After Hollande Visit Berlin Inaugurated Today, Hollande will be inducted at a state ceremony at the Elysee Palace at about 10 am local time, then travel along the Champs-Élysées to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe.

On the same day, the president also will pay tribute to Jules Ferry, the 19th century statesman who is considered the father of French secular education system, and Marie Curie, a Nobel Prize-winning chemistry.

Then, within hours, after taking the oath, Hollande will meet his first campaign promise to make first trip abroad, namely to Germany. He and Merkel is scheduled to discuss plans for a new agreement and the ongoing political situation in Greece.

Berlin Wall from Above (Photo credit: roger4336)

However, before leaving for Berlin, Hollande is expected to announce the name of the prime minister. There are some names that are favorites to occupy the position, Jean-Marc Ayrault diantarany, Socialist leader in the lower house of parliament, party leader Martine Aubry and Hollande communications chief, Manuel Valls. Meanwhile, the post of Finance Minister Michel Sapin likely held by and Laurent Fabius, is predicted as a prime candidate for foreign minister.

Valls is also predicted to occupy the interior minister post, after seeing its role during the campaign. Hollande’s cabinet will include many women and men.

Hollande is the first French president from the left wing parties (Socialist Party) in the last 17 ​​years. Now, the Socialist Party will face the French parliamentary elections to be held in June.

Samuel Gompers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Year by year man’s liberties are trampled underfoot at the bidding of corporations and trusts, rights are invaded and law perverted. In all ages whenever a tyrant has shown himself he has always found some willing judge to   clothe that tyranny in robes of legality, and modern capitalism has proven no exception to the rule. You may not know that the labor movement as represented by the trades unions, stands for rights, stands for justice, for liberty. You may not imagine that the issuance of an injunction depriving men of a legal as well as a natural right to protect themselves, their wives, their little ones, must fail of it’s own purpose. Repression or oppression    never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or  redressing a wrong.”

Samuel Gompers made this speech when the labor organizations was beginning to organise to give workers the right to protection on the job and fair wages. Samuel Gompers wasn’t interested in improving society. He stuck to the bread and butter issues, which were hours, wages, and safety on the job.  He was instrumental in organizing The American Federation of Labor, presiding over the AFL from 86 to 1924.

Matt Lauer is sticking with NBC’s Today.

Ending any hypothesis that the highest-rated present may need to face ABC’s rising Good Morning America with out him, Lauer signed an extended-term contract with NBC.

Lauer plans to announce Friday on air that he is staying put, ending suggestions that he would possibly reunite with Katie Couric on a syndicated show she’s launching.

Many felt that Lauer was merely negotiating a greater deal for himself all along, although, having been a fixture of the 1 ranked morning show since 1994.

For broadcast networks, morning represents one of the crucial essential parts of the day. The shows are vastly worthwhile at a time of declining TV viewership.

Stories that Lauer may end up with a $25 million deal will not be exaggerated, as a result, although NBC has declined to touch upon the deal’s specifics.

It has been quite every week for At present, with Matt interviewing Octomom in addition to Sarah Palin, whereas Couric visitor hosts Good Morning America over on ABC.

NBC additionally apologized for As we speak bungling the Trayvon Martin 911 name, however that clearly wasn’t seen as an obstacle to money cow Lauer’s big payday.

The first image was a Sarah Palin with his face covered by a newspaper pretending to read the press. It was the first of successive winks to the audience at the premiere of Palin as host of the morning program Tuesdays “Today” on NBC, the chain four years ago ridiculed by his inexperience when he was Republican vice presidential candidate. Palin competed on Tuesday at the same time with Katie Couric, author of the lethal Palin interviews in 2008 and this week has moved from NBC to ABC to drive the rival “Good Morning America.”

Couric to Palin revealed in the previous elections when asked what newspapers I read regularly and what experience they had in international politics. Palin claimed Darios read several, but failed to name any. He pleaded prepared on foreign policy because Alaska is a neighbor of Russia. “I can see Russia from my house,” then the joke would be repeated continuously. As the duel between these two women, NBC was clear whom to hire to replace Couric when this is gone to ABC, which has advanced in morning audience to “Today”, which was leading so far.

