ShowMeBlog

Microfinance

  I am a poor person but I believe in Microfinance.  I been doing Kiva for months now.  I am happy with them and will be making a another loan via Kiva in 3 days.  I do a $25.00 loan each month.  I think Micro-loaning is a great idea but I am surprised that it works.
  After I have made 12 Kiva loans I think I will sign up with a different microfinance site and use them for a time.  Just so I can see how it works with a new company.
  I am thinking of going with MicroPlace as the next one.  
  I might go with Grameen Foundation. 
  I wish I could afford to loan more than $25.00 a month.  If I won the lottery I would do a large sum for each of them.
  These loans are made to very poor hard working people in third world and it helps the people and they pay back the loans.
  I think Grameen is now loans in the United States!

 

“…In the United States, more than 37 million people live below the poverty line; approximately 74 percent of them are located in major metropolitan areas. A wide variety of social, historical, cultural, educational and structural factors contribute to the persistence of poverty in the world’s richest nation. Despite these obstacles, poor people are embracing microentrepreneurship as a pathway out of poverty. In fact, many clients of U.S. microlenders break out of dead-end jobs, unemployment and dependence on public assistance to become successful entrepreneurs, creating jobs for their families and their communities.
Our partner microfinance institutions in the United States:

• Project Enterprise, New York City
• The PLAN Fund, Dallas, Texas …”

    I do not think micro-loaning will work as well in the United States.  I hope I am wrong.  I just see those people in other nations working harder. 
     Grameen says that 37 million people (12.6 percent) live in poverty. 

Terrorism Attack

  I am not sure if the news media will call the killing of Dr. George Tiller an act of terrorism or not.  It is terrorism.  He was medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita KS.  He was shot and killed at his church today.  A few years ago he was shot in both arms. 
  I am no fan of abortions.  I do not think many people are fans.  I guess Dr. Tiller did “late term” abortions and those sort of abortions are even less popular.

 

The United States has defined terrorism under the Federal criminal code. 18 U.S.C. §2331 defines terrorism as:

…activities that involve violent… or life-threatening acts… that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and… appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…."

  We should deal with this murder that committed this act of terrorism in the same hash terms as we deal with other people that commit terrorism.
  
  Not having anything to do with this…but we need to try and reduce the number of abortions.  We need sex education.  We need to work with people to try and cut down on people having sex with out using good protection.

  There is no excuse however for killing doctors or bombing clinics.

Montel: Sore Losers

School strip-search case

When Savana Redding was just 13 years old, she was strip-searched by school officials for allegedly possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. This traumatizing search was based solely on the false and uncorroborated accusation of a classmate who was caught with similar pills.
Overzealous school officials violated Savana's rights and called into question basic constitutional protections for all students in schools across America.
This morning, the Supreme Court heard arguments from ACLU attorney Adam Wolf in this powerful case.
Savana and her mother, April, recorded a short video with Graham Boyd, an attorney here at the ACLU who is working with them. I think you’ll find it moving to meet a real hero who’s taken her case to the Supreme Court.
Please watch this powerful video, and send a message of support to Savana and her mother.

 

Two New Blogs

  I just set up two new blogs.  I am looking for some people that want to post to the blog.  Right now I could use a few good conservatives to post to Show Me Conservative.  If you are a Republican and if you want to think about some issues and post to the blog then I could use your input.  Think about it and we can give it a try.
  Now I do not want someone that is just going to call names and get all crazy.  I do not think that is going to work well for the blog.  I would like someone that thinks and have some ideas of their own.  You could post as often as you have content.  I know many of you are busy.  It could be something you do each day, each week or just a couple of times a month.
  I will set up some sort of list with people blogging with a photo, link to send you an email and link to some site that you want to give.
  When you write something feel free to post links.  So you do not have to cover everything in great details.  You can put links to sites.
 
  If you are liberal then you can post to Show Me Progressive. 

