Well I have to run on on a vacation. The blog will be temporarily out of commission while I am gone. So you all have a great time while I step out for a bit.

If you have a moment, please check out Empower Up, The (revolutionized) New Kiggins Theater (on Facebook), or chuckle at The Daily Couve if you are stuck at work and have no more vacation time for the year! :-D

Or if you have the fortitude, give your local political candidate a call? Please have a comment or question ready for them. They always need to hear from you! You never know how they might answer or who might answer but its election season again and it is time for them to want to answer that burning question you have hidden away for that special time.

And remember, it is going to be soon enough that you are going to have to make a cognizant choice, so make at least one phone call, location visit with the candidates or go to the CVTV web site and find out how your candidate feels about the subject that you care about. Or better yet, enter them into the search engine sweepstakes and see what comes up! :)

And on that note, I Bid you all adieu.

*Sighs* What you need to find out about the "SnoozeMedia Patrol.... (tm)"

Ok, for those who don't feel that the local snoozemedia patrol does not have a sense of entitlement to humor, here is our fearless wanderer, Matt Wastradowski as the FOOD runway model for Saint Joseph's Sausage Fest cover that they were doing for a cover of the Weekend happenings section. (I have been thoughtfully corrected. It should be noted, this was an attempt at satire.)
With Troy Wayrynen, Sue Vorenberg, and other workers working on Matt to show us how they do a cover of the Weekend section from the inside! :)
And you shall note, that most of the employees in most of this video are in a hysteric state of myrth and happiness. So please,  Do enjoy! Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI8ZxY-TAIc

I want to thank Lew Waters over at Clark County Conservative for posting this youtube video on his wordpress site. I could not watch most of the September 11th videos on television, listen to it on the radio or view most of the other offerings but this seriously gave my heart a move that I could not move for nearly an hour after I watched it.

This video is about 15 minutes long. It shows you what average people can do when they put their minds to some thing. With one of the more horrific challenges of my generation and a couple overlapping generations coming, this news item will become one of our defining moments like a lot of our wars and conflicts of many different sizes and strengths of  preceding generations.

If you want to see what a group of Americans can do unselfishly in the moments of sheer terror, watch this video....

Source of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg

Quotes & proverbs for today.

Have you learned from the old proverb, "As you do on to others that they do on to you?" or "Love they neighbor as though they are the the highest of ideals" even when they are not or "Take up charitable works to help others with no expectation of accrued benefit to thyself?"

As tomorrow is the anniversary of September 11th. Look for some way to help a neighbor out, pay forward a meal or coffee at a local restaurant, say hello to someone you may not know or go out to find someone out in your community that might need helping hand, a simple word of encouragement or simply leave a note on a door that says "I came upon this wonderful place & just wanted to let you know that you are in my prayers...."

And further, how about a simple, warm acknowledgement or smile without derogatory tone or expression? Some times the littlest things we do upon others, can come back 1,000 forward.

Politicians NEED to hear from YOU!

I learned a lesson a few years back when I had a strong opinion about a state issue and series of legislative bills going out on that. I believe I heard this from Craig Pridemore but I might attribute to several different state legislators in Clark County from the recent past.

What that legislator said to me is that if you HAVE an issue of any significance, please spend the time before the NEXT legislative session starts in January of 2012 speaking to legislative staffs, legislators and getting to know the various community groups or people that might have knowledge or influence in a particular area your interests lie.

There is the 49th district, 17th and 18th in central eastern and northern Clark County peal and finally the 15th that comes from yakima to represent the very rural and forested 15th of washougal and western edge of the columbia river gorge area.

And if you need to find contact find contact information, please use your favorite search engine to locate the nearest legislator contact information.

And one further piece of advise. Use a personal phone call, email, letter or face-to-face communication. Nothing is worse and I believe useless is to send some chain letter like response from an email forward, letter campaign or email service. It is not helpful and counter productive.  Would YOU want tor read one of those? The best best, write the subject or call with the best information you have and make as personable as you can.

Honestly, the legislators learn more from a constituent that has done their research WELL and can speak on topic intelligently. Why not give them a piece of your mind? :)

The September 11th memorials

I just wanted to add that I am praying for the friends, family and associates of September 11th, 2011 victims. You are in my prayers this weekend. I do hope all of you who are associated with this tragic event in any form do find some peace this weekend.

