Simple Gifts
Monica King
December 15, 2008
This is my simple gift this year to all of you dear, beloved readers. I see my peers at Meet the Press & elsewhere are taking control of the reigns of old & established seats of power. I am sitting here at my own desk, reflecting upon what the smartest, most articulate of this round table had to say. I listened to the Governor of Michigan make a good case for helping our own auto industry. I heard the reality of what is by those in authority to reliably tell me how it is. The heads of Google, & Walmart. The former head of HP. Three businesses I use because they are dynamic businesses that provide goods & services I need in a timely & efficient manner. The two heads of these businesses share values I hold dear. I can tell they believe in innovation, & pragmatism.
They also have reliable information I can build upon in my own life. So I listen. And respond.
I think they know what we know; the wisdom held in collective America from all other nations & ways of life in & around the globe is infinite. And infinitely precious & valuable. Americans have a folk wisdom that kicks in when times are tough. To float us through. Hope floats. And we have hope floaters everywhere right now, thank God! Whom most of us do, (thank Him), with some exceptions, freely & without any duress of any kind from anyone or anything.
I write here in this Chronicle in an all electronic format. I bypass the paper, & the ink. And setting the press as journalists & publishers did in the past. I rarely print out anything I write here on paper, save for those who have specifically asked me to do so because they do not have a computer & read paper documents.
In reality it is far more cost effective for me to continue to urge more folks to read an electronic paper to augment; to supplement reading skills of actual books & papers you can handle. The genius contained in the collective internet forum we now enjoy is in the geek squad that engineered the interface between these two forms of communication, the old & the new. And they are not going to stop being geniuses. They reach out to more creative visionaries who know how to market their visionary ideas. And we are in the season of bombardment of all of these really cool new ideas & ways of communicating.
The season of gift giving. So here are my simple gifts this season of lights & giving, while we weather the coldest darkest hours of the four seasons in our collective earth lives.
Simple ideas which are nonpartisan for giving our new Commander in Chief. Ideas of building on what we already have & enjoy. Obama says build bridges & schools. These bridges need to be between those who have access to computers & related technology & those who do not, ALONG WITH mentors to guide young minds & hearts in a developmentally sane way to use these gifts & gizmos to enhance the collective commonwealth.
Laying aside tired labels of liberal, conservative etc. that say nothing substantive or practical,- let's be practical. There are some clear To Do Lists We the People can organize at the State level to get the Federal programs we do have running more effectively. This means more VALUE for your tax dollar as a member of the collective business we know as America. We are now all officially members of a collective BUSINESS.
Our BUSINESS has several different offices & callings within it. We are clear about this, our number one priority is MEANINGFUL WORK; JOBS.
Charity begins in the home. So does the learning of BUSINESS. In the home, we provide for the basic needs of humanity to be met; for clean air, clean water, food, warmth & clothing for our bodies in winter to protect against the cold. If we have no home, other institutions provide for shelter; hospitals, nursing homes, & prison cells. Ideally, most of the folk I know do not want the latter. They want to determine the quality of the the former; an owned primary residence; a home.
A home can be in a collective for safety & for convenience, & for reducing costs. These are called collaboratives or associations. Or boarding schools or college dormitories.
At the Federal level we have Section 8 Federally assisted housing projects & developments in every State. I propose some simple collaborations between the Housing & HUD programs & a Federal model or template for Charter school curricula which can be offered to SUPPLEMENT but not replace current public school offerings.
In a new Federal Charter School curriculum I would incorporate as a mandatory requirement two Red Cross courses; the Baby Sitter course to be passed by the time a child leaves junior high school, & a basic swimming competency to be demonstrated before leaving junior high as well.
This Charter school curricula will be developed in an online format & offered freely to the public at large. It is to incorporate & enhance skills for meeting Maslow's heirarchy of need. Practical survival skills which include navigational & travel skills.
The Charter Federal curricula would necessarily include a component of self-driven competencies that are demonstrated via didactic testing such as a knowledge base needed to provide first responder care in life threatening emergencies at home or in the community. It can be used by Americorp volunteers who work in community service settings within the Section 8 complexes.
