Stop Global Warming

Stop Global http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/global-warming/

This picture came in one of those "cute" e-mails that go around. But this one is not cute. It makes me want to cry. Polar bears are not doing well at all. Global warming is real, and everyone of us is contributing to it. Is amazing to me how many people do not even think anything about the environment. I think about it constantly and feel bad that I am not doing more to help it. Every little bit helps. You don't have to go live in a cave or ride your bike 20 miles to work each day to help. There are so many little things. For starters why do you need to drive such a big vehicle??? Are you hauling a lot of stuff to your job site each day? Are you car pooling with 4 other people each day? No, then why...cause you think its cool. You contribute a lot more to the problem by driving your "cool" big car.

Don't even get me started on over population!! No body in this day and age should be having more that 2 kids. That's just selfish and irresponsible. Even if you think you can afford them, (not that that even stops a lot of people) you are not paying the full amount of money it takes, and you are sucking up way too much energy, and space on this planet. Don't be so selfish. OK, the 3rd one was an accident, and you made sure there would not be a 4th one. I can live with that. When I see these people that have a baby every year or two, I just want to scream.

Get another hobby! This is not hundreds of years ago, when we were told to go forth and multiply. Enough is enough! But they are "blessings from God". All those little blessings are contributing to plants, animals and yes even kids dying around the world each day. There is a limit to the available resources. Our government subsidizes all your "extra kids". But that money has to come from someplace. Your family takes more of the school resources, medical resources, more space in stores, amusement parks, highways. That's a big one, while I sit in traffic jams. Each of your six kids is going to grow up and get a car, traffic gets worse and worse. Then more than likely each of them will have kids, etc. Its like the poster of how many kittens a cat that is not fixed can have.

Ok, back to the Polar Bears I started with, as the ice melts they have fewer and fewer pieces they can haul out and rest on. They swim very well, but not forever. They are actually drowning in record numbers. They just get too tired to make it to the next little piece of ice, and drown. The young and old die first, then even the strongest will not make it to the next ice floe.

Just so you can have your big cars with bad mileage, and air conditioning, and plane rides and lots of babies. Everything is connected. What you do matters. We have lots of recycling containers at work, yet people still throw recyclables in the trash every day, with out a thought. It takes a lot more resources to make things from scratch than from products (glass, paper, metal) already here.

Its not that hard to do. Before you throw something in the trash, your first question should automatically be "how can I recycle this". Before you buy a car, or have unprotected sex take a second to think how your actions affect the rest of the world. Again, its all connected. From the drowning polar bears, to children starving in other countries. We are using way more than our fair share of resources. Knock it off!

Work, Mark, Vito and Sawdust

Its been a while. I guess if I wait until I have something important to say I may never post.

Whats been on my mind?
Work has been pretty bad lately. I work for the county in Social Services. Mostly I work in the back with computers, and mail. I am busy, but little direct client contact, and I like it that way. But lately management has been royally screwing over the section of clients that I process. Their way of getting caught up on the back log of applications we can't keep up with is to send letters to the people telling them they are denied. Their thinking is if they still really want it, they will call or come in right away, then we will look at their application. If they call or come in in a couple weeks, they have to start all over in the application process. I am so pissed! I have complained like crazy to my co-workers and bosses, but apparently don't have the guts to take it high enough. That pisses me off too. I am quite disappointed in myself. I am usually not too afraid of stuff...besides needles, dentists, relationships, that kind of stuff. But in this economy....I need the job too much. Yeah, its probably not life and death, but definitely not right. I may not always have that much sympathy for all of the clients, but I do have a strong sense of fairness, and this is not fair.

I went to the Sawdust festival recently. Its a summer thing in Laguna Beach. Very cool arts stuff. I love to look at stuff I could never do. I also get inspiration for the few things I could do if I worked on them. There is some music and the food is pretty good. Parking is tough. Take no chances! If you think you will be safe for 5 minutes, DO NOT COUNT ON IT!, the parking Nazi's will get you.
I so appreciate art talent. There is a ritzier art thing close by. Laguna has tons of art, and artists, but I am mostly at Sawdust. One more week for this summer.

