Mothers’s Day

Today being Mother’s Day, congratulations to my mother, Sharon Hansen, who raised eight children and now has 45 grandchildren – and still managed to fulfill her dream of being a nurse.

In fact, Saint Mary’s hospital selected her as their Lifetime Achievement Nursing Award recipient for 2008. Starting as a “candy striper” at age 12, my mother began her 30-year journey to become a nurse while raising her family of eight children. In 1962 she became an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) graduating as valedictorian from her class; in 1975 she became an RN (Registered Nurse) with an Associate’s Degree in Applied Science in nursing; in 1994 at the age of 50, with eight grandchildren, she graduated from the Orvis School of Nursing with her BSN (Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing) and was awarded the Senior Scholar Award as the top scholar from the College of Health and Human Sciences for that year. That’s 47 years in total of service to her family and the nursing field.

My mom has primarily dedicated her nursing to mothers and newborns serving as a founding member of the Certified Childbirth Educator’s Association of Northern Nevada in the 1980s; taught childbirth education classes for expectant parents at Saint Mary’s hospital for more than 20 years; has been published twice with articles in the “International Journal of Childbirth Education”; became an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 1998; and is a founding member of the Home Visit Program at Saint Mary’s for Mothers and Infants (where she works presently).

The list is too long to highlight here all of the boards and committees she has served on, but suffice it to say my Mom’s contributions to the noble profession of nursing and more specifically to the well-being and health of mothers and infants is worthy of this much deserved honor. Great job, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!

Sparks budget crisis

For the only time in my memory, the City of Sparks, squeezed into action by the housing bubble crash, has been laying off employees.

Tomorrow, the city is reportedly going to need to trim another roughly $1 million from its projected budget and further cuts are required.

These are always tough decisions. Having talked to many past and current city employees, the one branch all point to with excess layers is also one with the most expensive employees: the City Attorney’s Office. Several have noted attorneys, very highly paid, who have little or next to nothing to do; when hard cases come up, they often pass the difficulty on to private law firms (at even greater city expense), anyway. Plus, with the cutting of an attorney or two, a reduction in unnecessary secretarial staff will also be reasonable. Total savings to city: at least $300,000.

With an election cycle now in progress, trimming excess attorneys and their attendant staff seems much more politically palatable than cutting back on workers that actually provide real services to the people, like building inspectors or groundskeepers.

The city should also look into somehow recouping its costs for the various sexual lawsuits and settlements from the offending parties still employed in the City Attorney’s office. Every penny counts, including the $24,999 settlements intentionally slipped right under the City Council’s noses.

Orme is Awesome Gala

My editor wrote a very satirical piece last week, questioning why certain groups single their own kind out for exclusive praises and awards, i.e. Hispanic city workers in Sparks for example. For him, having been raised and educated in the fantasy white man-created world of “multiculturalism,” such noting of one’s race or ethnicity is taboo. We are supposed to ignore those things and instead praise accomplishments only and such openly racial praise seems a violation. He also noted “minority” groups are still battling for “equality.”

He has begun to see the light. The battle – and that is what it is – is not for equality but for supremacy. Who will make the laws, impose and divide up the taxes, pick judges and juries and run things? Only the foolish white race, currently comfortably in the driver’s seat, believe that “diversity” is a strength.

All the so-called minorities are in a fight to gain ascendancy, and, in areas where they largely have – California comes to mind – “white flight” is the result. That we can or will all live in some sort of Utopian society in a state of harmonious “diversity” is a fantasy indulged in by (nearly all white male) university professors.

History teaches a far different lesson, and as we look around the world today, the friction points everywhere are the clashes of diversity. Relatively harmonious nations – Japan come to mind – are also relatively homogenous. We are all slowly waking up to the reality of that. No other races except history-ignoring whites “celebrate diversity.”