Nation’s hospitals prepare for influx of shell-shocked VBS volunteers

Hilarious but true.

bluebird of bitterness

From The Babylon Bee.

The waves of patients typically begin arriving in late June, and peak in July and August—thousands of panicked and traumatized Vacation Bible School volunteers who haven’t slept in a full week begin flooding into America’s hospitals. Overworked and outnumbered doctors, nurses, and hospital staff from California to Maine are reportedly clearing rooms and adding beds to receive the sizable influx of shell-shocked VBS workers.

According to one veteran nurse working in a Dallas hospital, the sights, sounds, and smells of the VBS workers returning from the front-lines are often too much to bear. “We lose a lot of interns and new doctors during the VBS fallout,” she says. “Just seeing one worker return with water balloon shrapnel permanently lodged in her limbs, or a VBS mascot who is indefinitely stuck in character, is enough to drive hospital staff out of the healthcare industry for good.”

“They’re coming,” says Elaine Cabrera…

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THE PASSOVER PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM

 

Photo Copyright: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

We’re here with Rochelle this week sitting near an ancient wall in Jerusalem. We’re here to discuss our original stories for the week. As mentioned, our hostess for the gathering is the talented and gracious author and artist, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The challenge for each of us this week and every week is to write a story with no more than 100 words, not counting the title. It’s supposed to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt for the week. This week’s prompt was provided by Rochelle herself. Thanks, Rochelle.

To read the other stories by group members, just click on the link given below, then on the little blue frog in the blue box.

The link for this week’s stories is as follows:

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/30-june-2017/

Genre: Historic Fiction

Word Count: 100 Words

THE PASSOVER PILGRIMAGE TO JERUSALEM by P.S. Joshi

It was Passover and the family of Samuel Ben Chaim was on its way to Jerusalem. As they trudged along they met friends from previous trips to the Temple.

Even the grandmother, Miriam had come with them. She rode astride the family donkey. In camp at night, she told of pilgrimages from her youth. She was a wealth of information.

Finally, there was the Temple in the distance. They felt stronger as they drew close.

Then began the ‘Song of Ascents of David’.

“I was glad when they said to me,

       Let us go to the house of the Lord!”*

 

*Psalm 122, “Song of Praise and Prayer for Jerusalem”, Holy Bible, The New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition For India, page 657.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Step Back In Time …

In education, we seem to be regressing.

Filosofa's Word

In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957, testing a landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The court had mandated that all public schools in the country be integrated “with all deliberate speed” in its decision related to the groundbreaking case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called in the state National Guard to bar the black students’ entry into the school. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the “Little Rock Nine” into the school, and they started their first full day of classes on September 25.

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. attended graduation ceremonies at…

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The Big Cover Reveal

The new covers for Richard M. Ankers books.

Stay in Control

Good advice.

We have control over how we react when something doesn’t go our way.

We decide who we want to be and how to stay in control of our actions.

Keeping it together is a difficult thing to, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

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The Kitchen Table Charity

About some wonderful people

Jane Bwye

Judith Gibbons is a new friend – I haven’t met her in the flesh, but her grit and determination are evident. I’ll let you speak for yourself, Judith!

You can’t tell anybody about this Mrs Gibbons

Those word were spoken by a 6ft tall 15 year old youth who had ALMOST been banned from coming with me, on my second ever trip to Kenya in 1995. He did not mean “don’t tell them I was holding hands with two Pokot toddlers” but “There is no way to describe this ….you can’t tell anybody, you have to feel it! “

And that was practically the start of “Friends From Marich Pass”.

A school trip with 53 participants, living without electricity, with long drop loos, with open air cold showers, and the bites of mosquitoes; this resulted, on our return to England, in the students wanting to do something to help. They all got…

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Koch Brothers, Mercers, Other Billionaires Are Behind Betsy DeVos, Senate’s Version Of Trumpcare

Who might really be running the government?

Gronda Morin

KOCH BROTHERS

The special interests in the hands of a few very wealthy conservative republicans like the Koch brothers and the Mercers who as of right now, appear to own the US Senate republicans. This explains why US republican senators are being pushed hard to walk the plank to vote for a healthcare bill that the majority of their constituents  are dead set against. And it is not because they are obligated to keep a promise as the senate leadership claims.

It is these wealthy billionaire folks who want those tax savings that is part of the Senate healthcare bill and the tax cuts/tax reform bill the the senators will be working on next. And this also accounts for why republican senators continue to carry the republican President Donald Trump’s water.

As per a May 22, 2017 Reuters report, “The Koch network spent an estimated $250 million on last year’s election…

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THE MAGICAL BACKYARD ENTRANCE

 

Photo Copyright: Eric Wicklund

This story was written for Sunday Photo Fiction–June 25th, 2017. Each week the host, Al Forbes, provides a picture prompt taken by him or sent in by one of the participants in the group of writers. The challenge for each member of the group is to write an original story or poem with no more than 200 words, not including the title and inspired by the prompt. This week’s prompt was sent in by Eric Wicklund. Thanks, Eric.

To read the other stories written by group members, just click on the link below, then on the little blue frog in the blue box.

The link to the other stories this week is as follows:

https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2017/06/sunday-photo-fiction-june-25th-2017/

Genre: Fantasy Fiction

Word Count: 200 Words

THE MAGICAL BACKYARD ENTRANCE by P.S. Joshi

When I was a child I discovered something magical in the backyard. To others it looked like a round hole in the base of a large Maple. You could peer all the way through. At least it seemed that way. Except it wasn’t.

I was playing near the tree one sunny afternoon when I saw a tiny child about the size of my thumb exit from the hole. He saw me and smiled. Faeries like children you see.

“Hello child,” he said. “Come closer.”

He looked friendly so I strolled to the tree.

“Come inside and we’ll play. Just say, ‘Magic Ring’.”

I repeated it and found myself in a delightful land. I had shrunk to the size of the faery. The grass was a deep velvet green and music wafted with the breeze through the tall trees.

Other laughing Faeries joined us and took my hands leading me among vast fields of gorgeous flowers the colors of the rainbow. The blooms glowed with interior light.

It seemed we played there for hours but I discovered faery time is different. When I climbed back out mother called me for lunch.

She smiled but I guessed she didn’t believe my story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letter from a farm kid

Hilarious.

bluebird of bitterness

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. I hope you are too.

Tell Walt and Elmer that the U.S. Army beats working for old man Doggett by a mile. They oughta join up quick before all of the places are taken.

I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but I am getting so I like to sleep late. All you got to do before breakfast is straighten up your bunk and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay … practically nothing.

We go on “route marches,” which the sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it’s not my place to tell him different. A route march is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city boys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

I keep getting medals…

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CBO Numbers Are Out On The Senate Healthcare Bill (6/26/17)

What’s happening with the Healthcare bill

Gronda Morin

As of the late afternoon on 6/26/17, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers are out on the US Senate’s version of Trumpcare which are bad news for the republicans, if they ever even cared about the well-being of their their average Joe constituents.

The republican senate leaders do not want to wait to pass this bill after the July 4th holidays when the republicans would have traveled to their home districts where they would definitely have heard from disgruntled constituents, and so D-Day for the senate’s vote on its version of Trumpcare, is still set for June 29, 2017. Republican leaders and others have access to millions of dollars to help persuade and to to push hard, to win over those reluctant senators who have voiced opposition with targeted deals.

If this bill ends up being passed, it is because enough republican senators were strong-armed by their leadership and not…

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