterans Affairs
Corps of Engineers—Civil Works
Environmental Protection Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Small Business Administration
Social Security Administration
Corporation for National and Community Service.

When any President gets elected, they have an agenda, a list of campaign promises, things they want to accomplish while they're in office, all of which are going to cost money.

One of the first things a new President has to do is hire a team of people that are going to help him achieve his goals. This team will be known as his Cabinet. These are his advisors. These are the people that will put together the numbers that tell the President how much his goals are going to cost.

Barack Obama's team of advisors are:

Vice President of the United States
Joseph R. Biden

Department of State
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton

Department of the Treasury
Secretary Timothy F. Geithner

Department of Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates

Department of Justice
Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Department of the Interior
Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar

Department of Agriculture
Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack

Department of Commerce
Secretary Gary F. Locke

Department of Labor
Secretary Hilda L. Solis

Department of Health and Human Services
Secretary-designate: Kathleen Sebelius

Department of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary Shaun L.S. Donovan

Department of Transportation
Secretary Raymond L. LaHood

Department of Energy
Secretary Steven Chu

Department of Education
Secretary Arne Duncan

Department of Veterans Affairs
Secretary Eric K. Shinseki

Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Janet A. Napolitano


The following positions have the status of Cabinet-rank:

Council of Economic Advisers
Chair Christina Romer

Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson

Office of Management & Budget
Director Peter R. Orszag

United States Trade Representative
Ambassador Ronald Kirk

United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Ambassador Susan Rice

White House Chief of Staff
Rahm I. Emanuel

Now, when talking about the budget, the guy to pay particular attention to is the Director of the Office of Management & Budget, Peter R. Orszag. Peter is not only the guy that disburses the money, he's also the guy every other department head must defend their budget to. When it comes to the budget, it's Peter's job to cover the President's derriere. Whatever makes it into our budget, has to make it past Peter first!

If you're interested in keeping up with your tax dollars, then make this one of your favorite places, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/

Mr. Orszag may well be the person to send any correspondence regarding the federal budget. At the very least, he would be one person we might want to inform of what we don't want in there. It's just a thought.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Making The Grade

Barack Obama has made it through his first 100 days in office with a five course meal on his table and the swine flu for after dinner mints. You've got to hand it to the guy, he is busy.

So what have we learned about him these past few months? Well, for starters, the guy has good manners. His manners aren't perfect, but they aren't bad. Bad manners hurt people's feelings. Hurt feelings start fights. Fights start wars. Therefore, it can be said, that bad manners start wars. President Obama seems to be doing everything in his power to keep us from getting into anymore fights. He gets an A for effort.

In the past 100 days the media has pointed out two instances where the President's manners were not flawless and unfortunately both times he was on the world stage. This effectively proves that the man is indeed human, but mistakes cost points. So, he gets a B for execution. (The media, however, gets an F, because pointing out other people's bad manners, is bad manners.)

The question to ask these next 100 days, is can the President keep up the pace?

On the budget, the President gets an F. It isn't balanced. On Guantanomo and the torture scandal, he gets a C. People are divided.

On the pirate rescue he gets an A, after all, he is the commander-in-chief and it was a Navy rescue. On North Korea, however, he gets a C. It's the one area that seemed to lack any real effort on his part.

The G20 summit gets a B. He didn't get everything he wanted, but he is the new kid on the block. Mexico gets a C. Venezuala shouldn't have been reported. All the media proved was that the President was using good manners and they faulted him for it. I think the media deserves a penalty for causing an unnecessary uproar, so let's see 1000 public service announcements on good manners in the next 100 days.

All in all the Presidents report card isn't that bad but it could be better. He gets two A's, two B's, three C's and 1 F which averages out to a B-. Let's hope he gets better at balancing the budget in the next 100 days. The first semester of his freshman year ends August 8th.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Labor

After researching only three of our federal departments, I have come to the conclusion, that the reason our country is a mess, is because our government is organizationally challenged.

First, we have the food stamp program under the Department of Agriculture. The problem with that of course is the fact that nobody applies for food stamps at the Department of Agriculture. Food Stamp applications are handled by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Second, we have the National Weather Service under the Department of Commerce, which, in my opinion, belongs under the Department of the Interior. Commerce needs to focus on the economy.

Third, we have the Department of Labor, whose budget is more difficult to follow than the Department of Commerce. Now it's understandable that the Department of Labor would handle things like unemployment and minimum wage and workplace safety, but in fiscal year 2009, their budget included $40 million to combat employer income tax evasion.

No wonder companies get out of paying their taxes. It's not the job of the IRS to go after them, it's the job of the Department of Labor!

The other interesting thing about the budget for the Department of Labor is that it has a whole bunch of job training and grant programs with million dollar budgets, and zero participants. If nobody is participating in these programs, why do we have budgets for them? And what happens to the money that gets budgeted, but obviously doesn't get spent where it's supposed to?

It seems to me, the Department of Labor would be a good place to start making deductions from the federal budget. It doesn't appear that they really need the entire $59 billion we gave them. Besides, one would think that job training programs would belong under the Department of Education. I'm wondering if maybe the Department of Labor's job training programs have no participants because no one that needs them knows they exist.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Privacy

A lot of people have been talking about transparency in government here lately. So one of the things I have been watching these first 100 days is the concept of transparency in government in action and the conclusion I have come to, so far, is that transparency in government seems to prove that there is no constitutional right to privacy.

