Just 8 months-more than any other president

Just a few of the accomplishments of President Obama and his administration since he has been in office:

Initiated a Nuclear disarmament discussion at the G-20 in Pittsburgh Sept 30th 2009

Called out Iran on hidden enriched Uranium plant - Sept 2009 (Iran backs down and will allow inspections)

Thwarted a terrorist attack (NY) - Sept 2009

Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act Signed: Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Signed: Thursday, January 29, 2009

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act Signed: Monday, June 22, 2009

Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009
Signed: Friday, May 22, 2009

Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act Signed: Friday, May 22, 2009

Helping Families Save Their Homes Act Signed: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act Signed: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act Signed: Wednesday, April 21, 2009

Cash for Clunkers Extension Signed: Thursday, August 6, 2009

Omnibus Public Lands Management Act Signed: Monday, March 30, 2009

Small Business Act Temporary Extension Signed: Friday, March 20, 2009

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Signed: Tuesday, February 17, 2009

DTV Delay Act Signed: Wednesday, February 11, 2009

He also gave the approval for military sharp shooters to take out a Somali pirate while highjacking another ship, which saved lives. This was a very difficult shot and no one was hurt except for the pirates.

He also was the first president to speak extensively on race relations and speaks out to families and the importance of parenthood. Turning off the TV and the video games and reading to your children. A voice of leadership has been absent in this area for decades.

Church Diversity Breaks Stereotypes

SALT LAKE CITY 14 February 2007 In Harlem, an African-American bishop leads his congregation in prayer. In Miami, neighbors enter a bright yellow chapel and greet each other in Haitian. In Salt Lake City, a teacher instructs her Bible class in Chinese. Meanwhile, in Florida, an entire congregation sings in American Sign Language in poetic gestures, and in California a young child gives his first talk in Sunday school in Spanish.

This picture is a striking contrast to the stereotypical image most Americans have of Mormons as white, middle-class people living in the Intermountain West. Yet it accurately portrays the changing face of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — a faith that is becoming increasingly diverse, mirroring a wide range of cultures and experiences.

This diversity has not gone unnoticed by media trumpeting headlines such as “Mormons Gain in Inner Cities — Church Is Attracting More Blacks and Hispanics” in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “LDS Church Follows Members to Inner Cities” in the Denver Post, “Colorblind Faith” in the Chicago Reporter and “For Mormons in Harlem, Bigger Space Beckons” in the New York Times.

Mormon scholar Jan Shipps, a professor emeritus of history and religious studies at Indiana University, said reporters often call her surprised by the growth of the Church in inner cities. “ ‘Where are the Mormons?’ they ask. I tell them, ‘They’re everywhere.’ ”

In fact, over 150 Latter-day Saint congregations in the United States speak a total of 20 different languages, including Polish, Navajo, Russian, Spanish and German.

Much of the Church’s growth is attributed to the global volunteer missionary program, the largest of its kind in the world. More than 52,000 missionaries teach in 350 missions in over 140 nations.

President Bill Price oversees missionaries in the Washington, D.C., area. His missionaries come from more than 20 different countries and speak a variety of languages to accommodate the needs of the community. “The people in the inner city are humble and have open hearts and minds. They don’t change their lives because of any social program but because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Cathy Stokes, a recently retired health care administrator for the State of Illinois Department of Public Health, changed her life and embraced Mormonism after visiting a temple open house in 1978.

“I signed a slip requesting more information,” Stokes explained, “and several weeks later two nice little white guys knocked at my door in Chicago. I listened; my questions were answered. The questions about life were like a brick of Swiss cheese and the gospel filled in most of the holes.Joining the Church was the most important thing I have ever done in my life.”

“We work hard to send out a message that brings hope,” said Earl C. Tingey, senior president of the Presidency of the Seventy. “We share messages that help families. We bring hope of how a father can be a father, a mother a mother, and all of it is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

At the same time, Tingey is quick to point out the distinctiveness of the Mormon faith in the Christian world. Tingey says the Church is neither Catholic nor Protestant, but a restoration of the ancient Church of Jesus Christ.

Shipps believes a main reason the Church is continuing to grow and become more diverse is its unique theology of the family. “The idea that families remain together throughout eternity resonates with all sorts of people. This belief, plus the remarkable support system the LDS Church provides for families appeals to people from many cultures, African American, Hispanic, Asian and Caucasian” she said.

