I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questions and asking for accountability.  That’s the only chance we have today to a healthy and happy life.  ~Ai Weiwei

Kyle likes being held accountable for his actions, & in turn he is fine holding others accountable for their actions too! He’s going to make a great leader!

Life brings up lessons, some larger than others,  But sometimes do we need that lesson?  I mean, to me they are just common sense.  Do we really have to teach adults accountability?  Maybe I’ve lived in a hole my entire life and this has been going on since time began, but it seems like an easy fix.  I’m talking about accountability.

You know that’s one lesson I don’t ever remember my parents having to teach us.  Probably because they taught by example.  Everyone messes up in life, in one form or another, no one is perfect.  But how you handle your mistakes says a lot about a person and their character.  Also those who are directly or indirectly involved and how they handle the situation, says a lot too.  Whether they are quick to assist and find a solution, and more importantly to forgive.

Anytime we’ve messed up, as kids and adults over the years, and there was a lot, we held ourselves accountable for our mishaps.  Each of us took full responsibility for our actions and never tried to lie about anything or get out of it.  On the flip side, my parents accepted our faults, forgave us and tried to assist us in any way.  They would never rub our noses in our mistakes and hold it again us.  Seriously, sometimes it was never spoken of again, or, if the time was right they teased a little, but never lost faith in us that we couldn’t make the right decisions.  There was trust, and that was never questioned.  We might have gotten into stupid trouble, mostly me and Ryan, but it was never malicious, never disrespectful to anyone or their property, and we never tried to put another in harms way.  We were just kids.  Kids who always held themselves accountable without question.

Now as an adult, I still screw up, but again I take full responsibility for my actions and always try to make right, like most people.  Yes, I believe the majority of the population in the world strive to do good, even though sometimes they are a bit misguided in their thinking, and yes, they something don’t choose the best course of action.  Those that are opposite are smaller in number, and again I think the underlying intent is for good.

So my question is, how do you show accountability when there is so much unaccountability displayed with our leaders?  How do I explain that to Kyle?  Heck, I never knew how to explain that to my employees regarding leaders in my own work life.  It’s true, a boss who refused to be held accountable for anything and chose to finger point for his own business.  Similar to our president?  I’ll get to that in a minute.  And you have prominent positions?  With power and authority?  And you don’t feel you need to be held accountable?  Come on people, you are setting the example for our youth!  Your actions effect us all!

The entire IRS scandal still has me in a huff.  I’m sure targeting certain groups is not a new concept (they targeted conservative groups or those businesses who supported the republican party).  That’s not right either, but their actions with our tax dollars is outrageous, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on dance lessons, travel expenses, and who knows what else.  We’re talking about employees who were living high on the hog from the start with their huge salaries and Washington perks.  Seriously, I think it should be paid back to the people, because after all, it was basically theft.  Now, it seems like there is just a bunch of finger pointing.  No one wants to be held accountable, usually making the low man on the pole the scape goat.  Stand up and be a man!  Everyone who does, will feel better in the long run.

Now I heard the IRS, the very same department of the United States of America, who have been proven to abuse their authority and basically steel money from tax payers, are now in charge to say what Medicare pays!  We are putting a bunch of number crunching thieves in charge of our health?  This has got to stop!

Of course, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different when we have Hillary Clinton who was the Untied States Secretary of State, who would not even take accountability for her lack of action.  At least at present, Hillary was never held accountable for the attacks in Benghazi, the second deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facility during the Obama administration.  When questioned, she became hot headed and still would never claim any accountability.  It was almost embarrassing watching her sit there and skirt around the subject at hand when questioned.  The facts remain that there were a list of some 234 security incidents in Libya, of which 50 took place in Benghazi.  These incidents including hijacking, bombing, kidnapping and assassination attempts took place between June 2011 and July 2012.  Sounds like a security issue to me.  But Hillary probably didn’t have time to actually do her job and dismissed the warning signs.  She should have absolutely, without question, been held accountable immediately for her inaction.  Yet, did president Obama step up to hold her accountable?  Nope!  Yet he’ll step in and use the government to overrule a hearing involving the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman case, when he has absolutely no right.  That is a direct abuse of power!  What about all those innocent people who died overseas?  Some are there under his orders, protecting the United States and its people.  We’re talking about death, not just money, but death because of a lack of accountability.  Sounds like a jail sentence to me!