The right to privacy, at least in this country, has always been an illusion. There is no actual mention of a right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution. Over the years, some Supreme Court Justices have used certain ammendments to the constitution to infer the right to privacy through an expectation of privacy in cases of doctor/patient confidentiality, lawyer/client privilege, husband/wife relationships and in some cases Alcoholics Anonymous group meetings. But as of yet, individuals have no right to privacy.

Think about it. A constitutional right to privacy would effectively put an end to the papparazzi. One would think, George Clooney would be leading Hollywood to amend the constitution. Celebrities seem to be very vocal about their political beliefs, yet they prefer to complain than support obvious choices. I do hope they actually vote.

Today we see transparency in government at work in the recently released torture memos. I think some of the uproar over these memos is unnecessary. I've known about waterboarding being used at Guantanamo for at least a couple of years now, thanks to the media. I'm sure our enemies have known about it at least as long. If they're going to use that information as propoganda against us, I'm sure they were using it long before now.

What disturbs me in all this discussion of the torture memos is that some people want to go after the people that authorized the use of torture. I wish the President had not flip-flopped on this issue, but stood his ground against doing such a thing.
The last thing our Congress needs to be doing right now, is dealing with the past. We need them to deal with the present. Congressional hearings on who knew what when will not balance the budget.

Congressional hearings on who knew what when will effectively put an end to some people's privacy. If you put an end to their privacy, how long will it take for you to decide to do away with my privacy?

Just because I am an average citizen who enjoys a modicum of privacy, due in large part to the fact that nobody particularly knows or cares who I am, it does not mean that I have a right to that privacy. My privacy can be taken away at any time the media or the government so chooses.

Congressional hearings take up a lot of time and distract our elected officials from getting a lot of other work done. What's done is done. We can't untorture anybody. We are at war. The President of The United States is our elected Commander-in-Chief. He has to make the tough decisions. He had lawyers advising him on the legality of everything our side did to the other side. Now I'm not sure, but I would think that the President of the United States would have the best legal minds in our country as his legal advisors. If they said it was legal, which apparently they did, then I trust they looked at every legal loophole and have the President's back covered. That's their job.

What we did may well be immoral, but it was not illegal. We are at war. The other side isn't worried about what they do to their prisoners of war. They chop off people's heads and televise it. I think we have a way to go before we sink to their level.

I'm in favor of walking away from investigating the torture memos any further. We have a new Commander-in-Chief already. He has different legal advisors I'm sure. So it would seem that every one involved in the upper level management positions, who approved of the enhanced methods of interrogation, no longer have their jobs.

Do we really want to spend our money investigating this any further? I mean, we are the ones, that pay the taxes, that pay the salaries of the congressmen and women who will be conducting the hearings. Do we have money in the budget for that? I wonder which departments budget such hearings would be listed under?

Transparency in government is all well and good, but I would much prefer to have a constitutional right to privacy. Thank you.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Commerce

Okay, show of hands. Who here knew that the national weather service is listed under the Department of Commerce? I must say, the budget for the Department of Commerce is not nearly as user friendly as the budget for the Department of Agriculture. I did, however, learn a few things by looking at it.

The Department of Agriculture has a $95 billion budget. The Department of Commerce has an $8.2 billion budget. I guess not all departments are equal.

The Commerce Department has the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which collects about $2 million in fees and doesn't need any more money to operate because if they did they wouldn't have a budget amount of $0 I'm sure.

The Commerce Department is also in charge of the digital t.v. switch, which has a $2 million budget, and the 2010 Census which has $2 billion dollars being spent on it this 2009 fiscal year and the Office of the Inspector General who gets $23 million. It is, however, interesting to note that while the Commerce Department is responsible for U.S. Travel and Tourism, their current budget isn't spending any money in this area. I guess there's no point in promoting travel and tourism when so few have the money to travel. That makes sense.

After looking over the budget for the Commerce Department I came to the conclusion that maybe they don't have a big enough budget. Agriculture gets $95 billion, Commerce gets $8.2 billion. The primary goal of the budget of the Department of Commerce, however, is, " to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity by promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and stewardship." The Commerce Department is responsible for the economy! I don't know about you, but I'm thinking maybe the budget for the Department of Commerce ought to be at least equal to the budget for food stamps. If the Commerce Department spent more money on entrepreneurship, (helping create paying jobs) then perhaps the food stamp budget would go down. It's just a thought.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=valleyranchlady1" target="_top">

Free Counter

Term Limits

Our founding fathers gave a lot of time and attention to covering as many topics as they thought necessary, when they drafted our constitution. Our President is elected every four years, while Senators and Congressmen are elected either every six years or every two years. The length of the terms were determined before an election ever took place. The number of times the same person was eligible to be elected has only since been determined for the office of President.

Why were the founding fathers so nitpicky about some things, like freedom of speech, and so uninterested in official term limits? Well, 240 years ago, being a politician was not a career choice, but a community service. There was actually a time when the members of Congress were lucky if they got reimbursed for travelling expenses.

My how times have changed. I have heard a lot of people arguing in recent days in favor of term limits for Senators and Congressmen. I haven't heard any politicians supporting the idea though. Of course, they wouldn't. Who in their right mind would support only being able to have their own job for a limited amount of time. I'm fairly certain no President ever suggested limiting his office to two terms in a row.
That suggestion had to come from Congress.

So people, if you're truly in favor of term limits, then individual states are going to have to pass their own laws on the subject. You can't look to the President to support the idea. He has to work with those guys. How likely are they to help him accomplish his agenda if he wants to put an end to their jobs? That would effectively put an end to any hope of bipartisanship during this administration.

