| Cat Logic |
|
Submitted by (via alxbngala) * Cats Share on Facebook *…
|
Come Check Out Our Hot Book Picks List for Your Weekend Reading!
.
Author, Cat-herine Lyon ~ Lyon Book & Social Media Promotions . . .
“To those families and my friends who grieve today of the loss of a loved one”
.
My heart is with all my friends and prayers to those who lost loved ones in San Bernardino, CA . . . as we have had another mass shooting in an area I was raised in and still have family and many friends in Highland and Redlands, CA as well …THIS IS the second MASS SHOOTING that has happened to ‘touch’ me as the first was not far from where I lived in So. Oregon, yes, the shooting in Roseburg, OR at the Umpqua Community college.
I moved to So. Oregon in 1986 from San Bernardino/Highland, CA.We moved to the area in 1970 when my dad came home from Vietnam and had his last transfer before retiring from the Air Force at Norton Air Force base. We had moved from Toms River, New Jersey. My parents wanted to retire as they met and married in San Bernardino. I went to elementary, JR. High and graduated from San Gorgonio High School within the San Bernardino School District.
I worked for San Bernardino County and the State Employee’s Credit Union. I also had worked in downtown San Bernardino. My brother still works for the San Bernardino Schools. NOT in a million years would I have ever imagined a MASS SHOOTING like this could happen in my earlier hometown. Thankfully none of my friends were among the victims, but my brother know of the victims. I still can not wrap my mind around all of this unfolding while watching it on CNN. I was stunned in disbelief.
.
(Community members gather in prayer during a candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center December 3. Credit: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
MY HEART IS BROKEN . . . Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon
.
.
Hello Friends, Readers, and Welcome All,
August 1958 ~ June, 25th 2009
Michael Jackson, R.I.P
Now you are most likely wondering why I would want to share anything about a musician and entertainer right?
A singer that had so much controversy around him. Well, it’s personal.
Besides Michael being The King of Pop, I actually got to see him briefly. Well ok, he did walk past all of us dancers trying out for the Jackson 5 World Tour, the last tour with Michael as lead singer. I went for open call try-out in May 1981. I had graduated from high school earlier then my classmates, March of 1981. Of course I was in much better shape then I am today. I was only 18 and half years old. Everyone looks great at 18. And I was an avid dancer, and I had won many contests and dance awards for free style. So my BFF and I decided to go to open auditions for the Jackson 5 Triumph Tour that was to run from July thru Sept. 1981, and I wanted to be one of the dancers for the tour!! Crazy right?
BEST TIME EVER! We had a blast, and it was an experience I won’t ever forget. My BFF Deb didn’t make call back, but I made it to 2 call backs! I didn’t make it through to be part of the tour, but I made the top 75! So, when Michael passed away, it really hit me hard. I never believed all the negative things he was accused of, but I will admit he did do a few things through the years that made me think, “Michael what were you thinking?” . . . .
So now it has been 6 years that he has been “Gone To Soon,” and I still love listening to his music, as it brings back many wonderful times I had through the 80’s. I still find it hard to believe I have been out of high school now for 24 years, and MJ is no longer with us.
Where does the time go! So I wanted to do a little Tribute blog post about MJ, and share my personal experience to show how much I loved him and his music when he was here, and how much I still love and miss him now that he has passed.
Kind of “corny” I know but at least I have that fabulous experience and actually seen him walk by all of us dancers with that beautiful smile on his face, the face before all the drama. At least now he is at peace. As he cared for so many, and all of Gods creations and our earth.
He truly is and was a ‘One Of Kind Human Being’ . . . . R.I.P.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Michael Jackson ~ Passed June 25th 20 2009 ~ R.I.P
My Tribute To The Lives Lost 13 Years Ago Today ~ Never Forget …
DO you really remember? I still feel the shock and horror of what I was actually seeing on the TV! Then, as I was watching them show the smoke and fire of one tower, LIVE, the next plane came screaming into the picture of the TV and hit the other tower right before my eyes!
.
I thought I was going to throw-up right on the spot. I can still the hear the screeching of the plane before impact from my TV. Then my heart sank thinking of all the people in those towers, and the ones on those planes. Can you imagine the FEAR those people must have felt seeing what was coming?
.
.
I REMEMBER, & I WILL NEVER NEVER FORGET!
.
.
AMERICANS KILLED ON,
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks launched by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people and caused at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure damage.
.
.
I want all Americans to never forget the pain the families had felt today without their loved ones yet another year, another 9/11 anniversary with hardly no News coverage, barely any Newspaper or Internet hoop la about the precious human beings we lost that day. I’m pretty sure you all know what I’m talking about. Again, weeks and months we saw nothing media spin after spin of the most horrific attack on American soil. We watched all the coverage of the clean-up, watched the 9/11 Memorial being built, and interviews with family after family.
And what did we see today to mark the 13th year of loved ones lost?
Not enough coverage I feel.
.