It is enlightened self interest to concentrate collaborative efforts of all professional associations in meeting the needs of basic dental, & health care for all children & adults. And 90 percent of that care is in educating a person on the basics of activities of daily living; proper washing of body parts & oral care. These are functions of a school nurse or other primary health care provider.
It is enlightened self interest to help the homeless in the journey to become homed. Because a sense of home, that sense of safety, warmth, & hominess is necessary for all learning & healing.
Our Associations, our Pediatrc, our Obstetric, our Nursing, our Rehabilitative, therapy professional associations need to concentrate on providing a Federal agency with BASIC curricula they think need to be incorporated into ALL public education.
Public Service air time can be filled with mini tele dramas with characters we produce, as enlightened health educators for teaching safer life style CHOICES, & the decision making process.
As we renew & refresh our common values in common education which is accessible for ALL, ALL of our life spans, we grow & heal our brains, we grow & renew new tissues & damaged tendons, we teach by example, we adapt computer equipment to enhance learning environments; providing translation services to those who do not understand English as their native language.
English is another basic competency all Americans need to master. Then another language or two or five...
We need to ask the collective Attorneys General to make clear to the Federal Social Security programs that we need accountability as to how the REAL & in place programs are currently managed or mismanaged. We need to enhance these programs to make them more competitive with private insurances that provide for ease into & out of rehabilitation services & back to work; to MEANINGFUL work that feeds ours souls.
Nursing skills at the most basic levels are skills the American public can always be enriched by. Teaching others how to help themselves, empower themselves to function for independence. Interdependence. Not codependence, not arch self-reliance, a healthy, balanced, interdependence, that allows for privacy & sociality, communing with one another, & retreating without blame or condemnation to reflect & just be .
These are simple gifts. We have them. We enjoy them more as we give them away. Freely.
Finally, to achieve these goals we need a PROCESS. So I propose that we ENCOURAGE those on disability or a fixed retirement Social Security monthly stipend to find an interest & develop this into a small business that can be worked on at home & is learner driven. That is, the business itself is built on a part time basis with the assistance of State Vocational Rehabilitative sources & the Employment offices at the State level.
If we can think together about the better deployment of our current systems of managing our American business, we are all better off. And isn't that what common wealth is all about?
They also have reliable information I can build upon in my own life. So I listen. And respond.
I think they know what we know; the wisdom held in collective America from all other nations & ways of life in & around the globe is infinite. And infinitely precious & valuable. Americans have a folk wisdom that kicks in when times are tough. To float us through. Hope floats. And we have hope floaters everywhere right now, thank God! Whom most of us do, (thank Him), with some exceptions, freely & without any duress of any kind from anyone or anything.
I write here in this Chronicle in an all electronic format. I bypass the paper, & the ink. And setting the press as journalists & publishers did in the past. I rarely print out anything I write here on paper, save for those who have specifically asked me to do so because they do not have a computer & read paper documents.
In reality it is far more cost effective for me to continue to urge more folks to read an electronic paper to augment; to supplement reading skills of actual books & papers you can handle. The genius contained in the collective internet forum we now enjoy is in the geek squad that engineered the interface between these two forms of communication, the old & the new. And they are not going to stop being geniuses. They reach out to more creative visionaries who know how to market their visionary ideas. And we are in the season of bombardment of all of these really cool new ideas & ways of communicating.
The season of gift giving. So here are my simple gifts this season of lights & giving, while we weather the coldest darkest hours of the four seasons in our collective earth lives.
Simple ideas which are nonpartisan for giving our new Commander in Chief. Ideas of building on what we already have & enjoy. Obama says build bridges & schools. These bridges need to be between those who have access to computers & related technology & those who do not, ALONG WITH mentors to guide young minds & hearts in a developmentally sane way to use these gifts & gizmos to enhance the collective commonwealth.
