If you could help out and/or pass along...

My friends, Jay and Naomi Burns, are currently in the process of adopting two adorable girls from Ethiopia. As with any adoption, in order to ensure children make it into a good, quality home environment with responsible parents; many forms, policies and processes are involved, and can make the cost of adoption rather expensive. Despite this fact, they are determined to keep on course to start their family. And my family is currently helping out where we can, including facilitating more channels where ever possible to help them out along this wonderful journey.

So if you can, read the following excerpt which I have copied from their adoption blog http://burnsadoption.blogspot.com/ . If you can find it in your heart to help out with their latest fundraiser, I know they'd really appreciate it, and so would I. You can also reprint this and pass it along to others, as a way that they can help, or even show ideas of how anyone you know who might be looking into adoption can work towards their goals.

Please Read Below, and Thank You:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It will be official tomorrow. We are accepting our placement. As mentioned below, Ethiopia does not allow us to publicly post photos, but we will have a picture with us and close to our hearts. We can send a personal e-mail of a photo. If you would like this, please let us know and give us your e-mail account.

Here's how you can help. Our next fundraiser starts tonight! We have purchased a 500 piece puzzle (below). We will put the puzzle together and hang it in the girls' room. You can adopt a puzzle piece(s) for $5 each. Simply click the pay pal link on the right and make a donation. When you adopt a piece, your name will be written on the back.

If you would like to go above and beyond purchasing a piece, forward our blog and info to your friends. Post it on your facebook, tweet it...etc. We appreciate all of the help that we can get. We need to raise $15k in the next 4 month. This is one of four fundraisers planned.


40 of 500 pieces have been sold so far! Thank you for your donations! If you have not purchased your piece, click on the PayPal link on the right to donate. You DO NOT need a PayPal account to donate, just a debit or credit card. If you would rather send a check in the mail, make it out to:

Ethiopian Hope Adoptions
822 Jonathon Road
Powell, WY 82435

This goes through Harvest Church in Billings, MT (www.harvestweb.net) and these checks are tax deductible. Donations made through PayPal are not tax deductible. If you are mailing us a check, please write on a separate sheet of paper the name(s) you would like to have written on the puzzle for your donation. Again, THANK YOU for all of your help!!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All payment methods and links for PayPal can be found on Jay and Naomi's Adoption blog here and not on this blog. Again, Thank You very much.

No Monopoly On Adultery

It used to be a lot simpler for the conservatives who lived moral values to see the Republican party as an ally. It was always the Democratic members of the polity that were hedonistic and immoral. Afterall, you had JFK, known to be a bit of a playboy, albeit strictly rumors, not to mention another President, Bill Clinton who was caught and admitted extramarital sexually-related activities. Throw in former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, and a few others.

Nowadays, we have the Distinguished Bathroom Toe-tapper from Idaho, Larry Craig, and that other forgotten fellow from Florida who messed with interns....to not only disgrace their families with extramarital affairs, but call into question their participation in the very sexual orientated ways they claimed to be an abomination.

Now in the last two weeks, we have two new philanderers: Senator Ensign from Nevada and Governor Sanford from South Carolina. Both were looking to be the ones we shouldered the hope of the GOP on. Well, so much for those ideas.

Maybe I'm a bit biased here, but when certain democrats were getting caught with their proverbial pants down, it only served to bolster the conservative argument of family values and the like, and we could always say, "Look! Look at those guys over there. You dont see that kind of stuff happening with OUR guys!"

And while these new revelations of conservative "christian" men falling prey to the same temptation in life would normally just cancel it out and make things even, it seems to me to be an even bigger blow, as the hypocrisy of it all makes a much bigger splash on the Republican side of the aisle, at least with the public perception of such transgressions. Who knows, maybe it's just me that this bugs.