A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....09-02 thru 09-05-05....Labor Day 2005

DollyCali | September 2, 2005 | DollyCali

[Jen]

Very nice thread Dolly. I enjoyed reading about your past! :)

[The Mayor]

September 2, 2005

Check Your Blind Spots

Read:
Deuteronomy 6:1-9

These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. —Deuteronomy 6:6

Bible In One Year: 2 Chronicles 7-9

When I was in high school, I had a driving instructor who gave me some sound advice. "You think by looking in the rearview mirror you know what is on your left side, but your vision is limited," he said. "Always look over your shoulder before changing lanes. There may be another car in your blind spot." His wise instruction has kept me out of more potential wrecks than I care to think about.

Moses had some wise instruction for the people of Israel. They were to make the study and contemplation of God's commandments an integral part of life. Moses said, "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up" (Deuteronomy 6:7). In short, God's words were to permeate every aspect of their lives.

The Bible is our instruction manual from God for navigating life's journey. But merely owning a copy is not enough. It must be studied, applied, and passed on to others.

Just as checking our blind spot should become an automatic response while we drive, applying God's Word should be our natural response as we encounter the hazards of life. It will help us avoid a spiritual crash. —Dennis Fisher

The Bible will transform our lives
And turn us from our sin,
If we will read it and obey
God's principles within. —Sper

The Bible will tell you what is wrong before you have done it! —Moody

FOR FURTHER STUDY
Can I Really Trust The Bible?

[Dan Lacey]

[Victoria Delsoul]

Happy Labor Day weekend, everybody.

Hi Jen!!! So happy to know you're OK and your family is OK. I was wondering about you my friend.

I had a busy week and just now I can sit down and check out my pings.

Hugs.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks for the list. :-)

[Temple Owl]

God Bless You DollyCali. You are quite a gal.

[Aquamarine]

Outstanding job on the tables, graphics and info dolly. That's quite a resume you have there.
One of my first jobs was working as a waitress and cashier at a Steakhouse. The employees could eat there (on the job) for a discounted price. I ate so much steak that I lost my taste for it and took to the baked potatoes instead. Did learn to enjoy steak again. :)

[Aquamarine]

Excellent cartoon!

[LadyX]

Suppose you could describe my current state as 'Extreme Visual Overload.'
The pictures of the past week run across my mind's screen in living color with few intermissions.

There's even a naggy little 'Preview of Possible Things to Come' with knowing September is the most active month for storms/hurricanes....and that terrible "What If" another one cruises up the Gulf of Mexico??
That does not stem from pessimism, but years of past experience and necessary mental and physical preparation.

We always thought ahead, living in Florida and the Southeast, with on hand radios and an ample supply of batteries; lanterns and candles and boxes of matches; food provisions that didn't require cooking; 5 gallon bottles of water on stands for drinking/cooking water; full gas tanks; axe, chain saw, etc.

That's no different from the Northern tier of states prepared for winter storms and blizzards with many of those same items, plus snow blowers, shovels, chains, etc.
An encore storm performance of a lesser degree is in the realm of possibilities.

God bless all the affected, of course, and certainly all the good persons trying to help them under the most difficult of circumstances. The emotional aspects equal the physical.

Especially grievous to me are the situations of all the hospitals, operating under the very worst of conditions, without power, enough food and water, and the ability to communicate.

For 15 years in Greensboro, NC, at Moses Cone Hospital (UNC Teaching Hospital with 6 floors and basement, and grew from that) I was the Department Secretary for Safety and Security, with the Communications Department added later. Arriving there in 1979 and applying for a position, that area previously had been under a V-P and they recognized it must be its own entity - they'd hired a Director from Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, and the next move was to hire the Secretary, just as I walked in; perfect timing.

