Happy Valentines day

My wish is that for all of you that today is a day that you take the time to tell the people who are important to you that you care for them and how much they mean to you. I have many people in my life that I care for and I feel lucky to have these people in my life.

When we were younger, many of us looked forward to giving and getting Valentine cards, because they were, for some of us, an indicator of what others thought of us and that people cared about us.

Reach out, tell someone that you care for them, enjoy the day and keep in mind that any act of kindness will be appreciated and perhaps rewarded by the universe.

Happy Valentines day to all my friends, family, and readers.

Ideas for Valentine Day for kids

Children love to celebrate Valentine’s Day with their friends. This is the day of the

year that they can show their friends how much they mean to them. One of the  best crafts that your children can do is to make homemade Valentine’s Day cards to hand out at school. There is no need to spend money on the boring store bought  cards when your children can make cards.

Start out by helping your children to cut out card sized hearts for the cards. The hearts can be cut from red and pink construction paper. The front of the heart can decorated with stickers, glitter and even ribbon to make each homemade Valentine card special. A personal note written on the back and signed by your child finishes the back of the card.

Your children will need a way to carry their homemade Valentine’s Day cards to school. A special Valentine’s Day tote bag will be the best thing to carry cards to school and bring all of their cards back home. Start this simple craft with a paper grocery bag. Attach ribbons to the top of the bag to make handles for the Valentine’s Day tote bag. The tote bag it self can be decorated with cut out hearts, markers, ribbons, glitter and stickers.

Your children can make special treat bags to go with each of the Valentine’s cards that they hand out. Start by choosing either chocolate candies or conversation hearts to fill the treat bags. You can get pink and red color tulle from your local craft store that can be cut into squares to make the treat bags. Place the square of tulle on the table. In the center of the square, you can help your children to place a small pile of candy. Finish off the treat bags by pulling up the sides and tying them together with ribbon.

Create homemade chocolate candies for friends. The school may not let you bring these treats because they are homemade but your child can take them to a Valentine’s Day party at a friend’s house or a church gathering. Many stores offer kits that include the candy molds and instructions for melting the chocolate. Another idea is to create chocolate spoons. They can be used as stirrers in hot chocolate since February is technically still the winter season.

Many children like to give Valentine’s Day gifts to their teachers. There are a few gifts that your children can make for the many teachers that they have. The first gift idea is to give the teacher her own special candy stash. This usually works best with small chocolate candies but can be done with any type. Start with a clean dry mayonnaise jar with the label removed. Fill the jar with the candy that you have chosen to use. Cover the lid with a square piece of fabric in colors that remind syou of Valentine’s Day. Tie the cloth onto the lid with a ribbon. You can help your children to print up labels for the jar saving a special message for the teacher.

The second gift that you can help your children make for their teachers is cookie bouquets. Start by helping your children to bake heart shaped sugar cookies. Before you bake the cookies you will want to place a wooden dowel into them to make the stem for the heart flowers. Ice the cookies with red and pink icing and allow the icing to set. Place a piece of floral foam in the bottom of a container to set your flower cookies in. Arrange your heart cookie flowers to finish this gift with your children.

A final gift option for your children to give their teacher is a Valentine’s Day apron. Start out by getting a plain apron from a craft store or cooking store. You will want to make sure that the fabric that you choose for the aprons will take paint. Have your children use paint pens to decorate the Valentine’s Day apron for their teacher. This is a great craft to let your children’s creativity flow.

Mass Manipulation through Propaganda

Norm Farrell blogged about the ethics of some of the main stream media reporters, citing Charlie Smith from the Georgia Straight.  He closes his post with the following: The intermediate step for propagandists seeking to influence public opinion is to promote the loyalty of media people through direct and indirect inducements. Ethical journalists exercise caution but, unfortunately, ethical does not equate with influential. That post led me to the following, which I think shows how important it is for the Internet to be free so that mass manipulation through propaganda in the mainstream media can be countered.

