Would you do this to your mom?

I read this article today and I thought this was so sad. It was sad for many reasons. One that she lost her job and house but most of all her kids hae not come and gotten her out of this situation. Read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.

A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.

"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."
Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament.

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.

Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.

Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator, said the group began seeing a need for the lots in recent months as California's foreclosure crisis hit the city hard. She said a growing number of senior citizens, women and lower- and middle-class families live on the streets.

"You look around today, and there are so many," said Kapp, who was homeless with her young daughter two decades ago. "I see women sleeping on benches. It's heartbreaking."

She added, "The way the economy is going, it's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It's hit the middle class."

She and others with New Beginnings walk the streets looking for people and families sleeping in their cars. The workers inform them about the parking lot program.
New Beginnings screens people to make sure they won't cause trouble. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in the parking lots.

"What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out," said Shaw Tolley, another coordinator with New Beginnings.
Most of the time, the lots are transition points. New Beginnings works with each person to try to find a more permanent housing solution.

"It saddens me when they live in their vehicles," Tolley said. "It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality."
He added, "We need to engage this problem. This is reality."

John Quigley, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the California housing crisis has left many middle-class families temporarily homeless or forced them to go to food banks to feed their families.

"Part of the reason why it's so painful in Santa Barbara is, there's so little in the way of alternative housing," Quigley said. "If there were alternative low and moderate housing and rental accommodations that were reasonably close by, you can imagine it wouldn't have this desperate look to it as people living in their cars."

At the only lot for women in Santa Barbara, it's a tough existence. There are no showers or running water. On the night CNN visited, a half-dozen women were in the parking lot before nightfall.

Linn Labou, 54, lives in her car with four cats. She used to be in the National Guard and is on a waiting list for government housing, but the wait is a year long.

"I went looking for family, but I couldn't get them to help me," she said.
As for Harvey, she begins each day by walking her two dogs before going to her part-time job. She leaves the dogs in her car with its windows cracked while she works.

100,000 Dead?

I hear it and read about it but for some reason I can not wrap my mind around the fact that a storm could possibly kill this many people. I am a logical person. Sometimes maybe to logical I guess. I think about the hurricanes that hit the east coast of the US every year. You always hear of lots of homes that are damaged. Power will be out for a few days. You may hear of a handful of deaths.

Now you take this storm that hit Burma. In comparison it would have been a category 3 maybe 4 hurricane. This storm may at the end kill 100,000 people. Why? I can only assume that it is because of the infrastructure is so weak. The do not have homes and building that have codes like we do in the US. Maybe they have an extremely large amount of people that live close to the coast line. Regardless, that’s like a nuclear bomb hitting that country. How many children will die? You are talking about a generation or a couple of generations gone.

How to Raise a Happy Kid

Five Steps to Lifelong JoyFortunately, it’s easier than you might think to begin instilling the inner qualities that lead to a lifetime of happiness. With patience and an open mind, the following five steps can help you lay the groundwork for your child:

Connect with others. More than any other single factor we can control, connection is the key to a happy childhood, and adulthood. Connection, in the form of unconditional love from an adult, helps foster self-confidence. Try to create an atmosphere at home in which your child feels cared for, welcomed, and treated fairly. Without that feeling, kids shy away from new things and experiences.

Foster a can-do attitude. This is one of the most reliable defenses against depression and despair at any age. Children watch and learn from how you deal with disappointment, be it in your career or at an athletic event or even just in being cut off in traffic. You can encourage competition, making sure that your child experiences both victory and defeat, and help her deal with each. You can use humor to deal with the pain, or bits of philosophy, or simply let your children see that you never give up.

Pretend and play. Unstructured play hones children’s imagination, teaches critical problem-solving skills, and trains them to tolerate frustration. It also helps children learn that doing things again and again leads to improvement. In fact, play is the most important “work” your child can do. Practice, as part of structured activity, trains children how to receive help and get the most from other adults, such as good teachers and coaches.