The Church is also growing more diverse internationally. More than half of all Church members now reside outside of the United States, a milestone that was reached on 25 February 1996.

This worldwide membership of almost 13 million Latter-day Saints is a far cry from the six members in April 1830 when Joseph Smith organized the Church in upstate New York.

Such growth among diverse cultures and nations has become the Church’s primary challenge. To help meet it, the Church translates scriptures, conference proceedings, satellite broadcasts, curriculum manuals, magazines, software, Web-site information and other materials into more than 100 different languages. The resultant translation system is one of the largest such networks in the world.

In a 2000 speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said that Church growth has brought some serious challenges. “The first is the training of local leadership,” noted President Hinckley. “The second … is providing places of worship as we grow so rapidly.”

In an effort to address the need for more places of worship, hundreds of new buildings are being constructed around the world each year.

But training leadership in congregations where no one has been a Church member for long brings special challenges. Unlike the lay members assigned to lead local congregations in the United States and Canada, the lay leaders in many other countries are relatively new members.

In some countries where the Church has only recently been established, some leaders have received their leadership assignments only a few months after joining the Church. These new leaders have few leadership role models.

Recognizing this challenge, the Church has established area offices around the world, overseen by senior officials in the Church called general authorities. They meet regularly with new local leaders and train them in their native language.

Also with dramatic growth comes the challenge of unifying Latter-day Saints of many cultures. Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said that the growing diversity among the members is simply a condition, not a Church goal. The real goal is unity, not diversity.

"We preach unity among the community of Saints and tolerance toward the personal differences that are inevitable in the beliefs and conduct of a diverse population."

As a result, efforts are made to teach Latter-day Saints around the world the doctrines of the Church and to train local leaders, but without imposing American culture.

“Sometimes our culture and the Western culture are very different” said Seung Hwun Ko, a Church member from Seoul, Korea, “But when we talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we meet.”

Joe Wilson's Dirty Health-Care Secret

Adam Weinstein, the author of this editorial is an Iraq veteran, is a freelance journalist. He is uninsured.

By Adam Weinstein

Poor Joe Wilson. The conservative Republican representative from South Carolina stepped in it Wednesday night when he broke with centuries of decorum by screaming, "You lie!" at President Obama during his health-care speech to a joint session of Congress.

Cut the man some slack. He's passionate! I know this because he told me, in the sole message that blazes across his campaign Web site: JOE WILSON IS PASSIONATE ABOUT STOPPING GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!

Except that he's not─at least not when it comes to his, and his family's, government-run health care. As a retired Army National Guard colonel, Wilson gets a lot of benefits (one of which, apparently, was not a full appreciation of the customs, traditions, and courtesies that mandate respect for one's commander in chief). And with four sons in the armed services, the entire Wilson brood has enjoyed multiple generations of free military medical coverage, known as TRICARE.

Yes, it's true. As politicos and town-hall criers debate the finer points of the public option, employer mandates, coverage for undocumented immigrants, and who's more Hitler-like, they seem to miss a larger point: the United States has single-payer health care. It covers 9.5 million active-duty servicemen and women, military retirees, and their dependents─including almost a 10th of all Californians and Floridians, and nearly a quarter of a million residents of Wilson's home state.

Military beneficiaries like Wilson─who, as a retiree, is eligible for lifetime coverage─never have to worry about an eye exam, a CT scan, a prolonged labor, or an open-heart surgery. They have access not only to the military's 133,500 uniformed health professionals, but cooperating private doctors as well─whose fees are paid by the Department of Defense. It's high-quality care, too: surveys from 2007 and 2008 list TRICARE among "the best health insurer(s) in the nation" by customer satisfaction. Yet Wilson insists government-run health care is a problem.

To be fair, Wilson has been consistent in his policymaking if not his personal life: according to his last congressional opponent, Wilson voted 11 times against health care for veterans in eight years, even as he voted "aye" for the Iraq War (during the debate on the war vote, he even called one Democrat "viscerally anti-American"─several times). He voted to cut veterans' benefits─not his own─to make room for President George W. Bush's tax cuts. He repeatedly voted for budgets that slashed funding to the Veterans Administration and TRICARE. And perhaps most bizarrely, he refused─repeatedly─to approve Democratic-led initiatives that would have extended TRICARE coverage to all reservists and National Guard members, even though a disproportionate number of them have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan─and many lost access to their civilian work benefits when they did so.

