The tragedies in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri have been terrible to watch on the news.  I watched in horror, as towns and homes were flooded to almost the top of the roof of flood waters.  The states were suppose to re-do the current levees along the Mississippi River and unfortunately nothing has been done.  This goes the same for after Hurricane Katrina where the levees broke and flooded many of the cities.

There was a devastating flood in the Midwest about 15 years ago and so the committee drew up a 272 page report, suggesting that a better approach should be taken to prevent this type of tragedy from occurring again in the future.

The levees are owned by the cities and towns, along with being maintained by agencies and farmers who are not necessarily authorized to maintain the levees as the government is suppose to maintain the levees. Dr. Gerald E. Galloway Jr. who was a former brigadier general “with the Corps of Engineers, said in an interview that few broad changes were made once the floodwaters of 1993 receded and were forgotten.

“We told them there were going to be more floods like this,” said Dr. Galloway, now an engineering professor at the University of Maryland, “Everybody likes to go out and shake hands on the levee now and offer sandbags, but that’s not helpful. This shouldn’t have happened in the first place.” (NYTimes.com, 2008).  

So after all of this time they have yet to complete this project.  After Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a bill that was suppose to take inventory and inspect levees, however they did not have the funding to complete the tasks. The levees that were maintained by the towns and farmers, leaked and broke.  There are also levees that others do not know where they are. 
In the 1960s, and 1970s there was calls to improve the levees however once again funding was never received to take care of these tasks
It is sad after all of this time, the government has yet to do anything this and seeing devastation like this shows that they are not managing their money properly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/us/22midwest.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us

Both senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will be appearing together in New York on June 26th for a fund-raiser at the Mayflower Hotel. The goal of the fund-raiser is to encourage Hillary Clinton’s contributors to become a part of Barack Obama’s team. Clinton met up with Obama on June 5th, which is about two days before Clinton ended her presidential campaign, and she endorsed Obama. The fund-raiser is to help benefit Barack Obama’s campaign but it will also help senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to help end her debt through helpful contributions from Obama’s supporters.

There is still friction between supporters of Clinton and Obama supporters.  The former Governor of Michigan, Jennifer M. Granholm who was a former Clinton supporter drew in loud noises of disapproval from Obama supporters when she mentioned about Senator Clinton. Obama then said about the issue, “I shut that down and made very clear that Senator Clinton deserves respect. She ran a great race, and we are moving forward because we want to win in November.” (NYTimes, 2008).  Last Monday, Obama campaign mentioned that they hired Patti Solis Doyle who was a former Clinton’s campaign manager.

So as you can see, both Obama and Clinton are working together and helping each other.  Although I am a former supporter of Hillary Clinton, I can only hope that she will work on her attitude and views. It is not about the color of the person’s skin and social class standard, it about what they are going to do when they get into office. I am really getting tired of seeing people who are STILL focused on the race of the person, and not getting past that.  It is 2008, not 1908! Get over it already and focus on the issues.  The race card was pulled when Obama first began the run for the presidential campaign, and he put that to rest.  I do not understand why people continue to bring it up.  Do they feel threatened because a person of a color has a chance to help change a country? It is time to work on changing those views and look past the color of a person’s skin and look at what the issues that they are addressing. There are subjects that I support of both Obama and McCain as I am viewing them as a person, not their race, or age.

I am happy that Clinton and Obama are doing this special event to help each other out. This shows me that they are willing to work together despite their differences, now lets hope that their supporters can learn from their example and do the same thing too.

I think that it may be time to start looking in our backyards to take care of some of these problems in order to drive a strong message to the government to take a serious and faster plan of action to be able to take care of this problem.

What do I mean by our backyards, well with good soil, we are able to grow our own fruits and vegetables. If you do not have the space then search for a Farmer’s Market to find organic produce. I know where my tomatoes will be coming from, and who here can say the same? When the government sees this trend occurring more and more, I can only hope they will take the matter more seriously.

