Does Anyone Really Believe the Global Warming Hoax Anymore?

by Lauri Goodwin

As a society, how do we really know when we are being duped? For entirely too long, we have been so inundated with half-truths, and even untruths, by those in power that our perception has become distorted. In recent years, the “Lame”-stream Media has all but abandoned its journalistic integrity by being nothing more than an extension of the Obama administration and its Progressive agenda. It reminds me of George Orwell’s spooky, dystopian “1984”. In it, there was a government department called the “Ministry of Truth”. When I read it a couple of years ago, I pictured these anemic-looking “proles”, short for proletariats, dressed in drab, colorless clothing as they hypnotically trudged to their daily jobs held in ash-colored, windowless buildings. The main character’s post was shredding and burning any material that didn’t coincide with what the government deemed to be “the truth”. That “truth” changed daily. People manned the chutes that transported the “contraband” newpapers, magazines, and books and fed them into a massive incinerator. “2+2=5” became the new truth.

Today, we have real-time access to information yet it can be removed or changed just as quickly. A large portion of our citizenry has become mindless with great apathy toward anything more significant than the Kardashians or Honey Boo Boo. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, another uplifting story,…NOT…, Soma tablets would be taken if the people were feeling stressed or uncomfortable in any way, and then they would go into an almost catatonic state of sleep. They were all living in oblivious euphoria. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nicely chilled glass of Chardonnay at the end of the day, but I don’t want to be comatose every night. Isn’t that living?

I am amazed that rational, sane, educated people accept the indoctrination and propaganda without question. If we have too many hurricanes, it is due to Global Warming. Too few? Global Warming. Too hot?? Global Warming. Too cold? Global Warming. This president has shut down 150+ coal mines on the way to his goal of 200 in an effort to curb it’s effect on Global Warming. He said that energy prices will “necessarily skyrocket”. That dramatic increase not only means that our electricity bills are going to go up but so will the amount of subsidies (read taxes) to assist the less fortunate. The production cost of coal energy is a very cheap $.04/kilowat hour and was largely responsible for the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century. Inexpensive energy lifted the United States to a position of economic dominance in the world. Other Superpower countries, like China, aren’t going to stop mining coal energy. Why should we? Does anyone care?

Penguins and polar bears being depicted as victims of the “Big Bad American’s” gluttonous behavior is pretty pathetic as it is directed toward the sympathies of the young and inexperienced. Movies, such as “The Day after Tomorrow”, have been made sketching a massive, cataclysmic disaster resulting from the thawing of the Polar Ice Caps and are all about selling this liberal ideology. In a recent, and very ironic, incident, climatologists, researching the effects of global warming, were stranded at the South Pole when their ship got stuck in the pack ice. Then, making it even more ludicrous, China and Russia had to request help from the U.S. Coast Guard when two Australian icebreakers also got wedged in the very thick Antarctic ice. If only they could break out an emergency Carbon Emissions kit! God has an amazing sense of humor.

The environmentalists have painted the villainous CO2 out to be just short of the Ebola virus in its danger to the continuation of mankind. From what I understand, when humans breath out, we emit carbon dioxide. When a cow farts, it too releases carbon dioxide ( time to buy stock in butt plugs for cows)! Maybe a herd of Black Angus cattle should have been sent out to rescue the marooned scientists. Seriously, why doesn’t it occur to more people that if we were really in grave danger of having the continents engulfed by waters of Biblical proportion, the “alleged” influences would be outlawed instead of taxed? I thought carbon dioxide was essential for plants. Don’t they use it for necessary photosynthesis which gives them food? Don’t plants create vital oxygen for people and animals to breathe????? So, let me get this straight. The environmentalists who want to preserve their beloved trees and animals, want to lower the necessary elements of their thriving existence? Does any of it make sense? I think not. It is just a way for our government to generate revenue, control businesses, and seize more power.

