Christian River Blog

The Pigeon Post

2012-01-18T23:15:00.000-08:00

Pigeon Post
By Cliff Harrison

The Pigeon Post is a weekly syndicated column by Cliff Harrison scheduled to be published every Wednesday. For the short term all weekly columns will be published periodically until the columns functional status is established.

Interesting tidbits, fun facts, news briefs, short opinions, quotes and more will be included in the content of Pigeon Post.

Some of the articles may lead to longer work published later in the supporting website, the one where the column originally appeared, or elsewhere on the Internet. Also I've very sick and finding it difficult to operate more than an hour or two at a time before complete exhaustion prevents me from finishing my work. Many articles and columns have been started and delayed. I do so in order to assemble the building blocks I'll use to complete my plan. I apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Hopefully in the end it will pay off. That said, all of my work should always be though of as "Work-in-Progress" as that is what it really is.

Blackout

By now most people are away about the blackout started by Wikipedia and other websites to protest SOPA, Stop Online Privacy Act, legislation. The blackout has ended and a message on the Wikipedia sight states, “Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We’re not done yet.) It looks like the blackout wars go on.

Concerning blackout the last time I remember the word blackout being used was back in New York, during electrical storms and severe winter storms. ’66 was a special year to remember; just one year major blackouts occurred. But this blackout was an Internet blackout of certain websites protesting the SOPA. In a nutshell the act has something to do with copyright laws. Wikipedia is probably the most prevalent site blacking out. Their site blacked out for 24 hours and continued as this publication was being written. The site has returned to normal since.

On a similar note.

Styrofoam™ is a trademark for the Dow Chemical Company. Like Kleenex®, a registered brand-name for the Kleenex® Brand facial tissue, by Kimberly-Clark, Styrofoam™ although a trademark for Dow Chemical the name is used in everyday household use or generic use anytime someone speaks of or refers to polystyrene foam products used for housing insulation, food containers including disposable plates and drinking cup and much more. Just as there are different brands of facial tissue people often address the item by trade name even when it is not the actual brand item addressed. Companies still have to protect their trademarks, registered brand names from infringement.

Homelessness is increasing in America and along with it an increase in dissentient voices expressing distasteful attitudes and opinions—sometimes purely hateful—toward the homeless. At a time of economic disparity not seen since the Great Depression Americas are falling by the boatload into poverty, many are losing everything they own to wind up with only their clothes on their backs as they end up in the streets, homeless. Yet there is a larger and larger segment of the American population that spews pure hatred for America’s down trotted, all stereotyped into one lot of drunks, drug addicts and brain-dead. I cover this opinion in an upcoming article that will be published in the Christian River Blog and other network sites. The working title of the article still in the early draft stages is The Stereotype Homeless and probably will be the published title. Look for it.

We can land men on the moon but we can’t shelter our homeless population. We can sent three carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf to ruffle the political feathers of Iran, a cost of billions, but we can’t shelter our homeless.

Cold War with Iran

So here we go with the cold war with Iran. Unlike Iraq, Iran hasn’t to my knowledge murdered millions of innocent people like Saddam Hussein regime did. Iran is a sovereign nation, Iran, like Iraq, had the right to store weapons of mass destruction....

Editing in progress. Work-in-Progress.

Interview Video

2012-01-17T23:56:00.001-08:00

Food Not Bombs - Las Vegas from Michael Zayas on Vimeo.

Premiere Issue of Carrier Pigeon

2012-01-16T21:11:00.000-08:00

Carrier Pigeon

By Cliff Harrison

Monday the 16th of January 2012

Carrier Pigeon is a weekly column by Cliff Harrison bringing you the Headline news, Back-Page News, interesting stuff, fun stuff, all but the turkey stuffing stuff and much more.

Carrier Pigeon premiere issue 16 January 2012. The Premiere Issue is launched in more than a dozen publications. The launching of Carrier Pigeon is a historical event that will go down in history books as a major news event and will surely be the talk of the water cooler crowd and pigeon watering holes around town for centuries to come. Every copy sold out minutes before the official launching time at 9:11PM PST.

Welcome to the first issue of the Carrier Pigeon, a syndicated mini-column by Cliff Harrison. The Carrier Pigeon will be a grab bag of headline news—local, national and world news and events—news recaps from previous news stories of the week. A treasure chest of things you should know and such mini reports of recent or ancient discoveries you may not yet have heard about will be sprinkled in the Carrier Pigeon reports. Tips, tidbits, what’s new, pet peeves, how-to stuff, fun facts, announcements, social news, celebrities and entertainment pieces, scientific & historical truths, (and lies), Did You Know? pieces without the “Did You Know?” headline title, one-liner opinions, maybe two-liner opinions, mini satire pieces, mention of “this time in history” and historical events of the day or week, and abstracts and interesting discoveries found from my research notes are always being inserted into the Carrier Pigeon’s message box and much more fun things to learn and talk about at the water cooler (and pigeon watering hole) will be included as well as a little sprinkling here and there of lightly humored seasoning.

Our birds don’t tweet, but they are faster than Superman and spread the white stuff called pigeon droppings faster than Oscar Goodman can spread his evil. It's their way of sharing the wealth. Oh, did I mention there will be teasers of the homey boys and their brave flights to protect the skies of Vegas from hostile aggression called the Agitators?

Yes, sir, that's right. Step right up for your free copy of the Carrier Pigeon Syndicated News Column and "...hear all about it. Hear all about it! Extra! Extra! Read all about it." You can hear them cooing now, "News! News! Carrier Pigeon News! Come and Get it! That latest edition! Extra! Coo! Coo! Poo! Poo! See who got pooed! Coo-Coo Poo-Poo!" Holy Pigeon holing, here comes the preacher.

There will be teasers and lead-ins to fiction pigeon stories and an introduction to our home boys, homeys hatched right here in Fabulous Las Vegas under the eaves of the famous Welcome Sign, local pigeon crap-shooters, Splashy, Splishy and Splendid, better known locally as the Splendid Splish Splash Sorties Shhhhootin' Strutting Stick Squabs. The grandmothers call them the S-8 boys, boys will be boys. Grandpa calls them the 8-S boys. Pigeon hole, pigeon toed, the flying rats, the daredevils braver than motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel as they boldly dive into the road and pick up a kernel of popcorn before the flying machines runs over them...

Unlike much of my other longer writings, Carrier Pigeon joins a family of short-shorts or what I call “mini-columns”. It is currently scheduled to be a weekly published every Monday. This first issue happens to be on Monday the 16th of January 2012. Carrier Pigeon may appear on different days in publications that do not offer a Monday publication or if publishing delays occur. With my sickness, and chronic fatigue that’s more than likely to occur. I’m certain I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, something no doctor in Vegas has even considered, but the excessive exhaustion zapping my strength could cause delays in scheduled publishing. Alas, live with it. Get used to it and I’ll do my best to surprise you. I can't complain, two years ago I was given only one year to live so I really have nothing to complain about, have I? I beat the odds by at least 365 days.

This debut edition of course is much longer in length than the planned future publications of Carrier Pigeon due to the introductory and starter information.

Due to the volume of subjects mentioned a credit line will usually not be available for the source of information, but generally it is something I found during my routine research and pass along to you. Wikipedia is often an initial source of my research. But my research comes from all over the web and from the humanities of life.

Being that this is the 16^th of January it is only fitting to write something about this day in history. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2012. The nation celebrates his birthday. Born on 15 January, 1929, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a civil rights activist who spoke out against racial discrimination. He preached nonviolence in his civil rights movement and is best known for his nonviolence and his “I Have a Dream” speech while advocating civil rights for black Americans. King was cut down by an assassin’s bullet on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. King’s assassination preceded Bobby Kennedy’s assassination which came two months later.

Wikipedia Blackout, Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia prepares for a worldwide blackout which will occur within 22 hours from Midnight Tuesday, 17 January 2012. The blackout will be to protest the SOPA and PIPA which concern copyright legislation for the Internet. The English Wikipedia will blackout for 24-hours and no English version Wikipedia will be available even for people who spent thousands of dollars donating to the nonprofit charity. It is most likely those people support to blackout to begin with The protest is over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIIP). IP stands for Internet Protocol. beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 2012 the worldwide blackout will begin.

Dolly Parton turns 66 this week. Born 19 January 1946, the beautify Dolly Rebecca Parton an American singer-song writer with multiple additional talents has been pleasing American country and western fans as well as other music genres for decades. Dolly is one of the most successful country music artists of all times. Thursday will mark the sensational singer's birthday. Parton is a famous country and western singer, who this author was kissed by back in the seventies when he and his girlfriend at the time went to the Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady, New York to watch Dolly Parton and Porter Wagner perform. WGNA the country music station of the area kept us informed of the Proctor's performances of stars like Dolly. You can’t do today what you could back then. We kissed and shook hands and took pictures. Those were the days. Happy Birthday, Dolly! We love you!

One final note on Dolly PartonHer philanthropy runs wide and deep like her warm heart. She runs a literacy program called Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. Parton enjoys a book club, or library, as it is called where she helps collect books and sends them to school children as well as pre-schoolers. Her club started with just “a few dozen books “and now mails over 40 million books to children in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. There’s much more to tell about this story, but Dolly Parton is a significant factor in improving the literacy of children. For her birthday she deserves two bows for helping to attack one of poverty's greatest factors, illiteracy.

Editing, work-in-progress...

Five Feet from the Finish Line

2012-01-14T23:06:00.001-08:00

The Devil & Me
By Cliff Harrison

I shouldn't let the cat out of the bag and go spoiling a good story prematurely, but I'll tell you why I chose the title, "Five Feet from the Finish Line." That's what it feels like.

One of the stories I'll publish one day in an up and coming installment of The Devil & Me is about a snowmobile race I was in back in the 70s. There I was leading the pack darn near a half a lap ahead of the nearest snowmobile coming up on the finishing line. Five feet before the finish line my drive belt broke, stopping me dead in my tracks.

There I sat unable to even push my sled across the line for a win. I was clearly ahead for most of the race and I only had sixty inches to cross the finish line and be the winner to take home the trophy. Sixty inches!

I just shook hands with the devil and thanked him as sled after sled passed me by as if poking fun at me for being that close to a winner only to be the worst loser of the entire race--dead last.

I feel like that now. Five feet from the finish line.

I've got so many writing projects that I just know are winners but I can't even get up enough energy to get them put together and published in the organized order they need to be in. Five feet from the finish line is where I am at stuck with a broken drive belt that went just like that.

I guess today I'll make more than one entry in my journal.

I can see the finish line. I can touch the finish line. I just can't get across the finish line. It's like in my mind as if I'm a cowboy in one of those old western movies and I'm crawling in the desert trying to reach the watering hole that is really nothing but a mirage while buzzards circle overhead. I'm just about there. But almost isn't good enough and those birds of prey are starting to call out to one another communicating about the bodacious dinner that's coming up.

Better men than me would have committed suicide by now. Just end it. Put themselves out of their misery. But not me. I like hanging around and giving the devil a hard time.

There are too many demons in this world to just up and leave them. It's more fun hanging around and making their life miserable like they do God's Children.

So, I guess I'll just have to plug along and do what work I can. My writing could be so much better if I didn't have this demon inside of me holding me back while draining my energy.

Well, what do you know? I meant this to be an entry for my journal. But you know what? I just wrote a piece for The Devil & Me. Why not? Maybe I can push my sled over the finish line.

The Devil & Me is a syndicated column by Cliff Harrison

1st Issue of the Town Crier

2012-01-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

Town Crier

By Cliff Harrison
Friday the 13^th January 2012

Welcome to the first issue of the Town Crier, a syndicated mini column by Cliff Harrison. The Town Crier will be a grab bag of headline local, national and world news and events, news recaps, as well as a treasure chest of things you should know such as recent or ancient discoveries you may not know about, tips, tidbits, what’s new, pet peeves, how-to, fun facts, announcements, scientific & historical truths, Did You Know? pieces without the “Did You Know?” title, one-liner opinions, mini satire pieces, this time in history and abstracts from my research notes always being inserted and much more fun things to learn sprinkled lightly with humor seasoning.

Unlike much of my other longer writings, Town Crier joins a family of short-shorts or what I call “mini-columns”. It is currently scheduled to be a weekly published every Friday. Ironically this first issue happens to be on Friday the 13th in January 2012, a very scary day. Town Crier may appear on different days in publications that do not offer a Friday publication.

Due to the volume of subjects mentioned a credit line will usually not be available for the source of information, but generally it is something I found during my routine research and pass along to you. Wikipedia is often an initial source of my research.

Being that this is Friday the 13th it is only fitting to write something about this day in history.

Friday the 13th is associated with bad luck.

They are tongue twisters but friggatriskaidekaphobia is fear of Friday the 13th which many people are superstitious about and triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13. In 1911 the word paraskevidekatriaphobia

Editing continues...

Begging for Food

2012-01-12T23:55:00.000-08:00

The week before Christmas 2011
at Amazing Grace Ministries

By Cliff Harrison

A homeless person, a hungry person or a poor person ought to be able to go to any charity in the business of passing out free food without begging.

A hungry person ought to be able to go and get food to eat without all the communistic forms to fill out like Catholic Charities and so many other nonprofit 501(c)(3)s make so many people do.

Most so-called charities today are nonprofit 501(c)(3)s. That means the people gave them special privileges usually in special tax favors and the benefit to their donors to have their donations inturn tax deductible.

Charities are not owned by any person like a corporation or a private business. They cannot be sold or bought. They are not entities ruled by kings and queens, but are granted special privileges by the people through Congress and through the IRS.

In a heartbeat they can be shut down and their executives imprisoned for violating the strict codes and laws which govern them.

But not all the blame should be shouldered locally for today's misfits that operate America's so-called charities. HUD, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, often mandates that charities do a body count and to keep communistic records on the poor they serve.

HUD is a government agency we can stand to eliminate as they waste billions of dollars every single year in a foolish counting of homeless persons rather than use those dollars to house the homeless.

But this article is not about HUD and every time I think about that evil outfit that is neither catholic nor charity I gain a sickness to my stomach.

I just want to say this. Last night I attended a church feeding which is held every Wednesday night at 5:00 at St. Louis and Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas. It is a feeding of the homeless, the hungry and the poor which has been going on for years and years. It is called the Amazing Grace Ministries and it is put on by Presbyterian Churches that alternate volunteer duty to feed the poor.

At Amazing Grace Ministries the homeless and poor don’t have to beg for food like at Catholic Charities and other Las Vegas nonprofits. There is no begging for food. Food is freely delivered with the loving hands of God.

Not only does the Amazing Grace Ministries provide wholesome good food, as opposed to the slop served at the place that calls itself catholic, its food is delicious and filling. One can have seconds and even thirds and if there is enough as there always is a take home container is filled to go. Yes, even takeout containers that no downtown "homeless shelter" or soup kitchen ever provided are handed out.

Seldom if ever does the local press ever tell the story of the real compassionate people in town who are 100% volunteering and out of the kindness and caring of their hearts bring love to the community's homeless, hungry, needy and poor. And they do so without ever making one beg or fill out papers telling who they are or what their private information is all about.

We will always have thieves and liars among us. We will always have dishonest people in our company. It's darn hard to feed a belly that isn't truly hungry.

Catholic Charities and HUD has no right, absolutely no right whatsoever to ask anyone for identification or proof of their disability in order to gain food at their soup kitchen. HUD has no right to invade the privacy of the poor. We would be better off if both were shut down and and the people's money diverted elsewhere to a better cause.

Places like the Christ Church which houses the hall where Amazing Grace Ministries hold their weekly feeding program feed hundreds of Las Vegas Valley poor with a fraction of the money the big charities use and they invite the hungry with no requirements or forced rules or regulations in order to eat.

There are no nasty misfits operating the establishment, no "Staff" with behavior problems or "I'm the boss you do what I say or else" attitude.

No, there is none of that. There is only love and compassion, friendly service and not one of the volunteers are ever seen screaming and throwing a fit at the homeless.

Often, in addition to a great meal, there are clothes and other goodies passed out by the good people that the local press never mentions. The real charity in this town is done by the people that never get any of the attention or glory. People that treat the homeless and poor like human beings instead of herded animals.

And you know what? That's probably the nice thing about it because there is no evil anywhere around. Let's keep it that way.

Unexplained Phenomena

2012-01-07T00:15:00.000-08:00

The Devil & Me

By Cliff Harrison

My own personal experiences with demonic beings can best be taken with the collective results of the stories to soon be told. The unexplained phenomenon can only be truly assessed in the final analyst of the collective stories compiled and combined in the complete book. The Exposés and Reflections of Demonic Experiences that I tell in the forthcoming stories collectively fit as pieces into one story.

Although each story is a standalone story, without the entire collection there isn’t much evidence of supernatural interference.

Collectively one might think they are demonic situations.

I make no claims to be “possessed” in the literal term as in demonic possessions. However, exorcisms are routinely performed on me as a matter of religion exercise and practice to expel or ward off any demons that may dwell in or near me.

Those exercises of “exorcism” can be found and explained in the sidebar listing under “Featured Related & Unrelated Links” at the right of The Devil Follows Me website and in the top navigation menu. But they are not like the Hollywood Exorcisms or the accompanying links of historical true-life exorcisms and experiences with demonic possessions or appearances.

My writing, my stories, my syndicated columns, my blogs and websites and my books all have messages, metaphor and idioms—sometimes hidden—ones that the reader should often figures out for himself.

Figuring things out for yourself is often the treasure of readings and applying intelligence.

The exposé stories will tell the truth and reveal—or expose—the entities, those evil creatures, persons, places or things, I have experienced negative and evil events with. The exposés are no-hole-barred. I hold nothing back. It took me many hours, days and weeks to decide if I was going to hold anything back, including names. I have decided. I rarely will.

I’m not here to make friends. No one is going to be invited to a weekend barbecue in my backyard.

I’m here to tell a story and that’s just what I’m going to do. And those stories I tell will certainly make me some genuine enemies. So be it!

It’s like this: The innocent have nothing to worry about. But, I’m not going to protect the guilty.

The stories concerning reflections deal with experiences that do not particularly fault any organization or entity but situations or incidents themselves which were negative or evil.

Read More at >>>The Devil Follows Me Website

The Devil & Me is a syndicated column by Cliff Harrison

I Hate Change!

2012-01-05T03:32:00.000-08:00

Common Sense
by Cliff Harrison

Bank of America tried it. Wells Fargo tried it. Verizon “Can you hear me now?” Wireless tried it. Countless other big corporations tried it. And the public revolted. Change. Everybody says they want change. But nobody wants change. No, not really.

Google, AdSense; no, AdSense changed to AdWord, Blogger, YouTube, Yahoo!, they’re all making change. Change that is disturbing their customers. More change more tempers flare. More change more people drop the big 1% corporation they love to hate.

Microsoft, oh, don’t get me going.

I do like the changes YouTube made. I especially love their new music “mix” where you can play consecutive songs by the same artist. The one thing YouTube needs to add is the ability to “repeat” a song, like all music players have. I like repeating good songs. You see, I like sticking with what I know. I like sticking with what isn’t broken. I like sticking with what works. I like sticking with what I like. The changes made at YouTube aren’t so drastic that someone who liked the “old version” isn’t satisfied.

Why can’t all America’s corporations learn that?

One thing that never has changed, and it’s Microsoft “Change Daily” is the word processor spell checker. I spelled AdSense the way Google spells AdSense.

No matter how many times I click “ignore” it keeps coming back with the red line under the word indicating it is misspelled. Pssssst! Try clicking “ignore all”. Oh, my God! I thought that read ignorance.

“Ignore all” isn’t available every time, often only “ignore” is. And it keeps coming back.

They seem to change the stuff that works well and they don’t change the stuff that doesn’t work. The problem we have in America is we have too many geeks employed. If we had more geeks in our soup-kitchen lines maybe they’d change the soup-kitchen and give us something decent to eat and leave the rest of the stuff alone.

As I publish this I review the YouTube video that came with the Gmail “New Look”. 41,052 people voted they “liked” the video, meaning they liked the change while a whooping 36,300 disliked the video/change. That is the largest dislike I have ever seen on any YouTube video, nearly 50% of the voters rejected it.

I sort of felt bad after I sent a nasty comment to the geeks for changing Gmail but I don’t feel bad now, read the comments thousands of pissed users posted in the video comments.

I bet tomorrow we’ll hear a lot of the same thing we heard from Bank of American, Wells Fargo and Version Wireless, “Gmail dumps new look for old version after user revolt.”

After you send in a message for ‘feedback’ you are taken to a ‘help’ page which shows all of the Google help centers as if now they want to help you when before you had to pull your hair out in order to get help.

When you go to the menu page you can’t even find AdWord anymore. You have to hunt for it. It used to be first on the list. Google screwed up AdWord so much I’m about to pull the plug on any Goggle product, just like I did Yahoo! and Microsoft. Ignorant idiots!

Google started out a simple company with user friendly features. They should have left well enough alone.

By the way, spam has increased a thousand folds on Gmail.

The only changes Google ought to be making is they ought to fire everybody companywide from top to bottom except the YouTube division.

There is no common sense at Google.

If Google was Bank of America it would be bankrupt.

I rest my case!

Common Sense is a syndicated column by Cliff Harrison.

New Year’s Resolution: A Syndicated Message

2011-12-31T15:34:00.001-08:00

I Can Dream Can’t I?
by Cliff Harrison

The last day of the year 2011 has arrived and we will soon be going into the 2012 New Year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My New Year’s Resolution is described below…along with my last post of the year and my first post of the year.

