The Handiest Girlie Of All

Tell Your Senators to Vote NO on the House-passed Budget Resolution

The Senate may vote on the Budget Resolution tonight.

Please call!

 Dial the Capitol Switchboard 1-888-245-0215 [toll-free] or 202-224-3121 and ask for the office of your Senators.

Message to Senators:

•   Please vote NO on the House-passed Budget Resolution.

• People with disabilities disproportionately rely on government services to live, learn and work in their communities. These services assist many people with disabilities to live independently in the community avoiding costly institutional care and increasing the opportunities to work and pay taxes.
• This budget proposal would set rigid limits on Medicaid and food stamps/SNAP, resulting in a 35 percent cut for Medicaid by 2022 and an almost 20 percent cut in food stamps. 
• Starting in the second decade, the House budget would turn Medicare into a voucher program, doubling the burden of payment for its beneficiaries. 
• Over 10 years, it would slash $4.3 trillion in needed services, about two-thirds of which help low-income people.

 

What is at stake?

Medicaid -

The proposed plan shifts the cost of Medicaid to low-income consumers, including people with disabilities, and cuts the program by a third over the next 10 years.  The proposed plan converts Medicaid to a block grant which will cap funding regardless of health care cost inflation over time. 

 To get further information click here!

Medicare -

The proposed plan eliminates the current Medicare structure and transforms the program into a voucher system.  It shifts the cost of services to the beneficiaries, almost doubling amount that individuals pay out of pocket for their ongoing health care.

To get further information click here!

 

 Health Reform -

The proposed plan repeals and defunds the Affordable Care Act (ACA) including programs that are vital for people with disabilities.  For example, the CLASS Program and and the Community First Choice Option are two ACA provisions targeted at expanding home and community based options for people with disabilities.

To get Further information Click here!

 

Call toll free: 1-888-245-0215 [toll-free] or 202-224-3121

and ask for your Senator's office.

 

What Should You Say?

• I am a constituent with a disability or parent/caregiver of a person with a disability.  (Briefly describe your situation, if you like.)
• The House-passed budget plan will take funding from programs that are critical to people with disabilities and will hurt me and/or my family.
• Please vote against the House-passed budget proposal.

 

JUSTICE FOR ALL

Expressing Mindful Love Through Service

I think everyone from young to old is aware that Valentine's Day is Feb. 14. But did you know that starting Feb. 13 it is also Random Acts of Kindness Week? Now this seems appropriate, since Valentine's Day is supposedly based on the martyred saints who, around 200 A.D., performed marriages for soldiers ordered by the Roman Emperor to remain single. Their acts weren't necessarily random, but they were based on kindness and service.

Today, service -- or Seva, as we say in Sanskrit -- is essential for one's transformation, personal growth and tapping into their creativity. At every step of the way in your journey, you need to be sharing in some shape or form, whether it's to somebody in need of comfort or financial help. I think it's important to see that we are all in this together; it's not about acquiring more stuff or taking care of what you have. It's about actively -- in a social, political or spiritual way -- contributing to the whole thing.

Most spiritual leaders, including the Buddha, teach that all beings -- including the animals, plants and even the mother (Gaia) earth -- are all inter-related and co-dependent upon each other. When we take time to give, to contribute, to listen, to love, to heal, to teach, to be compassionate in daily action for all life, we are expressing mindful love through Seva. As we take time each and every day to become more mindful of our thoughts, words, actions and deeds, we begin to take a breath, using what I call mindstrength. This allows us to slow down, wait, listen and not react by staying in the present in order to improve the quality of our loving relationships. Through mindfulness, we have a most unique power and ability to begin to reshape and restructure the quality of our actions.

When we act in mindful love, we bring the best out of those we interact with. In Zen, we say beings are like tomato plants -- those that get the most mindful attention yield the larger fruit. Action and reaction, also known as the Law of Karma, begins and ends with how we care mindfully and love after our own gardens first and then learning that through Seva we can bring forth the best in all the beings we co-exist with.