Palin already has a partnership with Fox, but its role here is higher, although the weight of the program rests with Matt Lauer, the principal conductor and who presents ‘Today’ all week. “Oh, is doing his homework,” Lauer said at the beginning of the program to see Palin engrossed in reading the press. After the first commercial break the camera caught Palin in a dressing room taking notes with a pen. It was another wink in a speech in the last presidential Republican politics was caught looking at what was noted in the palm of the hand. “He’s taking notes, preparing for the next segment of the program,” Lauer explained to viewers. Palin then joked: “Thanks for letting me in your dressing room meterne now that I have your hair products.”

In this light-hearted tone spent the whole issue. At a time when the guests were talking about movies, Palin said she has not seen ‘Game Change’, the film portrays her candidacy for vice president. “I did not see because they do not want to waste my time,” he said. Regarding the Republican primary, Romney had to admit that “obviously seems to be who is leading, the numbers are the numbers,” he admitted, implicitly confessing little enthusiasm for the more moderate profile former governor of Massachusetts.

The Couric-Palin Smackdown? 

The real excitement, though, will be the potential for a slap-down between Couric, who was the main draw for NBC’s “Today” show for 15 years, and Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, unsuccessful vice presidential candidate, and a former radio personality, who will be a guest host on “Today” opposite Couric.  These two last faced off four years ago, when Couric interviewed then-candidate Palin and wiped the floor with her.  In a hard-hitting interview that some viewed as overly aggressive, Couric demonstrated Palin’s lack of preparation and intellectual depth; for instance, when the candidate couldn’t name any of the newspapers she regularly read.

Palin got high marks for her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, which launched her meteoric political rise, and has been the darling of far right conservatives since, although she hasn’t fared so well in the 2012 Republican primary contest.  Couric, on the other hand, has a solid 15-year record as the reigning queen of the “Today” show.  She didn’t do as well as the first solo female anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”

Who Will Be Watching Who?

It’s a solid bet that viewers who are strongly in the conservative camp, especially Tea Party members and supporters, are likely to tune in to NBC to worship at the feet of the goddess of the right wing, while the more liberal viewers will be on ABC, hanging on Katie’s every word.

Who Really Cares?

That leaves a bunch of us in the middle; people who are spooked by the rabid spewing of the right, and sometimes nauseated by the nattering of the left; viewers who, if they even bother to watch morning TV news shows, want news rather than entertainment.  If I want that, I’ll watch Cartoon Network, or one of the cable wrestling or golf channels.  “Today” is pulling out the stops to attract viewers; with a stellar lineup of personalities designed to entice viewers, just in case Palin’s not a strong enough draw.  Some who watch GMA will likely be hoping to see if the rest of the staff gives Couric the ‘mean girl’ treatment, despite the fact that it’s not her fault that the producers chose her to sit in for Roberts; a lot like people who slow down near an accident scene trying to get a glimpse of any mangled bodies.  If you don’t fall into either of those camps, what can you do?  You could try watching “CBS This Morning.”  It’s likely CBS will focus on delivering news instead of publicity stunts.  On the other hand, you could just leave the television off and read a book instead.

Lohan gave the interview with Matt Lauer on “Today” in advance of hosting “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, marking a comeback of sorts for the promising young actress whose career was sidelined by substance abuse problems, family drama and tabloid headlines.

“I’ve certainly seen a lot, and I’ve grown,” Lohan said. “I’ve just kind of, I’ve learned how to live my life in a way that I’m happy. And I can do the things that I want to do.”

She added: “I think it’s this last kind of, like, whirlwind of experiences I’ve gone through this last year and a half. I’ve kind of just taken a step back and said, ‘I’m not doing what I love to do,’ and I need to find a way to kind of find that balance again.”

Lohan, 25, said the changes came after evaluating the people in her life. She said she trusts her mother and some of her family, but that there were many others who, before, did not have her best interests at heart.

She said does have some regret for the choices she had made. “But I’m grateful for where I am today because of them,” she said. “Because I’ve seen, I don’t need to see any more negative stuff. I don’t need to put myself in those places anymore.”

With one court appearance to go, Lohan thanked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner and called her court-ordered time at the L.A. County morgue a “humbling” experience.

“The two women I worked there [with] have been so wonderful to me,” Lohan said of the morgue. “I’ve learned so much from them … It’s been a learning experience. I’m grateful that I’ve learned from it. It’s helped me.”