Writer Dave L Turo-Shields, Psychotherapist and Success Coach, wrote in one of his columns posted in bipolarworld.net about New Year’s Resolutions: The most important question for you is... are you ready for a change? And, if the answer is "yes," the second question is... how ready are you?

Those are great questions.

We all want change, don’t we? We’re all ready for change, aren’t we? But like Dave asks just how ready for change are we? I’m real ready. I’m so ready for change I can taste it. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’m tired of poverty. I’m tired of the lying, stealing, corrupt and greedy self-serving nonprofits, politicians and corporate slave masters. I’m tired of elective officials screwing the very people who have put them in office. I’m tired of nonprofits disrespecting the poor and getting fat and rich off of the homeless victims they tread on. I’m tired of a lot of things. I’m tired of poverty. I’m tired of losing my independence. I’m tired of depending on people you can’t trust let alone depend on. Like the people in government and in nonprofits and in corporations.

I’m ready for change. I’m big time ready for change, real change. And I mean change.

Today, network wide, I’m going to talk a little bit about what changes I’m going to be making as a New Year’s resolution for the network, the Cliff Harrison Network. The resolution I’ll be talking about is being syndicated throughout the entire network, or at least as far as I can reach in the time I have to reach. Change is coming. I resolve to make the change happen. Isn’t a New Year’s resolution really about change? It is. If we start doing something or stop doing something we’ve changed. And that’s what makes a New Year’s Resolution so exciting, especially if the change sticks.

As I started posting this article and resolution across the network for a syndicated release in some of the blogs it is already midnight and therefore the New Year, in New York. In fact, by the time I managed to get all the posts finished it is the New Year in Vegas as well.
Still editing...

Catholic Charities Reeks with Evilness Part I

2011-12-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

St. Vincent's Catholic Charities

By Cliff Harrison

Part I In a Series: An Exposé

The scumbags that run some of Las Vegas charities are frauds. Fraud isn’t something which is new in Vegas. There has been much corruption among Vegas nonprofit charities as there has been among city and county government. Often they sleep in the same bed.

Vegas—Sin City—happens to be a place where demons dwell and flourish.

The image Catholic Charities, and other nonprofits that are in business to provide food and shelter for the homeless in Vegas, try to paint an image of a friendly, compassionate nonprofit who cares for the homeless and poor.

I’m going to show you in a series of articles, reports and exposé that that is not always the case.

It came across the Reuters wire that some Las Vegas Charities giving away toys and turkeys this season have started asking families for identification. Reuters named some of the charities, Salvation Army and HELP of Southern Nevada and Lutheran Social Services, but I’ll name one charity that has been stealing from the people and blocking the aid their donation campaigns promised to help the poor with while compiling extensive private and confidential information on the homeless and poor--Catholic Charities.

Reuters claim the charities said the controversial move to require identification, such as Social Security or state identification cards or birth certificates was to prevent fraud because of the economical condition of the state.

Catholic Charities not only requires identification for shelter they abstract a long profile of homeless persons seeking shelter and food. Not only does Catholic Charities invade the homeless privacy they share the information they force from the clients that seek shelter and food.

Such private and confidential information which Catholic Charities had agreed with the data bank that stores the information to handle it with care and with restrictions in the office that collects the information. That is not the case with Catholic Charities who grossly violates this system. The form I filled out recently was stuffed in the back pocket of the man who processed the information. Further I asked for a copy of what I filled out and was handed a black form. My rights were violated at that point a second time by Catholic Charities in one night.

At least six members of the Catholic Charities employees at the Las Vegas complex knock down over $100,000 per year salary plus special perks and benefits including holidays with paid days off to match the unionized government workers.

I’ve written in this blog and others about the disgrace of the Three Square food bank CEO commanding a salary of $212,000 per year. I’ve written extensively how I could feed, clothes, shelter and supply hundreds of homeless with their needs for $212,000.

The CEO I wrote about up and left Three Square and moved out of state shortly after I published the serial articles about the outrageousness of her greed and calling herself someone who cared for the poor. Her actions were certainly not charity, it was self-serving greed and self-serving greed will not be tolerated in the nonprofit sector called charity.

At Catholic Charities, the day after Christmas, I was told I could not come back and eat at the free lunch which is always slop soup and rotten fruit and expired-for-days sandwiches. I wasn’t on the list, the guy said. I needed to fill out forms. I needed to provide information. Never mind, they already have tons of private information on me and carelessly processed that information which they share with several other communist bodies. I’ve detailed all that in other articles I’ll publish in the future.

Most or many of these “staff” that processes you when you are on the grounds for food or shelter are addicts who are going through rehabilitation programs and/or are also in work programs to earn their keep. Not the most trustworthy people in the world. Yet you are providing confidential information. It wasn’t so long ago these same people were homeless or poor themselves. For many of them a little bit of power goes instantly to their head and some of these guys can’t handle power. When a little bit of problems develop they instantly loose it and go ballistic like they did on me when I simply asked if there was shrimp in the food, which I am deathly allergic too.

I’ve asked dozen of people since, their opinion, if they thought I was within my rights of what most people would agree was a reasonable question to ask. All agreed I was.

A volunteer, not a Catholic Charities staff member processed my plate on Christmas Day to eliminate the threat of severe illness caused by the ignorance of Papa Leary, the top brass at Catholic Charities. One must assume the man in charge is ignorant to allow what is to some people a deadly allergen to be served to hundreds of people without any safeguard to protect those people from serious illness.

Part II of this continued series will be published shortly.

O Holy Night-Sung In Navajo-Native American

2011-12-23T05:51:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas
Jana

Please mute music player at the bottom of the page.

Winter in Granville, New York

2011-12-21T10:03:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

We can't bring the snows of Granville, New York to you here in Vegas, but we can bring you to the snows of Granville via YouTube.

What is Christmas season without snow?

December is sometimes colder in Nevada than it is in New York. A nice hot cup of chocolate and some Christmas Gingerbread cookies will do the trick for keeping us snug.

Enjoy the winter scenes where there is always plenty to do outside in the wintertime, in Granville in Upstate New York.

Being homeless in wintery places like New York can not be fun. For those who are homeless on the eastcoast and there are thousands of people who are, we pray for them and hope they can stay warm this Christmas Season.

Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page.

River

2011-12-17T01:19:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

Christmas season is upon us once again. People are out mailing Christmas cards. Families are out searching for the best Christmas Tree around and bringing it home to decorate it.

While we enjoy hot chocolate and spice Christmas cookies we finish the last of those Christmas cards. Christmas music is playing in the background and we find ourselves in the Christmas spirit. We have the whole month of December to enjoy the season's jolliness.

Those of us who are Christian will celebrate with Church friends the importance of this time of the year as we worship Jesus Christ.

We say our blessings and prayers. We remember the homeless and how the poor has to deal with the struggles of having little or no money at Christmas time. We think of those who have nothing at all, those who are outside with no shelter in the elements of the cold winter trying to stay warm.

Sharing is an important part of the Christmas season. Giving to others who have nothing or who suffer the blows of poverty helps us warm our own hearts as well as the hearts of others.

The most important thing is to keep the Christmas Spirit in our hearts glowing like a log on a warm fire. It's important not to let that spirit burn out.

Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page.
River - Sarah McLachlan

Broken Hearts & Broken Dreams

2011-12-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

If there is any one thing that most homeless people have in common it is they all have broken hearts and broken dreams.

Regardless of what problem the homeless has, be it alcoholism, drug, gambling or sex addiction or no addiction at all, there is a loss of something. Maybe that loss is like a love, a job, car or home, or all of them. There are lots of things to lose in life and some people can't cope with losses no matter how small. Other people take some pretty big hits in life and have much bigger losses stretched out over a longer period of time.

Alcoholism may have caused the homelessness, but a broken heart caused the alcoholism which eventually put him homeless.

Having too many losses or such a substantial loss, so great it can cause a person to become dysfunctional. Once a person loses the ability to cope and becomes dysfunctional, if there is not some kind of intervention, it is likely that person will lose any grip of holding onto society and succumb to the outer limits of poverty-- homelessness.

I've been a lifetime big fan of Johnny Cash. I thought I had heard all of his songs and have seen all of his music videos. I never seen this one before. It fits ideally with what I'm saying about a broken heart causing homelessness.

In this case the homeless man had his heart and dream shattered over a loss of a girl, his love, a broken heart that lasted a lifetime.

That's probably the number one cause of homelessness right there. The loss of the love one may cause the drinking, or drugs or some other kind of pleasure that seeks satisfying to drown the misery, but if you follow the trail of tears long enough you'll find the shards of broken heart and broken dreams along the way somewhere.

In this video Johnny shows and tells it well.

Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page.

Stop Feeding the Warlords of World Battles

2011-12-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

The Storm of Poverty
By Cliff Harrison

There is a humanitarian group in Vegas called Food Not Bombs. The group has affiliates in Orlando, Florida and other places in the country. They send a caring message in their namesake, Food Not Bombs. It’s a message we ought to think about.

We need to stop feeding the warlords of the world battlefields and start feeding the hungry people of the world. And a good place to begin is right here at home in America.

It has been said that the United States spends billions of dollars on wars. Just how much? The website Cost of War.com claim we’ve spent almost 1.3 trillion dollars on wars since 2001. That breaks down to approaching $807 billion in Iraq and $484 billion in Afghanistan.

With a bit of exploring inside the Cost of War.com site we find pages with headlines telling how many state budgets that are depleted because of the poor economy could be replenished with the money spent on the Afghanistan war alone. $102.9 billion for the 2012 budget shortfall of 41 states and the District of Columbia verses the amount spent on the war in Afghanistan this year (2011) alone, $122 billion. Read more details >>>

I haven’t confirmed the statements or researched to learn the specifics on the cost of war, but if it is true, and I have no doubt that it is, it says a lot not only about the United States but about mankind.

We spend too much on war and not enough on relieving the suffering of poverty, homelessness, hunger and basic humanitarian survival education.

Now, I won’t jump on the bandwagon of the hardcore leftist who often go off without basis and slam everything the right does.

War is sometimes needed.

In fact, war is often needed. As long as we have radical nations like Iran, North Korea and other nations of real threat we must be capable of defending ourselves and the nations of the world who can’t defend themselves.

Against the world leaders like Vladimir Putin in Russia who frequently voices anti-American resentment we need a strong defense. That strong defense is sometimes needed to put down the real threats that threaten us around the world.

We need strength against the strong-armed communist and warmongering individuals who lead the totalitarian governments of the world. We need a strong defense. We cannot survive without it.

Being second best in military power is simply not good enough.

We need to be the best and being the best cost money. That said we don’t need to engage into prolonged wars like America seems to always get itself into and often with political overtures.

When we go to war we need to go in, take out the government of threat, and get out. Period! Such mission requires a surgical operation costing no more than a few days of planning, a few days of execution and a few days of clean up operations. That’s it. Bring the boys home. Get out and stay out.

That’s the difference between having the necessary defense to ensure a strong military, using that military when needed and then getting back home and taking care of our own people with the money that would be used for prolonged, costly war.

Wars like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan has cost America untold trillions—maybe even quadrillions—collectively. The cost of life of our soldiers, allied troops in the fight with us and the collateral damage to civil populations in those war zones is unforgiving.

Their families still mourn their loss.

And then there is the calculating of the disabled, the mental and physical damage done by war. You can’t calculate it.

People are still dying in Nam for example from the landmines that were planted there from the war; a war then ended decades ago.

So, war is bad. Prolonged war is real bad and we need to avoid it and send a strong message to Washington, that we the people just won’t put up with it. Period. No excuses. No exceptions!

War is ugly and war is costly.

As ugly and costly as war is, we need to have the strongest defense in the world to put down the challenges of war—the threats to world peace and human rights—but we need to use that defense as a last resort, not as first resort.

And we need to use that power as minimally as possible.

In America’s future wars we need to make sure our politicians understand we will not tolerate anything short of a short war with our objective being completely accomplished in the shortest period of time, with the shortest lasting effect of that war and the assured victory won with a minimal loss of life. That minimal loss of life includes the lives of our fighting soldiers and innocent civilians who are far too often victims of war.

If we can’t accomplish the things I just described in the previous paragraph, then we no business going to war. Period!

With that said, we need to sharpen our negotiation skills, our communication skills and our human relations skills. We need improved diplomatic relationships with world nations. We need to avoid war by doing more talking, more listening and less, far less, pushing of other nations.

We must be willing to compromise and stop using our ‘our way or no way’ attitude toward sovereign nations.

If we’re spending 1.3 trillion dollars on wars in a little over a decade and that 1.3 trillion dollars could end the hunger in this country and even the world then we are doing something drastically wrong.

Considering what I just said about needing a strong defense, it is foolish to kill people in war in order to save some people only to have other people around the world dying of starvation. It is utterly stupid!

We need to channel our resources toward eliminating poverty, eliminating hunger, eliminating homelessness, eliminating illiteracy and improve our education system and the education system of poverty stricken areas of the world. And I don’t mean higher education here, I mean basic education, like reading and writing skills, learning how to cope and survive in a capitalistic society. We need education in basic how-to stuff to teach people how to survive poverty and weather the storm of poverty and how to take care of themselves.

We need a lot of things but what we need the most of and certainly have a lacking of is leadership.

40 million people live below the poverty line in America. Those 40 million people risk going to bed hungry at sometime during their daily struggle with poverty. For those people the Storm of Poverty is far from over and will linger for a long time to come.

According to the Society of St. Andrew Americans throw away some 260 million pounds of food every day. Every day!

A man named Jeffrey Sachs, said in his book, The End of Poverty; it would take about $175 Billion dollars per year for twenty years to end the most extreme poverty worldwide. Sachs has been said to be the world’s best-known economist and probably the most important economist in the world. Okay, we can’t get any better than that. So, we can take him for his word that he knows at least something about what he is talking about.

With the kind of money we have spent on wars in our modern history, America certainly can end poverty in America if not the world. We certainly can end hunger. We certainly can end homelessness, the two most extremes of poverty.

Sacks book talks about eliminating the most extreme poverty at a clip of $175 billion a year, not all poverty at that cost. But it’s a start.

But it is useless figuring if America doesn’t start in that direction of eliminating poverty, hunger and homelessness and other factors of destitution within the storm—first in America and then around the world. And when it comes to the world, other nations need to pitch in and join us in the poverty elimination process.

We can achieve whatever we set our minds to achieve. If it is war we will have war. If it is eliminating poverty then we can achieve it.

I’ll reiterate, we need a lot of things but what we need the most of and certainly have a lacking of in America is leadership.

We need to change the way we do things. We cannot survive if we continue business as usual.

The Storm of Poverty is a syndicated column that deals with major social issues in the world today. The column subject expresses opinions and facts about poverty; homelessness, hunger, the needy and the poor.

The Storm of Poverty by syndicated columnist Cliff Harrison launched with this story being the first installment.

2 Years Smoke Free

2011-12-05T23:52:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

Today marks the second anniversary of my being smoke free. I quit at 3:30PM on 05 December 2009 in the Albertsons' parking lot down by Boulder Highway and Tropicana Avenue. I was homeless at the time and was refused medical aid or emergency health insurance by the Clark County Social Services. After I stomped out my last cigarette I entered UMC Quick Care. My blood pressure reading was like 250 over 180. I was soon being transported to UMC hospital where I was hospitalized an entire month. I spent Christmas of 2009 in Intensive Care. I had a major surgery, a AAA surgery. I’ve had a total of 5 surgeries since that time. I paid the price for smoking. It was nobody's fault but my own. So, if you smoke quit. If you don't smoke, don't start.

Urgent Weather Message

2011-12-03T21:11:00.001-08:00

The NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LAS VEGAS NV
11:51 AM PST SAT DEC 3 2011
Issued a Freezing Weather Warning!
IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 7 AM PST SUNDAY...
Freeze Warning valid until December 4 7:00am PST

TEMPERATURES: LOWS TEMPERATURES OF 26 TO 32 DEGREES ARE EXPECTED
ACROSS MUCH OF THE LAS VEGAS VALLEY EARLY SUNDAY MORNING.

It Happens All the Time in Vegas

2011-12-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

Many More Females Are Now Panhandling As The
Economy Gets Worst and More People Go Hungry

By Cliff Harrison

Would you deny a thirsty man a drink? It happens all the time in Vegas. Would you deny another human being the use of your bathroom if the call of nature was in him? It happens all the time in Vegas.

Would you deny shelter to the homeless? Would you do so if you claimed to be Christian and your nonprofit organization was a homeless shelter? It happens all the time in Vegas.

Would you deny food to the hungry? It happens all the time in Vegas.

Would you refuse a needy person a helping hand? It happens all the time in Vegas.

Would you decline to give the poor your spare change? It happens all the time in Vegas.

It happens all the time in Vegas, yet most Vegans call themselves good people. Some even call themselves Christians.

You are Invited to a Thanksgiving Celebration!

2011-11-24T07:10:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

Calvary Chapel Spring Valley is holding it’s 4th annual Thanksgiving Outreach for the homeless community and for those who are in need.

BlessFest for the Homeless at The Calvary Chapel Spring Valley Church

I can assure you, these people put on the absolute best Thanksgiving for the homeless and poor in the Las Vegas community. I attended their first and second while homeless, missed the third and will attend this morning while reuniting with my homeless friends and searching for Rick Smith.

Hope to see you there.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Missing Veteran Rick Smith

2011-11-23T02:03:00.000-08:00

I need your help people. We know Rick is currently in the Las Vegas Area. Let’s find him and bring him home. We leave no one behind. Thanks.

Richard "Rick" Allen Smith

I had pulled down the photo and flier of Rick Smith because we though we had located Rick, but his family said the homeless man we thought was Rick was not him. I've reposted his photo and a new, updated flier message is posted below. Let's keep looking guys until we find him. THANK YOU!!

If you see Rick please contact his mother at the following email: Belinda Mayer bmayer58@gmail.com

Richard (Rick) Allen Smith
DOB: June 16, 1972
Height: 5' 11"
Weight: 145
Hair: Dirty Blond/Light Brown
Eyes: Hazel/Green
Complexion: Ruddy
Veteran US Army.
Distinguishing Marks: Large Spinal Scar from Lumbar Fusion Surgery.
Needs Medical Care to remove metal plate and screws from back.
Frequents 10 A.M. feeding Catholic Charities, Is a loner, Is quiet, Walks with his head down, Stays in NLV area, Last known to be hanging out at 7-11 corner of Bonanza and NLV Blvd. Current photo taken August 9, 2011 by NLVPD. Last seen by Salvation Army Security walking toward Catholic Charities down Owens in early Sept 2011. Has been in Las Vegas since summer of 2009. Contact: (mother) Belinda Mayer, 10407 N 38th Lane, Phoenix, AZ 85051, or e-mail bmayer58@gmail.com

Homelessness is a a destructive thing in the lives of the homeless and their family. Finding a missing love one can be a trying and exhausting experience filled with a roller coaster of emotions. Both the homeless and their family suffer a great deal. We pray that Rick can be found and reunited with his family.

The Sun Sets on Veterans Day 11-11-11

2011-11-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison
As the sun goes down, let us not forget those who served and gave their all. Again, thanks for those who have worn the uniform of the United States military. Thank you veterans, to all of you, those gone, those serving, those who have served and to those who live on the streets of America homeless because they have no home. And especially, those veterans who died on America's streets homeless because the county you fought for didn't care enough for you to give you a home, thank you. Thank you.

Veterans Affairs

Day is Done

Freedom's Not Free

2011-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

I know this is a Memorial Day video by Rivoli Revue but today is a great day to listen to it again...

Support Our Troops

2011-11-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

On Display at Dylan’s Dancehall & Saloon at 4660 Boulder Highway In Las Vegas.

It's Veterans Day

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

By Cliff Harrison

Today 11 11 11 is Veterans Day and millions of America people are uploading photos of men and women in uniform to celebrate. They upload images of those gone, those serving and those you have serviced. Sometimes it is a chilling experience. Sometimes it is a warm and proud experience. Sometimes it brings tears. For others it brings joy. Regardless of the emotions it is a day of remembrance and a day of thanks for those who have worn the uniform of the United States military. Thank you veterans, to all of you, those gone, those serving, those who have served and to those who live on the streets of America homeless because they have no home. Thank you.

U.S.Department of Veterans Affairs

In Honor & Memory of U.S.Army
Staff Sergeant Paul E. Phelps

What’s it like to be homeless? Here’s a Clue

2011-10-11T05:25:00.000-07:00

For many of us we have no clue what it is like to be homeless. This video produced by Ryan McNamee and Elena Hansen makes us wonder no more.

An impressive interview gives Seattle homeless an opportunity to speak their mind and they convey what homelessness is like for them and the perils of trying to escape it.

The Homeless Neighbor from Ryan McNamee on Vimeo.

Sleep Study Wonders

2011-09-21T16:38:00.000-07:00

3:00 A.M. this morning upon waking up at
the sleep-study lab near Summerline.

By Cliff Harrison

Just a quick note. I finished my sleep study last night where they had me on that machine that is like an oxygen mask. It is not oxygen, but recycled air. Anyways, they said I did good and I will need to be hooked up to one. They said I have to wait for the doctor to review all their tests and then subscribe me the machine. They said the doctor would recommend it, they know that for certain, they said, but I have to wait until he contacts me and get an appointment.

I know much of my sleep problems originated during the period I was homeless and Oscar Goodman and his henchmen committed international crimes and abused the homeless with his inhumane sleep deprivation. While homeless I had gone as many as five to six days without sleep being pushed by Las Vegas Metro Police Department, City Marshals and hired rent-a-cops from the Black Panther's cesspool.