The following is from The Burning Platform blog, which I found through Excited Delirium

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928

Edward Bernays, the father of propaganda to control the masses, would be so proud of his disciples running our country today. He clearly believed only an elite few were intellectually capable of running the show. Essentially, he hit upon the concept of the 1% telling the 99% what they should think and believe over eighty years ago.


The mechanisms for controlling the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of the population are so much more efficient today. The conditioning begins when we are children, as every child will be bombarded with at least 30,000 hours of propaganda broadcast by media corporations by the time they reach adulthood. Their minds are molded and they are instructed what to believe and what to value.


Those in control of society want to keep the masses entertained at an infantile level, with instant gratification and satisfying desires as their only considerations. The elite have achieved their Alpha status through intellectual superiority, control of the money system, and control of the political process.


Their power emanates from eliminating choices, while giving the illusion of choice to the masses. People think they are free, when in reality they are slaves to a two party political system, a few Wall Street banks, and whatever our TVs tell us to buy.


Our entire system is designed to control the thoughts and actions of the masses. In many ways it is done subtly, while recently it has become more bold and blatant. It is essential for the ruling elite to keep control of our minds through media messages and the educational system.


It is not a surprise that our public education system has methodically deteriorated over the last four decades. The government gained control over education and purposely teaches our children selected historical myths, social engineering gibberish and only the bare essentials of math and science. The government creates the standardized tests and approves the textbooks. We are left with millions of functionally illiterate children that grow into non-critical thinking adults.


This is the exact result desired by the 1%. If too many of the 99% were able to ignore the media propaganda and think for themselves, revolution would result. This is why the moneyed interests have circled the wagons, invoked police state thug tactics, and used all the powers of their media machine to squash the OWS movement. It threatens their power and control.


“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

A highly educated engaged citizenry would be a danger to the existing social order. The 1%, educated at our finest universities, does not want average Americans to obtain a great education for a reasonable price. They want them to get a worthless diploma at an excessively high price tag and become debt slaves to the Wall Street 1%. 


They want uneducated, indebted consumers, not educated productive citizens. Our republic has been slowly perverted since the time of its inception. The insidious process had been slow and methodical until 1913. The establishment of the Federal Reserve by an elite group of bankers and their politician friends and the establishment of a personal income tax created the conditions that have allowed a small cabal of powerful men to dictate the course of our economic, political, social, and military policies for the last 98 years.


Anyone that chooses to open their eyes and awake from the propaganda induced stupor can see the result of allowing a small group of corrupt authoritarian men using their power to pervert our government into tyranny. The majority remains oppressed, buried under trillions of debt, while the shysters reap obscene profits, poison the worldwide economic system, and walk away unscathed in the aftermath of their crimes.

Briarpatch

I came across this issues magazine back in November when I was looking at information about the end of the right to strike that is coming to new Harper Canada sooner than later,  and thought I should share. If you are a progressive, then I would recommend you read and support the work they are doing in Canada.  The following is from their Webpage:

Briarpatch is a contemporary issues magazine with a chip on its shoulder and a fire in its belly. Fiercely independent and frequently irreverent, Briarpatch tackles today’s most pressing problems from a radical, grassroots perspective. Publishing bimonthly, Briarpatch conspires to provoke, inspire and empower its readers in their efforts to build a better world.

Since 1973, Briarpatch has been serving up regular doses of news and analysis from its home in Regina, Saskatchewan. Believing that a truly free press is essential to the creation of a truly democratic society, Briarpatch provides a thoughtful, principled, and irreverent alternative to the false consensus of the corporate media. As Maude Barlow says, we’re “one of the few voices that will still challenge the corporate agenda and present workable alternatives.”

“…fresh, imaginative and tough. This is writing by free thinkers for free thinkers. Canadians are lucky to have a magazine so committed to truth, justice and inspiration.”
— Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine

“…honest, insightful, and incendiary. Read Briarpatch, and then go start the revolution.”
— Derrick Jensen, author of A Language Older Than Words and Endgame

“…lively, irreverent, informative.”
— Noam Chomsky

“…an impassioned piece of Canadian craftsmanship.”
— Utne Reader

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