I myself am in favor of term limits, but I'm not certain exactly what they should be. Congress has a pretty sweet retirement deal. So how long should they have to work before they're eligible for it? 8 years? 12 years? 20 years like the rest of us?

If we set short term limits, how would we get rid of their retirement benefits? I mean, I always thought retirement was associated with age. Should we only give retirement benefits to those who serve their terms between the ages of 45-65? 52-72?

Until the time we have term limits there's really only two things we can do. We can decide for ourselves what we think the term limits should be and follow that in our voting practices. If you think a Senator should only be in office for twelve years, then go vote against someone who's been a Senator longer than that.

Secondly, we can contact our local legislatures and have them put federal term limits on our state ballots. Most telephone books contain a section of blue pages. Your local representatives should be listed there. Remember to be nice and mind your manners when asking them how to put federal term limits on your state's ballots, so you and your neighbors can vote on them. Term limits might even be an issue that will encourage voter turnout in your area.

We not only have a right to vote, we have the responsibility to vote what we believe.



Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Marijuana

Wow, I never knew April 20th was the official/unofficial Marijuana holiday. There's even a beauty contest in New York to crown, "Ms. High Times." Hippies from the 60's should be proud. Medical marijuana is legal in 12 states. And with all the recent bailouts legalizing and taxing marijuana sales is fast becoming a hot political topic.

Now I know there are those that consider marijuana to be a gateway drug, but I'm not sure legalizing marijuana is going to increase the sales of cocaine from Mexico.

If marijuana is legalized here, then we could grow it here and effectively cut out the need to import it, while still beefing up security along the Mexican border to stop cocaine smuggling. Legalizing one does not necessarily mean we're going to legalize the other.

If we processed marijuana, like tobacco, and packaged it similarly, that would create jobs. People with jobs pay income tax. People who smoke marijuana would pay sales tax. Clearly we aren't going to keep people from smoking marijuana or we would have accomplished that by now. History has proven that the prohibition of something doesn't really work. That doesn't mean we have to legalize everything, it simply means sometimes we're faced with tough decisions and we have bills we need to pay.

If we overhaul the food stamp program and move it to the Department of Health and Human Services, then the Department of Agriculture could manage marijuana growth and distribution. They could keep it from being laced with other drugs.

The legalizing of medical marijuana in 12 states pretty much proves legalizing marijuana is going to be done on a state by state basis. States who have turned down federal money may find taxing marijuana useful. States with double digit unemployment may find creating jobs similar to the tobacco industry useful.
Not to mention what legalizing marijuana would do for our prison system and its overcrowding problems.

Smoking marijuana doesn't make a person a bad citizen any more than having a glass of wine at dinner would make someone a bad citizen, if marijuana were legal. It's the breaking of laws that make people bad citizens. Maybe it's time we changed some of our laws and helped bad citizens be better. None of our citizens are ever going to be perfect. We're all human. We're going to make mistakes. Do we really have to make it so hard for people who prefer smoking to drinking to be good citizens? After all, in my opinion, marijuana is the lesser of the two evils. I've done my time as the battered wife of an alcoholic, but I've never known anyone to get violent smoking marijuana.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Agriculture

The first 100 days of our new administration will end April 30th. It's been relatively easy to keep up with what the President is doing, not so easy to keep up with his cabinet. Researching the Department of Agriculture gave me a headache.

In the first place, the Department of Agriculture has a $95 billion dollar budget for the 2009 fiscal year. $23 billion of which is discretionary funds. The biggest chunk of their budget, according to the pie charts on their website, 63%, goes to nutrition assistance. ($59.85 billion and please feel free to check my math because according to my calculations, their budget doesn't add up.)

Of the $59.85 billion dollars, $6.3 billion goes to WIC, (Good program I wholeheartedly support), $40.2 billion goes to food stamps, (Good program that completely needs overhauled.), and 15.3 billion to child nutrition, which to the best of my research goes to the school lunch programs across the country. The only problem with that is that those three figures total $61.8 billion, which is 65% of the budget.

Okay, I can't exactly blame a new administration for mathematical errors made by the previous administration. If I'm not mistaken, the 2009 fiscal year started in September of 2008, two months before the election.

Now I am all in favor of the WIC program and the school lunch program and I understand why these programs fall under the Department of Agriculture. I even understand why the food stamp program is listed here, although, in my opinion, it shouldn't be.

The food stamp program needs to be overhauled, and turned into the necessities stamp program. Currently, people on food stamps can buy, candy, and soda pop, but they can't buy toilet paper or toothpaste. Congress wants to put a "health" tax on soda pop in an effort to help our country's obesity problem and raise money to help cover the cost of the recent bailouts, which is all well and good, except people on food stamps don't pay tax on what they buy with food stamps. Think about it, food stamps are tax dollars. You can't pay taxes with taxes. That means there will still be a percentage of the population who will be allowed to get fat while spending taxpayers dollars, simply because the system is screwy. It's not their fault. Ask any mother on food stamps which she would rather have the ability to buy, soda pop or diapers, laundry soap or candy, potato chips or cleaning supplies.


I had hoped President Obama would appoint Mitt Romney to overhaul the food stamp program. He is the obvious choice. Mitt Romney knows about "The Bishops Storehouse." Our government might want to check out "The Bishops Storehouse." It's much more in line with what we're trying to do through the food stamp program than what we are actually accomplishing.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Confession

People are funny when it comes to politics. There are those who don't discuss politics because of the inevitable arguments the subject leads to. There are those who will hold the party line like a dog with a bone. And then there are those whose last resort is always a Bible verse.