According to Merriam-Webster:

And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”  And he answered, “What is it, Teacher?”  “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  When they could not pay, he forgave them both.  Now which of them will love him more?”  Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more.”  And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.”  ~Luke 7:40-43

George Zimmerman – Closing Arguments Held In Zimmerman Trial 2013

The entire human race sins!  Fact!  It is also our obligation to point out the sins of others and to have them answer for it, but it is not our place to pass judgment, especially after a court ruling.  Instead we should pray for one another and we should help our fellow brothers and sisters, getting them back on the right track.

Why the heck am I on this topic?  Simply because of the finger pointing, all the judgements and threats, and all the negativity and the violence and hate that has stemmed from this behavior.

Yep, I’m talking about the famous George Zimmerman – Trayvon Martin case.  Just to recap (since this blog is for my nephew to read later in life, I always try to give details to help him revisit history) on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed race of Hispanic American, fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student.  The ruling was just announced this past Saturday that Mr. Zimmerman was found not guilty, it was an act of self defense.

Just to get this clear from my point-of-view, that if someone, anyone a teenager or an old person, attacked me, pushed me down and began to beat my head off of cement, telling me that he or she was going to kill me, I would take that seriously.  Hopefully, all my survival instincts would kick in and I would have done the same, without hesitation!  I would have pulled the trigger.

Was George Zimmerman completely justifiable?  Yes he can be faulted for approaching the kid when he was instructed not to, but he did what he was suppose to do, he called the police first and reported the suspicion.  He didn’t just go guns a blazing at this suspicious kid, wearing a dark hoodie, milling around between houses in the rain, at night, appearing as if he was on drugs.  If I was George, I would have done the same, especially since the neighborhood was experiences break ins and violence thrusted upon them.  Imagine if Zimmerman would have just walked way and later found out that the kid killed or hurt someone?  That’s what would be running through my head, especially in the case of the unknown at the time.  I would feel it was my responsibility to step in and help take action to protect my family and friends.

As for caring a gun.  He was completely legal and within his rights to do so!  Apparently, he never really felt safe if he always carried the firearm with him, except to work.  Sometime before this case, he was interviewed and said that a robber fled the scene in his neighborhood, right through his property while his wife was home.  Yes!  That would mean something to me too!  And that would stick in my mind forever!

Let’s step back and really get to the heart of the matter.  First of all, what self-respecting child, calls another a cracker?  I would have never done that EVER!  I was taught to respect others and their property.  So with that out in the open, I would never have been hanging out in the rain if I wasn’t up to no good.  And what kid, who is innocent, attacks another?  Sure, kids will be kids, getting into trouble, but if that was me and my cousins, we would have set off running, even if we just wrong on the account of trespassing.  But never in a million years would we have attacked another, unless there was more to it, than kids being kids.  I can’t help but think, Mr. Martin was up to more than just passing through.  Of course, it doesn’t make a difference now, and that’s total speculation and not my place to judge.

Rioting in LA from the George Zimmerman verdict 2013

So now my next thought, why are people rioting?  Seriously?  Especially in California, the whole way across the United States, not even close to Florida.  Does looting and destroying private property make everything better?  Does damaging those hard working citizens’ businesses help you get your own way?  When did two wrongs EVER make a right?  My guess there are some deep seated issues residing in some individuals and they are just looking for an excuse.  Again back to respect.  Respect for our fellow neighbor and our brothers and sisters!  Those property owners weren’t involved in the crime, they weren’t even in the same time zone!  I think there are a lot of unbalanced people and I believe there are a lot of lackeys who thrive on violence and supply this anarchy to those in control, simply for a good show.  The media and some celebrities make that list of the guilty.