In my book, 'Wise Mind, Open Mind,' I share a personal story of when I was on a retreat in India. While there, I searched for a famous Indian female saint who is the devotee of the great sage and guru Neem Karoli Baba. After an exhausting month of travel, I finally found her in the city of Lucknow and tried many times to meet her. Eventually, I was granted a personal audience, in which we just sat in meditation. During this time, all my questions and spiritual hunger for seeking wisdom and enlightenment fell way into this blissful silence. After an hour of meditating, her devotees entered the room with several boxes of various tasty, sweet and spicy foods. Her instructions were to go to a nearby leper colony and feed each leper, with my hands placing the food into their mouths. Fear, disgust, anger and angst broke through, propelling me into the greatest spiritual lesson and teaching of my life. The deep realization was discovering that it wasn't about me, but instead a greater view of all creation. Love is feeding and serving other beings with compassion, kindness and a deep and abiding sense of giving. From this space arises a profound sense of love, respect and admiration for oneself. This mother saint taught that through love and Seva is true realization.

Now, you don't have to feed the lepers, join the Peace Corps or work with the destitute to express mindful love -- although, those who do this are to be greatly admired. It can be as simple as sitting with a friend who is going through a difficult time; cleaning out your closet and giving what you haven't worn in a year to the homeless; volunteering at a local hospital or hospice; or visiting the elderly in a retirement home. If you don't have time for this, then make a donation to a charity or organization that speaks to you. The amount isn't as important as the feelings of love and kindness behind it. When the right energy is sent with the gift, the Universe can multiply it tenfold. Remember to be a mindful gardener when it's time to love and to give.

I also see an increased interest in the concept of Seva in my Leadership Workshops, where I focus on teaching businessmen and women to be more mindful. They learn that, through these principals, not only can they make more money and have successful companies, but over time, they can awaken their consciousness so they can use the business game in a similar way to what Bill and Melinda Gates did when they gave over $23 billion of their earnings to their foundation. Through this example, they start to see that the game is not just about the acquisition of money, but what they can contribute to creatively changing the world. In our own way, we can all participate in a global transformation -- through one small gesture or helping hand.

In the spirit of hope and goodness, I encourage you to celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Week. Embrace its message and use it as a springboard to act upon generous thoughts that arise spontaneously from your heart this week and throughout the year, so that every conversation you have -- with the guy at the car wash or the person at the dry cleaners -- are all opportunities to be a bodhisattva (enlightened or wisdom-being). Just notice what happens, as kindness ripples out!

 

Huffington

Unable to read at 30 at 52 he is a role model

Once, John Zickefoose couldn't read to his children or order from a menu. Today, he's a school board member and Corona library advocate.

 

The metamorphosis is as quick as the turn of a page: John Zickefoose is a hyperactive goose, a laid-back bear, a monkey, a tiger. The children at the Corona Public Library squeal with laughter as the man whose name rhymes with Seuss becomes louder and more animated.

There was a time when reading the simple words of a picture book would have proved impossible for Zickefoose. He spent years in school overwhelmed with sadness that nothing came as easily to him as it did for others. He would become rowdy, preferring to be kicked out of class than to be called on by the teacher.

Zickefoose was functionally illiterate, unable to read a prescription label, his children's report cards or a menu. He was diagnosed as a young boy with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and didn't learn to read and write until he was 35.says John Zickefoose, who learned to read and write at 35.

That's when everything changed. He became a poster boy for the Corona library's adult reading program, began to speak publicly about his own struggles and was named the library's literacy director. He founded a nonprofit youth organization.

And on Dec. 7, Zickefoose, 52, was sworn in as a member of the Corona-Norco Unified School District Board of Education.

For the boy who couldn't understand the words on his high school diploma, the journey to the school board was the culmination of a vow to do something meaningful in life and help prevent others from starting out as he did.

"I'll be able to bring, quite frankly, an unusual perspective of what it feels like to be in the classroom and be a failure," Zickefoose said. "I don't want any child to go through what I went through."

For years, even his wife wasn't aware of the severity of his limitations.

