Happy Memorial Day 2013

2013 - Wow - Not only is time speeding by since 2000 - this year is also speeding by~! Over the winter I became involved with streamlining my www.ArtRave.com site and then went into straightening up my Zazzle site and opened several new stores, based on products and subjects. No sooner did I get them somewhat set up and automated I came across a print all manufacturing site that enabled me to open up the new www.ArtRaveSuperCenter.com where the setup seems nearly endless along with all the possibilities it possesses. Each picture potentially can create over 700 products so creating the virtual products became a job in itself and soon I was working round the clock til the first few thousand products were made.It was an education in itself as there was alot of editing and once done, sorting and organizing into a way to present each item for sale was another lengthy ongoing process. I opened the site to my fellow artists, initially enabling stores for each but as each joined there was confusion and different levels of virtual manufacturing issues that made it to where only a few fellow artists continued on with me in their own store development. This also became an issue of time for each of us as each store was all time consuming. I found I was working all 3 stores and only inching myself along in progress. It became exhausting although at the time I also opened 17 Facebook Pages and Groups to enable advertising of the products not only for my new store but for all my previous and still open stores on Zazzle, RedBubble, Imagekind, CafePress, Fine ArtAmerica, ArtWanted and a few more. That involved updating the salesgroups on my main www.ArtRave.com site as well and helping new members that have been coming over from Facebook to get them started on ArtRave. The purpose for all of this was to cross promote and provide avenues for artists to present and sell their own art at their sites and to drive traffic to their art as well as to my own. This has been working well and alot is semi-automatic now as we all display on Facebook, ArtRave, Pinterest and various blogsites. Meanwhile as the year is speeding by, my health has deteriorated somewhat and I have had to take a few breaks as I was hospitalized and didnt have internet access, so found myself hurrying my doctors along to let me go home as fast as possible so while in recovery I could get online and continue this quest to promote decency in art online. Valentine's Day and Easter came and went fast as did Mother's Day and then I began to slow down and take it a bit easier watching more newsites and movies online.Seems after the presidential elections, I lost interest in much of the news outside the top stories of Benghazi still being covered up, the aftermath of the Connecticut shootings, the fiscal cliff our nation has been teetering on the edge of, the Washinton politics and both Congress & Senate not being able to reign in the king, or rather the President and his cronies, er I mean cabinet.... so disheartening all the recent news that it really has put a damper on my creativity as an artist. One of the few things that can still make me proud of our nation is our nations military personel and how despite the lousy leadership that yield to, still so their best to protect and serve our country. Then, too are those in the capacity of being volunteers in the many organizations that still strive to help those in need. When catastrophies such as the natural disasters we have been experiencing across the land over the passed several years seem to be continually upon us, those brave selfless individuals are out there helping people to recover parts of their lives after losing everything that they had - loved ones, homes, businesses their health and more. Reflecting back over recent years as 9-11 is now 12 yrs passed and 9-11 #2 Benghazi has still been left unresolved due to the conspiracy in Washington that most will speak out against but little seems to be done about it as it appears we now already have a shadow government ruling and a superficial shallow, arrogant, defiant group of government officials that do as they please and apparently are getting away with it all. Good military leaders have been systematically replaced for infractions in their personal lives that often would have been overlooked in the past as long as they continued to lead their personel in protecting our nation and our national interests. Purposes are muddied by so many under the counter agendas that we see only the tip of the icebergs as our nation's #1 position in the world is slipping away being neutralized, becoming more vulnerable to those we needed to defend ourselves against in decades passed. This Memorial Day, I stop and reflect and honor those who gave their lives to keep our nation strong and free but I also lament that those in charge of our nation are now the ones who have placed us all in harms way and are cultivating a new norm in society, one that will blindly surrender to the emerging tyranny at hand as those we placed in charge are now drawing the lines in the sand and preparing to turn segments of our govt and military against its own citizens and those who were from other countries who have come here illegally are now being lumped together with both decent and indecent, allowing in those who would become terrorists here like sleeper agents awaiting orders , as well as those who came only to escape the tyranny in poverty of their homelands.Those are the ones we can pity and embrace - the ones who want to make America their new homeland, while the others slip through and are being given rights to enable them to follow their agendas of making America week so their former homelands can come in and conquer us all. Some who see it warn everyone but are not being heard. Some care but some dont. More so, defeat was when the last presidential election was over. That election proved that our votes do not count, as the shadow govt is already in charge and those we have trusted to lead us are part of those who are subjugating us to higher taxes and loss of civil rights and changing the American mindset to either give into the 'change' or live in fear and become possible targets of retaliation such as those being investigated wrongly by the IRS. So many things have happened, Benghazi being one blatant example of how expendible we as individuals are to the cause of this evil takeover that is tranforming our formerly great nation into one of shame and degradation. Intiially I thought when the election was over, that all we need to do is hunker down and hang on for 4 yrs and then worry about rebuilding what was left. Now I wonder if we can , as a nation, survive til the next election and be able to restore whatever is damaged from this point on. I dont feel confident that we can as I see increasing violence in the news , particularly children being targetted - so that the govt's hidden agenda to disarm its citizens - can become a sad reality. That not being the only level we are all being affected by but then there is the programs the govt has been working at for decades in ways to changed the weather and whether they did it or not, our weather has changed over the last several years and more people have been dying from weather related disasters such as Sandy and Moore~ Memorial Day - a day of reflection and to honor our nations heroes past & present. This we do and azre still allowed to do.. But a new threat emerges within the ranks of our own military. Former generals have been replaced and new ones appointed that fit the new change or agenda which includes making it illegal for those in the military to be able to freely exercise their freedom of religion rights~!! They are trying to make it illegal for even a chaplain to witness or try to convert anyone in the military - they can face punishments that could include jail time or dishonorable discharges or both!! Most Memorial Days of the past included faith and religion which was used to comfort those who mourned the losses of their fallen heroes.More so , it was men of good conscience, trying to defend religious freedom and all our rights that would voluntarily join the military to fight to defend our rights, which are now in peril of being taken away from them as they defend our nation. The media controls the majority of the people and now the shadow government controls the media as well as most of the puppets they placed in high level positions of power within the govt, apparently all the way up to the top and the system of checks and balances is being tipped and sidestepped, even ignored. Some say we are heading for another civil war. Others say we have already lost. Our last few generations have been raised spoiled and self indulgent so that while our kids are hypnotized by video games, kids of other nations are being pushed hard to learn and trained to be conquerors. We will see more war, but I fear its coming to our land, first from the enemy within that is already here and then once subdued as much as possible, our enemies from beyond our borders will land and finish the conquest and no elections to be held will be able to undo the damage or return the freedoms we have by then will have lost. So I sit here and my daily anxiety increases, as I may not see many or all of these changes come to fruition, my children and grandchildren will have to endure the changes to their future. Today is Memorial Day. It is my hope and prayer that many, most in fact, are taking stock in their thoughts and remembering those who fought so hard to give us the very freedom that is now so easily being taken away from us as we sit by, there are those who can do something about it and there are those who can help them to do it.