Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Are you mad as hell how our country is being run? Have you stood on street corners with banners decrying your opinion? Or are you so frustrated that you think “what the heck”? Do you fear your single vote makes no difference in the inevitable outcome anyway?

Are you tired of your home or business insurance escalating faster than your paycheck? Or that you can’t afford to heat your home or drive your car? Are you frustrated that your representatives vote lock-step with their party regardless if they’re in agreement or not?

Are you outraged that we no longer have any checks and balances; no more oversight; no one watching to safeguard our rights? Does it rile you that the men and women we voted into office signed away our civil liberties without even reading the documents they were signing?

Are you livid with the doublespeak of your representatives? Do you wish you could hang some of them by the you know what’s? Are you screaming mad at the obvious manipulation of gasoline prices? Does it upset you that more than 40-million men, women and children can’t afford medical care and have no insurance?

Does it get your goat that we are no longer a respected power but reviled around the world? Or that we remain dependant on oil or that we’ve allowed our environment to be violated and defiled? Are you mad that your children and grandchildren will inherit a senseless debt that will affect their lives and their livelihoods?

Does it irritate you that college is no longer affordable and that low-cost school loans are memories of the past? Does it exasperate you that pre-emptive action has replaced diplomacy? Does it bother you that nothing you said or did made one iota of a difference in the eyes and ears of our president and our legislators? Are you incensed that the corporate entity has become the ruler of the land?

Do you sometimes fantasize about arresting the son of a gun who decided it was okay to keep the child abuser, wife-beater, graft-taking, unresponsive, irresponsible, out-of-touch with reality legislator in office?

Are you disgusted that as a nation we now stand for torture, and dissolved the law of Habeas Corpus? Does it sicken you that we’ve replaced dignity with abusive use of power, or that we’ve allowed our principles that set us apart to completely disintegrate?

Does it turn your stomach that instead of using our intelligence and vision to secure a better future for humanity that all of our tax dollars earmarked for research and development are squandered by the whim of the military industrial complex in securing a better bomb of destruction?

Does it concern you that our language has been diminished by the use of meaningless words and expressions? Does it baffle your mind that we have accepted lies as truth; that we have permitted historical revisions as fact? Are you enraged that we’ve devolved from a highly educated populace to among the lowest in the world? Or that the average American employee works more hours, with less pay and less time off than any other powerful nation?

Does it infuriate you that our legislators argue over stem cell research, the meaning of marriage, and the right of woman to determine what’s right for her body and her life? Or that they’ve separated us and defined us as either red or blue rather than fostering our commonalities?

Are you rankled by the notion that our forefathers’ standard of separation of church and state has become null and void? Are you shocked that in our land of the free you’ve become fearful of speaking your mind when you disagree with the sentiment that “You’re either with us or with the terrorists”?

Does it get your gall that homelessness and destitution exists in our land? Or that our natural resources are declining with such ravenous acceleration that we may see the demise in our lifetimes? Does it bother you that precious animals will become extinct without any regret or action to save them or that drinkable water may soon be more valuable than gold?

Does it disturb you that the real threat of global warming is ignored by our elected officials? Does it concern you that FEMA, Homeland Security, CIA, FBI are monoliths of inadequacy?

Does it gnaw at your gut that Social Security is held in the balance dangerously teetering at the fancy of our elected representatives? Or that millions of citizens are at risk of having no financial security in their elder years?

Are you scared that our representatives have lost touch with the working class? Are you terrified that because our legislators have allowed pensions to be plundered by American corporations that the precedent will become an acceptable practice?

Does it petrify you that your job may be the next job outsourced to a third world country? Are you shocked that the men and women you voted into office approved the laws that gave the right to American corporations to greedily fill their coffers at the expense of the American worker?

Does it make you ill that lobbyists buy our legislators’ vote? That their allegiance is to the almighty dollar? Do you feel as if you’ve been sold a bad bill of goods? Do you yearn for the days of whistleblowers, patriots, and men and women of conscience?

Are you terror-stricken that our republic as we know it is crumbling before our eyes? Or that dirty tricks, conspiracies, corruption, falsification, lies, cleverly scripted metaphors and plots have become business as usual in our houses of representation?

Do you fear that liberty and all that it stands for is lost to us; and hence, our children and their children will never know the true meaning of freedom?

Where are the voices compelling our elected representatives to do the right thing? Have we become so self-involved in our daily lives, in making the mortgage payments and putting food on the table that we’ve lost sight of our very important rights of citizenry?

If you’ve said yes to any these questions then you are part of a greater consciousness. You are among the growing number of American citizens who beg for change, who will no longer accept the status quo. So, what do we do?

If you are mad as hell and tired of taking this anymore then we need to ban together and in a collective scream oust every sitting elected official. Together and only if we come together in a single voice, can we send our message loud and clear to those in office, and those seeking office, that we are not going to sit idly by and allow our civil liberties, our inalienable rights, and our humanity to be mocked and abused?

