Things I'm Grateful For

In honor of Thanksgiving I decided that I would write a list of things that I'm grateful for.

1. Family
2. Christ
3. The Gospel
4. Friends
5. Nature
6. My Talents
7. My Country
8. Books
9. School
10. My Job
11. Technology
12. Music
13. Imagination

Economic Crisis

I got this in an e-mail today. I think it's beneficial to everybody to read it. So i'm posting it on my blog.

Subject: Current Economic Crisis

WorldWatch
First appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC

By Orson Scott Card October 5, 2008





Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?


An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:


I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism.
You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.


This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.


It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.


What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.


The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.


They end up worse off than before.


This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.


Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)


Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout?
Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?


I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."


Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.


As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."


These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party.
The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.


Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!


What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?


Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.


And after Franklin Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.


If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.


But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.


You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.


If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.


If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.


There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a
connection.)


If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.


Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.


But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad
-- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.


If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.


Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means.
That's how trust is earned.


Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.


Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.


So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?


Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?


You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.


That's where you are right now.


It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.


If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.


Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.


You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.


This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.


If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.


If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama
-- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.


You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.


http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2008-10-05-1.html



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When People Pass On

I've never really thought about it. Perhaps because the majority of the people I know believe and know the same as me. I know without a doubt that we'll be able to see those that have passed on again. But have you ever thought about how hard that would be for people who don't know that?

I know that i'll be with my family again and that we will be ressurrected when the Savior comes again. But to think that people around the world don't know this or choose not to know this, is heart breaking. To think that there are people out there who think we just stop existing when we die. Why would we be here then if that was true? Why would there even be anything. This is one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog. To let the world of internet users know what I know. Of the glorious eternal paln. We are here on this earth, to be tried and tested. When we die we go back to live again with our Heavenly Father. Why else would we exist? Life would be meaningless. We live to help those around us as well. We live to grow and learn as much as we can in this life. We get to take that knowledge with us into the next life. We don't get to take any other worldly possession.

Well I suppose that's all for right now. I hope I've been able to help someone out there who was/is in need of comfort.

My Plan To Get Me To My 5 Year Later Mark

In January I'll be starting my Nursing Pre-requisits; I'm planning on being done with all of these in a year. Then I'll be applying for Nursing school for the fall semester. With the semester that I have off I'll work on my application and possibly be doing some volunteer work. I also plan on saving up to pay for my tuition. IHC has a tuition remebursement program that i'm going to a part of. So I'll work on keeping my grades up so that I can be apart of that. It requires me to sign a one year contract for when i've completed my nursing school; and working at least 48 hours per pay period for them while i'm in school.
Perhaps I'll get married in the next year or two. We'll see how things pan out in the romance section of my life. Assuming that I do get married, I want to married in one of God's temples. I'm not sure which one though. I want to be married to a man who is really strong in the gospel and has served a mission. I want to be married to a man who can support me in my decisions with school and other things. I want to be married to a man who knows responsibility. Somebody who is frugal with money and knows how to save, so that we can be financially secure. Then we'll be able to save to buy a nice little house to start our family.
That's my plan so far... Perhaps I'll add more as I think of it.

Where I See Myself Five Years From Now

I just thought I'd do a little thinking exercise. Has anyone asked you where you see yourself five or ten years from now? Teacher's all through my school years have asked this question to their students. I was thinking about it yesterday night and decided I would post something about it.

I see myself happily married and perhaps having a baby. I will be graduated from Nursing School (that is if I get in right away) and I will be finished or close to being finished with my contract with IHC. Perhaps my little family will have a nice small house with a nice front and back yard. I will have a nice garden with tulips and snap-dragons. Perhaps some daisy's, maybe I can learn how to grow the gerber daisys' too. I love those flowers. We will have at least one cat, because I love my cats. My car will be paid off, which will be awesome. I will still be drawing and reading, we'll have a nice collection of books and children's books. My little family and I will keep strong in the gospel, we'll have Family Night and Scripture study regualarly. My child will be brought up in the gospel. My husband will have a good stable job where he can support us if I stop working as a Nurse, though for a least a little while I'll be a part-time nurse or an as-needed nurse (PRN). Hopefully we'll own a piano so that I can continue to play, if not we'll be able to go to my parents house and play on their piano. I still want to dance, so maybe i'll be at a dance studio or just in my home and teach my child to dance and sing and play the piano. All of the arts. I absolutely love the arts. I'll teach my child of my passion for music and books.

So that's where I see myself in five years. I'm excitedly awaiting that time. To get to have my forever family.

God Is In Nature

Have you ever thought how beautiful the trees, flowers, mountains, and streams are? Or waterfalls. All of nature really. God created every bit of it. He is derfinitely the master artist. This is one way that I am reminded that He is all around us and that He cares for us. If He didn't care, why would create such beautiful masterpieces? Nature sometimes gives me strenghth to go on too. When I'm having a rough time I like to go and sit outside and look at all the beautiful creations.

Even if you're not having a hard time its good to just take a walk or sit and enjoy the smells and sounds of the world of nature around you. It's a very peaceful and calming experience. Sometimes it's just nice to have a little time by yourself to reflect on your life and your decisions and decide what else you will be doing with your life. Sometimes its when you are doing this that you get the answer to the question you have been asking Heavenly Father about. It's easier to hear Him when we are trying to listen, and when it's quiet and peaceful.

A Little Bit About My Family

Well I suppose I should tell a bit about myself. I've grown up in and LDS family and I love it and wouldn't change it for anything. I have a very special sister who was born three months pre-mature. She's our angel, she keeps everyone entertained. She was at the hospital for the first eighteen months of her life. That's where I was first introduced to the medical field. My sister and I are only fourteen months apart. She's had a ton of medical problems. The doctor's told my parents when she was born she would only live to be maybe two years old. But she has defied the doctors words and the Lord answered my parents prayers. She is now nineteen years of age. She loves to go to school and she loves to talk to everybody and ask for pictures of them. She loves pictures, and typing on the computer. I suppose having a sister like this has given me oportunities to strengthen my testimony. She has been in the hospital many times and always we pray to our Heavenly Father for comfort and guidance in what we should do and how to help her pull through things. The Lord helped every time and always will; if it is right for us in his plan. I know that if she ever did leave us though, that we would be able to see her again in heaven and that she will be made perfect. I'm so thankful for my family and my friends that have helped my family in hard times. They are so great.