Create opportunities for mastery. With mastery comes confidence, leadership skills, initiative, and an enduring desire for hard work. It transforms a child (or an adult) from a reluctant, fearful learner into a motivated player. One of the great goals of parents, teachers, and coaches should be to find areas in which a child might experience mastery, then, make it possible for the child to feel this potent sensation. Once there, children want to go there again and again.

Provide recognition. The feeling of being valued by others (friends, family, community) is key. You can exert a tremendous positive influence through the recognition you offer. We adults too quickly forget how much it meant to us when we were young — it meant the world to us, and to children today it still does. Recognition in turn reinforces the sense of connection that all children need.

Why did he not just wait and speak!

Today I am just so fustrated! I am upset on so many levels. I can not understand why this man would come out now and start as he states it "Defending the Black Church". If he was any type of friend to Barrack would he not have waited? We had a real chance for a black President. This is all it takes for other races to be confused and sterotype blacks in one group. I am sure Obama is red hot. This helps Hillary, it helps McCain, most of all it helps Rev. Wright! Now don't get me wrong. He does have a right to defend himself. He is right on several things he has said. He has been unfairly attacked. My point is there is a time and place to go on attack. This was not the time. What a selfish act!

Out of a tragedy comes some news that strengthens your faith.

I am sure everyone has heard about the horrible plane crash in the Congo this week. Well a story from it gave me a lot to think about. This family was in Africa doing a missionaries trip and was on the plane. They survived the crash. So many people died. Why did they survive? Could it be that they were doing God’s work and their family was blessed because of it? I like to think so.
I have a friend who is on a missionary’s trip right now in Africa. This made me think of her. I know my prayers go out to her and her team. You may know of some people who are on missionary trips. Please say a prayer for them! Please read the article below. Also if you want to read about what organization my friend works for here is a link for you. http://www.impactmovement.com/

A missionary family from Minnesota is glad to be alive and together after surviving a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the father said Wednesday.
Barry and Marybeth Mosier were on their way to visit their son Keith, 24, in Kinsangani, Congo, with two younger children when their plane crashed on takeoff Tuesday in Goma. More than 30 people died as the plane plowed through a market and burned.

April Mosier, 14, managed to escape quickly, her father said by phone from Goma.
"April raced ahead, and she got to the front of the plane as one of the first people, I think," said Barry Mosier, 53.

The girl encountered a man who was tearing through an opening in the fuselage, Mosier said.
"He was pulling parts of the plane in or pushing them out, trying to make a hole. And she told him -- she speaks Swahili well -- she said, 'We've got to get a hole in this plane or we're all going to die.' " Watch as Barry Mosier describes the chaos »
When the hole was big enough, April tried to dive through it. She made it with a push from the man, and other passengers followed, he said.

Don't MissAir Crash kills 33; one passenger among dead Meanwhile, Mosier said he and his wife were carrying their son Andrew, 3, forward in the shoving "mass of humanity" trying to escape the burning plane. They got out through the opening in the fuselage. The child's leg was broken in the crush of people, but his parents didn't realize it until later.
April became separated from her parents and was whisked away to a hospital, convinced her family was dead, her father said.

"Outside the plane she was wandering around. ... It was total chaos," he said. "People were screaming and yelling because the plane had landed on this market. All of a sudden out of the blue all of these people who were just standing there are now dead.

"So there's parts of bodies, and people burning, and people screaming and yelling, and she was out there by herself."
About 25 minutes later, the Mosiers were reunited at the hospital.

"When we saw each other at the hospital, I can tell you it was a grand reunion," he said.
The Mosiers, who have been Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Iringa, Tanzania, for eight years, went to the church office in Goma to let Keith and other loved ones -- including two other grown children in the U.S. -- know they were all right.

