Wednesday, July 31, 2013

GOOD TO KNOW...


GOOD TO KNOW INFORMATION FROM THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!
  
 
(FROM FACEBOOK POST)
 

Below is a picture of a CFL light bulb from my bathroom. I turned it on the other day and then smelled smoke after a few minutes. Four inch flames were spewing out of the side of the ballast like a blow torch! I immediately turned off the lights. But I'm sure it would have caused a fire if I was not right there. Imagine if the kids had left the lights on as usual when they were not in the room.

I took the bulb to the Fire Department to report the incident. The Fireman wasn't at all surprised and said that it was not an uncommon occurrence. Apparently, sometimes when the bulb burns out there is a chance that the ballast can start a fire. He told me that the Fire Marshall had issued reports about the dangers of these bulbs.

Upon doing some Internet research, it seems that bulbs made by“Globe” in China seem to have the lion’s share of problems. Lots of fires have been blamed on misuse of CFL bulbs, like using them in recessed lighting, pot lights, dimmers or in track lighting. Mine was installed in a normal light socket.

I bought these at Wal-Mart. I will be removing all the Globe bulbs from my house. CFL bulbs are a great energy saver but make sure you buy a name brand like Sylvania , Phillips or GE and not the ones from China .


PASS THIS ON TO YOUR FRIENDS............

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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Secretly Healthy Spinach Dip!!!!!

(Another FB Recipe Find!)
 
 
 
 
SO glad I found this! I could eat this stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner! YUM!
 
Everyone has someone in their family who doesn’t like to eat anything they think is “healthy.” That’s why I have to be super creative with my recipes, and secretive when I use cottage cheese. Just a general trick, substituting cottage cheese for sour cream reduces that fat and adds a ton of protein to a meal. Just be sure to first blend the cottage cheese and no one will be able to tell the difference.


Lindsey’s Spinach Dip Recipe
Ingredients needed:
1 10 oz container of frozen chopped spinach – defrost and squeeze out all the juice
1-2 5 oz cans of sliced water chestnuts – dice into small pieces
1 8 oz container of 1% cottage cheese – blend with a handheld blender or in a traditional blender until smooth & creamy
 1 packet ranch dressing
 
 After completing the above tasks, mix well, eat, and enjoy! No baking or cooking needed...

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7.25.13 Note To Self


Thursday, July 18, 2013

Dear White Americans Who Don’t “Get” Race/Racism

Greetings RLWT readers!! Ya'll already know I couldn't just let that verdict last weekend slide and not write anything about it. While I was gathering my thoughts I came across the article below and felt like this man completely nailed it. So rather than try to top him I think what he had to say about it will convey my point to the masses maybe better than I could have.

Just so that he also gets proper credit please see the bottom for the original link to his post and his blog.
Thanks for reading


Dear White Americans Who Don’t “Get” Race/Racism

(Unnecessary disclaimer: This is not a letter to all White Americans, but it’s for those who “don’t see color” or who feel that we are post-racial in America, think racism is a thing of the past that ended with the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, Amendments 13-15 of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act [which was just gutted to remove racial protection enforcement], President Obama’s elections, or any other law or event that somehow magically changed the hearts and minds of Americans. We are not post-racial and y’all really aren’t the proper authority to teach minorities about what is or is not racism in America.)

