Category Archives: Family

How Do You Like Your Technology In The Morning?

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I love technology. Sometimes I can’t wait to see what’s awaiting me on my Blackberry, on Twitter, or on Chaoticfat.com. It’s all so exciting; it really blows my mind when I think that I can have my voice be heard anywhere in the world whenever I want. I can control my message, I am the brander, I matter, I can say whatever the hell I want even while sitting on the toilet. I can find out what’s going on anywhere in the world and I don’t have to depend on filtered down news from the MSM anymore. I can go to where the news is happening. I prime example is the election in Iran; MSM got their asses kicked by Twitter and bloggers, it was awesome.

Here is an article from the New York Times:

Breakfast Can Wait. The Day’s First Stop Is Online.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Liz Steyer after breakfast with three of her four children, ages 5 to 16. Laptops and cellphones are banned during meals.

Published: August 9, 2009

Karl and Dorsey Gude of East Lansing, Mich., can remember simpler mornings, not too long ago. They sat together and chatted as they ate breakfast. They read the newspaper and competed only with the television for the attention of their two teenage sons.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Jim Steyer, on the phone with his BlackBerry in reach, and his wife, Liz, have struggled to make their mornings more low tech.

That was so last century. Today, Mr. Gude wakes at around 6 a.m. to check his work e-mail and his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The two boys, Cole and Erik, start each morning with text messages, video games and Facebook.

The new routine quickly became a source of conflict in the family, with Ms. Gude complaining that technology was eating into family time. But ultimately even she partially succumbed, cracking open her laptop after breakfast.

“Things that I thought were unacceptable a few years ago are now commonplace in my house,” she said, “like all four of us starting the day on four computers in four separate rooms.”

Technology has shaken up plenty of life’s routines, but for many people it has completely altered the once predictable rituals at the start of the day.

This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities.

Read the rest of the story here.

As always, be well
CF

As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

Finally, Gov’t isn’t afraid to talk THERAPY for the returning Soldier & Their Family

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Via NPR:

Military Family Taps Into Key Resource: Therapy

August 8, 2009

Leonard and Sylvia Contreras stand in the front yard of their former rental house in Fresno, Calif.

Leonard and Sylvia Contreras, who live in Fresno, Calif., have tapped into therapy to mend their marriage. When Leornard was deployed in Iraq, their daughter Samantha, now 15, helped take care of the family, including “Little Leonard.” Daniel Zwerdling/NPR

Leonard and Sylvia Contreras stand in the front yard of their former rental house in Fresno, Calif.

Leonard and Sylvia Contreras, who live in Fresno, Calif., have tapped into therapy to mend their marriage. When Leornard was deployed in Iraq, their daughter Samantha, now 15, helped take care of the family, including “Little Leonard.”Daniel Zwerdling/NPR

In most ways, National Guard Sgt. Leonard Contreras and his family are typical.

A year ago, Contreras came back from Iraq. He was lucky: He didn’t have any limbs blown off. He didn’t have traumatic brain injury. But his deployment — and coming home — has caused terrible problems for his wife and kids.

A few months ago, Contreras’ wife, Sylvia, said to him: “Get out of here. Leave. I’ve had it.”

But Leonard and Sylvia are unusual in one big way. They learned just before they split up that soldiers’ families can get help. They’re going to therapy.

Just about everybody has assumed that as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars drag on, military families would have a lot of trouble. And mental health specialists say they’ve seen a lot of military families urgently in need help. But nobody knows how many.

The Pentagon hasn’t done any good studies on family problems. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has hardly studied it. So they can’t tell you how many military couples say they’re breaking up, or how many military children are depressed or acting out. And nobody knows how many couples like Sylvia and Leonard are getting therapy or other help.

Read the rest of the story here.

As always, be well
CF

As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

Adoption: A Viable Option for Single Black Women

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I think this is a wonderful option for African American Women who find themselves single and childless in their mid-30s and 40s. If you are financially and emotionally ready to give a black child a home do it; because they are the ones left to fend for themselves in foster care the most. But one thing did disturb me about the article and that is the fact that some women are choosing children based on their shading. Darker children are being passed up for Lighter or Mixed kids. If that is part of some dumbass woman’s criteria, then she is not emotionally ready to raise a child in my opinion; it’s just another form of Black on Black Racism.

Wendy Duren thought she did everything right.

Wendy Duren says she doesn't get as much sleep but loves her adopted daughter, Madison.

Wendy Duren says she doesn’t get as much sleep but loves her adopted daughter, Madison.

She broke off relationships with men who didn’t want to settle down. She refused to get pregnant out of wedlock. She prayed for a child.

Duren’s yearning for motherhood was so palpable that her former fiancé once offered to father a child with her. But he warned her that he wasn’t ready for marriage.

“I get bored in relationships after a couple of years,” he told her, she recalls.

Those events could have caused some women to give up their dreams of motherhood. But Duren, a pharmaceutical saleswoman, didn’t need a man to be a mom. At 37 years old, she decided to adopt.

“It’s the best decision I could have made in my life,” Duren says, two years later. She’s now the mother of Madison, a 1-year-old daughter she raises in Canton, Michigan.

“People say I have never seen you so happy,” she says, “but it’s also the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

What kind of crap is this:

Yet there are some single African-American women who are not emotionally ready to adopt an African-American child who is too dark, some adoption agency officials say.

Fair-skinned or biracial children stand a better chance of being adopted by single black women than darker-skinned children, some adoption officials say.

“They’ll say, ‘I want a baby to look like a Snickers bar, not dark chocolate,’ ” Caldwell, founder of Lifetime Adoption, says about some prospective parents.

