Zeus' Chariot

YeeeeeeHaaaawwwwww!!! Chicken Feet!

2012-01-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

This weekend marks the beginning of the one-hundred-sixteenth Fort Worth Live Stock Show and Rodeo. For people from Fort Worth, that's a big deal. It's a fair in the middle of winter, with rides and horribly unhealthy, delicious food like funnel cakes. We get to walk through hundreds of pens and look at animals that will be auctioned at the end of the two week show. There is a rodeo, for those who enjoy such things. It brings lots of money into our local economy, and it's a throw back to when the country, and largely, states such as Texas, were driven by an agricultural economy. When I was a teenager, it was a much cheaper date than going to the theme park, and it was fun. I was very different as a teenager than I am now. Not only in that gravity has pulled all my body parts downward, but in the way I look at the world. I was a fundamentalist, anti-evolution believer who has since majored in science in college, and left those religious roots behind. It hasn't been too many years since evolutionary biology found that the birds we know are the descendants of some of the more fearsome dinosaur/raptors. My mother, one sister and Mom's brother used to take her mother to the Stock Show Rodeo every year until she died in 1998, and they have continued to go to the rodeo every year until this one-2012. I lived in Illinois from 2000-2008, and Mom took us to the rodeo with her in 2009. My husband had never seen a rodeo, so she thought he would enjoy it. We did enjoy it, though neither of us could see ourselves going every year. But I was struck by something very interesting, the feet of all the varieties of chickens and roosters. They did exactly look like the feet of dinosaurs. It was truly amazing to me how we could see the history of these birds in how they look today.

I also had another of those "Aha!" moments while listening to the news recently, the conversation being about jobs and our economy. It was brought up how many jobs are being replaced by technology. This is a fear that I remember hearing all the time when I was growing up, and it is apparently true. And becoming truer. And completely out of left field, I was tackled by and unexpected thought-this is another reason to reduce our population. My argument for having fewer children usually has to do with depletion of resources. But I also think it is fair to consider that the children we are bringing into the world may not be able to support themselves because too many jobs are being replaced by either computers or robots, which are cheaper and don't require health insurance, vacation pay, or retirement pensions. No one wants to bring a child into the world only to starve, and the more people on earth, the greater stress on natural resources. And now, the fewer jobs available to support themselves and their families.

I try to be aware of manners. I used to love reading books by "Miss Manners," and one of her repeated premises in her books was that the most important thing about manners isn't knowing which fork to use (furthest to the left goes first) but being aware of how my behavior makes other people feel. Once we are comfortable enough with each other, and have a feeling of trust, I can drop that wall and talk about things on which I know we disagree...politics, religion, what season is best, sports teams, music, whatever. But when two people meet for the first time, the old saw "Never discuss politics or religion with coworkers or people you don't know well." The importance of these admonitions came full blown to me on New Year's Day, when we were unexpectedly sharing a gathering with a couple we had only met once before. Before the day was over, the female half of that other couple had offended us on breaking these all important rules of etiquette. First, when the black coach of a certain football team was shown on screen, her male friend commented that he didn't think this man was a good coach. "She" said, "Oh, I guess they were just filling their black ratio." Now why would any reasonably intelligent person believe that remark was okay? Ever?! Then, in a discussion about a job her son had lost due to a freeze on federal hiring. Both of them said together, "We can blame Obama for that." Now, they said it as if they assumed that everyone in the room agreed, which they could not possibly have known. And for that reason alone, such a comment should never have been made. But since if anyone reads this post, I'm assuming we have a level of trust and I can feel free to speak-the right has spent 2011 accusing government workers of being the giant leaches that have pushed out economy to the brink of the great abyss, why would they complain? Oh yeahhhhhhh, because trimming the size of government in this case affected one of theemmmmmmmm. Lets just leave politics and religion out of the conversation when with people we don't know well. But in the meantime, your hangnail is not Obama's fault.

Every now and then I have to chew some tablets created to help with heartburn. Now it almost nauseates me to use the brand that makes those awful commercials with people being slapped in the face by their food. I'm amazed that the FCC hasn't shut those commercials down for their very phallic nature; there is one with a woman eating a corn dog that suddenly starts slapping her in the face-the message seems very clear. One is ribs-come on-am I the only one who's noticed this? ?e's not being slapped by a whole rack of ribs; just one rib. Again with the phallic symbol. Uh-oh-what if it is just in my head.

The other day I was buying some groceries, and I found myself inexplicably drawn to the cosmetics section. I picked up a lip gloss named "Forbidden." The rebel voice in my head said, "Sez who?" I was determined to buy that lip gloss just to show whoever put it there that I was not to be forbidden. But in the end, I couldn't.

A Beautiful Christmas Walk With Abigail, My Copilot on the Chariot

2011-12-26T08:26:00.000-08:00

A lovely bridge to start the walk

Abigail off leash-trying to choose which way to go

I think I heard a twig snap-this way!

She's so enjoying this!

An area for families to play

For future rock climbers

This bird is native to Texas, but I'm not sure the name

A brief rest to reconnoiter

Passed this couple twice-taking turns on the phone. they were with a gorgeous Weimerainer, who was just too fast to snap a picture of.

The road of life has many curves

A tree cave...I wonder what creature abides in there?

Mouth of the crick

Civilization looms-even here

And, of course, some jerk had to toss a soda bottle. Even these decomposing leaves wont' help break down this plastic for several thousand years.

There's just something about a babbling brook!

Another babbling section. Sometimes they make me think of Hank Williams (the real one) and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" No explanation for some feelings, I guess.

I love waterfalls too. Even man made ones.

A real bridge to nowhere

Really, People!?

This is a trash barrel about 30 yards from all that trash in the water. Those morons had to work harder to get the trash into the creek. Sheesh!

A gorgeous golden asks to greet Abigail

Oh, wait, there's TWO!

It's been real. Gotta go!

It looks like a dead end to this home's fence, but the trail shifts left.

Wonder how old the leaves are that made these fossil images? They're so clear! :-)

I walk at a good clip for a fat chick, but not that fast! Oh-it's for bicycles. Silly me!

If we get lost and never return, you'll find us here

Poor Santa! So much build up to the big day, and when it's over, he's totally deflated!

No wonder Herod couldn't find the manger; it is hidden in the Mira Vista subdivision of Fort Worth!(There were a couple of cool dogs here too, but they were too quick to get pictures of .) But really, what is this structure?

Mom, I think it's this way-but I'm getting worried!

So, this is what it looks like when reindeer scrape their antler fuzz-it sparkles!! Or maybe they collided with this tree and that's why Santa was flat in that guy's yard?

Still can't resist that babbling brook thing.

This sight depressed me. But it is, after all, a city park.

Three weeks ago, these trees were vivid with color. Oh well, I guess it's to be expected three days after solstice.

Something's not right here. We've come too far.

Will we get back in time for the movie? Check my phone-we've got one hour to make our way back. Can we do it? We've been walking for an hour. That's about 4 miles...AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Definitely lost. But a recognizable landmark. Head EAST X SOUTH, Ye Wanderers.

Well, we were only about a mile out of our way, and we learned a little about the geography of the area. The walk back was on the road in a residential neighborhood. We made it home, and Dad was worried that we were gone so long, but we made it home for the movie and the day was a great one after all.

Ahhhhhhh-Dad giving Abigail a foot tummy rub. All is right with the world.

But why'd he have to stop?

I Believe It's Called A "Murder"

2011-12-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've always wondered who came up with many of the collectives we use, and why. The guy who came up with "a murder of crows" has particularly intrigued me. Possibly he had some experience with a bunch of crows that lead him to claim that this was an appropriate collective. Sometimes we use the same collective for different things. There is more than one animal that is called a "herd" in the collective. So I would think that if I decided that a "murder" of employees of a certain multi-national super store chain in which I am budgetarily forced to shop, it shouldn't stir up too much fuss. This feeling is particularly intense right now, I'm guessing now, based on unprofessional self analysis, because of their holiday commercials in which perky, articulate staff, which I have never actually found in one of their stores, happily help people do their holiday shopping. So today I am chatting with the very nice lady who was checking me out and she started to put my bag of potatoes in a plastic bag. I shouldn't fuss at her-I usually bring my own bags, but I said to her, in my best plain English, "No, thank you-those don't need to be in a bag." We continued chatting about grandchildren and such, when I added, "You can put more things into the bags, and put non-food items in bags with food, I don't mind; I'm a fan of the fewest possible bags." Those were my exact words!!!!!!! I can't emphasize enough that those were my exact words...as she cluelessly put only one or two items in each bag, and complimented me on how "patient" I am. Patience is not the reason I want fewer bags! I was so frustrated that I had to fight back tears as I put ALL THOSE PLASTIC BAGS in my truck. Yes, I recycle. Yes, I should never leave the house without my reusable bags, but please-I did say something, and she did smile and nod as if she understood

While in that line, I saw something that really stuck in my craw, as we say in Texas. Vaseline in little jars, selling itself as "the original lip therapy." Now they are using Carmex sized containers so we can all have them in our purse. First of all, I don't think anyone wants to hear me rant again about packaging. If anyone were listening to me, there would be a movement against Sunsweet Prunes being wrapped in individual plastic wrappers, etc. But I developed a bad case of liberal guilt about using Vaseline on my lips YEARS ago. What is Vaseline? Petroleum jelly. Petrol....that means it is a petroleum product, as in made from non-biodegradable oils products that will never break down. Never in any meaningful sense of the word. It also ONLY comes in plastic jars. Statistically only about three percent of people recycle, so that's an unimaginable number of plastic containers, made with petroleum products, being filled with petroleum products that add to our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels. Does anyone see a pattern here?

But not all was bad in the grocery shopping today. I needed coffee. My husband will not drink any coffee that doesn't come from Starbucks, so I stopped at Starbucks to get a pound of Morning Joe Blend and a salted caramel mocha. We like the Morning Joe Blend flavor, which is really just a repackaging of the Starbucks Gold Coast Blend, but with the Morning Joe Blend some of the money goes to educational programs. And I have a hard time resisting the Salted Caramel Mocha, even though drinking coffee in the late afternoon is usually a bad move for me. The nice lady at the microphone took my order, but when I got to the window, I saw the hottest barista I have ever had the pleasure of being served by. So the day wasn't a total loss. I must also add, he asked me if I wanted the coffee in a bag. My lungs dropped, and I sucked in hard and smiled and, looking at all the grocery bags in the cab next to me and I said, "How many bags does one person need after all." He smiled-gorgeous teeth, green eyes that were clearly not contacts, and said, "I guess that depends on the person." Yes indeed, Handsome. Yes indeed.

The War On Holy Days

2011-12-10T07:08:00.001-08:00

Before I explode into the rant I've been holding back for the last couple of weeks, I've seen a couple of things lately that brought a smile. One of them was on my Altoids tin. Now, I LOVE Altoids, especially the Cool Honey and Ginger flavors. Right now I have a tin of ginger ones, and, as is my habit, I looked at the label the other day and was very confused by the ingredient list: "Naturally flavored with other natural flavors." What does that even mean?

I also picked up the adorable Santa snow globe my Secret Santa at work gave me in order to shake it up and make it snow. I noticed a sticker on the bottom that said, "For Decorative Purposes Only." As opposed to what?

I know this is off the subject of holidays, but I've been reminded this week of the argument over earmarks. A couple of congressman have introduced a bill that would make them illegal. My question is, how exactly will an earmark be defined? And why are they going after less than one percent of the budget when there is still so much wasteful spending and so many unnecessary subsidies to corporations that make those nasty earmarks look almost invisible. One man's earmark is another man's representing his constituents.

I am an atheist. Or non-theist. Or humanist, or rationalist...whatever name one chooses to call it. I've been this way for a long time. Longer actually than I knew myself. I was raised in the church, and was active for a long, long time. But I'm not really sure that I ever actually believed. In the mental health field, this is called "fake it til you make it." I never made it, and finally had to admit that I am not a believer. I have friends on both sides of this divide, and it was quite a surprise when I realized that my non-believing friends are frequently more moral and ethical than those on the religious side. I think there are several reasons for this; not the least of which is that if this life is all we have, then how we treat our fellow man matters a great deal. Another reason, one that I was taught in church, is that Christians have forgiveness for "all sins, past, present and future." So according to that line of belief, once you "accept Jesus," it doesn't matter what you do, you have forgiveness. Isn't that convenient? There are even passages written by Paul in the New Testament in which he gives a rationalization for this: My spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak." We are besieged by Satan and temptation all of our lives, even when we have invited the Holy Spirit into our lives. Of course, these sins we commit after being saved won't send a believer to hell; the believer has forgiveness. But it may prevent that person from leading someone else to believe.

But the code-the morals that are taught in the New Testament: love your neighbor as yourself; treat others the way you wish to be treated; be humble and not arrogant; don't be materialistic are all notions that can make all of our lives better. The Code of Hammurabi, an almost exact precursor to the Ten Commandments was produced circa 1772 BC. The first version of what we now call "The Golden Rule" is from around 624 BC. Scientists have suggested that the desire we have to live in cooperative communities has contributed to the ability of humans to survive and thrive all over the world. Cooperative communities certainly gave humans an advantage when we moved to hunter-gatherer societies. Just like wolf packs can catch prey much larger than any individual wolf, when humans cooperate, survival is more likely.

But this is all just background noise for me right now. It is Christmas. Which occurs on December 25th. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah comes first; it is the eight days from December 20 through 28. Winter festivals of light also include Saturnalia, Mithras (very similar to Christmas,) Brumalia, Loi Krathong from Thailand, and Diwali from India. The reason the early church decided to celebrate Jesus' birthday around December 25th was in order to incorporate what pagans were already doing. It is all about the return of the sun after the winter solstice, or the "shortest day of the year." That way it was easy to claim that Jesus was the light of the world, and thus the days become longer after his celebration day. In the African American celebration of Kwanzaa, the dates are December 26 to January 1.

So, when did it become about material gifts? According to an old friend of mine, who is Jewish, Hanukkah was not about gifts until the Jewish children began to feel left out with all the gentile children getting so much in the way of material things for Christmas. I confess to not knowing how the other religions in my list celebrate their festivals of light, though I'm sure there are candles and lanterns involved.

The American economy is in the crapper. It has been since 2007-that's when the recession officially began. That was almost five years ago, and it is turning back only very, very slowly. The wealthy have done very well during these five years, but the middle and working classes have done terribly. The average male salary has gone down every year since 1973. That is nearly forty years the standard of living for middle class Americans has been going down. But this year, the spending on Christmas is up beyond any expectations. Not only does the spending appear to be going up, people are using credit cards. Not bank debit cards, credit cards. Too much spending on credit was one of the problems that started our whole downward spiral! And there are, once again, multiple stories of violence as shoppers rush through stores to get their best possible deals on the things they "need" the most. So, despite my feelings about the adopted reason for this celebratory season, I am reminded once again of my distaste for the hypocrisy that surrounds Christmas. While Bill O'Reilly is shrieking about the so-called "War on Christmas," and people are macing each other to get the best sale merchandise, I would only say that I am not ashamed or embarrassed at all to say to anyone, "Happy Holidays." And for all of you who find that offensive, consider its root; basically I'm telling you, Happy Holy Days." It isn't about Christmas, which even Christian scholars say is not Jesus' real birthday, it is about acknowledging that for all of the time that humans have lived cooperatively together, the time of year in which the sun finally begins to stay out longer has been considered holy.

Mixed Nuts

2011-11-20T10:21:00.001-08:00

The last two weeks have been emotionally tiring for me. I always get this way during presidential elections, but it has started really early this cycle, mostly because I can honestly not believe that anyone could vote for anyone on the republican side. Well-maybe Jon Huntsman, who is the only candidate that actually made me nervous for Obama when he announced. But it seems fairly clear that he is too libertarian for the republican base.

That out of the way, I have a few observations. I love nuts. I've also recently read that women who eat some nuts every day weigh less than those who eat other things. So I keep a jar of delicious mixed nuts in my desk at work for those days when I need a protein boost to get through the morning. But I became aware of doing something I found rather amusing-I pour some nuts into a dish so I don't just keep eating, which I could easily do. But I found myself eating them segregatedly. I eat cashews together, Brazil nuts, pecans, etc. I've even found myself eating the almonds with skin separately from those without. Is my mixed nut behavior a little nutty?

A language rant: THERE IS NO FREAKING SUCH WORK AS EKSETRA!!! That phrase comes from the Latin et (which means AND) cetera;. which means "other things." It is translated as meaning "and other things," or "so on." And while we are at it, it doesn't make anyone look smart and continental to say, "Wala." That is a mispronunciation of the French, "Voila," It starts with a V, and it means something like, "Well, there ya go!" And the latest word I'm getting tired of hearing thrown around over and over again-like "like," and "amazing," is "authentic." Do the people who use it for everything good these days know that it means "real?" That means it is very unlikely that it will ever apply to an American politician. The oft dropped journalistic phrase, "He doesn't come across as authentic," is rather oxymoronic, don't you think?

I'm a very fidgety person. I fidget constantly; I have a hard time sometimes even getting myself situated in the very same desk I worked all day on yesterday. When I talk with my hands, I use both hands. This made me think one day as I walked with my dog, and we passed one of those young men who wears his pants super-baggy and around his thighs, what a great sacrifice these people make for their fashion statements. Every guy I see dressed that way, whether at WalMart, the bus stop, or just walking down the street, must walk around with one hand on his crotch at all times in order to keep his pants from falling down all together. Sigh. None of those guys could ever describe the size of a fish he'd caught, let alone talk with his hands in a regular conversation. I've been waiting almost 20 years for this silly fashion to pass. A few years ago, when an older man auditioned for "American Idol" with the song, "Pants on the Ground," I really hoped the foolish appearance of it would be brought to the consciousness of that demographic, but I guess the age of the man singing the song should have been a dead giveaway that it wouldn't work.

I was walking in to my office the other day, and saw a squirrel with a bare tail. Some other people had seen it, and said that they had seen them before. Is that just an anomaly? The first thing I saw was the tail, and I thought it odd that such a large rat would be out in broad daylight, climbing a tree.

I was in a shop last week that has candy vending machines. The kind that give you a few M&M's or nuts for a nickel, and supposedly give the money to charity, and I couldn't help wondering if anyone gets candy from them anymore. With Americans so constantly freaked about "germs," I can't imagine anyone buying unwrapped food from one of those little machines nowadays.

There is a Christmas commercial getting regular rotation lately that gets my anti-Walmart heart pounding. There is a woman asking for a price guarantee on Christmas merchandise. She stands there long enough to makes several comments to the sales associate, and then sing part of a song. The first thing that struck me about it is that the actor playing the sales associate looks an awful lot like a young, brunette Goldie Hawn, but then I thought, who has ever seen a WalMart sales person spend anywhere near that much time with a customer? In fact, who shops at WalMart and can get any help at all when they need it?

I'M SO HAPPY!!!! Not really. I hate so-called "reality shows," and I've been seeing commercials recently now for the return of one of the early ones-"Fear Factor." In the commercial they promise to be bigger and better than ever-including "bigger stunts." I guess they may be referring to the feats and humiliations that contestants are required to be subjected to in order to win, but in my classic movie mind, big stunts mean optical illusions of people appearing to do very dangerous things, or being killed or whatever. "OH, did you hear-Fear Factor? They did it with mirrors!"

"From 1999 to 2005, breast cancer incidence rates in the U.S. decreased by about 2% per year. The decrease was seen only in women aged 50 and older. One theory is that this decrease was partially due to the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by women after the results of a large study called the Women’s Health Initiative were published in 2002. These results suggested a connection between HRT and increased breast cancer risk." breastcancer.org
When I read, back in October, that the incidence of breast cancer is decreasing in this country, I got happy. Shortly after that the book "Our Bodies, Ourselves," published by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective was celebrating its fortieth birthday. It occurred to me that when women get involved, we get shit done. Before Our Bodies, Ourselves," there were very few books that dealt with women's health, and now that we have begun to be treated as different human beings from men, we are getting healthier. But then I also realized that every republican political candidate, the tea party candidates who were elected in 2010, and many right wing organizations are devoting themselves to taking back women's control over our health, and I got sad. If we can't control our own health choices, what will be taken next? It seems that every time women begin to take any kind of power for our own lives, men get scared and try to take it away. Yes, I'm talking about choice, but I'm also talking about access to information about reproductive health, which may or may not include the choice to terminate a pregnancy. Rick Santorum says that he would outlaw all birth control. Now why would he do that? Well, he is one of those Christians who want to sublimate women, to be sure. And his holy book does say that women should submit to their husbands. Where that comes from has been addressed by me in a much earlier post. But it is also a fact that when women have some control over the number of children they have, they tend to become something other than baby-making machines. They improve their educations, and their productivity in their societies. They thereby threaten the power of men. (Who, our current world situation should prove, have done such an AWESOME job with all their power.) How any smart woman can listen to these candidates and then go out and vote republican is utterly beyond me. I'm not saying there are no smart women who are republicans. I'm just saying that in order to cast a vote for someone like Santorum, or Romney, or Cain, McCain or Gingrich, the smart ones must really have to hold their noses in the voting booths, and I would love to know the fiercely compelling issue that forces them to do that.

Meanwhile, I'd like for anyone who knows me well to sit down. Take a deep breath, and possibly keep your smelling salts handy. I agree with Herman Cain. Partly. Only on one issue...he was partially right when he said this week that candidates aren't supposed to know about foreign policy. Remember CANDIDATE Obama saying that he would close Guantanamo, end rendition, ET CETERA, ET CETERA? But what happens when a person becomes president, and gets up every morning for a national security briefing? He (and hopefully soon, she) see the world, and the threats against us in a different, less rhetorical way. I still believe that Guantanamo should be closed, and that rendition is wrong. We either believe in torture, or we don't. If we don't, then we should not render prisoners to other countries to do our torturing for us. I think we've been in Afghanistan way too long, and we never should have invaded Iraq. I'm deeply disappointed in President Obama for these, and some other reasons. But when he actually moved into the White House and the Oval Office, he saw a very different picture of the world than any candidate is allowed to see, and that has contributed to the breaking of some very important campaign promises. It's easy for John McCain, candidate, to sing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran." President McCain would very likely have made quite different choices. While the level of ignorance that Herman Cain (or Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman or Rick Perry) show about the world we live in is disgusting for someone who aspires to be the most powerful politician on earth, Cain had a sliver of a point when he said that candidates aren't supposed to know about foreign policy. What I would recommend for candidates of every party is a little circumspection when asked about foreign policy decisions. It is easy to be bombastic and dramatic when there are no lives on the line...yet.

Nein! Nein! Nein!

2011-11-06T06:41:00.000-08:00

Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Bob Packwood, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, John and Robert Kennedy, David Vitter, Anthony Weiner, Christopher Lee, Newt Gingrich, Arnold Schwazzenegger. What do all these people have in common? They are white politicians. But they, among many others I'm sure, were either caught or accused of sexual misconduct of some sort. More than one of them tried paying off the women with whom they misbehaved. So in what way is any conversation about Herman Cain's paying off women about allegations of sexual misconduct "a high tech lynching," or race-driven in any way whatsoever? There is no racial component to men's behavior being driven by sex, and there is no racial component to lying about it, or trying to pay off the women to keep them quiet so that either the wife or the public don't find out about it in the case of public figures. I am angry that anyone, in particular racists like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and yes, Herman Cain himself, would play the race card here.

Sexual misconduct aside, and with a full understanding that the only reason that Herman Cain is doing so well in republican polling is because he (like Sarah Palin) doesn't talk like a politician. Which leads to a problem I had with a quote from him last week-because I like it when people who know stuff run for office. "How would I deal with China? I believe in peace through strength and clarity." I wish I had heard him speaking with clarity since he's joined the public conversation. But this is the guy who answers every question with, "That's apples and oranges." Even when it's not.

I'm also wondering who is going to pay for the double wall that Michelle Bachman wants to build? Isn't she against federal spending? We know she's against the government creating jobs.

I was just watching a round table discussion on "Up with Chris Hayes," on MSNBC, and he played a quote from an ob-gyn named Dr. Freda Bash in Mississippi, where an important vote on a "Personhood Amendment" will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 8. She said, "Science has proved that from the point of fertilization, and egg is both fully alive and fully human." Really? I've seen fetuses up to the point where human features begin to appear, and while they may indeed be alive, they are not viably, definitively human. In fact, they look a lot like fetuses of almost every other mammal. If shown side by side, I would defy science, and certainly evangelicals to tell the difference between them. I know that a woman't right to choose will never be a resolved issue between people who see things in a completely emotional way. But, as our current chief justice, and some presidential candidates have stated, Roe v. Wade was decided more than thirty years ago-it is established law that we do not have a police state in the wombs of American women. We need to leave it alone.

Away from politics-someone I know had a blowout on the street next to her home. She was safe, and had a neighbor to help her. And I heard her and one of her friends agreeing that "God was watching over you." "Yes, God is always watching over me!" Really? So why are there accidents in which believers are hurt or killed? Is God not watching over "THOSE" people? I find fault with the argument that her incident had a happy ending for any reason having to do with "God watching over her."

I've been reading a novel in which there is a council meeting in the town in which the action takes place. There are people who clear their throats during the conversation of the town council. As I read this, I found myself clearing my throat. Just like yawning when someone else yawns. Does that happen to everyone? Are you clearing your throat now?

Was the guy who invented nachos name Ignacio?

Does anyone but me have a problem with THE SCIENCE CHANNEL showing a program called "Punkin Chunkin?" In particular, is it really, really, really stupid to refer in their commercials for the show to the participants as "athletes?" I guess it's no stupider than referring to participants in food eating contests as athletes. But it makes me very sad for our culture.

I was at the grocery store yesterday and saw a product called "gluten free ham." Isn't gluten a wheat product? How can ham contain gluten unless it is between two slices of bread?

As I rode down the highway yesterday there was a billboard for "The Rad Law Firm." While there was a photo of a guy who had hair like a televangelist on the bottom corner of the billboard, I couldn't help but silently chuckle at the name "Rad," like it was a hipster add from the 1980s.

