A true patriot doesn’t claim that patriotism leans to the left or the right.

A true patriot just goes out a lives a life without malice or boast.

I was taking my nap in my lazy boy and thought a pet was moving under my chair. Then, I heard my husband and daughter shouting that their desks were moving. After a call to 911, we learned that Hampton Roads, as well as the rest of Virginia, North Carolina, Washington, D.C. and New York had an earthquake on the scale of 5.8!

The truth is, I want to revamp my site and find its niche, but I have no idea what that is. The site started out a few years ago as a writing site but evolved into a blog of whatever’s on my mind. Then, I decided it would be a “liberal” site to combat the rise of conservatism out there. Now I feel as if I am spinning my wheels, with no direction or focus or idea of what I want this site to be.

I have also discovered that it is hard to blog on a continuous basis when work gets in the way. Last year, I wrote a 65,000 word book on pruning trees and bushes in a four month span, after not having any work for a while. This year, I completed 12 astrology calendars for 2012, and am currently working on another 65,000 word book about interpreting dreams, as well as astrology calendars for 2013. I have also been compiling information on how to make a web site sing — only I haven’t yet been able to find the time to go through the mountains of reading and time involved in order to make it happen.

I intend to revamp this site over the next few months — that is, if I can figure out what I want to do!

These rights allow employees to form a powerful coalition when negotiating fair terms with employers. Without them, each employee would have to negotiate terms on a one-on-one basis. That might be okay if you’re an employee who is working in the private sector where raises and other benefits are either based on performance or at the discretion of the employer. But in this case, it is public employees and what’s at stake is so much more. Collective bargaining rights on the part of unions are responsible for those employee rights that many of us who are not in a union take for granted: 40-hour work weeks, paid overtime, paid sick leave, paid vacation and holidays, safe working environments, and the right to file for workers compensation should we get injured on the job.

Doing away with collective bargaining rights would also lay the groundwork for the disbandment of unions, which is always in an employer’s favor. For example, unions would no longer be able to charge union dues, but rather would have to rely on yearly votes in order to stay organized. Government and public workers would also be denied cost-of-living raises based on inflation, leaving this up to the voters instead.

As leverage to get what he wants, Gov. Walker has promised not to layoff state employees — if they cooperate and agree to pay up to half of the costs of their pensions, a higher percentage of their health care costs, and forgo their collective bargaining rights. But if the protests don’t stop and the employees don’t get back to work, he intends to lay off more than 6,000 state workers.  Gov. Walker claims that Wisconsin’s budget is $3.6 billion in the hole and that this bill will save taxpayers $300 million over the next two years, but there may be other motivations at work.

For one thing, Republicans have never liked unions, their stance being that one ought to be grateful just to have a job. And this bill will greatly weaken the power of unions. Without collective bargaining rights, a union is basically impotent.

For another, unions overwhelmingly support Democrats. Without union dues, there is no money, and that’s one way to underfund Democratic candidates.

In addition, police, state troopers and firefighters — groups that tend to vote overwhelmingly Republican and who backed Gov. Walker in the election – are not part of this targeted bill. But teachers, once a grossly underpaid group until teacher unions and who are often a target of Republicans, are. And so are other local, county and state employees.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Gov. Walker’s claims of a budget crunch may be more fluff than substance. The paper contends that Wisconsin has a budget surplus this year, and Walker is merely spending lavishly on special interest groups who are allies of his administration in order to create a budget crisis and push through his agenda. This fear mongering on the governor’s part may be politically short-sighted in the long run, however, given the wave of protests from teachers and other public employees. What the Republicans win today when it comes to labor, may cost them in the voting booth tomorrow.

Tough times call for tough decisions. Sometimes you have to tighten your belt and this might be one of those times. If public employees have to do without raises and pay more towards their pension fund and health care, then this may be a period in our history when we must all come together for the greater good.

But no public employee should be forced to abandon their collective bargaining rights. Without them, we could go back to the days when teachers could barely make ends meet, employees had to work in unsafe conditions, and no one was entitled to workers compensation as a result of an employer’s neglectfulness.

