Refugees: One-third children

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to live free ..." begins the poem by Emma Lazarus, inscribed on a bronze tablet on America's beloved Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

ABC News released today nearly 30 million men, women, and children were displaced by War(s) and natural disasters in 2015 - on average more than 75 every day. Yemen, Syria and Iraq had more than 1 million people flee alone.  Natural disasters make up about 19 million of those - earthquakes, mud slides, floods, etc.

Those numbers are staggering - in that it could happen to anyone at any time in any place.

Yes, including America. But we are lucky here we have so many governmental and community-based efforts all over this country should that happen. Other countries do not.

What breaks my heart the most is an estimated 1/3 of those displaced persons are children - many who arrive alone. People are put in crowded, filthy and often-dangerous refugee camps.

America has taken in a drop in the bucket. And it takes an estimated three years for the U.S. to document and help refugees find homes, which is another column for sure!

Check out this web site http://www.state.gov/j/prm/ to learn more about refugees and the Billions of dollars the U.S. gives to other countries every day.  For instance we gave "an additional $86 million" to South Sudan April 27.

Imagine being a 5-year-old arriving on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere, cold, scared, dirty, wet, hungry, and alone. Devastating.

What can we do?  DON'T send clothes, items, water bottles, etc. Refugees literally stand on mounds of clothes that cannot be used. Items like that become unsanitary, and are not useful, or needed. Aid workers say they have received wedding dresses, Halloween costumes and winter coats in the Middle Eastern deserts!

Go to rescue.org and start there. Give 10 percent of your paycheck. We are not alone in this world, and it would be wonderful if we would just help one another.

Read this boy's story at
https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.e-activist.com/ea-action/broadcast.record.message.click.do?ea.url.id%3D606401%26ea.campaigner.email%3DkmsDcOVWJJiss3fTfNmwtUaF%252BegVuZ9O%26ea.campaigner.id%3DP9N%252Fx6UJgyeZkArzVWMSmA%3D%3D%26ea_broadcast_target_id%3D0&source=gmail&ust=1463161059941000&usg=AFQjCNEfRXRreh3KluSnZlTPooAOYEiXVg

I'm coming out ..

Coming out: Such a difficult phrase to wrap around your brain. I decided to use this forum to come out.

Friends and family will not be surprised. I mean, how can you hide your lifestyle? I am a retired, published journalist, a third-generation U.S. Navy veteran, on one of the first ships to have women on board; a fourth generation Puebloan. I am disabled, but active in my circle and my community.  

And ... I smoke pot!

Surprise!  For me, I was taught about marijuana early on. Born into a family of hippies, and raised in the sex, drugs, and rock and roll era; (late-end Baby Boomer) I was an early proponent of Hemp, a plant associated with marijuana without the soulful benefits. (Unless you actually smoke pot will you understand that.)

My aunt likes to tell the story of me getting in trouble in the fifth grade (at Somerlid Elementary School) for writing a paper espousing the benefits of Hemp, which would replace our floundering cotton industry with a product grown with half the water and twice the benefit. Duh?!  

Okay, so now I am out! And I am, and never have been ashamed of my pot use. My entire life I have been lectured and treated like a criminal. I have been forced to hide my use while serving my country. 

My pot use was never an issue in my nearly 30-year career as a Journalist - in print, TV and radio mediums. Even during the "Just Say No' to drugs' Nancy Reagan experiment, which resulted in parents hiding from their children, who were trained to call the police on Mom and Dad, did any of us pot heads falter.

Don't get me started on the alcohol industry producing a country of American drunks (TM). Budweiser has announced it is changing its name to "America" for the summer. C'mon.

No pot head I know, or have ever heard of, has caused an accident, murder, school or any-where shooting. Now, there are ones who may have pot in their system,, while doing something stupid but you can be guaranteed they were high on something else, too! 