We live in an apartment complex on one of the busier streets in our large city that has a long fence behind it, and behind that fence was a wonderful field. My dog and I have found our way through that fence and taken nice walks along the creek in that field. We've seen lots of city wildlife-some rabbits, some coyotes and lots of different birds and plants that you just don't see along developed roads. Two years ago a large swath of that field was torn up because of a huge highway project that may be completed soon. I was sad then, and I'm even sadder when I approach the resulting access roads to that highway. For miles this construction has torn down trees and green stuff, and has replaced it with packed, gray concrete. It is ugly and desolate-like a moonscape. Or like a mountain top removal coal mining activity. I'm sure when they finally get the highway finished, they'll put out some grass and bushes. But it is depressingly ugly, and one more example of humans displacing animals for highways. Yes, we need the roads (or as it is referred to now, infrastructure.) We also need the jobs. But, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone. They've paved paradise and put up a...." new highway. (Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi, 1970)

WE'RE DOOMED!!!!!!!!

2011-10-30T07:43:00.000-07:00

"(CBS News)

The U.N. says the world's population will reach a milestone this Monday -- 7 billion people. Since 1927, our population has soared from 2 billion to 4 billion in 1974, and 6 billion in 1999. CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell talks about the population increase with demographer Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University."

The speed with which we have reached this number is staggering. According to Wikipedia, at the beginning of the first millennium BCE, the world population was around 300 million. Some say the maximum population that the world can sustain is NINE billion. How quickly will we get there? In the same Wikipedia article I took that 300 million number from predicted that the seven billionth person would be born in 2013. We are a bit ahead of schedule. The pressure of human population growth and resource use is already leading to water problems and a shortage of land on which food can be grown. There are millions of people starving in the world, and millions going hungry in the U.S., while Las Vegas and parts of Arizona take water from the water tables to their desert residential areas and golf courses to keep them green for their wealthy residents and the great casinos and twenty-four hours of electric lights in their cities. Here's the thing, though: there have been five mass extinctions in the four-billion history of earth. There are lots of arguments about what caused them, but climate change is said to have caused some of them-climate change caused by volcanic activity, or caused by things that we can't even know because there was no life form present to record what was happening. There are more extinctions to come. In fact, there are many taking place right now-human population growth is part of the reason. There are some creatures that no longer have a place to live because we have taken over their habitats, cemented them over, redirected the water they drink, and left them no place to go. Some animals are adapting to this pressure, coyotes come to mind, and some can't. Those animals will die off. Yes, I know that some of my friends and family don't believe in evolution, but evolution simply means the ability to adapt to one's environment in order to survive and pass on one's genes.

This is exactly why I think humans are doomed. We've made ourselves soft. We don't adapt to our environment-we force our environment to adapt to us, which is not sustainable...nature will win out, and we will go extinct. Humans have a terrible arrogance about our dominance of the earth-many theists believe that our dominance was ordained by God, and have used this as an excuse to rape the earth and destroy unpopular species such as wolves. Science has consistently demonstrated that when top predators are removed from an ecosystem, that ecosystem is thrown out of balance and is harmed. Another reason humanity is doomed is because we put too much carbon into our atmosphere, and it is disrupting climate all over the world. This is causing droughts some places, and terrible floods in others. Both floods and droughts create problems with growing food, which is pretty tough when we are so close to such an astronomical population number. But another way of looking at the spewing of so much carbon into our environment is to look at how oxygen breathing life is believed to have arisen to begin with. The first life that appeared on earth did not breathe oxygen. It gave off oxygen as a by-product, just as we give off carbon when we exhale. So what is going to happen is that life forms will take over that use carbon, and we oxygen breathers will become extinct-taken over by plants, possibly just like in the horror movies of the 1950's.

I get very annoyed at people who live in fear of bacteria. Yes, I wash my hands regularly, but I don't keep gallon jars of hand sanitizers on my desk and wipe my hands every ten minutes. I think it has been fairly well proven that our overuse of antibiotics has allowed the evolution of bacteria that can withstand the most powerful antibiotics we can come up with. But I still hear people at the first sign of a sniffle say, "I've got to call the doctor and get some antibiotics." Antibiotics are given to our food animals, put in every soap on the grocery shelf, and given to us for mild infections, and even viruses, against which antibiotic don't even work. We are doing absolutely nothing but weakening our ability to fight off bacterial infections; we did evolve an immune system that is designed to help us fight infections. Fevers are one way that our bodies do that-but too many of us call the doctor when our temperature goes to 98.8. Our immune systems are lazy and weak, while the bacteria become stronger and more immune to our weapons against them. Bacteria are the largest biomass on earth; they were here before us, and will be here when we are gone. Bacteria paranoia is not making us stronger, it is making us weaker. The Harvard entomologist, E.O. Wilson, in his book "The Diversity of Life," disagrees with the notion that evolution will take care of the damage we've caused with our environmental damage because it will not take place in any meaningful span of time that we can grasp-which may be true, but so is the original premise. If we ignore the damage we are doing, the human form as we know it will be altered dramatically. The thing is, there will be great suffering-starvation, diseases and wars over resources that will happen first.

Our climate has been warming since the nineteenth century-basically since the beginning of the industrial revolution started spewing fossil fuel emissions into the air, then we added automobiles, etc, etc, etc. But even during that time, there have been hot and cold periods of the year. People of the past found ways to make themselves more comfortable-using hand held fans, building breezeways on their homes, wearing hats and scarves, natural fabrics that breathe, more clothes in the winter, less in the summer. But we have now created ways that we don't need to adapt to the weather-we have central heating and air, both of which contribute to climate change because of their emissions. When we have severe heat or cold spells, there are always deaths; there would be more deaths if we did not have these machines that both contribute to the problem and allow us not to adapt to our environment at the same time. This is also true of antibiotics and vaccines. Yes, I know that the death of any child to influenza or small pox or tuberculosis is a tragedy. But illness and death are also a part of life, and a way of controlling population. At the risk of sounding extremely cold hearted, if the weak were allowed to be culled from the population, and the strong, who can adapt to extremes of environment our population would be smaller and stronger for it. But our hearts and heads don't always act in concert-we like to play God and decide that the weak and sick should survive. And that will, along with our choice not to adapt to our environment, but to try and force our environment to adapt to us, speed our extinction. I can only hope that in millions or billions of years, after the carbon breathers give off enough oxygen for the cycle to begin again, that we will have left something behind that will allow the next rise of humanoids to learn from our mistakes.

Don't Look Back...

2011-10-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

"Driving down the road today I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. A little voice inside my head said "Don't look back, you can never look back." Don Henley; "Boys of Summer" 1984

As I drove to work the other day I saw a Toyota Prius with a sticker on the back that said, "Paul Jr. Designs." I wondered if that bumper sticker seemed as incongruous to anyone else. Paul Teutle, Jr, and the whole Orange County Chopper family seem about the most anti-Prius group I can imagine.

I hate the term "invasive species." Life as we know it originated in Africa. And invaded from there. We are all invasive species. When one species goes extinct, another one fills its niche. Sometimes an organism moves into a place that has no niche for it, and it drives out its competitors and takes over there niches. That's the law of the jungle, Folks. Kudzu and zebra mussels are only as invasive as their competition allows them to be. It is all about adapting to an environment, or adapting an environment to one's needs. It's not always pretty, it's not often kind, but the cycles go on.

I've been seeing some disturbing commercials about the EPA and how it is killing jobs with its overarching regulations. I wasn't sure until the other day who was putting this garbage out-I figured it was one of the republican candidates for president-especially Rick Perry. Then I saw the end of the commercial a few days ago, and the sponsor was "The Coalition for Clean Coal." Sure, wasn't it cool when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969. Actually, that river has caught fire thirteen times, but the one that sort-of triggered Earth Day and the current environmental movement was in 1969. Do we really want to go back there? Don't pregnant women get enough warnings about eating fish because of mercury poisoning? Don't enough babies spend time in the emergency room and hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care costs because of air pollution? America, do we really want to elect a bunch of people who think all regulations on industry are bad? They keep telling us that removing regulations will cause job creators to come back to the U.S. to put people back to work. Why not create "quality control" jobs that hire people to see that a company isn't poisoning us? If an industry can't live up to environmental protections, how about the government giving tax breaks or "stimulus funds" to companies that update their factories to improve their environmental impact? So you create jobs and a cleaner environment all at once. Then the "job creators" wouldn't be demonized, and wouldn't have to set aside so much of their income for lobbying. It all seems so simple to me.

Rick Perry stays on my mind a lot, and I cannot help but comment on the story of how he shot a coyote that menaced his family dog while on a run. Everything about this story rings false. I know that coyotes can be a problem for small dogs or cats left outside unattended. I know that with urban sprawl, coyotes have fewer places to hide and avoid contact with humans. But the governor of Texas, running with a golden retriever, which would outweigh most coyotes by about thirty pounds, and a cadre of security men running with him...well, there is no reason whatsoever that safety was the reason that coyote had to be shot. Coyotes are afraid of people, and unless they are pack hunting, which is a rare event, and fairly new evolutionary step for them, a solitary coyote would not approach a group like that-certainly not in a menacing way. Perry was trying to show what a tough Texas hombre he is. And from that point forward, no matter if he stopped every war, created a job for every American, paid down the deficit, and stopped all pollution in the world, I could never, ever respect him again. Yes, my reaction here is extreme, and says more about me and my attachment to wild animals and my fervent belief in their right to exist and survive than it does Mr. Perry. But I have also studied canines (all canines) and this is just camp fire talk from someone who thinks he is on a cattle drive from the nineteenth-century. I was born and raised in Texas, and I am familiar with the Texas macho ethos. It is an unnecessary, ugly anachronism. We certainly don't need it in the White House.

Mitt Romney. Business man, job creator, executive experience. What he actually did is increase the bottom line for shareholders by sending jobs over seas. I can't imagine anyone voting for such a Stepford Candidate. But then, if I were a republican I would be in utter despair right now. But then, I'm not a republican and I'm in despair now anyway over the direction of the country.

I remember hearing over and over and over about George W. Bush saying "nookyooler." Then I heard many, many smart people, including respected news anchor Bob Schieffer say the word "nuc-lear" the same way. So I've tried not to let that one bother me anymore. But I just don't know if I could ever vote for a candidate who wants to eliminate a "def tax." Not that I knew we had a special tax on people who can't hear.

In the meantime, I have a solution to the rich-poor divide. It seems that every single small company is actually owned by some giant corporation. So all that is necessary is to have that one big company-I'm thinking it's probably General Electric or Goldman Sachs, take a minor cut in pay, and cut the shareholder dividend by a tiny percent. Give the people below them a raise in pay, and cover a bit of their benefits. Problem solved. The business will still be profitable, but the salaries of the ninety-nine percenters would be better, they would be happier and we could be the UNITED States of America again. It is sad to me that we are all so angry at each other all the time.

My husband has been off work with a worker's comp injury since February. He was recently told that when he goes back to work he will have a three-percent raise. Then he got a letter saying that his insurance rates will go up more than ten percent. In the last forty years, the poverty rates in this country have gone up, not down. In the last ten plus years the salaries of the so-called ninety-nine percenters have gone down seven percent. Fuel keeps going up thirty cents, and down two cents at a time. When fuel goes up, everything that is delivered by fuel-driven machinery goes up. So, why are people angry and protesting? I can't imagine.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am an atheist. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with one of my sisters, who shares my non-theism. She was about to get married to a wonderful man, but was uncomfortable saying to me that she felt "blessed." Is it okay to say one feels blessed if one doesn't believe there is a magic man in the sky dispensing said gifts? I think it is perfectly understandable to feel "blessed " when something unexpected and wonderful comes one's way. I'm still not sure how I would be sworn in if I ever had to go to court.

Well-I guess maybe we have to look back sometimes.

"Ahh, these times are so uncertain, there's a yearning undefined and people filled with rage. We all need a little tenderness; how can love survive in such a graceless age?" Don Henley 1989, song, "Heart of the Matter," album, "End of the Innocence."

***Based upon a 1972 movie, "The Stepford Wives," in which the women of a community are made robotically perfect by husbands who wish to be waited on by beautiful, "perfect" women.

Not All That Spins Becomes Cotton Candy

2011-10-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

When I was a child, I hated naps. I suppose I was afraid of what I might miss if I slept in the middle of the day, Now it is my habit to take a nap on Sunday afternoon whether I'm tired or not. The problem with that is that if I'm not really tired I just lay there with my brain spinning. If I do doze a bit, it is full of dreams that sometimes spin bizarrely as if to simplify chaos theory. Typically I can follow a line, however crooked or fractured, and connect the dreams to something that has happened recently-though that doesn't always explain some of the people who populate the dreams. Every single time I have a disagreement with my husband, I have a dream about my first husband. Why is that? My first husband and I have been apart longer than we were together, and there are almost no similarities between the two men. Recently I talked to my friend who has an Italian boyfriend, Frank from Jersey, and I dreamed I had an affair with one of the characters from the television series, "The Sopranos." (Sorry, Frank!) Once, when I was sick with a high fever I dreamed I was being spun ever tighter in some sort of cocoon-it turned out I was wrapped in my blanket. I'm not sure that dreams really mean anything, but they do connect to our daily lives.When I married my second husband, in January of 2000, we moved from the town in Texas where my family lives to a small house in a small town in Illinois where he grew up. He knew one thing about me-that I love dogs. To the extreme--to a point sometimes where some people have accused me of liking dogs better than people. Which is not exactly true-I love most dogs better than I like some people. But after living in this house without a dog for a little more than a year, I asked him if we could get a dog. This was in March of 2001. Time passed, and still no dog. I started going back to school, along with my full time job, my eyes open all the time to the right possibility of the right dog for our family. On September 11, 2011 we still didn't have a dog-but after the terrorist attacks of that day, there were suddenly other things on everyone's mind. But, as we were told by our president, if we didn't carry on our normal lives, the terrorists won. On November 6, 2011, I went to have a fairly normal thing done-getting my teeth cleaned. My husband and his son who lived with us were at the fall sports banquet celebrating the football season. As I was lead to the cubicle of the hygienist, whom I had never met, but who had known my husband since he was a kid, it was lined with photos of dogs. I asked if these were all her dogs, and she said that she was involved in dog rescue and fostering. I asked if she had any that were adoptable, and she said yes, she had two that had been orphaned by the 9-11 attacks. One she thought was ready for a home, and one might never be. Did I want to meet them? I was her last client of the day, and I "followed her home."

Years before I had picked a name for the next male dog I got; he was going to be "Nestor," after the character played by Antonio Banderas in the movie, "The Mambo Kings." The dog I took home with me that night had been called "Louie," since no one really knew anything about his history. He was beautiful-a border collie mix, with a full black mask instead of the Harlequin mask that one sees on many border collies, and much more white on him than black. I took him home, and when my husband and step son arrived home from the sports banquet, we were sitting in the floor of the living room. I had my arm around him, we had already begun to bond, and my husband said, "Did you get a dog?" Since we didn't have a fenced in yard Nestor had to be walked twice a day. Every day-seven days a week. That duty fell to me, since I was the real dog lover in the house, and we walked all over the little town. I lost forty-five pounds, and Nestor and I were attached at the hip. I was, no doubt, his human. We later did get a fence, and I injured my sciatic nerve, and had to have help with the walking, but Nestor and I were almost psychically, and probably in an unhealthy way, connected. If we were walking and met up with someone who would talk to me, unless it was someone else with a dog, Nestor would snap at them. He did also chase things that moved, like the bicycle of our next door neighbor's daughter. When he, in true border collie fashion, nipped at the back tire and caught her ankle, it caused a neighborhood kerfuffle, to be sure. I was not familiar with the breed before I had fallen in love with this dog, but had I known more about them in advance, I probably would have known that we didn't really have the lifestyle for such an active dog. Sometimes if he was left alone he would tear things up-like the blinds, not just papers and small things. We replaced the blinds several times. The lady I had adopted him from attributed it to boredom and possible separation anxiety, considering he had been orphaned by the 9-11 attacks. I often called him my little orphan boy. His biting became more serious, and despite the fact that he was healthy and had all his shots, he had to be quarantined four times because of biting people. Once I went to visit him at the vet when he was in quarantine, and the vet said that he had never once shown any sign of aggression. Then when I started to leave, he bit the vet. The vet looked at me and said, "This is about you." I was getting more and more hopeless that I would ever be able to stop this behavior. I contacted a trainer who advertised that she could help with aggressive dogs, and we agreed to bring him back. But in April of 2007, I noticed that when a UPS man knocked at our door, he went psycho. I knew that if there had been no glass between him and the delivery man, there would be some real damage done. A few days later, he bit the hand of the neighbor who lived behind us, drawing blood. I will say, that man was not very nice, and I'd been tempted to bite him myself a time or two. But I knew it was the end...I called our vet, and took him to be put down. We couldn't afford the liability of an aggressive dog-and we couldn't risk small children coming to the house and being bitten. He was also prone to nip our guests if they hugged me; I had no choice left but to put him down. We went to the vet, and were placed in a room while the tech discussed with the vet, seemingly forever, how this euthanasia was to be handled since he had just bitten someone. I was falling apart, he knew something was up, so he was going psycho-hound all over the room. The vet finally came in and gave him "the shot." He was wobbly, but still walking around-I was still hysterical, and told her that I was close to changing my mind. She said, "Boy, he's not going down without a fight." They had to give my little orphan boy twice the regular dose, but he finally laid down in my lap and went to sleep. That was the first time I'd experienced this. I'd had other dogs put down before, but I could never bring myself to be there. I'd say my goodbye, and wait outside. But with this dog, I had to be the one to do it.

At the time this happened, April 12, 2007, I was in graduate school; right in the middle of the big project. I can imagine that someone might think the death of a dog would be something to move on from, but I basically fell apart, and wound up flunking out of graduate school. My job was temporary-a grad assistantship that now had to be changed to an 'academic hourly' and would only last until January. My life, and family became very difficult as I tried to deal with the grief over Nestor, and the still unremitting feeling that I had failed him. Bad owners make bad dogs; there had to have been more that I could have done. We had adopted a lab, Maddie, to be his friend, and she and I were the only ones who really grieved for him. I didn't think I would be ready for another dog for some time, but I didn't expect her to be as sad as she was. In fact, I thought she would be happy as an only dog. But she wasn't. In January of 2008 I was out of work, and the economy struck Central Illinois WAY before it spread through the rest of the country, so I could only find part time work, which was not near enough to support our family. My grief and feelings of failure regarding Nestor and school had started to come between my husband and me-things were really spinning out of control. On May 31 I got on a train and moved home to Texas. Supposedly there were lots of good jobs in Texas, my family kept telling me. So I moved, not sure if my husband would join me, but he and Maddie moved down in August of that year. I was glad to be close to my side of the family, but it was hard for Jim to be separated from his side of the family, especially his three sons. Maddie died the following February-at the age of 12, which is pretty old for a lab. Life goes on.

On May 15, 2010 I wrote a blog post, "To Ian, With Pride." Ian is the son of my youngest sister. The night she went into labor, all my siblings were gathered at my house. At that time I was a practicing Christian, and Teresa, Ian's mother, and I were the only ones in the family attending the Episcopal church. As a result of that, and the particularly close relationship we had, my first husband and I w ere Ian's godparents. So, despite the fact that my religious world-view has changed completely, I have always felt a special bond with Ian. May 14, 2010 was the night he graduated from college and received his commission as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force. I remember telling my sister that night that one hope I'd had was that by the time Ian graduated from ROTC we would no longer be at war. Last Sunday, as I took my nap, we were preparing to go to a going away party for Ian, who left for the Middle East, his first post after tech school, on Tuesday. On Thursday the news media were announcing that it was the tenth anniversary of our invasion of Afghanistan. As I cried on the shoulders of my mother and youngest sister Sunday night about that baby boy whose birth is so etched into our lives because his placenta tried to come out first, and his birth was an emergency Cesarean, leaving my apartment where it all started looking as if an axe murder had occurred there, was a grown man, a military officer, going where it was WAY more than a couple of hours to come home for a visit. The spin of dreaming about my dog began to make sense. I wouldn't have had Nestor if not for the 9-11 attacks, because of the 9-11 attacks, we are still at war, and Ian was going to the Middle East. I will add that he is going to a friendly country, and has a fairly safe job-but suddenly it all made sense how much our lives have become defined by the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01.

So, we can take the events of our lives, blend them into the pensieve of our subconscious, turn on the spinnaker and the heat and spin a single thread into something that resembles a full life. It may be completely connected, but it won't always be sweet.

Pensieve-a device used in Harry Potter books, written by J.K.Rowling, which allow a person to see into the memories of another person.

Not My Cup of Tea

2011-09-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

The world is making me tired. There hasn't been a day go by in the last few weeks that I haven't been shaken by something happening somewhere. I need a day of happy news. Just one. Is that unreasonable?

When I was in college, studying Environmental Policy, I was introduced to Thomas Robert Malthus. Malthus was an English scholar who proposed a theory of overpopulation, saying that at some point, the earth's population would grow beyond its ability to sustain itself. Once the earth reaches that point, the population would be checked by starvation, war and disease. Most of the twentieth century, economists and philosophers spent suggesting that Malthus was wrong; we were able to exponentially increase food production, and send minimum sustenance to every corner of the globe and prevent death by starvation. We are now in the third desperate famine in Africa that I can remember. We are doing the best we can to send enough food to the people in Somalia to prevent the slow, dreadfully suffering death by starvation and disease, despite the fact that many of the violent and corrupt regimes of the region are preventing some of the aid from reaching those most in need. Yesterday it was announced that on Halloween day, Sunday, October 31, 2011, the world population will reach seven billion. The world is on the downward slide with regard to potable water. Much of the farmland in Africa has been rendered un-arable because of war, drought, and the race for resources such as gold, oil and diamonds. Once the aid workers are gone, the same corrupt war lords will begin to kill with impunity again, using religion and race as an excuse, when resources are actually the reason for the brutal attacks. Malthus wasn't wrong, he was just early. We can increase our food production to a point, and we've come through so far. But those increases require more water and good land, which is becoming more and more rare as the population rises, the climate warms, and drought prevents the rain from watering the farms...and the circle is infinite.

Back in the 1980s I read several books by Stephen King. I loved the fact that, much like the television program, "The Twilight Zone," there was just enough reality to make his plots seem plausible. One of my favorites was "The Dead Zone." It was a story about a man who was in a terrible car crash and went into a coma for a long time. When he awakened, he could touch people and tell the future. One of the people he touched was a politician who was running for president. He touched the man, and knew that a nuclear conflagration would be the result of the election of that candidate. Something eerily like the feeling I got reading that story came over me when I saw this picture on the cover of Time magazine this week:

I'm sorry-there is just something frightening to me about this man. Despite the fact that, as Bill Clinton said, "He's a good lookin' rascal." It's not enough to make him un-scary to me.

I am an unabashed liberal. But I understand some conservative positions, and I come from a very conservative family. When political topics are broached, especially since I am usually outnumbered, I've become a master of the smile and nod, and the, "That's certainly a point of view," reply. But a conversation I had early in the Obama administration with a friend who is just as proud of her tea party activism and anti-Obama passion that was very telling to me as I look back. This particular friend lives in a very closed society-fundamental Christianity, in the deep south, and all of her world view is colored by that giant wall. I tend to believe this is true of all tea party members, including my mother. Most of this group decided that they hated Obama, and anything he might stand for well before he was elected and attempted to do anything. They have held their beliefs, no matter how often President Obama has done exactly the opposite of what anyone would expect of a liberal. But my friend exclaimed to me, when I asked her why, exactly and specifically, she disliked Obama so much, "He wants to CHANGE America." This remark has come back to me time and again, puzzlingly; and in the last month or so, it has come back to me again and again. I have realized that what the tea party wants is a return to an America that never really existed in the past, and certainly could not survive in the twenty-first century. In the days of fuzzy memory, blacks and gays didn't demand their constitutionally guaranteed civil rights. In fact, a black man walking down the street who looked at a white woman, or looked a white man in the eye, did so at his own peril. Homosexuals didn't want to get married-they wanted to hide their true natures so that they could keep their jobs. They never had "partners," they had "roommates." But the white folks lived well, and went to church every Sunday. They were there for their white neighbors, and their white neighbors were there for them. No one knew that George Washington didn't really chop down a cherry tree and tell his father the truth about it. No one ever questioned the Disney-fied history books, or dared to suggest that any of the founding fathers were promiscuous or flawed in any way. Men went to work, and good mothers stayed home and provided clean houses and good meals for the family. Freedom of religion was okay because everyone was Christian or Jewish. There were no atheists or agnostics, and certainly no Muslims or Hindus. There were no illegal immigrants-just gardeners and people who traveled around the country to pick fruit for a pittance that was impossible to live on. That was their problem though-white people had the right to make profit and do well. No one questioned that. But that world never truly existed, and most definitely does not exist now. American businesses can't make profits without going international. But in order to go international, we must learn something about the cultures with which we wish to do business. That may mean we can't steamroll over everyone in another country with the assumption that the only good country is the U. S. and the only good religion is Christianity, and the only good business model is the American one. Facebook and Twitter and the internet in general have made isolationism impossible. And the fact of the matter is, the world has changed, and was changing long before Obama was born in Hawaii. I've been told all my life that "Change is the only constant in life," and anyone who refuses to admit that is burying his head in the sand. Obama didn't cause this, but as the first president we've had in some time who is open to it, rather than trying to deny it, or forcefully and belligerently stop the change, he is still WAY ahead of any tea party candidate.

Time Spent Just Shaking My Head

2011-09-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have given me many, many opportunities to shake and scratch my head. I don't think I've ever seen anything as strange as the republican candidates for president in 2012, or the people who follow them. But personally life is just strange as well. For example, for the last forty years environmentalists have been complaining about the amount of packaging used to sell the products we use. But every day something is being introduced that is bringing more and more trash to our landfills. Now every coffee company is packaging coffee in plastic containers for individual servings. Even allegedly green companies are doing this, and I've contacted a couple of them-they admit that their individual serving cups are not biodegradable. We now have pieces of fresh fruit in glass jars and prunes in a waxed-paper container, then wrapped in individual cellophane wrappers. Grrrrrrrrr! Helloooooo-ooooo? Anybody out there?

I LOVE R&B singer John Legend. At times he's seemed to me the reincarnation of Marvin Gaye. He's touring this summer with Sade, whom I also like. But in a list published in my local newspaper recently, SHE was listed as one of the top grossing concerts this summer. Shouldn't he have been on that list as well?

How can we say we know what prevents cancer? There is a new story almost daily about something that prevents some kind of cancer-but people keep getting cancer, even though,as long as that list is, there can't be much left that everyone on earth does. So it seems that cancer rates should be going down.

I wonder if we set politicians up for corruption and arrogance when we talk about their looks. I can think of two who are about as smarmy and dishonest as any politician in history, Rod Blagojevich and Rick Perry, who have commonly been called "Governor Good Hair," that believe their crimes are not even wrong doing. Maybe good looking people in our world just get away with way too much, and come to believe that the rules don't really apply to them.