It is time, actually, way past time, that we clean house. Elected office is not a gift; it’s not a lifetime ticket to the best club in town. It is a profoundly important responsibility. A responsibility to do the right thing; to remove one’s personal aspirations and inclinations and vote with a clear mind and conscience, with a worldly heart, and for the better good of all.

We need to send all our representatives home; the good and the bad; the baby with the bath water is the only way our message will be heard. It is time we took back our right of citizenry.

It is time we spoke our minds and reaffirmed that it is “we the people” who our elected officials are answerable to. Join me – let’s start a bloodless revolution and let’s begin with removing everyone from office and elect a new batch. And we’ll do it over and over again until the message is clear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

Impeachment is a serious indictment. In our recent history, President Richard M. Nixon re-signed before he could be impeached for lying, covering up and ordering very un-presidential orders. It was a very sad day and for many of us it was the end of our idealism and trust. Then, there was the act of impeachment of President William H. Clinton, in which he was later acquitted because his crimes did not rise to the level of "High Crimes and Misdemean-ors” as required by our Constitution. However, he was caught lying and covering up about a distasteful and unprofessional presidential act in and around his desk in the oval office. Two presidents, two vastly different extremes, but both were caught and both were duly chastised. One was removed from office; the other remained, but his presidency was forever stained.

Today, we have a president, George W. Bush, who has lied to the American people, caused an unnecessary war and in so doing has disrupted, ruined, and killed many American service men and women. He has single-handedly destroyed our reputation around the world, grown our national debt to an astonishing figure that none of us will see repaid in our lifetimes, and he has, by his actions, killed, maimed, and destroyed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children. He has, by his negligence and disdain for the clear and evident science, altered our ability to save our planet from the ravages of global warming. He has undermined and destroyed our natural resources by his wanton neglect and insistence that he alone is the “decider”. He has allowed his oil rich cronies hold us hostage to obscene fuel increases while they fill their coffers with even more obscene financial gains. Perhaps even more awful is his following in his father’s footsteps in allowing and standing silent as we continue to build, sell, and drop munitions with depleted uranium, which will forever alter all who eat, breathe, or drink in its remains. He has destroyed our Constitution and Bill Rights; ignored the Geneva Convention perpetrating and blessing torture and unlawful imprisonment. He’s allowed spying on American citizens with illegal wiretaps.

What does it take folks to get your ire up? It boggles the mind that with all the evidence that this president should be impeached that in fact, he has remained above the fray. How is it possible? Are political lines so vital that we as citizens are less concerned for correcting wrongs and punishing wrong-doers than we are for supporting our political party? We weren’t always so blindsided. Certainly, when President Clinton was brought up on charges, even his most strident supporters did not defend the indefensible. Compared with the crimes perpetrated upon this nation by this sitting president and past criminal actions by past presidents it is unconscionable that 40% of American citizens still stand by and support President George W. Bush. I ask again, how is it possible?

We are living in tenuous times. Some even believe the end times. But then again, storytellers of biblical prophecy have always warned of impending doom. But one doesn’t have to consult the Bible to see the world around us is in serious trouble: sadly, much of which is imposed upon the populace by the few and mighty. Pollution threatens our ability to breathe fresh, clean air. Global Warming is real and a very serious problem. Warmongers bully and hold nuclear weapons in the balance. The Middle East is in crisis. Starvation, torture, murder, destruction of the human race is happening every day in Somalia and Darfur. Disease and lack of vital nutrition and drinkable water threaten the lives of millions around the world. Here at home are homeless families living in cars without gasoline, food banks unable to feed all the hungry, abused children, beaten down and downtrodden parents no longer able to meet the demands of keeping their families safe and healthy.

Here we are in the midst of such horrors and yet we sit quietly on the sidelines watching our Reality TV shows and pray we can make next month’s mortgage payment or fill our gas tank in our car tomorrow. Perhaps this is why too many of us are ignoring the true state of our existence: the true state of our country. Perhaps the ugly truth is just too ugly to face. But unless we face it, unless we stand up and make our voices heard loud and shrill we are doomed, yes, doomed to remain oppressed, controlled by the few, and with less rights than our forefathers had when they left their homelands for a better place.

We need to begin by finding our dignity again, standing tall and defending those less fortunate than us. We need to start stifling those who speak for us in a tongue foreign and in words that betray their true meaning. We need to make our elected representatives responsible to we the people. We need to find our gumption, our strength in numbers, our fortitude, our sense of righteousness, our keen sense of what’s right and what is certainly wrong. We need to educate ourselves, read for ourselves, make up our own minds; we need to turn off the television pundits and ignore their cleverly crafted venom spewed from their bully pulpits and we need to begin a dialogue with our neighbors. We need to start talking again – even when we don’t agree. What happened to debate and discourse and even healthy disagreement? We can learn from each other if we can just step out of our own preconceived skins for a moment in time. We need to stop being afraid that there are eyes and ears everywhere – and that we are no longer free; because, dear friends, if we allow ourselves to be frightened and docile then we can expect nothing more than to be “the controlled masses”. Is this what we want for ourselves, for our children? Is this our destiny?

