This is a HUGE Problem in Today’s Society…

Can anyone take a guess at what one of our biggest problems in today’s society is? As a whole we have become complacent to the idea that it is okay not to keep one’s word. A person is only as good as their word is, and if their word fails, then they fail. Period. Americans will allow their intelligence to get insulted time and time again and not bat an eyelash when they get manipulated. Why is that? What has made us so accepting of people who will say anything we want to hear, only to find that they never had any single intention of honoring their word?

This takes place in many areas of our lives but the result is the same.  If someone we care deeply about does it, we are far to quick to forgive–especially if that person is our partner. Well–most of us anyway. I am not that way anymore. I got in touch with my inner bitch a long time ago, and I am here to tell you, when I get lied to and the person is caught, that trust can never be brought back at any price.  In fact, I tend to make a clean break now.

In fact, I’ve booted exes, former buddies and a few peers from my life that seem to take pride in such behavior. Yes, pride. They say things like, “Oh I was just BS’ing.”  Sorry but your BS’ing got people hurt.

Now I want to address another form of “lying”.  Remember this story?

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Gay-Server-Tip-Lifestyle-Receipt-Discrepancy-233040811.html

 

Don’t jump the gun yet! I don’t think the waitress lied.  I think she and the family were, in fact, victims.  HERE is what I think went down with this story.

I think the waitress turned the ticket into whoever was handling the cash register.  I believe a reprint was made and that was the ticket given to Ms. Morales.  The reason I am giving her the benefit of a doubt is that there are more ways to rip off a person than one can shake a stick at, and I think whoever did it pocketed her tip and gave her a bogus receipt. I feel the note on the receipt, which again does NOT match the customer’s handwriting, was written by whoever cashed out the original ticket. If this is the case, there are two victims here–the family AND Ms. Morales.

Now there are people who will get even more angry if this is the case because of all the donations sent to Ms. Morales as a result. Either way she was still a victim. She got angry and posted that receipt merely to make a point. She did not intend to expose the people by name, but was simply hurt by the note left. Sadly, if that note was left by a fellow employee, I hope that he or she is caught via video, fired and then made ineligible for rehire because this type of person will continue to perpetuate fraud upon his/her co-workers and upon other customers as well. IN fact it should become a police matter at that point–even if all he/she did pocket was the $18 tip.  There is no telling how many other tips got pocketed that should have went to the wait staff  if this is the case.

I would also like to add that cons who are into criminal theft are not going to be making donations to “Wounded Warriors” either. As far as Ms. Morales goes, people really need to reserve their judgment.  I find it highly disturbing that if my scenario is correct, that anyone would leave such a hateful, spite-filled note to any waiter or waitress.

Have we as a society not learned that all people deserve a fair shake? Evidently not given some of the heated rhetoric I see directed at  Ms. Morales as well as  the family. America it is time to be quiet and wait to see what happens on this one. I think that both the family and Ms. Morales deserve that much.

Parents, Parents, Parents! It’s TERM PAPER TIME! Here is HOW to Help Your Student!

Parents, if you’re helping kids with their term papers and such, MAKE SURE that the blog posts they are citing  (IF THEY ARE USING THEM) are run by REAL PEOPLE whose credentials you can verify. There are a lot of phonies out there giving out phony facts to elevate their egos and they are spreading a LOT of false information about various subjects they claim to be experts in.  If the paper counts for a MAJOR GRADE, your quick thinking may make the difference between an A/B paper and a C/F one.

If they name a university, check out its website and see if that person is a faculty member. If that person’s name is NOT on file, then the whole site is bogus! Tell your kid to keep looking!  That’s the best way to check it. Then direct your child to find something easier to verify. In fact, if you want to, call that professor up on the university extension IF that person’s REAL name is on the blog, and ask him/her and verify that this is his/her site. A lot of people do rip off ID‘s. Most professors won’t mind verifying the info either and if it is not their blog, they will take action to shut it down.

There are too many “wannabe” experts out there pretending to be somebody they aren’t. Some get paid for each hit on their website. Think of it this way, if the site is bogus, you’re not just helping your student to a better grade, you might be preventing possible internet fraud.