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/washington/12fda.html?scp=3&sq=contaminated%20tomatoes&st=cse

Natalie Bracht who is 34 years old left her place of home in Sunderland, Germany on May 17th,2008 with her children and she has been spotted in London.  The children are between the ages of five and thirteen and the police are concerned for the safety of the children.  She suffered from an illness called Histrionic personality disorder which is known for causing excessive patterns of emotional and attention seeking behavior. People with this order are overly clingy, unrealistic and fantasied intentions.  Well I see that explains most of my ex-boyfriends, and past dates in my romantic history. 

I can only hope that police will be able to catch her before anything bad happens to those poor children. She has been gone for over a month and I do not understand how she was able to get away with this. I wonder if she has any family or people that are in her life that could have done something more so that she will be able to obtain the help that she needs.

As for this disorder I do know there are some treatments for this in this as in psychotherapy which is more of a one-on-one type of therapy. In a group type of therapy they would try to manipulate everyone in the group to focus on them. I am sure that there are some medications and other treatments that would be able to assist this woman and others.

I cannot help but wonder what will happen to this woman besides putting her in a mental institution? I hope that this stunt will not pull her away from seeing her children on a regular basis as her being sick with this illness is not of her own doing and it is not her fault that she has an illness. However, she does need to learn how to handle with coping in having this illness so that extensive things like this do not happen in the future.

A Georgetown law professor Heidi Feldman announced on her personal blog that she wants to help Hillary Clinton get out debt from the $30 million that Clinton currently owes for her presidential campaign.  She sees that helping Clinton get out of debt will help her push the Democratic party towards her ideas but hasn’t she already been doing that?

I must say that is a noble cause and she has already raised over $6000.00 so far.  I think that she has to remember that the Clintons are made of money and this debt will more than likely be a thing of the past.  I wonder what is this woman wanting from Hillary Clinton?  It is hard to just say that this is truly a goodwill of a person truly wanting to help Mrs. Clinton get out of debt and the whole blurb about the helping the Senator to push the Democratic Party, well that is something that she already does as she is a Senator for a reason.  Plus that is her job and what she is indeed required to do it.

I do not think that it will make a difference in the Senate as they already know what Hillary is made of and she was not able to pull off the Presidential campaign that she had set out to do.

Even if this lady’s efforts or attempts of trying to pay off Hillary’s debt happens then what? All it shows that she has a few supporters still rooting for her, however there are much larger issues that showed that Hillary did not have what it takes to make it in the Presidential election. So I think that this lady should focus on any of her personal debts that she has, as how is she going to help someone else, when she can’t help herself?

In Los Angeles, CA there have been reports of illegal dumping going on in South Los Angeles of disgusting garbage. The garbage consisted of dead roosters, several sofas, old tires, household garbage, containers with motor oil in them. It basically sat there for over a month, and by the time that the city crews got around to cleaning it up, the trash was spreading down the street.

I don’t understand how this city has all of this money and they cannot take care of the simplest duties such as cleaning up trash and watching out for people that are dumping their trash illegally. I though that they had regular trash pick-up like many other cities in southern California. As a resident of southern California, in my area this would never occur, and the city would face fines from the county if that were to occur. We have regular trash pick up on a weekly regular basis, which consists of trash pick up, and recycling bin pick up. If there is any need for a special pickup then this is where you pick up the phone and call the Waste Management division to let them know that you need to have a special pick up and they will take care of that.

Los Angeles has so much money and I see that it is a battle of the “haves” and “have nots”. In the poorer cities they do not seem to have a care of in the world about them, but the richer cities this would never occur. There would probably be police or security watching over the area to make sure that no one is dumping trash where they are not suppose to. I know that there are elections currently going on for the city of Los Angeles so I am sure that it is mostly politically motivated. So don’t you think a city with so much money would be able to handle an issue such as this even if it is a poorer area?