We need to begin by putting this president on notice that we indeed see; that we indeed are unwilling to accept his vision for us, for our country and that he has to answer to us for the actions, the lies and the laws broken that he has perpetrated upon this nation and its people in our name. It is time to bring this president up on the very serious charges of Impeachment. Never before has a sitting president deserved it more. Never before has such egregious acts gone ignored and unpunished. It is time we exert our rights as citizens of these United States of America and begin the long road to healing this nation. We must begin by removing this president and this administration from their lofty thrones. I pray it’s not too late.



 Norma Sherry 2006


Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer/producer. She is the host of The Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. She is also co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties.

As a people who praise humanity; as a human race we have a despicable history. Since the beginning of time we, as a people, have abolished those with whom we didn’t like or agree with, or those who had what we wanted: like land or rich resources. We haven’t changed much. It appears we haven’t learned from our past and as the acts of genocide pile high, clearly, we’re doomed to keep repeating these atrocious acts.

Throughout history cultural genocide has occurred throughout the world with little or no pun-ishment. What does that say about us? Before our ancestors embarked on the shores of what was to become the Americas in 1492, it was inhabited by indigenous people known to all today as the American Indian.

Conservative estimates the population of the United States prior to European contact was greater than 12-million. Four centuries later, the population was reduced by 95% or 237-thousand.

In 1493, when Columbus returned to the Hispaniola, he implemented policies of slavery and mass extermination of the Taino population of the Caribbean. Within three years, five-million were dead. Bartolomé de Las Casas, priest, scholar, historian and 16th century human rights advocate was the primary historian of the Columbian era. He wrote of many accounts of the horrors that the Spanish colonists inflicted upon the indigenous population: hanging them en mass, hacking their children into pieces to be used as dog feed, and other horrific cruelties.

The Removal Act of 1830 set into motion a series of events which led to the "Trail of Tears" in 1838, a forced march of the Cherokees, resulting in the destruction of most of the Cherokee population. As appalling as it is, we now also know that the Indians were intentionally exposed to smallpox by Europeans.

In California and Texas there was blatant genocide of Indians. In California, the decrease from about a quarter of a million Indians to less than 20,000 is primarily due to the cruelties and wholesale massacres perpetrated by the gold miners and early settlers who were assured their land by the Homestead Act of 1862.

We have a rich history of killing; of annihilating those who are deemed inferior. Not just in America, but in the world.

We have a bad track record.

In Canada, the aboriginal natives, the Beothuk people are completely extinct as a result of loss of habitat and importation of European diseases. As the European settlements grew, the Beothuk’s withdrew into the interior of the island and subsequently starved.

Between 1880 and 1920, under the rule of King Leopold II, the Congo Free State, (before it was taken over by Belgium and became the Belgium Congo), suffered great loss of life due to criminal indifference to its native inhabitants in the pursuit of increased rubber production. Over 10-million natives were the victims of murder, starvation, exhaustion induced by over-work, and disease.

The Ustashe regime of Croatia committed genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies during World War II. They also mass murdered other political opponents. Mile Budak, the Minister for Education & Culture, said in July 1941 that “The basis for the Ustashe movement is religion. For minorities such as the Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have three million bullets. We will kill a part of the Serbs. Others we will deport, and the rest we will force to accept the Roman Catholic Religion. Thus the new Croatia will be rid of all Serbs in its midst in order to be 100% Catholic within 10 years.”

In Hitler’s Nazi Germany, 11-million people were systematically starved, tortured, shot and gassed. Six-million were Jews, including 1.5 million children in the Nazi’s Final Solution to the Jewish Question. The plan was to rid the world of all Jews, all disabled, all Gypsies, Slavs, Poles, and Communists.

The world knew it was happening and yet it sat silent while millions were gassed in Hitler’s ovens. As the world came face to face with the horrors of Hitler’s Holocaust, we vowed that it would never happen again. And yet, genocide around the globe continues.

In 1985, German General Lothar von Trotha attempted to exterminate the Herero and Namaqua peoples of Southwest Africa. Sixty-five thousand Herero (80 percent of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50 percent of the total Nama population) were killed or perished. Characteristic of this genocide was death by starvation and the poisoning of wells for the Herero and Nama populations that were trapped in the Namib Desert.

Between 1920 and 1945 the Japanese massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens. Some authorities claimed 300,000 people killed during the three months following the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese. Reportedly, Unit 731 conducted biological and chemical warfare experiments on living humans.

When British Malaya fell to the Japanese Imperial Forces in February 1942, ethnic Chinese in Singapore were systematically exterminated on the pretext of eliminating "anti-Japanese" elements. The death toll ranged upwards of 100,000. Smaller scale Genocide was also tar-geted at Koreans, Filipinos, Dutch, Vietnamese, Indonesians and Burmese.

In the Philippines, at least one-million civilians perished from outright slaughter, disease, and famine between 1899 and 1908. A largely forgotten genocide of at least three-million Roman Catholics and over a half a million Jews took place in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania by Orthodox, Protestants and Muslims. One-third of its population was slaughtered between 1648 and 1662.

