My Pearl!

I LOOOOOOVEEE my Pearl.



We are talking Blackberry Pearl. I have an 8100 with no data plan. There are times I wish I could use google maps when I'm on the road, but not for $30 per month extra-what AT&T charges for the Blackberry data plan in the Detroit area.

I use Outlook on my laptop, sync it with my phone. I put the "Today" style theme and get tasks and appointments in an "agenda" format through the calendar or I can look them up separately. I use alarms and reminders constantly. I can "mark complete" a task from the reminder that pops up.

My radio/cd player on my jeep doesn't work, so I download iTunes podcasts and music, make playlists and update my phone with the recently released Blackberry media sync.

The voice dialer is a frustration for me- it rarely works, and the 1.3 mp camera takes blue-grey looking photos which can be ghastly when taking pics of family.

I looked at the Curve and a few others. I love the Pearl's keyboard and smart dialing, rather than having to find the little grain-of-rice sized keys.

Today I am looking for a heavy duty battery and a charger because I use my Pearl so much and I really don't plan on changing phones.

Nope, folks, when that sad day comes and I have the funeral for my Pearl, her replacement- a new Pearl- will be with me.

God bless you!

Best Answer!

I only check my yahoo account once in a great while, so today I discovered that my one Yahoo answer got "Best Answer"! The question is a hard one, but, five months later, I stand behind my answer.

Jenga! Resolved Question

How can we truly love one another if we are taught that the things others do are wrong?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

by dembidj

First, loving means accepting the person; loving someone does not mean you are a doormat or are to allow yourself to be used.

That said, recognizing the difference between who a person is and what a person does can be difficult, and takes practice and patience.

We can love people first by recognizing that we are loved, no matter what we do. Then, we can love others without loving everything they do. We can have the boldness to let them know they are doing wrong, and the self-respect to not let them act out around us.

That's how I am able to love people, not their actions.

Source(s):

The Bible.

• 2 Rating: Good Answer

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

Thank you!!!

Puerto Rico- No Vote? Continues...

Wow! I've never actually had anyone read my comments and answer me- and so quickly! Thank you! It makes me feel like I matter- I suppose like the Puerto Rican people- we all want to be heard.

After reading your article again and the ITN one I have tempered my position.

I see your point about the military service being a public service and concede that that may be the motivation to volunteer, and I can surely see how, once signed up, they would like a say regarding whether or not to go to war. But I don't believe it is largely patriotic, since most PR's are proud of their identity as PR's and don't want to consider themselves as Americans. I haven't researched this, but didn't the PR people fight congress to get a base closed not too long ago?

You say the US Congress can legally decide PR's fate- with about 60% of the population choosing Commonwealth status what would you have Congress do?

Personally I would have them become a state. They would be Americans, pay taxes, vote, just like the rest of us Baring statehood I wish they were Independent. Then we would no longer be fiscally responsible for them.

Perhaps I'm more reacting to what I read as divisive because the way the Detroit News reports is often divisive and inflammatory. Biased- a better word than divisive, perhaps.

In any case, what I took away from the your articles is that I was supposed to feel sorry for the poor PRs who can't really vote in an election and are kept, like stepchildren from becoming full participants in statehood. I have difficulty with that because I feel like the big sister that has been working to support her younger siblings who are perhaps old enough to have their own jobs, but continue to rely on Big Sister to support them, contributing only their opinions on how the house should be run.

Perhaps inflammatory is a good thing- I'm thinking you are more of a catalyst for change than an arsonist.

Puerto Rico- No Vote? Part Two

-----Original Message-----
From: INDIRA LAKSHMANAN, BLOOMBERG/ NEWSROOM:
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 11:07 AM
To: dembidj
Subject: Re:Puerto Rico- No Vote?

Dear Reader: The story does accurately reflect the feelings of a wide cross-section of Puerto Ricans interviewed -- whether you or I agree with them or not, those are their opinions. Indeed they do not pay federal taxes, but like the District of Columbia, they do not have a voting representative in US Congress either, and they do not get equal federal funding and benefits as the 50 states. The 1967, 93 and 98 plebescites were non-binding -- effectively, opinion polls insofar as only US Congress can legally decide PR's fate. While military service is certainly voluntary, many Americans, including Puerto Ricans, consider it a patriotic form of public service, and would like to have a say in how US military operations are conducted. I do not consider the article inflammatory or divisive in any way, but thank you for your feedback. You can find a slightly longer version of the story on www.iht.com, the webpage of the International Herald Tribune. Thank you for reading Bloomberg News.

