International Youth Day - Aug.12

Yes yes today is the 11th but I wanted to start today on International Youth Day project @ Bloggers Unite.
International Youth Day was created by the UN to promote youth awareness and causes. It was set to draw attention to issues of the youth world wide. All around the world, concerts and events are celebrate to honor the world's youth.

Youth are the future of our world. Not only the future, but the present. Presently our worlds' youth can be motivated to strive for excellence for tomorrow.

I invite YOU to blog for Women's Equality!

Straight from the source to you: Blog for Women's Equality! http://worldyissues.blogspot.com
August 26, 2009

Objective: Since 1971, August 26th has been Women's Equality Day. Lets blog about everything that still needs to happen for equality for women!

In 1971, August 26 was deemed Women's Equality Day. It still stands today! Although this was a great leap in history for women, we are still faced with so much sexism today. The point of this event is to celebrate the day by blogging about how far we've come with women's rights and to especially blog/rant about everything women still have to deal with today, worldwide! Let's change the world!

peace&love, Madelyn
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-senseless-sexism

Isn't it ironic?

Oh come on. You know you LOVE that song and now it'll be stuck in your head for the rest of the day/afternoon/night.

So I trying desperately to move back to the place I tried desperately to move out of. The irony, eh?

I moved to Birmingham with good intentions. That I will find good work in an appropriate time frame, that my daughter would be happy, my husband be happy, kittens, rainbows, butterflies, balloon animals...

WRONG.

So I am back to square one. Starting completely over. Going BACK to "there" (I actually have a catchy little nickname for "there" but not right now...).

To be honest, I am ready to be "there." The irony again right? Deep down, I feel like this will be the big breath of fresh air so to speak or even the new beginning of the end maybe? Who knows. This time, I have two little girls in tow! What a ride. What an adventure. Hope everyone is holding on.

The fourth of July and being free.

So, my fourth consisted of volunteer work. I did something different. Something I have not done before. I decided to go with my Celebrate Recovery group to a halfway house about 2 hours south of Birmingham to help out with the fourth of July festivities for the inmates. Some may wonder why one would want to spend time with prisoners; people that have committed crimes. Well, these are guys who want to learn to live in the "real" world and start over. These guys are the ones that are happy just to get a pack of ketchup. Things we that are "free" take for granted.

I can remember not being so "free" at one time in my life. Looking out and seeing others walk around, just simple things such as that. However, it didn't even compare to most of those guys. Some where in for 14 plus years. They said they haven't even eaten a meal like we provided for them in 10.

Some may think, so what? They don't deserve any better. They've committed crimes. They deserve to NOT eat well on the 4th. However, if we must say that, how many people would we really be including? How many people are walking around society that do not want to better their lives and keep committing crimes? They are the ones that got to eat that huge chunk of BBQ this 4th.

Ok, I need to sweep the cobwebs...

...because THIS blog needs a good cleaning!! So long since I've blogged. What a shame!! My blog turned me in to DHR for neglect Leave comments!

Joseph Palermo, I think you're my new BFF. Re: Ann Coulter's "The View" appearance.

If you want to classify that as an "appearance."

More like an embarrassment to human-kind. OH WAIT. She isn't a human.

WTF was she thinking going onto the "The View?" Does she not realize that EVERYONE despises her? They'd rather thump her adam's apple over and over than to read her rectum filled excuses for books. She is definitely sharing the oxycontin stash with Rush. Definitely.
J. Palermo's blog:

Remember that crazy woman in Pittsburgh who carved a backwards "B" into her own cheek and then claimed that rampaging black men had assaulted her because they saw a "McCain-Palin" bumper sticker on her car? Well, Ann Coulter's routine on The View this morning proved that she's just as crazy as the Pittsburgh woman (although, unfortunately, more politically influential). Ann Coulter shills for a right-wing political movement dedicated to shredding the social safety net designed to provide assistance to poor working mothers by savaging these same single mothers as the scourge of society for rearing "70 percent of rapists, murderers, and other criminals." She then weaves this diatribe into being part of a gigantic "Liberal" conspiracy to destroy everything that is wholesome, pure, and good in Coulter's version of Norman Rockwell America. She claimed today that "forty years of social science research" backs up her Dickensian, "Are there no workhouses?" worldview. But, whoa, does she leave out a lot! Little things that tend to undermine her "argument": like forty years of social science scholarship documenting the feminization of poverty. But no one should expect Coulter to bother to Google Barbara Ehrenreich or Katha Pollit or Susan Douglas or hundreds of other scholars and researchers on the subject. Coulter's "free market" prescriptions for addressing the feminization of poverty via draconian reductions in social spending contradict her whole take on the meaning of "victimization." Coulter's pure, unalloyed, crystalline hypocrisy was on full display on The View when she kept whining about being "attacked" because a couple of smart women asked her to explain some of her bogus assumptions. Coulter, like Sarah Palin, is used to being surrounded by a gaggle of star-struck horny white Republican men who lob her soft balls and nod in agreement with all her übermenchen social theories. What was most astonishing about her appearance on The View today was her shtick whereby she tries to cast herself as some kind of "moral authority" hurling stern judgments on other women's lives. Sheez! Give it a rest already! Whoopie Goldberg summed it up as the segment was tossed to a commercial. She said to Coulter: "You can dish it out but you can't take it." I'm glad Goldberg asked Coulter if she has any children or stepchildren. That is a relevant question. If someone is going to indict an entire group of women who struggle each day to pull together a livelihood for their children she should be prepared to answer personal questions about her own circumstance regarding children in a public forum. The women of The View asked Coulter about widows and women who left abusive relationships; do these women too provide fodder for Coulter's attacks? Of course they do! I wish Ann Coulter would just go away. And I wish she would take Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and the whole Republican "movement" carnival act with her. But I know that will never happen. These right-wing corporate media darlings have access to piles of money to circulate their "ideas" in the public discourse as promoted through "books" and A.M. talk radio shows. Their authoritarian, racist, "eat the poor" ideology serves the interests of ruling corporate elites; so these barren, windswept notions will be shoved down our throats no matter how many Barack Obamas we elect. "Global warming doesn't exist!" "Labor unions are evil and corrupt!" "Liberals coddle single mothers and single mothers raise children to be criminals!" "Cut corporate taxes and regulations and prosperity will 'trickle down!'" "Ketchup is a vegetable!" "Trees cause pollution!" And so on, and on, and on.

There is a video at the end of the blog if you can stomach it. XOXO--
A poor liberal mom of two that'll have heathens for children.

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So, what doesn't kill a mother and wife...

...will it make her stronger?
I know a mom and a wife that wants to wake up the next day knowing what the future holds for her children. I know a mom and wife that wants to know if she is going to be able (she and her husband both) to provide for her children in the following months.

I know a mom and wife that went to college and busted ass to get her much desired education. She busted ass and kicked it as well. She worked at various places for money. She pulled out too many student loans because her crappy pell grants weren't enough to cover her school expenses. The student at the time became pregnant. However, it didn't stop her. She continued on because she was a fighter. She went to school up until the day she delivered her first child. She was taking a Spanish exam only a few days before her labor was induced. She even returned to school as soon as the next semester started, leaving her child in the care of her mother-in-law.

By this time, she was a mom and a wife as well as a student. She suffered greatly with post-partum depression and would have to leave class in tears because she couldn't make it through the day. This mom and wife kept going. She finally finished school. Her baby was at her graduation.

This mom and wife applied for many jobs but was turned down here and there. This mom and wife was offered no more than 8-10 dollars an hour a week. Some places with no benefits. So her husband stepped BACK in and took over the duties of work. He worked while she was in school, with a low paying position as a restaurant server. So the husband went back to work as a server. The family wasn't eligible for many things, because the father had not completed his immigration paperwork. It didn't matter they invested so much money and time into it for him to do the right thing the right way. It didn't matter. They didn't care.

So the family kept on going. Kept on counting on their pennies and dimes to live. Was put on waiting list after waiting list for aide, section 8 help, and so on. Time went on. The mom and wife had baby number 2 in April 2008. The husband had finally found a wonderful job! FINALLY! FINALLY a break for this family!! He became the manager of a restaurant. He was making good money and they were finally able to pay the bills. However, 6 or 7 months went by. Husband lost that wonderful job. Just like that. So quick. Everything started again, except this time, with two children in tow. The family went to Salvation Army and was turned down for "lack of funding." United Way wouldn't help because of the city they lived in. They didn't "cover" applicants in the particular area. The place that financed their vehicle wouldn't work with them on payments; so that lead to repossession of the vehicle. Their only vehicle.

The mom and wife was already in the middle of filing bankruptcy, after a failed debt consolidation attempt. That was due to using up credit and maxing cards out to support the family during the time spent in college.

Now the family faces so many things. Having to break an apartment lease early and suffer the disadvantages of that; so they can move into a place where they can get back onto their feet (due to the help of a family member).

Garnishment of wages. Poor credit for years and years. Pure and utter failure. Despair. No light at the end of the tunnel. And so on.

The family sold everything they had except for their computer. Their computer only had gotten offers of around 20$; however, they had to sell furniture, precious items, and so on. Just to make it.

I can tell you that they are not giving up, they will not give up, no matter what happens. They are a family and that is what families do.

I am not only telling the story of this one particular family. I am telling the story of many families across the United States. Where across the country in the "land of opportunity" , suffrage is an understatement.