Nearly two-million Armenians were killed during the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, in 267-days 1 to 3 million ethnic Bengalis were killed by the Pakistan Army and 200,000 women were raped. Between 1975 and1979, 1.7-million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge.

After Kashmiri uprising began in late 1989 over 100,000 Kashmiri Muslim and Hindu civilians have been killed and over 500,000 people have been driven away from their homes. Other atrocities including rape, torture and massacre are attributed to the Indian Army personnel in the region.

The Sri Lanka authorities have been committing systematic genocide against the Tamil people since 1958. Murder, rape, arson, maiming and pillage are all acts perpetrated upon the Tamils.

In 1992-1995 there was an organized killing of thousands of Bosnians and displacing of a million more. A hundred days in 1994 took almost a million lives in Rwanda. Hutus with machetes in hand slaughtered their Tutsis neighbors in their effort to annihilate all Tutsis from Rwanda. The Belgian police left, the U.N. ran for cover and the blood ran down the streets and no country came to their protection.

In 2002, Sudan was accused of the genocide of more than two-million lives and the displacement of more than four-million people since the Sudanese War started in 1983. In 2004 it became widely known that there was an organized campaign by Janjaweed militias (nomadic Arab shepherds with the support of Sudanese government and troops) to get rid of 80 black African groups from the Darfur region of western Sudan. These peoples include the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit.

Knowing that the atrocities are taking place the Western world is still unwilling to take action. The death toll rises every day. The inhumanity of man upon man, woman and child is so appalling, so horrible that the words are inexplicably inadequate.

The Western world is not innocent. In fact, there are more instances of intrusion, escalation and insertion than this article can include. But, there is one issue that must be stated and that is Depleted Uranium: The dream child of Dick Cheney. In 1991 he was responsible for the wholesale use of radioactive munitions back in the Bush I administration. It is the genocide that keeps on giving, disabling and killing all that come into contact with it and leaving its devastating effects on generations contaminating the air, water and earth and every aspect of living free of contaminates. It is a price our enlisted men and women know all too well as they are sick and dying from a myriad of immobilizing diseases.

If, as 1776 author, David C. McCullough wrote, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are” is true, we’re in trouble. Our history does not speak well for us. George Bernard Shaw said, “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”. How sad and how true is that statement?

If this partial list – and yes, folks, this horrific accounting is only a partial list of carnage isn’t enough to cause one to rethink our place in this world and what we owe to one another then we are doomed to keep repeating our shocking history. Is this acceptable? Is this what we want for us, for our children, for our history?

Why is it that as a human race we think killing, raping, mayhem, mutilation and butchery is an acceptable means for change? For years we’ve watched as religious disagreements waged on as wars destroying entire nations. Some of our ancestors have witnessed first hand the inhumanity of man and gasped at the horror. After Hitler’s expansive Holocaust the world swore never to allow it again, and yet, here we are in the twenty-first century and everywhere in this world someone is being killed, beaten, imprisoned, raped, and pillaged because someone else thought them inferior.

On a smaller scale murder, rape and arson are crimes of every community. Local police departments deploy officers to school yards with Tasers in hand to disrupt volatile youngsters. Parents’ abuse their children in unspeakable ways and spouses beat one another in numbers too many to count. Are these symptoms of our greater ill? What is our remedy? Are we destined to destroy ourselves with hatred?

We can no longer ignore the pain of others whether in our community or our country or the world with which we all live. Silence is not an option.

As Edmund Burke so eloquently stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

@ Norma Sherry 2006


Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer/producer. She is the host of The Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. She is also co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties.

Grave robbers are back. Unlike the ghouls of the 1800’s who were caked in mud and slithered about cloaked in the dark of night today’s ghouls wear Armani and Rolex watches and prance about in the hollowed halls of modern day morgues, the finest universities, the best hospitals, and mortuary offices everywhere. Unlike yesterday’s loathsome stealers of bodies nowadays they are more likely the neighborhood mortician or hospital administrator or university professor.

Money rules. The FDA turns a blind-eye and tweaks its neck in another direction. Legislators succumb to the power brokers. Families and the dearly departed believe they are selfless contributors to the betterment of science and humankind. But, the truth more often than most of us are willing to acknowledge, is that they are being duped.

In Annie Cheney’s book, Body Brokers, she delves deeply into America’s underground trade of brokering bodies and body parts. A new, fresh body can bring in as much as $200,000 if sold off in parts. Diener’s are expert at precisely cutting off limbs, dissecting hearts and brains, even blood vessels and skin. Each cutting has a price tag. If it’s new meat, and that is how the industry views the deceased, its worth is considerably more.

An industry that is not bound by laws or legislators is permitted to run amuck. Individuals who request that their bodies be given to medical science, or loved ones whose loved one is taken suddenly and who may offer their remains to science, are unaware that the university coffers are overflowing with the bodies of the de-parted. Unscrupulous professors tempted by the big bucks are succumbing to the seduction of getting rich quick.