I didn't really sleep all that well or much. (But yet much better than I normally did.) And I did wake up several times last night. But when I woke up I went right back to sleep instead of laying there thinking or getting up like I normally do. They woke me up at 3:00A.M. because I had moved over on my side and shifted the mask, so the air wasn't getting into my nose, but escaping. You need the mask the most when you are on your back. Anyways, the study was suppose to run until 5:00 A.M. but they said they had enough information to confirm I needed the machine so I went ahead and finished it. They told me from the computers they monitored during my sleep and comparing to the other sleep study they took on me that I would feel great today. AND I DO!!

I didn't sweat in my sleep like I normally do and soak my clothes and the pillow either. I woke feeling rested, refreshed and full of energy. EAGER TO GO!!

I HAVE NOT HAD THIS MUCH ENERGY OR FELT THIS GOOD IN YEARS. After I came home I did my usual walk around the upstairs apartment complex. My legs didn't tire or get sore like they usually do. And then I immediately started and finished all my physical therapy exercises and then immediately went downstairs to the gym and worked out for 1/2 hour on the exercise bike, stair climbing machine, rowing machine, chest building machine and leg developing machine and then I was still ready to run a marathon.

I can't believe the difference. It's amazing!!

It's going to be a bummer waiting for the doctor and waiting until I get my own machine now knowing this is a significant cause to my lack of energy. Maybe it isn't all of it, but it is enough that I can have enough energy to get working back out and get fit. For some reason I walk better, too. And I got a lot done today that I normally would not have gotten done.

My heart doctor is the one who figured this all out and set me up with the sleep (another Heart and Vascular) doctor. They said it is all related to the heart and vascular system some how. I don't know how, but it is.

I asked them if Medicare would pay for it, and told them I didn't have any money to pay for a machine, and they said yes, the doctors writes a prescription for it. I told them about going homeless in a couple of months for a few months and they said the machine comes with a carrying case and my model would be a little smaller than their model. I'll believe it when I see it. At least now I know that sleep problems is at least 80% maybe 95% of my problems. And maybe once I get exercising and fit the rest will fall in place.

I just can't believe it makes that much of a difference. But it really does!!

I'm just now getting a bit tired, and it's 3:15 PM, twelve hours since I've been up. I usually had to have to take one or two naps by this time and screw up my sleeping schedule, which the machine will correct.

Well maybe it wasn't a such a quick note but... good news for me for a change as long as Medicare will pay for the machine.

Thanks To Homeless Advocate Gail Sacco

2011-09-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

I declare this day Gail Sacco Day.

Gail Sacco has been a friend for many years. I think I first met her sometime in 2007 in the late Frank Wright Plaza. (Late meaning the park is now dead thanks to Oscar Goodman's anti-homeless citizen )

Gail was feeding the homeless. I too was homeless and hungry that day and went over to the park with a few of my homeless friends.

But I knew about Gail before I became homeless the first time. I had read about her in the newspapers.

You see, Gail Sacco is a homeless advocate. She is probably the most loved and best known of the homeless advocates in Vegas. In all fairness to the many great people in Sin City who help the homeless, hungry and poor, without taking credit away from them, I'm sure those someone else either know Gail personally and/or works with her.

I remember Gail and her son, Joe and friends, being arrested for feeding the homeless in a city park.

News of Goodman's Goofy Ban on Feeding the Homeless Reaches All the Way to New York
New York Times News Report

Food Not Bombs Strikes Back With Federal Lawsuit

Goodman and his corrupt thugs became the laughing stock and subject of conversation the world over because of the unconstitutional and ignorant city ban on feeding the homeless. For fun spend a rainy day at Goggles search engine and pour over the blog voices heard around the world. Google Search lots of interesting blogs authors make their voices heard on pages 2,3,4 and deeper inside the search engine.

She still feeds the homeless. Later in this post you'll find links to help familiarize you with Gail if you are not familiar with her already.

Like Christian River and the Do-It-Yourself Direct-to-the-Streets Charity, Gail and her team volunteer their time and effort and lot of it without compensation. Unlike some of the high paid self-servicing nonprofits in town people doing the Direct-to-the-Streets charity do so for the humanitarian cause and not for lining our pockets. At night we can sleep because we know we helped someone in need and asked nothing in return. Gail does her part in her own little corner of this challenging earth. Many of the volunteers we see out there have little more than those they are giving too...except a great big expensive heart.

Gail became President and Editor of the Forgotten Voice, a local street newspaper in Las Vegas for the homeless, when Amanda Haymond, a young college student, Founder and Past President traveled outside of state.

Amanda did a great job in creating the Forgotten Voice newspaper and bringing a communication link between the homeless, formerly homeless and those advocates and services who helps the homeless. I was saddened to see Amanda leave Las Vegas and the Forgotten Voice but I was glad when it was announced Gail would continue in her place at the weekly newspaper. Many of us homeless folks back then feared the paper would not survive. It was our voice in a ruthless town with an inhumane and aggressive political administration of then (still) Oscar Goodman and Clark County Commission Chairmen Rory Reid.

Many things have changed since that time. The community has seen many buildings go up and come down. We all have seen many friends come and go. Some passed on to a greater place in the sky. Others moved on for a hope of still catching that elusive American Dream in another place, another town with a friendlier environment.

The economy has progressively gotten worst since those times but there is no progressive jackpot to be won... by anybody. There are no winners in a town where a large portion of the population treat the homeless like losers. Sometimes homeless people can only find a friend in people like Gail Sacco.

One thing that hasn't changed in Vegas is homelessness.
There is still homelessness in Las Vegas and plenty of it.

From then until now thousands of more people have lost their homes and their jobs. Thousands more, including a large portion of Clark County school children, have become homeless.

Still a political structure in this town--on the city and county level--refuses to grasp that not all homeless are drunken drug addicts or some other imaginary and negative stereo type, but real down to earth people who due to bad luck, a dealing of poor cards and something called the Great Recession just couldn't help but winding up on the streets homeless.

The powers to be don't want the tourists of Las Vegas, the Entertainment and Gambling Capital of the World, to see the homelessness, the poverty and the destruction gambling, drinking, drugs, sex and all of the other vices of party life this city attracts.

Fortunately there were and are people like Gail Sacco in this town to help those who had a misfortune of bad luck or played their cards wrong when they were dealt a decent hand.

The compassion and humanitarianism of folks like Gail Sacco and her friends along with the sharing of food, clothing and vital resource information can help someone on the streets who for some reason or another isn't being helped by the mammoth government "system" which seems to miss and fail an awful lot of people.

The illusion of stereotype homelessness; drunks and drug addicts, whores and gamblers, misfits and society’s troublemakers undermines the reality of the majority homeless population of that being the elderly, the sick, disabled, war veterans, mentally ill, medically under privilege, victims of domestic violence, common folks who first lost their jobs and then lost their homes and then lost the cars they were sleeping in--basically people, singles, couples and families, with no addiction at all but medical and financial problems.

Just readings some of the comments in the links of the news reports provided shows one the ignorance and hostilities of a town the politicians and media encourage--a disgraceful and shameful community attitude.

If anyone is in the know about homelessness in Las Vegas it is Gail Sacco.

Not only does the homeless advocate, Gail Sacco, continue to Edit the Forgotten Voice, she is Director of Father Flanagan LTD and works with Food Not Bombs LV, local charities with national connections.

The landing page on the Father Flanagan LTD site states in part, "We are now sharing food, love and hope at Baker Park on E. Saint Louis near S. 10th Street every Sunday at 10:30 am. And, whenever we have extra food, we share on side streets, empty lots and wherever we are needed."
Volunteers are always welcome. If you would like to join our little groupy, call Gail Sacco at (702) 355-2764 or e-mail her at mom_in_las_vegas@yahoo.com

The humanitarianism in this town is one place where many of us of opposing political, religion or personal views hang up our thorns and horns and roll up our sleeves and work together side by side without ever giving our opposition another thought--we are too focused on our common bond--our humanity of helping the needy.

Gail Sacco has had her share of bad cards dealt to her from the local government and other evil forces. She's handled them well. Never being one to quit, or to be intimidated not even after arrests for feeding the homeless and unconstitutional treatment by local offices was she deterred from helping those in need--the poor and the homeless.

The Boston Native held her ground against the establishment

Many people who were homeless back then in 2007 and beyond now have a home. Some are still homeless, never having gotten their lives together. Others have had relapses and have bounced back and forth between homelessness and stability. And many thousand more have come and gone to the streets since 2007.

Homeless advocate, Gail Sacco, thanks for being you! Thanks for being there when I needed you and when the thousands of other homeless, hungry, poor and needy citizens of Las Vegas and Clark County needed you. Thanks for being there when we needed you. Thanks for being there then, and thanks for being there now. Thanks for being a friend. And God bless you for everything you have done and for who you are!

Forgotten Voice Board Members, the People Who Made it Possible

Gail Sacco of Food Not Bombs Las Vegas Discusses Poverty and Homelessness - by Kelly W. Patterson

Gail's Facebook Page

Some Announcements on Gail's Facebook Page
Veterans Stand Down at Cambridge Community Center, Oct. 6th & 7th

Reminder Project Homeless Connect / Stand Down
Reminder Project Homeless Connect / Stand Down

Lutheran Social Services moving
Information is in the post below. The new location was scheduled to open yesterday, 12 September 2011.

Lutheran Social Services Reopens

2011-09-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

Lutheran Social Services of Nevada reopens at its new location at 73 Spectrum Boulevard, Las Vegas, at The Spectrum Complex off of Pecos Road and East Charleston Boulevard.

The new facilities will provide additional services for more people.

For more information on the LSSN, contact Patrick Montejano at patrick@lssnv.org or call 639-1730.

The "Alerts" link below, a pdf. file, shows a map and additional information.

Information provided by long-time friend and homeless advocate, Gail Sacco, Director of Father Flanagan LTD, from her Facebook page and a Father Flanagan LTD Alerts.

Medication Assistance Program

2011-09-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

There Is Help With Medicine.

I am working on articles that I will soon publish in the Christian River Blog to show you how to get help obtaining your medicines if your qualify. I will cover the pros and cons of this program. I will provide links here and on other network sites. Until then review the information by clicking the links below for the Medicine Cabinet home page and requirements page. Tell them Cliff sent you.

Medicine Cabinet Medication Assistance Program.

Medicine Cabinet Home Page
See if you Qualify
Medicine Cabinet Requirements

If you or someone you know are unable to pay for their prescription medication the Medicine Cabinet maybe able to help you.

Over 4,000 name-brand medications

(702) 444-6082

1805 S. Eastern Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89104

Excessive Heat Warning

2011-08-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

The National Weather Service has advised an excessive heat warning in effect for Clark County, Nevada which includes all of Las Vegas Valley. Dangerous heat will rise to 113° or more. Temperatures were 110° today. The excessive heat warning was issued from 11a.m. this morning, 23 August 2011 until 8p.m.Saturday, 27 August. [NOTICE: Excessive Heat Warning has been extended until further notice! Possibly cooling off after tonight, Monday 29 August... ] Remember ground temperature can be 10 to 15° higher than air temperature so this heat wave can turn deadly in a hurry. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Stay inside in shelters, cooling shelters or air conditioned buildings. Avoid alcoholic beverages which can dehydrate you and monitor the weather channels for changes in the reporting status.

Monitor Severe Weather Warning link to the right in the sidebar and/or the links below.
National Weather Service Forecast Office Las Vegas, NV

Monitor Fox5 News and Weather

Cooling Stations Locations:
Cooling Stations Open Until Sat. 27 August

Recovery

2011-08-18T07:11:00.001-07:00

I am recovering from yet another surgery. I hope to have the blog up to full speed soon.

July 2011

2011-07-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Summer is here.

It's reaching near 111° and above outside . We will have very hot days and very warm nights now summer is here. The ground temperature is 10-20 degrees higher than the air temperature. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. Seek cooling shelters when possible.

Also from now until September is Monsoon season--flood season. It can flood in a matter of minutes with very little rain in Southern Nevada.

DON'T GAMBLE WITH MOTHER
NATURE...YOU JUST MIGHT LOSE!

Pay attention to the weather channels. Monitor the severe weather warnings posted on this and network sites.

Those who are staying in storm drains use extreme caution and avoid sleeping or intoxicating inside storm drains during flood season.

Good Is Good

2011-07-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Las Vegas Downtown Ride Video 2

2011-07-07T03:20:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

This video puts us a couple of more blocks up the road. I get a kick out of the that huge road sign in front of the Western Hotel and Casino stating that Fremont Street is a "crime free corridor." That crime-free corridor is one of the highest crime areas in the city. 15th Street is only a hop and skip away.

Oscar Goodman's Downtown Redevelopment

2011-07-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Oscar Goodman's last day as mayor of Las Vegas was yesterday, 06 July 2011. But there is a catch. His wife, Carolyn, is now mayor which means Oscar is still going to be around, unfortunately.

As long as Oscar is around I'll have something to blog about. He and his disciples have bragged about his "Downtown Redevelopment". I've decided to shed some light on that "redevelopment" and show the world just what our beloved city looks like after we've had 12 years of his redevelopment.

I've made a series of videos, must of them are only 30 seconds or so with only a couple as long as a minute. Then I strung some of these videos together in a YouTube series. (Believe it or not Facebook removed the video below, but what do you expect from a substandard social site that is on its way out of style?

Taking a little ride in Downtown, Las Vegas to see the “Downtown Redevelopment” Oscar Goodman claims to have done since he has been mayor for the past 12 years. On 06 July, 2011 Oscar Goodman finished his term as mayor of Las Vegas and his wife, Carolyn, begins her term.

The video speaks for itself. For sale signs on most of the buildings along Fremont Street. Many businesses unable or unwilling to replace signs damaged by wind, excessive desert heat, turbulent weather and acts of violence. All or most of these buildings in this community could be remodeled and redeveloped with proper leadership and business investment know-how.

This is the first video in a series which will show the decay, not the redevelopment, of the Las Vegas downtown. It will also show several high-priced condominiums that have sold poorly since they were built. Many are nearly vacant. Would you purchase an expensive apartment in a rundown high-crime district?

By the time the video series ends you will have a pretty good idea of just what the “Downtown Redevelopment” was for the past 12 years under Oscar Goodman’s reign. The video shows the Vegas you never saw and why what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Vegan Mafia Denies Attack On Orlando Mayor Dyer’s Website

2011-07-04T03:59:00.000-07:00

Orlando, Florida Photo Source Wikipedia

By Cliff Harrison

Apparently Orlando Florida's mayor, Buddy Dyer, has more than one enemy. Florida's WFTV reported out of Orlando that Buddy Dyer's reelection website had been attacked by computer hackers. It wasn't the first City of Orlando website which has been attacked.

Being that Dyer's reelection team took down the website after the attack, the attack obviously would be considered successful in a view of war.

Orlando Police are calling the event a crime and said the hacking attack is under investigation.

WFTV reported that the motivation for the attack was to protest the recent arrests of Food Not Bombs members in an Orlando public park. Vegan Mafia is said to have "joined the fight" to feed the homeless and has supported FNB.

Orlando has an ongoing humanitarian dispute when it enforced a city ordinance than bans feeding people in public parks. A recent court ruling sided the battle with the city stating people could feed the hungry (over 25 people) only twice per year and only with permits. More and more people are joining the fight since many believe such ban is not only unconstitutional, but also a violation of human rights and human decency.

It is reported that the city has received thousands of e-mails concerning the feeding ban.

Not only are local police involved but the FBI has also been called in to assist in the investigation.

Computer hacker group Anonymous, is also involved. The hacker group has sent e-mails to the City of Orlando promising to wreak havoc on the city websites if the city doesn't stop arresting people for feeding the hungry. Anonymous is a powerful hacking group which claimed attacks on world computers in support of Wikileakes.

Vegan Mafia is not the mob, as in gangsters out of Las Vegas, Nevada, (I don't think) but a guy who likes to add "Food Not Bombs" name to his own. Food Not Bombs serves vegetarian meals or non-meat meals to the homeless, hungry and poor and have been operating for years. The Vegas Mafia group is said to be an affiliate of FNB, but the FNB website makes it clear that is NOT the case.

There is a website Vegan Mafia but it has not been active since 2010 like the Facebook page.

One person commenting in the WFTV article called Food Not Bomb an anarchist group, which is to say the group rebels against any authority and is opposed to the state or any government. But another person commenting draws attention to a Food Not Bombs website which states there is no affiliation to Dante John Terminello who uses the name Food Not Bombs Vegas Mafia or Vegas Mafia Food Not Bombs. Both name methods exist.

Food Not Bombs is a nonviolent group, but Dante John Terminello aka Vegan Mafia has been described as violent by some.

Whatever the misguided intentions of some to interfere with the activities of others are Orlando's self-made problems. Although the Orlando press seems to be slanted in favor of the city and reports that the citizens of Orlando favors the arrests of the people feeding the hungry it is a city willing to invite trouble over a very controversial subject--banning feeding of the hungry.

Again, I will reiterate what I have said before, feeding groups by and large offer food to anyone who is hungry. Homelessness usually is not a requirement to be fed while being hungry is.

Universal Orlando's website was also attacked.

It looks like Orlando is going to have its hands full due to the actions of an inhumane and very stupid mayor and city council.

If bad publicity is not enough for Orlando, Florida, computer hackers are bound to create headaches that Orlando's officials so wantonly invited.

State and federal authorities ought to be condemned for not intervening in a human rights and civil rights atrocity.

Feeding hungry people or banning such is not a local issue. It is a federal issue. The federal government needs to step up to the plate and punish local and state governments which violate human rights and civil rights as wantonly as the tourist towns of Orlando, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada does.

People have the basic human right to be fed. People have the basic civil right to feed others. When government interferes with those basic rights it time such government is removed from governing.

Perhaps the intelligence in getting around the stupid law is to make the City of Orlando's officials look even more stupid than they already do. As I understand it the prohibiting of feeding the hungry or homeless is that in groups of 25 or more. Simply setting up a gatekeeper and not allowing more than 20 or so individuals into the feeding and serving area at a time would be the loophole any wise challenger would need to find or so it seems. Then if one is arrested a very good lawsuit would have some real punch. Until the larger issue is settled and that being, no matter how many people there are hungry, people ought to be fed without government interference. Period. No excuses, no exceptions.

I'm sorry to say it, but Orlando, Florida deserves every bad deed that can come its way no matter how evil that bad thing may be. When people act evil evilness will be returned upon them. It's called Karma.

Resources
WFTV Report on Hacker Attack
WFTV Report on Vegan Mafia Joining Fight to Feed Homeless
Free Republic Report on Vegan Mafia
Food Not Bombs Statement of Nonviolence and Discussion About Vegan Mafia
Orlando, Florida Photo Source Wikipedia

The Dyer-Goodman Policy

2011-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

Photo by Gail Sacco

By Cliff Harrison

Yesterday Food Not Bombs Las Vegas demonstrated at the Las Vegas City Hall [see posts below] to protests the adverse behavior of the Orlando, Florida government which is headed by Mayor Buddy Dyer. Dyer’s police forces have recently arrested several members of Food Not Bombs Orlando group. This is not only a solidarity showing between the national Food Not Bombs groups, but also all of us who are advocates for the homeless, hungry, needy and poor.

In 2006 we experience a similar situation in Las Vegas. One major different is our local people won a court challenge and the local ordinance was ruled unconstitutional whereas in Florida a judge ruled in favor of Dyer’s administration.

The similarities couldn’t be more striking between Buddy Dyer’s reign on local government and Oscar Goodman’s. What is astonishing is the fact this could actually happen in 2011, a government arresting people for feeding the hungry.

Local governments which are anti-homeless deny homelessness. Aggressiveness against the homeless is the equivalence to say homelessness does not exist. When something doesn’t exist there are no committees to find a solution to solve the problem.

Denying homelessness doesn’t solve homelessness. It doesn’t end homelessness. It only pushes it into another neighborhood. And that only starts the hostilities all over again.

Not only is any sort of negative position or policy against the most vulnerable citizens of our society--the homeless and hungry poor--inhumane it is counterproductive and contradictory to a civilized standard of government.

Worst, when offensive statements are made in public by our elected officials the tone and the attitude of the community is often reflected from those statements. The ignorant and the unsympathetic individuals in such community often pen the nastiest of letters and comments in their local newspapers attacking the homeless.
The misguided misinform the misguided and a spiral of falsehoods infiltrate the minds of the unstable and create an emotion that is often vented in pure hatred and violence. Violence against the homeless, who are often mentally-ill, weak from sickness and age, or suffer some other social dilemma.

Criminal elements tend to think such public statements by elected officials is a green light to violence against the vulnerable homeless. Both Orlando and Las Vegas have in the past been named high on the list of cities most hostile to the homeless.

Attacks against the innocent poor, sometimes leading to death, and sometimes going unreported escalate because of the elementary-school mentality of reckless and incompetent mayors like Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman. People tend to let their emotions move them toward violence. More often than not this hatred of the homeless is due to inaccurate information expressed by political leaders.

Rather than create a peaceful, loving atmosphere among a community’s citizens, instead hatred and hostility is fostered. Such is not good leadership because it is at the exact opposite end of what a good leader in a civilized community is suppose to do.

No one is more right-winged ultra conservative than me. I am a stanch Pro-Lifer being the first to denounce any talk of abortion or any reason for it. I am a flatly against homosexual activities, not only do I oppose same sex marriage, but any union or activity involving homosexuals. But I have Pro-Choice friends, and I have gay friends, or I am friendly toward gays for the most part, or gay sympathizers. That is I am not hostile against them. I would feed or cloth these same individuals if the need be without any other individual being favored over them for any reason, and I have a reputation that supports this statement. For the most part, I will attack in my blogs and other writings the “groups” but seldom the “individual.” I am a strong opponent of illegal immigrants. But I’m probably kinder and more compassionate and outwardly friendly toward illegal immigrants in real life, in person, on a person-to-person basic on the streets and in normal day-to-day operations than most other citizens.