Who said that dogs don't really have a sense of time? When I recently babysat a dog for a friend who was out of town, interestingly, his behavior began to change about one and a half days before she returned. Nothing else that we could explain had changed.I believe he knew "Mom" was coming home.

In Texas 2011, we have had the hottest summer on record. We even beat the dust bowl summer of Oklahoma in 1929. If we had a breeze this drought stricken summer, there was fire danger. If we didn't have a breeze, the heat created pollution alerts. I couldn't help wondering how President Obama, Eric Cantor, and other legislators in this country could reverse anti-pollution rules. Aren't they parents? Don't they know how many children are affected by pollution? I don't want to talk about global warming and its long term consequences. I want to talk about what we are doing to ourselves right now. We are making ourselves sick, and I don't want to live in a dirty world with dirty air. I have two grandchildren, and one more on the way. I don't want them to spend their childhoods in the ER getting breathing treatments because of the oil and coal lobbies.

This past Wednesday there was something called "The Tea Party Debate" with the republican candidates for president. Several years ago there was a giant kerfuffle in Texas when Governor Rick Perry made it mandatory for pre-adolescent girls to get a vaccine against the human pappiloma virus, which has been proven to cause cervical cancer. We have been vaccinating children against communicable diseases for about a century. Some of these diseases have been all but eradicated. But people got angry with the governor for this one. One reason was because of financial connections to the big-pharma company that provided the vaccine-reasonable argument. But I can't help but wonder if a part of the anger was because there might be something like "S-E-X" attached to this one. That certainly seemed to be the case with Michelle Bachman in her criticism at the debate Wednesday. And then she came back with a story of a crying woman who came to her and said that the HPV vaccine "gave her daughter mental retardation." Sigh. Yes, anecdotes are now science, right? So Rick Perry said-he attacked Bachman for taking the woman's story as fact when she had "no science to back it up." The explosion in my gut was hard to contain on that one, when just two weeks ago, Rick Perry was talking about the science on evolution and climate change not being in. Since when does Rick Perry know or care anything about science? He suggested that the pope who imprisoned Galileo was a scientist who just disagreed with Galileo's scientific theories at another debate. The far right of the republican party has been consistently anti-science and anti-intellectual for years. That's exactly why Sarah Palin has the following she does; she suggests that smart people who consider facts before they speak or pick a position are not real American "Joe Six Packs." I'm sorry, Governor Good Hair, you can't have it both ways.

The Milk of Human Kindness

2011-09-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

I work on the phone. Sometimes I get into long conversations with the people on the phone. This happened last week, with an older woman who, like me, has family members in both the military and law enforcement. We talked about whether or not there are people in the world who have absolutely no good in them. I commented that I don't think so-even the most depraved people have some good in them, though it is buried beneath so much garbage that it can't be seen. She responded, "I can tell you are a Christian." I honestly didn't know what to say. Obviously I couldn't say much, being in a work setting. But I wonder, as I have for years, where the notion comes from that to have a kind outlook on humankind comes from Christianity. I can point to so much evidence of Christians who definitely do not have a kind attitude toward their fellow man, and I know many non-theists who do. In fact, atheists sometimes refer to themselves as "humanist," and for most of the atheists I know, ethics is very important...after all, this world is all we believe we have, and how we treat each other is of high importance.

There have been some articles recently about the "Christian Dominion" movement on the right wing fringes. This idea that fundamentalist Christians should run the world isn't anything new. The "C-Street" apartment house, at which some of the sleazier politicians who've been caught with their pants down, so to speak, is a part of this movement. They believe that it is okay for some politicians to screw around on their wives because King David did and God allegedly said David was "a man after my own heart." The thing they forget is that Christianity is supposed to be based on the NEW Testament, and King David was an Old Testament king. Nor was he allowed, by God, according to the myth, to build the temple because he committed adultery and murder. Nor was Moses allowed to enter the promised land with the Jews because he had committed murder. So the whole dominion movement is just a bunch of creeps who cheat on their wives and want to rationalize that their bad behavior qualifies them for leadership. Not only is every bit of this movement ridiculous, it is wrong headed in its alleged adherence to biblical values. It is also scary as hell and needs to be kept on the fringe.

Speaking of politicians who've been caught with their pants down, I think it is noteworthy that none of them were wearing skirts.

One legend about St. Patrick says that he used a clover, the three-leaved variety, to explain to the Celts about the trinity-three from one. So why is the four leaf clover considered to be good luck?

In the last week or so I've heard several pundits referring to the Tea Party movement as "patriotic anarchists." Funny thing, on July 23rd, in my blog post entitled "Demagogue Is Not a Verb," question number 7 went this way, "7. Do the anti-government right-wingers realize that people who hate the government and wish to dismantle it are called "anarchists?" Anarchists used to be considered left wing. Does anyone but me see the irony in that? Anarchy in the USA!! Brought to you by Sarah Palin." So, can I get a little credit for pointing this out first? In fact, if you are going to read my blog and steal my ideas, please become a follower. I need more followers.

So all this talk about the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution being a rationale for ending anything the federal government wants to do that they don't like. Candidate/Governor Rick Perry, of my state, Texas, likes to call on "State's Rights." He does it all the time. When the state of New York approved of allowing marriage equality, he said that it was fine for New York to do that-in his opinion that day, he said it was a matter to be decided by individual states. But yesterday, August 26, 2011, it was announced that he had signed a pledge to a marriage inequality group that he would support a new amendment to the constitution stating that marriage in the United States under a Rick Perry presidency would be that it is only between one man and one woman. Just one example of how conveniently the Grand Ole Party uses and rejects the Big Tenth Amendment. Which simply says nothing more than, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That's it. Which demonstrates why it is so easy to find so many different interpretations. And why its multiple uses must be carefully considered before it is used to reject every proposition from the federal government that any particular governor or candidate might like or dislike at any given moment. (Or in front of any particular interest group or donor!) I do remember a line from the Bush administration, quoting Reagan claiming that "government is not the solution, government is the problem." It was said that the second Bush administration believed that government is the problem, and then spent their whole time in government proving it.

So, speaking of tea, there is an entire shelf now at the grocery store from which shoppers can buy gallons of tea in the ubiquitous plastic jug. Why would anyone pay from $2.95 to $4.29 for a gallon of premade tea? It doesn't make good economic sense. I pay a bit over $2.00 for a box of 100 teabags, and that makes 20 gallons of tea. Have we become that lazy? Nevermind. Except that lazy doesn't even do it for this one-it takes less energy to put some water in a kettle, boil it, add the bags and let them steep, then top off the jug with water and slip it in the fridge than to drive to the store, shop, maneuver around the aisle hogs, find where it's kept, put it in your basket, take it to the register, wait in line, pay, walk to the car, drive back home, carry in all your bags, put away all the groceries you just bought, etc. Make your own damned tea! We don't need all that many more plastic jugs in the landfills, on top of your soda and water bottles. And don't insist you recycle them; only about three-percent of Americans recycle their recyclables, and there have been billions and billions of plastic bottles placed in landfills in the last fifty years. We don't need unnecessary tea jugs on top of them.

Since when is "nevermind" not a word? I just had to add it to my dictionary-as far as I know, nevermind is just as much a word as "alot." Which my computers keep lining in red as if they are not part of the English language. Where do they come up with this crap?

Has anyone noticed the evolution of the Exxon-Mobil commercials? First it was just that they are spending lots of money on R & D to find more eco-friendly ways to produce energy. Now they are talking about trying to frac without damaging ground water supplies. And there is one in which the spokesperson actually talks about the tar sands program in Canada, and he honestly says, "We can access this energy with about the same emissions as other forms of energy." WWWHHHHHHAAAAATTTTTTT???? The wording of commercials can be very instructive, and it is quite clear that it takes so much energy to remove the oil from tar sands that it is much worse for the environment than traditional oil production. Interestingly, I heard the Canadian CEO of the company building the tar sands pipeline say that all the protests in the US will only hurt us by sending 25,000 jobs to Canada, and that the oil will be produced anyway. And we always carry on about how "nice" Canadians are-now we are being held hostage by the guys who beat baby seals on the head with clubs.

Right Man, Bad Time?

2011-08-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hello. my name is Vonnie, and I come from a long line of racists. Some of the things that have been said to me by members of my family (both sides) still embarrass me, though no one but me heard some of them. My mother, who grew up in rural Arkansas, remembers Jim Crow. In fact, he was a neighbor, and a deacon at her brother's church. One thing I knew from a very young age is that people are afraid of what they are not exposed to. They make up stories so that they can justify their fears. I've heard this from other points of view-Jewish vs. Christian, Christian vs. Muslim, America vs. USSR. Fear is what keeps us ignorant of each other, and ignorance keeps us afraid and apart. I've told the story before of a woman I used to know who worked at a convenience store that was robbed by a black man. She said to me later, "Now, every time a black man walks in the store, I get scared." I guess her family must have told her, as mine did, that all blacks look alike. When I hear comments like that, I think in terms of statistics-how many black men are there in this country? How many of them robbed you? How many would NEVER rob anyone? Which number is larger? I don't just apply this to race questions-I have the same gut reaction when someone tells me at the age of twenty-five that they are terrified of all dogs because a dog bit them as a child. I have a tough time with that one, being the dog lover that I am, because I know that many times a little education of children would keep them safe from dog bites. But I go through that equation in my head, how many dogs in the world? How many bit you? Etc.

I remember in 2007, when President Obama was campaigning, and people commented on his cool, calm demeanor. I don't remember now who explained it, but someone said that he very consciously disciplined himself because he is aware that many white people are still afraid of black people, and often see black men with a bit of trepidation, because black men are so often angry and hostile. This is precisely how he has conducted his presidency. He is the president who has tried harder than I have ever seen to get a contentious congress to come together to solve problems. He tries to ameliorate conflicts between black professors and white police officers with "beer summits." He plays golf with his staunchest opponents from the opposing party. He is trying to bridge the race gap in this country by showing that we are not that different from each other after all. He has a wonderful family-the statistical American family; lovely, educated wife, two precious daughters, a big black and white dog. He is the perfect person to be the first black president of the United States. He is the one who will make white people less afraid to vote for a black man from now on because he is showing that not all black men are angry and hostile, and they have good American family values. He is a faithful husband who adores his wife. Now that we have seen that it can happen, it will not be a big deal next time a black person runs for president. Of course, there is a subset of white Americans, to some of whom I am related, I'm afraid, who will never accept a black person in any role of leadership in this country. They will have to die off-they will never be changed. Hopefully their children have been exposed enough to the truth and will reject their parents lies about the differences between the races.

The problem, however, is that "No Drama Obama" became president at a time of great peril. The great recession actually began in 2007. One of the two wars we are currently fighting started in 2001, the other in 2003. We are going on our tenth year at war, and we are bombing Libya, Pakistan and Yemen (secretly.) The world economy began to sink in 2008, and has not been able to claw itself back into solvency yet. It is getting worse-especially for working people, who seem to be an easy target for people with lots of money who want to limit worker's rights. Not that it matters; many of those "job creators" are only creating jobs in other countries. There are divisions between the American people that keep us from even having civil conversations with each other. Forget civil-we don't even seem to have honest conversations with each other.

In the budget debate, and the health care debate, and in the midst of every piece of legislation that has been proposed by the Obama administration, there have been loud criticisms that the president has not been "leading," he has not strong-armed the congress to get things done that the American people both need and want. And it is true-that is not the type of leader he is. There is not a single person in the United States who ever knew that Barack Obama existed before he was elected president who should be surprised by this. He is the "Conciliator in Chief," the "Arbitrator in Chief." He does not strong arm people, he tries to get everyone to "just get along." This is not a bad thing. We do need to get along-we have big problems to solve. Problems that are leading the United States to decline. If we don't learn from history, the next step will be trying to make deals with barbarian armies, who then decide they don't want to share the US, they want to own us. I'm referring to the fall of Rome-not accusing any other countries today of being barbarian-I hope no one misinterprets me. But we also need a leader who is rational, which President Obama is, but can do a bit of Lyndon Johnson-style strong arming to get smart things done to turn around our economic situation, and to get us out of all our bellicose actions overseas. He needs to have a spine of steel to stand up to the anti-environment positions of his opponents, and to support the working people of America.

Although I did not vote for Obama in the primary in 2008, I did vote for him as president, and I will again. Quite frankly, I think he is absolute perfect choice to be the first black president of the United States. He is not someone that white people should ever logically fear, no matter what they might have been told by their racist relatives. But I will cast my vote with trepidation, because in order to get some things done to fight Wall Street and the Koch brothers, and get this country back to work, we need a president that his opponents fear.

Recommended reading: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro

Can They DO That?

2011-07-31T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ever since the advent of the internet people have been sending around questionnaires that supposedly tell friends more about each other. They always seem to include a question about favorite smells. I'm a very sensual person-things I smell or hear can move me in ways that I can't always fully describe. There is a young woman I work with who wears a cologne that lifts my mood every time she walks in the door; there are many smells like that. My answer to that survey question is usually "summer fruit-peaches, watermelon," etc. Last week I walked into the great soul-crushing retailer of our time, and was in the produce section. I smelled that magnetic, sweet peach smell, and looked around to see huge bins of peaches and nectarines. I couldn't resist walking over, my head swimming with the thought of ripe peach juice running down my chin, as I slurped the just-soft enough, not too mushy fruit. I picked up several peaches, and then several nectarines. Every one was as hard as a rock-and none of them had that "peachy" smell. How is that possible? There are some room fragrance products that have come up with peach scents that are pretty on-target for replicas. Is it possible that a retailer could use those scented products to entice customers to buy their produce? Nah! Weeelllll?????

Speaking of enticing smells, popcorn. I love the smell of it at movies, or from a microwave. I recently met my sister for a movie date, and while waiting for the movie to start and munching on my popcorn, I got really angry at all the commercials we had to sit through to get to our movie. We put up with commercials on "commercial" television in order to pay for "free" programming. But we pay a pretty big amount for the privilege of seeing a movie-and we see it in theaters so that we don't have to put up with commercials. We are charged ginormous amounts for snacks at movies when we could have snacks at home and watch movies on cable, where the only commercials are for other programming on the cable channel, and we can fast forward through them. Are you listening theater chains? We don't have to spend our money on you. And if you keep behaving like commercial television, we may not.

Shouldn't your doctor already know what medicines you're taking?

Does it bother anyone that commercials for drugs called "proton pump inhibitors," designed to help with heartburn and acid reflux, talk about being able to eat your favorite things once you take their pills? If we didn't eat a greasy diet, such as the pepperoni pizza shown on one particular commercial, we might not have this problem to begin with.

When I was a kid we had "Stiller and Meara." Now we have Jerry Stiller playing character rolls on sitcoms, and Ben Stiller, their son making comedies. Whatever happened to Meara?

Speaking of politics...not that I was, hehehehe, I heard Mitch McConnell this morning on State of the Union with Candy Crowley, harping, once again, the republican lie that any tax increase of any kind on anyone is a can absolutely not be done with 9+ percent unemployment. He cited as proof that democrats, in a big win for the right last year, must have agreed because they voted to extend the Bush tax cuts. If he is using this fact to support his version of economic truth, why then didn't all the rich-I mean "job creators" instantly start hiring? Surely their certainty was enforced by that two year extension? Don't they keep saying that it's uncertainty about tax rates that is keeping them all from hiring or investing in the U.S. job market? Why didn't Gloria Borger, who sat in for Candy Crowley this morning, pursue that question even one more level?

If we call oil, farm, coal subsidies what they really are, would the right be willing to eliminate them? It is corporate welfare to give money to these gigantic agribusinesses, oil companies, et al, and they don't even need it. They are making obscene profits. How can anyone who supports a free-market economy be for this?

Yes, I mentioned farm subsidies. I realize that farmers are, no pun intended, sacred cows in our country-I see the family farmer that way too. But the family farm is a tiny percentage of farms in our country these days, and huge chemical agribusinesses such as Monsanto own many of the farms from which we get our food nowadays. They make plenty of money, and don't need our subsidies. The family farmer, who has picked an industry that can be a captive of nature, has crop insurance if there is a bad year. They don't need our subsidies either. I'm sorry. I do love this country, and I love farmers. I WAS AT THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF FARM AID FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!!! Please don't suggest I'm un-American for saying this out loud, but they don't. So, let companies stand or fall based on the market.

How can an avowed, proud tree-hugger feel this way? Weeelllllll-believe me, when it comes to corporate responsibility for environmental mistakes, if the free market made companies pay for their own mistakes, perhaps BP would not be making such large profits this year, because they would be paying to clean up the gulf and reimburse families they harmed with their carelessness. I learned this idea from Robert Kennedy, Jr. in his book, from 2005, Crimes Against Nature. One cannot be more of a liberal tree-hugger than that. Even if the cost shut them down-that's the nature of the free market. If Superfund hadn't paid to clean up industrial waste for so many companies, perhaps they would be more careful about setting rivers on fire, or poisoning our water sources.

When my husband asked me this morning what I want for my birthday tomorrow, did he "get it" when I said, "Something romantic and from the heart?" Did he hope I would name something specific instead of letting him call on our 13 year relationship, almost 12 year marriage to give him an idea? Should he need to ask? Should I still be bothered that he had to?

Just asking.

2011-07-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

SometimesEvolution Happens Quickly

I’ve been discussing evolution oneway or another for over thirty years. Back then I believed that evolution was asatanic tool for dragging our faith away from God. Yes, I too have been a “Young-earthcreationist.” I believed in something that was then called “Creation Science,”but now is dumbed-down to “Intelligent Design,” which basically states thatlife on earth is so complex that there HAD to be some kind of omniscient beinginvolved in its development. Now, we could spend a lot of time asking why, ifthat is true, didn’t this being do a better job of designing things likeweight-bearing joints, and why there are genetic diseases that kill babies, or(in my view, even worse) auto-immune illnesses in which a person’s own bodyattacks it, causing illness and death. Doesn’t seem very intelligent to me-butthat is not the point today.

The definition of the word “evolution”is change over time, to put it quite simply. Humans have used it to createdomestic plants and animals that work according to our desires for thousands ofyears. That is why water dogs have webbed feet, and Labrador retrievers havewater resistant coats, but terriers (their names come from the Latin “terra,”or earth) don’t always care for the water. Now, some would say that this is asign of “intelligent design,” since humans directed it. But, again, since thistype of design has often lead to unintended consequences, and harm to the breedor plant, I would say it calls into question, once again, the “intelligent”behind “intelligent design.” But the fact that change over time occurs iswithout question.

In 1994 Jonathan Weiner published abook called The Beak of the Finch, inwhich he told the story of two biologists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spenttwenty-years demonstrating that evolution could occur in closed ecosystemswithin a few generations. They went to the Galapagos Islands, made famous byCharles Darwin, and observed that the shape of the beaks of birds changed insuch a short amount of time based on the scarcity or abundance of particularfood sources. These biologists basically put to rest the argument that is oftenused by creationists that “believing in evolution is also based on faithbecause none of us were there to see it happening.” We can see it happeningright before our eyes. Just this week, in the New York Times “Science Times,” on July 25, an article byCarl Zimmer was published in which we wrote about four biologists who are amonga growing group of scientists doing research on “urban evolution,” or showinghow urban sprawl is forcing organisms, including rodents and other animals areadapting to their new environments right before our eyes. Other organisms thatare evolving right before our eyes are bacteria and microbes, which have spentthe last century developing resistance to our insecticides, antibiotics, andother environmental chemicals. There are now bacteria that invade our bodies,and we can’t fight them because they have evolved the ability to absorb ourmedicines and anti-bacterial wipes and washes. We are not keeping up with themby developing resistance to them because we are not allowing our immune systemsto work at fighting them.

All of that being said, there areseveral states, mostly southern, mostly “red,” that are currently-STILL tryingto get intelligent design printed in their science text books. My state, Texas,is one of them. This battle has been going on for nearly a century. The ScopesMonkey Trial, which was fictionalized and immortalized in the 1960 movie “Inheritthe Wind.” The trial itself took place in 1925, and some people still will notlet this go away, despite the fact that nearly every new discovery supports thefact that all life on earth shares a common ancestor…the basic fact that is atthe center of the entirety of our biological lives. Part of this comes from alevel of human arrogance, supported by some religious texts, which claim thatman is a “higher” form of creation, and is “above” and has dominion over earthand all other life forms. I could go on and on about all the harm we’ve done toearth in the name of this belief, but I won’t. Hopefully any thinking peoplewho might read this will figure out what I mean.

On December 20, 2005, U.S. DistrictJudge John Jones struck a blow to those who wish to teach intelligent design asscience. Suit was filed over a school district in Dover, Pennsylvania, whereteachers were being forced to give a statement to classes before teachingevolution saying that there were alternative theories to evolution, and thatevolution is not “proven” science. After hearing arguments from both sides,Judge Jones decided that intelligent design is not science, and that itviolates the constitutional separation of church and state. But the battle goeson. The arguments on both sides of this trial were presented on PBS on November13, 2007 in Nova, Intelligent Designon Trial.

But wait!!! Barbara Cargill, a(gasp!) biology teacher, and conservative head of the Texas State Board ofEducation agreed to compromise and not push to have intelligent design added totext books printed in Texas, and purchased by school boards of the entirecountry. According to reports in Austin news sources, Ms. Cargill gave up thefight because it “looked like they would lose,” and didn’t have enough votes topush their anti-evolution agenda. Well for once, I would love to see some otherstates follow Texas’ lead.

Where Do Idealists Get Jobs?

2011-07-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

This is not a question regarding the current job market in the United States. There are several careers I can think of that require a certain idealism in order to choose them. Teaching, medicine (nursing in particular,) law enforcement, possibly political office. I know people in all of these careers, and after a certain number of years, each of them seem to lose at least some of the idealism, the desire to help others, that drew them to their career choices. There are others, myself included, who are generally idealistic, and try to always see the best in people, who just wind up having 'jobs' because there is no place for us to fit in with our idealistic natures.

In a conversation with a young friend, whose younger brother just graduated from high school, she told me that he is pursuing a degree in education, and that he hopes to teach in the inner city. He's done some volunteer work in that arena in Los Angeles, CA, and he absolutely loved it. I wonder where he will be twenty years from now, when he has seen just how many of those inner city children he will be able to 'save,' and how he will be the one blamed for their failures? The discussions being held in this country lately over what is wrong with our educational system, and why are children lag behind, is very telling. It seems that everyone, particularly legislators, want to blame teachers and teachers unions for our failures. Occasionally the home life, and participation of the parents is mentioned, but no one brings up the culture we live in. Who are the media heroes? Does our culture celebrate learning? Are the students who are motivated to learn encouraged and nurtured, or are they bullied by fellow students, and ignored by over-burdened teachers who must spend more time trying to keep peace from students with behavior or learning difficulties in their overcrowded classrooms? When they go home, are their heads filled with unchallenging programming on television and iPads? How any teacher can keep his or her ideals alive for an entire career would be beyond anyone's logic.

I'm close to some police officers and others who work for the police in civilian roles. It takes very little time for them to begin to see everyone they meet as suspicious. They spend their days immersed in the worst of what our society brings, and it colors their perceptions. Police officers take a pledge to "serve and protect," which takes a certain ideal of making a difference in society by removing crime so that the law abiding citizen can live freely. But their administrators are sometimes corrupt, they must become friendly and look the other way for some smaller crimes in order to get information on larger crimes, sometimes the people they've pledged to protect dislike them because THEY know someone who has been arrested, and on and on. Police officers traditionally hate the departments appointed to investigate crimes committed within their own ranks. Why? Because sometimes, after seeing how many criminals get away with it, and become rich doing it, and looking at how little they make for the amount of risk involved in their jobs, some policemen become corrupt, and rationalize doing so. Therefore they take the position that they should not be prosecuted if they 'take a little' off the top. How can one keep their idealism in such an unappreciated job. The corruption of the New York City police at the turn of the 20th century was a well known "wink, wink" fact. Police were typically paid for protection by organized criminals on a regular basis. But the city paid them almost nothing, and they were still expected, exactly as today, to put their lives on the line for the people. While police corruption can never be condoned, there were those who understood why police officers would be tempted to take bribes to supplement their paltry incomes.

One place one should be able to believe they can make a difference in the world around them is in politics. There was a time when I thought this would be my place to make a difference. But I have yet to see a single person in politics get elected and not soon be overcome by the amount of money it takes to win, which cannot come from "the people," because the people just don't have enough of it. Barak Obama probably came closer than anyone else during his 2008 election by taking so many very small donations from people online. But even he has taken money from corporations, and proven that the big donors, not the small ones, have more power over what is legislated. An example of this would be the deal he gave to the giant pharmaceutical companies before he even started negotiating his health care reform act. Politics is ugly-it always has been. I've seen some ads that were printed during campaigns in this country during the seventeenth century, and they were even worse than now in the names they called each other. At least now the mud is slung in real time-back then it took days for the ads to go out, and longer for them to be responded to, by which time the damage was often done. Newspapers were owned by business owners, not by idealistic journalists; they could say pretty much whatever they wanted without any challenge from other media sources, or "factcheck.org." So it isn't worse now with regard to mudslinging, but it is WAY worse with regard to the money involved. There will be no way to fix it as long as candidates have to raise more and more money to run for office, and as long as they owe favors to the ones who give them the big bucks.

Helping people by providing medical care ought to be a no-brainer. But after dealing with patients who are demanding when not really sick, patients who come to the doctor to feed addictions, insurance companies who stop real health care delivery, it is easy to see how the nurses and doctors in my orbit all over the country could develop a cynicism about the careers they chose in order to heal. Some of the stories I hear from friends who do home health care just rip at my gut. Some of the behavior of families I've seen who have very sick, disabled family members, does the same thing. I wonder sometimes when we stopped caring about our fellow man, and even more about our families.

In a previous blog I talked about how important a free press was to the learned gentlemen who wrote our constitution. But now the journalists are celebrities themselves, and they party with the very government whose overreach the framers wanted them to protect us from. This is not true in every case-I have some journalistic heroes who put their lives in great danger to expose corruption at every level. But more and more, the people who report on the legislative class go to the same parties, travel in the same circles, and water down their stories and soft-ball questions to these people because they are 'buddies.' This makes idealism even harder because it diminishes the trust the people have in what they are hearing from the press. It also makes people who have, or might have, become journalists in order to expose corruption in our government, question that decision. I was in journalism school for a time, and when I saw the attitudes of some of the old-school newspaper men, I was disgusted. Even the word disgusted seems inadequate since one of those old newspapermen who had won a Pulitzer Prize for a series he wrote in the Washington Post, looked me in the eye and claimed that the fact that Sally Quinn and her husband, Ben Bradlee, the editor of the Washington Post, hosted some of the most famous parties in Washington, meant nothing when it came to reporting on these people. Really? Where were they before we invaded Iraq in 2003? Why did they wait nearly six years to expose the outing of Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband opposing the invasion? The New York Times complicity with the invasion of Iraq is well known, but other papers, if they were following the ideals that framed the beginnings of the American free press were being followed.

