This Day

by Larry Winget

This day, I thankfully accept all of the good things that are coming my way.

This day is full of excitement, love, energy, health and prosperity.

This day, people are calling on me to be of service to them and I respond by giving them my very best.

This day, I think and practice health in my life, refusing to accept anything less than perfect health.

This day, I accept the abundance of prosperity that is mine and willingly share it with others.

This day, I focus on the moment and give no thought to the past or to the future.

This day, I spend in total enjoyment of what I do.

This day, I fill with loving thoughts and actions toward all other people and myself.

This day, I spend in grateful appreciation of all that is mine.

This day, this hour, this minute, this moment is all that I have and I choose to use it in celebration!

From Larry Winget, author of Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life

Libraries, necessity or luxury?

Here in Calgary, we are in the midst of a civic election that has many people up in arms. One of the more controversial issues is described in the following article from the Calgary Sun last weekend - it says it all!

"Second busiest, but bottom of the pile when it comes to funding.

Such is life for the shoddiest and most shameful public library system in Canada, left out as a neglected wallflower in the midst of an obscene spending orgy by Calgary’s 15 elected servants.

The money, of course, is gone — and with it, any chance of building a downtown library reflective of a city that so desperately wants to be world class.

Instead of an iconic central branch to replace the undersized and crummy structure at the corner of 7 Ave. and Macleod, the city’s library system find itself juggling hours, to deal with budget cuts.

Rather than a proud landmark building full of books and public resources, like Vancouver or Seattle, Calgary has a library system trying to determine whether to shut down Sundays or one weeknight, to save money.

The new central branch, heralded five years ago as a $150-million masterpiece to be built almost immediately, is scrapped, because council wanted bridges, pretty boulevards and nice parks instead.

The embarrassing central branch built in 1963 must suffice for the foreseeable future; thus a library designed to serve 400,000 citizens must handle more than a million.

It’s a disgrace — and those who called themselves aldermen and mayor over the past three years should be deeply ashamed.

Thanks to a city council more concerned with making the right impression on tourists, the citizens of Calgary might soon be denied timely access to their own libraries.

If the citizens want to read, let them read the dedication plaque on Calatrava’s $25-million designer bridge over the Bow, built to satisfy the sycophant insecurities of certain aldermen.

Such is the message to Calgarians, from those who controlled the money, and spent it on things we didn’t need.

There certainly won’t be any library books to borrow in the library-starved northeast and southwest, with the new Signal Hill and Saddletowne library branches now on the chopping block.

Promises must be broken, because all the infrastructure money has been spent.

Instead of cutting ribbons on new buildings, library officials have been told to cut $3-million from a $40.6-million budget that’s already the lowest per-capita allotment of any major city in Canada.

It’s the result of a $60-million revenue shortfall at the city, where all departments have been told to freeze hiring and make cuts.

For a department already working on something less than a shoestring, it’s brutal news.

The national average for library spending is $43.81 per capita, with Calgary’s system receiving half that.

That’s despite the huge demand for library services in Calgary.

Last year, 5,458,397 people visited Calgary libraries, more than any other public attraction or institution, be it the Stampede, Zoo or Calgary Flames.

For good reason too — the library is a source of learning, arts and culture for those who don’t have money for theatre tickets or backstage passes to the best music festivals.

It’s also a hell of a deal, even when you pull up to the doors in the latest luxury Lexus.

DVDs, CDs, magazines, newspapers from all over the world and a collection of 2.3 million books, free for the taking, after paying a small fee for a card.

Then there are the librarians — when not helping to find information and books, you can find these skilled professionals reading to a rapt group of children.

That Calgary’s library has done so much with such a paltry budget is pretty astounding.

To think what they might have done, if the late and not-very-great city council had bothered to include libraries on the list of pet projects, is heartbreaking.

The division between the haves and have-nots is never more apparent than at Calgary’s Central Park, home of the venerable Memorial Park library branch.

Here, culture can be found in the flower beds, benches and automated fountains, looking fantastic after an $11.5 million overhaul, as approved by city council.

The city’s oldest library, meanwhile, soldiers on like a shabby stepchild, hours restricted and its collection a shadow of what it could have been, with decent funding."

michael.platt@sunmedia.ca

For more information check out:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/profile.php?id=100001607441609

Voting?

 (I received this in an e-mail from a friend and I think it is worth re-posting . . . right here)

Isn’t it amazing that in school we were never taught this. I think every North American woman & man needs to know this and teach it to their daughters & grand-daughters.

 Amazing !!! 

This is the story of our Mothers and Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.  Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

 The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. 

 And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.' 
 
(Lucy Burns) 
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. 

 (Dora Lewis)
 They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

 Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. 

 (Alice Paul)
 When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. So, refresh MY memory. Some women won't vote this year because - Why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
 
 

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
 
 My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. And she was . . .with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

 HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco/Bingo night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
 

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

 The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

 Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.  We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Wherever you are, whether you vote liberal, conservative, democratic, republican or independent party - please exercise your right to vote.
 

And so we learn . . .

After A While
(1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall)

After a while you learn the subtle difference
    between holding a hand and chaining a soul


And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
   and company doesn’t always mean security

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
   and presents aren’t promises


And you begin to accept your defeats
   with your head up and your eyes ahead
   with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today
   because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
   and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much


So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul
  instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure
   that you really are strong
   and you really do have worth


And you learn,and you learn
   with every goodbye, you learn . . . 

Missing

There are so many things in this brave new world that eat up the hours in our days.
Do you ever wonder what the world would be like if our kids didn't have all the technology they're so plugged into?