Why do I mention this? What does this have to do with Dyer and Goodman hating the homeless? Plenty.

I mention this to illustrate a point. I do not hate the females getting abortions, or even the doctors and nurses who perform them or assist in providing abortions. I do not hate the homosexual or the illegal immigrants, I hate what they do. I hate the behavior, not the person. I am a person who judges all by their behavior, not by who or what they are. In both Dyer’s and Goodman’s case, they both hate the persons--the homeless, the hungry.

Dyer’s and Goodman’s actions cause some in their communities to think they can go out and commit violence against the homeless. They stir the emotions of the citizens into going out and committing harm against a defenseless, often innocent people. An emotional stirring not much different than Adolf Hitler did in Germany to create the Nazi Empire. The same stirring that removes compassion among a people and replaces it with violent hatred.

More often than not those targeted in the Dyer-Goodman conspiracy are American Combat Veterans who offered their lives so that we could live and live free. Combat soldiers died in wars so that we wouldn’t wake up dead. Men who have seen the scars of war. Men who have emotional wounds that won’t heal. These are men who have had their friends die in their arms on the battlefields of foreign wars. Wars our politicians seem so damn eager to get us into time after time.

Yes, I support a strong defense, and I often agree with military intervention to free the world’s people, (not long-term occupation of another nation, but swift surgical military operations to eliminate the threat) but I also would be the first to desire peace and offer a chance at peace by keeping communication channels open at the bargaining table. But these soldiers come home from war and some never find a true home to settle down and the streets are their homes. Yes, those are the very men denied simple food and rest by Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman, authoritarians in a nation these men fought to keep free from oppression.

These are men the federal government sent to do its dirty and dangerous work of combat only to come home and have local governments run by Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman enslave them with oppression.

It is a pretty poor description of civilization when a community forbids compassionate people from feeding the hungry in a public park. It is a barbaric attitude that simians like Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman possess when they order their police force into a public park to arrest those feeding the hungry and the homeless. And by the way, when people feed, it is not just the homeless they feed. It is all hungry persons who come to be fed. Sometimes it is a laid-off worker who has a home but no food, so this is not just a homeless issue, but an issue about humanity, about humanitarianism, about hunger and about America’s foremost long-term social problem--poverty.

The requirement to be fed at one of these events put on, always by volunteers, not paid employees of any charity group, is that one is hungry, not that one is homeless.

Rather one is single, a couple, a family, hunger is the condition those who feed the hungry strive to end. Homelessness is secondary, Yet, homelessness is the center of attacks by guys like Dyer and Goodman.

* * *
Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando, Florida and Mayor Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas, Nevada have a lot in common. They are both mayors of local government run by primates. [Oscar Goodman continues as mayor under the disguise of his wife Carolyn, both mafia connected public officials. Carolyn’s salary will be twice as much as her husband’s--six figures--since the Las Vegas City Council voted last year to increase the salary of the mayor this year. July 6 2011 Oscar will officially step down and his wife will take his title as Mayor of Las Vegas.]

Oscar Goodman has caused the taxpayers of Las Vegas multimillions of dollars because of his anti-homeless hatred. From closing numerous public parks, to cutting down trees that could hide the homeless, to paying police forces to be aggressive toward the homeless, to paying lawsuits loss by the city and many other factors. Goodman has just spent too much money because of his mental problem with his hatred against the homeless. I know little about Dyer on this end, but I’m sure it would be the same.

What good is the advancement of the human society to become civilized and support civilization if we return to barbarianism? Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman certainly are barbaric.

We need to get the state and federal government involved to revoke the kind of inhumane behavior thugs like Buddy Dyer and Oscar Goodman administer. We need to legislate state and federal laws that would lock up inhumane characters like Dyer and Goodman and members of their city council for life.

We need to rid our society of city councils that legislate such barbaric city ordinances that are both unconstitutional and harmful to a community. We need to create laws that will de-bench or impeach such judges that rule in favor of such hypocrisy. Judges that create adverse human suffering from their decisions on the bench. Judges who deny the most basic of human rights.

All of the adverse groups in this nation have so-called rights, but a poor man who has fallen upon hard times and is insolvents is refused the right to eat or to sleep. A destitute woman without shelter can not be fed by those who care about her health and well-being when her only crime is that she is homeless and poor.

In Orlando cops take food out of the mouth of small hungry children. What kind of example are adults setting for America’s future?

There is a long, long road ahead. We can not accomplish something which has taken decades to get where we are. We can not unravel all the problems which have been with us since the birth of our nation. But unless we start walking that long road ahead we will never get to where we need to be going.

Shoutout Today at City Hall

2011-07-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Food Not Bombs Las Vegas Shoutout at Las Vegas City Hall Today at 5:00PM-6:00PM. Shoutout about Orlando's inhumane ban on feeding the hungry. No limit on how loud you can shout.

Remember in 2006 we had the same unconstitutional ordinance crafted by Mayor Oscar Goodman and the Las Vegas City Council until the federal courts struck it down and ruled the ban unconstitutional.

Food Not Bombs Las Vegas Website

Message from Sean D. Daily

2011-06-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

Here's contact information for Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. Please put this on any flyers or placards that you make for the Friday action. If you can't make it on Friday, take a few minutes out to call, e-mail or tweet Mayor Dyer.

Phone: 407.246.2221
Fax: 407.246.2842
E-mail: buddy.dyer@cityoforlando.net
...Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/orlandomayor
Twitter: @orlandomayor
City Twitter: @citybeautiful
Food Not Bombs Las Vegas Website

Action in Support of Food Not Bombs Orlando

2011-06-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 1 · 5:00pm - 6:00pm

City Hall
400 Stewart Ave. (at Las Vegas Blvd)
Las Vegas, NV
Created by Sean D. Daily, a Las Vegas Author
For Food Not Bombs Las Vegas

From Sean's Facebook Page:
We're going to meet outside City Hall to bring attention to the City of Orlando's ban on the sharing of food with hungry people and to show solidarity with Orlando Food Not Bombs members who have been arrested as a result.

We'll have signs and flyers available detailing the issues surrounding the ban and the subsequent arrests and will be asking people to let the Orlando mayor's office know how they feel about them. You are welco...me to participate in any way you feel comfortable or to simply be there to show your support. You are also free to bring your own signs, if you should feel the urge to do so. Please tell everyone you know and encourage them to spread the word to ensure that we have as big a turnout as possible!

It's especially important that we here in Las Vegas support those in Orlando. Back in 2006, our own city government passed the same sort of ban on offering food to hungry people. Many of the members of Food Not Bombs Las Vegas, as well as FNB members, who had traveled from other cities to support us, were ticketed and even arrested for the simple act of sharing food with someone in need.

Food Not Bombs Las Vegas Website

Adverse Weather Warning 28 June 2011!

2011-06-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Adverse Weather Warning 28 June 2011!

A series of weather warnings are in effect for the Las Vegas Valley issued by the National Weather Service. Please be advised the warnings consist of Fire Watch, Fire Warning, High Wind Advisory, Excessive Heat and Extreme High Temperatures reaching 107º or more.

Please monitor the Severe Weather Warnings notices found in the link at the top right of this page. Take precautions and shelter accordingly. Use common sense and extinguish cigarettes in proper areas of disposals to avoid wind blowing hot embers to dry brush.

msnbc weather warning posting

National Weather Service Las Vegas RED FLAG WARNING ISSUED

Maps of areas of Watches-Warnings and Advisories Issued

Alice's Bucket List

2011-06-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Alice Pyne

By Cliff Harrison

I have much to blog about. As I somewhat recover from my long illness, at least enough so I can blog, I find I have more to write than I have time for.

But there is one thing I want to get blogged and that is the story about Alice Pyne. Alice is a cute 15-year-old girl who is dying of terminal cancer. Four days ago Alice started a Google's Blogspot blog called Alice's Bucket List. It has already gone viral and is touching the hearts of caring people the world over. She already has nearly 10,000 followers and has raised £10,000 for cancer research.

On her Twitter page she tweets, "I'm crying ... we hit £10,000 for Cancer Research ... thanks x"

Last count she and her sister have raised 1,342% of their initial £1,000 goal.

The blog is as amazing as the girl who is the author of it.

Alice isn't only drawing attention to herself, she is crusading about cancer and encouraging people to contribute to cancer research projects and bone marrow registry.

My other blogs and writing can wait. I'll set aside those post to do my part in shining the light on Alice who shines the light on her inspirations. If you haven't already heard about Alice please take a moment and get familiar with her. Better yet send her an email or make a comment on her blog. She is absolutely thrilled the world is responding as it is and she said she and her sister have stayed up all night reading the messages.

There is one thing on her bucket list that is more humorist than serious. "To swim with sharks"?

No, little darling, you are not going to go swimming with the sharks. But almost everything else on your 2-Do List or Bucket List is doable.

In four short days thousands of comments have come her way. Let's hope they keep pouring in.

Alice, you will always be in my prayers.

God bless you little angel. May the wings of God's love never loose a feather.
Alice's Bucket List
Alice_Pyne (Alice's Twitter Page)
Milly Pyne's Page
msnbc News Report About Alice

The Dice Have Landed

2011-06-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Apparently it is all over, the next mayor of Las Vegas is projected to be the wife of the sitting mayor, the corrupt inhumane Oscar Goodman. Well, the people of Las Vegas will pay the price for their ingnorance and it will come in many folds. It will be paid in many more failures of our once great city.

Only a mere two and a half hours after the local polls closed KLAS-TV 8 News Now projected Goodman a clear winner gaining about 60% of the votes with Chris Giunchigliani only taking about 40% of the votes.

The future of Vegas is dim. It is not a city which can survive with a Goodman in the driver's seat, especally an ignorant one who didn't even know how to vote without assistance. If any corruption ever came across Las Vegas it is this one where a corrupt mob lawyer who has reached term-limits sends his submissive wife to play mayor while he rules in the background.

The people of Las Vegas have spoken. The parasites that infest Vegas, parasites that sit in their underwear and diapers while crapping themselves full, must be squirming for joy right about now and making their astonishing comments on the Las Vegas Sun scum pages. So be it.

This is a day darkness looms over Las Vegas, the once great city of neon lights.

Read the KLAS-TV 8 News Now Story
Full 2011 General Election Results for Clark County
The Newly Elected Mayor of Las Vegas Needed Help Voting Because She Didn't Know How To

Chris Giunchigliani Speaks About Homelessness in Las Vegas

2011-05-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

I took this photo during my last week of homelessness in June 2010

Tired Eyes

By Cliff Harrison

The following is a statement from Las Vegas mayoral candidate, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, in response to my communication with her.

I had sent her this message:

Chris;
Oscar Goodman and his administration was hostile toward the homeless and in many cases abusive and even illegal. How do you intend to treat the homeless and poor citizens of Las Vegas if you become mayor? What exactly would you do? --Cliff Harrison

She replied with this eloquent response:

Hi Cliff,
Thanks for your question. First, we should not lump all homeless into the same category. I’ve taught homeless children who were part of an entire family sleeping in one small car. I’ve known elderly whose apartments were torn down and converted and they lacked the money for a new deposit and the transportation to get there. I’ve met with homeless veterans suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), and I’ve gone out after midnight to assist in taking a census of the homeless. I know that some have mental disorders, are unable or unwilling to take their medications, and sometimes self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. Some simply just don’t want to be a part of “regular” society. And others are just like some of your neighbors—one paycheck away from economic collapse.

These different groups must be approached differently. But I believe each person must be treated as compassionately as possible. I do know that forcing homeless out of one area only forces them into another—it doesn’t solve the problem. For some, there may be no “solution.” For others, shelter, showers, and durable footwear make the difference. Working with the County Administrator to handle Social Security checks can help. Medical and psychological assistance is needed. We can’t allow people to use homeowners’ lawns as their toilets, but throwing the homeless into jail doesn’t solve the problem either—and it’s very costly to taxpayers.

We have to break this into parts, and coordinate activities to reduce duplication and increase coverage. I strongly believe that charitable groups can show us the way, and in this case government should often follow instead of lead. Government can fill a function by providing humane shelters from the stifling heat of summer, the cold of winter, and spread them out instead of clustering all of the homeless into a single area. I know it isn’t always popular, but as Mayor I will not bulldoze down a homeless encampment until there is an alternative available to the human beings who live there.

Hope that answers your question. Early voting is now underway, would love to have your vote.

Thanks for reaching out,
Chris

　I appreciate Commissioner Giunchigliani's prompt reply. As evident she applied careful thought and time in her response and I thought an accurate description of the homeless situation which means she could, as mayor, deliver an end to the atrocities of the homeless in the Las Vegas Valley.

Until election day we'll be discussing this issue but for now let's absorb this statement and judge what alternative we have if we do not elect Chris Giunchigliani as mayor. What do we have to look forward to with a Goodman win? Another 12 years of human rights violations? You've got the conch. It's your turn to speak.

The Unforgiven: Hopes for Forgiveness and Healing

2011-05-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

I feel I am well enough to make a series of statements in my blogs on the network in regards to the local race for mayor of the City of Las Vegas. I have missed many opportunities to discuss the events as they unfolded and failed to participate in active discussion due to my sickness as many of you are aware of. However, I believe I can complete these articles, commentaries or statements so that those who follow my various blogs through subscription notices or otherwise can be aware of the most recent development concerning homelessness--my communication with Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani.

(Chris Giunchigliani: june-kil-e-ah-nee )

The next post will show Commissioner Giunchigliani’s communication with me and why I now support her for mayor in the June 2011 Las Vegas election.

My previous words have not been kind about Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. We are at the extreme opposite ends of political convictions. I have been extremely outspoken in the past against Chris Giunchigliani for her work as a local politician, as a county commissioner, a board member of RTC, UMC, and several other issues concerning the community especially homelessness.

With the mindset of a manager, of which I’ve spent my life, I’m a chain of command type of guy. As a manager I’ve always held the conviction that whatever occurred below me was directly my business and responsibility. It was my fault rather the end result was good or bad. Whatever occurred above me was also my responsibility as in the duties of the powers of persuasion. It was my job to persuade my boss to adapt a certain level of administrative attitude or style in our management policy and practice.

Therefore, I always hold those at the top responsible for whatever happens below them. Lack of knowledge is not an excuse because it is their duty to know what is going on in their area of management. With that in mind, one ought to see clearly why I blame those in charge when something goes wrong--or praise the leaders when something goes right.

I’ve tried to forgive those in political power in the Las Vegas community for their unrighteousness against the community's homeless and poor. I have weaken in my own duties to God and try as I may, forgiveness is something I continue to struggle with. Forgiving them would be like asking the devil to burn a cross on my forehead. It’s the right sign but the wrong hand writing the signature.

I was severely hurt while homeless in Las Vegas and so were an awful lot of other people. I was abused. I was treated illegally and inhumanely by the local officials and my absolute rights were refused or taken away and those scars will never go away.

One formerly homeless individual who was my associate while I was homeless, and continues to be my friend today, Shay Elliot, in speaking about my decision on rather or not to sue the City of Las Vegas and the County of Clark (as well as individual politicians responsible and neglectful), said “Forgive them after you sue them.” As humorous as it sounds, it is a choice option. I am under no pressure to sue as I have plenty of time before the statue of limitation runs out and under legal authority, allowed by special circumstances, I could receive extensions on that statue of limitations. I’m not going to elaborate here. I’d rather forgive and see real change than to litigate something which is an evil caused by a handful of people.

The best solution is to change those at the top, the managers. In this case, Goodman. Then perhaps I can begin forgiving. But never, ever forgetting.

It’s hard to like bees while you are still being stung.

I would not publish something that was communicated and taken in private--that did not concern a public issue--without permission from the one I communicated with. Commissioner Giunchigliani has agreed to have this correspondence published on the network. I do so because I want others, those who have not yet voted, or who are still undecided who to vote for as the next mayor of Las Vegas to read her statement. I also do so for the many concerned people out there, particularly the Christians who work with the homeless to know Commissioner Giunchigliani’s position--her attitude.

I was impressed with Commissioner Giunchigliani response to my inquiry. I not only share that statement, but under the consideration I hereby endorse Chris Giunchigliani for mayor of Las Vegas and ask that you vote for her as well as suggest to your friends to do the same.

Any of us who are homeless, have been homeless or helped the homeless during Oscar Goodman’s administration personally know the atrocities that Goodman and his thugs have welded upon the innocent and often defenseless homeless citizens of this community.

Chris Giunchigliani offers a change, a real change to those evil acts Goodman’s reign has inflicted upon the ten’s of thousands of homeless people in his twelve-year dictatorship.

Although our political differences couldn’t be farther apart, in regards to the humanitarian issues involving the homeless and poor, Chris Giunchigliani and I seem to tightly bond with the same attitude. Sometimes one must make a sacrifice--give up something to gain something--and this is one of those times.

No matter what political, social, economical or religious issue you discuss, nothing, but nothing is more important than how a community treats its people once they have lost everything they ever owned. When you have nothing you have nothing to lose and when you have nothing to lose the powers that be in your community decides your destiny, your fate. The humanitarianism decides rather you live or die, sometimes literally if not symbolically.

I’m eager, as Commissioner Giunchigliani mentions in her statement to me, “win or lose” (her mayor race), of opening a line of communication and discussion to help solve problems of the homelessness in our community as well as issues concerning UMC and other community problems.

I’d much rather contribute to bring about change in a constructive way in this manner of communication than by the use of the courtrooms. I’d much rather compromise and forgive than carry the Ax of Hostility into yet another battle. Besides, doing so would be the Christian way. But before I put the ax down a brutal, relentless dictator--Oscar Goodman--must go. And that means his wife can not be mayor for we all know that Oscar would continue to be actively involved in Las Vegas politics and we can not allow that to happen.

We have a choice between two people, Goodman and Giunchigliani. We know without a shadow of a doubt where Goodman will lead us--not down the road we want to travel. Giunchigliani’s correspondence gives us a sincere hope for real change for the homeless and poor citizens of this community. A change for the better. A change for a breath of fresh air without the pungency of Oscar Goodman’s hostility.

So, join me in supporting Chris Giunchigliani as the next mayor of Las Vegas. Read her statement in Chris Giunchigliani Speaks About Homelessness in Las Vegas in the next post. It is a door that I knocked on. It is a door that has opened.

I wish I was in better health and could keep my blogs more up-to-date, but until then help make real change in the lives of the poor homeless souls in the Las Vegas Valley.

FB Announcement about FB games and such.

2011-05-14T04:21:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Hey Guys, I don’t want to break your little hearts but I don’t engage in any FB games or causes or anything like that. First it is unsafe. You compromise the integrity and security of your computer. You most often must switch to http instead of the safer mode of https. Not to insult you, but personally I think it is a big waste of time and just like FWs on e-mail I generally delete them unopened since they are often vessels for hackers, viruses, cyber terrorists and just plain nonsense. So don’t be offended, that’s just my opinion. Enjoy what you like, but I’m not climbing up on that bridge that everybody else is jumping off of. In other words, thanks but no thanks. Please don't feel insulted, it's just that FB games are not for me.

Some people love guns, other’s don’t. I love guns so long as it is my hand the peacemaker is resting in.

I also eliminate most groups since much of it is almost like spam and isn’t very personal or sociable. Viruses piggyback on the group's page, especially if the cybercriminal is hostile to the group's purpose.

People need to get back to the basics and send a real note or message to someone they are friends with or fond of.

And one last note: It took me nearly sixty years to learn and develop correct spelling and grammar usage and I get highly insulted by cyber programming that allows ignorance that tends to erase centuries of education and use the poorest forms of literacy and communications. The education all the liberals at the Animal Farm Academy of Higher Education are squealing about protecting from budget cuts by sensible leaders are proven to be unneeded in the cyber world due to the ignorance of programmers.

Facebook is among the worst of offenders and I find it extremely difficult to remain a users.

I tried to post this yesterday on Facebook and had all kinds of problems. Since then a wave of viruses has hit FB. That's why I avoid games and groups. I'm tired of wasting my time trying to get Facebook to work. So, I posted here.

Also, if you look down by the Chat Box you will notice we have continuously been victimized by spammers, mostly Islamic/Muslim spam. They picked up my e-mail and websites from Facebook. I can track these thugs and not only pinpoint where they are operating from, that is what country, city and section of town, but I track everything about their computers. I have successfully managed to get several attackers knocked off the air and their sites closed down and I am now waiting for the latest attackers to be removed from the Internet. They often pop back up under a different server, but I soon track them again. There are a few servers who are prone to harbor cyber terrorists and fail to shut these malicious systems down. Unfortunately there needs to be federal and state legislation to regulate these harborers of international cyber terrorists. More on that later, but send me no games, please.

Anti-Terrorist Vehicle
Foxtrot Alpha Charlie Echo Bravo Oscar Oscar Kilo Foxtrot Alpha Charlie Echo Lima India Foxtrot Tango

Happy Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to the World's Moms!

Broken Chains Outreach

2011-05-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

A Las Vegas Homeless Ministry

The home page of Broken Chains Outreach reads: "We do a Wed night outreach at Myron Levitt park {Old J.C. Park} on the corner of Sahara and Eastern Every Wed night at 5:30 pm. We usually have 25-40 in attendance. We do a bible study and bbq for the homeless and everyone is welcome".

Please visit their website for more information, pictures and videos.