  If you are interested email me:  hnbbs@usa.net  
  Keep in mind that my blogs are pretty personal to me so do not feel bad if this does not work out.  It does not mean that I don't like you it just means it did not work for me. 

Cheese sandwiches for “deadbeat” parents

And by "deadbeat" parents, the article is referring to parents who are late with paying for school lunches. I don't know if I would call them deadbeats in this context and singling out kids sounds pretty nasty to me. The parents who call to thank the schools sound like the same compassionate conservatives that we saw too much of the previous eight years. That such a rich country can be so nasty to kids reminds me of why I found the right wingers so revolting in every possible way. I did not grow up in a family with much money but thankfully we were never in such a situation. I can only imagine how mortified I would have been if I was pulled from the school lunch line like this.

Faced with mounting unpaid lunch charges in the economic downturn, Albuquerque Public Schools last month instituted a "cheese sandwich policy," serving the alternative meals to children whose parents fail to pick up their lunch tab.
Such policies have become a necessity for schools seeking to keep budgets in the black while ensuring children don't go hungry. School districts including those in Chula Vista, Calif., Hillsborough County, Fla., and Lynnwood, Wash., have also taken to serving cheese sandwiches to lunch debtors.
Critics argue the cold meals are a form of punishment for children whose parents can't afford to pay.
"We've heard stories from moms coming in saying their child was pulled out of the lunch line and given a cheese sandwich," said Nancy Pope, director of the New Mexico Collaborative to End Hunger. "One woman said her daughter never wants to go back to school."
Some Albuquerque parents have tearfully pleaded with school board members to stop singling out their children because they're poor, while others have flooded talk radio shows thanking the district for imposing a policy that commands parental responsibility.

Anyone else reminded of Reagan and his infamous change to declare ketchup a vegetable? What miserable bastards treat kids like this?

  This above is a reprint in full from AmericaBlog. 

  This should not happen.  I feel sorry for you if you think it is OK to pull a poor kid out of the lunch line and feed him a cheese sandwich in front of his friends.  
  All I can say to someone that thinks that is OK is that you are a Republican.

Kiva – loans that change lives

  Tomorrow I am going to make my first Kiva loan.  It will only be for $25.00 that is all I can afford this month.  I hope to do that each month from now on.  If you sign up to help and do the same thing I think they ask how you heard about Kiva and if they do please list my email address:  hnbbs@usa.net
  Also you can buy gift certificates on their site for other lenders.  If you want you could buy one and they ask the email address and use the one above.  I am looking forward to helping out some people.  I wish I could do more.
  I also have the ChipIn widget on the left side of ShowMeBlog and you can use that to made a donation to me and I will use it to loan out via Kiva.  The ChipIn widget will use PayPal to make the payment to my account. 

  Update:  I just made my first via Kiva.  

Stimulus bill - help for jobless

  I said here that there was going to be yelling and screaming about the Stimulus bill.  The longer it goes the more the right can find things that look and sound bad.  I admit when I just see a listing of things in the Stimulus bill I wonder about some of the items.
  CNN Money has a report on the part of the Economic rescue plan for the unemployed and it seem excellent.  We need more reports like this on the other parts of the bill.

  The part of the bill to help the unemployed will increase and extend unemployment insurance.  It will  expand coverage to more low-income and part-time workers.  It offer help with subsidizing health care insurance coverage and it will put more money into the state enemployment funds that are running out of money.  It sounds like an excellent plan.

  Russell my grandson was working at CompUSA until they went out of business.  He put applications every place and never even heard from anyone about a job.  We were wondering why no one was ever calling him for an interview.  I guess we did not know how bad the job market was at the time.
  The stimulus bill will give Russell a little extra each week on the check he gets from the state.  The bill will extend the time he can get money until December of 2009.  

  I think that will be a big help for many unemployed Americans.