Having taken theology courses at a private Catholic University I am well aware that one can make the Bible say anything you want it to, although I learned the basics of how to do that as a Baptist in my childhood.

What I didn't learn in my childhood was good manners. Yes, my parents loved me. They worked hard and did the best they could, but my parents could not teach me things they did not know. I in turn had children to whom I passed on the manners that I had, but could not teach them things I did not know.

Until about five years ago I thought I had good manners. At the very least I believed my manners were adequate, and then I checked out some books at the library by Judith Martin. I was shocked to learn just how bad my manners actually were. There was so much I did not know.

When I started to work on changing my bad manners I began to notice just how many people around me also had bad manners. It was like an epidemic. I can say, from experience, that it is difficult to teach yourself good manners. The best you can do is find people who have good manners and hang out with them, so you can practice.

Because I educated myself on the subject of manners, I can see now why there were jobs I didn't get, relationships that didn't work out, trouble I got into unintentionally.

Manners are by definition the social rules of conduct of a culture and they are varied in different parts of the world. Manners are standards by which we are measured. I didn't invent them. They were already established when I got here.

The point is, I didn't learn good manners at home and I wasn't taught good manners at school, so I don't have good manners. I am not the only one. It seems to me, there are a lot of people in the same boat. I'm not here to pass judgment. I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen to my grandchildren.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Budgets

I have to admit, President Obama doesn't just have a full plate, he's working on a five course meal.

Guantanamo, the Auto Industry and Cabinet selections are his appetizers. They're followed by a hearty soup of North Korean missiles, Somalian Pirates and Mexican Drug Wars. His entree is a plate piled high with unemployent, budget, and other assorted economic problems, along with gay marriage and stem cell research. A salad of talks with Cuba, Iran, and Turkey. And for dessert, he has our involvement in two ongoing wars. Condiments are provided by England, France, Germany, Russia and China. And let us not forget, that in the midst of all this, we're going to give money to Haiti.


I think it's time we send Suze Orman to Washington.

As an American, I think it's time I learned more about our nation's budget. I'm not entirely sure that the people I voted into office are accurately representing the budget I'd like to see for our country.

In the first place, I've never heard an exact figure of how much money our federal government is actually collecting. According to Suze Orman, a budget begins with an actual amount of income.

Now some of us believe in tithing and some of us don't, but all good citizens do believe in giving back something, either a financial donation to a charity or volunteer work of some kind. So taking 10% of our federal budget and allocating it for federal charity work is the right thing to do. I'd like to know if giving money to Haiti puts us over the 10% mark or if we have money left to give to other countries.

Spending the rest of our income is a matter of priorities. I think Suze Orman might be helpful with that. She's very good at explaining the difference between a necessity, like housing, and a luxury, like eating out. She's also good at teaching people how to get out of debt and with the recent bailouts, I don't think anybody can deny that we, as a country, are deeply in debt. According to Newt Gingrich, in about two more weeks, we will have spent all the money we are going to collect, for this year.

I'd like to see the news media pay more attention to budgets, federal, state and local. According to Suze Orman, I need to know where all my money is going in order to make an effective budget. We collect taxes and fines and license fees. Where exactly does all that money go? How can an average American see a copy of his or her local, state and federal budgets? How can we tell our representatives where to spend our money if we don't know how much we have and where we're spending it now?

Now I am aware that the federal budget, when printed, could not possibly be delivered to citizens through the U.S. mail. Perhaps Congress could condense it with the help of Suze Orman. If not, then maybe she, or someone else could do a television series that explains the federal budget to the American people. I simply nominate Suze Orman because she has integrity, doesn't owe any back taxes, she isn't in debt. She's trustworthy, as far as I know.

It is the philosophy of this blog, that in order to have a federal budget that is balanced, the American people need to be more involved in getting the job done.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Manners

I admit I have my critics, who think that things like manners and good citizenship completely miss the point and won't solve many of the problems we have today. To them I say, you're absolutely right. When looking at the big picture, in the grand scheme of things, good manners and good citizenship seem relatively insignificant. You also know, however, that looks can be deceiving.

Jaywalking and littering are relatively insignificant crimes. But statistically speaking, doesn't breaking insignificant laws make it easier to decide in favor of breaking more significant laws? Jaywalking and littering aren't just crimes, they're also bad manners.

There is a link between crime and bad manners. Unfortunately, history has proven that rehabiliting criminals is a lot harder than we thought it would be. Prisons really aren't an effective place to teach good manners. Elementary schools, on the other hand, stand a decent chance of making a difference.

People with good manners make good citizens. Good citizens don't commit crimes. To have a better country, we have to have better citizens. If you don't believe this is true, then take a look around at other governments around the world whose employees are more corrupt than ours are.

The future leaders of our country are going to come from among the citizens we are educating now. Our future bankers, our future teachers, our future scientists, our future doctors, are all going to come from the citizens we are educating now.

Since the 1960's our manners have consistently deteriorated. Did the cost of the Vietnam War include our nations collective self-respect?

I know that as a country, we have a lot of serious problems to solve. We have a lot of decisions to make and a lot of options to choose from. Some of our goals need to be short term and others need to be long term. I am simply putting manners out there as a viable option to solving some of the problems.