Dear White Americans Who Don’t “Get” Race/Racism:
I know that it’s hard to explain racism these days. I mean, with the absence of Jim Crow laws and slavery mandates, it’s hard to see racism clearly.
Racism is a gut feeling that something is wrong; an intuition, if you will. But most times, it’s not an intuition that is felt by you, white American who doesn’t “get” what racism is. Racism is associated with power and the ability to oppress others to the point of setting up self-propelled societal systems in which more power flows to one particular group than another. Most minorities don’t have that power unless they are in a management position at a job in which you work under them. What you may feel most times, however, is prejudice. Other races can be prejudiced against you to automatically assume that you prepare bland foods, maintain a washcloth-free irregular bathing schedule, constantly place bewildering and complicated food orders despite a long line behind you, have good credit, have a lot of money, or that you can’t dance on-beat. Social awkwardness, yes. However, none of these prejudices lead to your being part of a group that is maligned in society and thought the worst of enough to have a legal system validate that perception and do things like incarcerate you four times more than someone else of another race for the same crime.
tumblr_loz3doUV1a1r0ztfio1_500
You might believe that I’m a violent suspect by nature and that I am a thug when I wear my hoodie in the rain while walking back to my own home. George Zimmerman racially profiled Trayvon Martin and aside from wannabe white Republicans like Clarence Thomas and attention-seeking @GOPBlackChick from Twitter, most of George Zimmerman’s supporters are conservative white people. Generally, black folks are mad about the verdict and what it represents about the justice system as well as how race was used in the event that killed Trayvon Martin. We know that the way the facts were laid out and presented by the less-than-stellar job the prosecution did could have resulted, at best (according to instructions and Florida law), in a mistrial and felt that it probably was going to end up with a not guilty verdict, but no, we cannot simply let it go because of the overarching problem the entire trial and verdict represents. Are you getting it yet? Rest in peace, Trayvon Martin.
trayvonmartin
Telling me that race doesn’t matter in the justice system’s application of said justice, or that we are somehow magically post-racial thanks to apparent sorcery afoot from electing Barack Obama president twice, is offensive. Stop it. Your ancestors are responsible for setting the tone for race relations in this country and they failed at repairing those relations starting in 1865, and relatively few have bothered to care ever since. Your ancestors were conquering, enslaving people, yet somehow also the most timid, constantly doing things to oppressively ensure their safety on “top” of the people they conquered. (See: Manifest Destiny.) Conduct a séance to hash that out with your bloodline and stop blaming me and mine for those problems because we “won’t let it go!” Nope. Not going to. Never. Never ever ever.
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Nahhh…huh uh. We ain’t doing that.
Richard Cohen, inexplicably still-employed Washington Post opinion writer, stated that black people need to stop being so threatening by fashion choices and perceived violence (I guess from movies, from what he describes). Look here, the onus is not on black people to dress or act in a way that makes you more comfortable if they act just like you. You’re allowed to be yourselves while you riot after your team loses the Stanley Cup or an Orange Bowl. You’re allowed to fall out of bars, drunk, at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning and risk getting hit by passing cars as you bump into them or pound them as they pass.
 photo 1038_88f1_zpsc30010a9.gif
You’re allowed to do this:
When I moved into my mostly white neighborhood (I was the second person of color in my building and the only black person for over a year, and the only people who said “Hello” back to me for the first six months were my neighbors who parked beside me), I was changing the tags on my car in the parking lot on my birthday. I was dressed in a fitted T-shirt and jeans that hugged my legs pretty well. (I don’t sag my pants.) I also had on casual Skechers shoes and my hair was trimmed neatly and cut close to my scalp. I finished changing my tags and was checking to make sure I hadn’t dropped any screws that could puncture my tires. I had just finished when a couple from my building saw me looking around my car WITH MY OLD TAGS, REGISTRATION, AND TAG HOLDERS IN MY HAND, and asked what I was doing.
Her: “Can I help you?”
Me: *ignores her*
Her: “Can I help you?!”
Me: “Excuse me? No.” *continues to look*
Her: “Well, it looks a little odd with you snooping around the parking lot looking at cars.”
Wisely, her husband noticed my face rising up with the fury of my whipped ancestorsand quietly ducked around her, put his suitcase into the car and got inside. Smart man. On the other hand, this dumb, racist, inessential waste-of-creation [expletive deleted] decided to keep standing there.
So, I canceled out the idea of loudly cursing her out in my quiet neighborhood so bad that Eve would feel it in Heaven, and decided (staring her down, voice shaking with anger and wanting to lodge the old tags into her skull) to say, “I just changed the tags on MY car.” I showed her the visible tags, looked at her with disgust, and loudly armed my own luxury car.
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(Fellow beloved Negroes, I know I owed her no explanation.) I wasn’t dressed in any fashion foreign to how everyone else dressed in the neighborhood. Enjoyably, her face was broken and she always spoke to me after that, even going so far as to hold the front door open for me, even if she saw me coming from a half block away.
Stuff like THAT doesn’t make ME feel safe around YOU. Yet, you’re allowed to live and not considered violent, even though most murders of white people are committed by other white people (Justice Department PDF), which is very high considering y’all are the most populous group in the U.S. and more spread out than minorities, who mostly stay concentrated in one area. So, let US live in the peace and freedom from prejudice that you so obviously enjoy!
You picking up what I’m putting down yet?
Racism, American-style, today is more like this: Let’s say that I punch you in your neck with all my weight behind it. You can’t see the pain. You tell me that it hurts and you might be irreparably damaged from it. I tell you that it doesn’t hurt and it’s not really pain. You’re exaggerating. I whine about how you’re accusing me of doing something that no one can visibly see until someone comes to my aid to scold you for speaking up about your pain and your accusing me of something no one can see. I’m whisked away somewhere away from you where I can resume punching folks in the neck. You’re still there in pain, hurting, and no one believes you or cares about your pain.
do-you-understand-the-words-that-are-coming-out-of-my-mouth1
That is how racism feels – unseen and ofttimes subtle. And you can’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt just because you can’t see it. I say this all in love because God knows I don’t hate white people, but I really want those who don’t “get” it to hear me and get it together. We all have biases against someone for something, but let’s stop saying racism is over. Because, NAWL!
Love,
jamin
(P.S. – Stop Trayvoning too. Like, really?)