I suppose the last area in which idealists should be able to work would be the non-profit sector. I have worked in two non-profits in my life. One was a children's home, in which the administration was so corrupt and dishonest that I quickly felt my idealism drain from me every time I faced one of them. The other was a food bank, that was run by some very odd characters for whom their mission seemed almost secondary. There was one person there who reinforced my ideals, and stayed sold on the mission no matter what. But she was only 20% of the entire staff. I hope she is still there, doing good.

My problem is that I hurt when my ideals are violated. I believe in the interwovenness of every living creature. I still have a, perhaps jaded, view of the 1960s, and wish that the hippies who were preaching peace and tolerance and equality hadn't gone on to become investment bankers and right-wing conservatives. I still have hope that people can change, and begin to care about each other. I don't see it happening in my lifetime. There are too many people who think the old way is better because that's the way things have always been done. I would like to ask them about certain things that were done in the past-slavery, driving native Americans off their lands, or poisoning them with illness, conquering civilizations that were already advanced beyond the conquerors, etc. Should those things come back just because it is good to hold on to the way things were done in the past? I think not. But where can an idealist go to work, and have ideals intact upon retirement?

Demagogue Is Not a Verb

2011-07-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy summer in every area of interest to me. Politics, music, my family life, religion, food...all of these things leading to question after question. So, if anyone has answers, I'm open. If not, well, I'm used to it.

1. There are so many things we can hate politicians for, and what they are trying to do to our education system is one of them. But could we PLEASE get over the fact that governors and presidents and congress people send their children to private schools? Can you IMAGINE how disruptive it would be for the children of state or national leaders to be in public schools? Really, let this one go. Focus on the other crap they are doing to us daily.

2. I love dill pickles. Recently I had one of those giant ones you can buy at the convenience store in the single serving plastic wrap full of pickle juice. Also being a long-time label reader, I made the mistake of turning the package around and reading this one. Did you know it does not contain one shred of dill? It also says on the nutritional information that it contains NO FIBER! Are pickles not simply cucumbers "pickled in brine?" Since when do vegetables not contain fiber?

3. Why does anyone mow in the dead of summer? During a severe drought no less? It's hard work that often leads to health problems for the out-of-shape. The machines most people use contribute a great many nasty emissions, and watering the grass just to keep it green in summer uses a great deal of a precious resource that we will one day not have enough of that is usable for the consumption of our exploding population. So, if we get rain, be happy, your grass will be green. If we don't, you save the air, water, reduce medical costs-everybody wins!

4. When did small business owners become millionaires and billionaires? I keep hearing the republicans talk about increasing taxes on millionaires and billionaires is raising taxes on "small businesses and job creators." What is the connection? The billionaires are the owners of really big businesses, and do not seem to be the target of any suggested new tax rates.

5. Speaking of the possibility of new tax rates; I think the top tax rate is either 35 or 39%. But you know what, it doesn't matter what the tax rate is if there are so many loopholes and the richest people and largest corporations pay none or very little.

6. This all brings up another question: The right keeps talking about how we have the "highest corporate tax rate in the world." So-which of these other countries would our republican brethren like to imitate? If the US is the best country ever made, and our people are the best and brightest, most fabulous people anywhere, which country would they like us to be like? Do they realize that most of those other countries also have completely different priorities for how their tax revenues are spent-some even including (HORRORS, GASP) health care for everyone? So-France? How about France? Italy? Germany? Pick one, Speaker Boehner. But remember, there is always a package that goes with such things, and if you don't like the package, don't try to imitate one little piece.

7. Do the anti-government right-wingers realize that people who hate the government and wish to dismantle it are called "anarchists?" Anarchists used to be considered left wing. Does anyone but me see the irony in that? Anarchy in the USA!! Brought to you by Sarah Palin.

8. Who are the people who have been unemployed for over two years? Are they from any particular sector of jobs? If it is the over-fifty crowd, infrastructure jobs might not really help. But we need to rebuild our infrastructure, no question. We need high-speed rail nationwide. We need to reorganize our cities to accommodate mass transit. But I am deeply concerned about the middle aged workers who have been unemployed for so long. Where can they go? I'm not sure that building highways and filling pot holes in roads are jobs that they can do.

9. What is the evolutionary purpose of women's attraction to shiny objects and adorning ourselves? It seems that every woman I know is drawn to jewelry and shoes. On the one hand, I can see that the adornment thing may be in order to attract a mate. But I don't know many men who say they ever notice a woman's shoes. But some women I know who never, ever wear makeup still love shoes. And if attracting a mate is the reason for attaching shiny objects to our ears, fingers, wrists and necks, why do middle-aged women still have this desire? We aren't looking for mates. We may just be hoping the ones we have don't last much longer. We can't reproduce anymore, so how does this characteristic help us pass on our genes?

10. Who is the governor of Alaska now?

11. When they were young, what did Pat Sajak and Vanna White want to be. Surely not the hosts of a stupid game show for the rest of their lives.

12. I watch Morning Joe most every morning. It is often just background noise while I get ready for work. But do the producers really think no one notices when they re-run first hour? They do it regularly, and I'm not sure why.

13. I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter series. I've read every book, and seen every movie. I've semi-followed the growing up of the three main stars. Last week I saw a story about Emma Watson, who has played Hermione since she was ten-years old. She came to the US to attend Brown University for a time, but it didn't work out. Anyway, the story last week said that Ms. Watson is going to study "abroad." At Cambridge. She's a Brit-how is Cambridge "abroad" for her?

14. Lastly for now, I have a question about the whole Rupert Murdoch British press tabloid scandal. The stories have to do with the management of these papers being invited to all the best parties, hobnobbing with politicians and the wealthy and famous. They then used these relationships to make big, splashy, ugly headlines. Well, hoodathunk? I've said for years that it makes me uncomfortable to see American journalists invited to these parties with the Washington elite-or any elite. But it continues. So why should anyone be surprised that the integrity of the press might be compromised by inside access?

I Know it When I See It

2011-06-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson was really big on a free press. So much so that freedom of the press is a part of the very FIRST amendment to the United States Constitution. According to one of my old journalism teachers, journalism is the only career that is protected in the constitution. He wrote about it often in other writings. He said, "No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, no one ever will." He had a purpose in mind for that free press-the so called "fourth estate." The title "the fourth estate" was first used in Europe, also in the 18th century. It was said that each branch of government has three estates (in the U.S. those would be legislative, judicial and executive.) But the press, even there, was the "fourth estate," because it was also there to protect the people. Back to Jefferson-he also said that, "The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being." My, how far we have come. And how quickly. Even before he died, Jefferson also said, "The most truthful part of a newspaper is in the advertisements." This is pretty much where the hill started tilting downward for us as a nation. There are some journalists, and journals, who still take their responsibility seriously as the eyes of the people on the government. I'm a big fan of Jeremy Scahill, for example, who wrote a book exposing the use of Blackwater in the war in Iraq. But for the most part today, the press that is most often viewed by the American public has become nothing more than a large collective of pornographers. I think the fun they've had with the Anthony Weiner photo scandal is absolute proof. The other men who have recently misbehaved in a sexual way have not had the wall-to-wall coverage that this one has. It is amusing to me to watch the smug looks on their faces as they play word-games with the fact that Anthony Weiner's name is the same as a slang term for a man's penis. I have not, in fact, heard the word "penis" quoted on commercial or cable news so much in my life. What possible "redeeming social value" does this have? Why couldn't John Ensign, Mark Sanford or David Vitter have had such salacious names? I rest my case.

That's a pretty harsh statement, right? Well, show me a recent example of the mainstream media doing their business as designed-exposing corruption in the government, or enlightening the American public. I'm open. Please-show me! In the 1957 Supreme Court decision Roth vs United States, the court defined obscenity as, "the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole...appeals to the prurient interest, which is utterly without redeeming social importance." This is how I see a great deal of what is purported to be "news" in our country today. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Anthony Weiner, and, yes, Sarah Palin, contribute nothing of value to our national discourse-except perhaps during the initial "this is what happened today," phase. And even during that phase, there is much of what is deemed news that I, and many people I talk to, wonder if it "enlightens" the public in any way. In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so {defining obscenity} but I know it when I see it." This is where the subject becomes Sarah Palin.

I made a comment last week that I believe her to be a loathsome human being. A friend asked me why I thought that she is any worse than "any publicity seeking" person. And there are many reasons. Perhaps "loathsome" is not fair, but I do not share her "family values," her desire to have absolutely everything only on her own terms, and I do not believe that she has contributed one single positive line to the discussion of what ails us as a country. Here is why:
1. Sarah Palin LOVES the media. She Tweets, she Facebooks, she contributes something to Fox news, but she blames the media for every possible bad thing that has ever happened in her life. Every question is a so-called "gotcha" question. When she recently gave a rambling, incoherent answer about Paul Revere's ride, the "gotcha" question was, "What have you got from your trip, and what are you taking away with you?" She called that a "gotcha" question when she was called on her particular spin on the Paul Revere story. Gotcha!!! Every single person who runs for office is asked what they read, watch or listen to. People like knowing such things. I recently saw an interview with Mitt Romney in which he was asked what was on his iPod. He wasn't bothered by it-and he answered the question. We know a little more about him as a result. But when Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin what newspapers she reads, she got rattled and said, "Oh, all of them." And then accused Ms. Couric of asking "gotcha" questions. Her response shows that it was indeed a gotcha, because it should have enlightened the public about how well Ms. Palin thinks on her feet.
2. She uses her children as props, but wants the press to pretend they aren't there. During her recent bus trip around some U.S.historical sites, her daughter Piper said to the media, "Thanks for ruining our vacation." If I were the therapist who will most assuredly be counseling Piper twenty years from now, I would love to say to her, "Look, Darling, if it were just a family vacation, it would not be paid for by your mother's pac, nor would it be in a bus decorated to call attention to your family." A bus with Sarah's autograph on it, with a rendering of the preamble to the constitution, and an American flag on the side, this was not an anonymous family vacation. But Sarah wouldn't have the balls to say to Piper, "Piper, honey, we need a free press to keep us free from oppressive government." Or, "Sweetie, I want the press here. That's why I painted the bus that way." I won't even bring up Bristol's pregnancy, and how Ms. Palin stroked the family on stage when she got the nomination for vice president in 2008. A family is not a stage prop, brought along to polish an image. And if a mom marches the family in front of the public that way, they do become fair game. This is another thing I was taught in journalism school-public figures are "fair game." If Mama Grizzly doesn't want the kids to be fair game, she shouldn't use them as props.
3. She uses pac money for personal vacations. Or does she use personal vacations for campaigning? If it is the first, which, according to Piper it was, then it is illegal. Ask Christine O'Donnell. Using political contributions to pay for your personal living expenses is against the law. So, is she being dishonest about her purpose, or did she use the money in an illegal way.
4. She is completely dishonest about American history. According to her interpretation of Paul Revere's ride, for example, Revere rode, not to warn the colonists that the British were coming, but to tell the British that they couldn't take our guns. The second amendment to the constitution wasn't even written until twelve years later.
5. She contributes nothing to the national debate. She throws out red herrings, applause lines and extreme right-wing talking points, but she has not voiced an original idea since she entered the national consciousness.
6. When her "gaffes" are pointed out, she never, ever, ever admits that she was wrong. It's okay to say you were wrong. It doesn't mean you are weak. At least I hope not, since I am frequently wrong, and I admit it regularly. I was always taught that showing some humility, and admitting it when you are wrong is a sign of maturity. People are more likely to forgive a mistake if it is admitted. But when someone insists that they were not wrong, forgiveness and admiration of one's humility cannot take place. Ask George W. Bush. It was one of the things he was often criticized for. Some people are still talking about his comment that his biggest regret in life was "trading Sammy Sosa." Really? A guy who over-drank, used cocaine, sent us to war over WMD that did not exist? When Ms. Palin first came into the national spotlight, I compared her to a female George W. Bush. I'm completely afraid now that she would be way worse.

Speaking of being willing to admit being wrong, I think "loathsome" might have been a bad word choice. Based upon the emails that were released this weekend, Ms. Palin did (apparently) have potential as a national candidate. However, over and over again she has shown an inability to answer questions on the fly, or think on her feet. What about that 3:00 A.M. phone call-the one on the red phone? Once her fame occurred, once she realized that no matter how silly it appears on the surface, the press will follow her like starving dogs, she lost her bearings. Her fame, new wealth, and rock star status went to her head, and because of her inability to process all that attention reasonably, she has done nothing but stumble. So while she may not be a loathsome human being, she may really be a victim of "new money" syndrome, she has shown that without doubt she would be a loathsome elected official. She has become a publicity whore, but one who wants to control a narrative that is not controllable. And the reason for that is because the press, according to the definitions given at the beginning of this essay, the press are her pornographers.

A Picture is Worth.....

2011-06-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

During the war in Viet Nam we saw this:

and this:

It lead to this:

And this:

We've now been in Afghanistan for nearly ten years because they were the garden in which the plot to attack the United States on September 11, 2011 was germinated. But we don't have the protests going on. The Bush administration kept the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq off the books, so every penny spent is adding to our deficit while we pretend that it isn't costing us a thing. The lives of our soldiers and Afghan civilians are being wasted by traditional warfare-terrorists don't operate on a traditional field of battle. Not to mention that we have been told repeatedly that the terrorists who attacked us are now in Pakistan.

During this time we've seen this:

And this:

...and many more disturbing pictures. Battle wounds that would have killed soldiers forty years ago do not now, so we have people surviving multiple limb losses, and traumatic brain injury. We've seen mercenaries hired by the US government kill multiple civilians, and giant corporations with ties to higher ups in our government make obscene amounts of money while doing shoddy work that has put our soldiers in danger. The same scandal occurred with the care being given in our military hospitals. The number of soldiers who have come home only to commit suicide or wind up homeless because care for mental wounds is even harder to come by is staggering. So, why aren't we angry? Is it really because we don't have a draft? We don't need do this:

Is it because we are too busy doing this:

And This:

Or this:

Or This:

People, we can't continue to be so fat and lazy that we just won't bother to:

Yes-there will always be more questions!

2011-05-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

1. Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's silly that in weight loss product commercials, the "before" photo is always wearing the same red swimsuit. If I lost that much weight by popping one of those pills or drinking one of those teas, I'd be wearing the red bikini in the after picture, but a one piece skirt before!

2. Speaking of commercials-does anyone really believe that if you don't call in the "next fifteen minutes," you won't get the great deal? Or why the "shipping and processing fee" is more than the product would be worth if one bought it retail?

3. Why is iced coffee so hard to make at home? Not that it can't be done, but it just doesn't come close to Thai Iced Coffee from a coffee shop.

4. When people consistently claim to wish political candidates would "focus on the issues," why do so many vote on anything but? It always seems that red-herrings, lies and high drama fuel elections.

5. Eric Rudolph, Fred Phelps, Ralph Ovadal, Ralph Reed, Scott Walker, Rick Perry...I know that many women are involved in the anti-choice movement. But the ones who are most strident or who become violent are white men. The statistics that I read say that most Americans are pro choice, but anti abortion. I've been told that the two positions are mutually exclusive, but I disagree. It is possible to be against abortion, but to realize that the real choice belongs to individuals, not to the government. Is it possible (playing devil's advocate here) that this is the result of the women's movement, and white men not understanding their place in the new world? The old jokes had to do with keeping women in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Now a woman can use birth control, and go to work and by her own shoes. Many have decided to be single parents, and DO include the child's father in the child's life. But some people just can't adjust to a changing world and changing roles. So they become frustrated, and eventually snap into violence-if a woman can have an abortion, he can't keep her "barefoot and pregnant." Reproductive choice is the minimum of a woman's right to determine her own destiny. This is why educated women in third world countries, who have access to birth control, have fewer children. Historically, women were forced into marriages for the economic strength of their parents, and if they didn't produce male children, they could be discarded by their husband. Women had no rights, and whom to marry and having children were among the major things proving the second class status of women. Yes, I know this is an emotionally charged issue, and there has been little movement in changing some minds since Roe v Wade. But the fact is, it has been law for over thirty years. Our current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court says he will not violate legal precedent. It is time that we all move on. Yes, there are still people who think the country screwed up when it was decided that schools should be integrated, but for the most part, we have moved on. It's time to do that here. It is almost a full generation that have had the right for a safe, medical abortion. Let the next generation wonder why the bombers and shooters who plot to murder physicians and medical providers were not classified as the domestic terrorists that they are. If we do hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are, indeed, created equal. Lets stop the several states that have decided to make it harder for a woman to make her own choice regarding this basic right from taking it out of the hands of women and their doctors and placing it in the hands of a bunch of middle-aged white guys who needs to acknowledge that women are people too.

Some More Questions, and MAYBE An Answer

2011-05-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

If you don't have to weigh it, how do you know it's under 70 pounds?

I was at WalMart waiting for a prescription a few weeks ago, and noticed a sign on the wall. The sign said, "We are required by law to ask for identification when dispensing any controlled substance. We apologize for any inconvenience." Now, shopping at WalMart is, in every instance, a soul-crushing experience. The store is always hot, looking for a decent bunch of bananas is an adventure not unlike an Amazon River safari, the ratio of cashiers to customers is 1 to 473, and the pharmacy has a sign up apologizing for "inconveniencing" customers to show ID when taking home prescriptions of a controlled substance? Why?

Why is it that when walking on a trail, walkers are the friendliest, runners come in a distant second, and the least likely to be friendly to others on the trail are people on bicycles?

Why does a smoothie from McDonald's have 54 grams of sugar? I thought I was doing the "healthier" thing by grabbing a smoothie made with yogurt and fruit. Should I just get an Egg McMuffin and be done with it when I run late and need to grab a bite for breakfast?

One of the best selling books of all times is "What to Expect When You're Expecting," and the series of parental guides it spawned. People who have children try to learn something about parenting; why don't people who have dogs? Dogs are our best friends-truly. But they are also descended from animals that can do great harm, and some bite. We have a neighbor whose dogs are so aggressive that last Sunday as I walked my dog past his window, his dogs were trying so hard to get through the glass to get my dog that the next sound I heard was glass shattering. There was a beautiful dog on the trail last week; possibly a St. Bernard mix. The gentleman owned by the dog was taking a breather on a bench, and as we approached, his dog began to lunge and bark ferociously. He told me that the dog was not dog-friendly; I just walked by and said, "Shame" If we will have our best friends around other best friends, they should be socialized. It's not hard in most cases, some breeds take a little more work. But it matters.

I've asked this before, but why do conservatives believe there is only one amendment to the constitution, and it is the second amendment? I'm asking again because of a case in Florida that was discussed this week amongst some friends regarding a new law prohibiting pediatricians from discussing child-proofing guns in the home with the parents of their patients. While some agreed that the new law was problematic because of the first amendment, which says the government can't tell anyone what they can or can't say, they also said the conversation didn't belong in a doctor's office. Really? Does that apply to advising parents how to child proof their household cleaners with toddlers around? "Who knew my baby could get into the cabinet and drink the Drano?" "How could I know my child knew how to get into my bedside drawer and get my loaded gun?" Some parents are so blissfully ignorant, even the ones who have read the book described above, that the idea of removing a gun from harms way for their toddlers may not ever occur to them. If a child gets hold of a loaded gun and does him or herself some harm, or harms a playmate, that doctor would be called upon to undo the damage-IF the child survives. That negligent parent would then be arrested for child endangerment. What's wrong with preventive care? Aren't we supposed to be FOR trying to use common sense and create healthier lives for ourselves and our children? No one is saying to take the gun out of the home-just child proof the home so children don't have access to loaded guns. I'm pretty sure no one in a red state like Florida would DARE suggest getting rid of the gun altogether.

My dog-loving friends and I have had many conversations about scent-rolling, and some of the noxious smells our dogs come away with. One day I was on the way home with my dog after she had done that, and I thought I was passing an apartment in which someone had died, and it turned out she had scent rolled in something that smelled beyond horrible. I had to wash her three times, with Dawn detergent, to get the smell off. The funny thing was the smug look on her face as she wore the scent, and the extreme sadness on her as I took it away. I used to think it was something about wearing the smells of a higher ranking dog. But this past Sunday, I got another idea. Walking on a trail that we very much enjoy, we came upon the body of a dead squirrel. Her eyes glazed over, literally, and she dropped to the body to roll in it, and I shouted her out of her stupor before she could wear that maggoty smell home in the car with me. But I thought of all the times during the same walk that she saw a live squirrel and she took off like the 'great, white hunter,' to the end of her leash, and then sniffed the ground where the squirrel had been. What I realized was that perhaps her vestigial hunting instinct took over, and she wanted to scent roll in the odor of her prey-as a disguise! If she smelled like a squirrel, perhaps she could sneak up on one without them running up a tree! Human hunters do it all the time-rubbing ointment on their bodies so that they don't scare off deer; did we learn that from dogs 12,000 years ago? I don't know if my new theory is right or not, but I'll still hit the Dawn the next time she comes home smelling like that.

We Trudge On

2011-05-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

I don't guess we can ever know what will happen on a given day to create an attitude of reflection. There were several things for me this week-weather, weddings of the century, conversations with friends, the suicide of a 19 year old second cousin. The thing is, when one is from a background like mine, from birth in a Southern Baptist home, it is hard to let go of the idea of God. Even though I never, ever felt very believing, and it took me years to say the word "atheist" out loud, I still struggle with how to define myself, my values, what I believe in. I always wonder, when my heart breaks for a friend who has suffered a loss, does it seem as valuable to them when I say, "My heart goes out to you," or "My thoughts are with you," as it would if I said, "I'm praying for you?"

There is no question that that my mother's use of God to explain the unexplainable, or shut down conversation about anything bigger, is part of the reason that I continue to struggle. I do believe that simplifying a complicated world is the reason for some to believe that everything on earth can be explained with a simple, "God did it." In conversations about evolution, it is often said by those who don't accept it that "The world couldn't have been created by accident because there is too much order and beauty in the world." There is indeed beauty. But there is also ugly and dangerous, and there is no order. Apart from the simplest level, there is only chaos and suffering. The only order still visible to me is that night follows day; moon cycles are twenty-eight days. Any deeper than that, and the order disappears. There are the seasons, but when was the last time that winter cold was followed by a spring warm up, then summer heat and a fall cool down? That order is gone, and the warmer the climate becomes, the more that order will be lost.

There are genetic diseases which cause great suffering for innocent children, there are complications of aging that make getting older hurt for some people. I'm aware of people only in their 60s and 70s who are bedridden, and have feeding tubes because of diseases of aging. Believers quote the bible and say that God "visits the sins of the fathers to the seventh generation." What kind of loving god would do such a thing to an innocent baby? Genetic mutations happen, but are almost always harmful to an organism. It is by sheer accident that an organism ever benefits from a mutation, but it happens sometimes, unpredictably, and when it does it may improve the survival chances of that organisms offspring. How can a loving god that planned and created everything explain that away?

So, how is all this connected? I guess the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and all the hoopla over it in the US started me thinking. Some of my friends wanted to watch the wedding, to see the clothes and the whole fairy tale aspect of the event. I, who have been accused of taking some things too seriously, was angry about the whole thing. First of all, news organizations have been laying people off, they only print stories off the wires, and say they have no money to fund investigative reporters to root out government corruption, but they can send entire staffs to London for a full week to cover the wedding. As if that were not unconscionable enough, there were riots in the streets of Britain just a month or so ago because the economy has hit them so hard that they have enacted "austerity measures," which affect the lower classes of the British public. But the British people paid fifty-million pounds for this lavish wedding? My friends did convince me that it is okay to look at the positive side of the affair and find something happy in it-and there is that. No question, this young couple seems very much in love. But this happy affair is being talked about as the marriage that will save the monarchy. Who benefits from that? They have no political power, and they cost the British taxpayers an obscene amount of money every year. I've read the original versions of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, and they aren't pretty. Neither is this wedding once you get past the facade.

It doesn't help that on the day of the wedding, I learned of the suicide of the youngest son of my cousin. She and I were born the same year, and during our teen years we had much in common. She'd had a tragic life-her father, my mother's brother, was killed in Viet Nam when we were 6. Her step father died when she was a young adolescent. She descended into drug abuse and promiscuity, and then was 'saved.' Our common practice made us close, but I never shared with anyone my doubts. She met her first husband at a very famous fundamentalist college in the deep south. They were married a long time, but he was an abuser, and she finally left when he nearly let her die in a suspicious fire in their home. They had six children. The night before the wedding, she found his body. When I called, she was under sedation, understandably. But another family member was able to talk to her, and she said "nothing but God will get me through this." I know all the answers of believers when the great "Why?" is asked. But it seems that instead of getting a mother through such an inestimable tragedy, "He" might have acted to prevent this event from happening to a woman who had devoted her entire life to Him. Maybe this is where I get off track; I think there should be an answer to the great "Why?"

I remember in the mid-1980s, when my professional and social life took me out of the sheltered circle of other white, southern baptist southern conservatives I'd grown up in. I worked with people from other countries, who practiced other religions like the "evil" Catholicism and Islam. And they loved their families, and worked hard to provide decent lives and education for them. I've not seen a single one of those people turn up on the news with bombs strapped to their chests. I became friends with these people, and when I had them to my home for dinner, we talked about religion and politics and movies-almost like "good Christian" people I grew up with. As a result of these relationships, and conversations about religion, I learned how similar our religions were, and I began to question the notion that there is only one right and true religion. And one night, I was at my youngest sister's home, and sharing all these new feelings I began to just sob because, "...if anything we were ever taught was true, "I'm going to hell now."