It is the philosophy of this blog, that our current situation proves The Department of Education needs to do some serious work on our school curriculums. Manners and Citizenship do need to be taught in elementary schools across this country. Classes on credit need to be taught in junior highs and middle schools. High school dropouts need to know they have a FICO score before they trash it.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

a href="http://easyhitcounters.com/stats.php?site=valleyranchlady1" target="_top">

Free Counter

Wall Street

I'm not exactly sure who Dow Jones is. I've never seen a picture of him. I do, however, hear his name a lot in regards to the stock market.

If you want to know how things got this bad you have to pay attention to the stock market. Our bankers not only took advantage of us, they took advantage of people in foreign countries. Our problems went global.

The G20 Summit was a good idea. Having a G20 is a good idea. Someone has to negotiate the protection of our form of government. Not everybody likes us.

The stock market, as I see it, is legalized gambling at its' finest. You start with a company. That company decides to expand, but doesn't have the money. They need investors who are willing to give them money. Now this company has been in business for several years. They provide a service that has a lot of potential for growth. They make a good profit. If they had the money to expand they could make an even bigger profit and share it with their stock holders. So the company decides to go public. They go through the process to get listed on The New York Stock Exchange, a.k.a. The Dow Jones.

Selling stock in their company is how the company raises the money they need to do whatever it is they want to do. People who buy the stock become shareholders in the company. If and when the company continues to grow and make a profit the stock will go up in value. A shareholder can sell his stock at any time the value of the stock goes up or down. The length of the investment and the amount of profit or loss you make determines what kind of investor you are.

I have to say, that for people like me, who knew relatively little about the stock market before it collapsed, the best place to learn about the stock market and whether or not you'd make a good investor is wallstreetsurvivor.com.

Before I put any of my own money into the stock market I want to know if I really need someone else to tell me which stocks to buy. Some stocks are relatively cheap these days, like General Motors for instance. A person can buy as little as $10 worth of stock at a time online and invest in their future, which is also the future of our country. We are all connected by citizenship.

While it is true that some people lost a lot of money on bad investments in the stock market that is only because they put a lot of money into it. Rule #1 in gambling, is never bet more than you can afford to lose.

President Obama has encouraged people who can afford it to begin investing in the stock market again. Maybe when I have $10 I can afford to lose I'll take him up on it. The stock market is more expensive than a lottery ticket, but less expensive than a trip to Vegas. Unless you're a day trader, however, the stock market isn't a place you're going to get a whole lot of instant gratification. Wise investors only put money in the stock market that they can afford to leave there for a minimum of five years.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Trust

We talk a lot about trust in this country. You can't have a good relationship without it. Yes, you can have a relationship without trust, but it won't be a very good one. A lot of us don't trust our government right now, so today I'd like to share with you my favorite quote from The Federalist Papers,written by three of our founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, it says, "If men we're angels, there would be no need for government."

If you don't trust anything else, you can trust that statement. It's a fact. We need government.

We need school systems and police forces. The postal service is fast becoming obsolete, however. I'm not really going to miss one less day of bills and junk mail when they cut out mail delivery one day a week. Maybe there are some other places we could make adjustments to help offset the expenses of paying people to do all those other jobs.

We need government because we are not angels. People have beeen taking advantage of other people since the beginning of time. We're not born trustworthy, it's something we have to become.

People we don't trust, we don't usually want to vote for. People who sling mud in campaign commercials can't be trusted. They're gossips. Gossips can't be trusted. They can't keep a secret. They ruin reputations. They're mean. There's more to being trustworthy than just telling the truth.

By definition, gossip is what you do any time you say anything bad about anyone. It doesn't matter if it's true. It's still gossip. Rumors are not true. Gossip and rumors are not the same thing. Spreading rumors is a second form of gossip. There is more than one kind. People who gossip are using bad manners.

Barack Obama didn't sling a lot of mud. That made him the most trustworthy candidate for president we've seen in some time. His election proved that if you want people to get out and vote, then you have to give them someone they want to vote for.

We complain about all the campaign promises that politicians don't keep, but we do the same thing. We tell our kids we'll do things we don't ever get around to doing. We promise to fix things around the house that don't get fixed.

Perhaps we don't trust politicians because we can't trust ourselves. We can't be trusted. We gossip. We sling mud. We don't keep our word. If we want trustworthy politicians, then we have to be trustworthy people. It's okay that none of us were born trustworthy. It gives all of us something in common to aspire to.

Our government is made up of the people. Our government is run by the people. Our government works for the people. We are the people. Whatever is wrong with our government is wrong with us.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Waste

As musch as spending money we don't have put us in this situation, being wasteful also put us here. Just about everyone accuses our government of being wasteful, and as I said earlier, a government cannot be any better than the quality of its' citizens.

Very few of us don't waste electricity. Anyone here ever leave a light turned on in an empty room? A televison nobody's watching? We waste water. We waste gasoline. We waste food. Some of us our running out of places to put our garbage. If we don't want our government to be as wasteful as we are, then we have to stop being wasteful.

Now, I'm not really all that big of an environmentalist, but I do have some concerns about how running out of places to put our garbage might effect my grandchildren. People who recycle are good citizens. Some of us would like to recycle but we don't have that option. We live in apartments or small towns, places that don't have easy access to recycling bins. I do hope President Obama considers spending "green" money to change that. I also hope my government recycles.

Being too lazy to recycle will result in a lot of people being needed to do their community service at their local dump. Dead Beat Dads perhaps. Dealing with trash may not be a national problem right now, but do we really ever want it to be? Those of us who are over the age of 21 have fully developed human brains that should be able to reason out the consequences of our actions.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Neighbors

There seem to be two extremely opposite philosophies when it comes to determining the qualities of a good neighbor. One philosophy believes it is best to, "Mind Your Own Business." The other philosophy thinks good neighbors mind everybody else's business. So please, let me set the record straight.

