An exercise that you can try that helped me. Every morning when you wake, look out to the morning sun, make the expression of a smile with eyes wide open, while rubbing your head and face for several seconds.
Why?
The Buddhist monks smile upon waking. It sets their mind and day in a positive way. Cases of depression are rare. Smiling releases endorphins in your brain it’s an early morning dose of endorphins for your brain to set the day.
The facial skin and head are sensitive to rubbing and releases endorphins, like a general massage does. Contact with your loved one with affection, along with the rest of the cognitive support, is equally important because of the high levels of endorphins. Some research has also shown that sex can help with depression and make you smarter too.
Looking out into the early morning sun is also part of light therapy.
Depending on your level of depression it isn't always easy to take action or to try to smile.Apparently the facial muscles get weaker from lack of use too, like other muscles, and this is also an exercise for them, to strengthen them.
Ok, if anyone of Mr. Presidents people actually reads these things, let him know he will lose my vote and a few more of my family members votes in Nebraska if he bails out the newspaper industry.
I have written a post that details what is happening to our economy. I hope, Mr. President, you understand what is truely happening to our economy. We are just in a stage of regrowth and you have to let everything old burn. Your best bet is to retire anyone over 55.
Here is the link: www.2009depression.com.
How do you deter an enemy who is willing to kill himself in order to kill you? You strike at something more important to him than his own life. Defining that will be easy for me. The next question is can America be as ruthless as our enemies?
The time has come to end the fruitless and unsustainable effort to search and destroy every cave in Afghanistan and bomb every campground in bordering Pakistan. It’s counterproductive anyway.
What will put the fear of America into terrorist masterminds and those who would follow their orders is simple and radical revenge. Masterminds have families: Cousins, brothers and fathers. Eliminate them. All at once, or one at a time, it works just as well. The ones who survive an initial “hunt” will go into hiding. Having some adult male relatives killed and the rest hiding out in caves will demoralize masterminds and their loved ones. You cannot work and support your women like that. You can’t make more baby masterminds that way. You cannot continue the blood line. The women and children will pressure them to stop their plotting and bombing.
People want to leave a familial legacy, and they can’t do that under those circumstances over the long term.
Should America do that? Yes. Do we have the “intestinal fortitude” and sustainable motivation? I don’t think so. But we should, and it shouldn’t take another terrorist attack to get us there.
For the last seven years the CIA has been kidnapping people from other nations and torturing them. Why not just go in there and quietly shoot them to death?
Frankly, by not killing women or children the way those terrorists routinely do, we can even claim the moral high ground.
I agree with the Pres! By some strange coincidence, I wrote a song called "Great Opportunity" a few weeks ago, and now President Obama has echoed my sentiments! Here is a link to a video of me performing the song for the first time ever on stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_KCBhUnWw
It was part of a cabaret show I did. I wanted to write something akin to the great Depression-era songs like Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella, or Keep Your Sunny Side Up, but with more of a social responsibility theme. I hope you like it!
We need to give credit where credit is deserved: NAME this economic crisis after the man most responsible for it's creation.
$10 trillion deficit is what we had at the end of the Bush administration. In eight years, Bush more than DOUBLED all the indebtedness America had accrued in more than 200 years.
This is more than a talking point, this is a necessary reminder that should be made every day, so that the notoriously SHORT memories of Americans shall be stimulated on a regular basis.
By hiding in public or disappearing clear out of sight!
"Who" pays for the sins, "We all do" "Now you know, that ain't right!".
By stealing funds from others, working real hard for their families toward a deciet life!
"Shame on you bad people" "Now humble yourself and make that ultimate sacrafice"
When conservatives in Coastal South Carolina are telling you Government can't solve problems, they may believe that because the huge accomplishments of the New Deal here have been sent down the "memory hole." SC entered the modern age with the support of Federal Stimulus spending in the 1930s.
I've been to the Library in Charleston and the old microfilm says a lot. The conservative agruments are the same one's we get now. The accomplishments, clean water, hard surfaced roads, education, civic and cultural buildings and health care are still with us. However, in most places, you'll find local and institutional histories who ignore the WPA and new deal and missing historic markers where what government accomplished have been forgotten.
A PDF, which scans of some of the actual press clippings, can be obtained by request to wjhamilton@wjhamilton.com
The text of my essay summarizing what I found is in the attached, extended post to this blog entry.
Mr. President,
You are getting very bad advice on the economy from someone who is not a friend of working families. He has a long history of support for the very policies that got us into this mess, a long history of opposition to all the likely solutions to the economic meltdown, and a reputation that lacks integrity to put it mildly.