Woody and I thus set up the whole Department - hiring and processing and equipping of personnel - writing and distributing to every Department/Nursing Floor/Physician with privileges there the Hospital Safety Manual and the Disaster Manual, Snow Plan, etc., and I interacted with everyone in the hospital from top to bottom and many physicians.
(I also had coffee privileges in the Physican Lounge)

Part of my job was setting up the monthly separate Safety Committee and Disaster Committee Meetings, taking the minutes and writing and distributing them.
When Woody left for another position elsewhere, they left the Director slot vacant for 2 years, having the Human Resources Director take over supervision, and our Assistant Director handle Security oversight.

The HR Director already had more on his plate than he could handle, and had me do all that was necessary, circling by daily to sign things, discuss problems. I fed him all he needed for the Committee Meetings and follow-ups, and when we had a JCAH Inspection, he had me present all our Safety and Security records to the Inspectors, and field all the questions. All he had to do was sit in.

I knew our Emergency Procedures backwards and forwards, and in the occasional crises, helped coordinate from a radio in my office the Security movements and assignments.

One serious situation was when a teenage boy at a high school shot and killed an Assistant Principal, and wounded other students.
It was a media circus, of course, and the hospital went into lockdown to protect the wounded and stave off curiousity seekers...admitted only families of victims and new patients until the situation resolved.

I thus can fully appreciate all the procedures enacted within those Gulf hospitals, their resources dwindling to nothingness, overwhelming fatigue setting in, and their despair as patient care was seriously compromised.

Can you imagine nurses/staff getting an order to prepare patients for evacuation by helicopter on top of the facility six floors up with no elevators working?? With no radios/cell phones working? Dark??
Think of all the ramifications, some this week actually carrying patients up the flights of stairs only to NOT have a chopper come for the patients as promised..then what do you do with them ??
Can't just sit down and weep for them and yourself, and wonder what became of your own family and house...

All these things surfaced this afternoon, and I just wasn't in a frame of mind to post after I returned from my errands and had fixed dinner.

Like most of you, no doubt, one of THE most sickening things is the Blame Game, and sayng it is a Racial Thing...oh, yes, the latter is actually true!!
A decaying, self-serving element of the Human Race who plays politics instead of humanity.

[Texagirl4W]

absolutely true, Lady. So sad.

[Temple Owl]

Thank you for a most enlightening post. I am so pleased that so many our FReepers have impressive credentials.

[The Mayor]

There was no planning, no foresight or any type of preperation on behalf of the local and state governments.

None!

Now it's the blame game, try to shift the resopnsibility off to the feds, locals have to take control of their own. Rudy Guliani is the perfect example after 9-11.
He was a leader, there apparently is no leaders in NewOrleans.

[DollyCali]

Thank You Dan.. what a wonderful post. Thanks for sharing your talent here with us! Have a great LD Weekend

[The Mayor]

September 3, 2005

Words Of Light

Read:
John 8:12-20

I am the light of the world. —John 8:12

Bible In One Year: 2 Chronicles 10-13

Jesus, an itinerant rabbi from the town of Nazareth, asserted that He was the light of the world. That was an incredible claim from a man in first-century Galilee, an obscure region in the Roman Empire. It could not boast of any impressive culture and had no famous philosophers, noted authors, or gifted sculptors. And we have no record that Jesus had any formal education.

More than that, Jesus lived before the invention of the printing press, radio, television, and e-mail. How could He expect His ideas to be circulated around the globe? The words He spoke were committed to the memories of His followers. Then the Light of the world was snuffed out by the darkness—or so it seemed.

Centuries later we still listen with amazement to Jesus' words, which His Father has miraculously preserved. His words lead us out of darkness into the light of God's truth; they fulfill His promise, "He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12).

I encourage you to read the words of Jesus in the Gospels. Ponder them. Let them grip your mind and change your life. You'll exclaim as His contemporaries did: "No man ever spoke like this Man!" (John 7:46). —Vernon Grounds

Thy Word is a lamp to my feet,
A light to my path alway
To guide and to save me from sin
And to show me the heavenly way. —Sellers

Because Jesus is the Light of the world, we don't need to be in the dark about God.