Is that what our society has become? We get so hardened to the fact that these tragic events happen all time, that we think it’s a Normal part of living. Shootings, murders, young men being shot for no apparent reason, people with Mental illness or disorders shooting people just for the fun of it? Is that what our society has come too? We lost mothers and fathers, children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives. We lost co-workers, fire fighters, policeman & women, EMT workers, port authority workers, sanitation workers, and so many more.
.
DID THEY DIE IN VAIN? WHERE IS THE MEDIA COVERAGE & REMENBRANCE NOW?
.
.
.
.
So please, please, … Lets Not Ever Forget The People We Lost On 9/11
.
.
.
Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (courtesy of NBC)…
.
HERE ARE JUST SOME HEADLINES FROM AROUND THE WEB!…
“Not Everyone’s Hero: Soldiers Question Bowe Bergdahl’s Bravery”
“The 28-year-old sergeant vanished from a military base in Eastern Afghanistan with little more than a compass and a bottle of water. Considerable resources were diverted to try to find the missing man, and several of his fellow soldiers were killed trying to find him.”I was pissed off then and I am even more so now with everything going on,” former Sgt. Matt Vierkant, a member of Bergdahl’s platoon when he went missing, told CNN. “Bowe Bergdahl deserted during a time of war and his fellow Americans lost their lives searching for him.”
“Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to comment on reports that the sergeant had walked away from his unit. Such matters “will be dealt with later,” Hagel said.”
“Bergdahl Begins ‘Reintegration’ at U.S. Medical Center in Germany”
THE FAMILY of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was overjoyed when President Barack Obama personally called them Saturday and gave them the news they were desperately hoping to hear: Their son, captured by the Taliban in 2009, was still alive. And he was finally coming home.“We cannot wait to wrap our arms around our only son,” Bergdahl’s parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, said in a statement, thanking supporters and those who helped secure his return without a single shot fired.”
.
“Bergdahl disappeared when he reportedly walked away from a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009, carrying only a compass and a bottle of water. He was the only U.S. service member ever to be held captive by enemy forces in Afghanistan.”
.
@Martin_Dempsey OnTwitter
“It is our ethos that we never leave a fallen comrade. Welcome home SGT Bowe Bergdahl.”
Bob Bergdahl, who grew a long beard in solidarity with Bowe, compared his son’s return to a scuba diver coming up for air after a dive.
“Bowe has been gone so long that it’s going to be very difficult to come back,” said his father. “If he comes up too fast, it could kill him.”
Jani encouraged her son to follow all the instructions given to him by the hospital staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where Bergdahl is currently being treated. “Give yourself all the time you need to recover and decompress. There is no hurry. You have your life ahead of you,” his mom said.”
.
.
See, the reason I ask if you feel Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is a ‘Hero or Deserter’ is this. My father spent 24 years in the Air Force, and when he came home from the Vietnam war, he didn’t come home to clapping and cheers or even people telling him, “Thank You” for your service to your country. No, all he got were angry hippies, war protesters yelling and screaming at him that he should never have went over there. My father did his tour of duty at the main base in Vietnam at Da Nang. He said later, when us kids got older that his base was always being bombed and attacked because it was one of the main drop off points by plane to leave troops coming to help fight the war.
.
All I can say to that is, those people who did that back in the day should be very ashamed of what they did to those ‘Vietnam Soldiers’ when they came back from the war. The subject that really puts a claw in my arm is the facts of what’s been going on here at our ‘Arizona Veterans Medical Center.’ Our vets having to wait almost a year to get medical and mental health services! WTF? And when my father came home, they didn’t really have anything in place like the military does now. The soldiers coming back from war are evaluated and re-introduced back into active duty or civilian life. Why didn’t my father get that luxury when he came home from Vietnam? And what about the countless missing & Pow’s still left behind in Vietnam? What about them and their families who never got closure, or even a body to bury? What about them? Now I understand I’m not a famous or well-known person, I’m just a nobody out here asking our government for answers to these very important questions.
.
.
Yes, I may not know a lot about our military, but I do know this, my father should have been treated like a hero when he came home from the Vietnam War! He deserved much better than what he came home to, and all the other soldiers of all our wars past. Now if you’re a history or war buff, then I have an excellent book to recommend for you. It is written by a woman who lived on the battlefield literally. Her name is “Agathe von Kampen,” and her family had to take in and let the German Soldiers bathe, feed, and house them while Hitler ruled with an iron fist! It was expected of her family to do this or they would have been killed. She grew with guns and rifles blazing, and bombs going off all around her. She even had to many times, while at school, dive into bomb shelters when the fighting was right outside. She lived it, seen it with her own eyes, and now wrote her Memoir of all it, and more abuse when she and her finally made it America.
.
Her book is titled; “The Chocolate Bar” by: Author, Agathe von Kampen… http://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Bar-Agathe-von-Kampen/dp/1624850146/
.