Interestingly enough, when Jimmy Carter was President, there was a Time Magazine cover, which I have included, that said we were having Global Cooling. It was dated December of 1979. It was the next coming of the Ice Age! This winter we have had record-breaking lows and measured snowfall, and the “experts” are backing away from Global Warming to now preach Climate Change. Duh! Does the climate ever stay the same? Even the socialist Europeans are backing away from Climate Change. What gives? Years ago, I did a little research and found out that there was a Chicago-based bank called “Shore Bank” that was going to be selling Environmental Carbon Credits via the “Chicago Climate Exchange” which has some very well known fingerprints all over it, as well as a key board member, Maurice Strong, who has a history of insider-trading transgressions. Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, LLP had much to gain financially in the proposed Cap and Trade legislation. The investors are some heavy hitters and are very well known in influential circles of the Left. There were TRILLIONS of dollars to be made by very few. Do your own research and follow the money trail. You might find it just as shocking as I. After all, we have been fooled by trusting that our elected have had our best interest in mind, yet they twist the truth into what they want us to believe. They are our hard-earned dollars that are being spent.

Princess to Patty Cake

18Feb2014

Piano Can Be Fun

by Lauri Goodwin

When I was a little girl, I was a whiner. In truth, if you asked my husband, my family, and close friends, they would most likely say that I still am. My Puerto Rican grandmother, Isolina, who had all of an eighth-grade education and worked in New York to support her illiterate, single mother and two younger siblings, needless to say, wasn’t very tolerant of whining. Given her set of circumstances, she did remarkably well for herself throughout the course of her colorful (and I mean colorful) life of eighty- something years. We were never certain of her age, because in earlier years she would occasionally try to pass herself off as my mother’s sister. It would be pretty safe to assume there was a man involved. She told my mom that she was 16 when she had her, but my great-aunt exposed the truth and told my mom that she was actually 27. I clearly remember her buying me a book called, “Manners Can Be Fun”. I can still visualize the “Whiner” character with her oversized head, curly hair, and ski-slope nose. She was personified misery. “Iso” insisted that I learn to play the piano. She bought me a black upright and paid for me to take lessons from a woman who had never had any children.

“Katie”, my teacher, loved me and thought of me as the grandchild she never had. I loved the piano, but practicing was drudgery. My mom would set the wind-up kitchen timer for thirty minutes and I would practice while she created one of her many comforting meals in the adjacent kitchen. If I wouldn’t put forth my best effort, her voice would drone, “Do it again, Lauri.” UGH!!!!! When I could get away with it, I would stealthfully shave 5-10 minutes off to shorten the agonizing monotony. I would groan, “MO-OM, why do I have to practice piano? I just want to go outside and play with my friends.” After she had her fill of my whining, she told me that if I wanted to quit piano, I would have to tell Katie that I didn’t want to play anymore and it just might break her heart. I emphatically said, “Done.” After Katie’s and my eyes swelled with tears, I was incredibly relieved to be finished with such a tedious chore…until I was an adult.

I began taking piano lessons again when I was about 35 and LOVED it. I also took voice lessons. I continued with them until I gave birth to my daughter Grace. I relished the practice knowing that she was in my belly enjoying classical, musical sounds. After she was born, I quit playing as often for fear that it might awaken her from her naps. Instead, I played a never-ending CD of classical music in her room while she slept. To this day, she has an affinity for playing the more classical pieces. I had heard about a method of teaching/learning piano called “The Suzuki Method.” It is a way to teach the student to play by ear. She started by repetitively and continuously listening to a CD of the songs she was to soon learn. She started taking lessons from an amazing teacher when she was 3 1/2 years old. Her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she heard her teacher play those songs for the very first time. She excitedly said, “Mommy, those are the songs that are in my bedroom!” Her first recital was 4 days after her fourth birthday when she played a variation of “Twinkle, Twinkle” with only one hand. She has been playing ever since and has wowed me not only with her gift of music but also with her stage presence and courage.