Broken Chain Outreach.com

Rescue Mission Reopens Under New Name

2011-04-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

By Cliff Harrison

Las Vegas Rescue Mission which has been closed for renovation reopens under a new name, Edward and Beatrice Compton Men’s Shelter and Home. They have added 70 beds expanding from 46 or 49. (That name will never stick.)

Like all of the so-called homeless shelters in Las Vegas, the Rescue Mission was anything but. These glorified homeless shelters are actually rehabilitation centers and favor those who wish to join their programs because of addictions.

I doubt if there will be any difference now that two people have their names attached to the mission, something that was forbidden by IRS codes for 501(c)(3)s when I last checked. Maybe it is not a 501(c)(3). I do know they never used to take any government money.

I will say this, the Las Vegas Rescue Mission didn't help me in time of need or thousands of other homeless folks in Nevada.

I was turned away for help because I was not addicted to drink, drugs, gambling or any other vice and I was a Christian. I was told, "We can't help you," by both the brother team operation manager and Pastor Jeff.

It is what it is. It remains to be seen what these new faces of the Mission will provide. I wonder if they will let the homeless folks use the rest rooms or if they will still be forced to use the outside portable toilets without hand-washing abilities.

As far as I'm concerned Las Vegas does not have a homeless shelter. Sorry for the bitterness, but that is what you learn when you are homeless in Las Vegas. You also learn these so-called homeless shelters have no clue about Jesus Christ that they are so often proud to hang their name upon.

[This commentary was also published in the Christian River Website.]

Happy Easter, Everybody!

2011-04-23T05:40:00.001-07:00

Gail Sacco on the Forgotten Voice

2011-04-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

While I was homeless I had intended to write an article, (actually I did write it but didn't publish it since it got misplaced as homeless things do) about three women in Las Vegas that withstood the challenges of the anti-homeless crowd of Las Vegas. Those three women are my heroines as well as the heroines for many other.

Gail Sacco, a long-time activist for the homeless in Las Vegas and the editor of the Forgotten Voice wrote the following in her Facebook page and I asked her if I could repost it here. [I edited slightly so the links would open in another window.]

Amanda Haymond, Linda Lera-Randle El and Gail Sacco, the three Marys of Las Vegas. Amen!

Letter to student of University of Warsaw
By Gail Sacco

Back in 2007 Amanda Haymond, a college student founded the Forgotten Voice to be a voice for the homeless - mostly for people living in Las Vegas, Nevada and Southern Nevada. But also for the people living in the whole state of Nevada. continued...

After 7 months, Amanda resigned because it was too much work for her.

I was asked to come on board to try to keep the newspaper going.

We just did not have enough donations to pay the printer, and not enough help to ever get the vendor program going.

Regarding, "I guess that in Las Vegas there is a lot of rich people which give big donation to vendor."

Most of the rich who give big donations give to programs for the children (or for animals) and not for homeless adults.

Everyone at the Forgotten Voice was a volunteer. No paid staff. Printing costs were about $400.00 a month paid with donations.

All of Forgotten Voice newspapers from March 2007 through October 2009 were printed issues. Once a month we printed 1100 copies and distributed them throughout the Las Vegas Valley to businesses, coffee shops, libraries, parks, and social service centers where the homeless and non-homeless could get them for free.

The paper was a way to help the homeless and poor find services that were available for them. But also an avenue for the homeless to speak out on political issues or whatever else they wanted to talk about.

All articles were written by the homeless, formerly homeless, or homeless advocates. We would publish their stories, poems, complaints, fiction, non-fiction, and artwork. The paper was also helpful because it would expose some of the inhumane practices of certain government agencies and shelters.

Also in the newspaper about every six months, we would have a "Gone But Not Forgotten" article to honor those who have died on the streets here in Las Vegas, NV. Here are a couple of examples.

Gone But Not Forgotten 2009.pdf

Gone But Not Forgotten 2010.pdf

We still have the Forgotten Voice website at http://www.forgottenvoice.org/ where we have the Forgotten Voice "Archives" which can be viewed for free.

I never had the time to work full-time on getting the vendor program going. For the past few years I have been a full-time unpaid advocate for the homeless and poor. We try to help them with jobs, housing, food, social services, health issues, etc.

The vendor idea here is not completely dead. I may try to get it going sometime in the future. It will be a lot of work and I do not know if I have all that time to do it.

We also have a lot of legal issues here in Las Vegas.

Examples at the bottom of this letter.

The local governments do not make it easy for the homeless. Having vendors selling the newspaper here in a tourist city will definitely invite problems from the city politicians.

So here in Las Vegas, it is not just getting the vendor program up and going. It would be a lot of work to monitor the police harassment and undeserved arrests of the homeless.

Cannot think of anything else at the moment except to say that we still have the Forgotten Voice website at http://www.forgottenvoice.org/. And we will be posting another "Gone But Not Forgotten" probably on July 1, 2011.

Thank you for your inquiry of the Forgotten Voice. Letters like yours give me the incentive to look over the vendor program again, and possibly get it going sometime in the future.

Please write again if you have any further questions.

Thanks,

Gail Sacco, homeless advocate

Law used to thwart homeless helpers targeted

Federal judge tosses Las Vegas ban on feeding homeless in parks

Putting the "Public" back in Public Parks

City begins revising rules that affect the homeless

Las Vegas adopts new rules for homeless in parks

Thank you Gail for all you have done for the homeless in this town despite the opposition. And Amanda and Linda, too! The war is not over until the last battle has been fought.

Sins of Sin City

2011-04-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

A lady walks along Boulder Highway, a route prostitutes are known to stroll. She could be approached and harassed by passing motorists mistaking her as a street walker.

By Cliff Harrison

A follow up to discussion on my Facebook wall…

Trial for man accused of raping and forcing Canadian tourist into prostitution goes to jury... What happens in Vegas....tourist should know.
Las Vegas Sun News Report

There is a massage parlor on every corner in Vegas. Most of them are “legal” businesses, fronts for prostitution run by organized crime.

When I came to Vegas half the huge telephone books were ads placed by escort services.

Every bar, hotel, motel and casino in Sin City has its girls selling their bodies. You could fill a dump truck full with the discarded smut cards the illegal immigrants hand out on the Strip.

Drive along Boulder Highway and see the number of hookers trolling, much easier to identify than those on the Strip and every street in Vegas has “working” girls. Some enjoy their lifestyle and want to engage in it freely. And some don’t.

But it is false to think because a girl works in one of those environments or even in one of the legal establishments like the Pahrump brothels or elsewhere in Nevada she is not held captive against her will and physically harmed. Some are and some are not.

"Pipelines" move girls from other states in the United States, Canada, Asia, south of our border, and many other locales to Vegas, a major hub for human trafficking and child prostitution.

Using the money, illegal money, the girls earned a pimp can easily afford the best defense lawyers to get him off completely or with a very light sentence. It’s a money game. Those with money win. Those without money lose.

Societies failure to take action against the pimp, not the girl or the customer which is the norm, but the pimp, is why the “victimless crime” continues in our society.

In the Netherlands, in Amsterdam’s legal red-light district, people think the girls do it at their own free will when in fact organize crime controls most of the girls… and the same is here in Vegas.

Prostitution is big money for the Granddaddy pimp, the biggest pimp of all, the city.

Why is the city the biggest pimp? Because the city collects or sets the fines from prostitutes and then releases her so she can go back out on the streets and make enough money to pay for those fines--it's called the revolving door.

Drugs is a very effective influence that attracts the girls and traps them in the dead-end situation of prostitution like a mouse attracted to cheese on the mousetrap.

[Note as of today I am finished with Facebook. Facebook doesn’t allow simple copy and paste, an elementary and standard practice with web technology. It is a substandard company I am no longer going to waste my time on. I tried to copy and paste this simple article to my Facebook notes and it can not be done, just like you can not usually copy and paste to a comment… so STUPID. I’m done with these stupid technology companies that create more headaches than they solve. This wasn't the only reason for my decision to leave Facebook, it has been a continued dislike to the changes Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and others have made that I am no longer interested in being one of their users. Period. There is a growing dissatisfaction with technology companies.]

BREAKING NEW

2011-03-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

BEWARE!
McAfee anti-virus company and computer security protection service has issued an urgent announcement. The company announced to its virus-protection customers it has detected a surge of scammers using the Japanese earthquake as a base for stealing money. The advisory warns against donating money to unknown sources. Please be alert to scams related to the Japanese tragedy.

Details from McAfee's Blog

Homeless U.S. Veterans

2011-02-17T18:44:00.000-08:00

The following is an e-mail received from National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) concerning a released HUD & VA notice/report about homeless U.S. Veterans.

February 15, 2011

Editor: Anna Blasco (mailto:info@naeh.org)

Spotlight On...

On Thursday, Feb. 10 the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) released Veteran Homelessness: A Supplemental Report to the 2009
Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress. According to the report nearly 76,000 veterans were homeless on a given night in 2009 while roughly 136,000 veterans spent at least one night in a shelter during that year. Key findings in the report include:

* During a 12-month period in 2009, an estimated 136,000 veterans-or about 1 in every 168 veterans-spent at least one night in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program;

* Veterans are 50 percent more likely to become homeless compared to all Americans and the risk is even greater among minority veterans living in poverty;

* One-half of homeless veterans are located in just four states: California (26 percent), Florida (9 percent), New York (8 percent), and Texas (7 percent); and

* Sheltered homeless veterans are far more likely than non-veterans to be homeless alone rather than part of a family household; 96 percent of veterans are individuals compared to 66 percent in the overall homeless population.

Download the Report (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosVQSj8qwf_4oswpz3gMvyykAgnM2_JwIs_Ub1E23n3U0TNeFbYXO-14ACvElMpY5cNcmT_E2m4-IPu3g4xk5T9s-fIQM-3UFbkBropDm9z5KiLMAxXq_aiJrjJgRFk-Owmi_6eTVI_OG6hQSHDxN-anMLLr17EIlyE=)

In This Issue: HUD and VA Issue New Report on Veteran Homelessness
* Hill Update
* Alliance Publishes New Comprehensive Advocacy Toolkit
* The Alliance Concludes its National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness

------------------------------------------------------------Hill Update

House Announces FY 2011 Appropriations Proposal

On Friday, Feb. 11, the House Appropriations Committee released its funding proposal for the remainder of FY 2011. The proposal included $100 billion in cuts across the federal budget, and included largely flat funding for many homeless assistance programs. Among funding levels for many other important programs, the House's proposal includes:

* $1.865 billion for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants - level funding compared to FY 2010 levels, and $335 million less than the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding bill that passed the House and was proposed in the Senate;

* $116 million for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) Programs - level funding compared to FY 2010 levels, and $10 million less than the most recent Senate proposal;

* No new HUD-VASH (HUD - Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) vouchers - 10,000 fewer than were included in the most recent House and Senate proposals; and

* No funding for the Housing and Services for Homeless Persons Demonstration - which was included in the HUD funding bill that passed the House and was proposed in the Senate.

The federal government is currently being funded through a stopgap funding measure that expires on March 4. The House is expected to debate, amend, and pass the FY 2011 proposal this week. The Senate is then expected to consider its own version of the legislation. Congress may not finalize any funding legislation prior to the end of the current stopgap measure. To avoid a government shutdown under this scenario, Congress would have to pass another short-term stopgap measure. More information about the House's draft bill is available here (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosXXATotJxY630Fti1jH0D7EJ6WRAAgGhUPU4z9NQBARRs8JbdLa4bG0kPU7HRqLmWHTHEf3fUelXp80JrL_O4H6Mk530xV9wZA_MmV5A_WcFP-FVEa17VnD30V20HaSUCLtZSlg4hJpqI-5NUc5ShoVmdIR0aM-o2gczRcqy2R235YS70_eYSvELkmmLaFfXtkOed_SG5W1hw_bjARtaC0J ).

Administration Releases FY 2012 Budget Proposal

Yesterday, the Administration released its FY 2012 Budget Proposal. Although Congress has not finished work on the budget for the current fiscal year (FY 2011), the Administration typically releases its proposal for the upcoming fiscal year in early February. The Administration's FY 2012 Budget Proposal included increases for several key programs related to homelessness, including:

* $2.372 billion for HUD's McKinney-Vento program, including $50 million for housing service coordinators;

* 10,000 new HUD-VASH vouchers;

* 7,500 new vouchers for the Housing and Services for Homeless Persons Demonstration; and

* $121 million for Runaway and Homeless Youth Act programs.

Today, the Alliance hosted a webinar to review the details of the Administration's FY 2012 Budget Proposal. Additional information on the Budget Proposal and materials from the webinar are posted here (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosXJ1qlReHb82e3QGfYvGpSYptEiZCSGjZeu9meLAK3_XO3-DMeLyQEwnBKpd42FVHWnUdDl33zjR8kcJWvlgPKivw69e5yVj9uGcRM4dmsJkSX1SHwZUpJ48VZZ7eN6TcLfhxe5dSUDFcjHE1COs55mrxZA5oOtcBI =).Administration's FY 2012 Budget Proposal - http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosWyBW4TuUuVyxd6Tvs_mBihcrlZmEz7lxYn8h-nxIpPIGKo0HKDD5jFgnahUbwnG7BD3ssJpLjXMXl6nuROdLC0eZ1h9fQFlbZS0RaC4YwATEMQx6A_IvCNyhu5KnDtheI=

------------------------------------------------------------Alliance Publishes New Comprehensive Advocacy Toolkit

Today, in conjunction with the release of details about the House's FY 2011 funding bill and the Administration's FY 2012 Budget Proposal, the Alliance has released Using Advocacy to End Homelessness: A Toolkit for Understanding and Conducting Advocacy.

The toolkit includes detailed descriptions of how to execute several advocacy strategies, as well as helpful tips, sample materials, and real-life example materials. For more information on how to use the toolkit please contact Amanda Krusemark at akrusemark@naeh.org (mailto:akrusemark@naeh.org).

Complete Advocacy Toolkit - http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosWjVOdgYFeVta2CGEOQ_B7RbdETZ3CmoaSpN8rWEge_RL-RabjJgkTJYgsiLXPq4Qqhm-xXqCF7Pp6yYdyoeAsyBhvBY5OcNLKjpjlUIKzpeXgaHol_G55obVUsWQP8kuQVOLu0sBz5zL0vWpf9mKwQ1tLzfrBTr54=

------------------------------------------------------------The Alliance Concludes its National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness

Last week, the Alliance hosted the National Conference on Ending Family Homelessness. Plenary speakers included Dr. Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. The Alliance also hosted, for the very first time, a one-day clinic on rapid re-housing, a research panel focused on homeless children moderated by Barbara Poppe, Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and a meet-the-Alliance breakfast roundtable during which conference participants interacted with Alliance staff.

------------------------------------------------------------UPCOMING EVENTS

National Conference on Ending Homelessness
July 13 - 15, 2011

Annual Awards Ceremony
July 14, 2011

More Information

- http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosWvAIS3ckWut9Vm3SzN-0ymRRVcDv7-CrfoND5UbTcfq6vTybWsUW8bFLwpyQ7euZzCDXV3ejzyJj_y16kdSYsj8F0lp4LmEQh3gU3EU2b1I0gJ4gQGshCMRBbbW77srLw7JrsKk_DpYWofcj-OjsZR8zBV2DpoN35R6fkrT7w1GgyhgjQoV7x_

------------------------------------------------------------JOIN US!Become a fan! The Alliance is online: on
Facebook, on Twitter, on our blog, and on our
website! Be sure to join the Alliance's online
community (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosXUapik9QFY9L4w9_g-49oPL_EXPHlBI9CiO0pw5yf47olLmlORhGZEL3CZmVnqs-m7WLce0PFdfA-1Csph1GZV69hPFXvRuSAsh8wgxZvqJO5uyDNxgy164tlG5W9pbCpdZBxSepLqDBKHvCqsBHtsTecJD5hCkHw =) and stay up-to-date with
homelessness and housing information.

------------------------------------------------------------NEED HELP?Visit the Center
for Capacity Building (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=jzu96nbab&et=1104531879099&s=16661&e=001OW0yAZbeosWbbg4nU3cSx6LacT4tj-wtfjQNsfsVedxRBqxuV7wZ5-DiF3LNHfm4o2sQV5NcJLFBx_oTuEqESvm3U57hi1be6M99bTayxeZ9AYtP1a3PFIM_HXjBHgcJGwVrf3d7gQynw7x3uvDQu4hR-ZCgKEnp-QUe_JNpBn6wOAa5gUlR-uNjDR25yXZQ7h2YbR6A7rk =) to learn more about
the ways the Center can help your community
end homelessness. $

http://www.endhomelessness.org/

This email was sent to riverorganization.org@gmail.com by info@naeh.org.

National Alliance to End Homelessness 1518 K Street, NW, Suite 410 Washington DC 20005

Bag Lunches

2011-02-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

Feeding the Hungry for Only 85 Cents Each

By Cliff Harrison

I fed 100 people on $85 and had left over food supplies. I could have fed 200 people on $85, but I chose to fill the hungry bellies so there would be no hunger pangs after I left.

Each bag lunch contained two baloney and cheese sandwiches and four cookies. A bottle of water was also provided to the hungry homeless folks in Las Vegas. I made my deliveries along one of my normal, established routes; “D” Street, “A” Street and Foremaster Lane in Downtown Las Vegas. I provided two, not one, sandwiches and four cookies to each person. I could have provided one sandwich and two cookies and fed 200 people instead of 100, but I chose to fill up those I did feed.

While the Food Bank Bandit over at Three Squares knocks down a $212,000 a year salary I could have fed a quarter-of-a-million hungry people with $212,500!

If I fed the homeless one sandwich and two cookies, with $212,500 I could have fed a half-million hungry people.

Excessive salaries like that of the Las Vegas Food Bank Bandit is not charity, it is unacceptable greed.

All matieral to provide the bag lunches for the homeless were purchased at the local 99¢ Only Store. Butterball brand baloney was used and premium swiss cheese. Almond Windmill cookies and creme-filled chocolate cookies were provided. The water was on sale for a case of 24 for $2.99, meaning about 12¢ per bottle.

It's not that hard to feed America's hungry if we bypass the evil people who steal in the name of charity. Do-it-yourself charity, Direct-to-the-Streets the Christian River way is the only way to do charity. Put your donations directly into the hands you intended them to go.

Rhema Marvanne

2011-01-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Amazing Grace

God bless her!

Спасибо!

2011-01-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

Russian Immigrants Discover Life After the Circus
By Cliff Harrison

Спасибо! Means thank you! in Russian. And the writer of the story I'm writing about deserves a big Спасибо!

The comment I left in the Las Vegas Sun told the newspaper and its readers that for the first time ever I agreed 100% with the comments made by all of the other readers.

There was a story in the Las Vegas Sun. A rare story about rare people who had or have rare jobs. It was even written by a rare writer in that this writer used to write for Soviet Union news in Russia.

This is a story about Russian and Ukrainian immigrants who perform circus acts for Las Vegas casino shows. The story tells about their lives growing up and working in Ukraine and Russia and it tells about how they quietly came to America and left the former Soviet Bloc behind.

I couldn't even begin to tell the story like this eloquent writer, Kim Palchikoff as she covers this fascinating story that all who read agreed was truly a masterpiece.

There are many Ukrainian and Russian immigrants living in Las Vegas. There are several who are homeless, I've befriended many of them. This story isn't about the homeless, but it is about some of the immigrants losing their jobs in the Las Vegas shows. Some found other jobs and others maybe aren't so lucky.

This is one story you don't want to miss. It may be the only story the Las Vegas Sun ever printed worth reading.

Russian Immigrants Discover Life After the Circus

Are You Saved?

2011-01-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

An Orthodox Christian Answer

Ted Williams Gets Voice-for-Kraft Job

2011-01-08T05:54:00.000-08:00

Homeless Man Lands a Great Job
By Cliff Harrison

We're all excited about Ted Williams landing his job with Kraft. Ted has a number of job offers since he gained instant popularity as an overnight sensation when he was video taped standing near an expressway in Ohio with a sign panhandling.

He admitted to his past mistakes and negative activities right up front in the one minute and thirty-eight second video. He also mentioned that he hoped someone out there would give him a chance to return to his job as a radio announcer and voice-over artist. His wish, and prayers came true and the world got to meet Mr. Ted Williams, the man with the Golden Radio Voice.

Like Susan Boyle, mega seconds after he opened his mouth the world knew he had a gift. He wasn't lying about that.

Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page.

He now has a job being the "Official" voice for Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. And nothing could be better, since Kraft Macaroni & Cheese is a food consumed most by the poor as I've showed in a number of Poor Boy's Kitchen entries. For the $212,000 the local Food Bank Bandit gets for running a monopoly on charity food supply, I could supply at least 400,000 homeless, hungry people with Kraft Macaroni & Cheese dinners, complete with buttered bread and milk.

Ted has also a new home to look forward to since the Cleveland Cavaliers has announced they are offering him his own home.

Here is a sample of what is to come...

I intend to cover Ted in many of the Christian River network of sites since this is a classic example of the wasted talent that is out there in homeless land. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are homeless who could become very productive in society if only someone would give them a chance in what they do best.

The bottom line is, Ted Williams, who was homeless only three days ago, credits God for his success. And it was God who not only showed Mr. Ted Williams the miracles He can perform, but the world, too.

These are the kind of people Las Vegas City Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, and Clark County Commission Chairman, Rory Reid, and Metro Sheriff Doug Gillespie, and mayor wannabe, Larry Brown, Gary Reese and many other demons in the Las Vegas Valley, has stepped on and continue to step on.

More Coverage at Homeward Bound

I can only think of one more thing that would top Ted's performance or Susan Boyle's performance and that is for Ted to introduce Susan during a stage performance.