Tune in next time for another writing tip…Same bat time! Same bat channel!

 

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Another Year and I Still Think of You…

Dear Jay:

I wish you were here to share this with but you are not. A lot has happened since you went away. I thought of you when I heard a high school band playing a while back and how we marched on to make a 1 at UIL back then…Those were the days, man…I remember the pride we had in our work, and the times we were on top of the world when we did do well! I also remember the spirit of unity our band had back then. Those days made getting up and going to school worth it.

I remember going to your mom’s house for those awesome lunches too when she had the food stand! She and several others kept me going, even when it got tough and I’ll be forever grateful to them all for that. Knowing that you went to the ends of the Earth to get your son is an inspiration to me. I am grateful that you had such a wonderful and fulfilled life. You have a wonderful family and they will continue to carry your torch for your son until he can carry it on his own.

I am sure you are having a grand time celebrating today! Happy birthday, my friend…And just so you know, I may be going to another end of the Earth soon enough…I may be going to China for a while. This is the second time I’ve been approached on the idea. This time I may do it.

Tina

 

A Passage From the Haunted Pen…

Here is a reality people do not seem to understand. When writing from one perspective,  one only reaches THAT targeted audience. Whether the subject be the universe, money, politics, whatever…People have their own reality and that is what they will base their judgments of any writing on. It’s the same way when it comes to life, politics, etc…People base their judgments on their own life experiences and it is not fair to condemn them based on those experiences. Everything in life is about perspective and people need to get it through their heads that not everyone will agree with what their perception of the world around them is. It is like viewing the same car accident from 2 different angles. People will see it happening slightly differently every time.

While perspective has to do with art, and how the artist sees it, and perception is about how one interprets something, both fall hand in hand when it comes to writing and/or life experiences. The writer puts the pen to paper and shares his/her interpretation of what is being discussed. It is the audience perception that determines the effectiveness of a writer’s words–and audience members will perceive the same lines differently each time!

Writers will be often misinterpreted, misunderstood and even at times maligned for the words they choose to put to paper. It comes with the territory.  They will also be maligned and such for their own personal views regardless of what they are. That is why I said in an earlier post, there is no need for anyone to have to justify what their opinions are or why they have them  to anyone else.  They are what they are. No writer, artist, actor or whatever is obligated to say, “I feel this way because I…” to anyone, be it a reporter or an armchair expert.  It is not like anyone would be able to change the mind of the author anyway.

My number one rule is as a writer, I will never try to justify what characters represent, why plot lines are written as they are and/or why I do not concern myself with being politically or socially correct when it comes to them.   That does not matter. What matters is being that they represent something from my own life’s perspective, the real question should be “Why reveal them in the way I chose to?”  That is something I have yet to see asked of any writer.  Much of the time they have been asked to justify why they have their characters say or do certain things.  That is the part the reader gets to figure out. I use them to point the direction in solving the entire puzzle. I certainly won’t divulge it in my notes either. It is easy to get lost in the real purpose if one gets hung up on the attitudes/actions of one or two characters.

Why read a book and then ask such a question about it anyway? All characters can be used to drive home several points within the same plot, I believe–as long as a writer does not write a long, drawn out work that is as confusing as Cubist art can be…Yes, it’s about PERCEPTION and Cubist art confounds me and amazes me at the same time.

 

Now you KNOW why it confuses me.

What I will say is that the characters, to me are real. They have a life of their own and they haunt me, and when they do, they come out through the pen.  They can fend for themselves once out there on the page. All I do is play God and bring them to life and/or kill them off when they’ve finally incurred my eternal wrath.

 

On a Not So Special Day…

In October of 2000, I remember going to Eastland Cemetery in Eastland, TX…I found my way to the woman whose suicide I blamed myself for many years…She wasn’t famous.  No one heard of her except the locals who knew of her tirades.  Her name was Judy.  She was my stepmother.  For about 3.5 years, I endured much at her hands but it was on this day that I came to one stark realization.  She could not help her mental illness.  In the last two weeks of her life, she thought she was four years old, and that I was her mother.