Worse yet are the body brokers who are willing to sell off parts and tissue of a diseased deceased caring less of the consequences and more about lining their own pockets. Stories of diseased-ridden bones, organs and tissue sometimes make the news. A human outcry ensues, lawmakers articulate their legal disgust, the outrage dies down, the story is forgotten, and everyone settles down and back to business as usual.

It’s become a billon-dollar business. One might rightly state that “they’re worth more dead than alive”, which brings to mind a more sinister and complex concern. Mashed up bone meal, specific bone fragments, and articulated bones are an orthopedist’s tools of the trade. Doctors, hospitals, surgeons don’t ask where these parts came from they’re just happy and relieved they’ve got them at their disposal. Without them bone replacement surgery would be non-existent. They rely on companies such as Regeneration Technologies, Inc., and the plethora of companies with names that give little clue to the layperson as to their true business: Bio-technology, Bio-medical Tissue Services, Surgical Body Forms, Science-Care Anatomical, and National Anatomical Services.

The practice of utilizing tissue, bone, and muscle from the deceased is not relegated to the Orthopod. The plastic surgeon may use cadaver skin to puff up a thin lip or fill in a jaw line; a dentist uses ground up bone to fill in teeth. An ophthalmologist may use a cadaver Cornea to repair vision. All good uses one would argue, and agreeably that’s true. The problem lies in the lie. Many, too many of the bodies used were never intended for such use, nor were they tested to be disease free.

Crematoriums have grown as an industry offering a less expensive internment for the deceased than burials and coffins and such, but as such, they’ve also become an excellent resource for the nefarious body broker. In some cases the limbs have been sliced off and sold off. After all, would a family know if they were missing a few ashes? In worse cases, families received commingled ashes of an assortment of body parts because their loved ones never saw the crematorium at all. Rather, their lot in eternity was to be sold piecemeal: one piece at a time.

Today’s bodies originally donated, unbeknownst to the families, routinely show up in fancy hotels like Trump International in Miami. Steel gurney’s line up in a row with cadavers in altered stages of decomposition and are displayed under surgical lights readied for the surgeon’s new lessons. Modern day companies of surgical equipment instruct physicians and surgeons on their latest techniques on cadavers in fancy hotels. Although spray bottles of disinfectant and room deodorizers are used, there is no denying the stench of rotting flesh. An unusual occurrence, one would think in the elegant ballroom of many noteworthy hotels. Surprisingly, it is the same ballroom, which one might visit for dinner or a wedding celebration the day after a cadaver class. The bodies are always supplied by the infamous, unregulated Body Broker.

With no end in sight for the need of fresh bodies it would seem that body brokering is a business growing steadily every day. One such corporation, RTI, or Regeneration Technologies, Inc., based in Florida is already a multi-billion dollar company who is spreading its wealth by buying up smaller companies and going international.

Willed body programs of many universities are well-intentioned, but not so true are the dieners’ whose job it is to dissect and dismember or the ill-paid professor struggling to make ends meet. Without legislation and laws protecting our dearly departed, it appears that one is worth more dead then alive. Yes, indeed the grave robber is back. He’s still a ghoul; he’s just better dressed.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

If any business was run like the government of the United States it would have been out of business long ago. No business could run as a deficit without its board uprising and firing the lot that ran the business. No business would permit blatant false statements and assurances that all was well without serious repercussions. Furthermore, no customer would continue to buy products or services from a business that had a history of poor quality, or poor workmanship, or awful customer service, or a business that was reportedly running in the red and continued to do so.

So, how is it that we are so complacent? Why are we so willing to allow our elected officials to heap lie upon lie and not be accountable? If it were our children that were so dishonorable there would be hell to pay. At the very least, they’d lose their right to play their favorite game or confine them to their room where they could no longer wreck havoc.

But not so with our government and its elected officials. Nay, we seem to be long on suffer-ing, patient beyond comprehension and errant in our condemnation for righting wrongs. There is no accountability nor are we demanding it. Why is that? Have we become comfortable with the status quo or just ignorant? Have we turned the other cheek so many times it’s become an automatic reflex?

Allow me to pose some questions. What if you were up for a promotion but one of your co-workers was more than just a schmoozer. In fact, this person wanted the promotion so badly that he or she made certain that promises were made to the right people, that monies even exchanged hands. Do you think you’d sit idly by and do nothing? Hell no. Your anger would be unquenchable. You would do whatever you needed to do, or could do, to find justice. More than likely you would report this illegal wrangling to the agencies that oversee employee injustices. Some of you might even bring about a lawsuit. But one thing is for certain: you wouldn’t sit still and allow your future to go down the drain.

Now, what if you were a corporation interested in participating in the rich business of rebuilding a country our country had desolated but you were not allowed to negotiate the possibility? What if the decision of who would reap the financial rewards was decided long before the ruins? Before the attacks even. What if these exceptionally lucrative contracts were assigned to bosom buddies and never even opened for bid? Would you have any recourse? Would you consider this the way business is done? I think not.