I finally went to see my friend Mark. He was in the hospital almost 2 months, and is now is a nursing home. He is hoping to be able to go home again with a lot of help. He has had ALS for about a year now. We will see. I had not seen Mark in I am guessing about 7 years. We are both older now. First I had to find him.
He was not in the hospital any more and they wouldn't tell me where he went. Call nursing home I think he was going to, they will tell me nothing. Finally see an e-mail from his sister telling me where he was going. The street zig zagged in a way that I did not realize when I saw the map, so I missed the second part of it at first.

Get there, he is not in his room, and have to pick him out from all the people in the dining room, while trying not to embarrass either of us. Right now he is very hard to understand, but he is as sharp as ever. I find him (great view from the nearby window), ask how it was there. It took me a few trys to figure out what he was saying. He said "he felt like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest...ask where Nurse Ratchet is...he says there are several. It made me laugh. He may look different, and not be able to do much, but it is still Mark.

Talking to Mark is a bit like playing charades. Sounds like.... He is hoping when they get his medication right, he will be able to talk better. He is pretty bored. He is only 53. He is in a wheel chair. The first time I went he did not even have a remote control for the t.v.!
I take him some books on cd and music cds from the library to try and pass the time, keep his brain occupied. Its not enough, but its something. His sister is back east, dad is 75 miles north, and old. I keep thinking. "damm, it could be me".

My oldest duck, Vito, died last week. I believe it was natural causes. I had him 17 years, since he was an egg. He was the first to hatch here. I buried him in my yard along with way too many others. They are pets, and I miss him.
That's about it.

Link To Us @ The Rainforest Site

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces

Good search - navigate and donate for free.

I have lost this post twice today. I hit save, where did it go? Getting annoyed.

I wanted to talk about donating to causes. Hopefully most people have something they care enough about to donate a few bucks now and then. For some its breast cancer, or veterans, or hungry children or preventing animal abuse. What ever, there is a lot of need out there. If everyone gave just a little it would really add up. The price of one latte, or God forbid, a pack of cigarettes, or a few beers multiplied by the millions of people out there could change lives.

I certainly can not afford to give much, but for years have given a few bucks once a year to about a dozen organizations. For me its mostly animal organizations. (with the exception of a few natural disasters...Katrina, California wildfires..) I take maybe 1% or so of what I make that year, divide it up and send checks in Dec. Yeah, I wish it could be more. But its not. Even most really bad money years I gave something. Its kinda a karma thing.

But the part that pisses me off is, when I send a few dollars, then every month or so they keep asking me for more, until I feel they spent all I gave on mailings asking me for more. Why did I bother? If I could afford more I would have sent it the first time.

All letters now go in a pile that I seldom read, and I sort through them in Dec, and send checks. The ones that bug me the most now get less. I do read the "newsletters, and magazines" they send though, eventually. I am years behind, but feel like I should read them. I would prefer to be reading some of the books I have chosen, then spending my time reading a lot of what they send...but that's my compulsive reading thing. . I just read its more effective to just support a few, but its hard to cut them off after all these years. There are on line sites you can be anonymous at. Two that seem to be legit are Justgive.org, and Network for Good. However they charge 3-4.75% to cover their costs. That might be reasonable yet it annoys me.

A few years ago I discovered Charity Navigator. Its a great way to check that the organization is legit, and tell you how effectively they run their organization. Like if they are spending half the money they receive on fundraising, while a similar one is only spending 5%, I will reward the
more effective ones.

http://www.caringconsumer.com/charities.asp Please also check out that your donations are not contributing to animal suffering here. There are research alternatives to torturing and killing animals that are every bit as effective. Now if they want to test on human prison volunteers...I am fine with that.

There are places that have free giving, like Freerice.com, they can be fun and educational while also giving to worthy causes painlessly. I am looking for more like that. Some of the big stores have the option of liking your stupid swipe cards to a charity. That makes them less stupid, if for every thing you normally buy, the store donates to the charity of your choice. More on that.

If you click on my GOOD SEARCH title you can donate to the charity of your choice just by using them for a search engine. It seems simple enough. If it does not cost me anything and someone will benefit, why the heck not? I am going to try it. Hope you will too.