Puerto Rico- No Vote? Part One

To: ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net


I just read your article in Bloomberg. I had previously read the
"edited" job the Detroit News did of it. While the Bloomberg version
is better, I think it is still unnecessarily inflammatory.

The Detroit News made no mention of the 1967, 1993, and 1998 votes to
remain a Commonwealth, rather than accept the title and
responsibilities of Statehood, or the uncertainties and
responsibilities of independence. While the Bloomberg article does
mention the three major votes, you play them down, as if it were an
opinion poll rather than them voting to decide to maintain
Commonwealth status and fewer responsibilities.
Publish Post
I think they have it pretty good! Our founding fathers had Taxation
without Representation. The Puerto Rican people have representation
without taxation- While they pay Social Security and Medicare- which
they are eligible for to receive benefits for- they don't pay Federal
Income taxes. The receive all the status and protection being a
commonwealth affords them, but fewer responsibilities.

You mention that Puerto Rico has sent "more active-duty forces to Iraq
and Afghanistan than all U.S. states except Nevada" as sort of a
footnote to show how they've been mistreated by not being able to vote
for President. You forgot to mention that it is a volunteer service.
That no one is asking, or requiring them to serve. I imagine, with the
lower per-capita income, service is a way off the island for many
young people.

Besides that, they have an opportunity, as this year's primaries are
proving, to change history. Our President is chosen by delegates, not
Popular vote. They have delegates and have a vote in the primaries.
It seems that education on the election process might help, but I
won't recommend it, because the cost for it would come out of Federal
tax dollars and that would be irresponsible.

There is a struggle in Puerto Rico between parties that want
statehood- full-sharing of the rights and responsibilities of American
citizenship, and other parties that want less responsibility and to
continue the status quo; "Commonwealth." It seems the status quo is
winning and whining


Report, please. Be responsible and stop generating hate and
divisivness. There is enough to go around, already.

Thank you.

--
Expect Miracles,
dembi dj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now Playing:

I'm sitting here listening to Brother Malcomb's "Rag Doll Blues" and thinking, "How thankful I am for my Blackberry!"

Let me backup and clarify. Six months ago my husband wanted some kind of mp3 player so he could listen to audio files in his truck. When I got a new cell phone/PDA (my beloved red Pearl) I gave him my old PDA and bought an FM transmitter for him so he could listen over the truck radio. He can sync the windows-based PDA with his computer, load it up with files, and play games- he has no interest in the "Org" features of the PDA, so it works beautifully.

Then, as I was lurking on Howard's Forums (http://www.howardforums.com/) I stumbled on a reference to playing mp3s on your Blackberry. I was so excited! I bought a 2Gig micro card, installed it, surfed the web for free music, spent hours selecting Gospel, blues, guitar, piano, bluegrass, classical, and folk music, studied how to load the files onto my Pearl. Then, I ran out of time to learn how to play more than one song at a time.

In other words, I would select a song, play it, then go back to the menu, and find another song to play. Too slow. It's ok with podcasts, because I may be in the mood for one type of podcast, then another, but for music-I just wanted it to play.

Well, here I sit in Rochester, Minnesota, visiting my friend in her workplace, with plenty of time to read "Help", "Shuffle songs in a media folder", the title of the help section tha told me all I had to do was go to the folder I wanted to play, press the menu key and click "Shuffle"!

Now i am enjoying my favorite kinds of music in no particular order.

Now playing: "Lost my Keys" by Cleanheadphil Speat.

--
Expect Miracles,
dembidj
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How long before they act?

In an article in Monday, April 28, 2008's Detroit News, entitled "Jobs expected to migrate with workers to suburbs" the author, Mike Wilkinson does an excellent job in describing the migration of jobs and residents from the factories and urban center of Detroit into the suburbs. He references SEMCOG (Southeast Michigan Council of Governments) that about 35,000 jobs and roughly 185,000 people would be moving out of Detroit, into the suburbs between now and 2035.