From there my evolution became complete to atheism, as I observed more and more of the behaviors described above, and studied to a degree with a minor in biology. Some in my family have never heard me say the "A-word;" some have, and one of them sent me an email this week saying, "I don't mean to be on a soapbox here, but don't give up on God, he hasn't given up on you." Now, I know that this person loves me, and that she is doing what she believes her "job" as a Christian is. But it is also someone who has never once asked me why my journey brought me here. I work hard to respect the views and beliefs of those I know who believe in anything, and it is exhausting and painful at times that I do not receive a modicum of respect in return for my beliefs. On some level, I know why she never asked me. She is a woman in her 60s who has never questioned what she was taught is the true and correct way to believe, she just accepted it. My mother is the same way. She not only never, even now, questions anything she was ever taught, she gets angry when questioned. Normally I would reply to that email with an unemotional, "Thank you." This time I didn't respond at all. I was emotionally drained and honestly didn't know what to say.

Is It Irony-or Something Else Entirely?

2011-04-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

I try to keep an open mind. Always have. Even about politics, about which I feel quite passionate at times. I know that there us corruption on both sides-no one needs to try to convince me that there is bribery and short-sightedness, and narrow mindedness on the left as well as the right. But I've been considering this essay for some months, and have waited til now to write this because I have been looking for some equal oddities on the left to the ones I will list here-I just can't find them. Perhaps if any of my friends on the right should read this, and know of some comparable ironies, you will let me know. I promise to keep an open mind. Promise.

1. I'm starting with one I've discussed with friends before. Many of my conservative friends like to complain about the poor-(though they also make clear that in this case, they do mean minorities) raising their children on public aid, and continuing to have children, even though needing public assistance should be a sign that one cannot afford to "properly" raise those children-providing for their food and shelter, and medical needs. Ronald Reagan, who used subtle racial tactics to win in 1980, turning the south away from democrats for the next many decades, also coined the term "welfare queen." Everyone I know who subscribes to this class warfare approach saw the picture in their minds instantly of a black woman with multiple children in tow, getting a larger welfare check for each one, driving a Cadillac, and no two of the children had the same, or a present father. Books were written at the time to dispel this myth, including one called "Myth of the Welfare Queen," but the idea persists. Which makes it seem odd to me that the right is against the funding of Planned Parenthood. I do understand the abortion issue; only 3% of Planned Parenthood services cover abortion, so the argument that funding Planned Parenthood is "federal funding of abortion" is wrong and dishonest. The purpose of Planned Parenthood is contained in the name-it is a service provided to help women and poor families who can't afford family planning services to access them. They off free or low cost birth control pills, educational services and women's health services. The education and birth control is the major key to why the conservative desire for defunding makes no sense. Study after study has shown that when women are educated and empowered to choose family size, they have fewer children. So, funding Planned Parenthood should provide a conservative dream come true-fewer welfare queens having baby after baby paid for by public money.

2. About a month ago, junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, made some comments that new regulations on coal companies to protect coal miners would prove too costly. On its surface, this comment makes sense coming from a tea-party darling like Paul. The tea party presents itself as "Joe Six-Pack," who is tired of government intrusion into the lives and choices of individuals and business. So, less regulation is better, right? Well, not for Joe-Six Pack. He is the guy in the mine who dies of black lung disease when he is 42, or when the mines collapse and he is trapped with several friends, no oxygen and poisonous fumes. It is definitely good for the people the tea party purports to hate the most-the East-Coast elites who never get their hands dirty, but make millions on the backs of working class stiffs-like Joe Six Pack. That is certainly what the fat-cats who run the coal companies want to hear their legislators say, "Read my lips-no new regs!" If those guys had their druthers, they would provide no health care at all for the guys who give us the source of over 50% of our electricity we love so much in this country. The lack of push for help for the working class from the tea party makes no sense to me at all...until one looks into their books and sees how many super rich far-right activists fund the tea party. Yes, Dick Armey-I'm talking to you. If the rich righties pay the tea party to push for legislation that works against the people's interests, doesn't that negate what the tea party says is stands for?

3. Speaking of the new conservatives: Ever since President Obama was elected, the republicans have suddenly become very anti-deficit. We do have a huge deficit, everyone knows it, and I do think blaming it on George W. at this point is an exercise in absurdity. That said, part of the reason the deficit sprang up like a corpse flower under Bush is because he sent our soldiers into two wars that he didn't bother to write into the family budget plan. Now that president Obama has sent us into Libya, and said basically the same thing when he told us about it, Bush can no longer be blamed for our budget shortfalls. But I think there is a language problem here. I'm not sure that most people really understand what is meant by a "deficit in the trillions." What it means is that we are spending more than we bring in. By a lot, and it is creating a debt. That means money we spend on a credit card, and we won't be able to hold on until we're dead to have it paid off because a nation's debt never goes away. We need the money we bring in to cover our household expenses, which are great. True, we can cut funding for Planned Parenthood and health care for people who retire without large pensions to sustain them. If this were an American family, someone would be looking for a part time job because there is not enough to help pay the bills we owe on what we've borrowed and take care of our regular obligations. Therefore, revenue must be raised. There is no logical argument to be made any other way. None. So republicans want to cut money to the old and poor (they want to pull the plug on Grandma!) And President Obama says he will go along with that. Why? Because that's what he does-goes along with the ugly, cold and hateful in order to keep his poll numbers up. (So, how's that working for ya?) He doesn't want the drama of ugly fights, or people in congress going before the "liberal media" and calling him a socialist, or saying that he's "anti-business." But I digress. We must raise revenue. Must. Gas prices are about to be higher than they've ever been-.25 away, and rising weekly. Higher gas prices mean higher food prices-food has to be transported, and trucks use fuel, therefore, higher prices going to the store. Higher fuel prices mean higher electricity, so the grocery store passes the cost of transporting their product, and keeping it safe to us. We've already spent the last 20 years with our incomes going down, while the richest have spent it with their incomes going up. Corporate profits have been obscene for ages comparatively. So the only way to increase revenue is to raise taxes on the wealthiest, and eliminate the loopholes that allow multi-billion dollar corporations to pay no taxes. When Representative Paul Ryan's budget plan was criticized recently, someone (I think it might have been Senator McConnell of Kentucky, not sure though) claimed that his plan "eliminated the loopholes that allowed General Electric to get a" "ginormous" refund from the IRS. "YOU LIE!" The only way to do that is to rewrite the tax code, which Paul Ryan didn't touch. He wrote a budget plan. Bottome line, we must improve our bottom line. We cannot do that without raising revenue, and the middle and lower economic classes in this country can't take anymore of the weight. Our backs are breaking as it is-even those among us fortunate enough to have a job. Taxes on the wealthy and giant corporations must be raise. The argument that this will cause small business to be broken by the burden, and prevent them from creating jobs is a non-starter. There are ways to protect small business and and the merely "comfortable" class from being harmed. Don't play games with our heads-find a way to make enough money to pay the bills, and still live a decent life. That's what real Americans do every day.

4. I have stopped looking when I see Donald Trump on my TV. I'm not going into all the arguments against him-they are well known and documented. But it scares me when he talks about going into Libya and "take the oil." Do we really need a rich imperialist running our government? Is being a deceitful jerk and a bully the best we can do for president? Haven't we learned lessons from annexing countries for their resources? It never works out well for the empire in the end. Never. Like it or not, Libya, Iran and Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and China are all sovereign nations. We do not have the moral authority to invade any of them for their oil, or any other resource. It's not ours to take. Just because we have no control over our addiction doesn't mean we are allowed to rob the drug store for our fix. If it was (once again) a poor heroin addict suggesting violently attacking someone to get his next hit of his drug of choice, he would go to jail. Trump, on the other hand gets taken seriously as a presidential candidate? Help me a little here-I don't understand!

5. Speaking of Libya. Have we spoken of Libya enough? Probably not. Especially from the perspective that keeps haunting me. I grew up in the Viet Nam era. The war ended when I was a sophomore in high school, and I've had relatives and friends who fought there, scarred for life. There are very few Americans that I know who have ever been taught about how we really got there. We went there to help our allies, the French. Who had invaded and colonized what later became known as "French Indo-China" for its rubber trees. This was before our insane craze to find ever more uses for petroleum products lead us to invent synthetic rubber-which may have saved many trees, but has not helped with our need for ever more petroleum. The Chinese wanted the French to leave Vietnam back in the 1940s. The French are our allies. We help our friends, even to keep their empires. So we sent in "advisers" under Eisenhower. Then Kennedy, then we entered a full-scale "police action," or some might call it a "war." We were there long enough to lose over 50,000 young American lives, and then to leave, bringing the wounded and the walking wounded home to disrespect and neglect. The United States only gets about 3% of its oil from Libya. That's all. The argument that we are skirmishing there, and sending in drones and so forth for humanitarian reasons is mooted by the plea I heard one week after we started bombing Libya from Ivory Coast that we please send help because a vicious dictator was killing his own people. It is also rendered moot by Sierra Leone, Darfur, Syria and others. So if we are not there for humanitarian reasons, we are there for one of two other reasons-either we have a national defense reason, or it has to do with resources. But Libya does not provide many resources for us, so that one doesn't work. Oh, wait-the French. They get much of their oil from Libya. We are helping them to keep their access to cheap oil (I guess they need the petroleum in order to make synthetic rubber since that whole colonializing French Indochina went so terribly wrong.

6. Barak Obama is a socialist. He is trying to take over the country for socialist reasons, and proof of that is that he is appointing people with the title "Czar." This one blows my mind completely. Didn't the communists march the last Czar and his entire family, including his children, to the woods and shoot them all? How can someone be both a communist and czar-happy? Not to mention, every president since Roosevelt has appointed people and given them the title "czar." Every one! To be sure, Obama has the most. But second behind him? George W. Bush. The only one who didn't have any czars in his cabinet since the 1940s was George H.W. Bush. Why not? Because the ones he nominated weren't approved by congress. Another proof that President Obama is a socialist is that during the campaign he made a poorly arranged comment about "spreading the wealth around." Now-most honest people admit that they know he is not a communist, and he did not in any way mean taking the profits from every American endeavor and spreading it around equally to every American. He was referring to tax rates for the wealthy, and to the vastly increased chasm between the salaries of CEO's and their lowest paid employee. It used to be about 40%. No one would argue that the owners who start companies should make the same money as those who work for them. No one-not even the most left-leaning American one can find. But to have grown from 40% to over 400% is insane. Those lowest paid employees are having a rougher and rougher time just getting by without losing their homes, or going bankrupt because of medical costs. The top CEO's get bonuses more than 100 times the lifetime salaries of the lowest paid employee in their companies. Those executives have long since lost the ability to understand what it is like for the real workers who make them so wealthy-even the executives who might have pulled themselves from poverty to wealth. All that Obama meant was that perhaps the gap between the two salaries could be a little smaller. If he were an applicant, perhaps on a second or third interview, it would be clear that what he was talking about is really a benefit the company might provide-profit sharing. Not taking the wealth away from the top and spreading it equally to everyone. Just simple profit sharing. Every move he has made since has demonstrated quite clearly that he is not a communist or a socialist. And the only excuse for anyone who still calls him that is that he/she wants to make people afraid. And a large number of the people afraid of Obama are of an age for whom the word "communist" is still the nastiest word in the English language.

7. Barry Bonds. Roger Clemens. Perhaps Mark McGuire, whose last game with the Cardinals I was present for. They beat Cincinnati. These guys have all been accused of lying to congress. Barry Bonds was found guilty of lying to a grand jury, but many baseball players of the era of the 90s and early 21st century have had all their games tainted by the whole scandal around the use of "performance enhancing" drugs. It's a sad state of affairs, certainly. I wish that I could now be as excited as I was that day in Sept. 1998, when I was on a plane to Casper, Wyoming, and the captain came on the speaker and announced that McGuire had just broken the home run record. The thing about the charge of lying to congress? How can any congressman sit with a straight face and accuse anyone EVER of lying? That's like Newt Gingrich leading the charge against Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky while Gingrich himself was having an extra-marital affair. Lying to CONGRESS? What a joke.

I try most of the time to avoid conversations about politics with my family. For one thing, most of them are extremely conservative. But even the ones who lean a bit to the left are not as much "political junkies" as I, and so the conversation can be tiresome for them. But recently, without taking a left/right position, I was talking about Libya to one of my sisters. I said to her, "You know, you and I, regular people, have to learn from our mistakes to get through life. Why can't our elected officials do the same, and stop making the same mistakes over and over again?" One more piece of advice I'd like to give to everyone out there in the public eye if I had the chance: If you see a microphone, assume it is always on.

I'm Sorry-What's The Date Today?

2011-04-09T08:26:00.000-07:00

I saw mayflies in March. This week, I've seen junebugs every day, and it is only the first full week of April. We've already had two days of temperatures of 90 F. I've always loved summer nights. Sometimes on a summer night I like to sit outside and feel the balmy breeze, and enjoy the summer sounds and smells, and I just feel languid and serene. This is not a normal state for me, and on the few occasions when I get to enjoy it, I really enjoy it. Well, in between slapping the mosquitoes and scratching their bites. (Mosquitoes love fat chicks, and my legs are a wonderful, glowing target.)

Last night I took my dog for her last evening walk. I decided to break up the pattern a little-always good for both of us. I usually take her out off-leash for her walks around our gated apartment complex-I'm a naturalist, and I think every dog needs some off-leash time to play and sniff. Sometimes I regret it. The first thing that happened was that my "good best friend," Abigail, spotted a neighbor cat in the bushes, and of course, she took to the chase. I smiled at this long standing tradition of nature-dog sees cat, dog chases cat, cat hisses and runs. Dogs keeps chasing, cat runs up tree. Dog stands on two legs, front paws on tree, staring at cat until something comes along to distract her. I called her, and we took out another direction, to the back portion of our property, which is divided from a wild field by a property long fence. The fence is covered with vines and leaves, though there are some spots where the fence is not at ground level, and Abigail can easily slip under, which is worrisome, as we have seen and heard coyotes in the field. She would be a tasty meal for one of those other canids. Usually my concern is ignored completely if she sees a rabbit on our side of the fence-she is gone, and then the rabbit disappears into the brush. Tonight Abigail understood me when I said, "Don't go there!" But there was something strange-other than my little dog understanding English conversation. The balmy wind was so pleasant, the night was fairly clear, so I could see lots of stars as we walked. The big field has a little creek, which is lovely to hear, but sad to see in daylight because of all the trash people throw in it. But I heard the chirrup of crickets toward the creek. I love that sound; it just adds to the summer night ambiance. But I noticed a smell. I couldn't quite place it, but it was very pleasant and familiar. We kept walking. I suppose several of our neighbors were out earlier because Abigail was finding plenty of smells to center on. The smell I caught grew stronger, languid and heavy, as we walked toward the south. I finally realized what it was, but didn't think it was possible-honeysuckle. It is WAY too early for honeysuckle to inhabit our nights. I didn't see anything walking south, but when we got to the end, and turned toward the north to walk back, I did see the vines on the fence in the opposite light, and the honeysuckle vines were covered with blooms-covered! My inner smile came out as I saw those welcome visitors of my favorite summer nights. I hope they haven't bloomed too early.

Original Purposes

2011-03-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

Okay-I have some questions again:
1. There is a new product-I probably can't say the name, but its commercials say, "Liquid water enhancer." WTF????????? Just drink some water. If you need to enhance it, heat some ground coffee beans or tea in it. Or ferment some fruits or grains in it. Do we really need another colored powder to put in our water?
2. There is a big scandal in Fort Worth right now because a couple of high school baseball players "sacrificed" a couple of live chickens on the baseball field of their school in the hopes of ending a slump. I heard on today's local news that the story has gone national now, with PETA asking the school to use the incident in order to teach all the school's students about compassion for animals. Good thinking. My uncle used to own a farm with 150,000 chicks squeezed into a long, rectangular "coop." They often killed each other or trampled themselves because their lives were so miserable until they were sold to a guy who posed in a pilgrim's hat that slaughtered them for human consumption. While I don't approve what the baseball players did, and I don't know where those chickens came from, it was probably a more merciful end for the chickens. I am not a vegetarian, though I do consider it frequently. But my only visit to my uncle's chicken farm nearly cured me of that. Can we get some perspective?
3. There is a town north of Dallas that is called Plano. Like so many cities and communities right now, their city budget is going through tough times. There were announcements yesterday of cuts that truly upset some parents, who told news reporters that they chose to move to Plano because the schools were consistently scored very high. But I couldn't help feeling a sense of irony that the news kept taking the cameras into the office of the school superintendent, where there was a plaque with the letters "PISD" on a shelf above his desk. No wonder those parents were upset.
4. Do the people on the right really need James O'Keefe? Do they really take him seriously?
5. How did it work that the bible already had a convenient excuse for when Christians don't do what they claim to believe? (The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, etc.) My father, who was downright anti-Christian until his heart attack 20 years ago, has been a practicing baptist ever since. Yet he is full of hate and judgment, and has negative things to say about everyone who is different than him-liberals, gays, anyone of a "minority" ethnicity, etc. Pop, who tore the pages out of your bible that talk about loving your neighbor and your enemy and your brother? Oh wait, you can't stop sinning, no matter how hard you try, but that's ok-you have an out.. How convenient.
6. There 's a commercial about California that starts with one of the Kardashian sisters saying, "People have alot of misconceptions about California, but none of them are true." Really? Isn't that what makes them "misconceptions?"
7. My last question of this rant is this-what can America do? Every politician claims to want to help the middle class. But every policy enacted helps only the upper-upper-upper class; Wall Street and the defense industry. We have now entered a third war against an Islamic nation, and the president says it won't add to the national deficit. That should make the right happy-since the deficit is the only thing they care about. But yet, we are going through a tsunami of laying off teachers? Could the money we aren't spending on drones and smart bombs be used to pay teachers rather than increasing class sizes to 40? Mr. President, your banker friends do it all the time-move money from one set of books to another. That's how some presidents close their budget gaps-borrowing money from the social security fund. It looks like money just appeared where we needed it the most, and didn't cost us anything. But the appearance is that the government does not care one whit about people who work, and only coddles the very rich. I made a mistake on my taxes in 2006, and we may never be finished paying the IRS that $3,000. But I can think of 4 or 5 government officials who failed to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars of income, and they keep getting promoted. What if I stopped paying? I know that the taxpaying public would be providing me with room and board for a few years. Why? Where is fairness for the working class? I won't let that happen of course, because the taxpaying public is my peeps. Especially since giant corporations not only don't pay taxes, but some get billion dollar refunds.

This Could Get Personal

2011-01-14T16:56:00.000-08:00

There is a field behind the apartment in which I live that I've taken walks in with my best friend, my dog, Abigail. I guess the last time we walked there was in late 2009, when I was unemployed, and we'd had some snow. So I put on my waterproof hiking boots, and we snuck across the fence that divides our complex for the safety of the children who live here, and walked through the brambles and rocks for hours. Since then, half that field has been mowed down, and is being changed into a road. It depresses me to look at it now, though the half nearest our place is still field, with a nice creek. Now and then we hear coyotes back there at night, and some of my neighbors say they've seen wild cats come from back there. Not surprising, we have plenty of rodents to keep them all fed.

After that walk I was telling my mother how much trash there was back there, and how many cans and shopping carts there were left there just to rot. No one seemed to be taking care of the field, or to even care about it-the creek was full of cans and other debris. My mother sucked in her breath in horror. "I don't think you should walk back there. There could be HOMELESS PEOPLE back there." Homeless people? As if homelessness alone makes someone dangerous.

I don't fear people. I really don't. I do fear ignorance. I've seen and heard several remarks and articles about the percentage of homeless people who are mentally ill, and how the mental health system fails us-as shown by the apparently mentally ill man who shot a US congresswoman and 19 others at a public event last Saturday.

Does the mental health system fail patients, and sometimes the public? Yes. Just as the health care system in this country fails the sick, and often people die as a result. I think something should be changed; changed BIG and changed now. We could spend lots and lots of time arguing about what to change and how, but that is not my purpose here.( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/why-so-many-mentally-ill_b_806725.html)

I have struggled with depression since I was a teenager. Twice it became so severe that I was hospitalized. I won't go into details, but I remember clearly that after the second hospitalization, I was working for someone that I still consider one of the best bosses I ever had. After a few days back in the office, during which I was only working half-days and attending groups the other half, I brought him a brochure from the hospital about how to work with people who have depression or mental illness. It was as if, after working together for nearly five years, he became completely afraid to be himself, or even talk to me for fear of throwing me into a nervous breakdown. And I guess that is understandable-most people don't understand mental illness, and don't know how to react to it. Movies and TV make it look pretty scary, and not quite realistic (who knew?)

Now, with all the talk about the people who have committed famous mass killings and have been mentally ill, such as the Tuscon, AZ shooter and the Virginia Tech shooter, I am worried.We do need to examine the way we work with the mentally ill. We need to understand why many of the mentally ill often stop taking the medications that keep them in balance-the side effects can be horrific, and in some cases permanent, doctors often must try many different drugs before finding one that helps, and it is very, very hard to find a job if one has been hospitalized for a mental illness, which could in some cases lead to the homelessness that sometimes attends mental illness.

Fear and ignorance can stoke hate and violence. And this is my fear; people are going to hear so much about some violent mentally ill, connected with statistics about how forty percent of the homeless are believed to be mentally ill, and the leap, whether logical or not, will be violence against the homeless.

Yes, we need to have a medical care system in this country that takes care of the sick-whether of body or mind. Yes, we need to discover the causes and cures for homelessness, and find solutions where we can. We do not need to stoke fear against the powerless.

A Gift

2010-12-17T16:47:00.000-08:00

A Holiday Gift for Those Against the Repeal of

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

For those who have ever parented a child, the absolute worst thing you can tell that child is, “No.” Don’t do that, don’t touch that, and don’t go there. I don’t like him; I don’t want you to hang out with him. No-you can’t wear that. Whatever it was that you didn’t want that child to do is the exact thing he or she wants to do more than anything, and will do behind your back if they can find a way.

If, however, a parent can make a reasoned argument about something without making a negative ruling on it, the child may try it, but is more likely to lose interest. Try telling a kid that you really love his Mohawk haircut. I’ve done it with a nephew, and the next time I saw him, it was gone.

I have always wondered why gay people want to be in the military. Why would anyone want to risk his life for a country in which beating, killing in some cases, discrimination in housing and jobs, the source of tasteless jokes and derision, and institutionalized dishonesty is forced upon them. I have two theories about this. The first one comes from the stereotype of the very ripped, masculine gay man and the uber-athletic gay woman. Where better to show ones toughness and discipline than in the military? Think back to the disco era (as hard as that may be for some of us who really lived it) and the gorgeous men in uniform of The Village People. And American soldiers are very striking in uniform-I think even most peaceniks can agree on that. They look good-and the stereotype is that gay men like to look good. The stereotype is that gay women like to look strong-healthy, athletic and a touch rebellious. What better way to be all those things than going into a man’s world, and in some cases, besting the men. Think of all the female officers who have famously been asked to leave the service-they won in a man’s world.

Another theory is that gays may join the military because of a deep need to prove that they are just as “American” and patriotic as straights. They are willing to fight and die for this country because they love the country no matter what.

I don’t know if either reason is correct. Maybe both are correct for some. I am not gay, and though I have many gay friends, I have never known one who has served. Not to mention, neither my theories nor their reasons matter all that much. Why? Because once they are eligible to serve openly, the ones who are there will fulfill whatever their career goals, and the rest will not want it any more once it is not forbidden. Didn’t blacks stop joining the military once they were allowed to serve openly with whites?

And while we are at it, the same will likely be true of marriage. Once the right to marry whomever one wishes is afforded to same sex couples, they will realize just how outdated and oppressive marriage is, and they’ll not want that anymore either.

So, for those who are certain that the United States of America will fall once every American has equal protection under the law, as is outlined in our constitution, fear not. I bring you tidings of great joy: neither marriage nor military service is all it’s cracked up to be. And once the gays can do both without having to live a lie-they won’t want to do it anymore.

And I am so glad to have this realization-my husband works with a lot of police men, and I’m not sure that he doesn’t get a gleam in his eye when he is around those guys in uniform. In fact, there was an officer in uniform at our company Christmas party last week, and he and my spouse started talking only to each other, excluding everyone else in the circle, until I spoke up and asked if they planned to exclude the rest of us all evening. If gay marriage were legal, my husband might actually leave me. Bummer.

Mass Transit in Fort Worth Sucks

2010-12-12T08:41:00.001-08:00

Mass Transit in Fort Worth Sucks

My husband and I have been a one car family for nearly two years. Because of that, we moved into a smelly, high traffic city with no good places to walk our dog so that I could live on a bus route that would take me to work. My husband gets the car (or pick up-this is, after all, Texas) because I work in a doctor’s office which has two locations, both in the city hospital districts. Hospital districts are always placed in poorer areas of cities, and are, therefore, always on bus routes.

When I first started where I work, I had to leave the house to get to my job, about 8 miles from our apartment, nearly two hours before work started, and got there about 10 minutes before clock in time. That’s how sparse the buses are, even though I live on a major city street. I moved in April to our other location, which is 2.1 miles from my house. I leave the house at 6:30, and get to work at 6:50 for my 7:30 clock in because the buses run once per hour, and I would be late to work otherwise. The buses are rarely full, probably because of the silly schedules they run, and the drivers are often surly and condescending if a passenger asks a question. I am one with the ideal notion that using mass transit can be a way to both help the environment, save money and build community. When I tell coworkers that I ride the bus, they are horrified-Texans fall for the notion that only the underclass rides the bus because they can’t afford cars. (That may be a post for another time.)

But last week our local bus company did something that made me proud. They bought advertising from a coalition of local atheist groups to put stickers on the sides of some buses that say “Millions of people are Good without God.” I went to the website of the Fort Worth Star Telegram to see what sort of firestorm was caused by this move. The responses on the newspaper’s blog were reliably mixed, some commending the T, some calling on the people of the city to remember the First Amendment to our Constitution. Some were angry at being “attacked” by the hateful and godless. Within the city some ministers threatened boycotts of the buses, some other writers on the paper followed with articles commenting on the article, and many of the letters to the editor gave the usual comments about Christians being victims and the ongoing “War on Christmas.”

I put a response on the blog regarding the bumper stickers and store signs we’ve been inundated with for YEARS that say, “Jesus is the reason for the Season.” I couldn’t resist placing my tongue firmly in my cheek to remind folks that “the reason for the season” is the earth’s annual trip around the sun.

But as I thought longer about that seasonal celebration, it occurred to me that the reason we celebrate really IS the trip around the sun. Ever since human beings have formed communities there have been celebrations of light during the long, dark days of winter. The Celts did it, the Jews do it, Muslims and Hindus do it. Even though Christian scholars take certain features of the stories in the New Testament and the myth around the birth of Jesus, and they themselves say he was probably not born in December, but more likely in early summer. But when Christians moved into Celtic Britain, and the winters there were long and bitter cold, they incorporated aspects of Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) and added Christian elements. Why do Christians use an evergreen tree? According to legend, St. Boniface came upon a Celtic celebration of the revered oak, took an axe and chopped the holy oak in half. From the center sprang an evergreen tree, which, according to the saint, represented the fact that the love of the Christian god was evergreen.

