Why do so many pro”life” folks vote against funding to care for children once they are born?

There’s wisdom in the old adage:  Your actions speak so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

This last one was posted by Dominique Lamb late today.

On January 14, 2012, it started to snow in Seattle.  I noticed the world was a soft black and white.

One of the things I most love about living in Seattle is that it snows about once a year.  It’s pretty.  It isn’t cold outside.  The snow remains pristine because it melts before the soot can collect.

We rarely get two days of snow.  The snow this year, however, kept falling for days.

By the time it finally stopped on January 18, the trees seemed to be saying, “enough already!”  A lesson in moderation from Ma Nature, eh?

Still, there’s something mystical and magical in the splendor of towering evergreens blanketed in snow at midnight.  These beautiful trees endured the ice that followed with grace and strength.

Now, it is all melting.  Our annual gift from Ma Nature ended about the same time most of us started to get cabin fever.  For the rest of the year, our snow will remain in the mountains where it belongs.

Happy Birthday, Kiwi Mary!

Bitzie Dressed to Express

On November 1, I crashed and took time off to celebrate achieving a challenge that was equal parts exhilarating and exhausting.  On an Artist’s Date back to the places I photographed last spring, I captured the beauty of the Pacific Northwest in the fall.

I ran into a treasured colleague and champion who urged me to engage in some lobbying on behalf of people who have fallen between the cracks as the result of recent budget cuts.  I am happy to report that the effort was successful, and we’ve started stitching together a new safety net. 

Nineteen years ago tonight, I wasn’t safe at home.  The judge had sheriff’s deputies come to our home to beat me for his pleasure and enjoyment.  He wanted to prove that he could deprive me of my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In the process, he destroyed his own dreams.  Karma is a bitch with a bad attitude.

My life tonight is rich with friends and colleagues who are loyal, funny, inspiring, strong, brilliant, clever, empathetic, compassionate, successful, loving, courageous, intriguing, and reliable.  They are healthy people with deep integrity.  I have created bonds of sisterhood with my spiritual family.  We celebrate our joys together and comfort each other through life’s challenges.

Every day I treasure the people who follow my blog and leave comments.  We are joined in a mission to create safe homes for everyone. . .to treat each other with dignity and respect. . .to love unconditionally.

May you all be blessed abundantly with love, joy, safe havens, health, and prosperity!

Hoda Kotb, Today Show co-host, Dateline correspondent, and breast cancer survivor, has learned lessons that I think will help those of us who are wearing purple.

Her memoir, Hoda:  How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee, is a delightful quick read which is loaded with photos.  She was born in Norman, Oklahoma to Egyptian parents.  When the malignant tumors were removed from her breast, she had the full support of her family and colleagues.  She has experienced the joy of being celebrated as a breast cancer survivor.

Hoda's Pink Ring

Jay Blumenkopf, Hoda, Kathie Lee Gifford

• Surround yourself only with people who fill you up.  Get rid of the toxic ones.
• Don’t sweat the little stuff ~ 90% of what you worry about won’t happen.
• If you’re still standing after surviving an illness or death of a loved one or whatever your cross to bear is, you get four words:  You Can’t Scare Me.  Use them.
• Don’t hog your journey; share it to help others.
• Allow yourself dark days to stay under the covers watching Law & Order reruns and eating junk food.

 Sharon Bialek has a lot of courage.  She wants to give a face to the women allegedly sexually harassed by presidential hopeful Herman Cain.  She’s an exceedingly attractive woman, but I noticed that the national media has opted to publish the most unflattering photos of her.  The one I’m using is the best of a very bad lot of photos which capture her looking like a bitter shrew ~ the taint that is cast on smart women who dare suggest that some creepy, powerful guy’s sexual advances were most definitely not welcome.

Jerry Sandusky

Thank You, Julie Owens

Thank you, RitaAnita

Thank you, Susan Wiggs

Thank you, RitaAnita Linger

Somebody please explain to me the obsessive fascination with all things Kardashian!  Why would anybody want to celebrate the offspring of the guy who got O.J. off a double-murder rap?

Yesterday, Kim announced ~ surprise, surprise ~ that her uber-hyped marriage lasted all of 72 days.  “Careful consideration” ~ gimme a break ~ wasn’t the time for careful consideration before the wedding ~ like maybe when you were more obsessed with selecting china than a mate for life?

Now, today Kris Kardashian Jenner has the audacity to promote her book by admitting that she was too busy with her uber-narcissistic life to be there for Nicole Brown Simpson on the day she was murdered ~ by the guy her ex-husband got off on a double-murder rap.

With BFF’s like the Kardashians, no wonder Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were brutally murdered.  They were murdered by the callous indifference of uber-malignant narcissists long before O.J. slit their throats.  Why doesn’t she leave?  This is why, folks.