He would wish there was a magic pill he could take to make his disabilities disappear. The lowest point, he said, came when he couldn't understand his 7- year-old's homework assignments. When Shawn asked for help, Zickefoose sat with him at the kitchen table. But when Zickefoose looked at the textbook, all he saw were letters strung together that made no sense.

When he tried to fake his way through a bedtime story, his son would tell him, "No, Dad, that's not what it says." The little boy had no idea he was making him feel that he was failing as a father.

It was then that Zickefoose resolved to enroll in an adult literacy class at the Corona library. He was embarrassed and angry at himself. He had always been able to hide his illiteracy and wriggle out of uncomfortable situations. Now he believed there was no other option.

It didn't go well at first. Zickefoose insisted on starting with more complicated sentences and words than he was ready for, out of embarrassment. He wanted to cancel on his first day. This is stupid, he thought. He was incapable of learning.

But his tutor persuaded him to start with the basic building blocks of reading and writing. The one-on-one interaction was just what he needed.

Within six months, he was reading novels and nonfiction.

An estimated 30 million American adults can't read a newspaper or fill out a job application. Many have learning disabilities. Others are dropouts, victims of failing school systems. Some are immigrants with deficient English language skills who may also be illiterate in their native tongues.

But Zickefoose is also an anomaly. Only about 5% of adults who need services receive them, mainly because there is still so much shame attached to the condition, said David C. Harvey, president and chief executive of ProLiteracy, an international advocacy group. Zickefoose serves on the board of directors.

"John is a national role model because one of the most effective ways to break down that stigma is to have people who have had this problem talk about it," Harvey said. "He's a shining example of what can happen when someone gets services and puts those new skills to work."
 

Zickefoose was brought up in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, and his father and stepmother tried hard to help him. He blamed himself for his failures, not his teachers, whom he says were supportive and wanted him to succeed.

He went to specialists in Chicago who identified his problems in school but couldn't provide a solution.

"They have come so much further now in dealing with learning disabilities in a more efficient and productive manner," Zickefoose said. " Back then, they were good at diagnosing but they didn't have the tools to address it."

Once, in the fifth grade, he raised his hand to answer a question and was devastated when he got the answer wrong and a friend answered it correctly. Looking at a sign, a book or a newspaper was like being in a foreign country, confronted with a totally alien language, he said. Without the code, he couldn't master math or science or any other subject.

Still, he managed to scrape by with Ds and to graduate. Most states, in the late 1970s, did not require students to pass math and English tests to receive a diploma.

He got his driver's license in Illinois after taking the written part orally. He memorized such symbols as street signs and he had friends fill out job applications.

At 19, he bought a station wagon and moved to California, where his mother lived. He drove a truck for several years and then got a job restoring houses. He met Eileen, the woman who would become his wife. He managed to start his own restoration business, but that failed after a few years and he went to work for another company.

Eileen noticed that he always had a large wad of cash, not checks. He didn't have a bank account. "That would have taken skills to manage," she said recently.

He didn't think she really understood how serious his problems were. She thought he just didn't want to bother with paperwork or the bills. It was the only source of tension in their relationship. Once, Zickefoose tried to make her understand that he really couldn't read. "You don't get it, I can't do it," he told her.

Even now, she said, it's hard for her to believe his reading ability was so limited.

"He just seemed to do fine," she said. "He learned to compensate. If we went to a restaurant, he [already] knew what to order off a menu or he could tell by the pictures. When he couldn't, he would just order a hamburger."

"I was pretty good at faking it," Zickefoose said, "and it shows the depths of it that even with the woman I loved and cherished, I still felt I couldn't tell her."

During that time he hurt his back severely. But he continued working through the pain because he was terrified of being forced to find another job that might reveal his illiteracy.

"At that point I was 35, scared — panicked — and had no idea how I was going to get by."

He eventually had back surgery and went on disability. With Eileen's encouragement, he enrolled in the library's literacy program.
 
Mike Catellier had slipped and hurt his back while working as a store manager at a local supermarket. With time on his hands, he volunteered as a tutor at the Corona library. Zickefoose was the first adult with whom he worked.

There was an immediate bond: Both men were the same age, both married with children, and Catellier was facing back surgery.