There is a scientific/psychological reason for surrounding ourselves with light during these gray days. People tend to be depressed during this time of year and the physical reason is the lack of light. Many people theorize that the reason is the loss of loved ones during this festive season, or unreasonable expectations leading to feelings of sadness in subsequent years. All this may increase the likelihood of depression for some, but the lack of light has been proven scientifically to affect human moods-we need the sun. Like all creatures of earth, we use the sun for energy-though perhaps in a different way than plants. Therefore, when we get together during winter months we celebrate light. If we get down to the bare facts, not one of these feast days really has its root in any god one could choose. It is a basic human drive to fill ourselves with light.

I am not advocating removing Christ from Christmas for Christians. I am not advocating the removal of the Menorah from the Jewish celebration of the eight days of light from one day worth of oil. I guess what I would like to do is be allowed to celebrate the light without being attacked myself for not being a Christian. We are so busy most of the year that setting aside a “season” to remind ourselves of the importance of love and friendship, and light may be the only way to get it done. We’ve gone through our lives all year, and we need a time to break, rest and spend time with something besides our jobs.

This is NOT a “War on Christmas,” and I’m sick to death of that term. While the United States may be a hodge-podge nation, Christians are in the majority, and have most of the power. Those with the power cannot be real victims. But some Christians want so much to silence those who disagree with them that they have chosen to act in ways that are quite contrary to my readings of New Testament Christianity. So, let’s shed some light amongst ourselves this year, and stop calling for war on people who just want a little light in our lives.

To Ian, with Pride

2010-05-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

I'm conflicted today. Enough that the first thing into my stomach this morning was Tums. I'm baking a blueberry pie today for a party to celebrate the graduation from college and Air Force commissioning of my nephew, Ian. From the day he was born he was special to me-all my nieces and nephews are. But he is the only one whose mother was at my house when she went into labor, so we were there with her from the first contraction, til her husband came out beaming after her emergency C-section and said, "It's a boy," and the whole waiting room, which was full of relatives, burst into cheers, tears and applause. My sister had placenta previa, meaning that the placenta was blocking the baby's way, which can lead to great danger for the baby, hence the emergency C-section, so it was a dramatic, emotional night for us.

Ian has been the kind of child that anyone would be proud to have as a family member. He is smart, witty, loving, hard-working and goal oriented. He graduated from the University of North Texas summa cum laude. In his entire college career he made only one "B" in a class. Last night we watched his parents pin on his lieutenant's bars, and his stepfather offer his first salute. I don't care how hippie or peacenik one might be, it was an emotional moment, filled with pride. Ian's major was international studies, he is fluent in Russian, and this year began studying Arabic. He is leaving for training in military intelligence in October, after which he will begin active duty.

There is a long tradition in my family of military service. Two of my sisters, one of my nieces, Ian's father, stepfather and stepbrother all served. All my uncles on my mother's side have served, my dad and his dad did also. One uncle is a retired colonel and West Point grad.

And we are still at war. When his mother told me he was going ROTC, the only thing I said was that I hoped we would be at peace by the time he graduates. Four years ago that didn't seem an unreasonable wish. We were, after all, going into our current theaters of occupation with "Shock and Awe," to be greeted as liberators, and we would make quick work of these two fronts. So now I'm not sure it is worth bothering to wish for peace. I thought we already fought the "War to End All Wars," but, if my count is anywhere near correct, we have seen at least ten conflicts since then.

I came out of the Viet Nam era, and believed that war was a mistake. I never thought it was ok to blame the soldiers for the things they did-soldiers serve at the pleasure of the Commander in Chief, and they do their jobs. It is part of the oath they take when they are sworn in that they will obey the orders of the Commander in Chief without question. I recently watched a PBS special on the My Lai massacre, and all those raw feelings of seeing civilians-women, babies, elderly villagers, slaughtered when they were unarmed and no threat to the soldiers came rushing back. I also just saw a commercial for the HBO mini-series, "The Pacific," showing a young marine, just back from the Pacific, looking for a job. The young woman helping him says, "Didn't the Marines teach you anything that can help you in your civilian life?" He responds, teeth gritted into a sneering grin, "They taught me how to kill Japs. And I'm damned good at it." All these things coming at me just as my nephew is beginning his military career has discomfited me.

We do teach our soldiers how to kill, and be good at it. We teach them how to dehumanize 'the enemy' so they don't stop to think about that guy at the end of their gun being a son, father, husband, brother. This is why the nicknames for people of other countries are so important-what is a "gook?" It is not someone like me, with a loving family at home hoping he will come back from this war alive and unmaimed in body or spirit. The same is true of "krauts" or "camel jockeys." They are not human-they are our enemies. But when we dehumanize our fellow humans, we diminish our own humanity. How else could the soldiers of C Company not have seen the people of My Lai as non-combatants, and not as threats? Why else would that fictional Marine, looking for civilian work, not be able to put his soldier persona aside after the war? Why would there be stories of Viet Nam veterans, unable to readjust to civilian life, moving up to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska so that they could be away from populated areas and the memories that haunt them?

I was against the invasion of Iraq before it happened, and I said so. Yes, I know the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam-but that is not the reason for my opposition. I was for the invasion of Afghanistan then, but I am against continuing in that theater any more. Not because I don't wish that the funder of the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, could be caught. But because it is a silly war. It is hard to use a word like "silly" to describe an action in which our soldiers, and the innocent civilians of Afghanistan and Pakistan might be killed. But it is a wholly silly notion that shooting at those people, and bombing their cities and towns will fight terrorism. I don't choose the word "silly" casually, or to trivialize the suffering of all the people on both sides of any war. But the nature of terrorism is that they practice guerrilla warfare-sneak attacks that make people "terrified." You can't hit them by tossing bombs around indiscriminately. You can't just aim and shoot and hit a terrorist. Yes, we've hit some terrorist leaders and training camps, but like the character Mel Gibson played in "The Patriot," they move and hit again. By definition, Benjamin Martin/Francis Marion could have been described by the British as "terrorists," as that is the tactic they used for attacking conventional forces that out-manned and out-gunned them. Conventional warfare is designed to fight conventional soldiers. This makes it even harder for me to think that Ian will be going into the military as we enter the tenth year of a conflict that we only banter about seeing the end of.

College graduation is a time when we think of all the wishes we've held dear for our children. After twenty-two or so years of hopes and dreams have been invested, it is time to think of the return. Ian has more than fulfilled the dreams of his family. We hope our kids will do well-Ian has done far better than that. He is a good person, an excellent student, and he will be an excellent Air Force officer. While he will make mistakes in his life, and have trials and sorrow, I think he has developed the skills to get through them with grace.

So for Ian, and all the sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters out there getting ready to head into war, I wish for peace. Peace that lasts. Peace in our time. War to end all wars.

Zieg Who???

2010-05-13T05:23:00.000-07:00

I told some friends a story recently about how I was watching a news program as the anchor was telling a story about the "Octomom;" the California woman who has 14 children, 8 she gave birth to after fertility treatments. She became a short-term phenomenon on the news for months in 2009. This particular newscaster said, "I know you all say you don't want to hear about the Octomom, but I know that's not true because you are still watching." I nearly gave myself whiplash switching the channel. The media routinely twists the news, edits important details that change the meaning of the story, and just plain misreports facts. This has been covered in movies, and the media is regularly attacked by both politicians and comedians such as Jon Stewart. The media has a habit of picking our candidates for us by shining a light on those they like, and finding stories that mock politicians they dislike. The 2008 election gave evidence of this is the candidacies of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. How they are portrayed by the media is a frequent complaint of both failed and successful politicians, who, all the while use the media to invent and reinvent their personas. Some portray themselves as victims, some emphasize their points by suggesting how the media will play their actions. You know who you are! There was a time, according to my "History of News" course in college, that things were (yes, really) much worse. In the beginning, there were no big papers. News was spread by way of pamphlets that were published by merchants, always with the slant of helping to improve their business. Since there were no watchdog agencies such as Politifact or factcheck.org, there was no one to question the motives or the veracity of ugly stories or false allegations against any particular candidate. The "papers" could say whatever they wanted to say about anyone. The mudslides in California would pale in comparison to the amount of mud that was splattered over candidates disliked by certain business men. Believe me, there would be a terrible outcry if the press were allowed to print the things today that it printed then.

I think it is a terrible shame when stories of terrible misdeeds are spread through the media, and they dominate a news cycle for months on end. I especially hate it when groups use the press to spread comparisons of politicians or political parties to Nazis or totalitarians of any stripe. It is unfair and unfounded to use such comparisons-they don't meet the most minimum requirements for truth, and people should not call anyone in politics Nazis, nor should the news media take those comments, make them public, and tar any group with that accusation. I loathed the presidency of Geroge W. Bush, but it bothered me when the term "Nazi" was thrown about in connection to him. It bothers me when it is used against our current president, or against anyone else. In no case does the glove fit.While I do believe that if we had not held elections in 2008, and the Bush/Cheney administration had stayed in power, many of our civil rights would have eroded even more, they had not taken actions that could (up to that point) be compared in any way, to any totalitarian regime that I know of. Whether Dick Cheney's political philosophy smacked of totalitarianism, and his responses, ("So?") to some opinions of the people support that theory of him is another question altogether.

Many of the people at rallies, who hold up signs with such accusations on them, don't have much of a sense of history. There seems to even be the suggestion that providing health care for all Americans is taking the first step toward Nazi-ism. Taking care of the health of the people is not a step that I have EVER heard of being used to cow the people into submission. My reading of history says that the first thing totalitarians do when they want to take over a country and suppress opposition, they limit the access of the people to information. They burn books; they take over newspapers, and radio and television stations. In more recent memory, they have blocked access to information sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In some cases, the internet has been shut down so that opposition can't get information out to the people, or so that an opposition can't even get started. This is the thing we need to fear. This is what happens when our freedoms are truly, truly threatened.

And so, with all the criticisms that can be cast at the media-and I think all of them are true to some extent, thankfully the media are still free. They are free to mess up, and the people are free to pick their news sources. We are free to peruse enough news sources to divine the truth for ourselves-which is really what the founding father thought we should do. They believed that an educated electorate could sift through the garbage and figure out the truth for themselves. And they tried to create a country in which it was our responsibility to do so.

So, if the news station you've been watching posts too many celebrity meltdown stories, write their producers. If the people let them know that we will not watch them until they fix this problem, they will change it. If your news anchors spend too much time bragging about their insider status with the pols, complain, and complain loudly. We don't need our information providers going to glamorous events with the president and congress-we need them reporting on the things that the government is trying to hide from the people.

I once had a professor who had worked for the Washington Post. I questioned him about the party life of Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, and I said it gave the appearance that one could not expect objective journalism from the Post. He insisted that there has never been a time when the partying together of the wealthy and famous Post power couple with the government changed the content of exposition in the paper. But I was talking about the appearance that it COULD happen causing readers to mistrust the paper's reporting. And that appearance can not be denied. In journalism school, students are taught that the press is to be the 'watchdog' of government. If they are partying together, and taking their kids to the same exclusive private schools, how can watch-dogging be going on? But it is the responsibility of the readers to decide how much a paper can be trusted. The only way to do that is to expose oneself to many news sources, sift through the garbage that is surely there, and decide what to believe based on a surfeit of information. As long as there is a free press in this country, we are free to do that. But there can be no free country without a free press-no matter how lame the "lame stream media" may be at times.

So, shame on the press for the bad things it does. And shame on the people for allowing it. But worst of all, shame on the people who get their news from only one source. You are responsible for the lies that are daily propogated by whichever news source you choose, whether it be Fox or MSNBC. Shame on you for not being the kind of American the enlightened founding fathers envisioned; the kind who can look through a wealth of bad information, sift it through the pan of your intelligence, and find the gems among the rocks.

And do not accuse anyone of being a Nazi, a socialist, a communist, or any other bad name just for shock value. It diminishes your valid concerns, and gives your critics material to use in dismissing you as a crank.

Blow Ill Wind

2010-05-09T07:38:00.001-07:00

Blow, Ill Wind

I’m tired. I’m emotionally tired. Surrounded by negative energy, day in and day out, and utterly befuddled about where the anger is coming from in many cases. I work in a medical office, so some of the folks who are angry get a pass. If they were feeling well, they wouldn’t be here, and may not be their best when they come to my window. But the staff? The families of the patients? Management? People on the bus and on the street? Kids at school bullying other children to suicide, then smirking their way down the perp walk? Shouldn’t we have come further than this as a people and a society?

I’m guessing that every sociologist, psychologist, philosopher, police officer, politician, teacher, and any other theoretician would have different views on why this age of discontent has taken over. Some would blame it on the president; some would blame it on the economy. There would be others who would say that crooked politicians or giant corporations are to blame, but others might blame it on illegal immigration. Old people would blame it on young people. And vice-versa. Teachers will blame it on administrators and parents, parents will blame it on teachers. Management on labor; labor on management. I think it just may be a bit of “all of the above.” Blacks would likely blame it on whites, and the other way around…and around and around.

If I may throw my entirely un-expert theory into the mix, I have to say this is a multi-faceted, complex problem, for which a Proposition 12,579 on the ballot in May or November will not do. Nor will a people’s movement or a social networking site push do the trick. I think we need to go way more basic than that.

Back in the 1980s I was a big fan of the Miss Manners books. I enjoyed her writing as light and tongue in cheek; but she did make an excellent point in all of her books and it is this: the point of manners is not to be anal about which fork to use, or which honorarium to use for a duke or a cardinal. Miss Manners said more than once that the real purpose of all those seemingly silly rules was to make other people feel comfortable. There is the famous story of the queen of England drinking the water from her finger bowl because one of her dinner guests did not know what it was for, and he drank it. The eldest family member at a family gathering sits at the head of the table, and begins eating first as a sign of respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means…not just to me, but what it means to treat other people with respect. Is that an answer, or a question?

Both. In order for us to begin to value each other as human beings, we must start at the cradle. Which means that prospective parents must be taught what it is they should teach their children. Which means that teachers must start in school. Which means that governments (I don’t want to argue here about whether I mean the federal government or the states) will need to fund educational programs in which these types of skills are taught. So you see how the solution is just as multifaceted as the problem and the blame?

But then, we’ve had etiquette books around for centuries, so why are we having this discussion now? Well, as much as I hate to say it, I have to blame it on my era-the 1960s and 70s. But the seeds were planted earlier, and only began to bear some fruit then. The development of psychotherapy-in which people stopped being held responsible for their behavior because they could blame their parents or society for ruining them as human beings. I do not doubt that there are bad parents out there-and lazy people who would rather blame someone else than take control of their own destiny and personal behavior-but psychological studies may have been the beginning of the downhill run regarding how we treat our fellow man.

Anyone who is a fan of old movies will remember all the movies that took place during the depression. There were wealthy people, dressing for dinner, going to nightclubs in formal gowns, attending the opera wearing pearls and fur stoles. After World War II, many of these formalities began to wear away. Folks began to wear more casual dresses to the theater. Women marched for the right to wear pants, and I’m glad they did, but it seems that since the 70s, no occasion is worth dressing up for apart from proms, weddings and funerals. And even for prom, the “dress” is questionable; boys consider wearing a tie with anything at all “dressing up.” Dressing up for formal events is not a “rule” to be disagreed with or rebelled against-it is a symbol of the importance of the event. If it is a school event or performance-dressing nicely is a sign of appreciation for the work.

More important than how we dress, is how we listen. It is rude to interrupt. I honestly cannot recall the last time I had a conversation in which I was able to complete a thought before the other person injected his or her response before it was known what my thought really was. I'm guilty of this too. Why are we in such a hurry that we can't truly listen to someone else rather than planning our next comment before they finish theirs? It makes the other person feel that we do not believe that what they have to say is valuable.

Other people matter. The 1970s saw the rise of lots of books about how one should "look out for number one" and other such ideas. Women marched to be freed from subjugation to their husbands. The civil rights movement was finally seeing some success, so it is understandable that a period of time to think about oneself and ones one dreams and desires is understandable. Time to pull back now, and find some balance. Yes, what I want to do is important. But I am not the only one to be considered-there are consequences to every word and action, and considering how my actions and comments may affect someone else is a worthy thing. If I think about how my beliefs might affect someone else, and I moderate my comments-I'm not suggesting being dishonest, just diplomatic, it may prevent hurting someone else and rendering my opinions irrelevant. If I must state a political or religious belief to people who disagree with me, and I do it in a considerate way, they may actually be likely to see the other side as less evil.

And, by the way, those who disagree with us are not evil. They are just different. That's ok. Learning to respect our differences, learning to find joy in the ideas of the other side, is an education. Education is good.

Being civil is not being "phony" or fake. I work with some people from very different worlds, and some of them dislike one another. Some of them dislike me. That's ok-I'm not wild about them either. But I am polite. I greet them in the morning. With a smile. I ask about their weekends, or events in their lives that I knew were going to take place. I don't ask for their cell phone numbers. I don't ask them to be my Facebook friend; that would be fake. But we spend more of our waking hours with our coworkers than we do with the people we actually choose to have in our lives, and I refuse to spend that much of my life surrounded by negative energy. I will, therefore, do all I can to make my workplace as pleasant as possible. I see this as a positive thing, not a phony thing. I don't like phonies either.

I remember the restaurant scene in the movie "Pretty Woman." Julia Roberts was not comfortable in a fancy restaurant, and had spent her morning taking a crash course in which fork to use. But during an embarrassing moment the gentleman with whom she and Richard Gere were having dinner made her feel as if the incident happened all the time, and she had no reason to be embarrassed. Much like the finger bowl incident with the queen-the important thing was making the guest feel comfortable, and not like a leper because he wasn't familiar with the ritual.

I'm not suggesting that oneself is not important-quite the contrary. But I am not more important than you, and vice versa. This is where I think we've got lost, and we need to begin to teach our children this-of course how you feel matters, but so does the other person. Parents need to teach compassion to young children so that they wouldn't consider bullying a school mate to suicide, and might in fact, try to prevent that kind of bullying from happening to a fellow human being. I've complained before about how far off track the 'self esteem movement' has gone. Concentrating on how wonderful one person is misses the point, and detracts from our sense of human value. It is not that I am so great, but that I am equally as good as anyone. John Donne had it so right when he said, "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." I once heard Deepak Chopra talking about how to teach children compassion, and he mentioned how early parents must ask their children how cruel or bullying behavior makes the victim feel, so that the child will learn empathy. Empathy makes cruelty impossible. Manners are a symbol of empathy.

And, along with the ability to reason, empathy is what makes us human.

Shocking Darwin

2010-04-02T03:47:00.000-07:00

My mom is very engaged in politics. Me too. But we live in entirely different universes, and sometimes this comes out in strange places, and at inopportune times. This week, I can't possibly recall how, we got into a political discussion at my nephew's high school baseball game. My brother also got in a little, but he is one who makes gentle jokes to make a point. The seating order was this: my husband was on my right, my dad on my left, my brother to Dad's left. Mom was sitting one level above and behind us. How we got started talking about the health care bill, I can't remember now, but as I commented on Mom's comments on my comments on her comments, my husband kicked my ankle so many times to tell me to drop it that I finally just told him to "STOP IT!" He wasn't being as subtle as he thought, because when I said that my dad laughed. He doesn't get much into these discussions. I guess wisdom does sometimes come with age. Mom, in my opinion, has been sucked into the Fox vortex, and she insists that everything they say is true. She claims that, even though Glenn Beck's theatrics are sometimes uncalled for, his stats are always correct. I am further to the left. I'm actually left of President Obama, especially on health care. But to get to the part of the conversation that bothered me into the night, I had an "Aha!" that night as the conversation bothered me into the night.

My maternal grandmother died in 1998. She was 96, and the last six months of her life were only suffering. She had broken her hip in 1986, and became terribly arthritic after that. She also had a severely arthritic knee, but was told that replacement surgery for her would not be advisable because of her age. She was born the very same year as the Queen Mother of Britain. Who had a joint replacement surgery sometime in the 1990s. This made Mom angry-and she stated then that, "If you have money and status, you can get any kind of medical care you want." It bothered her then. But on this cool, windy evening in North Texas, she actually said to me that insurance companies SHOULD be allowed to drop patients for having preexisting conditions. Interspersed in this conversation was talk of beloved pets we've lost over the last few years. I commented that sometimes I wish someone would have the same mercy on me when I reach a point of suffering that is not bearable or curable. Mom said, "No. You never kill a human." Now, I know that Mom is anti-choice. This is a conversation we had at some other inopportune event several months ago. But there was a time when she believe it should be between a woman and her doctor. In fact, I know of four abortions that happened in our family during the 1980s, two for the health of the mother, and one for the viability of the fetus. In three of those four cases, she agreed with the choice.

This shocked me so much that I didn't think of all the ways I could have continued the discussion. And then my nephew's team tied up the score. But the thoughts of our family's preexisting conditions clouded my thoughts as I tried to drop off to sleep. I have type II diabetes, and inherited my grandmother's crippled left knee. My brother in law had thyroid cancer surgery last month, and will need medication and rechecks for the rest of his life. My dad is a heart patient. My niece was recently diagnosed with type II diabetes. My sister and another niece have bipolar disorder. Would my mother suggest that we should be dropped from our insurance because of our preexisting conditions? My dad has chronic pain-the treatment of which is very expensive. But Mom insisted that the government should not be allowed to force insurance companies to cover sick people because it is anti-competitive, and will cause them to go bankrupt. Did I mention that Mom is also a fundamentalist Baptist? But I guess now Beck and Sean Hannity, the Irish Catholic right wing hatriot trumps Jesus and his calls to love and compassion.

I remember being a Christian, and exhortations to love our neighbors and our enemies. Condemnation was reserved for those who didn't care for the widow and orphan. Jesus told people to sell all their worldly goods and give the money to the poor. But hating the poor is the clarion call of the right. The people who fund the tea party movement are extremely wealthy-Dick Armey springs to mind. If he didn't spend time earning money from insurance interests by fueling tea party sentiments, how WOULD he spend his time now that he's left congress?

The ironic thing is that polls trying to find who the tea partiers are seem to show that they are predominantly working class. So this is a self-hating movement? Perhaps it is a movement secretly calculated to lead the poor to advocate for their own deaths in order to save the government the money of caring for them? It was very confusing. But the thing that made me chuckle is knowing that my mother agrees with those who think that the earth is 6000 years old, and that evolution is a fantasy devised to draw people's faith away from God. If she knew that I'd come up with a theory that the whole anti-health care movement could have DARWIN'S name attached to it, she would be mortified. But this whole thing of social construction through denial of health care IS human devised evolution. But rather than shorten the time people must survive before they die of a preexisting condition, they should suffer the pain of their illness with no access to health care or medicine. Ending suffering is anti-competitive in a free market, capitalist society. We've all seen what humans do to animals when they try to create new breeds or breed to a standard, regardless of the cost to the animal. Millions of dogs suffer with congenital problems that cause pain and short lives. Several breeds are unable to procreate, and in order to breed them, artificial insemination is the only option. Some breeds have been bred down so small, to satisfy some human's desire for furry, living accessories that their skeletons are too fragile to survive the smallest injury. Miniature horses sometimes starve because they've been bred to be small, but their teeth don't breed down in size, and are too big for the horses' mouth. Humans are very bad at this whole creation thing, and so this social Darwinism of trying to rid ourselves of the poor and sick by denying them health care will probably backfire. At least I hope so.

I am an advocate of a single payer plan, such as what Canada has. Doctors I've heard interviewed (who were against President Obama's health care plan) and 85 % of Canadians think it is a good system. So here's hoping that this drive for a new social Darwinism fails. If I pray for Beck or Hannity to have a Pauline experience, and suddenly become enlightened...Nah.

Off to the Mines

2010-03-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

I love my water proof, Gore Tex lined hiking boots. They were an anniversary gift from my husband several years ago, and I don't get to wear them enough. If I am walking some place muddy, or walking after a snow or rain. Living in North Central Texas, there are long periods without precipitation, so the boots show little wear, even after about six years in service. I've wrote here in February about the regret I felt for not wearing them on a paved trail after a big snow, and when I wear them in the mud, they do get caked and amusingly heavy. But I am so glad to have them-and last Saturday was no exception.

My mom is originally from Arkansas-in the area around Hot Springs. All five of her children have good memories of trips there to visit her family. Nature is in control there, and in all her glory. We've taken surprise road trips there in the fall, where the colors of the trees and the hills were breathtaking. My youngest sister has wanted to visit the diamond crater there for a very long time. So last Saturday we took a little road trip. Along were Mom, Teresa, my middle sister, Tanya, and I. We left early-around 7, and took bags of healthy snack-nuts, water, granola bars, fruit. We got our omega 3 from almond M&M's-our only chocolate cheat. Mom and I slept in the back on the way out, but did wake up to chat from time to time. This little group of girls has a tendency to get very silly, and their were times that we were laughing so hard that Teresa had a hard time seeing to drive.

We stopped briefly at a road side rock shop that was owned by one of those colorful characters from a travelogue-a toothless old man, who loved talking so much that we felt he might not get many customers-particularly on a day that was gray, cold and windy, like this one.We each picked a pretty rock, with me having the hardest time choosing. I told the group that I wished I could have an affair with a geologist who would teach me how to identify the rocks. To me they are amazing things; the history of the world is told in the rocks. We then stopped for a short time to visit one of Mom's three surviving brothers. He is another one of those characters from another time, full of stories about horse trading and what it costs to sell and keep his cows. The we took off for Murfreesboro, which is not far from my uncle's farm.

We got the the diamond crater, which was formed by a volcanic eruption, and saw a surprising number of people out considering the weather. It was the first weekend of spring break for most schools, but still-it was not a pleasant day to be out in the weather on the outside-----WAY outside chance of finding a diamond worth selling. We went through the short course on how to find a diamond, and learned about some of the other types of rock that are common in the soil there. The crater itself is a circular area surrounded by the beautiful pines that are everywhere in Arkansas. There are trenches dug throughout, which I assume are dug out every morning to give people some loose dirt to dig in. There had apparently been some recent rain, because everything was very muddy. We found a spot and put down all of our stuff, and begun to dig.

