“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it.”

~ Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

Hello everyone…

I have a Son currently serving in Afghanistan and Operation Moms has been a huge support for me and all our Military Men & Women Serving. They provided great care packages to our troops, filled with cards, food, toiletries and base needs to mention a few.

Below is a letter from Mom’s Cookies. They are in need of some supplies, as our Troops grow so does the their needs. If you could provide any of the items listed below or know of a company that could donate any of the needed supplies, we would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You for Supporting all our Men and Women Serving.

Janet Scott

OPERATION MOMS COOKIES:

FOR OUR DEPLOYED U.S. ARMED FORCES SERVICE MEMBERS!

OPERATION: FORWARD SUPPORT

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2010 COLLECTION CAMPAIGN

FOR OUR DEPLOYED U.S. ARMED FORCES SERVICE MEMBERS!

… You can help us provide quality items of caring and support, while sending a few “creature comforts” from home! LIP BALM will bring relief and protectorates from the elements…WET ONES AND WIPES freshen and clean 24/7… AND a new, clean, dry pair of SOCKS replaces a worn pair while bringing relief to tired feet! Beef Jerky, light to carry with Protein and Granola Bars provide a needed snack! Simple and basic needs, bringing many smiles to our Troops thousands of miles from home! (continue reading…)

1. Give people more than they expect and doit cheerfully.

2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

4. When you say ‘ I love you ‘ mean it.

5. When you say ‘ I’m sorry ‘ look the person in the eye.

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7. Believe in love at first sight. (continue reading…)

BBC:

German police have shut down the Hamburg mosque where the 9/11 hijackers met before their suicide attacks on the US in 2001.

Police said they believed the Taiba mosque was again being used as a meeting point for extremists.

The cultural association that runs the mosque has also been banned.

A German intelligence report last year said radical Muslims had travelled to military training camps in Uzbekistan after associating at the mosque.
Continue reading the main story
Related stories

* The Hamburg connection

“We have closed the mosque because it was a recruiting and meeting point for Islamic radicals who wanted to participate in so-called jihad or holy war,” said Frank Reschreiter, a spokesman for Hamburg’s state interior ministry.

For the entire story, please visit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10911542

GENEVA/ISLAMABAD, 3 August 2010 - UNICEF is sending in life-saving supplies to the millions of people hit by severe flooding in several provinces in northern Pakistan. The devastating floods are said to be the worst in the region for 80 years and have affected an estimated 3.2 million people including 1.4 million children.

“The biggest threats are the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera, especially deadly to children. We have already received reports of cases of diarrhoea amongst children. Food, clean drinking water, health supplies, high energy biscuits, clothing for women and children and vaccines, are needed urgently. We have already provided a first tranche of humanitarian supplies and will be bringing in more over the next days during this critical life-saving period”, said Martin Mogwanja, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan.

The flooding has caused widespread destruction of infrastructure with roads submerged and bridges swept away. Power lines are down and damage has been done to hospitals, schools and sanitation systems. In one district, UNICEF reported that 80 per cent of the drinking wells had been destroyed. Many families are camping out in schools and other building located on higher ground. (continue reading…)

Below are beautiful words that my friend e mailed me, from his yoga instructor.  If you would like to read more please visit: www.yogawestla.com

Today humanity finds itself sleep-walking through a concept of life
. . . not living life itself.
We have developed this conceptual life that isn’t life in an evolutionary search
for pleasure, and to protect ourselves from the every day pains of experience.
Extremism attempts to pierce this numbness, but it is a failed reaction.

Ironically, this has become a very painful cul-de-sac (a dead-end of sorts):
with food that is not food;
medicine that is not medicine;
beliefs that are not believable,
controlled by feelings that are not our feelings and thoughts that are not our thoughts.
They are composite drawings of some joys, hopes, fears, angers and doubts
— mixed up with anticipations reacting to the joys, hopes, fears,
angers and doubts of others. (continue reading…)

I first arrived in Plaquemines Parish along the southern Louisiana coast one week after the BP Deep-water Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

The marshes at South Pass were eerily silent. Estuaries and breeding grounds choked on crude oil and toxic chemical dispersant. Wildlife washed up dead or sank lifeless to the seabed. The boat captains eyes mirrored the noxious decay clinging to his boat.

For all the devastation I saw off-shore, the worst of what I saw was on-shore; in the faces and voices of the people who call this place home.

“What I don’t understand is, you talk about the oil, you talk about the wetlands, you talk about the animals; but you’re forgetting the people – again. Eleven people lost their lives. My brother in law, he’s been trying to call everyone to put his boat out there in the water. “Oh, we’re not looking for 22 foot boats”. You can’t put them out to work? You took their work! BP it’s time for you to stand up and take notice of the people that need help”. Venessa Rayas. Fisherman’s wife. Buras, Louisiana

The courage that wills the people of the Gulf to go on is being tested once again. Tested by a disaster that will continue to replay. Tested by a corporate giant that has its own agenda. Tested by a government unwilling to or unable to take the lead.

Generations have made these waters home, and these waters and the people of the region have become the voices that go unheard.

David Zimmerman

If you would like to get involved and make a difference please visit: http://www.oceanfutures.org/

For David Zimmerman please visit: www.davidzimmerman.com