Lee Iacocca speaks....

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 year old and has a new book "Where Have All The Leaders Gone?".Lee Iacocca says:

"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder!'We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.'But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'Stay the course? You've got to be kidding.This is America, not the damned 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do.And the Press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions.That's not the promise of the 'America' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?I'll go a step further.You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)Leaders are made, not born.Leadership is forged in times of crisis.It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory.Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself.It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.On September 11,2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history.We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.We're immersed in a bloody war with not plan for winning and no plan for leaving.We're running the biggest deficit in the history of our country.We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by heath care costs.Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy.Our schools are in trouble.Our borders are like sieves.The middle class is being squeezed every which way.These are times that cry out for leadership.But when you look around, you've got to ask, 'Where have all the Leaders gone?'Where are the curious, creative communicators?Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense?I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take of our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina.Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again.Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.Name me an industry leader who is thinking cretively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing.Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it? Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem.The silence is deafening.But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in Congress.We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity.What is everybody so afraid of?That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change.I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have have hope-I believe in America.In my lifetime, I've had the privilage of living through some of America's greatest moments.I've also experienced some of our worst crises:The 'Great Depression''World War II'the 'Korean War'the 'Kennedy Assassination'the 'Vietnam War'the 1970's oil crises, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.If I've learned one thing, it's this:You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's called a "Call to Action" for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close.So lets shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had 'enough'. Make your own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's our country, folks, and it's our future.Our future is at stake!"

Letter to the World

Written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, may G-d avenge his blood, in the late 1980's)

Dear World, It appears that you are hard to please. I understand that you are upset over us here in Israel. Indeed, it appears that you are quite upset, even angry and outraged. Indeed, every few years you seem to become upset over us. Today, it is the brutal repression of the Palestinians; yesterday, it was Lebanon; before that it was the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Baghdad and the Yom Kippur War campaign. It appears that Jews who triumph, and who therefore, live, upset you most extraordinarily. Of course, dear world, long before there was an Israel, we the Jewish people upset you. We upset a German people, who elected a Hitler and we upset an Austrian people, who cheered his entry into Vienna and we upset a whole slew of Slavic nations - Poles, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Russians, Hungarians, Romanians. And we go back a long, long way in history of world upset. We upset the Cossacks of Chmielnicki, who massacred tens of thousands of us in 1648-49; we upset the Crusaders, who on their way to liberate the Holy Land, were so upset at Jews that they slaughtered untold numbers of us. We upset, for centuries, a Roman Catholic Church that did its best to define our relationship through Inquisitions. And we upset the arch-enemy of the church, Martin Luther, who in his call to burn the synagogues and the Jews within them, showed an admirable Christian ecumenical spirit. It is because we became so upset over upsetting you, dear world, that we decided to leave you - in a manner of speaking - and establish a Jewish State. The reasoning was that living in close contact with you, as resident-strangers in the various countries that comprise you, we upset you, irritate you, and disturb you. What better notion, then, than to leave you and thus love you - and have you love us? And so we decided to come home, to the same homeland from which we were driven out 1,900 years earlier by a Roman world that, apparently, we also upset. Alas, dear world, it appears that you are hard to please. Having left you and your Pogroms and Inquisitions and Crusades and Holocausts, having taken our leave of the general world to live alone in our own little state, we continue to upset you. You are upset that we repress the Palestinians. You are deeply angered over the fact that we do not give up the lands of 1967, which are clearly the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Moscow is upset and Washington is upset. The Arabs are upset and the gentle Egyptian moderates are upset. Well, dear world, consider the reaction of a normal Jew from Israel. In 1920, 1921 and 1929, there were no territories of 1967 to impede peace between Jews and Arabs. Indeed, there was no Jewish State to upset anybody. Nevertheless, the same oppressed and repressed Palestinians slaughtered hundreds of Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Safed and Hebron. Indeed, 67 Jews were slaughtered one day in Hebron in 1929. Dear world, why did the Arabs - the Palestinians - massacre 67 Jews in one day in 1929? Could it have been their anger over Israeli aggression in 1967? And why were 510 Jewish men, women and children slaughtered in Arab riots in 1936-39? Was it because of Arab upset over 1967? And when you, World, proposed a U.N. Partition Plan in 1947 that would have created a Palestinian State alongside a tiny Israel and the Arabs cried and went to war and killed 6,000 Jews - was that upset stomach caused by the aggression of 1967? And, by the way, dear world, why did we not hear your cry of upset then? The Palestinians who today kill Jews with explosives and firebombs and stones are part of the same people who - when they had all the territories they now demand be given them for their state - attempted to drive the Jewish State into the sea. The same twisted faces, the same hate, the same cry of "idbah-al-yahud" - "Slaughter the Jews!" that we hear and see today, were seen and heard then. The same people, the same dream - destroy Israel. What they failed to do yesterday, they dream of today - but we should not "repress" them. Dear world, you stood by the Holocaust and you stood by in 1948 as seven states launched a war that the Arab League proudly compared to the Mongol massacres. You stood by in 1967 as Nasser, wildly cheered by wild mobs in every Arab capital in the world, vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. And you would stand by tomorrow if Israel were facing extinction. And since we know that the Arabs-Palestinians daily dream of that extinction, we will do everything possible to remain alive in our own land. If that bothers you, dear world, well - think of how many times in the past you bothered us. In any event, dear world, if you are bothered by us, here is one Jew in Israel who could not care less.

Getting down with the paper....

I have my first cardmaking night coming up at the end of the month. One of the cards, I am calling my "Anne Geddes" card due to the style. I made it this evening and I have to say, it is adorable.

Davidicus has to work at 2:AM so he went to bed early and I went to a movie with "T", one of my two best friends. We went and saw "Gran Torino"....The main character is alot like my husband, minus the ciggarettes.

Sore, Tired, blah...

I just got home from work. My back is killing me and I am tired. Yesterday, I went in at 11:AM, I was supposed to get off at 8:PM. I got off at 11:PM, with my breaks, that is 11 hours of paid work time...very tiring.

When I got home today, I opened my packages that came from Close To My Heart....I am holding my first cardmaking class on the last Friday of this month. I will be holding these monthly and am hoping people enjoy them as much as I am going to enjoy running them.

Live Journal is going I don't know where, I need to back up all of my entries via LJ book so I don't lose them. I have both of my surrogacies chronicled in there and don't want to lose them. I really don't see LJ going the way of the dinosaur but it's nice to have a plan.
Speaking of plans...I found a great website called Flylady, it is a site that gives you the steps and tools for getting your house in order. It uses baby steps to help you achieve your goal of a clear home and thus, a clear life.

A Fresh Start

Now that Live Journal may be going down in flames, I took a cue from "M" and am starting to blog here.
Work is crazy...I put in 12 hours yesterday. Still watching the Real Estate market as I would like to actually use my schooling and go into the field.
This year, we are trying for a baby.....hope hope hope.