In addition, unions are good for the middle class who carry this country. Even without this proposed law of Gov. Walker’s, unions have fallen out of favor in recent years, resulting in shrinking wages for the middle class, while the rich keep getting richer. According to Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, “Plans are being put into place to silence workers, lower their wages, cut their benefits and increase the likelihood that they will suffer injuries and fatalities at work. It is happening at a breakneck pace and too little attention is being paid.”

It is predicted that Gov. Walker will win in his battle with public employees in Wisconsin. And his victory will embolden other Republican governors who also plan to target the collective bargaining rights of their states’ public workers. But just as in Egypt, the protests in Wisconsin also promise to spread to other states, as evidenced in Columbus, Ohio.

Unions may lose this battle — today. But they may not lose the war. Alarmed by the growing anti-union sentiment, many unions plan to spend big bucks on ads to educate the public on the role of unions and how gains for unions ultimately result in gains for all employees, both in the private and public sectors.

Until then, we can expect our schools, our children, and our government services to pay the price of a diminished workforce.

Only problem is the “when I go on” has been a little too often. I promise myself that I will only check my page once in the morning and once again at night. But more often than not, I find myself going on every hour, or at least five or six times a day.

I hate to admit it but Facebook is extremely addictive and seductive. And that’s probably why it is the most visited site on the web. Is this intentional? Most definitely, the way addictive drugs and alcohol is attractively addictive. It’s a tremendous time waster, and admittedly tremendously fun.

And about that claim that in today’s business world, you must have a social network page on Facebook and its ilk? Pure B.S. I have yet to receive one freelance writing job from promoting myself on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It’s just one more lie being promoted by social networking to hook you and reel you in.

Now, excuse me, but I have a magazine article to write … and I need to see if anyone has friended me today.

But the Internet has also produced many armchair writers who either think that they understand grammar or believe that grammar rules don’t apply in cyberspace. One grammatical mistake seen in the real world as well as online is the overuse and over extension of the ellipsis, that dot, dot, dot used to imply that a thought runs on or that certain words have been omitted.

As someone who competes with every other writer out there, I’m a stickler about grammatical rules. So, when I see a site written by a so-called writer, and every other sentence has an ellipsis between it or, worse, a whole series of dots between thoughts and sentences, it make me madder than … ! If you’re going to call yourself a writer, then you must take a grammar class or at least pick up a book on grammar. If you’re not sure about the rules, find out. I’ like Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer, but you don’t even have to walk to your bookshelf or library to brush up on the rules — it’s all there on the Internet!

Ellipsis is not supposed to mean a never ending stream of consciousness or that you’re in a whimsy mood. Plain and simple, use of ellipsis indicates an omission or a pause.

Here’s the rules: if you’re omitting words in a sentence or between sentences, use a space, then only three dots, and then another space like this: … If punctuation is needed at the end of the sentence, use a space, three dots, another space, and then a period, like this: … . Or if the ellipses is used at the end of a quotation or paragraph to indicated the omission of the quote or part of the paragraph, then use a space, three dots, space and then a period, like this: … .

It is only when a whole paragraph or paragraphs are left out that the writer uses more than three dots. Here’s the rule for that: space, three dots, space, three dots, space, three dots, space, period, like this: … … … . Another way to do it is to state the paragraph, skip a line, insert four dots, skip a line, and then state the next paragraph. In other words, if the ellipsis indicates a whole paragraph or paragraphs missing from the material, state the first paragraph, skip a line, then put four dots, skip a line, and then the next paragraph you wish to site, such as the four dots between this paragraph and the next one.

….

Never start a sentence with an ellipsis. In other words, don’t write ” … blah, blah, blah … ” If you are only writing part of the quote and are leaving off words at the beginning of the sentence, simply use quotation marks and begin the sentence with a small letter, such as: “blah, blah, blah … “

Perhaps most importantly, don’t overuse the ellipsis, or you’ll undermine its effect.