That's 35,000 jobs and roughly 185,000 taxpaying citizens lost for Detroit. My question is, "How long before RESIDENTS AND LEADERS stop acknowledging that something must be done and begin taking action to MAKE Detroit lovely again?"

When I married and moved up here in 1999 I wanted to buy a home in the city; become an urban pioneer. There were really beautiful brick homes just south of Eight Mile Rd. that were for sale for $30,000-$40,000 less than a comparable house between Eight and Nine Mile. Then the houses increased $10,000 for each Mile Road you went north.[1] But my husband, a Warren native, refused to buy south of Ten Mile.

I couldn't understand this, so I purposefully took jobs that put me in the city of Detroit to get a sense of why my 6'4" husband was reluctant to go anywhere but Greektown or Eastern Market. I couldn't believe what I saw, but the words decay, neglect, vandalism, and apathy come to mind. Did you know some of the 2,000 buildings that were burned out in the race riots of 1967 are still standing there, burnt out windows and doorways gaping open like dead, black eyes. This is 2008, folks![2]

Why? Why can't they grow past it, and into the 21st century?

In an article entitled: ”A gulf of our own” by Stephen Franklin, in the October 16, 2005 Chicago Tribune, Mr. Franklin used Detroit as a warning to Chicago residents of what their future could be if they don't take care. A warning, an admonition- how the mighty have fallen!

"But Detroit's well-known despair is more than a terribly troubling situation. In the factory-driven Midwest, Detroit is a warning sign. It has been four decades since the last good era in Detroit, back before the race riots of the late 1960s and the hollowing out of the city following the Rust Belt recession of the 1970s and 1980s.

If they cannot reinvent themselves, or just stay afloat, what is to become of Midwest cities like Detroit in the future, when the full force of globalization rears up?"

and: "The issue was raised anew in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which re-exposed the underclass of New Orleans. But the average family income last year in New Orleans was higher than in Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Cleveland.

Chicago has fared better than these troubled Midwest cities. But Chicago cannot afford to ignore the region's hollowing out.

The Windy City is the Midwest's commercial capital, and its fortunes remain tied to the Midwest's farms and factories. Not long ago, Chicago seemed on the way to becoming a global city insulated from its regional woes. But Chicago has yet to escape the Midwest's embrace."

Like the "Midwest" is a guy you are embarrassed to be seen with in high school. Man!

Mr. Franklin believes Detroit’s problem is:

"A matter of race" "No other Midwest city has stumbled as badly as Detroit. From 1.8 million people in 1950, the city's population has collapsed to less than 900,000, with its black middle class and working class now fleeing too.

One out of three Detroit residents is poor, making it the major city with the highest concentration of poverty. Nearly half of its youngsters below 17 years old live in poverty-stricken households, federal statistics show. Its jobless rate in August was 14.2 percent."

He goes on to say,

“Then there is the matter of race. More than eight out of 10 Detroit residents are black, making it the major American city with the largest black population, but only one of seven suburbanites is black.”

The migration out of Detroit is by whites AND blacks. It seems to me that blaming the suburbs for the loss of jobs and businesses has become a mantra for Detroiters. I ask, why or how can Detroit expect businesses to open stores in neighborhoods where their shops are vandalized and their employees fear for their lives? One store owner said to me, "The people in this neighborhood act like animals. They steal my supplies, damage my property without regard, dump the garbage from their car on the ground, three feet from a garbage can, and shoot at each other in my parking lot. Why should I care about keeping my place clean? For them?"

Most of all, I believe the citizens of Detroit have forgotten the "Golden Rule"- "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." I realize there are economic issues- I'm talking about keeping your yard clean and looking out for your neighbor, or reporting someone stealing a lawn mower or copper pipes from your neighbor's home without trying to stop them, I'm not talking about hiring a landscaper or spending billions to rebuild.

I would still love to move to Detroit, and become a part of the solution, but I would have to see property taxes lowered and see that the people who live there have decided they want to live in a better place by working to make their own homes better, and respecting the property of others rather than just complaining about how someone should be doing it for them. These are the things that I believe will stop the migration out of Detroit, and bring jobs and people back in. How long before they act?