You need good advice. May I suggest Joseph Steiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, James Galbraith and Dean Baker? These are economists who predicted the current crisis, opposed the speculation and de-regulation that caused it, and who offer solutions that are oriented toward working Americans, not protection of Wall Street tycoons.
You got a stimulus bill passed, and that's great. It would have been a lot better had you not listened to Summers and his ideas about tax cuts. Tax cuts have not proven nearly as effective as infrastructure investment in speeding recovery. Then Summer's protege Geithner got his way on the TARP II package and was laughed off the stage and the stock market took a nose dive. Why? Because he has no idea how to solve this problem or has ruled out any ideas that would hurt his Wall Street buddies. He needs to go also.
This administration will stand or fall based on its handling of the economy. If serious reform of the system, and serious infrastructure investment are not enacted in the next year or so, there may not be another opportunity. You need advisors who will consider nationalizing the banks and seizing their worthless assets. You need advisors who will tell you that enacting single-payer health care and increasing Social Security benefits are superb ideas to rescue the economy, freeing billions for investment and jobs. You need advisors who will promote strong re-regulation of the banks and financial markets, including breaking up all the banks that are "too big to fail", mandating reasonable caps on interest rates and an end to inflated late fees. You need people who are willing to make sure that Wall Street never again takes this nation to the brink of ruin by rampant speculation and fraud.
Wake up, Mr. President! You don't have much time.
Senator Dodd went rogue and inserted some crazy stuff into the new law, so the President will need to be creative. Perhaps we are looking for HEROES to run our troubled banks. A lot of wealthy patriots have made great financial sacrifices to serve in the Obama Administration. Like-minded people who don’t want to go through the vetting process and insane pubic humiliation of being outed on every little tax related or other embarrassment can now serve their country without becoming federal employees but while still consenting to be paid wages not all that far above that.
I see nothing different Obama has said or done since 2004 and today -- perhaps Gregg's understanding of it morphed overnight between the time he was begging for the job and yesterday, when it came time to vote on the stimulus plan. Gregg seems to claim otherwise.
Obama should have known Gregg either hasn't the courage of his convictions or , far more likely, hasn't got any deeply held beliefs other than politics. We demand omniscience! How DARE the President not realize a man like Gregg would say anything to further his own personal ambitions?
There's something wrong with a vetting process that cannot discern that a politically savvy adult who somehow got himself repeatedly elected to the US Senate would claim to have turned his back on Petty Partisan Politics but actually lack the moral fortitude to stand by his decision.
Ezra Klein posts the graph I used at our meeting, along with another graph comparing the current economic crisis with 5 others, adjusted for population size. Read his accompanying comments.
[update- march 4, 2009- there is evidently a 250 extra payment for some persons on ssi and veterans- i've tried to find out exact details but kinda hazy. at least its not in mixed up tax refund and my estranged husband can't get his hands on it, like he took my stimulus in 2008.... but, alas, i am not holding my breath. i know it sounds greedy of me, but the rise in inflation and decrease in non-profit ngo help available, including decreasing amounts in food box contents- due to reduced amounts of people who can manage to donate and increased amount of people needing extra help- have made things very difficult. i've been against gambling all my life but i find myself buying scratch tickets when i get groceries, as an investment, not an entertainment....the only chance to get anything extra...] I have loooked and loooked at the stimulus package and there is help for ppl able to work and have jobs, ppl able to work who are unemployed, ppl in school, but no direct help for the disabled who cannot wolrk and are on SSI, SSD, or VA Disability. looks like you have to earn a certain amount before you are "really" affected by the recession/depression... No refund or refundable credit on taxes, as it says a percentage of taxes or 500, whichever is LESS, and i guess "zero" is less. i dunno bout the rest of the ppl on disability, but the folks i know living at a fraction of the poverty level are smacked down by this recession/depression pretty darn bad, especially w state benefit and assistance cuts, shortages at foodbanks and depletion of community sources of assistance
i guess we just don't really matter to the new pres and dems... after all my partner and i make a combined total of 900 a month and only were able to donate about 70 dollars over the course of the campaigns, so we don't count...
Our most urgent problems can be solved with one bold move! While bold actions are politically difficult to implement, I belive that this solution could be sold to the US people...if presented properly. The rationale can be clearly outlined and the correctness should be obvious.
This one action can address and solve the following critical problems facing the US:
We can pay for the badly needed upgrading of American infrastructure and limit the selling of our souls to anyone who will lend us money. INFRASTRUCTURE IS A KEY ELEMENT OF LONG TERM VITALITY OF INDUSTRY AND BUSINESS
We can stop the "giant sucking sound" described by Boone Pickens.