Is it time to face the music? (government discussion?)

I have begun to participate in online forums around the state  trying to find out the best questions and information about what I feel is one of the greatest issues my generation of X, Y, Z and millennials will have to face in their future. As it has been said, we are going to grow as a nation of older generations who have paid into a social security  and medicare systems, veterans assistance and benefits, given a lot of hurting folks a chance at life with Social Security Disability and other options, unemployment benefits at the federal and state level, tried to improve transportation options, clean up our environment all over the country and world. Then we can add US foreign aid, defense spending and covert operations and multiple generations of wars during the 19th and 20th centuries.

But if you look at what we have done, it comes down to one set of problems. And that is we have chosen as a nation to jump at every world problem, every need for some unspeakable, world public relations disaster as a nation. And that all comes down to every president and federal congress  who has chosen to use the power of our purse strings to run up a continued deficit of uneconomical  foundation from BOTH parties. Instead of me finger pointing one point in our historical, chronological order of our existence, I think its time we all had a talk around town, around the states and nation about how we want to run our nation.

There is s super deficit committee that was formed by the two major national parties to see if they can hammer out an agreement between themselves to avoid a bigger fight that happened just recently about lifting up our debt ceiling to keep our economy going and with it an agreement that if this committee cannot come up with some resolution of cuts, tax increases or economic modelling for the immediate future, there was going to be an automatic one to two trillion across-the-board cut down.

What I believe our nation needs to do, is cut out the special interests that hog down the political trough with what I conceive is unethical power-brokering and arm twisting and get down to business!

It is going to be my generation or one generation following who is going to have to stand up and finally deal with this mess if the vietnam generation of political appointees at the state and federal do not get off their butts and do the hard and unforgiving task that is before them over the next few years.

As the state and federal legislature of the vietnam die or chose to retire from political office, they are handing us a mess with a kick-the-can down the road mentality. Would you want to be voted into office to deal with a problem of heightened, over promised and hyped political maneuvered over generations? We have a generation X right now representing us in congress here in Southwest Washington. And there as the older generation of state legislators leave office, its is going to be my generation that is going to have to say NO to all kinds of special interests at many differing levels. Even the current governor is showing she does not have the fortitude to tell educational, health, safety, tribal and other opponents this sacred, two letter word?

I have not heard Jaime Herrera Beutler, Anne Rivers, Jim Moeller or many other local state or federal legislators stand up with gumption to say NO to something. I want them to stand up publicly at EACH of their state legislative districts and tell their political interests that we are going to be facing at a minimum this next session about a two BILLION dollar continued shortfall, just like the last session where they had to cut 6 billion. [Edit in, I am sorry to say I remember Ed Orcutt and Joe Zarelli, two local state legislators say no to a lot of things. And finally last year during the legislative session, I think the political powers that be were forced to listen when he had one of the biggest deficit reductions IMO in state history.--me]

I doubt there is anything left to cut at the state level. Though I bet there are a lot of people around who have GREAT ideas!?!?! And that is one thing I wish our next governor whomever it is, will do a listening tour during their campaigns to find things that we can agree on, ways we can simplify or simply CUT! I do not believe raising taxes is going to do anything because in any border county like Clark is (and MANY others!) people simply just use the state line as sympathy flag and go to the border towns to buy instead of paying the right taxes on use and ? on things that would go to our state government.

This is going to mean further painful cuts this go around. And no stone is safe. Not even the worst disabled amongst us, the orphan annie of yesteryear or any thing else. It time our state faced the music.

And another further development, I do believe our state government needs to get off the bond train like the federal government is using to finance all of its options. And that will mean an end in our county to stop going to differing government entities begging, pleading and conjoling and honestly, paying political influencers to bring money home here.

Clark County, its cities, regional partners and federal representation need to get off the gravy train. How would you like it to be known that in future generations, our great country had to default on its promise like California did with its IOU's and could not pay back to the bond holders back because someone could not say the two simple phrases, "I am sorry we cannot do this, there is no money for it" or "No, I am sorry its not in the budget and if you have any questions about the budget, see X director or go online to learn more."

And say that line at every government level!