Homeless Vets

How in the world can our country have homeless veterans? I'm watching 60 minutes and just can't understand how we as a country can hold our heads up when the men and women who've risked their lives for our country are allowed to live on the streets? In one city alone, there are over 800 homeless veterans.

We're a country that spends millions of dollars on frivolity. While I'm certainly not a proponent of war, I do have a heart for the folk who stay here and do their military service rather than running to Canada, Brazil, or some other country. With all the money we spend on the military, can we not find some money to take care of the folks who serve when they return? It doesn't have to be forever, just long enough for them to make an effort to get the horrors of war out of their systems and return to mainstream society.

I'd certainly rather have my money spent on our returning soldiers than I would on Israeli settlements. I'm happy to see that 60 Minutes is finally letting people know about the Israeli government's systematic attempts to overtake all the Palestinian Territories, and to effectively derail any efforts of peace talks. It's just wrong what the Israeli government is doing. A couple of things the 60 minutes report left out: it showed Palestinian neighborhoods and called them slums. Fair reporting would have demanded that they also show the inequitable social and living conditions imposed upon Palestinians in Israel -- if they serve in the military and pay taxes, then they support a government that wants to destroy them (which, coincidentally, is the same justification the Israeli government uses to condone the violence it visits upon Palestinians), if they fail to serve in the military, then they cannot get working papers and so are doomed to a life of poverty. Israel relegates the Palestinians to second-class status, not affording them education or other social services. This is a built-in inequity, eerily similar to what was done to the Jewish people in Europe.

But I've blogged on that before. The point is, I don't want my money supporting a racist regime at the expense of Americans who have sacrificed for America. I just don't.

Oh. The other thing with the current squabble over Jerusalem is this: the mayor of Jerusalem talks about it being a tourist place, and that the Jewish people will never stand for it to be divided. That's bull. If you just let the Israelis control the Jewish holy sites and let the Palestinians control the Christian holy sites (which are located in the Palestinian territories), and let the revenues from each flow to the appropriate body (with no Israeli levying of taxes or limiting tourist access to the Christian holy sites), then perhaps the Palestinians could generate some revenue. I think the Christian holy sites would generate more revenue than the Jewish holy sites, and if the Palestinians were allowed access to and control of the revenues from the Christian sites, that might allow for a bit of equity in the conversation.

But the way it's happening now, the Israelis are shackling the feet of the Palestinians, then criticizing them for not running in a footrace with the Israelis.

OK. That's that.

Today I walked in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer five mile walk around Central Park. It was bigger than I ever recall it being. It was a beautiful day, and although I met some folk at the bus stop at 116th and more when the M1 ended at 106th Street and we had to change to the M3, I set out to walk by myself. I'm bopping along when I see these women with "Dance for Joy Ministries" on the back of their shirts. I'm thinking, "hmmm, isn't that Theresa H's ministry?" when who do I see but Theresa H?!?! As I'm shouting out to her, Michelle R-H comes up and gives me a hug!!! We did the whole walk together. It was great to see her and be reconnected with her. This was her first walk; I doubt it will be her last. I also ran into Sandy from Turning Heads, the woman who used to do my hair. I'll have to go back to her some day...

My feet are killing me. After the walk I went to church and caught the end of Bible Study; then I went down to Whole Paycheck. As I attempt to eat keep my protein levels up, I find their Hot Food bar is great. They usually have Indian, and some kind of Cuban or Dominican Beef or Chicken -- there's tasty, well-seasoned meat, and I can get jsut meat instead of meat with stuff mixed in. A small container is usually about $15.00, BUT IT LASTS ME ALL WEEK!!! So that's good. Whole Paycheck is so overpriced, though.. I eat in phases (I want to say binges, but that's dangerous). I eat in phases, and now I'm on an olive phase. Sat here last night and spent about half an hour trying to decide what to eat; went to the fridge and ate three of my garlic-stuffed olives, and I was good. They're chewy, and now that I know McDonald's food is designed to satisfy our cravings for salt and fat, well --- don't olives kinda do the same thing, only healthier? So I'm keeping a supply of olives and the little bitty cucumber thingies (They have some fancy name, but I forget it). Last time I went through an olive phase, when it ended, the olives sat in my fridge forever. I have to go throw all the crap out of my fridge from old phases. Anyway. The point of this all was to say that the olive bar at Whole Paycheck is 9.99 a pound, and the exact same olive bar is 7.99 a pound at Garden of Eden. So I'll start shopping at Garden of Eden. Their hot food bar isn't as good, but if I eat more olives, I'll prolly eat less hot food....

So my boy RM jailbroke my iphone for me on Friday. I LOVED IT!!! I don't know if it's the jailbreak or the fact that I keep my phone plugged in all the time, but I noticed that the battery is shot. I made one or two phone calls today and played my ipod, and by 5:00 the device had completely shut off because the battery was shot. Last week, I could surf the net and do all kinds of things all day long without the battery even going into the red. In order to check if it's the jailbreak that's causing the issue (and if it's not, then to make use of the warranty), I had to restore it to factory settings, and have to keep it that way long enough for the device to check in with Apple's servers. And since I could never download the new OS (see my apple rant from a while back), RM was kind enough to download the new OS and give it to me. So I updated to 4.0.1 and will have to leave it there for a while. Problem is, all the new apps I've spent the last coupla days downloading have now disappeared. Except for iVocabulary. Weird, since it's also a paid app...

Two weeks, more or less, til we depart for Cairo!! I'm testing sending my blog posts to an RSS feed and then tweeting that; I'm going to try to monetize this blog like BM and RM. But slowly, over time..

Anyhow. My feet are killing me, and I want to go to bed early. But before I quit, I have to give a shout out to Tonni's Minis, on about 123rd Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. THEY ARE OFF THE CHAIN!! I don't eat carbs (so I say), and I've been there twice in two days. I went because I'd been at a party where someone brought their red velvet cupcakes. While the cream cheese icing on them is magnificent (it's a little sweet, but there's enough cream cheese that you can taste the tanginess), their chocolate cupcakes are really where the action is!! They have minis for $12.00 a dozen, and their medium cupcakes are maybe 2.25 each. They have a large cupcake as well, but I never even asked about it. They make cakes out of cupcakes, have cute little designs, and are a local small business I want to support (they're in the first floor level of a brownstone). But more important than anything, THEIR CUPCAKES ARE DELICIOUS!!! TRY TONNI'S MINIS. They aren't real fast, but they are worth the wait. You choose the cake type (they have others, but all that's important is chocolate and red velvet), then you choose the icing (there's buttercream, cream cheese, chocolate and other stuff that nobody cares about), then you choose the toppings: walnuts, coconut, and other stuff that I don't care about because I wouldn't want it on my cupcakes. But no matter what your tastes are, you will LOVE Tonni's Minis!!! They have other stuff, too, and they're not a large operation like Make My Cake, but you need to try Tonni's Minis.

PS: Now I'm ecstatic! I noticed in iTunes that it had automatically deleted all apps not purchased through the App store. They are bright, those Apple Engineers. But I just checked the apps and re-synched them. Assuming the sync goes ok, I should be fine.

But, of course, the sync didn't go ok. Unknown Error. So now I can't play bejeweled or blog from my iphone or use my iTorah....

There's two guys singing nice harmony as they are kicked off The Great Race or whatever that show is...