Image via Wikipedia

TIME HEALS BUT FORGIVENESS MAKES YOU WELL

I’m along in years now, elderly, and like all of us my life has had its ups and down.  Life is never easy for any of us.  Loved ones leave or die and we feel a horrendous loss like a part of our heart, our life has been ripped right out of us.  Someone gossips about us and spreads rumors without knowing all the facts or twisting truth taking things out of context and injecting their own conclusions and it tarnishes your good reputation.  We over-extend our self financially and end up with financial issues that cause us grief much to our distress and at times, our embarrassment.   

We all sometimes make bad choices or others make bad choices and we get hurt, emotionally, physically, financially and even spiritually.  Sometimes we find it difficult to get beyond the pain, the grief, the hurt, the anger and the frustration that is left behind in the wake of the injury. 

Sometimes we can fix it.  More often we can’t and we have to just pick up the pieces and move on.  It is not an easy thing to do but time heals, if we let it.  This is when you need to truly live just one day at a time; don’t cling too yesterday and don’t project the future, just live today.  It is all we really have anyhow, just today.  We can’t go back and change one single moment of the past.  It is over and done with.  We do not know, cannot know what the future holds or even if we will see a new tomorrow.  None of us know that.  We can hope and dream and even plan for days to come but we cannot know what tomorrow will bring until it becomes today. 

Eventually, after a few days, weeks, maybe even a few months, depending on what the situation is, the immediate pain subsides.  The anger, the feeling of loss or the embarrassment eases and slowly fades into the shadows of your mind.  Time heals but it also has a tendency to leave scars behind.  Too often we find our self hiding behind those scars.  With withdraw into our own shell.  We stop truly communicating.  We over-react to a look or a comment that we might otherwise blow off or simply ask, “Did I hear what I think you said,” and ask for an explanation…and worse we refuse to let go and we dwell on all the hurt.  

Sometimes we even do the unthinkable, what we would not do.  Instead of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, we do unto others as others have done unto us and the cycle of damage rolls on from person to person and generation to generation.  As long as we allow past injury to dictate our present behavior it will never go away and nothing will change,  It will always be there to haunt you.  They say time heals, maybe, but it sure can leave some ugly scars behind.

It took me a long time to get this, really get this, accept it and put it into practice in my own life.  It is not time that truly heals…FORGIVENESS is the true healer.  It is hard to forgive when you have been seriously hurt.  It is hard to forgive those who have hurt you.  It is hard to forgive yourself for your own wrong doings, bad choices but learning to forgive is the only way you will ever truly heal.

Forgiveness is a whole lot more than “I’m sorry.”  “Okay, I forgive you.”  That is just the beginning.  You may never get an apology but you need to forgive anyhow.

Let me give you an example.  When I was a child and even into my young adult years there was someone who was treating me very badly, saying bad things about me and attempting and occasionally succeeding to do bad things to me.  I feared and hated this person.  I even tried to tell others whom I thought would help and do something about it what was going on but to no avail.  This person wouldn’t do that.

I had misunderstood.  I was the one to blame.  They wouldn’t believe me or maybe they did believe me but couldn’t or wouldn’t accept the possibilities or maybe were too insecure themselves to help. 

For years I feared and hated this person and avoided this person as much as possible.

I would literally quake inside if I found myself in a situation where I had to be alone in this person’s presence.  Eventually I learned to forgive, forgive for my own sake because I couldn’t live with that pain anymore.  I couldn’t live with the fear and the hate and ever truly move on in my life and be happy.  I couldn’t change what had happened.  I couldn’t make this person a better person.  I couldn’t make this person respect me.  I couldn’t make this person love me for who I truly am.  There was no way to retaliate and not bring myself down to their level of wrongness.  There was nothing I could do and it left me hurting and broken until I forgave this person and truly meant it.  You have to learn to love (agape kind of love) the person even when you abhor the behavior.   You have to come to recognize it is not the person you hate, it is the behavior.  Without the negative behavior you could really like that person.  It is love (agape love) that heals and forgiveness that makes you well and the love and forgiveness comes in time.  So I suppose, in a sense of the word, time heals.

Forgiving a person does not mean you ever have to like or trust that person again.  It doesn’t mean you have to be their friend or even be around them.  It doesn’t me that you will forget but you will learn from the past and are better able to keep yourself out of such situations.  It is the forgiveness that actually makes you well and able to truly move on and not let clouds of yesterday darken the sunshine of today.  You can finally dump the garbage and all that old baggage that is making your life painful, sorrowful and stuck in a bad place.  Forgiveness does that.