FOR FURTHER STUDY
Who Is This Man Who Says He's God?
Knowing God Through John

[DollyCali]

Wonderful post Maggie. Wonder why they didn't put you in charge at Moses Cone... (must have been the absence of that critical Y chromosome?)

Morning Rus. Yes, I am disgusted with the typical "not me" liberal attitude again coming forth.. someone else's fault & responsibility.

Maggie, I know what you mean. I don't have cable to be watching 24/7 but still am a bit in overload & it is depressing - and we can just be comfy in our homes & NOT live with it's presence, smell, sounds and sights.

Air show this weekend in Cleveland, Perch festival in Lake County. I usually do both. Pretty covered up here & might do neither. Company here until tomorrow morning. Trying to talk them into visiting with me at church before they return to Chicago. But, they have been away for over a month at their vacation home in New England coast & have a doggie that has been in "obedience" school & are anxious to get her back

[DollyCali]

National Guard descends on New Orleans, giving refugees hope

WWL source 09/03/2005


Bone-tired and beyond hungry, the victims of Hurricane Katrina let their emotions show when a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine finally rolled through what once was New Orleans.

A crowd of nearly 20,000 stood outside the New Orleans Convention Center as at least three dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived Friday along with dozens of air-conditioned buses to take refugees out of the city. President Bush also took an aerial tour of the city and answered complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going to make it right."

Watching the caravan, Leschia Radford sang the praises of a higher power, while Nellie Washington demanded to know what the holdup had been.

"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Radford shrieked.

The 70-year-old Washington, a rag shielding her from the searing heat and a cart holding her only belongings, asked: "What took you so long? I'm extremely happy, but I cannot let it be at that. They did not take the lead to do this. They had to be pushed to do it."

More than four days passed after the storm hit for residents and trapped tourists to get any real relief. In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some outside the convention center threw their arms heavenward and others hollered profanities as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat.

"They should have been here days ago," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling, "Hell, yeah!"

The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from local officials that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.

"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."

The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.

Friday didn't start out like there would be any hope for recovery. A thunderous explosion before daybreak and scattered downtown building fires only confirmed the sense that New Orleans was a city in collapse.

Then, the supplies and troops arrived. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery city.

"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our hearts and in the minds of our people," Blanco said. "We're going to make it through."

Guard members carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where bedraggled people — many of them trapped there since the weekend — stretched around the perimeter of the building. Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard, said 7,000 Guard members would be in the city by Saturday.

All the victims were supposed to have been evacuated by dawn Saturday, but shortly after midnight, the buses stopped rolling. About 2,000 people remained in the stadium and could be there until Sunday, according to the Texas Air National Guard. They had hoped to evacuate the last of the crowd before dawn Saturday.

Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful.

Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line. "Something is better than nothing," she said of her two bottles of water and pork rib meal. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."

With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that city opened two more centers to accommodate an additional 10,000. Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.

One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.

At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.

[DollyCali]

I'll bet a lot of folks are going to be celebrating Football today by watching college ball & some follow up HS ball ..and I'll also further bet they don't even KNOW it is foot ball day! thanks for the list Tulip!

[Colonial Warrior]

Just a quick note to thank you for all you are doing in keeping us informed Dolly.

Our hearts are heavy for all those affected in the Gulf coast areas.

Your are rightly named...a Doll!! [hugs to you!]

God Bless!

[DollyCali]

Oh, no!!!! Look what Oliver brought home this morning. I emailed a few of you the pix & decided to post with idea IF he stays & is not claimed, he will need a name.. so we have the NAME THE NEW (OH NO) DOG CONTEST. Because of Oliver's name OH NO is eliminated as is anyting starting wtih things sounding like O... want to have NO confusion on names

no collar or tags

sigh

[snugs]

What a lovely dog Dolly, I am sure you have checked but there is not a chip under the skin is there? Or is that what you meant by tags.