What if you were an indigent or disabled or an elderly individual who couldn’t afford to buy your expensive prescription medications, but the pharmaceutical companies offered a program that gave you the ability to get your prescriptions for free? However, even though the pharmaceutical companies were exceedingly rich; rich, in fact, beyond the concept of most folk, they no longer wanted to play the role of humanitarian. So, they put their best minds to work and devised a program that would confuse and befuddle and in the end put gold back into their coffers. They created a plan – and sold it via their savvy lobbyists – to offer a drug program that on the surface would appear to be magnanimous. But, this is where the best part is, they fooled them all. No longer would they be obligated to “give” their expensive drugs, which actually cost them only pennies, to those poor folk. No! Now, they could get their just due. But, where does that leave you? Twenty-eight dollars, or eighty-four dollars, or a hundred and twenty-eight dollars is still way out of your ability to pay. You tell me, who’s the winner here? Surely it’s not the patient on a limited income. So, what’s a little guy to do? Who is going to help him fight city hall? Not his elected official that’s for sure.

What if you were a curious kinda gal or guy? You read every thing you could get your hands on. It isn’t enough that you scanned the worldwide web to read what was being written and talked about all over the world in many different lifestyles and cultures, but your insatiable thirst for learning even brought you to your local library where you would take out book after book, topic upon topic. Well, low and behold, it seems your curiosity caught the attention of those who seem to know what’s bad and what’s good. Next thing you know there’s a knock on your door and there’s men in grey suits coming in your home, your private abode. “Why”, you ask. “Shut up” you’re told. You’re taken away. To where you don’t know, nor do your loved ones, or anyone who knows you for that matter. It takes a while but you find out your considered an endangerment to your country: a subversive, possibly even a terrorist or a person with terrorist connections. It appears you are deemed so because of your reading material on the worldwide web and your town library. What do you do? Who do you tell? How do you free yourself from this unwarranted imprisonment? And where oh where are the principles that our fair land was built upon?

Think these are unlikely scenarios? Think again, my dear friends. Every day in this fair land of ours our rights guaranteed, we thought, forever and ever, we thought, by our founding fathers; guaranteed to us as inalienable rights of our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. But little by little, day by day, our liberties, our precious rights are being dwindled down to a precious few.

The truth is right before our eyes if only we open them to see. The fear of seeing I know is almost too great, but if we don’t before too long there will be nothing of memory to see. As we sit on our comfy couches mesmerized by the latest Survivor or Apprentice or handsome Bachelor, we are being dissolved, extinguished. Our jobs are going to China and India and Pakistan; our freedoms are being abolished; our air polluted; our waters putrefied; our forests fallen; our wildlife exterminated; our culture obliterated.

The fear so palatable that we are on the precipice of losing all that we believed was ours: our dignity, our honor, our precious freedom that I can barely breathe at all. The atrocities are piled high and wide and yet we sit comfy and watch our TV’s. All the while poor innocents die horrible, starving deaths, men and women are tortured in the name of national security while agents of our land are outed for retribution on the highest order. Citizens are wiretapped, personal phone calls are listened in to, private communications are spied upon, here, at home, in the United States of America. How is this possible? How are we allowing this to happen before our very eyes? In America, in the land of the brave, business is business as usual.

The ink is dripping red, the debt growing exponentially and in numbers unfathomable and in-calculable, enlisted men and women are dying needlessly, our foundation is methodically being hacked to death and we are doing nothing. We appear to believe the lies were fed. It’s either that or worse: we don’t care. Our children’s destiny is uncertain. So, too, is their freedom, or notion of freedom. Destitution, disease, illiteracy, and incivility are commonplace. Pain and suffering, abuse, and injustice are in every neighborhood, on every block, and yet we do nothing. In America, in the land of the brave, business is business as usual.

We have but to open a newspaper or better yet search the Internet to read. Katrina, Abramoff Plame, Haliburton, NSAwiretaps,AbuGhraib,Guantanemo Bay,EPA,US Patriot Act,Homeland Security, Dubai, US Ports,eavesdropping, Mission Accomplished,Tom DeLay, Election fraud, Chertoff, Brown, lies, Sadaam Hussein, deception, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Iran, Korea, Outsourcing, tax refunds,prescription drug plan, civilian spying, medical malpractice caps, AFTA,FBI, CIA, FCC, FDA,CDC, deception, lies,Downing Street Memo, Tony Blair, New Orleans, FEMA, levees, contribution reform, AIDS, homeless,healthcare,Osama bin Ladin, FISA,electronic surveillance, stem cell research,Roe vs Wade, corruption,lies, deception,election reform,campaign reform,WMD,abuse of power,Cheney shooting, airport security, Christian coalition, anti-abortion rights, deficit, gasoline prices, terror alert, Enron, Worldcom, conspiracy,indictments,lies,deception, corruption. The words colliding in a maelstrom of horror and a fear I fear.