Good neighbors don't gossip. By definition, a gossip is someone who,"habitually reveals personal or sensational facts, rumors, or reports of an intimate nature." Please notice that the word fact is used in the definition. It doesn't have to be a lie to be gossip.

Gossip adds to people's problems and pretty much everybody has enough problems. Gossip can ruin people's reputations and start arguments. When you gossip you are showing your bad manners. People who gossip cannot be trusted. If you are going to mind everybody else's business, then you cannot be the one that spreads gossip. You don't have to get arreseted to earn the right to remain silent. Good neighbors are helpful, not hurtful. Good neighbors are good citizens.

It is unfortunate that so many of us learn our manners by watching television.

I suppose being neighborly falls under the Department of Homeland Security as well as the State Department when we discuss being neighborly as a nation.

The drug wars going on at our borders with Mexico are not neighborly. It's rude and disrespectful to take your fight to somebody else's home. It might be time for us to employ our National Guard as bouncers at our borders. The Border Patrol isn't as effective as we would like them to be. Rather than hire more Border Patrol agents it might be a good idea to replace the Border Patrol with the National Guard. The name "National Guard" kind of implies they're the ones that are supposed to be guarding our nation. If we're going to keep sending them to other parts of the world, shouldn't they be called the "International Guard"?

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Preparedness

There is a philosophy in this country that promotes the motto, "Be Prepared." This is the philosophy that invented savings accounts. Unfortunately a lot of people just lost their savings. That does not necessarily mean that being prepared is a bad idea.

Being prepared involves a lot more than just money. There is a big difference between hoarding and being prepared. The difference is called organization. Hoarders are not usually well organized. Being prepared means having a plan. You have to be organized in order to be prepared.

At least one religious organization, that I know of, promotes what is called a 72 hour kit. The idea behind this kit is that at some point in time, you may need to leave your home in a hurry, usually due to weather conditions such as hurricanes and tornadoes. In case of evacuation it is good to have a backpack ready with three days of supplies that include food, clothes and toiletries.

Good citizens might want to prepare for such weather events. Good citizens that know about preparedness events at their local churches might want to spread the word.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Internal Revenue Service

Has anyone noticed how many people President Obama picked to be in his cabinet that have tax problems? I wonder how many of those people would have paid their back taxes if they weren't picked for cabinet posts. Now I don't believe the President deliberately picked people with tax problems. I think more people owe taxes than just the ones we hear about on the news.

It seems to me that the Internal Revenue Service is falling down on the job.This may be one area where we need to work on our cash flow. Good citizens pay their taxes. They don't necessarily like to pay their taxes, but they do it anyway. We should not put people in high government offices that are not good citizens. People who do not have their taxes in order should not be allowed to run for any government office.

Perhaps the Internal Revenue Service is in need of more people to collect taxes. No, being a tax collector isn't a job a lot of people want to do. Most people don't even want to think about seeing an increase in job availability at the IRS, but if our federal budget is based on income tax, then doesn't it stand to reason that the federal government is spending money they don't have if they don't collect it? Isn't spending money we don't have why were in this mess?

What would be the point of raising taxes on the wealthy if you aren't going to collect the taxes you're already owed? Which is not to say that the wealthy are the only ones that owe back taxes or that all the wealthy owe back taxes. A lot of companies owe back taxes too. The point is that it's not about bigger government or higher taxes. It's about making the government we already have more effective. It is highly unlikely we will ever be able to balance a budget that consists of spending money we don't actually get. Unless, of course, someone invents a new way of doing math.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Foreign Policy

I admit I was an avid supporter of Hillary Clinton for President. I was disappointed she didn't get elected. I am, however, happy to see her as our new Secretary of State.

That being said, there's no excuse for giving a Russian dignitary a reset button with the word reset misspelled on it in Russian.

Yes, the job of Secretary of State is a daunting position. You have to deal with dignitaries from every other country and then deal with David Letterman at home. You can't catch a break. People are fighting everywhere and it's your job to try and help put some of the fires out. But every good secretary knows you have to pay attention to details or you will lose your job. That's embarrassing.

It is no excuse, however, not to give Hillary Clinton her first 100 days. She is new to this particular job. She has experience with the amount of travel involved, and she knows the players, but being a secretary is different from being the boss's wife. Give her time to get adjusted.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Women

Women of America, we are not off the hook. As far as citizenship goes, we dropped the ball big time. Without us, there would be no Dead Beat Dads! Without us, there would be no pregnant teenagers. We have to do better at choosing our mates.

You cannot tell what kind of father a man will be until he actually is a father. You can, however, figure out what kind of mate he will be by what kind of citizen he is. Good male citizens practice the fine art of self-control. They do not commit acts of violence on fellow citizens, male or female. Good male citizens take no for an answer. They might not like it, but they respect you enough not to even try to talk you into anything.

Unfortunately, not all acts of violence that take place in our country are commited by men. Women sometimes have difficulty taking no for an answer too.

Women need to have better self-control and more self-respect. Women need to learn about manners. There's a lot more to manners than how you eat at the table. By learning to practice good manners, you learn self-control.

Yes, I know, mothers cannot teach their children what they do not know. You may not even know you have bad manners. Lack of education shows up in a variety of places. The notion that all parents possess the necessary knowledge to teach their children good manners is a false assumption. People who have good manners know that it is bad manners to point out bad manners to other adults. Unfortunately, by using good manners, they're keeping a lot of important information to themselves. Thank goodness we have "Miss Manners," or we'd have no place to turn for help.

