Sunday, November 30, 2014

Enya sings Olche Chiun



The following is offered as music for you to enjoy versus a video. It is Olche Chiun (Silent Night in Irish) by Enya. She sang it a few times for an Irish TV program that highlighted buskers at Christmas.  
Enjoy! Happy  Christmas....





Monday, November 24, 2014

Christmas Wish List



On Christmas Day I will be delivering some goodies to a walk in coffee shop that is frequented primarily by those who are living on the streets or in shelters.
Please consider ordering an item from our Amazon Wish List so I can take a full bag of "gifts" to those who need them way more than most of us. Thanks---
See: http://tinyurl.com/qf7qkyr

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Where is the Compassion?

I hope Msgr Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican official who called Maynard’s decision to end her life ”reprehensible” reads the following letter from her mom.
Its too bad the Pope chimed in to condemn actions that people take to ease and support those they love---
"I am Brittany Maynard’s mother. I am writing in response to a variety of comments made in the press and online by individuals and institutions that have tried to impose their personal belief system on what Brittany and our family feel is a human rights issue.
The imposition of “belief” on a human rights issue is wrong. To censure a personal choice as reprehensible because it does not comply with someone else’s belief is immoral. My twenty-nine-year-old daughter’s choice to die gently rather than suffer physical and mental degradation and intense pain does not deserve to be labeled as reprehensible by strangers a continent away who do not know her or the particulars of her situation.
Reprehensible is a harsh word. It means: “very bad; deserving very strong criticism.” Reprehensible is a word I’ve used as a teacher to describe the actions of Hitler, other political tyrants and the exploitation of children by pedophiles. As Brittany Maynard’s mother, I find it difficult to believe that anyone who knew her would ever select this word to describe her actions. Brittany was a giver. She was a volunteer. She was a teacher. She was an advocate. She worked at making the world a better place to live.
This word was used publicly at a time when my family was tender and freshly wounded. Grieving. Such strong public criticism from people we do not know, have never met – is more than a slap in the face. It is like kicking us as we struggle to draw a breath.
People and institutions that feel they have the right to judge Brittany’s choices may wound me and cause me unspeakable pain but they do not deter me from supporting my daughter’s choice. There is currently a great deal of confusion and arrogance standing in the way of Americans going gently into the good night. I urge Americans to think for themselves. Make your wishes clear while you are competent. Make sure that you have all the options spelled out for you if you are diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating, painful disease. Do your own research. Ask your family to research and face the harsh reality with you. Ask your doctor to be brutally honest with you. Then make your personal choice about how you will proceed. It is YOUR choice.
The “culture of cure” has led to a fairy tale belief that doctors can always fix our problems. We have lost sight of reality. All life ends. Death is not necessarily the enemy in all cases. Sometimes a gentle passing is a gift. Misguided doctors caught up in an aspirational belief that they must extend life, whatever the cost, cause individuals and families unnecessary suffering. Brittany stood up to bullies. She never thought anyone else had the right to tell her how long she should suffer. The right to die for the terminally ill is a human rights issue. Plain and simple.
Debbie Ziegler
Brittany’s Momma

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Helping Troy

Other than what he is wearing today you are looking at all Troys worldly processions. 

Imagine, just for a moment, that thats you!!!

Circumstances have put him on the margins trying his best to keep it all together. 
If you want to help see our donation offerings on Universal Giving http://tinyurl.com/nowx9ke 
or our Wish List on Amazon. Thanks for helping out!! 
http://tinyurl.com/qf7qkyr

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Phone call for those on death row...