For years after her death, I kept asking, what if I had done this? What if I had done that.  The fact of the matter is that it does not matter, especially now. There are two things nobody has control over besides life and death and those things are the past and future. Neither can be changed. However I spent much of my 20’s trying to run from the memories of what went on in my home during the time she was with us. It was rather violent. I got shoved into walls, cabinets, picked up and thrown into one once–and those times were on the days when she wasn’t too pissed off and went off on EVERYONE.

Do I hate her? No.  Do the memories of a pistol getting pointed at my head still haunt me? Yes. That is probably why I never owned a gun. However times change and I do often think about obtaining one now. Please, if you’re into gun control, don’t preach at me. My family hunted for decades and before that my ancestors did also.  Not everyone who owns a gun is a nut-case.

Anyway back to my point.  There is only one thing that enabled me to get beyond the shadows of the past  when it came to her and that was to make this particular trip, on this not so special day to her grave.  It was in the 60’s and the sun was out.  And I stood here for a long time pondering what I would say if she were to stand next to me. It was then I said something very close to this:

This is my stepmother’s grave. My father was buried elsewhere

 

“It has been many years now. I have done some digging and now I can understand why you were so tormented over several things. Losing your own children and losing two sisters prior took a toll on you. I understand now, Judy. I understand the hell you went through at home as a child too. I forgive you.  I actually forgave you a long time ago but I had to come here to say it. I hope that you are at peace and that you are no longer suffering. I would wish what you endured on nobody now that I have put it together.”

Her suicide took a devastating toll on my emotions all the way through high school and beyond. I buried myself in my writing and my school work. I almost ended up getting into cutting but one of the counselors saw my journal and encouraged me to channel my energy elsewhere.  That was when I picked up a pen.

The chilling remarks when I came back to school after her death were the most cutting. Some new kid asked why anyone would shoot themselves.  My teacher in that class was a coach everyone got pissed at every day it seemed.  As I sat there he said, “I don’t know but women usually don’t go around shooting themselves because they are afraid to mess up their looks.”

I was livid. There is no way he didn’t know about her suicide being that he worked part-time for DPS.  I got up and bolted out of the room.  I stayed home for a couple of days and was in a different class after that. My dad made sure of it.  Even in her death the bullying and idiotic behavior of some of the other students continued as well. I never forgot that either. To them it was all a joke.  Well I hope they enjoyed their years at school afterward, because much of their entertainment came at the expense of others who were broken. This is why I don’t attend class reunions either–along with many others who opt not to show.

It is actually them I feel sad for. Even in adulthood they do not have a clue as to the scars they inflicted with their actions and words, yet most have suffered their own tragedies and seem to forget their past actions.  Ironically, I forgive them too. Some will have much to answer for one day. Until then, I will live my life and continue to work to get questions answered. For Judy, it’s the least I can do. She deserved better than what life dealt her.

 

Thoughts on Friendship…

A friend who cannot accept that you have differences is not your friend.  A friend will not turn their back on you or betray your trust. They will accept that although you won’t agree on everything, they will defend you regardless because it is your RIGHT to be who you are. Those who cannot accept you as you are have the issues. Not you.  If they turn their backs on you and treat you badly, that is their loss and not yours.  YOU don’t need people to validate who you are, that comes with your own inner voice.  You must follow your convictions, not theirs.

If one is willing to let differences of opinions, color of skin, political affiliations, sexual orientations and such affect him/her in such a way that they do not even want to hear you out or try to find out why you feel the way you do, THEY have the problem. Not you. That being said I have always found it best to detach from many and not let people get close to me. I really don’t require human contact and do not need anyone to “validate” who I am.  I do not look for any person to come riding in on a white horse to save me. I had to take care of some things myself–and let God do his job…And he’s got a lot of work ahead of him…Trust me.