We can assure our own country's future greatness rather than financing the greatness of the people who supply us with oil. Some not too friendly and somewhat worrisome...Russia, Arab/muslim states, primarily.
We can stop the massive influx of capitol to countries that are malicious or, at best, indifferant to our continued superiority on the world financial markets.
We can bolster the value of the US dollar by assuring the world that we are boldly taking control of our own future.
We can assure that people will continue to be energy conscious and conserve energy.
We will lower our carbon footprint, and help clean the enviroment.
We will assure a market for new energy technologies and the jobs they will bring.
We can promise automakers that thier new energy efficient cars will have an eager market.
We can assure automakers that they will have a STABLE market for planning profitable vehicles.
We can create and bankroll, the millions of new jobs that our economy needs.
IT WAS ONLY A FEW MONTHS BACK WHEN GAS WAS STILL UNDER $2.50/GAL AND EVERYONE WAS RACING TO GET THE BIGGEST AND MOST POWERFUL CARS AVAILABLE. HOME CONSERVATION MEASURES HAD MADE SLOW PROGRESS SINCE THE 70'S. NEW LAWS WERE CONTEMPLATED TO REFOCUS THE PUBLIC ON THE CONSERVATION THAT WE KNEW WAS NECESSARY. SOME PEOPLE EVEN DEMONSTRATED AGAINST GAS GUZZLERS BY BURNING BIG SUV'S ON DEALER'S LOTS....ALL THIS DOING VERY LITTLE....UNTIL...GAS REACHED $4.00/GAL
Suddenly everyone was buying fuel efficient vehiles. Dealer's couldn't give away big gas guzzler's. Hybrid's were the new focus. The sudden fluctuation of fuel prices was a disaster for the Automakers. All previous efforts to bring energy conservation to the American people were dwarfed by the simple market reality of high energy cost. All the legislation and well intentioned movements of groups was shown to be a high effort waste compared to the simple market pressure of high gas prices. And... at $4.00/gal, our oil addiction was enriching all the oil producers...many who would just as soon see us dig our own graves,,,and oil companies making so much money that new windfall taxes were considered.
Now at $1.50/gallon, all that is forgotten. Soon we sill be guzzling down the gas again and we will soon return to enriching others......OR we can chose to make our "addiction" work for us.
American's hate taxes..but unless we decide to actually pay for some of the government bailout with a twenty year plan...it will become obvious that we are only printing money like mad while having no plan to really pay down our debt within the foreseeable future..and the belief that we CAN pay down our debt will disolve. And if the people loaning us these TRILLON'S of dollars don't believe in the realitiy of a return of US power, we will see inflation like we have only seen happen to third world countries.
THE SIMPLE SOLUTION: TAX OUR GAS. $1.00 FEDERAL TAX $.50 STATE TAX EXEMPT FREIGHT TRUCKING. perhaps stepped up over six months..and adjusted up or down based upon the price of a barrel of oil monthly.
THIS WILL ASSURE THAT AMERICANS WILL CONTINUE TO CONSERVE, AND WANT FUEL CONSERVING TECHNOLOGIES, AND THAT OIL PRODUCERS WILL LIKELY GET NO MORE THAN $50/ BARREL FOR THIER OIL.
IN THE US...WE CAN SAVE OUR ADDING DRILLING EFFORTS FOR THE DAYS THAT $100 / BARREL OIL ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO BE RESISTED.
Barack may have a special problem with selling this to the people, as one of their primary fears of the new administration is that they we bring new taxes...but it must be done. And as this action shows that Americans are taking bold moves to confront thier problems,,,we may find that the economy springs back almost as quickly as it dissolved...and we can quickly return to the days of Clinton Era surpluses.
GOD BLESS AMERICA! STRENGHT TO AMERICA AND THE COURAGE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE! NO WHERE IN THE WORLD DO THE PEOPLE DECIDE THEIR OWN FATE LIKE WE DO IN AMERICA! LETS SHOW THE WORLD OUR COURAGE AND STRENGHT TO CONFRONT OUR PROBLEMS! MAKE OUR OIL ADDICTION WORK FOR US! FOR US!
(Can I say 'circa' if it's in the future?)
Democrats won't be controlling the Senate after 2010.
They rushed like lemmings to declare they'd never accept Blago's appointee.
A little time and forethought should have enabled them to reason that in order to create the illusion of innocence Blagojevich would be likely to find someone eminently qualified, of stellar reputation and far removed from the (alleged) illegal activities.