© Norma Sherry 2006

Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer, co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties. She is also the producer and host of the weekly Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. Norma welcomes your emails: norma@togetherforeverchanging.org

The Big A. Alzheimer’s Disease. A dreadful looming fear that rears its ugly head every time we walk into the other room and can’t remember why or momentarily can’t recall where we left our car keys, or who the voice is on the other end of the phone. These temporary lapses of memory, thankfully, are not precursors to Alzheimer’s. We’re told they are more likely indicators that we have too much on our minds.

Memory, however, that disappears, never to return again, is another story. According to the experts “forgetting is not normal”; forgetting, however, transiently is a forgivable happenstance and not an indicator of impending doom.

Alzheimer’s disease is a slow, deliberate eating away of neurons in the brain. It is as if massive portions of the brain have been wiped away. In actuality, that is what happens. Huge chunks of the brain are decimated never to be repaired or returned. Once they’re damaged, once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. It’s why memories, particularly recent memories are non-existent in an individual with Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease, normally associated with the more senior of our population, can actually begin as early as sixty and in some cases, more rarely, even earlier. Those moments of inappropriate language, or an awkward interjection once thought kind of cute, much like that of a precocious two-year old, becomes a source of great embarrassment to family members of an individual with Alzheimer’s.

Individuals with Alzheimer’s can often display bad behavior. Sometimes it’s saying or shouting expletives in inopportune situations or in front of company; sometimes it’s being aggressive or belligerent; sometimes it’s hearing songs or voices that aren’t present or seeing people that aren’t there. Alzheimer’s runs the gamut of discomforting experiences.

For children of parents with Alzheimer’s the gloom hangs as if a cloud of black doom. The knowledge that their parent may one day not recognize them is difficult to fathom, but it happens in many cases, but thankfully not all. Some individuals with Alzheimer’s can actually forget how to eat, or remember that they need food for substance. Their bladders betray them and so goes their dignity.

It is estimated that 5-million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s; 30-million worldwide. One physician I spoke with said matter-of-factly that “the longer we live the greater the likelihood we will get Alzheimer’s”. Scientists know that the risk of Alzheimer's nearly doubles every 5 years so by the age of 95 nearly one-half of every one lucky enough to reach the ripe old age of 95 will have Alzheimer's disease. So what is one to do?

There are many old-wives tales; we’ve all heard them: keep your mind alive, learn a new language, do crossword puzzles. But the truth is the professionals don’t know the answers. In fact, they can’t even definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s until after death and upon an autopsy. Short of that, it’s pretty much conjecture and guesswork. Educated guesswork, but guesswork none-the-less. Most clinical charts will state that the patient has dementia probably secondary to Alzheimer’s, but that’s the extent of the physician putting his or her reputation on the line.

Consulting the myriad of books on Alzheimer’s and talking with the medical experts doesn’t allay the confusion. Sadly, they don’t even seem to agree with one another. The New England Journal of Medicine in February 14, 2002, wrote that there is a suspected correlation between the intake of Folic Acid, Vitamins B-6 and B-12 and reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s. The American Academy of Neurology reportage seems to verify some wive’s tales. Precisely, stimulating activities such as board games, playing a musical instrument, exercising and gardening are all components in warding off Alzheimer’s.

But, then again, not every expert agrees.

Most of us remember the warnings that touted aluminum as the culprit that causes of Alzheimer’s. Nowadays, that notion is fairly confidently debunked. But, then again, there is still a contingency that refuses to disavow this assumption. However, more often today the new nemesis is copper and zinc. Harvard Medical School neuroscientist, Ashley Bush, also a devotee of the aluminum theory, recently uncovered links between copper, zinc, and Alzheimer's disease. He conducted a promising small clinical trial that indicated that a drug that binds metals, clioquinol, actually slows the progression of Alzheimer's.

The FDA, U.S. Public Health Service and the World Health Organization continue to support the use of amalgam for dental treatments stating “there is no evidence to show any connection between mercury-based fillings and Alzheimer's or other neurological diseases”. However, not all clinicians are in agreement. Some laboratory studies indicate mercury affects nerve cells and some of the biochemical processes involved in Alzheimer's disease. Again, a conundrum.

There are studies that propose that “People who were less active were more than three times more likely to have Alzheimer’s disease as compared to those who were more active.” There are other studies that suggest a prior head injury could play a role in getting Alzheimer’s later in life.

Scientists from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands recorded the dietary habits of 5,395 men and women, who ate lots of vegetables and took Vitamins E and C, aged 55 and over who showed no signs of dementia. They concluded in their six-year study that those who consumed higher amounts of beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E and vegetables remained Alzheimer’s free. (No mention, you’ll note of the aforementioned inclusion of vitamins B6, B12 and Folic Acid.)

The University of Minnesota’s Department of Neurology in a study in 2002 indicated that loss of memory was reversed in mice after administering a monoclonal antibody, BAM10. In their report they wrote, “Our results indicate that a substantial portion of memory loss in mice {in the study} is not permanent.”

One doesn’t have to be a scientist to know that (1) this is a stunning report, and (2) that it disagrees with much of what the medical profession is articulating to the families of individuals with suspected Alzheimer’s disease.