I've always said, "It isn't the first horse out of the starting gate that counts, it's the first horse over the finish line!"

"Let the Seabiscuits run the race and the Seabiscuits will win the race!"

Missed Opportunity

2011-01-06T23:39:00.000-08:00

What's He Doing Homeless?
By Cliff Harrison

Yesterday, while I was preparing my videos on YouTube and processing them on the blogs, I checked out a video that was placed in a list with mine about homelessness. It drew my attention. Here it is:

The Original YouTube Video That Made Ted Williams Famous

A 1:38 minute video made Ted Williams famous, more famous than the guy who helped make him famous. I watched and listened to this video a number of times. Then I listened to it without watching it and yes, he has the perfect "Golden Radio Voice."

Only 944 viewings when I posted this. Originally posted by philly2phillysite. Like Susan Boyle, God is showing the world voices of angels. They both have The Gift!

God bless philly2phillysite whoever you are! Thanks for the discovery and showing the world what homeless people can do. You are the unsung hero!

When I watched this video and heard his voice, I asked myself, "What's this guy doing homeless?" He certainly did have a wonderful "radio" voice and I was happy to hear him say that he once had a drinking and drug problem but he ended those negative activities in his life and turned to God.

This time he has favors with God...

Then this morning I was surprised and pleased to find this article and video on MSN and then the Today show. I missed my opportunity for not sharing the original YouTube video link last night before the Today Show copy of the original video, but now that's okay. Now Ted Williams has many promises ahead of him. For that I am happy.

Living proof America and the world is wasting talent--the homeless of the world. Everybody deserves a home, or at least a shelter.

Ted Williams on the Today Show

YouTube

The man with the "Golden Radio Voice" has found miracles from God. He met his mother he hasn't seen in 20 years and the report says he has job offers coming in from all over the place.

Great job, Ted Williams!

Classic example of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of talented homeless persons in the world forgotten by society. One reporter, a Christian, stopped and gave money to Ted Williams and then after a couple of weeks filmed him. The rest is history....

"Ted Williams Homeless" Search
Ted Williams Homeless Yesterday-Famous Today!

God Bless!

07 January Update on Ted Williams
Lost Remote Report

The Original Source
Columbus Dispatch videographer Doral Chenoweth III
Dispatch.com

My Public Comment to Demon Goodman!

2011-01-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

I Lost My Temper
By Cliff Harrison

Last night while reading the Las Vegas Sun, I lost my temper. I was far more raged about a public statement that Goodman made. More enraged, if that is possible, than the Food Bank Bandit stealing $212,000 in donation money from the local food-bank charity.

After reading this article I made the comment,Goodman Potential Loss of Fedearl Earkmarks for Las Vegas Stinks-Mayor to Congress: Cutting federal funds to homeless is ‘sin’

My Three Cents

“Cutting Federal funds to homeless is sin” ????

You gutless demon, Goodman!! Off and on for four years I was homeless and lived under your NAZI regime. You criminal! You belong executed, not just imprisoned, for what crimes you did and STILL DO against the homeless in Las Vegas. You and Rory Reid, and the Clark County Social Services and the criminal sheriff, Larry Brown, Gary Reese, Chris Giunchigliani... you are all a bunch of corrupt gangsters!

You all belong behind bars in Federal prison for the rest of your lives,
or given the same fate Saddam and Mussolini got, you dictators. What gull you
have to name the very people you and your NAZIS have stomped on your entire
public life.

People are dead and seriously injured for the rest of their lives because of you and your scumbags.

What about the City lawsuits against Gail Sacco, an innocent woman with compassion and YOU and your scumbags had her arrested and tried to have feeding the homeless a crime? Hell has a place for everyone of you, you demonic disciples of Lucifer.

Many in this community are not much better. You allowed it, you endorsed it and you
embraced it.

I still have a year left and could very well see everyone of you in court for the damage you did to me and others. Don't laugh, because I have enough on you scumbags to bankrupt the City of Las Vegas and the County of Clark and to make you pay for the rest of your lousy lives! I'm tempted to do just that! God forbid if I do!

You haven't heard the end from the Federal Government, that I can promise you!

Cliff Harrison, my real name! Someone who is NOT afraid of you!

I dumped my piss can on one criminal's head, Oscar Goodman! For those of you who are too young to know what a "piss can" is, in the old days on the farm we didn't have modern-day plumbing, we had outhouses. Well, if you had to go real bad, you went outside, no matter how cold or dark it was, to use the outhouse. But under the bed was a "piss can" if you needed to do that during the night. And then in the morning grandmother would collect all of the smaller piss cans and dump them into a bigger bucket or "piss pot" (you've heard the expression) and then take it outside for disposal. I grew up just outside of town, we had modern plumbing, but every weekend and every summer as children we spent our time on the farm. Thus, my duel-citizenship, "city-slicker" and "county boy" or "farmer".

On the farm, more so than in the city, you learned to control yourself, in the most sincere sense of the word. Now, if you would excuse me just for today, as I vent and use bad language, I make no apology for using the term "Piss Can" nor for what I said publicly to Demon Goodman, or for the fact to mention that I know a lot of homeless people who are just waiting for Oscar Goodman to die so they can go and piss on his grave every night. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!

I'm doing my own "rehabilitation" thing by increasing my weekly visits to Church. The preceding statements and remarks are not very Christian, are they? Precisely why I need a closer connection with God, Church people, and fellowship.

Real Christians are helping me with the conflict of having lived a disabled and injurious life under Nazi Oscar Goodman and his Gestapo Storm Troopers. I have much hate and anger inside me from the fact I know that illegal activity continues against the homeless and poor citizens of this community as the Axis of Evil, Goodman, Reid and Gillespie exercise power.

The one thing that is good, although the corrupt Sheriff who nearly lost to the wonderful Laurie Bisch was reelected, Reid lost his bid for governorship, thus lost his seat as Clark County Commission Chairman, and Goodman is lame duck, in his final weeks as mayor of Las Vegas. He will however remain active in his involvement with Las Vegas politics and that is why we need to send an urgent message, he nor his kind is welcomed in our great city of Las Vegas.

As my good friend, and long-time homeless advocate, Gail Sacco, has stated in her blogs and Facebook posts, we need to keep an eye on the up coming political race of mayor for the City of Evil. One of the best ways we can do that is remain extremely vocal in our comments to the local Newspapers, like the Las Vegas Review Journal, The Las Vegas Sun and The Las Vegas Tribune. We must remain standing strong against the henchmen of Oscar Goodman for speaking out since there are a great many in our community, especially the Christian Conservatives, who are unaware of the illegal and inhumane acts of the current city and county political regimes. Every day I and others make more people aware, people who join our sides.

As most activists are, we need to remain so and more active in our legislator process, on all levels, local, state and federal. We not only need to contribute to the writing of new laws, but also in the selection of the lawmakers. That is vital to the survival of the homeless humanitarian issues.

Eventually, in time the Church will heal me of my frustrations, hatred and anger from being a victim of illegal, unconstitutional act, aggressive, violent, and hostile actions against the homeless and poor citizens of Las Vegas under the helm of Demon Goodman and others. Eventually.

I've held off on suing the City of Evil and the County of Clark, as I struggle internally with God's message that we ought to forgive. I ended up homeless as the result of a New York attorney wiping out my entire life savings after the death of love ones in which I was the estate executor. I forgave in that case. I've been forgiving in many cases where others would have sued and gained a rich life. But I forgave, as Jesus tells us to forgive.

But, until that day, I'll keep dumping my "piss can" on Oscar's head.

A few of my homeless friends have contributed to my thinking as I continue to debate rather or not I ought to sue. And reading the public comments in the Las Vegas Sun by locals gives me no more comfort as I often read hostile and hateful remarks from people about the homeless who have no clue what the homeless are going through. My homeless friends say, "Forgive them after you sue them."

And, I might just do that.

Shavers, Shaving Cream & Something to Eat

2011-01-05T23:35:00.000-08:00

Buying Personal Care Products for the Homeless
By Cliff Harrison

Buying personal care products or hygiene products for the homeless is nowhere near as complicated as one might think. You do need to pay several visits to a number of stores and pharmacies, however in order to find the correct products at the correct price.

Once you make the discovery, continue to make your purchases at the same location and tell others so they can join. Often if a consumer product is not being moved fast enough a store will eliminate them to make room for faster moving merchandise.

In this video, the shaving cream is a 2 oz travel-size container in the red packaging. These fit perfect in hygiene kits for the backpack. When I was in the UMC hospital last year, I was given even smaller containers, from a medical supply company. I wish I had the price list for these as they are perfect, even better than the Gillette shaving cream. It has better foaming for shaving.

These Gillette trial size foam shaving cream sell for 4 for only $5 or $1.25 each, not bad at all considering the good it will do the homeless.

I also get the gel type at the 99 Cents Only Store of which saving gel and shampoo and body wash gel that come in a twin pack for only 99 cents resulting in each unit being less than 50 cents. The gel shaving cream and the gel body wash is almost identical ingredients. I used to carry them and break them up in the car as I was passing them out, but some homeless people would them and want both.

My telling them that they were identical fell on deaf ears, so now I break them apart at home and back them into personal care kits and they are passed out that way, some get shaving gel and some get body wash, but either can be used for both.

Please mute music player below.

Airlines and the airport TSA will normally allow a 2 0z liquid limit, so these products are ideal for traveling and for providing the homeless. They last for several days, perhaps even a couple of weeks or more. Note in the video the large, 11oz cans that were on sale for only $1 each. I bought two, and those will last me an entire year or close to it. They were $2.59 regular price, so that's a full $1.59 saving or $3.18 for two. You can't beat $1 a can.

Albertsons always seem to have the best prices year-round for razors and shaving cream. especially brand name.

The triple-blade razors are a real plus. If you can find them on sale for under or near one dollar each, then you are well advised to get them. The ones shown in the video are the BIC Advance 3 and a generic kind that is even less with more shavers.

Good three-blade shavers can last a homeless guy an entire month or more. These are not the cheap disposable shavers, that cut and nick and wear out and become dull rapidly. These triple-blades razors will continue to cut even a course beard for an extended period of time.

So if you step up to the plate and purchase these 2 oz cans of shaving foam for $1.25 each and three-blade razors for around a buck, and put them in a sandwich baggy with your church or club's business card, Christian River card, and/or small prayer sheets you have done a great deed for the homeless and will likely keep him supplied from two weeks to a month or more. For another buck you can throw in a deodorant stick like the previous post mentions.

The homeless will love you for this. In Vegas there is no public place to wash up at, and many homeless are arrested for the simple want of using the public rest room to clean up at. You'd be surprise how hostile Las Vegas is over this simple hygiene requirement. But the homeless will find a way to keep clean even though Oscar Goodman, Roy Reid, Larry Brown and Gary Reese among others don't want to allow them too.

There are lots of trial-size bargains to be found in the pharmacy travel section.
Small, tuck-a-way took brushes in a compact container AND tooth paste for only $1.49 is a bargain and amounts only to 75 cents each item. Mouth wash and a number of other products can be considered.

Since I had a world grandstand I had to tell the world about the Food Bank Bandit with the $212,000 salary and just how many we could feed on such a salary.

There are hundreds, even thousand of products that can be used by the homeless available for only a dollar each. The are also hundred or even thousands of food which can be purchased for that kind of money.

The more the public becomes aware of our movement, the more they will likely join our cause.

Well, that it for the night. Thanks for joining and good luck as you help the homeless. They sure will appreciate it and so will God.

As I've said before, if in doubt try it out for yourself and you will learn rather your selection is worthy of the streets.

Deodorant Sticks

2011-01-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

Buying Personal Care Products for the
Homeless
By Cliff Harrison

No matter how poor you are, if you have at least some income then you can help the homeless. In the Bible, Jesus told us about how a poor women, a woman poorer than all of the others in her community, gave more to the church than those who could afford much more.

Helping the poor doesn't take all that much. If we all pitch in and do what we can it will add up. For less than $50 you can supply 40 homeless people with deodorant sticks, shavers and prayers. These could last them several weeks.

For less than $80 you can supply 40 homeless citizens with quality deodorant stick, a quality double-blade razor and shaving cream and that includes tax.

I've been an Old Spice guy since I got my first Christmas present of Old English Leather, and Old Spice set and a razor with changeable blades. I think I was 5 and a half then. This knock off deodorant isn't bad. I'll still keep using my Old Spice, as I'm loyal to it, but until this one, Total Sport, is gone out of my medicine cabinet, I'll use it up. It has lasting power, I've used it for weeks, only using my Old Spice for Church.

When I was homeless I used to carry the Old Spice stick. And for God's sake please don't pass out those little packages of Asian-made deodorant that comes several packs in a bag. Like I said, use the stuff and try it out yourself, first. Those little packets are terribly messy, they break open in the backpack and they are messy to apply. So if you are going to do this, help the homeless, step up to the plate and do it right.

I always try the products I get for the homeless, from razor blades, chap lipstick, this deodorant, what ever is out there. I want to make sure it is a quality product and not something that will cause a rash or skin irritation. Always try your products out yourself. Never give the homeless something you, yourself would not use. If you are a lady, give one of the razors to a male and if you can find one who hasn't shaved in four or five days this is ideal. Then ask him what the results were and to rate the product for you.

Avoid those little blue cheap shavers, the ones that come about a dozen for a buck. They cut and nick and for anything except a clean-shaved face they are worthless.

Nothing like having a heatwave on my video. It gives it that authentic desert look. Kind of like when Clint Eastwood rode out from behind a vapor, huh? Instead of calling this my spaghetti western, I'll dub it my spaghetti-Os.

For some reason YouTube lost my sound, so until I get the guys to climb the pole and fix the telegraph wire. Until the problem is fixed, I've hot-wired and jumped together twin videos, one with sound and one without. Between Microsoft, Dell, and YouTube and a bunch of other "Brilliant" computer high-tech outfits, if I had a bulldozer all three would be pushed into the landfill along with their insignificant "others".

They continue to make changes and when they do they don't troubleshoot the effects AND they are often not compatible with other techs that are using these interchangeable programs and software. we've enjoyed a fair amount of freedom with little government involvement in the Internet and computers, but I'll say this and then get back to my post: there needs to be uniformity with codes. Period! No excuses and no exception. The only way things can be compatible with one another is uniformed (unchanged) codes. Leave things alone, stop trying to reinvent the wheel once you have a good product.

These geeks really irk me, they are soooo stupid. They complicate simple things, mess with codes, change codes and oh well, just for get it. If you see any one of the three standing in line don't give them any underarm deodorant for there is nothing that can hide their stink.

Instead of the computer world getting better, it's gotten worst, lots worse. Companies can't leave well enough alone, they've got to keep changing things and when they change things don't work right with other programs and software as it once did. Codes are a big deal and Microsoft has major problems with codes. And YouTube quality has bitten the dust. Well, so be it.

As the video shows, the Old Spice and the Total Sport are not identical. But that's okay. The knock off product is a little bit smaller, an ounce, 2.25oz compared to 3.25oz

If you notice in the shopping basket is some fragrance. This knock off only cost a buck, everything in the basket was only a buck each since I was in the 99 Cents Only Store.

I take these perfumes with me, one for men and one for women. I don't let the homeless keep them, but I let them pass it around for anyone who wants to smell pretty. I also take a large container of hand and body lotion. These too only cost a buck, and I don't hand them out either, they are too big to carry around in a backpack, but people take some lotion and apply to their dry skin and pass the lotion around before giving it back. I just throw this stuff in the car and hand them out while I'm making deliveries.

"Anybody got a hot date, today? Well here is some lotion and perfume, just don't run off with it, I need it for myself since I have a date a little bit later on." Well, I sort of cross my fingers when I say that, but it's all in fun and the homeless folks sure like something to soften their dry skin, year round it work.

There are plenty of things the homeless need and can use. If there are several people working in your area, have a chat with them so everybody can spread out and get something different. Jersey gloves, socks, knit hats, hard candy, fruits, snacks, soda and water, chap lipstick, deodorant, lots of stuff is needed, so get what you can afford and chip in. If you can't afford much, that's find, just do what you can.

You can always roll up your sleeves and collect clean used clothes and items that just collect dust that the homeless could use. You don't need money in your pocket to deliver to the streets fresh-from-the-dryer washed clothes. You just need a will.

Please Mute the Music Player at the Bottom of the Page.

Profit Is Not a Dirty Word, but Greed Is.

2011-01-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

How We Can Take Control of Greed
By Cliff Harrison

I enjoy a good conversation, a discussion or a comment that can stimulate even more discussion. There is nothing like a good debate. Some can’t handle a good debate because they falsely believe if someone disagrees with them that they are being personally attacked. That’s not the case in a good, professional debate. As it is, the preceding is what stimulated this post.

I love debates. I have a few of them going. One, of which a friend of mine and I have been carrying on for a couple of months now, is pretty intense. I am guilty of dropping the ball, not having replied since his last e-mail. I have at least two responses to edit and send out, and the sooner I get them done the sooner the argument will come to a close.

This entry stems from recent comments about a previous post in our discussion about excessive salaries in the non-profit sector. Some are just as alarm for the excessive salaries in government and in the private sector and for good reason. Excessive salaries are alarming everybody, except of course, those who receive them.

I’m just as alarmed as anyone else about outrages salaries in the private sector as I am in the nonprofit and government sector. But I am a little more relaxed about the owner or inventor of a company or a product taking down millions than I am a top CEO in either of the other sectors. Reason being, the company or product wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for their creating it. Take Bill Gates and Microsoft for example, he isn’t worth his billions? He certainly is! Sadly however, he choices to send his fortunate overseas rather than to help his own people first, the people that made his company successful, is a bit appalling.

The debate on private sector salaries could, of course, fill volumes of books. Both sides could successfully argue their case with neither side being completely wrong.

But we need to focus on the nonprofit first. I say this because it is at the nonprofit where we have our best change in gaining public support and the best chance for the most effective change.

If we scatter our brains and keep adding to the list of areas to object to our concern over salaries, we will never get people to follow us any more than for a gossip session. In order to be successful, we must draw in the public on the discussion and eliminate any defense for such large, excessive salaries in the nonprofit business.

Yes, This kind of salary, $212,000 or more is horrible in any position, private, government or nonprofit. But we need to concentrate on the nonprofit and end this stupid salary of using donated money to raise someones standard of living other than the intended source. We can do that by educating people, teaching them the facts of how real charity works and do something about it by doing this charity ourselves in a Direct to the Streets approach. By setting examples we show our opinions to have merit. Of course, we'd be working on a much smaller scale, but collectively the little-people charity could dwarf even the largest of charities.

Profit is not a dirty word, but greed is. That's another subject for another time. But quickly the primary difference here, is whose money we are talking about. Some feel government and nonprofit ought to be paid on the same scale as the private sector, but government and nonprofits are paid with tax dollars, tax benefits, donated money and always with other people's money.

Yes, some businesses do get tax breaks and favoritism, but they are usually large employers who stimulate an entire host of benefits for the economy, such as income taxes, sales taxes, purchasing dollars for consumerism, money to finance and purchase large ticket items such as housing and auto in which in turn stimulate even more taxes, so the private sector produces far more benefits than either the government or nonprofit sector for the masses.

My point is, rather we are discussing one of the three sectors, the private sector, government or non-profit the private sector ought to be our least concern, at least for now. The old military saying, 'you can’t fight battles on too many fronts and expect to be successful'; is true here. Other than gossip, how can we expect to make change unless we focus on the most serious violators? How can we expect people to listen to us unless we base our argument on the best convincing evidence, that donated money ought not be used for lavish salaries?

Yes, greed in all three sectors, private, government and non-profit are bad and harmful to those that stand in the way of the aggressive tanks.

In the private sector we can do a number of things to counter greed. Although it is not always successful as seen most recently during the Great Recession, Wall Street and the greedy banks of America not only got a huge bailout, they both continue to may excessive, massive salaries and bonuses for their CEO. Their customers and investors are the most concerned, of course taxpayers too, but people have already been extremely vocal about this social and economic failure.

Long before the recession came or was officially announced, I wrote of a recession, even a depression was here or on its way, and I for at least a year or two wrote about the excessive salaries of big corporations, in my blog 24/7.com and others and they still remain there. I read the signs and found the articles that told of these outrages salaries in the private sector.

Many feel that huge nonprofits such as the nationwide Salvation Army and other giants ought to compensate their CEOs as CEOs in the private sector are paid. I disagree with this entirely. Not only is the private sector out of control, the everybody-is-doing-it attitude brings the whole American ship down, in simple terms, a shipwreck.

In the private sector we can do a number of immediate things to voice our outrage. We can boycott if we do business with the company, we can refuse to continue to do business with it. We can write letters to the editors of newspapers or make comments anywhere where the public will listen so that we may influence public opinion. More often than not, we can change companies we do business with, such as switching from doing business with banks to doing business with credit unions. But what if the credit unions CEO makes the same huge salary? Then it’s a dilemma. We have to do our research and frankly too many Americans are too lazy to do the research needed to gain the information needed for us to make a rational decision.

So instead of getting caught up in all of the sidetracking to include the private sector in my argument, I'll stick with the government and nonprofit outrages salaries, benefits and frills those of us in the private sector do not have.

It's an uphill battle no matter how we look at it. We are going to obtain enemies, and plenty of them. Everybody in the government and nonprofit are going to say, "But I earn my money. I went to college for four years, I did this and I did that and I am so special and so intelligent and I deserve everything I've got and more."

In some of my other blogs I've lost more readership than I gain, simply because while I was covering social problems like homelessness and poverty I had a fairly large following, but suddenly they started dropping like flies. You know why? Because I was stating the problem and the problem was that the government workers and nonprofit workers were paid far too much, and were not doing their jobs, in fact they were neglectful and even in some cases criminal.