It doesn't matter if you wear pants, or your hair's cut short, or you have a more dominant nature, than a feminine one. The point is good manners are possessed by all ladies and gentlemen. Women who don't have good manners, do not get the respect they deserve. Along with good hygiene and clean living space, self-respect is a matter of manners. Unfortunately, they don't really teach classes on manners in school. Yet another argument in favor of citizenship classes. By definition, manners are the social cutoms of a society. If good manners disappear, will the society also disappear? It would seem we are on the path to finding out.

Parents are supposed to be the ones who teach their children manners. The society we have today shows what happens when a large amount of people did not have parents who were educated in this department. Oprah could devote an entire month of shows to this topic. People seem to pay attention to her. She could pick a Judith Martin book for her book club. Teachers could make Judith Martin books assigned reading in their English classes. After all, Judith Martin is an American author who needs to get at least as much exposure as Mark Twain.

It is the philosophy of this blog that good manners are the foundation of diplomacy, which in turn is the foundation of foreign policy. Good manners are how you show people that you have respect for yourself and respect for them as well.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Men

Our country has a large amount of good male citizens. Some men are even great citizens. It is, however, the men who are not good citizens that helped contribute to our country's current situation.

Dead Beat Dads are another major factor in the spending of money we don't have. They are primary contributors to the need for a national welfare system. They are all over this country.

Dead Beat Dads are not good citizens. Some men deliberately do not pay their child support and some men want to pay their child support but cannot afford it.

The amounts of child support set in court are fair, however, we might get more accomplished if non-payment of child support were not a go to jail offense. Our prisons are overcrowded. Non-payment of child support is not a violent offense.

We can't make people care about their kids, but we can encourage them to do so. We can commute their child support payments into community service and make them work it off. At least this way we would get something back for the state paid child support given to the mothers. It might also cut down on the need to hire more people to work in State Attorney General's offices to enforce child support orders.

If given this opportunity, some men may volunteer to work off their child support payments. You can't get blood out of a turnip. Just because the amount of child support is fair does not mean all men can afford to pay it. Remember all those male high school drop outs? Minimum wage jobs barely pay the rent.

The possibility of prison doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent for dead beat dads. If we have them do community service we might end up having some better citizens, although men who actually can afford to pay their child support should not have this option.

In addition, men who do their community service may actually end up staying in the same town as their children and using their visitation rights rather than running from the law. Which means we would not only have better citizens for our communities but fewer absentee fathers for our children.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Money

With citizenship comes responsibilities. Everything costs money and the money has to come from somewhere and nobody wants to pay more taxes. There are, however, things that could be taxed that aren't, like divorces. A lot of people complain about the high rate of divorce in this country, taxes might be one way to stop that. After all, high cigarette taxes will supposedly make people quit smoking. How about a wedding tax on weddings that don't take place in churches?

We could expand the "sin" tax and include rap music. I'm all for freedom of speech until it gets vulgar. Musicians that want to record and release vulgar lyrics could pay a tax for that privilege and people that buy that stuff could pay a higher sales tax as well.

There could be an R-rated movie tax, a Victoria's Secret tax, and a "sinful business" tax for Playboy and Hustler and other assorted magazines.

Do current luxury taxes include spa treatments or gym memberships or designer jeans? I know our collective government has to be more creative than they're letting on. If we spread the taxes out, then no one single group of taxpayers has to shoulder the tax burden. It also gives the American taxpayer the ability to choose which taxes he/she wants to pay.

Food and clothing items less than $20 should be tax exempt. We have to eat and we have to wear clothes. We don't necessarily have to wear designer clothes, but we do have to wear clothes and so do our children.

There should not be a "fat" tax anymore than there should be a gay tax, or a black tax, or any other kind of tax of that nature. Taxes should be on things, not on people. People pay the taxes,things do not.

All the money doesn't have to come from taxes. We could start imposing fines on people who don't vote. Now there's a cure for voter apathy. It won't necessarily be a go to jail offense, unless of course you don't pay the fine or do the community service. People who are too lazy to vote probably don't devote much of their time to community service voluntarily. They're the ones that are going to make our recovery process take longer. At $25 a ticket, not voting in local, state and federal elections might speed things up. It may not give us a 100% voter turnout rate, but at least people who don't vote will be contributing to the process. This may also be a way to cut down on incidents of voter fraud without making it harder for people to vote.

There is one more idea I have, but a lot of people may not like it. We have to have licenses to drive and licenses to fish and permits to own guns. It might not be a bad idea if we have to have a license or a permit of some kind to own a computer. It shouldn't be either difficult or expensive to get a computer license/permit. They could be sold wherever computers are sold for a modest fee of $10, but it should require a background check to buy a computer. Convicted pedophiles should not be allowed to own computers in this country.

It is time for us to start dealing with the Internet. No, we do not have the right to legislate how other countries choose to deal with this problem. That's why making porn sites all have the same dot name won't work. Not all porn sites are operated in this country. We can only lead by example. Children can and should have access to computers because of their tremendous educational value. It is the people who prey on children that should not be allowed the same privilege. I know there are those that will circumvent the system, but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy for them.

And while we're at it, we could solve the college drinking problem by raising the legal drinking age to 23. Teenagers who go straight from high school to college generally graduate by the time they're 22.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Communities

Communites are more than just churches and schools. Communities also include local government. Mayors need to step up to the plate and start organizing their communities. Sponsor a community clean-up day or a chili cook-off and start regeristering voters at every single event.