One of Let Kids Be Kids projects, which we fund monthly, is to donate funds to those on Washington states’s death row, so they can make a few phone calls to family per month. Todays Seattle Times (below) has a very supportive editorial to why this small bit of humanity is vital. 
DONATE to Let Kids Be Kids and we’ll get your donation to the sanctioned state rep to handle the funds.
"One out of 28 children in the U.S. has a parent in prison or jail, a rate so astonishing, and growing, that Sesame Street felt the need to add a fuzzy little blue-haired character, Alex, to talk about his locked-up dad…"
Keeping the Alexes of the nation — 2.7 million children — connected with an incarcerated parent is vital.
Maintaining family bonds between inmates and their kin has been shown to be one of the best ways of reducing recidivism. That’s why smart state and local prison systems — including those in Washington — have strong family-focused policies.
Yet, prisons and jails across the country — including in King County and around Washington — artificially raise the cost of telephone calls from behind bars. Contracts between detention facilities and telecom providers commonly include a “commission” paid back to the prison or jail.
Washington’s contract with prison phone provider Global Tel Link required a 51 percent commission on gross revenue, guaranteeing the Department of Corrections at least $4 million a year. King County’s jail has a 58 percent commission.
These are kickbacks, most commonly paid by inmates’ families for doing the very thing that research suggests will lower crime: staying in touch.
In a little-noticed announcement last week, the Federal Communications Commission took aim at the sky-high rates of prison phone calls. It soon will begin taking public comments on the cost of in-state calls, as part of a comprehensive reform proposal. A cap on commissions is among the proposals.
Prison administrators defend commissions as a revenue source that pays for amenities behind bars such as education, a legal library or, in the case of King County Jail, staff for the jail commissary. A quarter of state DOC commissions goes to the crime victims’ compensation fund.
Regardless of those intentions, inmates’ families should not be taxed to stay in touch. That is a clear example of public policies being at cross-purposes: short-term revenue gained at the expense of long-term recidivism.
This is not a new issue. A petition filed by the grandmother of an inmate has been before the FCC since 2003. In February, the regulator moved to cap costs of interstate calls from prison, and call volume across state lines went up 70 percent in some facilities.
But since then, “already outrageous costs” for in-state calls inched up, as prisons and jails jacked up their commission rates, according to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.
“In my 16 years as a regulator, this is the clearest, most egregious case of market failure that I’ve seen,” he said in a statement.
There is no rationality in costs for calls from jails in Washington state. A 15 minute collect call from the Stevens County Jail, in Northeast Washington, costs $18.24, the highest in the state, according to the nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center. A similar call from Snohomish County Jail is $13.39; in King County, it’s $3.50.
The difference is not on quality of service. It is how much profit localities want to suck from the families of inmates.”
http://www.universalgiving.org/…/prisoner_support…/id9750.do

Helping Let Kids Be Kids...

KOMO TV photo
Two mornings a week we hangout at a cafe that welcomes anyone from the streets that may enjoy a shower (sign up required), a washer/dryer (sign up required), some coffee, snacks and a stove where they can prepare a meal. About thirty or so people, who are living on the streets, in tent shelters or wherever they can lay their head, come in for a bit of cheer. 
Help us distribute hand warmers etc. that are listed on our Let Kids Be Kids Amazon Wishlist. Click the following to help us help them-thank you. http://lnkd.in/b2W8V4z

Washington Talking Book & Braille Library

Join Let Kids Be Kids , with a donation, as we support the great work of the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library. Not only does WTBBL create books, digitally and in braille, for thousands of residents who are blind, WTBBL also provides library services state-wide, at the library and by mail, to any Washington resident unable to read standard print material due to blindness, visual impairment, deaf-blindness, physical disability (cannot hold a book or turn pages), or reading disability.
Photo: Michael Barrett Miller, Let Kids Be Kids, Danielle Hennessy Miller,WTBBL Program Manager, William Hennessy Miller, Headmaster/Seven Hills - Walnut Creek…

Veterans Day

Veterans Day!! The best way to honor veterans is to refuse to create anymore--
Just heard on Thom Hartmann a "Republican" radio shill refer to veterans as "moochers and takers." Yep, elections have consequences....
Apparently 58% of veterans voted Republican. Apparently they don't understand what the Republicans have not done for them...
Under the leadership of Mitch McConnell filibustered a bill that would have boosted VA funding by $21 billion, expanded benefits, and repealed a provision of the Murray-Ryan budget deal that slashed military pensions.
Back in 2012,, GOP senators blocked a $1 billion jobs bill would have helped millions of unemployed veterans find work. And in that same year, Republican opposition also blocked a bill - the so-called Veterans’ Compensation Cost of Living Adjustment Act - that would have kept veterans’ benefits on par with rising expenses.
The list goes on. Before that, GOP lawmakers killed the Wounded Veteran Job Security Act, the Veterans Retraining Act of 2009, the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, the Disabled Veterans Home Improvement and Structural Alteration Grant Increase Act of 2009, the Veterans Business Center Act of 2009, and the Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act of 2009...