“I had a family who turned a baby down because it was too dark,” she says. “They said the baby wouldn’t look good in family photographs.”

As always, be well
CF

As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

A Positive Spin on Marriage in the Black Community

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There is a wonderful documentary coming out this summer called “Happily Ever After” that discusses black marriage. The film was created by the people over at Black and Married With Kids.com.

Anything that will strengthen our families is awesome. The one thing that bothers me is the perception that the black family is so broken and fractured when actually it isn’t.

As always, be well

CF

As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

Do I Need To Purchase A Gun???

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Let’s just get right to it; some white folks are buying guns by the barrel load and believe me they’re not all “gun enthusiasts” afraid that Obama is going to impose some outrageous gun control laws in his term as president. Some of these people are getting ready for some idiotic notion that there is an impending race war coming. It has made me think twice about possibly purchasing a gun and taking lessons so that I will be able to protect myself and my family. I have never owned a gun in my life nor have I ever thought it would be necessary for me to own a gun; but the incidents of violence happening around the country are a bit upsetting and frightening.

You’ve got people saying stupid stuff like this:

“He’s a gun-snatcher,” said Jim Pruett, owner of Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo in northwest Houston, which was packed with shoppers on Thursday.

“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,”
Gun Sales Are Up

What kind of dumb shit is that. This man is a moron, but you have to take morons like this seriously. You never know when a group of angry white people will accost you, hook you up to the back of some pickup and drag you for miles…remember James Byrd. Unfortunately you have to think about your safety first and the idiocy of their logic second.

I’m still not sure it’s the way I want to go, but I am going to discuss it with my family and seriously consider purchasing a handgun…it even pains me to say it.

We are truly a nation of minorities now and folks need to recognize that fact and live up to our nations creed (you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). Minorities now outnumber the majority and we just want to live and love in this country like everyone else. If the crazy southern/religious/conservative fringe want to start a race war, they are going to have more than black folks to fight. We are a nation of immigrants — ALL OF US.

White folks always like to say if you don’t like it here in America, take your black ass back to Africa; well, if you don’t like it here in America, I say “Take Your White Ass Back to Europe,” England in particular and see what kind of reception you get.

Or, we can all live in this country peacefully without all of this unnecessary animus and I can put my fear of you and possible need for a handgun purchase to rest.

In the famous words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along.”

Hating and fearing each other gets us no where; hate, ignorance and the angry mob mentality got us Reginald Denny and that tragedy.

Here’s another article on the subject.
Gun Sales Thriving

Stop letting your ignorance and fear be your guide. Leave your 50s mob mentality behind and come along with the rest of us to change this country and make it better for ALL OF US, not just the fortunate few.

As always, be well
CF

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As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

Sarah Palins’s Political Prop Baby

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Below is a Halloween eCard making a slight joke about Trig, Sarah Palin’s 6 month old developmentally disabled child. The card is a little funny, a little in bad taste, but mostly the result of the Palins and the McCains using that child as a “Political Prop” for sympathy votes. It is beyond me to understand what these people were thinking and how their political strategists thought that trotting this child out in the name of “family values” would be a good thing.

First of all Sarah Palin didn’t do anything that millions of women haven’t done and do every day; they decided to keep their babies whether they are pro-life or pro-choice or whether the child is perfectly healthy or not.

Secondly, if you use your children for political gain, you have to expect them to be used by someone other than you. They become fodder for anyone’s use and there is nothing you can do about it because you made it okay.

As always, be well
CF
Barack the Vote!…and help him better fund programs for developmentally disabled children

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As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

A More Complete Story About Obama’s Toot

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A more complete story from the Obama campaign and The Honolulu Advertiser on his grand mother’s condition. Please keep them in your prayers.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama will cancel his presidential campaign stops and return home to Honolulu Thursday and Friday to visit his maternal grandmother who raised him, the woman he calls “Toot,” whose health has suddenly deteriorated.

Madelyn Dunham, 85, recently had to be hospitalized after a fall, and “things have taken a serious turn,” said U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai’i, an Obama supporter. “It’s an accumulation of several difficulties. She’s faced a lot of challenges.

…Dunham has already voted for Obama through absentee balloting, “which she was very happy about,” Abercrombie said. “She’s very, very strong-willed. We have every confidence she’s putting up a good struggle. Obviously, we wish Sen. Obama was coming back home under a little bit different circumstance. But any time in Hawai’i will strengthen his resolve.”

…Obama regularly speaks about the important role that Dunham plays in his life. During an August family vacation in Honolulu, Obama told reporters that his grandmother was “sharp as a tack” but is struggling with osteoporosis that limits her mobility.

“She is somebody who helped raise me, and she’s the last person of the generation ahead of me who’s still living, so it means a lot to me to spend time with her,” he said.

Obama grew up calling Dunham “Toot,” short for “tutu,” the local word for grandparent. Her osteoporosis prevented Dunham from joining Obama on the campaign trail, but she does appear in a campaign video.

As always, be well
CF
Barack the Vote!…and pray for his family

As always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube

Breaking News: Obama Leaves Campaign Trail

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Barack Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham (Barack calls her Toot) has fallen ill in Hawaii. Barack is leaving the campaign trail for a couple days to be with her. Godspeed to them both.

Madelyn Dunham was a bank vice president and his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, was a salesman. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Honolulu and helped raise their grandson along with his mother until he graduated from high school. I believe Mrs. Dunham is one of the most important people in Barack’s life. 

Keep them in your prayers.

As always, be well
CF
Barack the Vote!

Blog Widget by LinkWithinAs always, be well CF “Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in feeling creates love.” — Lao Tzu Watch me on Youtube