On this date August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed. It is a travesty that 60 years later, we are still taking steps backwards instead of forward!  You know everyone.. I don’t fault the haters.  I am not even mad at them.  I understand the need for ID. Don’t have a problem with it.  But there should be some Grandfather laws applied. Something to the effect of anyone born after the Voting Rights Acts requires ID.  What is so hard with that?  Now as for limiting voting hours, this is complete and udder hypocrisy!!!  If we truly live in a Democracy where everyone’s voice should be heard and counted, why would you want to limit this ability by any choice?  It seems to me that few of us Americans don’t want to living in a true Democracy – are we moving towards Feudalism? I thought the founding fathers fled countries where the land barons ruled everything!!!!    I am not against being RICH. I get up everyday motivated that CAPITALISM is KING and I can participate in it.  But as a former athlete and an American, I look for the game to be FAIR from all ASPECTS!! Where are we as a country, if people want to continue on both sides to argue about the problem rather than move to the solution?  So much for my diatribe… GOD BLESS THE REAL AMERICA..MAY WE SEE IT ONE DAY!!!!!!

http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/intro/intro_b.php

Desembotellemos todas las alegrías
resguardadas
y busquemos alguna novia perdida
que acepte una festiva dentellada.
Hoy es. Hoy ha llegado. Pisamos el tapiz
del interrogativo milenio. El corazón, la
almendra
de la época creciente, la uva definitiva
irá depositándose en nosotros,
y será la verdad tan esperada.

Mientras tanto una hoja del follaje
acrecienta el comienzo de la edad:
rama por rama se cruzará el ramaje,
hoja por hoja subirán los días
y fruto a fruto llegará la paz:
el árbol de la dicha se prepara
desde la encarnizada raíz que sobrevive
buscando el agua, la verdad, la vida.

Hoy es hoy. Ha llegado este mañana
preparado por mucha oscuridad:
no sabemos si es claro todavía
este mundo recién inaugurado:
lo aclararemos, lo oscureceremos
hasta que sea dorado y quemado
como los granos duros del maíz:
a cada uno, a los recién nacidos,
a los sobrevivientes, a los ciegos,
a los mudos, a mancos y cojos,
para que vean y para que hablen,
para que sobrevivan y recorran,
para que agarren la futura fruta
del reino actual que dejamos abierto
tanto al explorador como a la reina,
tanto al interrogante cosmonauta
como al agricultor tradicional,
a las abejas que llegan ahora
para participar en la colmena
y sobre todo a los pueblos recientes,
a los pueblos crecientes desde ahora
con las nuevas banderas que nacieron
en cada gota de sangre o sudor.

Hoy es hoy y ayer se fue, no hay duda.

Hoy es también mañana, y yo me fui
con algún año frío que se fue,
se fue conmigo y me llevó aquel año.

PS:  I know I miss days from time to time and for that you have my sincerest apologies and promise to do better!  I’d like to express my gratitude to all of you who stick with me through my ups and downs, through my periods of consistency and lack-there-of.  Sharing these messages with you all on a day to day basis and the favorable, supportive responses I receive combine to make up one of the parts of my life I enjoy the most. Thank-you so much for being a part of it!

A.R.I.S.E
All Reach in Search of Excellence

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Innovation: Edward de Bono
The winner is the chef who takes the same ingredients as everyone else and produces the best results.

Vision: Jack Welch
Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Business: Chinese Proverbs
To open a shop is easy, to keep it open is an art.

Work: Kahlil Gibran
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Success: Andrew Carnegie
The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

Loyalty: Stephen Covey
You can buy a person’s hands but you can’t buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.

Ego: Colin Powell
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Success: John Foster Dulles
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it’s the same problem you had last year.

Goals: George Burns
Define your business goals clearly so that others can see them as you do.

Problem Solving: Jay Abraham
You are surrounded by simple, obvious solutions that can dramatically increase your income, power, influence and success. The problem is, you just don’t see them.

Failure: Henry Ford
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Business: Ambrose Bierce
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

Decision Making: Peter Drucker
Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

Ideas: Tim Blixseth
Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless.

Foresight: Edward de Bono
Traditional thinking is all about “what is.” Future thinking will also need to be about “what can be.”

Team: Lee Iacocca
In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.

Mistakes: Alan Bond
Everybody makes business mistakes. I mean, I take the responsibility, and I did. I was the captain of the ship and I took that responsibility.

Opportunity: Josh Billings
The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.

Perseverance: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world all rests on perseverance.

Success: Lee Iacocca
The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.

Problem Solving: Edward de Bono
We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.

1 David sang this song to the LORD after the LORD had rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul.

2 These are the words he sang: “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;

3 my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the strength of my salvation, and my stronghold, my high tower, my savior, the one who saves me from violence.

4 I will call on the LORD, who is worthy of praise, for he saves me from my enemies.

5 “The waves of death surrounded me; the floods of destruction swept over me.

6 The grave* wrapped its ropes around me; death itself stared me in the face.1

7 But in my distress I cried out to the LORD; yes, I called to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry reached his ears.

8 “Then the earth quaked and trembled; the foundations of the heavens shook; they quaked because of his anger.

9 Smoke poured from his nostrils; fierce flames leaped from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him.

10 He opened the heavens and came down; dark storm clouds were beneath his feet.

11 Mounted on a mighty angel,* he flew, soaring* on the wings of the wind.2

12 He shrouded himself in darkness, veiling his approach with dense rain clouds.

13 A great brightness shone before him, and bolts of lightning blazed forth.

14 The LORD thundered from heaven; the Most High gave a mighty shout.

15 He shot his arrows and scattered his enemies; his lightning flashed, and they were confused.

16 Then at the command of the LORD, at the blast of his breath, the bottom of the sea could be seen, and the foundations of the earth were laid bare.

17 “He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters.

18 He delivered me from my powerful enemies, from those who hated me and were too strong for me.

19 They attacked me at a moment when I was weakest, but the LORD upheld me.

20 He led me to a place of safety; he rescued me because he delights in me.

21 The LORD rewarded me for doing right; he compensated me because of my innocence.

22 For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I have not turned from my God to follow evil.

23 For all his laws are constantly before me; I have never abandoned his principles.

24 I am blameless before God; I have kept myself from sin.

25 The LORD rewarded me for doing right, because of my innocence in his sight.

26 “To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity.

27 To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the wicked you show yourself hostile.

28 You rescue those who are humble, but your eyes are on the proud to humiliate them.

29 O LORD, you are my light; yes, LORD, you light up my darkness.

30 In your strength I can crush an army; with my God I can scale any wall.

31 “As for God, his way is perfect. All the LORD’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.

32 For who is God except the LORD? Who but our God is a solid rock?

33 God is my strong fortress; he has made my way safe.

34 He makes me as surefooted as a deer, leading me safely along the mountain heights.

35 He prepares me for battle; he strengthens me to draw a bow of bronze.

36 You have given me the shield of your salvation; your help* has made me great.3

37 You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping.

38 “I chased my enemies and destroyed them; I did not stop until they were conquered.

39 I consumed them; I struck them down so they could not get up; they fell beneath my feet.

40 You have armed me with strength for the battle; you have subdued my enemies under my feet.

41 You made them turn and run; I have destroyed all who hated me.

42 They called for help, but no one came to rescue them. They cried to the LORD, but he refused to answer them.

43 I ground them as fine as the dust of the earth; I swept them into the gutter like dirt.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can!

Robert Browning
Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God’s skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!

Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no great and no small, To the Soul that maketh all; And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere

Ruckett

George Sweeting

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

Thomas Carlyle