Myself, I gave up alcohol and a heavy dependence of Hydrocodone four years ago July 5. The Navy made me a better drinker and the highly addictive drug, responsible for hundreds of thousand deaths, was prescribed to me for more than 10 years to help me cope with my PTSD and MST, which wasn't diagnosed until 2009. Pot has always helped me cope - whether it was an abusive household or being raped.

Physically, it helps the aches and pains in my muscles, bones, joints and back. It helped me in recovery from a seven-year staph infection!

Pot has saved my life, physically, spiritually and emotionally. I would definitely be dead without it. I truly believe that. And a couple of doctors from the VA would agree with me outspokenly, IF they were allowed as federal employees.

Since "Reefer Madness," pot has sent people running, no pun intended. The U.S. Government listed it as a Schedule 1 drug, in the same category as LSD, methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine. That is the problem, but sending privatization of prisoners - a lot of them Vets - into jail for minor marijuana offenses is more important. To date, 26 states have legalized pot, or are considering it.

The Schedule 1 listing must be changed and I hope President Barack Obama, in all his good sense, will work to have it changed before he leaves office.

That, would hopefully put an end to the ridiculous WAR ON DRUGS, which has resulted in a lot of people jailed for a plant with medicinal properties! It was an enormous failure, costing taxpayers BILLIONS of dollars, and not stopping much at all. 

I mean if cops would sell those Huge piles of confiscated Pot - maybe a community could actually work together to stop CRIME - like people getting guys who have no business getting guns.

Believe me. I am NOT the only one who smokes pot. Everyone smokes pot in all race, class, gender, religious, professional or not, young and old; your neighbors, friends, sons, daughter and grandparents. Pot has been used since the beginning of time for its medicinal uses. Now, I can use it as a salve, drink, gummie, chocolate, or anything else these kids come up with - lol

And thank God, I am in Colorado where voters have allowed medical marijuana since 1998, and recreational marijuana sales since 2014!  The state is seeing enormous amounts of tax dollars - many used for parks, schools and recreation, etc. etc.

Transplants from Where-ever are trying to dictate their biases on Colorado. Locally, these bizarre-minded people think they can stop it. Why? 

Mind your business and let the marijuana industry, which has employed thousands since 1998,  and brings in nearly $100 million annually in Colorado, mind theirs.

To be perfectly honest, I do prefer the Mexican weed, rather than the hybrid-concoctions super-regulated stores sell with the highest THC I have ever seen in my life! But, pot is here, and I won't change my lifestyle to suit anyone else, but me.

Yes, girls. Yes, you do!

Spent the day pondering how to approach the fact 69 percent of women voters said today they will not vote for the presumptive Republican Candidate "the" Donald Trump,  this year for election of the Office of President of the U.S.A.

What does that say about the GOP? Leaders have already said they are not unified as a party.

Said candidate Trump spent the morning attacking the female Democrat presumptive candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton by bringing up her husband's (our former President Bill Clinton) liaisons in their marriage.

Oh, Trump is not done, by far, he said Sen. Clinton is an "enabler" for allowing personal marital issues to happen; and, to which there is no proof,  that she "treated the women (who cheated with President Clinton) terribly ... destroying them" after the affairs were over!

Oh, she MAY have, like any other women, made disparaging remarks about those women.

Okay, so if you are still with me, Trump is a well-known philanderer, who has traded up on at least 2 wives. Talk about calling the kettle black!

Trump wants women to tow the line - subservient to men!

This is a national emergency. Women MUST VOTE for Sen. Clinton.

I don't even want to hear talk from the ungrateful Millennials, who because of us, can say "I don't have to vote for Sen. Clinton BECAUSE she is a woman." Yes, girls. Yes, you do!

Also this week, there is a federal fight against the N.C. governor, who wants to ban transgender people from using their gender-identified bathrooms.

C'mon, we all have been using pissing and shitting together in port-a-potties! I have been know to use the Men's room on occasion. (Can you imagine how much time women spend in line for the bathroom during their lifetime?)  Never been chided for that!  WTF?