Laying aside tired labels of liberal, conservative etc. that say nothing substantive or practical,- let's be practical. There are some clear To Do Lists We the People can organize at the State level to get the Federal programs we do have running more effectively. This means more VALUE for your tax dollar as a member of the collective business we know as America. We are now all officially members of a collective BUSINESS.
Our BUSINESS has several different offices & callings within it. We are clear about this, our number one priority is MEANINGFUL WORK; JOBS.
Charity begins in the home. So does the learning of BUSINESS. In the home, we provide for the basic needs of humanity to be met; for clean air, clean water, food, warmth & clothing for our bodies in winter to protect against the cold. If we have no home, other institutions provide for shelter; hospitals, nursing homes, & prison cells. Ideally, most of the folk I know do not want the latter. They want to determine the quality of the the former; an owned primary residence; a home.
A home can be in a collective for safety & for convenience, & for reducing costs. These are called collaboratives or associations. Or boarding schools or college dormitories.
At the Federal level we have Section 8 Federally assisted housing projects & developments in every State. I propose some simple collaborations between the Housing & HUD programs & a Federal model or template for Charter school curricula which can be offered to SUPPLEMENT but not replace current public school offerings.
In a new Federal Charter School curriculum I would incorporate as a mandatory requirement two Red Cross courses; the Baby Sitter course to be passed by the time a child leaves junior high school, & a basic swimming competency to be demonstrated before leaving junior high as well.
This Charter school curricula will be developed in an online format & offered freely to the public at large. It is to incorporate & enhance skills for meeting Maslow's heirarchy of need. Practical survival skills which include navigational & travel skills.
The Charter Federal curricula would necessarily include a component of self-driven competencies that are demonstrated via didactic testing such as a knowledge base needed to provide first responder care in life threatening emergencies at home or in the community. It can be used by Americorp volunteers who work in community service settings within the Section 8 complexes.
It is enlightened self interest to concentrate collaborative efforts of all professional associations in meeting the needs of basic dental, & health care for all children & adults. And 90 percent of that care is in educating a person on the basics of activities of daily living; proper washing of body parts & oral care. These are functions of a school nurse or other primary health care provider.
It is enlightened self interest to help the homeless in the journey to become homed. Because a sense of home, that sense of safety, warmth, & hominess is necessary for all learning & healing.
Our Associations, our Pediatrc, our Obstetric, our Nursing, our Rehabilitative, therapy professional associations need to concentrate on providing a Federal agency with BASIC curricula they think need to be incorporated into ALL public education.
Public Service air time can be filled with mini tele dramas with characters we produce, as enlightened health educators for teaching safer life style CHOICES, & the decision making process.
As we renew & refresh our common values in common education which is accessible for ALL, ALL of our life spans, we grow & heal our brains, we grow & renew new tissues & damaged tendons, we teach by example, we adapt computer equipment to enhance learning environments; providing translation services to those who do not understand English as their native language.
English is another basic competency all Americans need to master. Then another language or two or five...
We need to ask the collective Attorneys General to make clear to the Federal Social Security programs that we need accountability as to how the REAL & in place programs are currently managed or mismanaged. We need to enhance these programs to make them more competitive with private insurances that provide for ease into & out of rehabilitation services & back to work; to MEANINGFUL work that feeds ours souls.
Nursing skills at the most basic levels are skills the American public can always be enriched by. Teaching others how to help themselves, empower themselves to function for independence. Interdependence. Not codependence, not arch self-reliance, a healthy, balanced, interdependence, that allows for privacy & sociality, communing with one another, & retreating without blame or condemnation to reflect & just be .
These are simple gifts. We have them. We enjoy them more as we give them away. Freely.
Finally, to achieve these goals we need a PROCESS. So I propose that we ENCOURAGE those on disability or a fixed retirement Social Security monthly stipend to find an interest & develop this into a small business that can be worked on at home & is learner driven. That is, the business itself is built on a part time basis with the assistance of State Vocational Rehabilitative sources & the Employment offices at the State level.
If we can think together about the better deployment of our current systems of managing our American business, we are all better off. And isn't that what common wealth is all about?
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