On a side note, if any of those rioters are on welfare, then technically they are working for the government.  Then, that means the government, Mr. Obama who is the leader, is destroying our own country from within and its hard working citizens.  Isn’t that like a dictatorship?  If the government insists on getting its own way, and disregards the decisions made by a selected jury and our courtrooms, that means the people truly don’t have a voice.  That means one of our branches of government is ruled by the other, our president.  In essence a dictatorship. I know that seems far fetched, but is it?

On the same thought, why is the government stepping in?  What, they have a say so to overrule the judge and the fair jury because they don’t like the decision?  Wake up people!  The government is already spying on us, they have controlled us through our finances with the IRS, which insistently will be controlling our healthcare decisions through the medicare audits, and now you are welcoming them in to overstep the decisions of a fair jury?  We are just handing over our freedom left and right because some want the government to control the legal system?  I’m not saying any branch of office is one hundred percent fair and unbiased, but don’t keep throwing fuel to the already blazing inferno.  The court ruled and that should be the end of it!

Do I feel bad for the Trayvon Martin family?  Absolutely!  I know first hand the pain that comes from loosing a family member too soon and so suddenly.  My heart bleeds for them, but continuing this quest for their own way, still does not make it right.  Yes it’s tragic, but instead of selling your soul to the government to get your own way, maybe everyone needs to step back and really look at the situation.  Although, I know it’s hard, with the grief and the shock of the verdict at hand, but it will help to find peace.

Blaming race is also not the answer.  How can we, as Americans ever get past racial violence and issues, if it’s always thrown out there.  I mean, how is the next generation going to learn this, which is a learned behavior, if it is not taught?  Stop the hate lesson, then the hate will stop!  After all, George Zimmerman was not even a white man, he is Hispanic.  And if I am correct, that race is a minority too.  So what idiot started to play the race card, my guess because there was nothing else, yet got their facts wrong?  Is there really a need to destroy other lives through violence?  It doesn’t change anything, doesn’t stop life from moving on, and doesn’t change the future.  It just makes us barbarians.

I didn’t see any rioting when OJ Simpson was let off.  My opinion he was as guilty as guilty can be.  Nope, that circus courtroom and all the lies was accepted and ruled on, and there were two innocent murders committed on their own property.  Again, completely innocent people do not act out of control, violent and desperate for an escape.  So why the famous high speed chase in the white broncho?  When I heard that ruling all I thought was, ‘Well, God will judge’.  And look at Mr. Simpson’s life since.  Not a healthy one, maybe the guilt is consuming him?

Rioting in LA from the George Zimmerman case verdict

Ok, may that was too long ago for some of us to really remember or care about, but what about the Casey Anthony trial?  Casey Anthony was on trail for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee Anthony in Orlando Florida.  Again to recap and refresh the memories of many, the maternal grandmother reported the child missing for over a month and said Casey’s car smelled like a dead body.  That was on July 15, 2008.  Casey gave many falsehoods as to the whereabouts of the child including telling the authorities that her daughter was kidnapped.  On October 2008, she was charged with first degree murder and pleaded not guilty.  Later the court ruled on July 5, 2011, and the jury found Casey not guilty of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child.  However she was found guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer.  Using her credit for time served, she was released on July 17, 2011.

Was I mad?  Sure, but I also have faith.  I have faith that justice is always served.  I have faith still in our court systems, even though we know it’s corrupt at times.  I also have faith, that good prevails.  Never, did I ever even think of rioting or steeling from business owners.  Is looting an act of demonstrating or is it a selfish act for the personal gain of oneself?

Later that year on December 11, 2008, the little girl Caylee’s skeletal remains were found.  They were wrapped in a blanket inside a trash bag in the wooded area near the family home.  There was duct tape across the mouth on the child’s skull.  Did I mention that after all the lies, they were trying to prove the little girl drown in the pool accidentally?

Yet after all this, where people outraged?  Sure, but not like whats happening with the George Zimmerman case, with all the violence and damage and threats.  The Casey Anthony case was not in question of self defense, it was a blatant attempt of getting away with murder.  Yet she got off!  I was not in the courtroom, I was not on the jury, and I may not have agreed with the verdict, but I do agree with those who made the decision.  End of case, start moving on!