"He was such a humble guy and so apologetic," recalled Catellier, now a Florida resident. "I think I convinced him not to be embarrassed and we got comfortable. He was very motivated.... He would meet me as often as I was able to come."

After so many years of torment, it turned out that Zickefoose was a quick study.

"John had stuff stored in his memory that I don't think he realized," Catellier said. "We started with first-grade books and basic vowel sounds, but we were able to move way faster through the material. He gives me credit, but it was really just me helping him focus on things, giving him strategies in finding books that he liked."

Zickefoose had always been interested in public speaking, and both he and Catellier joined Toastmasters. Zickefoose would dictate speeches and he and Catellier would work on concepts and words. As he improved, Zickefoose began writing himself.

He was still being tutored when he joined a book group at the library. He can't remember the first book he tackled. He remembers having to ask Catellier to help. But as the group discussed passages, he was overcome with a sense of accomplishment and well-being. Hey, check me out, he thought.
 
The experience was transforming. One of the first serious books he remembers reading is "Black Like Me," the true story of a white Texan who passed as black in the segregated south in the late 1950s. He was struck by the tale of living as an outcast.

"A new life sounds dramatic, but that's really how it was," he said. "Most people couldn't tell you when they learned to read, it just happened. But I can tell you exactly when the light bulb came on."

Now outreach coordinator at the library, Zickefoose appears to be straight-arrow, business-minded, even professorial. But his tie, with an imprint of the Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil, hints at a whimsical nature.

He formed UNITY (United Neighbors Involving Today's Youth) in 1996, and it has evolved into a coalition of 80 public and private agencies that have secured more than $17 million for the Corona-Norco school district. A generation of students know him as Mr. Z from his appearances at school assemblies where he preaches perseverance, using his own life as an example.

As a school board member, Zickefoose wants to prepare students earlier for college and a career and to pursue more outside funds for such school programs as arts and music.

"If a parent comes in with a child that is struggling, I feel like I can understand that at a very emotional level," Zickefoose said. "We want to find the positive qualities that a child has and enhance those."

No one is prouder of Zickefoose than his sons, Shawn, 24, a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service in Redding, and Adam, 21, who will enter the Navy in February.

They were still young when Zickefoose began speaking publicly about his illiteracy, and they grew up hearing stories about how they had to help their father read.

Adam said his only surprise was learning how his dad was able to get through school. When Adam was growing up, his father was such a mainstay at the library that his friends thought he owned it. They thought he was cool.

"I was never afraid to tell anybody," Adam said. "If anyone was having trouble reading, I'd tell them my dad couldn't even read his diploma."

 

LA TIMES

 

 

Related articles

• How Reading Rewires the Brain (news.sciencemag.org)
• "Beginnings Are Always Messy": Thoughts on Transliteracy and Inquiry from a Learning Advocate (theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com)
• Teaching Your Child to Read (brighthub.com)

NBC NEWS Making a difference- Canine assistance program- Pairing you with the perfect friend! (2VIDEO's)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

  Jennifer Arnold of the Canine Assistants Program describes the magic that happens when a dog picks the person he's to be paired with.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 
NBC NIGHTLY NEWES

Canine Assistants

13 Year Old Starts Nonprofit to Bring Art Programs to Homeless Kids

 

• • 
  Thirteen-year-old Tae Tae Davis figured out a way to raise money when her school cut the art supply budget.  (CBS)

 

  Thirteen-year-old Tae Tae Davis is hosting a party. At this party, there are neither cakes nor candles - just a room full of art supplies and a dozen kids she's never met.

Tae Tae tells the kids, "you guys are going to be painting a watercolor."

At this painting party the guests have two things in common: they all love art, and they're all homeless. They're all here because Tae Tae saw a need - and a way to fill it.

"I wanted to spread the enjoyment of art," Tae Tae said. "And the homeless kids didn't really have the utilities to paint or express themselves through art," Tae Tae told CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella.

Tae Tae got the idea last year after her school cut art supplies from the budget. Tae Tae worried that kids who could not afford their own supplies would be left out. So she traded the brush for a pen and started writing letters to big companies asking for help. She wrote 50 letters in all, and heard back from 45.