The newest and most promising study reported on January 19, 2006, comes from the authors of a study based at Case Western Reserve University's Alzheimer's Disease Center in Cleveland. This study, if further studies validate, changes all that once was thought about the origins of Alzheimer’s disease.

According to Danilo Tagle, program director of neurogenetics at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, "It really is going against the central grain of what we know, and it actually may lead to something more promising," In short, the study’s findings indicate that prior to the amyloidal plaguing of the brain and subsequent cell deterioration that has been well documented that the mice showed evidence of cell cycling six-months be-fore any amyloid plaques showed up.

Additionally, the study indicated that these neurons had extra chromosomes, which is another sign that the cells had begun to divide. Furthermore, the activity was seen in the cortex and hippocampus regions of the brain, which are most implicated in Alzheimer's.

In the meantime, the battle and the fight rage on. Questions outnumber the answers. In the meantime, families suffer. It appears questionable if the Alzheimer victim suffers. Experts say that the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient keeps them in a state of unawareness. Perhaps this is so in the later stages, but not in the moderate or less so stages.

Unless the Alzheimer’s patient is in the last stages of the debilitating disease, there are many moments of lucidity. In those moments, however brief they may be, most individuals feel re-gretful and apologetic for their lack of memory or their personality fluctuations. One doctor I spoke with said it doesn’t matter what one says to an Alzheimer’s patient because they won’t remember it later. My personal exposure is contrary. I’ve found that many will latch on to the one word of negativity and remember it and repeat it often.

It is true that families must find a new, more tolerant, less confrontational manner of talking to one’s parent with Alzheimer’s. Many individuals with Alzheimer’s may also have a tendency to be paranoid, confused, agitated, angry, volatile, combative, and more, which makes cop-ing that much more difficult.

The biggest fear for the children of parent’s with Alzheimer’s, or suspected Alzheimer’s, is: am I destined to get Alzheimer’s? Without a doubt this question is at the crux of our fear. For the most part, one form of Alzheimer’s is more likely to be familial, the other, not so. Adding more fear to this is a recent study of twins which offers new credence to the concept of hereditary aspects. In a study of 1200 sets of twins, 392 were later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

The pragmatic view according to one physician who said, “It's tremendously important that people actually, while they still have a capacity to understand what's going on, sort out what's going to happen to them, and that is an inevitable progression in dementing diseases; at some point or other you will lose your understanding of reality and your legal capacity to sign a will, sign a check, to make decisions about your quality of life or whether you should have an operation, somebody else will have to do that for you.”

Clearly, Alzheimer’s is a disease many of us will have to reckon with…

@ Norma Sherry 2006


Norma Sherry is an award-winning writer/producer. She is the host of The Norma Sherry Show on WQXT-TV. She is also co-founder of Together Forever Changing, an organization designed to enlighten and encourage citizens to fight for our liberties.

It’s a downcast day. The sky is a dismal grey, the breeze on the blustery side. Occasionally, a fine mist falls from the heavens as if the angels are overcome in their grief. It’s a bit how I feel as I sit in the nursing home lobby watching the sea of elderly residents’ parade by in their wheelchairs and walkers congesting the hallways. I sit and try to busy myself while my husband visits his cantankerous mother.

I watch as patients roll by with tubes catching their urine and tubes giving them breath. The faces forlorn search each newcomer or visitor as if pleading for release. The caregivers no longer hear the cries for bathroom assistance or for a push down the hall. The sadness is all-encompassing and it’s all I can do to keep my emotions stilled.

As I sit in the contrived cheerfulness of the lobby that belies the true ambiance of hospital beds, bedpans, and doors without locks. I contemplate life under someone else’s rules - rules intended to ease the burden of the nurse’s aides. Rules like restricted days for shower privilege and lights out. I think how culinary delights are replaced by food lacking all semblance of its natural state. I’m overtaken with the realization that one day in the not too distant future, I too, could find myself dependant on strangers for my care. Unlike my mother-in-law, my husband and I are childless. There will be no beholden or guiltridden offspring to look out for us or protect us in our golden years.

For a brief moment I wonder if it’s not too late to adopt. But I quickly shake off that notion perhaps because there are not enough years to rack up the guilt.

So, here I sit contemplating the inevitable. Surely, one day I too will be in diapers unable to depend on my bladder and betrayed by my sphincter muscle. My eyes, which were never excellent, will fail me. My hearing, thanks to youthful exuberance, will leave me missing the nuances of a delightful conversation and no doubt, my bones will have shrunk my five-foot frame to childlike proportions. Fear will overtake me and my more courageous self will be but a far off memory. As to my memory, no doubt, it too will deceive me and I will find myself repeating the stories of my youth ad-nauseum.

So, as I sit her watching the sea of lifeless faces trapped in failing bodies, I feel the fear and sadness welling up within me. I wonder out loud, “Is this all there is?”

It is precisely for these reasons that I began an exploration of available choices for those of us who wish not to be dependant on others when our time comes to say adieu.