Women with breast cancer get “good-bye, Boobie” parties while women with EX-mates who are pit bull abusers get “sorry, I’m too busy.”  We don’t blame women with cancer in their breast for the malignant tumor, but we sure as hell blame women for having the good sense to kick a malignant narcissistic pit bull abuser to the curb.

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are dead because Kris Kardashian Jenner didn’t give a shit.  And, she wants us to buy her book.  Oh, please!  Enough already!

I am investing in people.

- Doris Buffett

What would you do if someone dropped hundreds of millions of dollars into your lap?  If you are like Doris Eleanor Buffett, you will give it all away.  During a dinner party at her younger brother Warren E. Buffett’s home, Bono suggested she write the story of her life and philanthropic philosophy.  She teamed up with  journalist Michael Zitz to write Giving It All Away:  The Doris Buffett Story.

The Buffetts in 1937 (l-r): Roberta (Bertie), Warren, mother Leila Stahl Buffett, and Doris

 She [her mother] was never happy until I was sobbing.

- Doris Buffett

 

The Doris Buffett Story

 

Life behind the closed doors of the Buffett household was not peaceful.  Leila Stahl Buffett frequently went on the war path.  Doris, the oldest child, was the most frequent target of her mother’s rages and was treated like the family’s black sheep:

Doris. . .never heard the words “I love you”. . .never had a story read to [her].  Rarely was [she] tucked into bed.  Nobody ever said, “Call us when you get there so we know you’re safe.” 

It appears Mrs. Buffett was exceedingly jealous of her gorgeous, brilliant daughter.  Despite the fact that Ms. Buffet had a 150 IQ and was in the top 10% of her high school class, her mother frequently told her that she was stupid.  Her mother blocked her dreams to attend Southern Methodist University.

Ms. Buffett went to ”Auntie” Florence Post, an elderly widow with style and culture, for the affection and attention she didn’t receive at home.  Doris attempted to escape from her mother’s abuse by accepting frequent babysitting gigs and used her earnings to buy fashionable clothes which only served to ramp up her mother’s jealousy.  Ms. Buffett believes her mother had bipolar disorder, and I think her behavior also indicates she was a malignant narcissist:

Your job was to make them look good, even walk a couple of steps behind them.

Although Mrs. Buffett made her son Warren cry too, she was less hard on him:

 

As a young boy, he said he often felt the urge to protect his older sister.  “But I never did, because I was afraid of becoming the target myself.”  Once he ran away from home to [Washington, D.C. to] escape her rants. . . “Warren was a boy, and boys, in mother’s viewpoint, were more valuable than women.”

  

Roberta (Bertie) Buffett Elliott, the youngest child, escaped her mother’s abuse and was sent to Northwestern University where earned a Phi Beta Kappa key.

 

In public, Mrs. Buffett was “vivacious” and presented a “totally sunny disposition.”  Her great-grandson, Alexander Buffett Rozek, adored her. 

 

Their father, stockbroker and Rep. Howard Homan Buffett (R-NE), gave his children “enormous approval.”  Although he warned his children when his wife was on a rampage, he did nothing to protect them.  While he served four terms in Congress, the family lived in Fredericksburg, VA.  Omaha was their home base. 

If you were twenty-four and not married yet, you had to leave town. . . “Men were supposed to be smarter.  In a marriage, if the woman was smarter, she’d better hide it.  Men had. . .more power, and women were expected to smile and keep quiet. . .The only reason you went to college was to get your man, your ‘Mrs. degree.’”

. . .I remember five girls who were so bright they cold run General Motors, and they married.  No way were those men their equal.

 

The Buffett family has been vocal in their belief in social justice.  In 2007, Mr. Buffett donated the bulk of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which does “wholesale” philanthropy ~ they give money to organizations to dispense to individuals.  At the same time, he pledged to fund the grant requests that came to his office that he forwarded to his sister to be fulfilled ~ “retail” philanthropy ~ the grants are given to individuals.  Ms. Buffett seems to share her brother’s frustration with people who are clueless about the link between adequate funding and social issues.  Both aspire to timely make a difference:

 

Doris believes we can’t wait for change to come from a dysfunctional government.

 

 

We look at everything as an investment rather than a give-away.

We do hands-up, not handouts.

- Doris Buffett

  

In many respects, Ms. Buffett gives the recipients the life foundation they would have gotten if they had won the “ovarian lottery” ~ her brother’s term for the cards each of us is dealt at birth:

 

A grant without collaboration is a handout, and we never give a handout.  We give a hand up. . .making a deal. . .Each recipient becomes our partner in the deal.  We treat our partners with dignity and respect, and our joy comes from seeing them empowered by their own actions. . .

 

She’s making sure that the people she helps make good choices, by holding them accountable, and requiring them to make good decisions.