Shortly after she started, I attended a Suzuki Workshop and sat in on an adults-only seminar given by a seasoned Suzuki Piano teacher. The lecture was titled “Practice Without Violence” (tongue-in-cheek and wonderfully clever). She spoke for a while and then asked the room of forty, “How many of you parents played piano as children?” The entire group raised their hands. She then asked, “How many of you had parents who allowed you to quit because they couldn’t bear hearing you complain about the practice any more?” About half of the hands hesitantly went up knowing that we were the mewling culprits. Her last question was, “How many of you are glad you quit?” Deafening silence. At that moment, I was filled with all the resolve that I will ever need to make sure that my daughter continues until she is finished with high school. What she does with it after that is her choice. If nothing else, she could feed herself by playing at weddings.;-)

When she first started playing piano, her creative teacher had a “bag of tricks” that held a collection of darling little resin figures that the really young students were able to line up on the piano when they were focused and played well. She had Winnie the Pooh and Disney characters, Smurfs, and several of the Mr. Men and Little Miss figurines (my personal favorites). She had one in particular, Mr. Bump, that she would use to make sure the students “bumps” (a.k.a knuckles) were in proper form. She also had a complementary series of small books that she would read to them to break up the lesson and hold their attention. After Grace had learned to play several of the Suzuki pieces, she would delight Grace with “The Fishing Game”. Her teacher had a telescopic magnet, “the pole”, and a variety of fish-shaped paper laminated with a paper clip inside. Each of the fish had the name of the different songs. Her teacher would scatter the fish upside down on the floor and then Grace would pick them up, one at a time, with “the pole” and have to play the specified song. To this day, it is still Gracie’s personal favorite, only now she is playing Beethoven and Mozart.

I don’t have the same toys as her wonderful teacher, but I have created my own tricks and it seems to make our practice more fun and less monotonous. I will let her pick out the book that she would like me to read between songs. Over the course of six years, we have graduated from Baby Einstein to Skippy John Jones to Harry Potter. If she plays it mediocre, she gets one page. If it is played well I’ll reward her with maybe 4 depending on what we wager. Interestingly enough, if she knows that there are four pages on the line, she will keep playing it until she gets the “perfect” and “wins” the prize. I don’t know if she has figured out that she is only benefitting herself by trying to beat me. That’s okay…it’s a win-win situation.

I remember one time she was preparing for a Festival where her performance would be judged. She was struggling with the ending and I told her, “Grace, if you play it perfectly, I will read you four pages of Harry Potter.” She said, “Mom, make it five.” I said, “Okay, but it has to be perfect.” She continued to struggle, so I decided to juice the kitty. “Okay Grace. If you play this perfectly, not only will Mom read you five pages of Harry Potter, I will do a cartwheel in that foyer right there.” She lit up like a brilliant neon sign. “You will?????” “You betcha!” It took her about five times to get it right, and when she did, it was sweet victory! After stretching and saying a silent prayer, I did the cartwheel. The landing was a little less than stellar, but the mission was accomplished. Piano, along with anything else that is often tedious, can be fun. There really is no need for whining.

Princess To Patty Cake

17Feb2014

If Only We Could Learn From History

by Lauri Goodwin

I love this post! It was written 2 1/2 years ago by a black Conservative, Mychal Massie, who I am sure has been marginalized, vilified, and called a sell-out. He has a site called The Daily Rant. He makes a clear and concise case against Obama’s reign of tyranny. Our country stands crippled by policies that BHO has signed into law. Lady Liberty is on life support and so many Americans don’t want to be bothered with “negativity”. I wonder, at times, how many of our freedoms will erode before the uninvolved and uninformed say, “Whoa! When did that happen? We need to do something about this!” I would say to them, “REALLY????? Have you been living in a cave????” The average family can’t be bothered listening to the plethora of bad, if not frightening, news that is coming out of Washington every day. For example, as a society, families are so busy raising their children and trying to make ends meet that they don’t realize their kids are being dumbed down by The Common Core Standards/ Race to the Top initiatives amongst a host of other debilitating Progressive policies that are undoing the very fabric of this once great nation. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are paying LARGE SUMS OF MONEY to schools that are proponents of Common Core/ Race to the Top. Imagine that….public schools needing new computers and software accommodating this new program!!!! No money/profits/ data mining in that! “Nothing to see here! Keep moving!” I try to turn it off, but it is like watching a train wreck…I can’t pull my eyes away. I really wish that there was a way to get credit for being informed and knowing what was going on in our nation’s Capitol. You know, kind of like you would get extra votes for hours spent informing yourself. That way, when Jimmy Kimmel puts a microphone in your face, you just might know the name of the current Vice President! I secretly hope that one day sanity will prevail, and what was once virtuous will again be virtuous, and what was once appalling will again be considered appalling. Right is right; wrong is wrong. It has become like life in a mirror…opposite day.