  I did not go into the part of the bill about health insurance but that part also sounds excellent.  One small part of the bill is that people who are 55 years of age or older and lose their job and have been working for their company for at least 10 years could extend the Cobra coverage until they are 65 and get Medicare.  Now that is not going to help everyone.  What about someone that has not been working for the same company for ten years?  Also Cobra can cost $1000.00 a month.  Now part of the bill says that many people can get 65% subsidizing of Corbra for one year.  Yes, having the government pay $650.00 each month for one year so you have health care for your family is better than you having to pay $1000.00 a month but how many people that do not have a job can even afford $350.00 each month.  
  I also do not see how an older person without a job can afford to pay $1000.00 a month, that is the family rate I think, for health insurance for ten years.  Of course we hope that the job market is not going to be bad for ten years.  

  
 

Weapons of War

"These are weapons of war, and they don't belong on the streets of Miami or any other street in America," Mayor Manuel Diaz said.

  “MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Miami police issued a plea for information Saturday after at least one person opened fire on a crowd of people on a street corner Friday night, killing two teens and wounding seven others.

"We need the community to come together, someone come forward and give us a tip," Miami Police Officer Kenia Alfonso told CNN.

"There are a lot of people in that area. Someone must have seen something, someone must know who could've done this horrific crime."

Alfonso said two teens, ages 16 and 18, died in the attack, which occurred in front of a grocery store about 9:50 p.m. Friday in the city's Liberty City neighborhood…”

    Sorry Mayor Manuel Diaz but the National Rifle Association does not agree with you.  The NRA believes that Americans have a right to own a AK-47.  The NRA also objects to any limits on the number of weapons that a person can buy and own.
    The NRA would say if all of those kids would have been armed then they could have defended their life and they could have taken out the guy doing the shooting.

   "It was like a war zone," resident Joan Rutherford told CNN affiliate WSVN. "I witnessed this guy laying there with his face, looked like it was completely tore off. His eyes was all I could see, and he had a grip on some money and gasping and trying to lift his head up to say something."

   The NRA would say that the kid was trying to say that he should have used that money to buy an AK-47. 

  Of course the NRA makes a point to say that guns do not blow of a person’s face or kill a person.  Guns do not kill.  It is people that kill.

Obama inauguration soon

  Barack Obama, a negro, will has his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday.  Barack Obama is a credit to his race.
 
  The statements above are racist.  I do not remember the “a negro” from the past but it was not very long ago that it was in all of the newspapers.  The story might be of a “negro” running into a burning building and saving a family but they would have after the name “a negro” and like I said I do not remember that.  It could be that I was not reading or that it was just so common that you did not pay attention to it.
  I do remember hearing “a credit to his race” about blacks.  Well we called them colored at the time.  I remember it about Joe Louis the heavyweight boxing champion.

  In about 1953 or 1954 I would have to check some photos and look on the back for a date to be sure about the date my mother and I went by train from Kansas City (MO)  to Barnwell (SC).  I think we had to change trains in Kentucky.  (Some train buff may correct me on some details.)  We went into a waiting room and sat down and the station manager came over to us and told us that we were in the wrong waiting room.  We were in the “colored” waiting room.  We had to go to the white waiting room.
  In I think it was Augusta (GA) we got on a city bus and went to the back of the bus and sat down.  The bus driver pulled the bus to a stop and called us to the front of the bus and told us that we could not sit in the back of the bus because it was for colored.
 
  We spent that summer in the the South.  We lived for three months in a trailer in Barnwell (SC). My father was working at the Savannah River h-bomb plant.  He was a boilermaker helping to build the plant.

  That summer I saw lots of bathroom when we were out to buy food or shop.  There were four bathrooms one for white men, one for colored men, one for white woman and one for colored women.  If you wanted a drink of water they had signs one white and one colored.

Now in the year of our Lord 2009 on Tuesday January 20th Barack Obama, a negro, will become President of the United States.