 

Warren and Doris Buffett, Presidential Medal of Freedom; Photo by Alex Rozek

Wasting money is not in the Buffett DNA.

- Doris Buffett

By the time a check is sent, a thick pile of documentation has been collected and confirmed. To make sure the money goes to its intended use, most checks aren’t made out to individuals but to credit-card and life-insurance companies, auto-repair and car dealerships, home-repair companies, medical centers and others owed money by the letter writers.

Ms. Buffet expects grant recipients to leverage and exhaust all available welfare resources before asking for a grant.  They are expected to present a viable plan and demonstrate commitment to their futures.  Quite simply, if someone isn’t willing to invest in themselves, why should Ms. Buffett invest in them?

 

 

 If you’ve created your own problems, don’t bother to call Doris.

If some undeserved blow has upended you, however,

she will spend both her money and time to get you back on your feet.

Her interest in you will be both personal and enduring.

- Warren Buffett

 

The Buffett family values hard work, integrity, and a strong sense of personal responsibility.  Ms. Buffett and the Sunbeams are wise to the games of players.  The Buffetts don’t bail each other out, and they won’t bail you out either.  In fact, after Black Monday, the Buffett family turned their backs on Ms. Buffett.  They refused to bail her out of her financial dilemma: 

 

I had no Social Security because I had been married and hadn’t worked. I had no health insurance. It was beyond embarrassing in my family.  It was shameful.  I had not one ounce of entitlement and took total blame for what happened.

 

She accepted total responsibility for her choices and misplaced trust.  Ultimately, Mr. Buffett gave her the benefit of his financial genius, but he didn’t give her money.

 

 

 What’s better than some happy memories?

- Doris Buffett

 

Ms. Buffett, like many abused children, tried in vain to win her mother’s love and affection by striving to be a perfect child.  Despite her mother’s horrendous abuse, Ms. Buffett maintained her ”Mary Sunshine” disposition.  Her grants are intended to bring sunshine into the lives of the recipients:

 

 She wants poor children, sick kids and abused women to experience a little happiness. . .”I think happiness is very elusive when you’re dealing with loss throughout your life. . .What’s better than some happy memories?”

 

 

 If she has her way, the last check she writes will be returned to the payee with

“insufficient funds” stamped on it.

- Warren E. Buffett

Ms. Buffett currently resides in a 1776-era house in Fredericksburg, VA, which is not far from where the family lived when Rep. Buffett served in Congress.  She also has a condominium in Rockport, ME.  She is exceptionally close to her grandson Alexander Buffett Rozek.

If you intend to apply for a Sunshine Lady Foundation or WISP grant, you would be well-advised to do your own due diligence.  Giving It All Away is a fascinating book.  It gives an intimate glimpse into the Buffett family’s financial philosophy as well as the challenges faced by survivors of child abuse.  Further, it provides an excellent explanation of results-oriented philanthropy.  After the book came out, Ms. Buffett did a series of videotaped interviews which provide a wealth of information regarding which grants get funded and which ones don’t.  I highly recommend her interviews with Forbes and with Good Morning America.

Note:  Doris Buffett isn’t the only member of her family who invests heavily in domestic violence prevention.  Her nephew Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer invest via their NOVO Foundation.  

 She survived.  She’s thriving and has found joy.  She’s making a difference.

 October is Domestic Violence Awareness month.  Please join me in wearing your purple and celebrating survivors.

Sitting from left: Mary Robbins, Jane McDermott, Caroline White. Back row, on left: Catherine Crosthwaite, Hannah Finnegan-Walsh

Did you Dress to Express on Friday?  My BFF, Kiwi Mary, just sent me this photo of her colleagues celebrating their commitment to end domestic violence in the Southern Hemisphere ~ where it is now Spring.  The men in her firm, Rapport Advertising and Marketing, also donned purple, but they were too shy to appear in the photo.  Bravo and thank you!

Dress to Express is the brainchild of Between Friends in Chicago.  If you too wore purple on Friday (or if you need to cheat a bit and take your photo today), please send your photo to Colleen Norton at Between Friends so that she can post it on their Facebook page in November:

cnorton@betweenfriendschicago.org

Rapport promotes New Zealand’s Book Month, and Ms. Robbins is a member of the World’s Best Book Club.  She has international business and marketing expertise; the people at her firm are brilliant.

Rapport Advertising and Marketing, run by American expat Mary Robbins and business partner Mickey Pillay is just 4+ years young, but it is taking the world by storm, winning awards globally for their work for Immigration New Zealand (to attract talent and investment to New Zealand) and most recently, with Chicago’s own PROMO Awards, where they took 4 honors (including gold!) for their work for New Zealand Book Month.  That campaign, Books Change Lives, put nearly 100,000 books into Kiwis hands last March!  Find out more at www.rapport.net.nz.