That would only be in his own best interests. And if there is one thing we have learned about Blago, it is that his own best interests are his first and last consideration in decision-making.
Senate Democrats have now pitted themselves against the Chicago Democratic Machine. Despite that Dick Durbin has lost touch with reality and thrown in with them, this is a battle Senate Democrats cannot and will not win. In this, there is no winning, only degrees of losing.
Should he be denied, Burris can run against any Illinois Democrat, including Durbin, and win.
As for that silly mausoleum? All politicians are narcissists. He's just 'concrete' about it.
Remember Republican Senator Ted Stevens who actually looked jurors in the eyes and told them he didn't notice people stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars into his pockets. I dare say Bill Gates would notice if you stuffed a few hundred thousand dollars into his pockets. Ted Stevens,... now THAT'S a big ego!
It is also necessary to remember that this is the same US Senate that gave a seven-time convicted federal felon -- Ted Stevens -- a two-minute standing ovation, and two hours of praise-filled testimonials. And they are claiming to be observing their PRINCIPLES???
Republican and Democratic Senators must think we are stupid, stupid, stupid.
Imagine what would happen if the immediate and long-term success, and even viability, of the Republican Party depended on Barack Obama failing to pull America back into PROSPERITY. Oh, wait, we don't have to IMAGINE that because it happens to be the current condition.
While refusing to offer any better ideas, Republicans stand in adamant opposition to everything the President-Elect suggests, even without knowing any details. I have to admit, he's been somewhat vague.
History suggests that America's realization of a sense of success by spring of 2012 will mean the GOP will be broadly out of power for one to two generations.
Every month that another 600,000 Americans lose their jobs is the direct result of Republicans acting on what they see is their own best political interests. While one of their many changing SLOGANS last year was "America First", in truth it is plain that they hold the Republican Party's interests above those of America and our people.
Every day that our children continue to suffer from a declining educational system in which mediocrity is celebrated; every day that more taxpayers lose high wage jobs only to go on welfare food stamps and unemployment; every day that more and more Americans are forced to sign up to work at the country's largest employer WalMart whose own accidentally leaked internally study said 43% of their full-time employees are on welfare and food stamps; every day that we lose what little remains of our manufacturing base so that when we next need to really go to war like in WW2 we won't have car factories to swiftly convert to making fighter jets and tanks so we'll have to order them from CHINA which the most likely enemy in a real war; remember that Republicans see that as MERELY another day closer to the time when they regain power over the White House, Senate and House -- which if not for the horrendous disaster they have created over the last eight years might not be so terrifying.
America stopped keeping up with the demands for maintenance of our infrastructure with the Reagan administration. We were told that things like that "the free market" would take care of things like that, but tell that now to New Orleans and their crumbling levees, or Minnesota with their collapsed interstate bridge, or Kentucky with their billion gallons of toxic sludge that spilled out of a mine containment area.
America's best defense against precisely the current financial system collapse, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, enacted not coincidentally in the wake of the financial collapse of 1929, was REPEALED on the demands of deregulating Republicans -- with help from Bill Clinton in 1999. That law alone prevented financial institutions from becoming "too big to fail". That is, it kept each of the insurance, banking and real estate conglomerates within their own area. They could still become behemoths, but it's when they get into all three of those industries and start making up new ones that are totally unregulated like 'derivatives' that the failure of one company can bring down the American economy, even the world economic system.
The only thing the President-Elect can do to get us out of this disaster is to go back the way we came in, by resurrecting modern-day Glass-Steagall style regulations and stimulating the middle class segment of the system while taking back the giveaway tax cuts from the wealthiest 1% that over the last eight years gave money to people who already had more money than they knew how to spend. They squirreled it away someplace, or bought yachts built in Greece. Republicans love to claim that tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy leads to the creation of small businesses. In reality, it's Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they had nothing who created small businesses that became leading world companies. Billionaires DON'T start small businesses, they BUY huge corporations then fire 50,000 or 100,000 employees to increase productivity and thus profits for themselves and large bonuses for the three to five top executives of each company. Oh, and they CUT wages of the few employees they do have to keep on.
That doesn't grow anything but unemployment and declining wages. Less taxpayers and more people surviving on public assistance.
If we don't stand up to these self-serving Republicans very few of us will have jobs in 2012, and they will be at WalMart. There won't be any real taxpayers to support the public assistance people need to get back into good paying jobs.
I'll get to the CRAZY DEMOCRATS on another post. I'll give you a hint that after 2012 Democrats will no longer be in control of the Senate.