There's one other notable exception to Wilson's tough-on-government record: In July, when the health-insurance debate just started heating up, he offered an amendment that would exempt TRICARE from any system of employer mandates in a health-care bill. It's not clear whether this is necessary, since most such bills in Congress keep government benefits exempt from the rules as a matter of course. But Wilson took the opportunity to make his stand.

"As a 31-year Army Guard and Reserve veteran, I know the importance of TRICARE," he said in a press release. "The number of individuals who choose to enroll in TRICARE continues to rise because TRICARE is a low cost, comprehensive health plan that is portable and available in some form world-wide." He went on to call TRICARE "world class health care," concluding on a personal note. "I am grateful to have four sons now serving in the military, and I know that their families appreciate the availability of TRICARE," he said.

What does that mean? Nothing─except that Joe Wilson was against government-run health care before he was for it. And now he's against it again. Just not when it comes to his own flesh and blood.

*************************************************************************************

This article was significant to me because of the debate over healthcare amongst my friends (I say that causally). I have a unique view to the southern republican mind since a large number of my acquaintances are southern or southern implants, caucasian and republican. Yesterday I attended a baby shower for a teen Mom who is clueless about the joys and pains of motherhood. During this baby shower, the subject of names for the babies of the other women attending the shower who happen to be expecting came up. As one of the Moms mentioned various names another attendee would tell if the name was that of a Democrat or a Republican in history. If the name was that of a Democrat most in the group would say No or make a moan or a groan. From what I could gather, out of the 10 or so people attending 4 were Democrats.

I have not been able to clearly think of anything else this morning. The feeling that this Democratic and Republican divide is causing amongst my friends is growing. How can we reconcile these issues privately and then publically be civil and genuinely loving? It has to be the Gospel! The Gospel is what binds us. I wonder what the effects are on Missionary work? How many are not sharing the Gospel with others because of these invisible divides?

How does this article correlate? Here is a man that is against a public option in the healthcare marketplace yet he already uses a government run health plan.

Laid to rest...

Daddy was laid to rest this afternoon at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, GA. He received taps and my Mother was given the American flag. The ceremony was beautiful. His wake, funeral and burial were well attended and he was loved by many.

My Dad was born in Orrville, AL in 1931. He attended a Lutheran church and school as a child. He left home at an early age and traveled as a migrant farmer through various states to Canada. He later joined the Army and at the end of his service met and married my Mother Juanita Dukes in 1954. They had 6 daughters. Debra, Karen, Stephanie, Rosina, Pamela (me) and Marcia. My Dad was an advocate for education and always impressed upon us the importance of getting our education and being seif sufficient. He leaves behind 15 grandchildren, 6 great grandchildren, 13 brothers and sisters and a host of nieces, nephews and cousins.

I have been thinking of him all day today. I keep saying his name. Daddy, pronounced Daiddy

Goodbye Daddy. I'll see you in heaven.

Daddy 6/17/1931- 8/18/2009 Rest in Peace

This is my Dad, General Dukes. He had stage 4 stomach cancer which spread to his liver. I haven't blogged at all about it but it has been on my mind daily. He's at home now. He passed away yesterday, Tuesday August 18, 2009 at 6:50am.

We picked out his casket today and chose the flowers for the funeral which will be held this Saturday August 22nd at 12:00pm EST.

We cried and laughed talking about him in the funeral home conference room this afternoon. It felt good to release some of what I have had bottled up inside me.

My Dad was kind. He always had a kind word for me and was always concerned for my well being. I know that he was proud of me and my accomplishments with my business. He was also an entrepreneur which is where I get my entrepreneurial spirit.

He's in a better place now and his pain is gone. Rest in peace Daddy, I love you and you will always be in my heart.

Ode to the Pound Cake

My sister Karen bakes the most scrumptious pound cake I have ever tasted. It's the kind of cake that long after you have eaten it you think of it. Reminisce about it. Dream of it. I have thought about it 3 times today. I ate the last of it this afternoon. I only had 2 slices. I don't understand why she only brought 2 slices to my house when I have 6 members of my family. She baked a whole cake and left it at her house. I have thought about reporting her to her personal trainer and boot camp instructor but that would be mean of me.