Not too long ago I talked with this person and I told them exactly how I felt and what their actions had done to me, how it had hurt me all these many years.  I told them I forgave them and even though I loved them as a person I could not like them because of their behavior toward me.  I did not and do not like the behavior and that for a time it had left me very broken.  Unfortunately the person laughed and said. “Yeh, but I enjoyed it and I told you no one would ever believe you.  I made damned sure of that.” 

For just a few seconds I cringed and recoiled like this person had just punched me in the gut.  For just a few seconds I wanted to strike out as venomously as I knew how but I didn’t.  I just walked away.  This person knows my feelings.  This person knows I am no longer holding a grudge or any hate toward them personally and that it was, is their actions and attitudes I hate and will no longer allow to hurt me.  I have forgiven them and shifted the burden.  It is now their baggage, their burden to carry and what they do with it is their problem.  I will probably never forget those injuries from the past but neither will I dwell on them or use them as an excuse for my own behavior.  It is finally over and I am well.

Source: # Http: / / www.shvoong.com/social-sciences/education/250298-education-today/ ixzz1ieCyiJ1A

The Civil Rights Movement was a major movement that brought about many changes for African Americans. In Michael Goldfield’s piece, The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, he tells of an example of one of those changes when he states that the, “1954 Brown v. Board of Education… case… [had] outlaw[ed] segregate[ion in] schools” (264). There were many similar cases before this one and cases that followed this one.  These cases gave African Americans and other minorities more power legally but were the legal powers given to them only temporary?

The very rights that African Americans had achieved through the Civil Rights Movement have been diluted by the mass incarceration of men of color. Michelle Alexander argues in, The New Jim Crow, that, “Mass incarceration has been normalized, and all of the racial stereotypes and assumptions that gave rise to the system are now embraced (or at least internalized) by people of all colors, from all walks of life, and in every major political party (176). She is saying that people, even minorities, have come to see people of color and associate them with certain crimes, so that it is not as big of a surprise to them when they see those same men imprisoned. These stereotypes have become ingrained within us over time and generations. These stereotypes help promote the imprisonment of minorities.

When imprisoned you are stripped of your rights and when you get back on the streets you don’t get those rights back. By focusing arrests in predominantly African American and minority neighborhoods, there is more of a likelihood of finding more black men doing illegal things. Even after these men are freed from the incarceration system they sometimes have a parole officer. The parole officer becomes ‘big brother’ and is constantly monitoring them after imprisonment, looking for any possible violations to send them back to prison. They have already lost their right to vote and thereby their political power legally but may not be able to protest either as this could send them back to prison. It is easier to be sent back to prison for them and that fear keeps them submissive and under the thumb of the powerful people in the government. Keeping minorities off of the streets and limiting their rights through incarceration keeps the minorities from rising up and becoming a dominant source of political power against the Conservative powers.

Affirmative Action seemed to help the working class avoid some of these economic fears but brought about a fear of your neighbor which is seen through the formation of the Minutemen. The Minuteman Project was brought about in 2004 because a lot of Americans had fear put into their minds that the immigrants that were coming over the border from Mexico illegally were taking their jobs. This group was formed of organized white American men. The group saw Mexicans as taking over and getting lots of benefits for illegally entering their country. According to Leo Chavez, as written in The Minuteman Project’s Spectacle of Surveillance on the Arizona-Mexico Border, the minutemen believed that an, “imminent danger to all Americans… [was that] rights and privileges of citizenship… were losing their value as a result of immigration” (134). The minutemen were focused on the illegal aspect of immigration. This stance that they took was not actually true as illegal immigrants do not have the same “rights and privileges of citizenship” because they are not citizens. The Minutemen used, “statistics… [to help] construct [a] rhetoric of fear” (Chavez 135). The Conservatives instilled the fear in the Minutemen and the Minutemen were going to further instill this fear into the masses of America. The Minutemen were unknowingly working for the Conservative party, in that they were doing the legwork for them. They didn’t see the government showing any effort to keep the illegal immigrants out of the United States, and the statistics seemed to show that they were right, so they decided to take the enforcement of the border on themselves. They showed action because they wanted something to be done and they wanted others to join their cause. The statistics helped them because when you look at numbers they sometimes seem daunting, especially in the case of illegal immigration. They were instilling the fear as the Conservatives had done in the past. The Conservatives realized that by just suggesting an idea to the working class, they would instill the fear in themselves. All they had to do was wait. By the Minutemen targeting illegal immigration specifically they were focusing on the, “notion of criminality… invoked [by] the ‘breaking into the country’ image” (Chavez 136). This act of “breaking in” invoked fear. If they can break into our country so easily what else can they do? By viewing the immigrants in this light, the Minutemen are losing focus on the goals of the working party to achieve balance with the elite, with regards to rights and opportunities.