We need to continue to trust our court systems, albeit they are not perfect, but it’s better than anarchy and counter to radical thinking and radical actions of those on the streets.  That’s when the innocent are really going to get hurt, no matter their color.

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?  ~Matthew 8:23-27

Watching tropical storm Sandy, turning into hurricane Sandy has been exciting, especially since Sandy shot up the coastline and made a direct hit for New York, Pennsylvania and the Washington D.C. areas.  Technically speaking it ultimately covered a third of the nation.  In fact, the news reported that they closed down the transit system in New York and the tunnels so no one was allowed in our out, including the stock market.   Now I am not a cynical person and I don’t like to see damage and destruction happen to anyone, but this has been exciting!  Just tracking the storm and watching it as it slowly crept upward and moved toward our area was something to experience.  I don’t ever remember being the red section on the weather channel map before, at least not for a hurricane.  I guess this is our first hurricane since the 1930’s and before that it happened a century earlier.  Over the years we’ve experienced the backlashes and the after effects of such destructive storms, but nothing like this.  Sandy moved up the through the water and made a left hand turn to enter the land over our area.  What an historical event!

Actually, I found out how historic the weather has turned out to be.  Besides being humorously coined Frankenstorm or Superstorm, Sandy is also being called the perfect storm.  What?  Yep!  So now my question is, ‘What makes it a perfect storm?’.  From my understanding the last perfect storm we had was in October of 1991 off of Massachusetts.  It’s the trifecta of bad maxed out storm conditions, basically the combination of the hurricane (high pressure and low pressure), along with the nor’easter coming form the west.  I guess it was puzzling meteorologists because no one has ever seen anything like this.  The winds and rain certainly qualified as a hurricane but no hurricane has ever produced a blizzard before, they are usually warm weather storms.

Speaking of a storm a brewing, Kyle wasn’t feeling very well last night.  He said his tummy was upset and hurting.  He didn’t even turn on the TV as we sat in my living-room, he just asked me to read to him before his piano lessons.  He didn’t even want anything to eat.  I felt so bad for my little man, Kyle really wasn’t himself.  He said he felt sick as soon as he got home from school.  Hopefully it will pass with minimal damage, just like Sandy.  I know Kyle was excited for the two hour delay this morning.  He even flashed me an ornery grin when the comment was made.  Although his class was suppose to have their field trip to the symphony today, maybe it will be rescheduled.

During, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Casey called and was checking in on the “deer slayer”.  Living in West Virginia near Snowshoe, Casey was getting hit with snow, hard!  I heard they received a couple of feet of fresh, white snow in some places.  After Kyle got off the phone with Casey he said, “When are we getting snow?”  I said, “Hopefully soon!”  Kyle really started thinking and said, “Why are they getting all the snow and we aren’t?”  That’s funny, Kyle wasn’t worried about the hurricane, he wanted to be hit with a blizzard.  Can’t say that I blame him after the lack of snow from last season.

While driving home after Kyle’s lessons the reality of the storm was evident.  Wow!  The wind and the rain were crazy scary!  I’ll admit I didn’t see any trees down but there were electrical lines hanging along the road.  As far as I know, we were only touched by the outermost parts of the hurricane if any at all.  Just seeing the indirect damage Sandy caused really hit home and made me truly appreciate the power of God.  I can’t imagine those poor souls feeling the direct effects of a hurricane.

Kyle doesn’t handle bad weather well.  As we were driving he mentioned a few times, “Ok Aunt Heather let’s go a lot slower since there’s so much rain.”  I know an eleven year old is telling me how to drive, but I don’t care.  He was just being concerned and safe.  All I could respond was, “You’re right buddy. We’ll take it easy, we don’t want to drive through a swimming pool sized puddle.”  Through our travels, Kyle started picking my brain for my limited knowledge about hurricanes.  He was asking me about Sandy and where it’s going to hit.  During the day as we were tracking the storm’s whereabouts, it hadn’t hit land yet. Even though the coastline along the Carolina’s showed major damage from the winds, rain and waves.