---

[1] For example, for $57,000 I found a three bedroom, 1 1/2 bath brick home with a two car garage and a full basement south of Eight Mile. A similar home (one car garage, three bedroom, horrible basement) between Eight Mile and Eight and 1/2 Mile was selling for $87,000, between Nine and Ten Mile Roads, it went for $97,000, and between Ten and Eleven it was $107,000. Of course all those values have dropped $20 - 40 thousand today, but you see the pattern.

[2] (I couldn't remember when the riots were so I looked it up in Wickipedia and found that Detroit has lived through two riots: Detroit Race riot 1943, July 1967 12th street riot, both race-related. Wickpedia also lists the 1975 - Livernois-Fenkell riot, which was considered an incident, not a riot by Detroiters.) But, apparently Detroit only recovered from the 1943 riot.

How to Blog

OK. I've written in myspace, I have blogged in facebook, on another site, and in blogger. I want to learn how to be able to blog once and have it go everywhere.

You are welcome to take the journey with me.

In my quest to find blog peace the first place I looked was "help"

Myspace help isn't any. At all. Blog isn't in the help section, and if you go to the blog page the help there goes to the main help page.

Google's Blogger had more help.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42662

It taught me how to change my site feedings… didn't know sites were hungry, didgya?

Ok- one hour later… and you wonder why I don't blog more often… my head hurts and the room is spinning. I now have a membership with feedburner, and have tried to explore the website of http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/07/what-is-my-blog-site-feed.html

"The Real Blogger Status" and am no more full of understanding than before I began.

I thought I was going to get some help with new Google blogger videos on yourtube, but they only show a video of how to set up a blog.

Still questing! Stay Tuned!

Illegal Immigration

First, in the interest of full disclosure, my mother's grandparents immigrated from Germany, my paternal grandmother's father was French Canadian, her mother's people came from England around the time of the Mayflower. My dad's father's family immigrated from England- I think our branch of the family tree came over in the mid-1800's.

All of the immigrants in my lineage were legal immigrants. My son-in-law isn't a citizen, but he's here legally, and works legally, and studies legally, and married my daughter for love. Two of my husband's nieces have immigrant spouses. My husband's grandma only spoke Polish. I believe in controlled immigration.

Illegal immigration is, well, illegal. This issue is such a sore point with all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. I was reading comments on a Youtube video on immigration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ

In the video Roy Beck was speaking about controlling LEGAL immigration back in the 1990s. People who watched the video on Youtube had opinions, many of them varying widely. In one coment motelife said :


people complain that the us govt can't help every poor country to raise their economic status, but the fact is that being the world's only superpower left, that sort of is what the rest of the world expects of you.



I totally agree that that helping every poor country is what the rest of the world expects us to do, but I think it's time for the rest of the world to pony up. If everyone helped each other there would be fewer people trying to immigrate because they'd like, or be able to survive in their home country. We cannot by sheer "wanna" make everything right in the world. Others have to wanna, too, beginning with the country that needs the help.


Some posters were commenting that opposition to imigration is racist-based- that if you weren't white you wouldn't have a problem with illegal immigration. I think that's a baseless argument, but in evaluating my stand on the topic I came up with this:


I believe that we were never intended to be white bread and mayonaise. When our founding fathers came here everyone was equal for the first few years, then they got stupid. It is a disgrace. But the problems we face with ILLEGAL Immigration today have nothing to do with race, but the law and participating as a full memeber of the society that keeps the American dream available. Personally I hope all Americans are a lovely tan color in the near future!

Road Trip!!

Aw what a pleasure a road trip can be! Decent weather, clear highway and great company was the foundation for a wonderful trip this week to Georgia.
Debi drove the entire way, bless her heart! She is pretty sturdy for a girl, not too prissy, at all! And what an inspiration to me.

Sarah is as feisty as she looks, an what a wonderful, loving heart for God she has.

Tessa is a wonderful pre-teen, unpoluted with most of today's teen obnoxiousness. She is sweet, and outspoken if she has an opinion, quiet if she doesn't.

It was a wonderful journey!