There were lots of pretty rocks, many different colors and strata. We kept many of those to place in Teresa's rock garden at home. We had brought screens and colanders for "panning," and garden tools for digging. The park itself rented those things, but many people had fancy, two layered screens of their own. Those people must have been trying for a long time to find that one diamond they could retire on. There were postings of photos with stories of people who had found big diamonds, with the year in which they were found. There was some distance from one big diamond to the next, so I don't think we realistically thought we would find anything of great value. But we dug in. Tanya and I were struck by the strange, pinkish color of the chunks of mud we dug out to get to rock beneath. After digging for about an hour, Mom and Teresa took a bucket of dirt to the washing station to see what was in it, and came back telling us how dreadfully cold the water was. We just chuckled and kept digging. Mom and Teresa moved to a different spot to dig.

I was struck by the fact that I had been digging for some time, and had found no life. I'm sure if I'd had a microscope there would have been plenty of microbes, but I had not seen a single worm, or snail shell, or any higher life form. In fact, the digging area looked sort of like a moonscape. I commented to Tanya about this, and shortly afterward we each saw a spider. I looked around the trees that surrounded the digging area, and there were a few people up a bit higher. I told Tanya that perhaps we would have better luck if we trekked a bit higher up the hill, just below the trees. It is possible that rains would wash rocks down, and maybe up that little bit higher there would be something different. She agreed, so we moved. There were a couple of college students that I chatted with for a bit, and then sat down under a tree to see if my theory panned out (pardon the pun.) Nearer the trees, the lack of higher life was not a problem. Being left handed, I anchored myself with my right hand and dug with my left. In seconds after I planted myself, I felt an odd tingling on my right hand, which I looked down to see covered with ants. Only one managed to bite me before I got them brushed off, but I jumped up to be sure that I didn't have any more ants on me. Not long after that, Teresa came to my spot and said Mom was ready to leave. She had found something that might be a small diamond, and she wanted to have the people inside the park pavilion look at it. But with the cold, she wanted to leave after that. I looked down at my boots, and they were caked with mud. I laughed because when they get that way, they are very heavy. We went to the washing station and washed them off, but that fabulous Gore-Tex lining stayed dry, and my feet were warm and cozy. Mom's diamond was only a quartz, but we still had plenty of laughing to do on the way back to Texas. It was another good day in 'dem boots.

What Kind of Fool Am I?

2010-02-14T05:12:00.000-08:00

What Kind of Fool Am I?

Yesterday at 6:51pm | Edit Note | Delete

In 1963, a British pop singer named Anthony Newley asked that question, and this morning I asked it of myself. I decided last night that Abigail deserved a nice, long walk today. It had been awhile, and neither of us are getting the exercise we need. Because we had nearly a foot of heavy, wet snow this past Thursday, I thought I would go to an old childhood park/hangout, Foster Park. It has had a great deal of upgrading in the last forty years, and I figured a paved walkway might be a bit dryer than our other walking spots. Plus it was an easy 3 miles from one end to the other and back because it is such a pretty, scenic walk.

My first foolish decision was not to bring my good camera. The water has been running off the roof of our building for two days as if there is a major rain storm going on outside. But this snow was so sticky, and there was so much of it, that there was plenty of snow left all over the park. I knew that my cell phone camera wouldn't quite cut it when I saw a young girl doing cartwheels in the snow. I also knew that there has been a great glut of snow pictures taken in my neighborhood when I saw two more moms posing their children and taking pictures. But, to me, this is the perfect kind of snow-clinging to everything, and making Texas look like a Currier and Ives post card.

My second bad decision was not to wear my waterproof hiking boots. I figured the paved path would be dry since the temperatures were above freezing most of yesterday. HA!!! First of all, the park is hilly and the trail has lots of low points. Second, there is a creek that feeds into the Trinity River. The sound of the creek with all the melting snow causing it to rush was like the sound of Niagara Falls-at least on the nature programs I've watched that take place there. I don't personally know what Niagara sounds like, but the water was loud, and running deep across the path at those low points. The rest of the path was covered with mud.

I've been trying to work with Abigail not to jump on strangers, so when we saw other people coming I stepped off the trail with a treat in my hand to get her to sit until they passed, unless they wanted to say hi. Only one did, but telling her to sit on snow is a tough task. She doesn't mind sitting on carpet or grass, but on snow and mud-it takes convincing. It was even harder because at several spots along the way,some large limbs had been knocked down by the weight of the snow, and blocked the entire trail. So we had to step further off, into more watery mud.

But we walked on, and shortly after we got moving we crossed the first rushing section of the creek, and my walking shoes were soaked, as were my pants, halfway up my shin. The water was cold. Very cold. But we kept on. There were apparently thousands of collected smells that were not buried by snow or washed away by the melt off. There were also lots of birds on branches hanging low from the snow weight and brave squirrels looking for some acorns in the mud. Abigail loved that-the terrier psyche cannot be stopped! If there are rodents, she wants to chase and hunt them. She was having a ball! She isn't normally a dog that enjoys water, but there was one section of creek that contained a drain pipe clogged with leaves and debris. The debris created a bit of a gurgling whirlpool, which fascinated her. She got very close to the whirlpool, and I saw her nearly lose her footing in the rush of the creek water. She is, after all, only seventeen pounds, and that water was really moving. Needless to say, my squishy shoes and socks concerned Abigail not one whit. The sun was out, she got treats every time people walked by, there were squirrels and birds all over the place; she was having a ball.

We stopped about three yards short of Ranch View because of the largest branch we'd encountered up to then, and headed back to the beginning. For some reason, walking south on the trail, through those watery low spots on the trail, I could feel the water, which was higher now, pushing hard against me, so I understood how it really felt like a shove to Abigail. At one point we came on a chocolate lab whose mom didn't allow him to greet Abigail, so over the river we went again. Near the end of the trail there is a pipe going across the creek, and not far from the pipe is a bridge that has high sides. There were two teenage boys pretending to tightrope walk across the high sides of the bridge. I teased them that there was a narrower pipe ahead if they really wanted to improve their rope walking skills. They said they were just avoiding the watery snow. It seems they had not worn their waterproof hiking boots either.

When we got home, we were both happy and wet. It was a sunny day, with a little breeze-just gorgeous. I would love to take our three mile walks on days like this all the time...with a little less water! I'm not sure what Anthony Newley's final answer was, but what kind of fool am I? The kind of fool who can come home from a walk with soaking, squishy walking shoes and a smelly, wet dog, feeling as if it is the best walk I've had in quite a long time. That's what kind of dog-walking, snow loving fool I am.

May I Have a Word?

2010-01-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

I am an admitted liberal. But not the kind of liberal who thinks all guns should be picked up and melted to build housing for the poor. Not that that would be a bad idea, but what I mean is that I'm not anti-gun. I even enjoy the occasional venison.

I'm also a late bloomer. So when I was at the tender age of forty-four I decided to finish my bachelor's degree. I quite a few unfocused college hours, and it would have been silly not to get that sheepskin. I was working in the financial aid office at a university, so education was smiled upon. My husband was supportive, my boss was encouraging, so I jumped in and planned to study for a business degree. I signed up for a speech class, a Spanish class and an accounting class in the fall of 2001 at the local community college. In October I tearfully handed my accounting professor a blank exam and didn't go back to accounting. I knew that night that I was a words person, not a numbers person. And I do love words. My favorite writers are those who can use the language as playthings. A well constructed phrase, whether in a song, a poem, a political article or news source, can make a bad day good.

What, you may ask, do these disparate items have to do with each other? Well, the language I love is under assault. Today I would like to stop American men and women from calling what they do in the fall to get venison "hunting." They no longer traipse through the woods in search of herbivorious ungulates. They build tall stands, usually on a friend's property where deer have been spotted rather than out in the wild. They wear camouflage clothing to blend in, and rub their bodies with stuff to prevent the deer from catching their smell. They spread feed around to tempt the deer into their sites, and then they shoot. This activity does not help these men connect with their ancestors. It is not a masculine foray into the woods to commune with nature. I don't think it should be called "hunting" anymore. I think it is time to take back our language, and call this fall male bonding exercise "luring."

What Do Dreams Tell Us?

2010-01-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

I don't think much about dreams. Mostly because after I have one, I can usually go through the previous few days and put together where the dream came from, even if the events or people in the dream don't match exactly what happened. Once in awhile I have one that makes me wonder where it came from, or why a particular person showed up in it, but not often. My mother always says that if you dream of a birth there will be a death, and vice versa. A few days ago, I was in the room as my husband watched a police procedural drama (his favorite TV genre) and one of the characters said that when a baby shows up in a dream it usually represents the dreamer. I don't know about that. I do remember many years ago, when I was newly married to my first husband, we went to one of those pizza places that has games and I played Whack-a-Mole for the first time. I laughed raucously at the game, and played it for way too long. We lived in such a terrible one room apartment that when we had a freeze the first year we were married, 1983, there was a sheet of ice on the inside of the front door. After that game of Whack-a-Mole, I dreamed that there was someone trying to break into the apartment, and I was whacking them with a hammer through the chained door as they tried to reach their arms in. I still remember the fear I felt in that dream, and how hard I tried to use that hammer to stop those bad guys.

That was nearly twenty-seven years ago. The dream came to me recently as I thought about the news stories of terror attacks and suicide bombings that have been reported on the news that last few weeks. I haven't done statistical research, but it seems that there have been more attacks, not less, since that fateful day in 2001 when terrorists killed over 3,000 Americans, including American Muslims. This week alone nearly 200 people were killed in suicide bombings, one in Afghanistan, one in Pakistan. There were two attempted attacks from Yemen. We have sent bombs to both Yemen and Pakistan, targeting only what our intelligence sources report to be hard Al Qaeda targets. We have escalated the eight year war in Afghanistan. Eight years! The only place we've ever fought longer is Viet Nam, and it won't be long until we catch up with that record. It seems that the "global war on terror" isn't working. It is said often, by those who don't believe that attacking another country will work, that terrorism is a tactic, not a target. The people who use this method of trying to bring down enemies will not stop-terrorism as a tactic works.

The first time I remember an act of terrorism was during the 1968 olympics. Then I remember airport attacks in Greece, and the Achille Lauro cruise ship attack in which Jewish passengers were targeted, and one Jewish man was murdered. Of course, there have been hundreds of terrorist bombings in Israel. There have been hits at schools, bus stops, restaurants-it doesn't seem to end. There have been similar attacks in Germany, Spain, Ireland, London, Bali, Kenya, and on and on. Every time this happens in an airport or on an airplane, there are new restrictions on airline passengers, which terrorists find new ways to get around each time. While I'm not an expert, it seems to me that the young man who attempted to blow up a flight landing in Detroit on Christmas day didn't fit any profile of suicide bombers that I've ever heard. He was not poor, desperate and hopeless, wanting only a giant reward in heaven after taking out some infidels. It seems he was a big whiner from a rich family, who'd had every possible privilege and just decided to be pissed off at Americans. So now we'll have even more restrictions on airline flights. And the terrorists will find another way to attack us. It is telling that after extremely long wars using terror as a tactic in Ireland and Israel, by the Bosque separatists in Spain; all of those countries are still standing. Terrorists have not brought Israel down, nor will they bring down the United States. But there will always be terrorists, despite the game of Whack-a-Mole we are playing with our bombs in the Middle East: Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan, no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no Pakistan, no Afghanistan. The phrase "Al Qaeda" just means "the base" so Al Qaeda is wherever some guys who think that way get together. So I guess all the military and national security officers who are trying to shoot Al Qaeda really are just dreaming. I wonder what it means that my favorite dream is of peace?

December is About Music

2009-12-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

Music is number two on my list of the five best things in life. Number one is love. That includes both friends, family and lovers. But music is number two. I love jazz, rock, some country, folk and blues. I love hearing new stuff. I'm not a fan of hip-hop, but I could be. I love learning-I just need someone to help me select the good stuff---whatever does not include cocky people rapping about how much money they have, or bitches and hos etc. But I digress. Having grown up in the late 60s/early 70s, I guess the classic rock genre defines me the most. Early in December I watched the HBO special "Rock and Roll Anniversary Hall of Fame Concert." Mostly I watched it because of the presence of my musical hero, Stephen Stills. But several more of my lesser heros also showed up, and it affected me to the soul. Their faces are weatherworn, and their voices are careworn., but the music....ah, yes; the music. If I had to pick some songs that defined me, they are probably all by Jackson Browne. I remember in 1972, when "Doctor My Eyes" came out, it made me stop and sigh. I know that adolescent teens are pretty impressionable, but that song hit me hard. It made me a rather unlikable person in some ways because it gave me permission to stop thinking about issues and decide where I stood. I was very sure when I got to that point. Very unshakably sure. Since then I've realized that some of those things I was so sure about were wrong, and some just evolved over time. And it has led to me wondering at times which comes first, the teen angst, or the songs about it? By the time he got to "Running on Empty" and "The Pretender," I was done for. After Jackson Browne played came Simon and Garfunkel. Their songs have also stirred me. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Sounds of Silence" were the songs that all the guitar playing girls in my high school performed for the talent shows...and all the other high school girls in the audience sang along. But "The Boxer" made us weep. All those feelings came rushing back through the three hours of the concert. Bruce Springsteen came along at the end of my teen years. I was never a fan..."stadium rock" was not at all for me. As you can probably guess, the 80s were not good musical years for me. But I have a great deal of respect for Bruce when I hear him perform his blues/folk style. I'm became convinced that he simply followed the wrong muse, though with all his fame and money, why he or anyone would care about my opinion is beyond me.

Of course, it could be that my lack of gainful employment, the holiday season, the short days simply made me nostalgic for a time when my life was in front of me and regret was something I couldn't imagine. But it could also be that the television is on too much, and the concert provided a much needed "sanity break" from the free credit report and Overstock.com commercials. When I see that beautiful woman in the white coat singing, "O, o, o, the big, big O" to the tune of Jingle Bells, I wonder what my husband would think if I gave him a gift in a box with a "big O" on it. Would he think, "Cool, I'm off the hook," or "What is she complaining about?" "Where the ads take aim, and lay their claim on the heart and the soul of the spender." These rabbit chases aside, the song that has haunted me ever since that evening is "The Pretender." Yes, I've reached an age when looking back and seeing both what was and what wasn't is a frequent activity. And like the pretender, I had some big dreams that never happened. In all honesty, each one of these failures is ultimately because of one decision or another that I made, so this is not a whine about how life has let me down. This is about how a few great artists have captured the feelings of regret and disappointment that come at times with looking back. "I want to know what became of the changes we waited for life to bring. Were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening. I'm aware of the time going by. They say in the end, it's the blink of an eye. And when the morning light comes streaming in, we get up and do it again." It circles in my mind when I walk my dog, and when I look for a job or cook or put laundry away. "I'm gonna rent myself a house in the shade of the freeway. Gonna pack my lunch in the morning, and go to work each day. And when the evening rolls around, I'll go home and lay my body down. And when the morning light comes streaming in, I'll get up and do it again." I was going to be an actor. A writer. I was going to study environmental science and public policy and work to make the US greener. But I'm looking for jobs as a secretary. Or in a retail store. Or a call center. Anything, because I'm "caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender." Ever the egalitarian, I've always held that there is nothing to look down on about honest work of any kind. So why do I feel that I should have done something "bigger?" Is it because of the self-esteem movement? Because I'm a Leo? Because I spent so much time reading books and seeing movies about people who achieved huge dreams through sheer luck. It doesn't really matter why, "where the sirens sing and the churchbells ring and the junkman pounds his fender. And the veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light..." How long does that veteran dream of the fight once the war is over? Is he able to find another way to define his life?

I've been writing this posting in my head for a month. I began putting it down earlier this week, but tellingly, I'm finishing it on New Year's Day 2010. I've been unemployed for four months, and had only one interview in that time. I try to stay optimistic about finding a new job, but that is tough sometimes. Like so many others in this country today, it just seems that I'm spinning my wheels and my unemployment is about to be cut by twenty percent."They strike at the world with all their might, as the ship bearing their dreams sails out of sight." But this is not only the first day of a new year, it is the first day of a new decade. There are so many reasons to feel hopeful, and not to feel hopeful. On Monday I am very sure that my phone will begin to ring, and some of these applications will begin to play out. I wonder where the "Pretender" is, thirty years on? Could Jackson Browne give me any words of hope? Or does he know someone who is hiring? Because "out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender. She knows that all her hopes and dreams begin and end there."

Good Movement Gone Bad

2009-12-07T11:45:00.000-08:00

Vonnie Shallenberger/ 14 November 2009

I hope none of my liberal friends read this. Many years ago I was working third shift, and occasionally would turn on the TV overnight and watch Rush Limbaugh. I was taught that it helps to fight an enemy if you know his position, so I gave him a shot. One night he got it right. Of course he ruined it later on in the same show, and he hasn’t come close since, but that night in 1993, he said something that I agreed with, and have come to agree with more and more since.

The self esteem movement started out with great intentions. Most social movements do. But then they go too far and lose the truth of the initial premise. I was on the side of the attempt to make children, especially minority and poor children, feel better about themselves. I still am. But the movement lost its soul when it went from trying to help children feel as if they are as good as other people, to being a way of giving children the notion that they are awesome and that the rules set by our civil society do not apply to them. Whether it is simply because children aren’t able to process the information fed to them, or if parents haven’t been taught where the boundaries lie in this message, I don’t know. But it seems to have led to a generation of spoiled, narcissistic young people bent on ruling the world on their terms.

A couple of examples I have personally experienced:

1. A former teacher who is a friend of my family told the story of having corrected a young student in his classroom. This story would not have meant much to me except that the student involved grew up to become Miss America after she graduated. The mother of this student came to visit him, and scolded him for “damaging her self-esteem.” This man responded with, “Madam, nothing could damage your daughter’s self-esteem.” He was not teaching in that school for long after that.

2. I was supervising a third shift call center. I was over three males and one female. The female tended to order everyone around. So one night she gave me an order, and I said, “Please and thank you!” She proclaimed that she did not say please. Please is a begging word and she does not beg. I said, “No, please is a polite word.” She said, “I asked nicely-I don’t need to say please.”

I think where the movement went wrong is in allowing "as good as" to be interpreted as ‘better than,’ which has lead to the crass notion that everything one feels should be aired because every feeling is valid. This has led to a loss of concern for how others feel, a loss of manners, empathy and decorum, and a belief in one’s self that just may not be supportable by the facts. Limbaugh’s remark was that, “Self esteem should be based on something.” I agree-children need to be taught that they are just as good as anyone else. They are neither inferior nor superior to anyone else. Everyone deserves respect-rich, poor, black white, EVERYONE. Every person has a gift. That gift should be encouraged, and children should also be encouraged to explore their interests and discover that gift. But no one can pick a gift-Dad can’t expect Junior to be great baseball player just because Dad was at that age. But the idea that every child should consider him or herself King or Queen of the World is false and dangerous. I recently heard a psychologist talking about self esteem when he was presented with the idea that perhaps serial killers have low self esteem. He said that most serial killers are just the opposite- they tend to be narcissists who believe that the world is not treating them as they deserve. So these people have obviously not been taught that other people deserve respect, have they?

So while Rush Limbaugh may not have learned the lesson he was preaching on that fateful night in 1993, his premise was actually correct.

Marry Me?

2009-12-07T11:27:00.001-08:00

I grew up in the south. After I was grown it became known as more “southwest,” but a local humor writer proposes the theory that the “south” is any state that seceded during the war of northern aggression, so Texas counts as the south. My mama is Baptist, and came from rural Arkansas to west Texas, then Fort Worth, where she married very young and raised her five children, four girls and then a boy. I am the oldest of those five. And a dreamer. Always a dreamer. I was going to be an actress. But I am a dreamer. I lived my life in books and movies and dreamed. I emphasize this point because being that much of a dreamer can lead to being that instead of a doer. And those dreams not coming true can lead to great disappointment in later life.

So, besides being a famous actress or writer (or a great writer who gets to star in the movie of her ‘great American novel?”) what do girls growing up in the south in the late 1960s dream of? Marriage. Being a housewife-having a husband who will take care of her financial security, while she takes care of his more personal needs- freshly pressed shirts, happy babies that know how to behave well when Daddy comes home to a delicious meal and lovely dessert. Of course, this family is the pillar of the community and active in the church. This was what every girl dreamed of and planned for. The big wedding with lots of flowers and bridesmaids and the perfect, happy life after. The girls who didn’t dream of this perfect family life got ‘talked about.’ No one wanted to undress next to them in P.E. The ones who didn’t turn out to be gay were simply thought to have something wrong with them that prevented them from meeting that expectation that everyone held to be the natural progression of our lives. I can remember once going to a movie alone; something I still don’t mind doing, and my maternal grandmother saying, “Why, don’t you have a boyfriend to take you to the movie?”

In this day of ‘social networking sites,’ I have been privileged to discover that this dream happened for some of the girls I dreamed with through our high school graduation in 1975. For many of us, though, it didn’t happen quite that way. For me it certainly didn’t. Many of us, including me, greater happiness came the second time around. Some have had to try more than that-some have not found that ‘soul mate’ who can provide the realization of all those dreams.

Now many of us have daughters, and some have granddaughters. What will they dream about? I hope that we are a little further removed from the ancient writings that have led so many of us to that grave disappointment in life that the young girls growing up now will not believe themselves to be lacking in any way if they simply decide that they do not wish to follow that same path. Patterning ones’ life after the expectations of others can only lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

I had a conversation with my nephew a couple of years ago. He will be 29 in 2010, and is a very highly “evolved” young man. He has never been a serial dater, but tends to have one long, serious relationship at a time, and they typically last about 3 or 4 years. The relationship he and I were discussing ended a few weeks ago, but on this particular evening I asked him if he thought that it would end in marriage. His parents were divorced, and his response was, “You know, everyone tells me what hard work marriage is, but no one has come up with a reason that it is worth doing.” We talked about the usual reasons (apart from the moral teachings of the church, which we have both left behind) such as children that marriage is worth doing-besides being partnered with someone you love for a lifetime. He said he believed he could do that without the ceremony…the same answer applied to having children.

Nieces from another sister feel the opposite; they want to get married and have babies. So while there is hope that this won’t continue to be what defines women, it still haunts the edges of our consciousness.

When I began to question the faith I was raised with, one of the things that I noticed about the writings in the bible on wifely behavior didn’t sit well with me. Then I realized that all of them were written by men. I also noticed that men seem to get more out of marriage. I read that women are more likely to describe the relationship is unhappy, and women are more likely to file for divorce. “Of course,” I thought. Marriage was designed by men, and benefits them more-why should they want to end it? Those men spent over 6000 years telling women that they were property, and that they must submit to the authority of their husbands. Why didn’t god tell women that? It just seems suspicious to me for someone to say, “Hey, God told me you have to submit to me or else.” Had I not figured it out on my own, and someone actually told me that, I probably would have to respond with, “Yeah? He’s got my number-tell him to call me himself!”

Women live longer, and work harder to take care of themselves. Women work full time jobs and still wind up with more responsibility for taking care of the house, the kids and elderly relatives. Women have been going to college and graduate school more than men for the last several years. Women have come up with life changing inventions and scientific, mathematical advances, and have worked harder to prove that they are just as smart in math and science as their male counterparts. And yet, women earn .73 to each dollar a man makes, and women still feel inferior if they can’t find someone to marry them? It is time for this paradigm to change. I know that at least one generation after mine still has the notion that traditional marriage and family is the best life path for a woman to take. So my generation may not have been the last to hold this notion, but I do hope it is being chipped away at, and before long, we will not be defined by our ability to find a man to marry.

Post Traumatic Stress

2009-11-22T07:46:00.000-08:00

I am one of maybe three liberals in my family, so I am used to having a different view than the majority, and mostly to keeping my opinions to myself. The tyranny of the majoirty rules.

The problem that I have is when the people on that other side cite the worst and most hateful anti-Obama garbage. There is not one shred of evidence, not one, that the election was stolen. ACORN doesn't even have that kind of power and influence-they would have had to produce 9.5 million votes in order to do that. The only reason that ACORN has become such an easy target, in my opinion, is that they are run by black people, and try to help the poor. The whole story is just the next salvo of a group that was upset because the lies of the birther movement didn't get rid of someone they don't like, so that had to come up with a new lie. It disturbs me beyond comprehension or words that anyone buys it. It is the most hateful and dishonest of the Beckian-Dobbsian dystopian fantasy of diseased hordes of non-white people rushing over our borders to take our jobs and services and give nothing in return for it. I have watched and listened to both of them, and they don't even bother to support their fearful rhetoric with facts or documentation of any sort. When Dobbs was confronted on 60 Minutes with facts about his story of Mexican illegals coming here and spreading leprosy being wrong, he just said, "If we reported it, then it's true." Not, "But here is the documentation we used to support the story." The fact of the matter is that if Americans were getting nothing from illegal immigrant labor, they would stop hiring them. But it saves these businesses money and the trouble of having to follow labor laws. An illegal who complains of illegal treatment will be at risk of being deported or arrested. And isn't the right usually in favor of whatever helps business? The free, unregulated market?
It doesn't bother me that to be on different sides politically from any one person or idea. But hate and irrationality are things that don't allow a conversation to go on. There have been times that a rational presentation of ideas and facts have swayed me-I am willing to listen. It doesn't even bother me that some are against health care reform, which seems to be a huge focus of the whole anti-Obama/Tea Party movement. And the red-herring being used by the talking heads against, not just health care, but any and everything that President Obama is for, is money to take care of illegal immigrants and provide abortions. But the argument that health care reform will provide money for illegals and abortions is moot-they have has already been clearly prohibited in the bills. So it is just more fear and smear tactics that keep those stories coming. I do wish that those who are against reform would understand, even if they don't change their minds or positions, that there are all kinds of reasons why people may not have health care. There are humans behind those stories.

I remember a favorite professor of mine in college talking about what has to be taught to soldiers at war in order to allow them to kill is that the other side is not human. That is why there are always other names for the enemy-gook, chink, sand-nigger, towel head, etc. It dehumanizes them and helps the conscience not kick in and prevent a soldier from doing his job. But there is a huge cost-it also dehumanizes the soldier-hence the reintegration problems on returning. But the enemy at war, and those without health insurance, are people. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, and they deserve to be respected as people.