Donations flooded in from some of the biggest art and office supply companies in the country.

"We get mail all the time," said Bob Thacker, Sr. VP of Marketing at Office Max. "But you know there are a few letters that stand out, that are so genuine, so heartfelt and so irresistible, that you cannot refuse them."

Tae Tae collected more then $32,000 in supplies - enough to stock her school's art program and send her guests home with their own watercolors.

She's held three parties so far and started her own nonprofit called "The Traveling Canvas." Her efforts were recognized by the White House. Tae Tae received the President's Volunteer Service Award.

While awards are nice, Tae Tae does it all for a different reason.

"I knew that I needed to stop the worry, and be the change that I wanted to see," she said.

The way she sees it she's changing the world one canvas at a time.

 

CBS NEWS

THE TRAVELING CANVAS

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NBC's Making a Difference Series: Finding Haylee a home and Family.

Making a Difference: Donna and Judson Emens took it upon themselves to help a young girl with cerebral palsy, forming their own special family in Florence, Ala. NBC News’ Clare Duffy reports.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

Hitting home for Nightly News producerLaura Allenbaugh,

In Lauras blog regaurding tonights News segmet on "

When I first saw Haylee's story it hit home for me. In college, looking for a way to pay for tuition, I ended up as a home health care aide. Every evening I traveled to various group homes for patients with mental disabilities and took them shopping, balanced the check book, and generally helped in the upkeep of the home. It sounds simple, but it was mentally exhausting... though it didn't compare to my morning job - caring for Cheryl, a woman with cerebral palsy.

Cheryl

Cheryl was in her early 40's and living at home with her 85 year old mother. Cheryl's cerebral palsy was advanced to the point where she couldn't sit up, or feed herself and it took me almost a month before I was able to understand her limited speech. Despite her difficulty communicating, she was extremely smart - weekly Scrabble games at her house were a humbling experience for those brave enough to take her on.

Every morning it was my job to get her up and ready for work. She designed greeting cards through a computer program at the local center that catered to individuals with disabilities. She was capable of more but she needed constant supervision - even in her wheelchair she sometimes slid to the side and couldn't right herself - but she loved her job and was always very happy to go. She worked 8 to 5 and in the evenings, either I of another aide would come back to feed her dinner, spend the evening chatting or playing games and then put her to bed.

Weekends always involved loading her up in the van and going out to lunch, watching our local orchestra in the park, or visiting whatever fair was in town. I even saw a Beach Boys concert with her. I complained the whole way there - she enjoyed laughing at me as I sang the songs the whole way home.

My junior year of college, I was offered a well paying job in television production that I couldn't turn down. I left pretty suddenly so I don't know what happened to Cheryl but at the same time, I do. Everyone who worked with her knew what was going to happen. Her mom was not doing well. Shortly before I left, she had suffered a heart attack. She needed the health care aides around more often and since we helped with her finances we all knew that she was going through the family savings quickly. There was no way Cheryl could pay to have a 24 hour home health care aide so we knew that when her mom would eventually pass away, she would lose her house, her job and her only family member the same day. She had no other options. She would be going to a nursing home.

When I started there, Cheryl would often joke to me that she was going to come stay with me. I would joke back, "How could I leave you, Cheryl?" For her though, it wasn't a joke. When I told her I was quitting my job, she didn't speak to me for the last week I worked there. I was yet another person who wasn't really going to save her from her inevitable fate.

Haylee, the woman we profile in tonight's Making a Difference report, was promised too over the years. It's easy to say you'll help but what the Emenses, the family that brought her in, are doing is truly remarkable - they are saving her. But there are thousands of Cheryls out there. Spending their 40's, 30's, even their 20's in nursing homes - all in peak mental condition and aware of their surroundings. Not every person can be adopted - it's not a feasible answer - but hopefully the Emenses, and all the people who are working to support them, can inspire the system to change.

If you'd like to help Haylee, a trust has been set up in her name.

Alabama Family Trust for the Benefit of Haylee Cain
120 Oslo Circle
Birmingham, AL 35211

 

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