I have decided to blog about the pound cake. Pay tribute to it....~

Ode to the Pound Cake

It lies there, my heart aches
Yellow like the sun filtered through my blinds
Coy, shy not like just any cake
It's special~one of a kind
***
It has many admirers, it tempts
Tender crust so tan, so sweet
When I think of it I get ferklempt
It's one pound cake that can't be beat
***
One bite or two, three or four
One slice or two is not enough
After I've eaten it I want some more
I can learn to make it if I get off my duff
***
So the pound cake is gone I have none to ponder
The sun will rise again, it is dawn
I will ask her to bake one for me, will she? I wonder~
***

I meant to take a photo of the cake in hopes to remind me of its decadent flavor. I did not. All I have now are memories.

Decorating - Benneconomy 101- part 5

This is my diningroom. I have taken before and after photos. I knew that by painting this room the furniture and artwork would POP~ and it did. Check out the difference.

Here's the room at a different angle.

Nice but look....

It looks like a completely different room.

It's texturized and up close it looks like really thick sandpaper with sparkles here and there. Gorgeous I think:)

It really warmed up the room.

And POPPED the wainscoting.

Here it is in the daylight - the blinds are closed but you get the idea~


Okay, now just a few more accessories in this room and then onto the livingroom.

Michael Jackson is gone...

Stop, stop, stop you better save me.
I'll be there...
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Clause...
I'm talking bout the man in the mirror
I wanna Rock with you...all night
Cause it's the Thriller, thriller night
Ben the two of us need look no more. We both found what we were looking for...with a friend to call my own - I'll be alone and you my friend will see you've got a friend in me.

When I think of Michael Jackson immediately those lyrics pop into my head. Growing up my family listened to the Jackson 5 Christmas album during holidays. It was a regular album played along with Nat King Cole. Michael is gone at 50. So young. I'll always remember him and his music. All of his songs are the bomb. All of them.

When he did the moonwalk did you try it? How many times did you try to do his dance moves? All is different looks. Wow! I still cannot believe it. I will miss his music and I look forward to any albums he had not yet released.

And to learn now that he really had Vitiligo, so sad....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMGcJFCmnCg

Summer is almost over

My best friend Ruthie spent her vacation in Georgia this week. She flew down with her niece and a girlfriend. They stayed at the Chateau Elan in North Georgia. It had been 2 years since we had seen each other. She looked great. Of course I was all self conscious about my weight and how it has not changed since I had last seen her in New York 2 years ago. We spent the day at the Georgia Aquarium which is marvelous. It was the first time she met my girls. She had not seen the boys since they were 3 and 5 years old. All in all it was a great visit. My nephew Jamad also spent a week with us during that same week and the week before my eldest sister Debra spent 10 days with us.

My Dad is sick. Four of my sisters flew down from new York/New Jersey to spend time with our Father. He has stage 4 cancer and was to be home in time for his birthday on June 17^th and to see everyone. The surgery did not produce the results we hoped for. I’m not quite ready to talk about this at length so I’ll stop here.

The 2009-2010 school year is about to begin again on 8/3. Summer flew by. Wesley will be leaving for Band Camp Sunday the 19^th. When he returns from camp we all leave for a quick family vacation to Buffalo, NY. I plan to take a lot of pictures and will share them perhaps while on the road.

~If you dislike clutter as much as I do~

Donate Your Clothes

Open your closet and quickly look through all your clothes.
Do you have outfits from 1970? If so, then you must get rid of some clutter. First pull out all the clothes you currently wear, leaving them on the hangers and lay them on the bed. Don't put a dress you haven't worn since 1980 on the bed. Be honest with yourself and only include clothes you have worn in the last 9 months.

Now pick out anything that has holes, stains, is faded out, or has anything wrong with it from your closet and throw them away. Next take any clothes that you feel others can wear but you know you will not and put them in a box to give away to the good will or other charity. This includes the pair of pants that are 3 sizes to small that you've been keeping for the past 5 years for when you get skinny again.

Next tackle your drawers. Go though your underwear drawer.
Get rid of any bras with the wire missing or broke, underwear with holes or any other item in poor condition.
Toss them out!

How many Pairs of pants do you have in your drawers that don't fit? Toss them out! Do you have old T-shirts from before your kids were born? Toss them out. If a T-shirt is faded, torn, has holes, or the seams or hems are coming out . . . Toss Them!

You will find it ten times easier to get ready to go out now because you won't have to go through so much clutter just to find something to wear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stop Being Embarrassed by Your Messy Home

This method of de cluttering works in every situation, without fail. You will see results in as little as 15 minutes. Start now and stop spending your time trying to find things. You can be organized and regain your sanity.