While there, someone noticed Andrew's leg was swollen, and the Mosiers returned to the hospital. They learned that Andrew's femur was broken near the hip, and he is now in a cast that reaches from his toes to his rib cage, Barry Mosier said.
"He doesn't like it very well, as most 3-year-olds wouldn't," Mosier said.

The family will recuperate in Goma for a few days before deciding whether to resume the trip to Kisangani, where Keith Mosier has been a volunteer missionary for two months, Barry Mosier said.

"But flying here is not a popular thing to talk about just now," he said wryly.
Andrew has made up his mind, his father said.
"He says he doesn't want to ride in airplanes anymore," he said.
Marybeth Mosier, 51, suffered a black eye and bruised ribs, said her husband, who added that he was unhurt.

"We couldn't believe that our family of four could all escape a plane that was crashed and on fire, but by God's mercy we did," he said.
Mosier said he believes the family made it for a reason.
"I think the Lord has a plan for us, otherwise we wouldn't have survived," he said. "He still has work for us to do."

And that work just might be in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
"We actually came here with the idea of seeing if we could move here to Congo, so it's been kind of a rough introduction," Mosier said.
"I think we'll keep praying about that. We know that the safest place in the world to work is where the Lord wants you to work."

We better wake up!

I read and watch CNN everyday like alot of people. I am sure that many government administrations have the same facts that we read each and everyday. How long do you have to read or hear the same thing before you take some kind of action. Poor people all over the world are tired of being poor for one but most of all they are tired that their families are starving! When people reach the point of despair there is a trickle down effect that will happen for sure. One is protests and riots, the second is crime. It's funny, usually when there is an increase in crime no one ties it to an increase to another problem.

I hope when you read the below article that it makes you think about where we are in this nation and around the world. We better learn to take care of one another and we better learn that when you you put capitalism above caring for the human race we are headed for some serious problems.

(CNN) -- Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

"The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.

"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.

"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."

The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.

Now here is a dumb idea!

After I read this I said to myself. This is asking for trouble. We live in a world that people are just doing things that are crazy. People are under alot of stress. People are losing there jobs and homes. So what is gonna happen will your boss walks up to you and tells you that your services are no longer needed? Read the article below and let me know what you think.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Most Florida residents would be allowed to take guns to work under a measure passed by Florida lawmakers on Wednesday.

The bill, allowing workers to keep guns in their cars for self-protection, was approved by the Florida Senate by a vote of 26-13. It now goes to Republican Gov. Charlie Crist to sign into law.
Backed by the National Rifle Association and some labour unions, the so-called "take-your-guns-to-work" measure would prohibit business owners from banning guns kept locked in motor vehicles on their private property.

The measure applies to employees, customers and those invited to the business establishment as long as they have a permit to carry the weapon.

Backers say the measure upholds the vision of the authors of the U.S. Constitution, who made the right to bear arms part of the Bill of Rights.

"The second thing they wrote about in that constitution was the right to bear arms," said Sen. Durell Peaden, a Republican from Crestview, Florida. "It was what was dear in their hearts."
The measure exempts a number of workplaces including nuclear power plants, prisons, schools and companies whose business involves homeland security.

Critics say the measure usurps business owners' rights to determine what happens on their property and puts workers and managers at risk from disgruntled employees.

Dozens of workplace shootings occur every year in the United States and studies have shown that job sites where guns are permitted are more likely to suffer workplace homicides than those where guns are prohibited.

"This is an attempt to trample upon the property rights of property owners and attempt to make it more difficult to protect the workers in a workplace and those who visit our retail establishments," said Sen. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat.

Oklahoma, Alaska, Kentucky, and Mississippi have similar laws, although in Oklahoma, an appellate court barred the state from enforcing the legislation on grounds that it was unconstitutional.

Florida business groups are urging the governor to veto the measure, saying owners should be allowed to determine what happens on their property.

"We are disappointed that politics clearly won over good policy," Mark Wilson, president and chief executive of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.