If for some reason the link doesn’t work, Google “Nero in the White House”.

http://www.wnd.com/2011/08/331497/

13Feb2014

Love is Manifested Best in Life’s Little Things

by Lauri Goodwin

I am not a morning person. I am fully aware of the many blessings upon which I have been bestowed. However, thoughts of gratitude aren’t gushing from my foggy mind before my first cup of coffee or full cognitive thought. If I had my druthers, my day would start around 8:00-8:30 a.m. and end around 11:00-11:30 p.m. I prefer purplish-pink, seductive sunsets to orangey-yellow, blinding sunrises. I’d much rather enjoy a dinner of grilled, succulent rosemary-crusted lamb chops washed down with a glass of musty, full-bodied Cabernet than a piping-hot cup of coffee and a steamy bowl of healthy oatmeal with fresh fruit. I relish the end of the day when I get to put my daughter to bed. I take my time reading a few pages of Harry Potter in my best British accent before saying a prayer for our family, friends, country and soldiers. I spoon with her as we sing “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” which, admittedly, can bring this bladder-eyes to tears. Lastly, I inhale her slumbering sweetness as I kiss her goodnight and turn off the light. I celebrate that my job is complete for the day and then mindlessly go through the bedtime rituals. Sometimes they include washing my face and brushing my teeth, sometimes they don’t. Sorry Mom! My husband, God love him, used to put toothpaste on my toothbrush every morning and night because he deemed it just as easy applying it to two as it was one; he already had the toothpaste out. It was an act that I under-appreciated until we got state-of-the-art brushes that were not kept together in one cup but charging at opposite sinks and didn’t lay flat like the manual ones. I wrestle out of my clothes and into my pajamas before falling decadently into bed. I optimistically dream about being able to make some headway in one of the many burgeoning “must-reads” spilling out from under my bed, only to doze off thinking, “I better get to sleep; the alarm will be going off much too quickly.” That last moment of consciousness before falling asleep is SO much better than the blaring buzzer that goes off every 10 minutes because your husband, who IS a morning person and regularly cites “Carpe Diem!”, sets it forty minutes earlier than necessary to wake up slowly.

One particular morning recently, neither he nor I had to get up early. Our sweet daughter came in about 7:00 a.m. and tapped me on the shoulder. Staving off my apoplectic reaction, my first thought was, “You have got to be kidding me!” She softly whispered, “Mom, I made you and Dad breakfast.” After I stifled my grumpy thoughts and frustration at her having unnecessarily awakened us so early, I stilled myself and thought, “Oh no! What big mess am I going to have to clean up when I get out to the kitchen?” She hasn’t quite mastered the technique of cracking eggs yet. I pictured slimy egg whites smeared all over my granite counter tops, crumbs scattered everywhere, etc. Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson came to mind. I dragged myself out of the warm soft bed and kept my grumbling to myself. When I got to the kitchen, the sight that greeted me stopped me in my tracks. There before me were two small bowls of frosted flakes soaking in milk. Adorning them were the absolutely sweetest smiley faces made of blueberry eyes and mouths and strawberry noses. I felt a bit shameful for not being more enthusiastic when she first woke me out of my deep sleep, but it was so worth losing those extra Zzzzzzs. Grace, thank you so much for helping Mommy to remember to be grateful…the little things are what counts. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Princess to Patty Cake

