Kwanzaa

  Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration held in the United States (and more recently, Canada) but also celebrated in the Western African Diaspora. The celebration honors African heritage in African-American culture, and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. It is ideological, with seven core principles (Nguzo Saba): Umoja - Unity, Kujichugalia - Self-determination, Ujima - Collective work and Responsibility, Ujamaa -  Cooperative economics, Nia - Purpose, Kuumba - Creativity, and Imani - Faith. It was created by Maulana Karenga, and was first celebrated in 1966–67.This year Kwanzaa starts on Wednesday, December 26 and ends Tuesday, January 1.

  Golden Ciphers is hosting Nia (Purpose), Sunday, December 30 at Friendly (2386 Unwin Road, Cleveland Ohio 44115 - United States) from 2pm - 8pm.  There will be Vendors, Dancing, Drumming, Entertainment, Live DJ, Food.  Vendors are welcome (tables are $25).  For more information contact Golden Ciphers at (216)-574-4888

Love

Love is like rainbows

When you find one

You hold on

-Charlotte C.

Parable of 2 Cows

The Political Outcast put these together from an article in The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1938.  Thought it was something people need to see, so here it is:

BUREAUCRACY:  You have two cows. The government takes both cows, loses one while giving the cow to people who don’t know anything about cows because that’s what the regulations told them to do.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

COMMUNISM (1): You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you some of the milk.

COMMUNISM (2): You have two cows. The government takes both cows. The government sells the milk in government stores. You can’t afford the milk. You starve to death.

COMMUNISM (3): You have two cows. The State takes both, and gives you a little milk . . .  once.

COMMUNISM (4): You have two cows. The government takes both and gives you spoiled milk.

 

CUBAN COMMUNISM: You no longer have any cows. You risk your life by escaping from Cuba so you can buy some cows and a bull in Miami.

DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and drafts you to make sure he stays in power.

FASCISM: You have two cows. You give the milk to the government and the government sells it.

FREE ENTERPRISE: You have two cows. They get jobs working for Chick-fil-A for the company’s “Eat Mor Chikin” campaign. The chickens get upset and call for a boycott.

LIBERALISM: You have two cows. You sell both of them to the rich. The government then taxes the rich the price of one cow and gives it to the poor who slaughter it. When they finish eating it, they demand the other cow.

NEW DEAL LIBERALISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and pours the milk down the drain insisting there is a giant storage tank where all the milk goes. Think Social Security.

POLITICAL CORRECTISM: The idea of “ownership’ is a holdover from the pre-Enlightenment era. Humans and cows are equal. The use of the word “cow” is demeaning. Cows should be allowed to vote.

Read more: http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/12/how-to-teach-simple-minded-people-about-economics/#ixzz2EKZ8q0F1

Holiday Season

Well, its that time of year.  Time to bake cookies, make gifts, and pull out the decorations.  I love Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years celebration.  My problem with it is the rush, the gimme-gimme attitude.  Its supposed to be time to enjoy family and be full of joy, but people have pulled it totally out of wack.  They have lost the true meaning of the season.  The joy of family, friends and a new year.  I love that part of the season and I don't think anyone has that anymore.  Do you?  Do you slow down and enjoy the season?  Do you have any fun holiday family stories?

Unique

We're all Weird

Because..

We're all Unique

Lets be Different

Lets be Freaks

Lets be Strange

We're all Weird

 Because..

We're all Unique

Lets be Emo

Lets be Goth

Lets be Scenic

We're all Weird

Because..