A Simple Thing to Ask…

“…I have discovered that I am hated for being in the land in which my ancestors were sent to die. That is a sad revelation. Very sad indeed. However this is where I am from and this is the ground upon which I stand. Their blood ran through it and when I die, I will be one with it. To hate the land is to hate my blood. To hate my blood is to spit upon my ancestors. Spitting on one’s ancestors carries a special curse with it, I believe…When this circle completes, this will have been proven many times over, so please don’t profess to love me or be my friend and tell me you hate this land. If you hate the land, you hate the people–and I am one of those people…”(Journal Entry)

I wrote this some time back. I have now come to the realization that no matter what I say or what I do, someone is always going to hate me for it and/or bitch about it. However I block the bullies who try to coerce me into agreement with their stance on anything. Regional bias is another form of extreme hatred that is every bit as much of an ‘–ism” as racism or homophobia.  I come under attack quite often from both sides. For one, I believe abortion will always be legal so the question is, who should pay? Well I say not me since it is elective surgery. I wouldn’t want to pay for anyone to get their boobs made smaller because they were inconvenient pieces of tissue so why would I pay for that? As for gay marriage, let them marry. It’s not our job to do God’s job. Now that this is out-of-the-way, I got a lot of shit because I recently decided to support Ted Cruz.  Why?

MOST know I was living in a 3 BR house prior to September. I relocated to be closer to work, but was hoping to save on rent. However,  it actually increased.  NOW I had to choose between groceries, rent, car payments and such AND the medical insurance.  In an economy where most Americans are already strapped, I do NOT feel that this should be mandatory OR fines imposed for non-compliance.  In fact, if they are going to “steal” $99 or whatever it is from the Burger King worker’s paycheck , it should automatically be applied to the cost of the premium and a special plan be put into place to cover them.  Burger King employees are good examples for this. They are getting hit too. Anyway, this is theft, pure and simple and that is why I support Cruz.  I am not rich. I am not eating steak every night. All I want is the $250 out of my paycheck back.  To me it is thievery when they take from one group to give to another and then they raised the deductibles to a ridiculous level.  The people in charge right now are NOT Democrats. The last true Democrat was Ann Richards and she is gone.  I honestly think she’d have taken the same path Rick Perry took with this trash.

The mis-assumption for many Democrats is that it is only  people who are well off and white who want this thing abolished–unless they are lying to make race an issue of it, and that would not surprise me. Well if they call me white, they are racists themselves. I am part Comanche. I am not well off either. I live in an RV (rented) for now.  I do not make a huge amount of money and I am sick and tired of hearing Democrats tell me how well off I am when I have to rely on a  soup kitchen to eat dinner at least 3x a freaking week–even on my pay. I could lie and say I make $20 less a month than I do and get SNAP but I am not a liar and I will not steal. I’ll leave that to these Democrat politicians who seem to think that they are Robin Hood incarnate.  I will also be the first to remind them that Robin Hood was still a thief in the end–and if they really think that they are “Robin Hood” they need to be reminded that the “merry men and women of congress” will turn their backs on them when it hits the fan too.

The only ones who really do NOT have to worry about this thing are those who fall into that 2% that Gore keeps bitching about. How are they getting exempted from this crap?  Believe me they are. I am think that if it is good enough for us, the working people out here, then it is good enough for everyone else.

Subsidies? Please…That is an even bigger  joke.

I definitely think the 10 Senators whose seats are up for grabs next year figured it out.  They are begging Obama to fix the crap because their voters are giving them ultimatums! Gee, do you think Obama will listen to THEM and grant a 1 year individual extension on this crap? I don’t think so. He’ll let ’em go down with the ship.

SO now all I have is ONE question to ask.  IF we don’t agree why can’t we just all get along and work on what we DO agree on first, then duke it out over the other crap at election time? Hasn’t the government played that division card long enough?  THEY work for us–not the other way around.

 

UPDATE….I guess Obama is going to give individuals that one year extension the House Republicans were begging for prior to the shut down…Good idea but is it still kicking the can down the road and avoiding the inevitable? Better yet, which party will get credit for the idea? Gee…Seems like it would have paid off to negotiate with those repubs after all, huh Mr. Reid?  Ms. Pelosi?  What? I can’t hear you…However, we shall see if they were right, won’t we? Stay tuned…Same bat time, same bat channel!