Connect the dots for your people. Teach them that self-respect means respecting not only their homes but their neighborhoods. Sponsor citizenship classes and self-respect seminars through your local library system. Parents cannot teach their children what they do not know.

And for crying out loud, acknowledge the homeless people in your community. We are in the midst of a national disaster. Pitch tents, park FEMA trailers, do whatever you have to do to put a roof over everybody's head while we sort this mess out. I know, that means you'll need to hire more emergency personnel. Job Alert!

Has anyone figured out yet that we actually do have plenty of jobs that need to be filled. We just don't have the money to pay people to do them. So far, in order to fix this mess, we need more teachers, teachers aides, construction workers, school bus drivers, INS employees, FDA inspectors, and now we've added Police Officers, Firemen and EMT's. More bailout money needs to go here. We won't solve the problems if we don't fill these jobs.

Let's get a move on people! The media needs something more to talk about than what Mrs. Obama wears every single day and what bad manners the English have, or is it the media that has bad manners? Who exactly is it that's complaining about those Christmas gifts? Get some perspective people.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.

Healthcare

Healthy citizens make good citizens. Healthy citizens are able to work, to shop, to be active in their communities. It makes sense that we would want our citizens to be healthy. It makes sense that we want to take care of our children. Unfortunately there are way too many problems with the healthcare system we have because healthcare is not affordable for a vast majority of people. If it were affordable it wouldn't be an issue. The government is spending trillions of dollars in this department.

Unfortunately, all of the options on the table seem to skirt around one of the biggest healthcare expenses we have. The healthcare of illegal immigrants. Texas and California are hit particularly hard by this expense. The Department of Health and Human Services should have the numbers on approximately how much our government spends on the healthcare of people who shouldn't be here. Now, I'm not saying that if someone who is in this country illegally has a heart attack he shouldn't be rushed to the hospital. All lives have value. However, if an illegal alien seeks medical treatment they can't pay for, they should be deported. It's nothing personal. It's a matter of economic survival. We're not only spending money we don't have, we're allowing other people to help us do it!

In these tough economic times we have to take care of our people. We're out of work. We are losing our homes. We have neither the time nor the resources to keep playing footsie with our borders. We will never get the cost of healthcare to come down if we don't get a handle on illegal immigration.

We have to stop sending illegal immigrants mixed messages. We tell them we don't want them to come here illegally and then we take care of them when they get sick, educate their children and give them food stamps. I know there are those that say if we don't give illegal aliens healthcare they can't pay for, then when they get sick they won't seek medical care and that will promote the spread of disease, however, they do have televisions. We could give them fair warning that we're going to stop. Some of them might actually leave of their own free will. People who want to come here specifically for medical treatment can get visas to do that.

It is the philosophy of this blog that while bailouts and stimulus packages are all well and good they completely miss the mark. We need a stimulus/bailout package for our government, not our auto makers. Businesses will come and go. They always have. Hopefully our government will not.

It is our government that needs more people to fill more positions and more money to pay and insure them. It's not about bigger government. I have no idea why anyone would want a bigger government. We don't have enough people working in the positions we've already created. If we did the FDA would be doing a better job inspecting food and drugs. If the FDA had enough people to do their job properly we wouldn't have so many recalls from things that make people sick!

You can complain all you want, but if a company is only running on half the necessary amount of people to get their job done well, then it stands to reason they won't do a good job. Yet we expect no less from our government. And they're bailing everybody out but themselves. Which means the American people are bailing out everyone but themselves. There's very little point in passing new laws or creating new programs when we can't handle the ones we already have.

Healthcare is not a new issue. Immigration is not a new issue. Governement bailouts aren't even a new issue. Anybody remember Lee Iacocca? If we keep arguing partisan politics and policy, history has proven that we will get very little done.

When you think of "We The People, " think of us collectively as a home builder. That's what we are supposed to be doing, building our home. America is our home. President Obama is our new architect. We hire a new architect every few years. But we are the ones paying to build this house. It needs to be built according to our specifications. A lot of people seem to think the house has already been finished and is badly in need of repair, but I'm not sure that's true.

I think our founding fathers laid a strong and sturdy foundation. Our industrious citizens of the past left us their framework. And in the 60's we dropped the ball. That's when we needed to stop and fix the government we already had and we didn't. So yes, those of us that were here in the 60's shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for our country's current problems. We have no excuse. To fix our healthcare problems, we have to fix everything else or we'll just be putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound.

Illegal drug abuse and alcoholism contribute to our governments healthcare expenses too, not just illegal immigrants. If anyone thinks we're winning the war on drugs, they're not watching. What do drug overdoses and rehab cost our government? I'm not saying rehab should not exist. In a perfect world, it wouldn't be needed. I am simply pointing out that lower healthcare costs long term can only be achieved by increasing spending in other needed areas. We can't lower health care costs today. The best we can do today is get help to those who need it now and start taking steps to insure we won't need to spend as much in the future.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could take the money we're spending on healthcare for people who shouldn't be here and put that money into our Veterans healthcare expenses. They have medical facilities that are as badly in need of repair as some of our schools. Oops, here's another job alert!

We have work to do. We're just not getting the jobs done.


Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

This content may not be copied or reproduced in any way without the express written permission of the author. You are welcome to link to or bookmark this page, but please contact the author via E-Mail if you wish to reproduce this article in whole or in part.