We're all Unique

 Lets be Girls

Lets be Boys

Lets be Us

Because We're all different

We're Weird to each other

So lets be Unique

-Charlotte

Know Me

They don't understand

 That I am me,

Just because I'm different

 They make decisions about me,

Without really knowing me

 And who I am,

I may be different from you

 But that don't mean I'm bad,

They see how I look

 And think they know me,

Just because of how I dress

 Without really knowing me,

They don't understand

 Who I am,

So this is to them

 The ones who judged me,

Without knowing me

 And who I am,

I won't get mad

 And I won't go,

I'll just explain who I am

-Charlotte

Here

Get out of here

Take your negative attitude out of here

We're being positive here

So keep the negative out of here

We're making ourselves better here

We don't need your Pessimism here

We're serious about living here

We are working here

So take your playing out of here

-Charlotte

Dreams

A broken wing

A broken dream

Keep dreaming

Keep trying

Because life's not over yet

-Charlotte

Music to glorify God

God called for all music to glorify the Him.  Yet look at whats in music these days - cussing, talking about women, idolizing money - is this really glorifying him?  I don`t believe that.  The Bible says to keep your mouth clean, for men to love their wife's, sister's, mother's and daughter's, and one of the ten Commandments is not to idolize anyone or thing accept God.  You listen to this stuff and eventually it will come out in your lifestyle.  If you listen to that music because of the beat or rhythm, there is music out there that has a great beat or rhythm.  Check out Lecrae, Trip Lee, Toby Mac, KB, Pro, Andy Mineo, or Cannon.  They are rappers that rap for the glory of God and are great rappers.  You should check them out.

What The World Sees

The world looks and sees a kid

The world sees a kid

Livin` in the inner city

The world sees a kid

Surrounded by sin

The world sees a kid

Tainted by sin

The world sees a kid

Up to no good

The world only knows

Whats on t.v, in music and in movies

The world only knows

What it wants to see and what it sees....

Its all wrong

The world stereo-types us

Because of what it sees and where we live

The world thinks it knows us...

It doesn't

The world knows what it sees

On t.v, in movies, music and printed word

The world's too busy seeing whats not here

To see us

A small poem on what the world 'sees' and does not really see.  The inner city (against what many think) is not as evil as its shown on t.v, in movies, in music and in the news.  Yes, the inner city has problems, but so do the suburbs and rural areas.  The news is making a bigger deal about the problems today and how bad its gotten when in fact its been like that all along.  The suburbs and rural areas have those problems too, but they have the money to hide them.  I'll be posting a lot of poems and I hope they'll help you.

More on Slavery

There are four primary areas of slavery into which children, as well as adults, are trafficked (or sold):

 THE SEX-SLAVE TRADE

Primarily young women and children, including toddlers, are sold into pornography and prostitution. There are thousands of these victims enslaved in the United States, Sudan and throughout Western Europe.

CHILD SOLDIERS

In Africa thousands of young boys and girls are forced into military camps where they are trained to fight as rebels and are often beaten, raped, and malnourished, as a means to training children to be young killing machines.

 
 FORCED MANUAL LABOR

There are agricultural and manufacturing forced manual labor camps both in Western Europe and in the USA. 

PROFESSIONAL BEGGING

This is Mafia organized begging. The children are forced into begging on the streets, and they retain none of what they collect. They are often forced to live in sewers, cellars or dark gutted apartments where many of them are crowded into a small room under lock and key with little to eat.

  And those are just four primary groups, there are a lot more.  A couple of sites I found on Slavery: Make way partners (where I got above info), and Women`s rights without frontiers (please be careful on Women`s rights without frontiers, some very graphic photos of whats going on in the world).

Golden Ciphers

  So if you have`nt noticed I posted about going to The Undergound Rialroad Freedom Center with a place called Golden Ciphers.  I know I gave a link to their web page, but I thought I`d tell you a little bit about it.  Golden Ciphers is a non-profit African American grassroots organization that is here to help the youth (ages 12-18) in the inter-city of Cleveland.  Golden ciphers has programs everyday of the week:  Monday is EET (or Entrepreneur Employment Training), Tuesday is Black Butterflies (girls group), Wednesday is Leadership, Thursday is Young Men Emerge (boys group), and Friday is Drumming as well.  To learn more go to their web site:  www.goldenciphers.org

Slavery

  On May 23, 2012, I went with Golden Ciphers to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
  At the museum I learned what slaves had to go thru.  Africans where taken from their homeland, marched across fields on foot, and put on a slave ship bound for the Americas.  There was very little room on the slave ships.  Slaves crouched in the holds with no where to lay down or go to the bathroom.  They sat there in their own waste.  Conditions where so bad that the slaves jumped ship knowing it was better than slavery.
  When the slaves got to the Americas the where auctioned off by slave traders to the highest bidder.  Babies and Children were ripped from their mothers arms and families seperated! Slave traders made around $800,000 a year!
  Slavery was abolished by most countries (America being one of them), but its still going on!  Some types of slavery are: Sex slaves, Child Slodiers, Forced laborers, and many more.  The ones mentioned don`t happen as much in America (as far as I know) but there is slavery.  A couple of the ones in America are Threats and Fraud.
  This was suprising.  I knew that in  some countries (like India for one) there was still slavery, but it amazed me that its still going on in America.  I thought it terrible that people don`t know and that is what this post is for, to inform you what is still gonig on in the world.  When we don`t think its possible.
  What do think?  Is there anything you would add to this?  Please tell me so I can inform more people.
                                             Thanks for reading!

