Focus on the meaning: Let’s give some Thanks! (Gratitude Revisited)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you find your Turkeys moist and delicious and your pumpkin pies with just the right ratio of whipped cream. But more than that, I hope you are saturated with thankfulness.   I hope that feeling will make you happier and that you will encourage it to stick around all year.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  I feel like it’s still (mostly) about family and togetherness.  Consumerism hasn’t fully destroyed it.  I admit that it’s a gluttonous celebration of food.  Turducken has certainly made things more ridiculous, but at it’s heart, it’s still a day for togetherness.  I hope today as you shovel food into your face (yum) you reflect on how lucky you are.  Be thankful for Grandma’s recipes, be thankful to the people who’ve created tasty foods for you to eat, or that you have loved ones to cook for.  Try to think about the things you take for granted.

I am grateful for:

God who loves imperfect things.

My awesome, supportive family and friends.

Boy person, who vacuums and does dishes when I won’t and understands my need to quote Vanilla Ice

Co-workers who listen to my ramble on about lame things that turn into blogs.

Each and every person who has read this blog, commented, or sent me supportive emails

Netflix!

The motivational words of Joyce Meyer

My neighbor’s swarm of tiny little dogs that cheer me up after work.

That I live in a country where I can free form rant about how stupid it’s being.

To keep this feeling of gratefulness going all year, think about keeping a Gratitude Journal.  Sometimes I slack off and forget to use it, but it helps to keep a running list all year of things that make you happy!

For your enjoyment, a random Turkey Day classic.

Photo by: floodllama

THIS IS GETTING STUPID (Air Travel Rant)

Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

~Ben Franklin

Look, I hate to get all Ben Franklin on you guys,(again) but we’ve got to stop some of this insanity.  This so-called security is nothing more than elaborate theater preformed to give an illusion of safety.  I’m sorry if this scares you, and I’m sorry if this is going to burst your little imaginary bubble, but….

If someone really wants to kill you, you’re probably going to die.

If someone wants to break into your house, you’d better have insurance, because your stuff will be missing.

If someone wants to crash your airplane, the only thing that’s going to keep it up is, if ordinary passengers take action against the ass-hat trying to take it down.

TSA isn’t really helping.  They’re hassling.  We need to stop terrorizing and strip searching 5 year old children at the airport.  We need to stop using these full body scanners that probably cause cancer and certainly steal any privacy we have left.  I understand that privacy is just as much an illusion as security, but that doesn’t mean I want unqualified strangers taking nude pictures of me at the airport and then leaking them to the public.  I don’t want to wander around in my socks waiting to get cancer.  And I really don’t want to have my monthly breast exam in public via TSA pat down.  From what I understand, (and I could be wrong, my research on this is lazy at best) the guy that locks the door at your local McDonalds has a better background check than TSA agents.

I would like to be able to attend an out of state wedding and not have my mascara confiscated.  OH NO THE TERRIBLE THREAT OF SLIGHTLY DARKER EYELASHES!  *gasp* Seriously though, its time to take it down a notch.

I’m probably going to be added to some watch lists for this article, and I’m most certainly going to be disowned if this ever gets into the appropriate hands but….

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”  ~Edmund Burke

Travel as safely as you can this holiday season readers.

TSA Gone Wild
Via: Criminal Justice Degree

(Photo By iowa_spirit_walker)

Vicious and willful disobedience

Why do they call it a straw that broke the camel’s back, when usually it is more like an anvil?

Thank you [name of workplace redacted] for so thoroughly disgusting me with your shady business practices.  This is truly a lesson learned in the ways of the world.  Thank you for ensuring that I can never consistently exorcise any religious freedom by forcing me to work during any logical time any church service would be held.  In order to keep my job and position I am not allowed to observe Sunday as a day of rest much less attend a church service, since the shift I’m required to take is one that would interfere for both morning and night services on both Saturday and Sunday.

Thank you for always and consistently treating me as if I’m subhuman.  As if it is not bad enough that you expect me to smile while your horrible customers treat me like filth on their shoe, I must also smile while you treat me as if I had no thoughts, no feelings, no emotions, no soul of my own.  Which is something that I submit to in order to draw a paycheck from your wretched hive of scum and villainy.  I will not however subject myself to your self serving, corporate greed morality at times I am not on your premises or engaged in company business.  You cannot police my personal internet usage.  You cannot dictate my moral code.  Despite the doomsayers on TV, THIS IS NOT A FASCIST NATION YET.

Which brings me  to the issue at hand, the anvil.  Thank you [redacted] for your feeble attempts to quiet my voice.  Such a lovely new policy you’ve dreamed up.  A policy I am forced to sign my name to in agreement and because of the fact that I signed “under duress and protest”  I may still be fired for non-compliance.   The fact that I litter the internet with the words of my dissent means I may still be fired.  For a policy that I feel is in direct violation of my rights as an American citizen.  Are you trying to imply that my employment with your company voids my rights as an American citizen?  Or, since you have outsourced so much of your manufacturing, and tech support  to China and India, perhaps you have forgotten how to treat your employees state side.

Thank you for forcing me into willful disobedience.  My voice will not be quieted.  I will not abide by your new rule.  I will not “demonstrate respect for you, your owners, your customers, your vendors or my fellow associates” if that respect is not earned or deserved.  Where I once would have kept my mouth shut, you have given me reason to shout.  I will now seek out avenues for my voice of dissent and I can guarantee you that I will make comments and engage in communications that violate your “Business Code and Handbook policies.”  I AM the ever petulant child who will now do things just because you have said I can’t.  I will use social media in anyway I see fit as you are not my parent, and I am of legal age.

I will not chant “the pigs are always right” while you drag me off to the glue factory.

It is funny (pathetic) to me that everyone in a position higher than mine feels as if I’m blowing this entire escapade out of proportion, that I’m being melodramatic.  None of this is a big deal, I should just accept this policy and others with a compliant smile on my face.  This is just the company moving forward with changing times and technologies.

Meanwhile those  at my level or below (with few exceptions) either feel this doesn’t impact them or are similarly outraged but ultimately feel they had no choice but to consent.  They are too insignificant to the company to matter.  It wouldn’t matter if they protested, if we protested, we’re all expendable.

To those of you who feel this isn’t a big deal, those who think I’m an idiot on a foolish crusade… to you I’d say, perhaps you are comfortable with your complacency.  It’s possible you’ve all become desensitized sheep who’re too lazy, too lulled into your self absorbed world to realize your voice has been taken.  Perhaps you are too stupid to care.  Keep on drinking the Kool-Aid on your way to the slaughterhouse.

To conclude, I find myself sickened by this greed filled corporate culture that would place the “all mighty dollar” above the worth of a person.

PEOPLE MATTER. Big people.  Little people.  Broken people.  People with no voices of their own.  People who’ve had their voices silenced, or those who never had one to begin with.

So evil, greedy, soulless [redacted] please continue to replace what was once quality merchandise with low cost/high mark up junk which is produced in mass in China by 11 year old children who are lucky to receive a quarter for a day of work.  You actually fit in just fine here in this new society of selfishness and greed.

It is obvious to me that I am the one who is in the wrong place.  I am the one who doesn’t fit in here.  Sorry to have crashed your party.  It will be rectified as soon as possible.

Tongue in cheek thank you’s and sarcasm aside…

Thank you God for finally breaking my writer’s block/laze in a most unexpected way.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

~Ben Franklin

(Photo by: abracapocus_pocuscadabra)

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Changes!

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