Kyle grabbed my phone and looked up Fox news for the Breaking News alerts.  He sat there and scrolled down through the stories and gave me little highlights.  At one point he turned to me and said, “It hit land!”  Just to keep Kyle from additional worry, I said in a very blasé tone, “O ya? Wonder how your Aunt Nikki is doing?”  Kyle turned to me and said “Umm she’s good, remember I talked to her earlier.  She sounded good.”  That almost make me take a second glance because in crisis situations Kyle’s the first one reaching out to family, ensuring all is well in his world.  As to not start a panic, I replied, “Ya your probably right.”  Well, I got him home safe and did the same for myself before retiring for the night.

This morning, the status of hurricane Sandy turned back into a tropical storm.  My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been effected by the hurricane.  God Speed.

The response was overwhelming.  I like to share what I have learned with others about everyday happenings as well as issues that make a difference in the world of business.  ~Bob Parsons

This past Monday, in the middle of the day, I noticed all my websites were down.  Yep, that means good old AuntHeather.com was down.  At first I thought it was something I did while making updates the night prior.  In disbelief over this outage, I turned to Facebook to see if others were experiencing issues.  I first saw the breaking news on Mashable – GoDaddy’s DNS Servers Go Down, Along With Thousands of Sites.   Evidently, anyone who had web hosting and domain names pointed from GoDaddy, were all down due to a hacker issue.

Monday night I had Kyle for his piano lessons.  During dinner I flipped on Channel 4 news, a bad habit while eating, and among other stories, I caught the one about GoDaddy going down.  As I was listening to the news, Kyle was half paying attention, strumming his guitar and playing with Storm.  I did make a comment on the GoDaddy situation, but again it didn’t seem to mean anything to Kyle and I didn’t think much of it until later that evening.

As Kyle and I were heading to his music lesson, a friend of mine was texting me, letting me know GoDaddy was back up again.  Naturally, Kyle checked my text messages while I was driving and read me the contents.  All of a sudden, he got this look on his face of complete fear and disbelief.  He asked me, “Aunt Heather does that mean our sites are down?  Even SpyRing?”  I said, “Yep, but Kelly said her sites are back up, which means ours should be too.  I’m going to look when we get inside.”  Spoken like a true business man, he said, “So how does anybody know about our stuff, if they don’t see it on our websites?”  Answering him, I said, “They won’t, that’s why it’s such a big deal, everyone associated with GoDaddy is down.”  Still in business mode, Kyle requested that I check our sites immediately when we get in the building.  He makes me laugh out loud!  I was planning on it, but it’s funny to see that Kyle feels the need to manage and direct me.

Upon conclusion of his piano lesson, he immediately went back into businessman mode and asked me about our sites.  “Aunt Heather, how’s SpyRing? and Thrill of the Hunt?”  I said, “All looks good, Piper Corporation and Aunt Heather are all back up.”  Naturally he didn’t care about my blog but it was neat to see his understanding for the value and importance of the company websites and his sense of urgency.

The next morning I read a story from CNN Tech – Hacker claims responsibility for GoDaddy outage.  The article claimed

“A person affiliated with the hacking collective Anonymous — named @AnonymousOwn3r on Twitter — claimed responsibility for the outage.”

Really?  Was that necessary?  If hackers need something to do, then I have a laundry list to put them to work.  There is no doubt, these hackers are a brilliant bunch and very intelligent, but they claimed to want to check the security of GoDaddy.  Really?  Was there act so selfless?  If that was the case, then don’t take down the company who in turn effects a large part of the population and their businesses, and not certainly for a better part of the day.  But then again, I’m no hacker, so what do I know.  Putting a positive spin on the situation, maybe GoDaddy has beefed up their security.

I can honestly say, I am a customer of GoDaddy’s and this situation has not changed my view of the company.  In fact, I thought they did a pretty good job returning things to their original state.  Personally I think GoDaddy is reasonably priced and they have GREAT customer service.  In the years that I’ve been a patron of GoDaddy, I’ve never had an issue.  I know I’m not the only one in this camp.  GoDaddy!

Also, thank you GoDaddy for the credit I received today because of the mishap.  That really helped to strengthen my view of your customer service.  I know you value and appreciate my patronage.