Keeping the Faith (march 2-3)

Friday, March 2, I went to Cincinnati for a youth conference.  11 teens and 2 adults from my church (Trinity Church) went.  It lasted 3 days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  We stayed at Blue Ash Embassy suites, I think its a really nice hotel.  They have a pool, a hot tub, a sauna, a work-out room and some other stuff.  Like I said really nice.  We got there at about 5:30am, unpacked and went to the room we were meeting in.  We met all the other teens (30 or so, including us) and Session #1 started, we were told not to sit with the group we come with and to mingle (as in mix with the other tables - a bunch of the Trinity group sat together XD).  The Pastor for my church was the speaker = fill in the blanks :).  After session some of us went to a big group room and played games, while everyone else went swimming.  Later on we went to our rooms, showered and went to bed.
  The next morning we all had breakfast and went to session #2 and workshop #1.  We then headed out to explore the mall.  At the mall we had lunch and set of in small groups of 3-4 peeps.  An hour 1/2 before we had to leave everyone met up and walked around together.  We found out it was national platapuse day and the Disney store was giving out perry the platapuse hats.  We all got one and went around telling people 'happy platapuse day'.  We then went back to the hotel and got ready for session #3 and workshop #2.  After session we went up to the big group room we had gone to Friday night.  As we hung out we ate pizza and talked.  We then all headed to bed.
  Next morning we had breakfast and packed so we didn't have to later.  We then went to Session #4 and workshop #3.  After session we went to the cars and left on the 4 hour ride home.

the very messy living room

the bathroom

the hotel from floor #2

twin lamps residing over a very messy bedside table

the kitchenette (far left) and couches

Cascades the resteraunt

a table in front of... a bunch of tables

the evil turtle that lives in the hotel

empty flat land

more empty flat land

my dear friends Destiny and Violet

ME!!!!!!!!

Lightsabers

 For Christmas I made Abby, Daniel, Tim, Ben and Joanna light sabers.  There not flimsy plastic ones either.  I used 2' of 3/4" thick PVC piping with 2 layers of installation wrapped with duck tape and then used colored duck tape, regular duck tape and electric tape to make them look like light sabers.

My book review

Just last night I finished book called The False Princess by Elisi (A-lish) O'Neal.  Its about a girl who thought she was a princess, only to find that she isn't the real princess.  The real princess was taken to a convent to keep her safe from murder.  Right before the princess was born the King and Queen went to the oracle of the nameless god.  The prophecy they are told is that the princess will die around her 16 birthday.  And so the King and Queen switch her secretly for another baby at birth.  But a distant relative of the King and Queen is after the throne and puts her daughter in place of the real princess.  Its end is awesome.  If you want to find out why its awesome read it.  You'll love it.

School

I' m home schooled (Yes, love it) and I do lots of different types of school work, but the one thing I always do is math. My Mom found a cool math site (Khan Academy) that I go on everyday. Its mostly about math - they cover arithmetic, Pre-algebra, Algebra and Trigonometry. But they have videos on a ton of other things - Math (of course), Art, Brain teasers, Money/banking, Science, Test prep (preparing you for tests), History and talks'n interviews. The best thing - Its free! So you can get help with your schooling and not have to pay anything.
I also journal. Well, gotta go do my math instead of post on here, Bye.

Family life

So at the moment we have my four cousins staying with us, not sure how long they'll be here. Four kids added on to a family of eight kids and two adults = full house, attitudes and (at times) fun/war. Its interesting living in a house of 14 peeps. Not much breathing room (figure of speaking). We have to redo chores, fun time, punishments, etc. Just a thought does anyone (personally - not the Duggards) know any families that size or close? I know a family of 12.
Pray for my other cousin as well - he has two types of cancer and the doctors say he has about 2 months left on earth. His father - my uncle - lost his wife to cancer two years after my cousin was born, so pray for him to get through this tough time.