6Feb2014

A Feminist Wrote an Op-Ed Saying Getting Married and Having Children is a No Brainer…I Had to Respond

by Lauri Goodwin

This is in response to the illiterate feminist writer who knows not of what she speaks:

Dear Amy,

Though I am not a young mother, I made a decision to be a stay-at-home mom when I was blessed to have a child just shy of my fortieth birthday. I gave up the stilettos, cruising the Mediterranean, and the life of luxury. The ease of finding someone to marry with whom to have a child is apparently a no brainer for many people given the overwhelming divorce statistics and the number of children who are left with different degrees of brokenness. To have a lasting marriage, it takes hard work and sacrifice by both parties. If spouses would spend as much energy trying to make their marriages work as you do mocking and deriding something you have no clue about, there would most certainly be a greater rate of success. As far as the ease of getting pregnant, I can’t speak about it being easy, but on the flip side, I would never begin to question, at the very least, the emotional pain of couples who have had to battle infertility issues only, in way too many cases, to despairingly give up all hope of having their own child. In my own case, it was after only one miscarriage (another thing that you haven’t experienced I’m sure unless it has been your “choice” to terminate). Once I conceived the second time, I had to see a doctor every week to make sure that the pregnancy was going smoothly. At the end of the forty weeks, I had a C-section because of anatomy issues that categorized me as high risk. On that end, I do feel like I had it easy compared to some of the stories I have heard about lengthy, painful and laborious births. My hat goes off to those mothers who are brave and strong enough to have natural births…ouch!

During the Presidential Election of 2012, another illiterate similar to yourself, suggested that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” because she was a stay-at-home mom with five boys. I wrote a response to her as well. I discussed the many new entrepreneurial businesses that have sprung to life as a result of two-income families. When our daughter was young, my husband hired someone to put up Christmas lights @ $400. Well, I put them up before this and have put them up since AND we didn’t have to call the contractor and ask him to come back because the snowfall/rain had tripped the GFI. I also included three Christmas trees, decorated the mantels, and a plethora of other decorations that have become tradition in our family. Interestingly, one would consider the man with the magnetic sign on his truck to be a working man, but me, I am just a stay-at-home mom. During the holiday season, I threw an annual dinner party for forty which included friends and customers replete with homemade desserts. We could have hired “workers” to cater it, but this stay-at-home mom did the cooking and cleaning while everyone praised the party for being warm and inviting, not typical holiday party fare. When my husband and I married, the dry cleaning bill dropped $200/mo. One, such as yourself, would say the person driving the van to pick up the dirty clothes and the person sweating over the hot press works, but this stay-at-home mom who sweats over a hot iron pressing those same clothes doesn’t work. Maybe you think I’m treating myself to a facial. Costco and Sam’s Club are filled with all-too-convenient cookies, cupcakes and prepackaged appetizers and meals for moms who work and share in praises, raises and paid vacations with those who “work” creating those shortcuts. This stay at home mom makes those cookies, cakes, and meals from scratch but takes delight in leaving a legacy of warm aromas greeting my child when she gets home from school. Speaking of getting home from school, the bus driver works driving children to and from school getting paid a salary-plus-benefits. This stay-at-home mom drives my child to school and back, however, my payment comes in the form of wonderful conversation so I know where her heart and head are in a time where parents need to be especially vigilant. Later that day, a brilliant smile greets me at pick up when she is full of stories about her day. My personal favorite: The Pooper Scooper! Yes, the genius that drives around in a van advertising “Their Poop is Our Soup!” WORKS while this stay at home mom scoops all that poop for free! Who knew? Many working moms think they don’t have time to volunteer in their child’s school because they work; kudos to those that do invest their time. Do you think it is easy to work for free with very little praise? Think again. The few times that your family notices what you do is when it doesn’t get done because you are busy putting up/taking down those Christmas lights or worse, you have nursed the entire family back from the flu only to get it yourself and the laundry and housework comes to a standstill. Has our family gone without vacations and other indulgences for me to stay home? Absolutely. Is the job of a stay-at-home mom easy? No. Is it honorable to do it well? Without a doubt!

Princess To Patty Cake