Guess what? Most of my readers were government and nonprofit workers who couldn't handle the truth and they felt threaten. Did I change? Not one bit. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to get a point across and that point is we have an out of control society with the pyramid at the top paying the vast portion of the money to just a few people.

Now please don't swallow the nonsense that it is all rich Republican Conservative, because I think we pointed out in this community where the overwhelming government and nonprofit management are Liberal Democrats, the top of the pyramid over compensates the wrong people. Period!

All outrages salaries are pathetic, rather it is in the private sector, government or nonprofit. But we need to focus on the salaries where profit isn't an issue. Government doesn't make profits. The nonprofit doesn't make profits. And profit is not a dirty word in the private sector, greed is.

We need to place our frustration of private companies making too much money on the back burner. Yes, in some cases it is horrible. But we need to focus on the runaway government salaries, benefits; pensions, health insurance that will bury our local governments, state governments, and federal government, and bankrupt many of them within the next year or two.

My largest concern is the salaries these social workers and county-paid doctors and nurses and other county and state government paid people who do inferior performance. The unions stand between the people. In the private sector, I sometimes think unions are okay. But in the public sector, I think unions are criminal.

Likewise with these nonprofits. As sick as I am and was I should never have been homeless let alone forced to live on the streets. But never mind me, there are plenty of people out there who were just as sick or worse so than myself and they are forced to live homeless on the streets. That fact is the failure of both our government safeguard, our nonprofit failures and these people in both groups are grossly overpaid and under performed.

We need to correct that. And correcting it will be a challenge, a major challenge, but a necessary challenge.

These government people and nonprofit people are not doing their jobs, The everyday, common people have no clue what is going on out there. None! They are too busy working and doing their own lives or gossiping with others that stereotype the homeless and grouping them all into one drunken drug crazed lazy group.

Not only are the government workers and nonprofits not doing their jobs, they are grossly overpaid. That's a major problem. But it is a problem we can correct, and by strong demand if necessary.

That’s were we come in, to educate the people and get public awareness out there. We are not going to win a lot of favors. The fact of the matter is there just are not all that many compassionate people out there, especially in Las Vegas. Many people simply do not care and will not care until they themselves fall to the level of poverty that wakes them up.

We need to focus on the ones who are compassionate, mostly the Conservative Christians, but many others who are just as caring and concerned and we need to help them open their eyes on to what is going on out there. That is one thing I hope to accomplish with Christian River, and that is to teach others and have others teach even more people how they can do their little bit of charity in their own corner of the world and how it will all add up. Years down the road it just might pay off. It’s not going to happen over night. Too many of us that have the skill, the know how, the ideas that will work are just too depressed financially at the moment to set an example.

I think for me, the bottom line is this. For all of the billions of dollars we spend in government, in nonprofit, for our social service programs, for our charity, we still have more poverty, more homelessness, more hunger than ever. And that is the tragic bottom line.

If we can't eliminate the excessive salaries in the nonprofit sector, then they will justify their salaries and we'll never get greed contained.

If we can't eliminate hunger, homelessness, poverty, then we most certainly must eliminate every single government and nonprofit group that is administered to it and end the abusive greed in salaries to ineffective personnel. Period!

In order to control greed, we must first control excessive salaries in nonprofits. We have a far better chance there than either in the private sector or government, simply because most people once informed will not tolerate excessive salaries in nonprofits and will cutback on donations. That in and of itself will help us contain greed in the nonprofit arena.

We need to select one front, one battle, win that battle and then move on to the next battle. Other wise the enemy will not defeat us, but we will defeat ourselves, simply by over extending ourselves.

Tomorrow $55 will Feed 100 Homeless People

2011-01-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

For Only 55¢ Per Hungry Person
By Cliff Harrison

If my health allows me, tomorrow I will service (the Lord) from 40 to 100 homeless people. My mission that is scheduled for tomorrow is not one of my normal feeding missions. Normally I carry a trunk full of fresh fruits, not the rotten stuff local “charities” and “homeless shelters” and soup kitchen push off on to the homeless where some businesses instead of throwing it in the garbage where it belongs donated it to a food bank or "charity" and then wrote off on their taxes the donation to charity.

No, my fruits are not rotten. They are fresh from the store and purchased right off the shelves and delivered within moments of my leaving the store. I pay a premium price but for a premium product—but I bargain shop—for the best possible price.

I don't give my people the garbage—long expired foods—local charities serve them. I refuse to, for I ate that garbage they dump onto the homeless for years while I was homeless myself.

When I make normal food runs that include fruits, I generally have an assortment of fresh apples, pears, oranges, Sweet Clementine’s, bananas and sometimes grapes, sometimes plums and other fruits I find on sale. Sometimes I carry sunflower seeds, peanuts and other food items I find on sale around town. I most generally feed from 40 to 100 hungry homeless persons at a time. I can get this same delivery that I'm doing tomorrow for $55 in food as low as $41 or 41 cents per person.

A Trunk Load of Fresh Fruits Only $50

I often have a trunk load of fresh, assorted fruits purchased for as little as $50 simply by smart shopping and bargain hunting. Buy on sale and save a bunch!

Many of my friends that I have taught and encouraged have joined the cause and independently service the Lord while servicing the homeless. They too deliver used clothes, blankets, socks, knit hats, gloves, personal care products, sandwiches, bottled water and most of all—prayers. The Direct-to-the-Streets needs list is here at Christian River: Direct-to-the-Streets Needs

We do all that on a regular basis. Some of us are out there once a week, others several times a week.

But tomorrow I’m really making my delivery to deliver new boxer shorts, maybe new T-shirts and socks, if I don't feel like making several trips this week, and bottled water, apples, and snack chips. Many homeless folks either have no teeth or bad teeth, so I usually purchase fresh cut fruit when marked down one or two days before expiration, and bananas, oranges, grapes and softer fruits that they can eat.

When the homeless see my car sometimes they are hungry and think I’m bringing food. The last time I delivered complete personal care products, razors, shaving creme, shampoo, lotion, chap lipstick, toenail clippers, bath soap but a few were disappointed that I didn’t have food that trip. It wasn’t that they were rude. They were hungry and when they saw my car coming their bellies growled.

Food Banks Are Robbing the Poor

The big food banks in Las Vegas with quarter-of-a-million dollar salaried staff and the big charities never reach these people, the most needy because they sit behind their desks in a locked room with a fortress of security protecting them and scribble and doodle on paper all day long what they are going to do with their zillions of dollars. They might chat on their cell phones or play on their computers, but they never go out to see what is going on in their "charity".

The frontline servants are the forced labor, the slaves that were homeless yesterday and just recruited from the streets "rescued" and entered the "rehabilitation" programs and part of their earning their own keep is doing the labor the supervisor behind closed door should be doing.

The parking lots are not full of cheap Kias, and $400 motor scooters and bicycles and ten-year-old used clunkers like real volunteers doing real charity work drive, but the parking lots are lined with highline vehicles like Land Rovers, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Hummers and Escalades.

But that's them at the charities that the people of the communities think are doing such a good and colorful deed. The fruits of their labor are the velvet linings of their wallets.

Direct-to-the-Streets, The Only Way To Go!

Me? I drive around like all the other Direct-to-the-Street's volunteers, in a 13-year-old 120,000 mile car that I love. The windows don't work. The heater doesn't work. The air conditioner doesn't work. The "change oil soon" light comes on when I just changed the oil yesterday, and lots of things don't work or work too much on the old clunker that gets me around—but it sure beats taking Oscar Goodman's and Larry Brown's Black Panther Buses and taking the abuse from the RTC and DTC bus drivers, it sure does.

No, tomorrow, like the days before tomorrow, those times of my homelessness in Las Vegas under the fat pigs of Animal Farm do not stop me from returning to the streets to helping my poor brothers and sisters I left behind there. The real humanity in this world. The real down-to-earth folks who will give you the shirt off their backs, when they don't even have two dimes to rub together at once.

I don't ever want to repeat like last time and know my people were so hungry and when they saw my car coming their bellies growled.

Enough to Fed Over Half-a-Million People!

This time, I throw in $55 dollars of something for the hungry bellies of 100 homeless people. That way, they get their new boxer shorts they so sorely need, sizes small to XXXL and their food. Did I say $55 dollars for 100 people? Actually it could even be less that that! If I had $212,000 I could service nearly a half-million homeless persons the same foods. And if given time to really bargain, well over a half-million!

In addition to the boxer shorts and maybe the t-shirts and socks, gloves and hats, and hygiene supplies which I carry just in case the others who I’ve trained in the Christian River fashion and that do this on their own now hadn’t made their rounds of late, I’ll have them ready. They always come in handy especially when an unprepared newly homeless person finds him or herself landing on the streets.

I won’t get into the expense of the clothing items and stuff, but I always bargain hunt. I shop for the best prices and I use store fliers, the Internet and personal visits to local stores to locate the best products for the lowest cost. I’m a big customer of Wal-mart, K-Mart and the 99 cent only store. Albertsons I take advantage of the 10 for $10 sale and only buy a few items there since I would be boycotting them completely if I had a choice, and this store was my ONLY store for the first seven or eight years that I lived in Vegas, but we won’t get into that.

I do find things at Albertsons that I can't find in any other store, such as the Gillette 2oz. shaving creme and triple-blade razors shown in the photo in a couple of posts below at a reasonable price.

Bargain Hunt for the Best Deals!

That's the key in helping the homeless in the Christian River way. Every store has a special bargain that the other stores don't have. You invest time, yes, but once you learn your way around you know just where to go to quickly find the things you need. You establish a personal relationship with a contact at each store. You find out the little secrets you need to function.

The 99 Cents Only Stores for example will ship to the store of your choice cases of the products you need. You don't get a price break, but you get what you want in the quality and quantity you want, when you need it.

Here is what I will do tomorrow. I will go to Smart & Final store and pick up three cases of water in which they keep in the cooler for me (The only special attention any store does for me) and I’ll pick up some apples and chips that are on sale. (Those tortilla chips on the left-hand side of the photo image next to the boxed 50 count snacks are only $3.79 regular price for a huge 4 pound bag at Smart & Final. Break them down and put a handful or two inside sandwich bags and you serve 64 people 1oz servings for only $3.79 or only 6 cents each. If I were using them tomorrow instead of the chips and snacks it would only cost me 37 cents per homeless person, or $37 for 100 homeless people. Since I don't have the time for that this time, I'll pay the Piper.)

Corrupt, Aggressive & Hostile Public Officials

Gail Sacco has been feeding the homeless every week, often several times a week for years. She was arrested once for feeding the homeless, an action brought forth by the Nazi regime of Mayor Oscar Goodman and the corrupt Rory Reid. Reid and Goodman applied pressure against the people who were feeding the homeless or helping them in other ways.

The courts later ruled the arrest and charges as unconstitutional. But the City of Las Vegas and Clark County continues to perform unlawful acts against the homeless and poor citizens of Las Vegas and Clark County.

They also applied pressure to local charities, and so-called shelters. Catholic Charities which used to have outside lockers that stored street homeless possessions at a fee took those lockers out. That’s another subject for another day, the point is many good people were hurt by the corrupt public officials.

Life Changing Experience

Vegas advertises the world over for people to come here and gamble, for senior citizens to move here while offering “life changing experience” advertisement. It’s a life changing experience alright, if pushing a shopping cart while being homeless on the streets is your idea of a life changing experience, then yeah go for it. The very casinos that cause homelessness in Vegas do very little to eradicate homelessness.

All but one person missed the idea behind my first YouTube video, Vegas Snap Shots. "Snapshots" was purposely spelled wrong to signify that something was wrong in Vegas. The video was shot while I was homeless and the statement is the fact the city that has the most hotel rooms in the world also has the most homeless per capita. See the video Vegas Snap Shots @ YouTube and/or at Christian River I’ve since explained the video in Christian River and will update it on YouTube site soon, but nevertheless, people missed my point, and for that that is my own fault.

Smart & Final; A Good Place to Volume Purchase

Now for tomorrow, already called in and saved at the store (Smart & Final) and/or placed in a cooler for pick up tomorrow or the next day at the latest.

(See the photos for the actual items selected, all on sale.)

Chips 50 Ct for $11.49 x 2 = $22.98
100ct. @ $0.23 per individual item.
($22.98)

Crystal Geyser Water $4 ea for 35 ct.
3 cases x $4 = $12
for total of 105 individual item count ($12)
(Bottled Water 11 cents each.)

Red Delicious Apples 3# bags $1.99
3 bags with about 10 apples each = 30 apples total ($5.97 ) or
10 bags with about 10 apples each bag = 100 apple total ($19.90)
100 people are fed with an apple, a bag of snack chips and a bottle of pure water for $54.88 or 54 cents per person.

When I find these items on even better sales with a greater savings I can pay as little as $40.95 or 41 cents each.

Not only will I bring this food, plus I'm delivering new boxer shorts, new t-shirts, socks, and I always have on hand knit hats and gloves for any newly homeless persons as we have a stock of hygiene or personal care products. Now that's just tomorrow. $55 for 100 people. (Apples 20 cents each, chips 23 cents each and water 11 cents each.)

.23 + .11 + .20 = 54 cents each person or $54.88 for 100 people.

When I Hungered, You Fed Me. When I thirst, You Gave Me Something to Drink.

Again, this food isn't my normal food delivery, this is basically a snack, but those seeing my car and expecting food while I'm delivering clean new underwear will at least have something to put into their hungry tummies. It takes the hunger pangs away until they can get to a soup kitchen. I also have some used clothing people donated, used backpacks that were donated and other donated items.

Spread the Word!
Let's Get The Movement Going Humanitarianism Depends Upon Us!

$212,000 divided by .41 each = 517, 073 homeless people, that's over a half a million homeless people that could be treated with snacks to take the edge off of hunger. Or I could do this same thing and treat 100 people an apple, a bag of chips, a bottle of cold water as a mid-morning snack, ready? 5,171 times. Or every day for 14 years! That's right, I could treat 100 hungry homeless persons on the streets every single day of the year for 14 solid years, and then have some left over to snack on during the drive home. $41 x 4 times a day =$164, fed 1,292 times, or fed 4 times a day for 100 people for over 3 and a half years. 41 cents x 2 times daily = 82 x 600 people x 365 days per year is $183,960. $212000 - 183 960 = $28, 040 left over or enough to feed another 68,390 homeless people.

$212,000 divided by 55 ¢ = 385,454 people fed. Or over 100 people fed twice a day everyday for over five years.

Yes, I have big problems with anybody in charity making more than $30-$40,000 per year with donated money, simply because you could end hunger and homelessness, even all of poverty if the fat cows who graze at "charities" and the pigs of Animal Farm in the government didn't hoard the public money for themselves.

Ask any body who is hungry if a bag of chips, an apple and a bottle of water will stop their hunger pang?

The Crime of a $212,000 Charity Salary!

For $212,000 I can buy 212,000 Banquet TV dinners at Albertsons during their 10 for $10 sale and feed nearly a quarter-of-a-million hungry, homeless American citizens. And I bet Albertsons will throw in some free food they have been giving to Three Square, too, I bet, I bet, I bet!

Or, I can bypass Albertsons and go to Wal-Mart and buy 268,354 of the same identical Banquet TV dinners for 79¢ each on sale ALL THE TIME! And feed 134,177 hungry, homeless American citizens TWO TV dinner meals and get some church group to cook them and donate the milk and bread to make it a filling hot meal. Yes, for only $1.58 and a few pennies extra even a fat boy's belly will feel filled.

I could probably buy 424,000 dinners directly from ConAgra Foods, the makers of Banquet dinners for 50¢ each and feed from a quarter-of-a-million to a half-million people with a little help.

This article is (CC) which means Creative Commons. You are free to print it, republish it, circulate it, decorate your walls with it so long as you leave it intact, change nothing and include the byline credit, that’s me, my name, as the author and post or state a link back to this site. The photo images, used for educational purposes, are also (CC) licensed under the same conditions. (Photographer, Cliff Harrison.) Otherwise, ask for permission for any other form of use by e-mailing me.

Thank You, Gail Sacco!

2011-01-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

Prayers and Thanks
By Cliff Harrison

My Facebook comment today, a reply back to Parris Lane and Gail Sacco, sparked this post, the first entry of the Christian River Blog for the 2011 year.

Perhaps there is no better way to open this year’s blog than by prayers and thanking someone who has followed the principles described in the Christian River Philosophy long before the Christian River Philosophy was ever written and put into practice--Gail Sacco!

I thank Parris Lane for your comment, pretty name!

Today I pray for my late brother, Kenneth and his family who endured the death of him one year ago today while I was homeless on the streets of Las Vegas. It took five days for friends to notify me of my brother’s death. I was released from UMC hospital on 27 December after spending a month there for major surgery, and nowhere to go, but to the mean streets of Las Vegas.

I thank the Lord for ending my homelessness in July of 2010. I thank the Lord for my ability to continue to survive and beat the odds given me. And most of all, I thank the Lord for bringing Kenneth’s daughter, my niece, a medic with the United States Army, home from the war in Afghanistan the day before Christmas this year. Last year, her deployment was delayed due to her father’s death, but she was then immediately sent to Afghanistan as part of the U.S. surge on terrorism while she was still mourning the death of her father. Now I can sleep at night in peace, knowing she is home safe and out of harms way.

And now here we go, folks, opening the curtains of the 2011 Christian River Blog. Drums please!

My Facebook comment today:

Thanks folks!! Please just keep in mind that with my brain damage and other set backs, sometimes it takes me a couple of days or more to find the mistakes of the first draft and edit my posts for corrections.

Sorry about the hardship in your reading them.

Starting today, I'm unleashing everything I've got. I promise to make 2011 a year of "Exposé".

And Gail, probably no one in Las Vegas has done more to help the homeless and hungry than you, and certainly has no one been a greater victim and target of abuse by public officials than you only because of your free will and volunteering your time, effort and charity to the poor citizens of Las Vegas.

I was one who received your kind love when I was homeless and for that I will always be grateful to you and your team of Direct-to-the Streets angels. God bless you, Gail, with all of my love and on behalf of the homeless people who never thanked you, THANK YOU for being there for us! (I just made my first post of the year!)

Christian River, what I promised at the end of 2010 I deliver in beginning of 2011!!!

$212,000 Facts:

For $212,000 I can feed 600 hungry homeless people for 365 days.

For $212,000 I can rent 5,300 private motel rooms for the night (24-hours) for 5,300 homeless persons!

For $212,000 I can house 23 homeless persons in a private, fully-equipped Extended Stay of America Hotel/Apartments Suit in Las Vegas for an entire year!

For $212,000 I can shelter 275 homeless persons at a private, fully-equipped, Extended Stay Suits in Las Vegas for one full month.

For $212,000 I can shelter 424 homeless persons in a private, fully furnished motel with kitchenettes for one entire month.

For $212,000 I can shelter 35 people for an entire year in a private, fully furnished motel with kitchenettes.

For a little more than $212,000 I can buy the whole motel!

The Las Vegas Sun article that sparks the debate and 2011 exposé.
Providing Free Food For the Needy Far From Free

$212,000 Salary and They Call It Charity?

2010-12-31T23:50:00.000-08:00

I'll Tell You What Is Wrong With Charity Outfits These Days
By Cliff Harrison

Perhaps I close the year with this post because I vow to open next year with hard-hitting educational posts that are coupled with video and photo images.

One of the themes I'm going to incorporate into the blog entries for 2011 is a comparison of just what I can purchase for the homeless and what I can feed the hungry with if I had $212,000 to spend on the needy.

For $212,000 I can fed 600 hungry, homeless persons on the streets for 365 days.

For $212,000 I can make 5,435 complete turkey dinners with all of the trimming that each will feed 12 persons or a total of 65, 230 persons fed a complete turkey meal.

For $212,000 I can buy one hundred and twenty-one thousand one hundred and forty two (121,142) homeless persons triple-blade shavers and shaving creme.

For $212,000 I can buy 24-hours of private motel rooms night for 5,300 people, equipped with kitchenette. OR, I can house and shelter in fully equipped PRIVATE apartments 35 homeless persons for an entire year!

For $212,000 I can provide 26,500 homeless persons with haircuts. 3,533 homeless persons with 30-day bus passes. 3,533 homeless persons will cell phones. 42,400 homeless persons with complete personal care kits. 70,666 homeless persons with emergency winter kits, of knit hats, clean socks and gloves. Nearly 2 million homeless persons with bottled water.

For $212,000 yearly salary in a so-called charity, I would feel I was corrupt!!!!

I am so appalled at the people in the "non-profit" business who start an organization and call it charity and then assign themselves a fat salary that makes us who are in real charity sick to our stomachs.

Three Squares is a popular local charity that was started in the home of a Las Vegas woman in 2006. The idea was to feed the hungry. She drew donations from concerned citizens and that grew into a mammoth organization. But there are two major problems.

People give out of the kindness of their hearts only to have their gifts sold. Just like when people donate clothes to local homeless shelters thinking they are doing good, those clothes are placed in a thrift store and sold to the homeless, not given to them.

Three Square sells the food that is donated to them to smaller charities. Now, the local food bank is part of a larger, national charity that used to go by the name Second Harvest. They run a monopoly on food banks across the country since they control some 95% of the food banking going on in America.

And now, for the real shocker, this lovely, nice lady that we all respected and admired so has just announced her salary--or the Las Vegas Sun did--$212,000 per year.

That's not charity. That's stealing from those who donate in the name of charity to fatten ones self.