This and further comments from readers and the author can be found here:

http://keenepointofview.com/blog/2013/07/17/dear-white-americans-who-dont-get-raceracism/#comment-452

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Monday, July 15, 2013

Insightful thoughts about the Zimmerman trial...

I must first say that I did not write this. It was posted by a friend who also did not write it with the following caption. I repost because this needs to be said.

Insightful thoughts about the Zimmerman trial from a very thoughtful leader, theologian and pastor in the Christian social gospel movement for decades. 


Lament from a White Father
By Jim Wallis 

It’s time for white people — especially white parents — to listen, to learn, and to speak out on the terribly painful loss of Trayvon Martin.
If my white 14-year-old son Luke had walked out that same night, in that same neighborhood, just to get a snack he would have come back to his dad unharmed — and would still be with me and Joy today. Everyone, being honest with ourselves, knows that is true. But when black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin went out that night, just to get a snack, he ended up dead — and is no longer with his dad and mom. Try to imagine how that feels, as his parents.

It was a political, legal, and moral mistake to not put race at the center of this trial because it was at the center from the beginning of this terrible case. Many are now saying, “There was a trial; the results must be accepted.” How well the case against George Zimmerman was prosecuted, how fair the tactics of the defense were, the size and selection of the jury, how narrowly their instructions were given — all will be the subject of legal discussions for a very long time.

But while the legal verdicts of this trial must be accepted, the larger social meaning of court cases and verdicts must be dealt with, especially as they impact the moral quality of our society.

This is not just about verdicts but also about values. 

And the impact of race in and on this case, this trial, and the response to it around the country must now all be centrally addressed.

There is no doubt that this whole tragedy began with the racial profiling of Trayvon Martin. In George Zimmerman’s comments, rationales, and actions, the identity of Trayvon as a young black man was absolutely central. Both sides in the courtroom admitted that.

And when the defense put up as a witness a white woman who had been robbed by a black man as central to why Zimmerman picked out Trayvon Martin to follow and stalk — it really said it all. Was she robbed by Trayvon Martin? No. So why should he be suspect because of another black robber? That is racial profiling. Period.

As the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his most famous “I Have a Dream” speech, whose 50th anniversary is coming up this August 24th:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

King’s dream failed on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla., when George Zimmerman decided to follow Trayvon Martin because of the color of his skin. This led to a confrontation in which a child was killed by an adult who got away with it, because of the way Florida laws were written and interpreted.

What exactly happened between Zimmerman and Martin will never be known, because the boy is dead and the adult did not have to testify and be cross examined. How a black boy responded to a strange man who was following him, and what the stranger did with that, is a story we can never really know. But regardless of the verdict that rests on narrow definitions of self-defense and reasonable doubt, it is absolutely clear that racial profiling was present in this whole incident.

And racial profiling is a sin in the eyes of God. It should also be a crime in the eyes of our society, and the laws we enact to protect each other and our common good.

White parents should ask black parents what they were talking about with their children this weekend. It is a long-standing conversation between black dads and moms, especially with their boys, about how to carefully behave in the presence of police officers with guns. Now they must add any stranger who might have a gun and could claim they were fearful of a black man and had to shoot. The spread of legalized carried-and-concealed weapons and the generous self-defense laws that accompany the guns will lead to the death of more black men in particular.

Death is horrible enough. But systematic injustice — one that allows white boys to assume success, yet leads black boys to cower from the very institutions created to protect our own wellbeing — is a travesty. Listen to the stories from Saturday and Sunday nights, of 12-year-old black boys who asked to sleep in bed with their parents because they were afraid. If black youth in America can’t rely on the police, the law, or their own neighborhood for protection — where can they go?

This is one of those painful moments which reveal an utterly segregated society, in reality and perception alike. White people have almost no idea of what black people are thinking and feeling — even the parents of their children’s friends from school or sports teams who are black. Trust me: most white people over this past weekend, whether conservatives or liberals, had almost no idea of what was happening in virtually every black family in America.

Finally, there is a religious message here for all Christians. If there ever was a time that demonstrated why racially and culturally diverse congregations are needed — that time is now. The body of Christ is meant, instructed, and commanded by Christ to be racially inclusive. If white Christians stay in our mostly-white churches and talk mostly to each other we will never understand how our black brothers and sisters are feeling after a terrible weekend like this one. It was the conversation of every black church in America on this Sunday, but very few white Christians heard that discussion or felt that pain.

White Christians cannot and must not leave the sole responsibility of telling the truth about America, how it has failed Trayvon Martin and so many black Americans, solely to their African American brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s time for white Christians to listen to their black brothers and sisters, to learn their stories, and to speak out for racial justice and reconciliation. The country needs multi-racial communities of faith to show us how to live together.

New Ellie!!!!

 
Ellie Goulding - Burn

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