Now that I strayed a little, my thoughts of ‘Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’ is this, even if he just took a bottle of water, a compass, and just walked away as some of his past platoon soldiers say, he still got caught and held captive for 5 years. Anyone who goes through that experience may not be a hero, but they still deserve a huge ‘Welcome Home’ don’t you think? Regardless of the surrounding how’s of this story, he was set free and he still deserves some kindness, Caring, and Support for what he went through in those 5 years. Don’t you think his family also deserves to have him back? If it comes to finding that he really deserted his platoon, then I’m sure he will be punished properly for it later. But never under-estimate the power of GOD, as him getting captured and help captive was God’s way of giving him his penance? Maybe or maybe not, but it’s how I will see this story for myself.
So how do you feel about this story? Let me know in my comment section if you’d like to add more about how we should look at this story. It’s what makes us ‘Unique’ from one another as human beings, and I always love a good debate! We all have different views on the same topic. However, I will wish Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl all the best in his recovery. My thoughts and prayers to him and all his family to be blessed that they have him home…
.
.
God Bless All,
Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon
.
Soldiers Of World War II
.
“The renowned poet, author and civil rights activist with the unmistakably regal voice died on May 28 at the age of 86.”
(Story Courtesy Of MSNBC ~ Rehema Ellis and Elizabeth Chuck)
.
Maya Angelou, the renowned poet, author and civil rights activist with the unmistakably regal voice, has died. The author of the celebrated autobiography “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” was 86 years old.
Her death comes less than a week after Angelou announced she would not attend the 2014 MLB Beacon Awards Luncheon, where she was to be honored, citing “health reasons.” Last month, she also canceled an event in Fayetteville, Arkansas, because she was recovering from an “unexpected ailment” that left her hospitalized.
.
.
“The mayor is very saddened to hear the loss of a woman of such renowned phenomenal status as Dr. Angelou. Our prayers are with her family, her staff and all the people she has worked with,” Linda Jackson-Barnes, assistant to Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines, said.
Angelou was born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, under the name Marguerite Annie Johnson, and was raised in Stamps, Arkansas, and San Francisco, after her parents sent her off to live with her grandmother in California when she was fresh with a white store clerk in Arkansas, the Associated Press reported.
She grew up to become a singer, dancer, actress, writer and Hollywood’s first female black director.
Angelou had an impressive list of accolades: She was a three-time Grammy winner and was nominated for a Pulitzer, a Tony, and an Emmy for her role in the 1977 groundbreaking television mini-series “Roots.”
But her success didn’t come easily. Angelou’s life struggles were fodder for her work.
Her childhood had been marked by sexual abuse, which she detailed in “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” — the first of six autobiographies she wrote.
A few weeks after she finished high school, at 17, she gave birth to her son, Guy. A single mother, she supported her son by working as a waitress and a cook, but music, dance, and poetry were her true passions.
Her first big break came as a singer in the 1950s, when she toured Europe with a production of the opera “Porgy and Bess.” In 1957, she recorded her first album, “Calypso Lady.”
.
.
In 1960, she moved to Cairo, where she edited an English-language weekly newspaper. The following year, she went to Ghana to teach music and drama. It was in Ghana that she met Malcolm X, coming back to the U.S. in 1964 with him to help him build his new coalition, the Organization of African-American Unity.
It was in 1970 that she published “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” a painful tale of growing up in Jim Crow South, which is now on children’s reading lists in schools across the country (along with sometimes being censored for its raw account of rape and teen pregnancy).
“‘I thought that it was a mild book. There’s no profanity,” Angelou once told the AP. “It speaks about surviving, and it really doesn’t make ogres of many people. I was shocked to find there were people who really wanted it banned, and I still believe people who are against the book have never read the book.”
Between Angelou’s fiction, non-fiction, and published verse, she amassed more than 30 bestselling titles.
Angelou was also a trailblazer in film. She wrote the screenplay and composed the score for the 1972 film “Georgia,” and the script, the first-ever by an African-American woman to be filmed, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
.
.
In more recent years, it was her interactions with presidents that made headlines. In 1993, she wowed the world when her reading of her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” was broadcast live globally from former President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. She stayed so close with the Clinton’s that in 2008, she supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy over Barack Obama’s.
She also counted Nelson Mandela and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as friends, and served as a mentor to Oprah Winfrey when Winfrey was starting out as a local TV reporter. When she was in her 20s, Angelou met Billie Holiday, who told her: “You’re going to be famous. But it won’t be for singing.”
Angelou read another poem, “Amazing Peace,” for former President George W. Bush at the 2005 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at the White House.
In North Carolina, Angelou lived in an 18-room house, the AP reported, and taught American Studies at Wake Forest University.
.
.
“What more can I add to this *Beautiful Tribute* To Maya Angelou”…
She inspired me to love what I do as a Writer and Author. She encouraged me with her words in my recovery, and showed by example how to help others from addiction. She was one of the most *Inspirational Souls* I’ve ever know, and she taught many generations of us to be better people with no Color, Race, Creed, or Religious barriers…
There will be no other like, Dr. Maya Angelou”…
.
“May You Rest In Peace In The Arms Of Our Father In Heaven”…
.
God Bless,
Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon
"CAT'S BOOK LIBRARY 4 READERS" 