The Las Vegas Sun reports the salary of $212,000 is not even the average of nonprofit CEO with similar-sized organizations, many make $238,000 or more. There ought to be a law!!

In the bylaws of the RIVER Organization I wrote a locked-in, couldn't be changed, salary for the highest-paid salary of any executive for the organization; $33,000 locked in for 5 years and then no more than the median American income, no matter if there were a thousand such organizations nationwide. Of course, I never got the charity off and running, YET, but if I ever do, that will be in the Constitution and Bylaws come hell or high water.

There is a reason I wrote it that way. I don't believe, no matter how good someone is or how big of an organization they are running should ever make more than the median American income. Not if you are in charity.

And I don't believe a food bank that monopolies a food supply that is intended to feed the poor and the hungry is a legitimate organization, nor are the ones who work with them. To me, this is the purest form of corruption.

I can't always stop purchasing food for the homeless at certain supermarkets that supply Three Square, I don't have much choice. I can not boycott everyone every time I disagree with someone. But I can show you how I make purchases, how I volunteer my time for free and I am in very poor health. I'll show in videos, photography, and articles just how simple it is in purchasing food for the poor. And if I can do it on a very low fixed income, then anyone with a job can do it too.

You'll need to make up your own mind rather or not this lady is worth $212,000 income when she could spend most of that on feeding the hungry, helping the needy and giving to the poor.

The Salvation Army recently lost $13,000 of donated money, obviously an inside job. The public is outraged and many say they will no longer donate to the Salvation Army because they blame the supervisors for the loss claiming they should have been more responsible. It's not the first time the local Salvation Army has been a victim of foul play.

Sally Gets Hit Again

Charities all across Clark County are run by over-fed people who are not worth what they are being paid to do their jobs. Volunteers and those in rehabilitation do most of the real work in charities, it's foolish to be paying the incompetent top staff excessive salaries.

Station Casinos promised to give the Salvation Army $13,000 replacement. They made a press release making it sound like they were doing a great deed to a charity that is suppose to be doing great deeds. All 18 Station Casinos are said to take part, that means just about $722 per casino to contribute. About what one person could loose in a slot machine, especially a tight one, in a single night.

There are many stories about the local charities that need to be brought up to the public. I'd rather be doing something else. But when I learn that it is nearly impossible to get help from a local supermarket where I do business with to help me feed the hungry on the streets, not in shelters, not in schools, not in someones homes, but on the streets, and I'm told; "NO! We only give to Three Square, sorry, but we have potatoes going on sale next week for $1.49."

Then I look around in all of the stores I shop for food and items for the homeless in and see big boxes and signs asking customers to donate food for the hungry people in our community. I feel like taking a magic marker and writing on the box; "CEO of this so-called "charity" pays herself $212,000 a year from your donations."

But God taught me I can't do that.

Three Square CEO making $212,000 a year is no charity. The top person in any charity should make no more than $33,000, certainly no more than $49,000, the 2010 median American income. If they do, they are not in it for charity, but to fatten themselves. In one word it's called, "corruption".

If they want to make money, then they ought to go work in the free enterprise system. In a private company. Not in non-profit and not in government. But we seem to think non-profit workers and government workers should be compensated equally as well as those in the private sector, but that kind of thinking is not wise.

As we begin the New Year we're going to show you in show and tell style and how-to-do-something fashion Direct-to-the-Streets humanitarian care. It's not new, Christian River is something which has been doing it for a time and more and more people are joining the effort. It just has a name now that it didn't have before. And not only are the volunteers gaining knowledge and satisfaction in helping others, they love the feeling that they accomplish in giving directly.

Eliminate the high rollers who run the charities that are bleeding America. Station Casinos and every casino in Las Vegas can give to who they want to give to. Every charity in Las Vegas can spend the money donated to them as they like. They can even lose the money if they like. All the big supermarkets can keep their food for Three Square. No problem!! We who work in real charity and do so for nothing, volunteering our time and using our own money to buy the goods we give to the homeless, the hungry and the needy and poor will continue to do so. We will proudly pay our income taxes and our sales taxes on the items we purchase for donations. We will not tax exempt anything nor will we write off on our income taxes what we donated to charity.

That is because we are not corrupt. That is because we don't do it for ourselves. We don't even really do it for the needy. We do it for Jesus Christ, our Lord, because we obey Him.

Christian River is a movement that is growing in favor with common people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired with so-called "charities" and "non-profits".

So, tonight, have an extra drink and bring in the New Year. For this New Year, 2011, I'm going to show you how easy it is to deal directly with the homeless and not through a charity. I call it Direct-to-the-Streets and it is the most rewarding thing you could ever do. You can do your alms in secret just as the Bible tells us to do. I'm going to show you how.

The Las Vegas Sun article that sparks the debate and 2011 exposé.
Providing Free Food For the Needy Far From Free

Good Night. God Bless and Happy New Year 2011!

Good Bye 2010-Hello 2011

2010-12-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

The Old Year Ends and the New Year Begins
By Cliff Harrison

This year, 2010, has been a mixed bag for me. I had much to rejoice about, there was much I was blessed for. My homelessness ended, I went home and visited family, I got an apartment and a car and became active in church since I now had transportation.

But on the other hand the year began with my brother's death, he died at 6 a.m. on New Years day, 2010.

Tomorrow morning at Church I will get a vigil candle and light it in his memory. It will glow for an entire week.

Yes, this has been a great year and a horrible year. For some, they found jobs. For others they lost their job. Some found homes and some lost homes.

For better or worst, the year is gone and now we start a new one. I have a few seconds left to write the last entry of the year. I don't know if it is the appropriate one, but I'm going to write it just the same, just in time for the New Year.

I wish all of you the best of luck.
In loving Christ

Lasvegas.vi

2010-12-30T23:41:00.000-08:00

Tennis for Two, an early analog
computer game that used an
oscilloscope for a display.
-Wikipedia

City.vi
By Cliff Harrison

New Technology of the future is coming.
But Beetle Bailey of the past is easier to understand.

Someone is staking new claims on the frontier of cyberspace. The homesteading in an apparent start-up company is seeking the world’s most profound bloggers, that’s how I got onto their list and was contacted. Hey, those are their words, not mine, I quote, "I found your blog Christian River Blog on Blogger and I may have an interesting proposal for you..." Of course, nowhere is any kind of 'proposal' made, "...Our strategy: working with relevant local bloggers..." they state in an e-mail they sent me. And it goes on, "We would be pleased you become the administrator of lasvegas.vi and offer Internet surfers a comprehensive video selection about Las Vegas.

"By managing your city’s video site you earn all of the revenues made from the site: ads, professionals registrations, links...
Basically, running lasvegas.vi consists of making the site known by locals, for they post and watch videos." A get rich quick scheme?

The company is called City Media Foundation, citymediafoundation.org. It claims to be out of Lausanne, Switzerland. There were a number of links in the e-mail, but most of them either lead to a dead end or to a web page that rambled on and gave little information.

I e-mailed a few people to inquire if it was a scam and tried my luck on gaining better information. I could have watched a couple more episodes of beetle bailey or the adventures of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest.

This is either the biggest scam since an eighteen wheeler ran over Hormel's can of pork meat or else it potentially has the greatness of the next Google. But not with the current staff.

A demonstration video that does anything but demonstrate and a presentation that does not present carries the continued Goggle logo as if in some subliminal manner Google is behind all of this.

Right now this company seems to be just an idea and that's the stage it is in, the idea stage.

You’d be farther ahead driving down a dead-end street than to try to follow the links this brainstorm company provides you. I clicked link after link and entered Google search after Google search, all coming up to dead ends.

There was only one piece of information I found, a press release that said the company was launching videos in African cities. That worried me, and I instantly thought of Kenya and BIG TIME SCAM AND SPAM operations.

But come to find out it, was a company that provides free press release, in other words, a do-it-yourself press release.

Every other link this company mention to "try" was a deadbeat.

Now I’m not saying this company isn’t a going-to-go-someplace-company, but what I am saying is this outfit is either run by the typical cyber geek of the day, the nerd from Mars with the ring in his nose, another dozen rings in his ear that you could hang a shower curtain on, a nose bone like the African Native and Amazon Jungle dweller wears and a few tattoo-free inches on the body or they are just plain stupid with no business sense.

A new company should make it easy to find the information a prospect needs. But following their Facebook and Twitter links I can see I am not the only one expressing difficulty and frustration in trying to understand the company. Because of this upfront difficulty and a picture on another link supposedly representing the folks in the company, meaning there is more than one pea brain involved here, I reject it, completely.

I don’t care how cheap it is, how inexpensive it is, how successful it may one day be, how brilliant it is of a business plan, this company is doomed to fail before it even gets started, because of lack of coordination and communication.

But then few of the cyber sites out their today, the social networks, the YouTube and the like are as easy and simple as the Google home page. Nice and clean and easy to operate, but even Google email and blog spaces have changed so much that the once one-button click and you are in has been distorted to multiple clicks and you might be in.

You don't make a mass publication of your company and provide links that lead to nowhere. You don't leave prospects asking more questions than you answer. You don't have a demonstration or presentation without demonstrating and presenting and then offering the facts and information one needs to make a decision. Or, wasn't I suppose to make a decision?

I really want to give this information to Oscar Goodman and the City Council, or even Rory Reid since the Las Vegas Sun reports he is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, but I'm afraid they'd tell the public my brain damage is making me sound goofy.

Speaking of cartoons...

City.vi has a nice idea, or so it seems, communication by video. According to the e-mail I received they are looking for first “administraters” in each city to run that city's website. It brags about having a 68,000 city worldwide coverage, but testing those city sites by direct addressing and by Googling everything under the sun cityname.vi I come up with dead ends.

I'm not going to trouble you with any of the links because to tell you the truth, I simple don't trust them. There are more questions than answers with this company.

Maybe they went through the trouble of setting everything up for the future which they claim to be a one-day leader of, but they fail to tell us that.

They give virtually no information on how to be part of this action, how much it will cost, if anything, what terms and conditions are applied, zip, nothing. I’d get more of a reply from an ape in the jungle, at least I’d know he’d want a banana to entertain me.

So, I guess I’m going to miss the opportunity of a life time of being the first earthly being on Mars without a spacesuit and survive, thanks, but no thanks!

Don’t bother me with your fancy teasers. If you can’t give me the information needed to hook me onto your venture then keep your venture in the basement tinker shop until you can do so.

I detest technology or even so-called clever ideas that others try to sell us on that have not been tested in the developer's own kitchen by ordinary, common folks with all of the possible trouble shooting halving already solved all of the problems.

Anything else is an aggravating waste of my time of which I don’t need. Today’s people in the so-called technology age are truly stupid as a herd, from computer programmers to electronic company officials up and down the line, we the people are not stupid, you are and stop acting like stupid little critters that fail to test your products before you issue them.

Obviously, no one has been a taker, or else they would have had at least a few sites the the "city.vi" dilemma.

Darn, I didn't get my latest video with YouTube launched because I got distracted with this "future" failure.

I’m going back to watching beetle bailey, I can understand private bailey.
Next.

Yawn!

Another Missing Person In Vegas

2010-12-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Deborah Flores-Narvaez
MISSING IN LAS VEGAS

Another Woman Vanished
Female Body Found May Be Missing Dancer
By Cliff Harrison

Debbie Flores, 31, a talented Las Vegas model and dancer has disappeared like thousands of young women before her. Police aren't talking much about the case or what they know as they try to build evidence against a person of interest.

Debbie Flores Narvaez Missing Person Bulletin

Debbie went missing on 12 December 2010 and was last seen at her ex-boyfriend's, Jason "Blu" Griffith, home. Griffith had been charged with previous violence against the petite dancer and many locals are trying him in the local newspapers. But until more facts are known we can only speculate. Police are however now treating the missing person case as "foul play".

What is known is yet another attractive young lady has disappeared in Las Vegas, seemingly vanishing into thin air. It is an occurrence that is all too common in Vegas and usually the endings are far from happy endings. Even as horrid as a situation is, the discovery of a body brings at least some kind of closure to the case, rather than a continued unsolved mystery that keeps parents, siblings and love ones emotionally detached, sometimes for years.

After the Centennial Olympic Park bombing on 27 July 1996, in Atlanta Georgia, the FBI mentioned Jewell as a person of interest and subsequently the media and general public wrongly accused security guard Richard Jewell. Two people died and 111 were injured in the bombing. Richard Jewell was a hero and led people to safety and saved more lives, but condemning the man publicly before a charge against him was officially made or before a trail could take place, led to widespread of his being falsely implicated and general public outrage pointed at Jewell, not only an innocent man, but a hero. Jewell later died due in part to stress from being falsely accused. The media storm which disrupted Jewell's life is an unforgiven chapter in U.S. history.

The real Olympic bomber was Eric Robert Rudolph who had eluded police for years and committed at least three additional bombings. In 2005, almost ten years after the Atlanta bombing Rudolph confessed and plead guilty to a number of bombings. Nevertheless, the toll Richard Jewell suffered in his personal and professional life was damaged beyond repair. Presumption of his guilt is never justified, in our nation one must be guilty without a shadow of doubt. And, in Las Vegas there are lots of shadows for doubts to be lurking in.

Jewell died two years after Rudolph pleaded guilty, at the young age of 44 in 2007 after suffering from severe heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes and other ailments. The stress from being falsely accused and being in the eye of a media storm certainly did not contribute to a healthy life.

Blu Griffith appears to be no saint but our trial in the media is not something we ought to endorse.

Trial by media never works, judgment is based upon speculation rather than facts. Hype rather than evidence. For that reason, we ought to sustain our humanly emotions and beliefs and let the police and courts do their jobs.

Vegas is a dark forest in an adult playground where demons prey upon the innocent. The darkness that overshadows the city of lights can not be overstressed. One must be careful of who they associate with for Vegas attracts the most demonic of evil souls. Evil souls that seem to find no quenching of blood thirst. Demons that reinvent evil.

Debbie Flores was talented. Her YouTube videos are still available for viewing as is her Twitter account, as of this writing to see where her heart was and her energetic performance. And, Debbie Flores had a law degree. But Vegas doesn't seem to have any more mercy on those souls that have a future anymore than it does on those that are lost.

A cat with nine lives would find it hard to survive in Vegas.

Police urge anyone with information about the case to call Metro's missing persons detail at (702) 828-2907 or, to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at (702) 385-5555 or visit
http://www.crimestoppersofnv.com/.

We're not afraid to list missing person reports. We've done it from the beginning. We'll go after those demons that prey upon the innocent. If anyone thinks Vegas in not the true Sin City, look again. It is the City of Evil and if any place on earth remotely matches Hades, Las Vegas, Nevada does. Ironically, it also mimics the place on earth where Jesus ministered. The surrounding mountains and dry, desert heat is very much like the Biblical setting of the story of Jesus.

Tomorrow will be Christmas, so sad for a family to endure, I know I've had my share of family deaths at Christmas Time. Let's hope the perpetrator is eating baloney sandwiches on Christmas Day in the Las Vegas Detention Center.
A female body was found at Lake Mead area wash by hikers
Female Body Found 23 December 2010

24 December 2010
Update 9:53 PM PST Female Body Found at Lake Mead is NOT Debbie. The body has been identified, but the coroner is waiting notification to kin.

We need relentless prayers for Debbie and her family and the unidentified female found at Lake Mead and her family.

Now all we can do is wait and pray.

Las Vegas Sun News Report Links to the Debbie Flores-Narvaez story.
Police Consider Foul Play

Deborah Flores-Narvaez Missing Persons Story

We pray for Debbie and we pray for her family, for her mom and her sister, and all of her love ones. No matter how this turns out it is a sure bet it will not turn out good. For Debbie's family and friends and the families and friends of thousands of young women who have disappeared, vanished without a trace, Christmas will not be a merry one. The only thing we can do is express our compassion and ask God to comfort them.

Bring Debbie Home Website

Saturday 08, January 2011
UPDATE: Body of Missing Las Vegas Woman Found
The body of Debbie Flores-Narvaez was found in Downtown Las Vegas Friday.
A tip to Metro police Friday lead to the discovery of the body and the arrest of Debbie's abusive, previously violent boyfriend, Jason "Blu" Griffith, 32. The two had made previous music videos together. Unconfirmed reports state that the Fantasy dancer's body was dismembered and placed in concrete-filled tubs. Metro is tight-lipped on the discovery of the Luxor dancer's body or the arrest information on Griffith.

See more updates at the "Bring Debbie Home Website" above.

Another missing child of God has ended in tragedy in the City of Evil.

Our Prayers
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray for the soul of Debbie Flores-Narvaez. We pray for Debbie's family and friends that they may find comfort from God and be eased of their pain and grief in His comfort. Amen.

Prayers for Debbie
In thy hands, O Lord, we commend the soul of thy servant, Debbie Flores-Narvaez, and beseech thee to grant her rest in the place of thy rest, where all thy blessed Saints repose, and where the light of thy countenance shineth forever. And we beseech thee also to grant that our present lives may be godly, sober, and blameless, that, we too may be made worthy to enter into thy heavenly Kingdom with those we love but see no longer: for thou art the Resurrection and the Life, and the Repose of thy departed servant, O Christ our God, and unto thee we ascribe glory: to they Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Alvin and The Chipmunks:

2010-12-24T07:09:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Song

Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Snoopy vs. The Red Baron (Snoopy's Christmas)

2010-12-24T06:42:00.000-08:00

America's Hero

I saw Snoopy and the Red Baron flying victory rolls over Nellis Air Force Base this morning. Peace to the World!
Please mute the music player at the bottom of the page. Merry Christmas!

The Littlest Christmas Tree

2010-12-24T06:25:00.000-08:00

With Red Skelton

Please mute music player at bottom of the page.

Millions Spent On Flood Control Ripped Up and Removed.

2010-12-22T23:48:00.000-08:00

(Three tow truck/car carriers wait along flooded Boulder Highway for wrecks, stalled and washed out vehicles--Click photo to enlarge)

I was going to go to adult study classes at Church tonight, but due to the high risk of flooding I will stay home and write instead. Many roads in Las Vegas and the surrounding areas have flooded and continue to flood. It’s not worth the gamble traveling in such downpour and continued rain. Disaster can strike in minutes and flash flooding comes without time to prepare for an escape. So, the best preparation is staying out of Mother Nature’s way and remaining on high grounds.

Yet, being a gambling town, many will risk their lives and the lives of their love ones willingly to travel Las Vegas roads when they ought to stay home or somewhere on high grounds. But like the many who get killed as pedestrians crossing streets outside of crosswalks, or in motor vehicle accidents with someone doing sixty on 45-mile-an-hour city streets, Vegas is a town of gamblers who like to gamble on anything, including their own lives and the lives of others.

Vegas attracts the uneducated, and those who will risk all to gamble and they don’t need to go to a casino to do it. Being awarded one of the nations “dumbest” city awards, the renowned gambling town is full of people who will risk all, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. And that includes gambling against Mother Nature and God.

Sometimes it is better to stay put and forego events, even important events. The old cliché “It is better to be safe than sorry” reeks for attention in Las Vegas especially today and all week even. Better safe than sorry is a wise statement that needs to echo through the Valley, but unfortunately just like people refuse to slow down on the highways, or walk to the crosswalks and waiting traffic signals before crossing people will continue to drive or be out in the adverse weather. The inclement weather will not pardon even the best of gamblers. Tourist and locals alike need to exercise extreme caution when it is raining and storming in places that it doesn’t usually rain and storm.

It only takes a moment for a flash flood to kill. I watched the 100-year-flood some years ago as I stood with others on the Pat Clark Nevada Beverage property along side Tropicana Avenue west of the Strip and just east of Wynn Road.

Tropicana was a raging, muddy river and still people chanced the navigation of the nonnegotiable street. In order to reach my Church I’d have to travel that same path. No thanks.

In the years since, Las Vegas has spent millions on flood management. But after spending millions on Boulder Highway to make a flood way, crews dug up that flood zone and re-constructed the old worn-out sewer system. Then, they re-shaped the median ditch separating the north and southbound lanes of Boulder Highway with at least some drainage ability. But this year officials decided to put in a new transits system for the “ACE” bus, a train-like double-length bus that moves at express speed. That is the fatal move our brilliant officials have made.

All alone Boulder Highway stretching from Fremont Street just south of the Fremont Street Experience and Las Vegas Boulevard, all the way to Henderson, the road has been torn up and the flood drains removed in the name of “progress in putting Americans back to work.” Never mind the multi-millions spend and wasted by officials with poor planning, what makes Boulder Highway once again the dangerous street it once was back in the late 90s, is once more in the year 2010 and beyond.

There was a break in the storm long enough to take some snapshots.

Tow trucks and car carriers wait like vultures for the call, no not vultures, not birds of prey, but angels who come quickly in the time of dire need. Three waiting salvage trucks in one photo in a tiny little teeny-weeny itsy-bitsy bitty section of Vegas in great big giant trouble. Now that tells you something. And what it tells me is not good.

This kind of weather, as much as we need the rain, is especially dangerous, if not deadly for the homeless left outside to endure the brunt of rising flood water.

Let us pray for those who have no home and who are forced to live outside in the harsh elements because of this evil society we live in who care not for their own brothers and sisters. Who care not for the combat veterans who built this nation and saved her from falling to the enemies. To those senior citizens who are in their late 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s who survive on the streets of Las Vegas without shelter even from the storm, those men and women who worked their entire lives to build a nation that turns their backs on them. Let us pray.

Father in heaven, shelter the unfortunate ones who are left to defend for themselves on the streets of Las Vegas, and on the streets across this nation. Bring them peace from the storm. Deliver them from evil and warm them with safe harbor and with Your unbridled love. Amen.