Letter To Congressman Royce

As I said, I'd post what I'm writing to the Congressman. You can read it below. I think it will be interesting to see how old the Congressman thinks I am. My writing style is very young (notice the circles over the i's), but what I talk about it older than I am.

I'll be honest, I went on a tangent, but I'm okay with that. :)

Media Bias

I have always thought of myself as being Liberal, but fair. I have always assumed that the media, while slightly biased, was not getting everything wrong.

I'm beginning to see how naive I was.

This was posted to Jezebel. Yes, the situation that the video shows is horrendous. It is appalling, and it goes against everything the group stands for. Their byline is "Not Racists - Not Violent - Just No Longer Silent." They were indeed not silent nor violent then, but they threw incredibly racist and demeaning epithets to those entering a peaceful building.

This video was obviously meant to showcase how evil the Tea Party is and how they need to, oh I don't know, how should I put this, meet those Marines that Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly speaks of?

While watching this video, my face turned ghost white, because Ed Royce is MY Congressman. I sat back, appalled that I was watching this. The man who represents MY area (and believe it or not, the man I voted for because I did not agree with the Democratic representative) was condoning such slander and such hate.

I almost threw up.

At that moment, this guy I know walked into where I was and asked what was wrong. I was able to explain the situation and we were able to have a meaningful, interesting conversation about the situation, once we had all the facts.

And the facts are these:

• The Islamic Circle of North America had two speakers on February 13th, Imam Siraj Wahhaj and Br. Amir Abdel Malik.
• Ed Royce and Deborah Pauly and Gary Miller spoke about terrorism.
• Protesters descended on the event as people were walking into the center.
  

Ed Royce has issued this statement. Neither of the other two government representatives have.

CAIR Los Angeles issued the video to serve their purposes.

And the video was picked up.

All

Over

The

Country

What happens when small town news becomes national headlines? The facts get lost and the people get attacked. Yes, the protesters screamed hateful and vile things, but that does not mean that they are representative of the groups hosting the protest. As Royce mentions, he and his fellow speakers were at a park adjacent to the community center.

As you can tell from the video, the protesters are there when the attendees are entering and you can see how light it is outside. You can see more of that light when the Congressmen and the Councilwoman are speaking. You can also see that behind the speakers, there is a plethora of flags and the protesters seem to also have a plethora of flags. I can hardly imagine that there were that many flags brought to the event.

That being said, I could be totally wrong. I could be totally wrong in assuming that the three speakers had no knowledge of the protest until it hit the internet. I could be totally wrong in assuming that they were not supportive of the situation.

I hope I am not wrong.

We may not see eye-to-eye with everyone present, but I think that we understand that fringes on both sides of the aisle tend to muck up things for others. And to quote this guy I know:

Granted, there are many hateful people out there, on both sides, but this may not be as clear cut as "peace-loving, women-helping, homeless-feeding Muslims attacked by racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, Tea Party Christians just for being Muslim." Then again, this particular group might contain just some of those people.

And the other thing that has not really been mentioned by anyone is the other groups who supposedly were a part of this whole thing. The focus has been solely on the hatred and the fact that it was the Tea Partiers who perpetrated it. The others involved were Rabbi David Eliezrie of Chabad — Yorba Linda, North Orange County Conservative Coalition, and ACT! for America. From everything I've read and posted here, it would seem like it was fringes of each of these groups, including the Tea Party/Glenn Beck's We Surround Them 912. And fringe members are incredibly hard to control, as I'm sure all of us are aware.

And yes, the fact that a Rabbi has been implicated in this mess is beyond embarrassing.

I plan to write a hand written letter to Ed Royce asking for an explanation of the situation. I want to know if he knew about the protest, wanted to participate in it and couldn't or had no knowledge of the situation. From what I've read, there were hundreds of people at the protest, but the video showed there to only be around 50 who were yelling epithets.

So keep tuned here. I promise to update with my letter and with a response, if I get one, from Congressman Royce.

2011 - A new year, a good year

2010 sucked.

Okay, wait, let's be honest here, it blew massive chunks.

That's why 2011 HAS to be good. I mean, the good deity up in the sky wouldn't punish us for two years in a row, right?

To sum up 2011, a lot of people died (and yes, I'm including my Father-in-Law and Grandmother from 2009, but who's really counting?). And we're still grieving for their losses. Some we will never fully recover from, but their lives allow us to reexamine our own and see what we need to learn.

For me, the main thing I needed to learn was budgeting. I mean, really budgeting.

I'm already a saver. A lot of people I know call me cheap, but I'm just really interested in deals. If I get a great deal (i.e. $300 worth of clothes for a baby shower for under $60), trust me, I make phone calls and inform the world.

But I'm also starting to notice how bad my spending habits are. I freak out if Sweetie or I spend full price for clothing, but will buy crap that I "might need" at the grocery store cuz it's on clearance. Case in point, I bought cinnamon chips to go with chocolate chips in cookies. Mind you, I never EVER bake. I really suck at it. And I hate it. But, they were new and cool and I decided I had to have them. Well, buying them led me to realize I didn't have enough brown sugar or chocolate chips to adequately make them. So Sweetie ran to the store to buy me some more. In essence, my under $2 good idea for something fun turned into $10 of food that I really didn't need to be eating (as I'm trying to eat healthier this year).

I know I need to break myself of the habit, but it's hard. I really will buy a $15 item for $5 even if I don't need it! And then I'll call my mom or my grandma and tell in detail about the great deal I got.

The other part that's made it really hard is that at work, I eat before I go on lunch. Which means on my lunch break, I have nothing to do. So what better to do than shop, right? I used to work across the street from the mall and I'd walk there every day. It was good exercise and I didn't always buy something, but I knew when all the sales were and would wait for things to go on clearance before I'd buy them. I tried on clothes I didn't need just for the fun of it and got ridiculous prices on baby clothes when Carter's had sales (and I had coupons) for the myriads of people I knew having babies.

So now, I have no idea when the sales are and if you can believe it, my wardrobe has actually suffered.

But the point is, in this day and age, you need to know how to budget, or else you'll never save any money. Which is how people have no ability to retire, go on vacation, etc. anymore. People were never taught to save. From the second I knew what money was, my parents insisted that it go in the bank. I don't know how to use checks that people lovingly bestow upon me for my birthday. They go in the bank.

So my goals (cuz I don't make resolutions) for 2011 are as such:

SAVE MONEY
Stop buying things I don't need
Buy things I do need and try not to hemorrhage at the price of things
Eat healthier
Exercise more often
SAVE MONEY

If I put it at the beginning and at the end, I feel like I'll do it all year.

What are your goals for 2011?