The very thing that helped activists to gain rights throughout the Civil Rights Movement was now being impeached upon to limit those rights. Race and gender consciousness was the thing that Conservatives used to fight for what they wanted without doing any work. Nancy Maclean told of this in her piece, Conservatives Shift From Massive Resistance to Color-Blindness, when she reiterated the Conservative stance on Affirmative Action, as altered to fit the time. Conservatives said, “Affirmative action… abused the civil rights of others and was itself discriminatory” (Maclean 226). By instilling fear that one race was getting more than the other people started to question why and where those rights came from. ‘Am I getting less because they’re getting more?’ is the fear based mentality that was becoming prevalent at the time. This fear based in ‘more or less’ mentality was one of the major reasons for the formation of The Minuteman Project.

Though the Civil Rights Movement is said to be from the 1950’s to the 1980’s there are still people fighting for civil liberties today, such as the illegal Hispanic immigrants of Mexico, Central and South America. On an international level, because of Conservative influence Mexicans are now being seen, even more so than in the past, as an infiltration taking over the country. In reality, Mexicans are good for business and bring a lot of benefits to people throughout the country. Businesses want to employ Mexicans as they are a means of cheap labor. They accept much less monetary compensation than they are actually worth for all of the work that they do. For example, by Mexicans working in the food industry, it lowers the cost of labor for the employer and allows the business owner to offer you food at a lower price as well. Through Mexican’s denizen labor, you are saving a lot of money as a business owner or as an average citizen. These negative feelings toward Mexicans could be the start of negative feelings towards other immigrants as well.

The United States is founded on immigration. It has the values of equal opportunity and fair and equal treatment for all. This act of not treating immigrants fairly could be seen by other immigrants as a reason not to come to the United States and help the country advance itself. This fear mongering, especially as is seen in the case of The Minuteman Project, intended to make Americans shy away from immigrants may cause more harm than good. If we are seen as not wanting to help ‘outsiders’ and see everyone as a ‘potential threat’ then who will our allies be? If we have a constant fear instilled in us as Americans and we show this fear, this weakness, to alien (foreign) countries why would they protect us in our time of need?

W.E.B. Du Bois as quoted in the, The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, said, “it is a fight for ideals, lest this, our common fatherland, false to its founding, become in truth the land of the thief and the home of the Slave” (Goldfield 262). Through hindsight we can see that these words, though stated many years before, were like a premonition towards the future state of America. Our fight for ideals through activism is what makes us have any rights at all, but “in truth,” what we have is not really much. Through implementations of various programs which we see as helpful, this hierarchical system has made us weak in our efforts to rise against its predominantly Conservative counterpart. Over time we have become blinded by the programs put in front of us that are meant to suppress the masses. We have accepted these programs as gifts, not realizing that by having them successfully implemented we are just like a crying child who has been given a pacifier. By accepting the Conservatives in power, we are doing nothing. We have become pacified. Why change a system that has so much going for it? Our fight for “ideals” has been given up and we are living in the delusion that our society is free when in fact we are living in, “the land of the thief and the home of the Slave”.

Works Cited

Alexander, Michelle. “The New Jim Crow,” in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the

Age of Colorblindness, p. 173-208.

Chavez, Leo. “The Minuteman Project’s Spectacle of Surveillance on the Arizona-Mexico

Border,” in The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. (2008), p.132-151.

Goldfield, Michael. “The Emergence of the Civil Rights Movement,” in The Color of Politics:

Race And the Mainsprings of American Politics (1997), p. 262-287 (287-295 optional).

Maclean, Nancy. “Conservatives Shift From Massive Resistance to Color-Blindness,” in  

Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace, p. 225-249.

After the mini-concert, the star even gave a few fans the oppurtunity to meet him, and get his autograph along with pictures. He’s extremely down to earth and greatful for his fans and all their support, and isn’t known as that typical famous celebrity brat that refuses to be seen in public and having to pay some attention to their fans.