How to be a good conversationalist

2009-11-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

I am a dog person. Not one of those kinds of dog people who believe that you can't be a dog person and like other animals. I have known a few (mostly cat people) who think you must choose one or the other. I used to have cats, and remember those days fondly-I still pet and cuddle the cats of my friends and family when I see them. But when I started being owned by dogs, it was all over. On Sunday, the New York Times Week in Review published an article called "Good Dog, Smart Dog" by Sarah Kershaw. She talked about how much we're beginning to understand about how much dogs can learn, and just how much smarter dogs are than we ever gave them credit for. At the end, Ms. Kershaw cited a Dr. Clive D.L. Wynn, psychologist of the University of Florida who said that we should be careful about comparing dog intelligence to human intelligence; dogs can learn quite alot, but have a different way of thinking than we do.

My husband and I have had four dogs in our ten year marriage. The first was a border collie mix who was a 9-11 rescue. From the moment he and I locked eyes I became his human. His name was Nestor, and he was brilliant and intuitive, but he also had severe separation issues, presumably from his time as an orphan of the 9-11 attacks, and he became increasingly aggressive and after several biting incidents had to be put down in April of 2007. I was devastated, and still get misty eyed when I think about him.

The second dog we got was intended as a companion for Nestor. She was a lab who was already six years old when she came to live with us. She was a gentle though dominant soul, and lived to be twelve. We lost her this past February. After we lost Nestor I thought we would be a one-dog home. I was so lost without Nestor, with whom I had been attached at the hip for more than five years-I just wasn't ready to bring another dog into the house yet. What I had not bargained for was how much Maddie grieved for him. She had been so dominant, I thought she would be happy to be an only dog. But she broke my heart-lingering to sniff at the places he marked (and yes, I do observe their behavior enogh to notice a difference.) I finally convinced my husband that we should get another dog to be a companion for Maddie. He wanted something smaller, so we agreed on a beagle. I watched a beagle rescue in Illinois, and we settled on a beagle-mix, named him Darwin. Darwin was a sweet dog, but so completely out of control that we still haven't been able to tally the stuff he destroyed-shoes, hats, electronics, anything he could reach. And whatever he was mixed with made him bigger than a regular beagle, so he could reach quite alot. He was also a master escape artist. Once I got our backyard fence secure enough that he couldn't go under it anymore, he started going over. But one he did that and his collar got caught on the fence, I was afraid for his safety and decided to surrender him to the rescue. I still wrestle with guilt over that, and feel like a terrible "dog mom" for giving up on him. I truly hope he found the right family that could channel his energy and keep him safe.

After Maddie died we weren't going to get another dog. We agreed to get a cat-less labor intensive, easier to leave alone, etc. But shortly after Maddie was gone I told my husband that I just didn't want to be a home without a dog. So I went to the local shelter, got there before they opened, and started walking through the kennels in the first building, thinking to myself, "It has to be a small dog, it has to be a small dog, but I could love any one of these guys." I think it was around the seventh kennel that I saw this scruffy little terrier pull herself to the door and look at me as if to say, "I think you're my mom." I said, "Yeah, I think so too." I later found out that Abigail had been brought into the shelter as a stray, and that the day I found her was the first day she was available for adoption. When I got her home, I couldn't believe anyone would not try to find this baby-she had obviously been worked with. She was already nearly housebroken, she knew a few basic commands, and she was a quick study on others. Even though they hadn't even bathed her or brushed all the burrs out of her coat, she was the perfect dog for our family.

I could describe the intelligence of our dogs in this way: When I am cooking, all the dogs like(d) to lie in the floor near the stove, in case anything accidentally dropped to the floor, and I would carry on conversations with them. Maddie, the lab, would like it me as if to say, "Ok, Mom, but could you pet me now?" Abigail, the terrier mix, will look at me as if to say, "Yeah, Mom, could you hurry up? I'm bored, and I want to chase squirrels and grasshoppers." Darwin, the beagle would look at me as if to say, "Whatever. Can I have some food?" But Nestor, the border collie would look intently at me as if to say, "I understand completely."

One thing that was suggested in Sunday's New York Times article was that what dog intelligence has given them is not a capacity to think and learn like a human, but perhaps the intuition to understand our signals and what it takes to please us. That sort of empathy is a great gift. I don't think any of my dogs would ever have given me a frying pan for Mother's Day as my husband did-they care too much about my feelings, and whether it is intuition or abstract thought that gives them this ability, it is extremely important. It has always been important to humans to feel understood.

So discussions about what dog intelligence really is may be irrelevant. Dogs and humans are irrevocably bonded-in the past, the survival of each species was dependent upon the other. I say, let's stop using human yardsticks to measure them against us, and just keep throwing new things to them and see if they learn. I'm almost certain we will continue to be surprised and gratified by the result.s

How Deep Does Ignorance Go?

2009-10-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

After my divorce in 1995 I moved in with my parents. Though I was working, I was; left with some bills from the marriage, and a little extra money could come in handy. So Mom suggested that her neighbor across the street could use a little help watching his son in the afternoon. I told her I would talk to him about it, and I made an appointment to do that. In the middle of our conversation about what he needed for his son, seemingly out of nowhere, he made a disparaging remark about black people. I did not take the job, and have referred to that man as "The Grand Dragon" ever since. Yesterday afternoon I took my dog out for a short walk around our apartment complex. Usually I use her leash, but not always, this afternoon being one of the latter trips. The head of our maintenance department, a very pleasant fellow, saw us, and said that he knew I didn't let my dog run wild, and that I carry puppy-poopy-pouches, but many don't, so the complex is planning to start reinforcing the rules about keeping dogs on leash, etc. Again, out of nowhere, came a completely bizarre negative remark about minorities. I was completely perplexed-on top of my moral offense at racial bigotry. I realize that racism is based on ignorance, but are the people who hold those ignorant views so out of touch that they really assume that all white people share their view, and therefore they can just casually drop these remarks? I don't get it. And I don't know how to respond.

What's Up With Earthworms?

2009-10-21T16:25:00.001-07:00

We are having heavy rains today. I mean really heavy. So I just took my dog outside in the rain because she just couldn't wait anymore...this rain has been falling for hours and hours. Coming back in I saw a familiar site; hundreds of earthworms driven onto the sidewalk by all the water. That is my question...why do they do that? Don't they "understand" on some wormy level that they need to be in the dirt, so once they get out and see that they aren't in dirt anymore, why don't they just go back and go in a little deeper? When I can, I do pick up living ones from the sidewalk and put them back on the grass. They always seem to wriggle happily when I do that, so why do they put themselves in that position?

I'm just asking.

Notice Anything Familiar?

2009-10-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

I said last year this would happen, and I was right. A little more than a year ago we were paying $4.50 for a gallon of fuel. Then, in large part because of the age old law of supply and demand. We couldn't afford to pay that, so we cut back. The price of oil fell. Now the rise is more subtle. But what I predicted then was that once the price dropped people would quicly become complacent and start driving again, and buying big fuel suckers. Sure enough, today oil topped $79. per barrel, and the cost of a gallon of gas has jumped about .20 in the last two weeks. It will shortly be $3.00 again, and if we don't wise up, it will keep going up. We don't need to do this to ourselves, and it gives away our power as consumers to allow oil companies, whose obscene profits are not being talked about right now because of all the chatter regarding banker bonuses. Ok-don't talk about it, but don't let it slip your mind either. Consumers have the power to see to it that we are able to continue to pay an affordable price for our petrol.

How Serious is This Really?

2009-10-21T08:42:00.001-07:00

Ok. I'm human. Sometimes my body eliminates waste regularly, and sometimes it doesn't. I've never discussed this with a doctor. I never thought it was that big of a deal. So when I see commercials about people who can't play with their grandchildren or go swimming because they have "occasional irregularity" I am confused. Is it just for dramatic effect that these commercials make it sound like a crippling disease that leaves sufferers bedridden and sick? I don't know how serious this really is, so I hope the people who are suffering from this condition aren't offended by my ignorant notion that if we eat some veggies and yogurt it should help us feel better.

This is not a question...I'm upset!!!

2009-10-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

I was at a class yesterday on how to punch up my resume. The group was small and personable, and we spent some time off topic, usually for jokes. But one of the things we got off task for was a discussion of whether or not to shake hands at the end of an interview. The consensus was no, unless the interviewer extended his hand first, do not offer yours because of the fear of flu. One gentleman had to leave before we were finished, and the teacher extended his hand. The man, who I must add looked remarkably like John Ritter, with perfect comic timing shrunk back in horror that the hand was extended. We all laughed.

Secretly though, I was really bothered by the whole notion that we can never touch each other because of fear of disease. Now, this is not a scientific statistic I'm sharing, but in my experience, the people I have known in my life who feared germs the most have been sick more often than "regular folks." But I've read scientific articles that the fear of germs has led to people being sicker because their immune systems are not faced with disease, and therefore they have no defenses when diseases strike. Our immune systems must be challenged in order to work. That's why injecting a small amount of disease can give us immunity to certain microbes. In my life, I have never had a flu shot, and have had the actual flu only one time. One time. I know people who get flu shots every year, and still sometimes get sick because the inoculation was not for the correct strain. We evolved immune systems that help us fight disease. According to the most basic evolutionary principle, the ones who are not protected have some other weakness that makes them more vulnerable to illness, and they get sick and do not survive. But I am not an epidemiologist, so I won't spend anymore time on the science of germ warfare.

The thing that bothered me about the whole conversation yesterday was the idea that we as humans should not touch each other. Women of my age (early 50s) and had or ever hoped to have children were taught that babies can literally die if they are not touched enough. We not only evolved immune systems, we survived as a species because of our sense of community. We need each other-and the simple act of shaking hands is the minimum demonstration of our attachment as a species. If we touch someone who has been exposed to a virus but isn't sick we might actually get a bit of immunization. (That's just an unprovable theory of mine.) But we connect with each other by touching. I like the comfort of the touch of a hand on my shoulder, a firm handshake, or having someone pat me on the back. It makes me feel less alone, and during the last couple of months my need for that has been powerfully illuminated.

In conlusion, as I said in the beginning, in my tiny piece of the world, anecdotally, the people I've known who fear germs the most get sick more often. Therefore, I believe that fear is a dangerous disease that leads to our bodies not being able to fight disease. Statistically, people die from the flu every year. Every year, 34,000 people die of the flu. But people with a healthy immune response are the ones who will survive. The only thing we have to fear is fear. So lets all come together for a big group hug.

Could Someone Explain This To Me?

2009-10-19T17:15:00.001-07:00

Why is gravy considered a carb? It is made from some kind of fat, a little flour, but the main ingredient is milk. Why then shouldn't it be considered a protein, therefore healthy?

In Memoriam: February 26, 2009

2009-10-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Not long ago I commented to my sister that if there was one thing spiritual I could believe in, I would want it to be reincarnation. Wouldn't it be great do have "do-overs?" She replied, profoundly I thought, with the first law of thermodynamics: Matter cannot be created or destroyed. I was surprised, but this comforted me. We may not know exactly what happens when we die, but we do go on, albeit in another form.

I was also recently looking at a picture of my two beloved dogs, Maddie the labrador and Nestor the border collie who died in 2007, and it struck me how much Maddie had aged in the last two years. There was so much more white on her muzzle and tummy, and she was definitely slowing down and having a harder time recovering after a walk. I remembered the times that the three of us used to take walks in the woods down by the Sangamon River. I would let them off the leashes, and they would both run straight for the water. Nestor was a wader, so he wouldn't stay in the water long before he would come back to me and try to start a game of chase through the woods. Maddie loved swimming, and would stay in the water for a long time. Then she would get out and start on a solitary exploration, taking in every smell from every creature who had walked those woods before us. She would wander through the tall grass so that I would only be able to see the ridge of her back above it. She was untiring, and I would usually have to go track her down when it was time to go. She would resist, but she knew there were treats awaiting when we got home. Besides, riding in the car was another of her favorite things.

Lately those car rides seemed to be the only pleasure she had left. This past Saturday I got a bit of a shock when I stroked her back and could feel her spine. Her hip bones were becoming very visible as her appetite was declining recently. I'd had her at the vet a month or so ago, and he said she was anemic. He gave me some medicine, but said that labs her age often simply lost the ability to make red blood cells. He told me to let her eat anything at all she wanted-anyhing. I bought some liver and boiled it, then boiled rice in the same water. She loved it, but that didn't last long and her fatigue and lack of appetite came back.

Last Sunday I took her on a walk down some local trails, and before we hit the two mile mark she was panting and several feet behind me. She had never been behind me before. When we got home she sprawled in the floor and slept the rest of the day. After that I tried for the next two days to get her to eat something...anything. Monday and Tuesday the only thing I could get her to eat was treats. She turned her nose up at bacon and extra sharp cheddar. Things I never knew a dog would ever refuse. I worried that I would come home from work and find her dead, but I didn't. But Wednesday when I got home she could barely lift her head, and all she would do is take small sips of water. I knew that it was time to let her go. I called the people I knew would understand how this moment feels, and we cried together. I took my pillow and blanket and got in the floor with her overnight. She could still occasionally manage a thump of her tail on the floor.

She could barely get into the car for that ride this morning, and didn't lift her head to smell the air. The vet said very little. He knew I knew it was time to let her go. It took only seconds for her to go to sleep. Now I am home. My husband is at work, and there is no one at my feet, looking longingly at me to request a pet. Her bowls have been picked up. The house feels very empty. But I am glad her suffering is over. I don't know if I waited longer than I should have, but whatever form her matter has now become, I hope it involves rivers and woods.

Who Was The First Guy...?

2009-10-17T12:56:00.000-07:00

I won't say what I was doing, but the other day the question came to me, who was the guy (and what is the story!) who said, "Hey, instead of leaves and corncobs, why don't we chop down trees, mill the pulp into something we call "paper," and use that instead to clean ourselves after we eliminate our waste."

I see these kinds of questions up alot, but that one really makes me curious. I have an uncle who lives near a town called Ashdown, Arkansas, where there is a paper mill located. Ashdown is the worst smelling town I've ever driven through. Did that guy-whoever he was, have any idea what he was really doing? Or is toilet paper just one of those conveniences with terrible unintended consequences?

To draw out the Mama Bear, Threaten the Cub

2009-10-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

No. I don't see myself as our president's mother; he is the first president who is younger than me (when did I get this old?) But there are only a few years between us. But the last Friday, when I saw the first headline that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I started looking for the byline of a parody website such as "The Onion." I had seen no announcement anywhere of this except one lone header; nothing on the New York Times, nothing on CNN.com, etc., so I assumed it was a joke-much like the Superman/Messiah insults that were thrown at him during the campaign. But then more and more news sites started to report the story, and I couldn't help thinking, "Isn't this early?" I made that very comment on my Facebok page, and started a firestorm that last all day long, and left some of my good friends bruised, with hurt feelings because of the passion and anger the two sides of the discussion took.

Full disclosure; I voted for Obama, and I like him. I like the direction he wants to take our country in. If I didn't, I wouldn't have voted for him. I'm not a party loyalist, but I am fairly liberal. I also unabashedly love my country. I love that we have the freedom here to have opposing points of view, and not feel threatened b expressing these views. For that reason, I try to disagree in a civilized way-use my freedom with circumspection. If I attack my opponents into hiding, I could be attacked the same way next. I have a problem with people who surround themselves daily with onl people and news sources that agree with their point of view. I think that kind of thinking with blinders on makes the reaction to other views one of shock and anger; "What-some people really feel THAT way!?" Exposing ourselves regularly to opposing points of view can prevent that visceral reaction by allowing a realization of the existence of "those others" and buffering surprise that the world is not what we assume as we live in our shells. But again, I digress.

I disagree with the Nobel committee. I disagree with giving an 'aspirational' award. I know it isn't the first time, but I still disagree. However, the visceral reaction of those who want our president to fail, and have said so since before he took office, got my defenses up. I asked them, and still ask, how do they feel about the three American doctors who won for their research on aging? People still get old. There is no cure for Alezheimer's Disease. There is no cure for aging-so these researchers, for all their hard work and years of study-have they really done anything?

I have to say that every day last week, as the announcements of the prizes were made, I was proud every time I saw, "Three Americans Win ..." And it seems that every day another American was announced a winner for something. I've had two connections with universities that had Nobel Prize winners on their staffs, and this was a gift to the universities. Science students love the idea of learning from professors who have received great honors for their work. Donors and alumni love it too-it usually means monetary gifts for those schools, which lead to more scholarships and more modern laboratories. What is the downside? On top of that, there is the notion of "American Exceptionalism." What can support that argument better than Americans being recognized by foreign committees that look at contributions to these areas from people all over the world? I am proud of our chemists, medical doctors, physicists, economists, and, yes, our president for this recognition.

It may have been too early, but the award has been given. President Obama was humble, and amitted that he didn't deserve to be in the company of some of the others who have won the award. He will not keep the money, and I'm sure he is aware of all the criticism that his opponents have heaped on him because of this award. So, can we just say, "Hurrah for America," and forget about our liberal/conservative differences for awhile?

And if the Nobel committee is going to keep giving aspirational awards, I can only hope that our president earns the award by the time he leaves office, and that we actually, for once, enter an era of peace.

No Kidding?

2009-10-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

I wonder if anyone besides me has wondered about the new Arby's roast beef commercials. They advertise combos for $5.01, and they say that the extra penny is for the meat. Does that mean that we have to pay FIVE DOLLARS for a bun, some kind of sauce, lettuce and tomatoes? No Kidding?

It is about choice, BUT...

2009-10-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

My blog being called "The Questioners Blog," there is a question I have been asking for many years, and not one person has been willing or able to help me understand the answer: If homosexuality is a choice, who would choose it? Who would choose a life in which he/she will spend adolescence feeling outcast, a life in which one is ridiculed by some groups, feared by some groups, and condemned to both hell and misery by others? There is a "Christian Minister" who travels around the US with some people he calls his "followers," but I've read that they are really just a few people he's related to, holding protests at the funerals of our soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. This charlatan claims that our soldiers are dying because Americans are tolerant of homosexuality. There are people who believe it is ok to rant, discriminate in housing and jobs, wear clothing with anti-gay slurs, and the list goes on.

Some background; I planned growing up to be an actor, so I hung out with lots of "arty" types, of whom there were gays. I have also worked in some other businesses which traditionally have a large gay presence. Many of my coworkers became friends, though I myself am unrepentantly straight.

There was a young man with whom I worked at a bookstore in the mid-1990s, Patrick. Everyone knew that Patrick was gay, but he had not come out. Patrick was probably in his mid-20s. He finally did come out, and one evening we were talking about his decision to make it "official." I asked him when he realized that he was gay. He said he "knew" when he was seven years old, and had a crush on Leif Garrett, the pop star.

Now, being a southerner, I have lots of baptist friends, relatives and acquaintances. The are unapologetically anti-gay rights. One of them posted a rhyme the day of President Obama's speech to the Human Rights Commission that ended with a line about Obama says you can "ask and tell" and you won't go to hell.

I kept my visceral reaction to myself until I took out my laptop today, though it has been in my thoughts all day. On the one hand it is interesting that President Obama would be assigned the power and/or authority to decide who goes to hell. Especially since my friends on the right have lived the last nine months in terror that anything the president does will thrust our country on the path to certain destruction. Now he gets to make big decisions like heaven and hell? These same friends scorned the president's Nobel Peace Prize because they claimed he has done nothing. But those are questions for another day. The question for today is whether heaven and hell are even the issue in the United States of America, circa 2009, regarding the push for equal rights for gays, lesbians and transgender Americans. I think not. I think the question is much simpler. Were the framers of our Declaration of Independence telling the truth when they wrote that "All men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

in⋅al⋅ien⋅a⋅ble /ɪnˈeɪlyənəbəl, -ˈeɪliə-/ –adjective not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalienable rights.

If the Declaration of Independence is a true document that is relevant to Americans today, then there should be no question about whether all American citizens should be given the same rights as everyone else. Questions of righteous reward or unholy retribution are not for us, and not for now. Most of the people I know who are so certain that allowing gays equal rights will destroy their worlds either do not know any gays, or are not in contact with any on a regular basis. They will likely never have to see any boys kissing, and will certainly not lose jobs to gays because the access to employment and housing becomes equal. In fact, I will bet the farm that there will be fewer boys kissing on TV news once the playing field is levelled and it is no longer news. As far as movies and television are concerned, I'm guessing none of these folks ever saw "The Crying Game," "Angels Among Us" or "The Birdcage."

So it's time to reframe this debate in an honest way, not with bitterness, but with our eyes open to the reality of what our Declaration of Independence should mean to every person born or naturalized into this wonderful country that we all love.

OH NO! What if they are right?

2009-09-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Only in America. That is a phrase that is usually reserved for when an American does something really stupid or violent. But in the wake of Rep. Joe Wilson screaming, "You Lie," to President Obama on Wednesday evening, I had one of those "Aha!" moments.

Let me start by saying that I know evolution is a physical process. It involves tiny changes over millions of years that contribute to the survival and reproduction of organisms that carry certain desirable traits. But I also know that this lead to sociological changes; cooperation aids in survival just as much as certain physical traits, which lead to the development of communities, etc.

So what's my point? How WILL she synthesize these two seemingly unrelated ideas? Well, in the United States of America there are lots of people (I can't remember the actual statistic, but it is an embarrasingly high number) who don't believe that evolution occured. In fact, we even have a museum devoted to the alleged science of creationism. A friend of mine went there this summer. And now I am beginning to believe that these people may be right. In America at any rate.

I'll try another way to make my point. When discussing how seemingly uncivilized the people of the United States can sometimes be, I used to say that Americans are at least as civilized as our British counterparts were when their country was only 230 years old. If one is to look at British history, things were pretty rough then. Barbaric, one could say. But when I made that point in a conversation with some folks at work, one of my good friends countered that I was suggesting that civil advancement can take place in a vacuum, which it obviously can't. In other words, the British aren't the only ones who have come forward this number of years-the whole world has. All of us could be said to be advancing at the same rate.

Why, then, are Americans still so in love with their guns, their "let them get a job with insurance," the Truthers and Birthers, the OMG IT'S SOCIALISM! and making up big lies about politicians who simply look at solutions to the world's problems differently? Well-if it isn't just the that the United States is still such a young country. then perhaps evolution didn't really happen here. Obviusly the physical processes happened, but maybe the evolutionary steps that brought civilization to Europe and Asia were stopped here by something. Is it possible that the need to create a cohesive society just wasn't required here-perhaps because of the landscape. In the Appalachian and Smoky Mountains, for example, maybe the neighbors were so far apart that 'society" was not only not necessary, but not even possible. Perhaps agriculture, instead of bringing people together here, kept us apart...the cattle we raise just needed so much land that sharing with neighbors, whether those neighbors are wildlife or other people, wasn't going to happen. Anyone who rode up to a particular spread in West Texas was just as likely to be a threat as a friend. So as cities sprang up out of the prairies, we still held to the notion that other people, along with people who care about other people, were probably foe and not friend.

It has been fairly well established that there were Neanderthals present with modern man in Europe for thousands of years, until they were either absorbed or died off. Perhaps it was an opposite direction trip across the land bridge, and those threatened groups came to what is now the United States, created a closed society and reatined many of the behaviors, if not the appearance, of their Neanderthal forebears. Americans do tend to be shorter than European counterparts, chunkier in build.

So now I can feel less bad about how uncivilized the behavior of many of my fellow Americans is.

Or not.

Rambling

2009-08-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't been here for awhile, so I've seen lots of things that give me questions. Like, how does anyone still take the whole morality of the right question seriously? I know, I know-I've heard all the shit about how they're forgiven, not perfect. I've been told to my face by a Christian that it does not matter what a believer does because the New Testament says 'once forgiven, always forgiven.' But the same book also says that if your faith doesn't change your behavior, it isn't real. Now we have the "Family" in D.C. telling legislators that having power is what makes a person godly. REALLY?! I guess it really isn't the 90s anymore, when it was having money. So they make it possible for all these family values types to screw around on their wives, and tell them it's ok, as long as they keep their power. No wonder Bill Maher gets so worked up about religion. What I see is a bunch of people who got together in Nice, back in the Dark Ages, and decided that this collection of fairy tales is true, and this collection is...well-fairy tales. The Greeks also literally believed in their myths too. So did the Phoenicians and Egyptians and all the other shamans before them. I do see a place for collective stories, but as sensitive as Americans are about being considered to be like anyone else in any other country, why did we choose a mythology that is so foreign to our soil? Why couldn't we at least take up the cause of the people who were already here when the whites got here? At least they respected the land enough to try and not take more than they needed, and to use every part of the animals they killed; not waste anything.

But I digress. Or do I? I guess I'll close today's session with that question. I'm sure there are more questions to come.

Peace.

No Title Required

2009-07-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

When Al Gore knows there are lots of folks who deny global warming, why can't he provide a forum for asking and answering questions? I have so many questions, and no one of whom I can ask them.

Why don't we take a more practical, reasoned approach to the problem? Yes, humans are affecting climate change. No, we are not going to destroy the planet. Yes, there have been global climate shifts in the past. Yes, every time it happened, there were extinctions, some of history's mass extinctions have been tied to climate change. So what happens? Well, our ascendants won't look like us. They will have to adapt to very different living conditions. But they WILL exist. Remember, when our planet first evolved, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Early life was anaerobic, but it gave off oxygen as a byproduct. As a result the atmosphere filled up with oxygen and aerobic life arose. Now that the atmosphere is refilling with c02, the opposite will occur.

Yes, we've discovered recently that life is possible in the nastiest of conditions (thermal, deep ocean vents.) So we shouldn't presume that life will not thrive when we are done poisoning the planet. It will. Everytime a species goes extinct, something else is able to fill that niche. Life goes on. Humans are the worst kind of invasive species. We had it good in North Africa, but we also had either a wanderlust, or we used up all the food in our own neighborhood and had to move to find more notwithstanding that we would have to displace something or someone else in order to do that. So we took off for Asia, then Europe and then the Americas-or maybe we did some of that radiating at the same time. Either way, once we get someplace we decide it's not good enough as it is, and we try to remake it in our image, and destroy its original integrity and balance. We will continue to do so, even as we drastically change the way we live, and the form of our lives.

I do, also, however, have a nihilist streak. I think the great "supervolcano" in which we live will render all of this moot at some point in the near future. I may or may not mean the word "near" by the standard of our hurried, harried time, or in geologic time, but before long, all the plants around us will become new carboniferus deposits, and all of us animals will become oil. How about that for irony?

Additional Inquiries

2009-07-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Why have so many public people adopted the annoying habit of saying, "The reality is is..." Why can't they just say, "The reality is that?" I hear it nearly every day on news interviews.

Next question-do I expect too much of people who are called upon to edify the masses?

More on the Former Star, Sarah Palin

2009-07-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

I believe that Sarah Palin had two enemies who should make an explanation of why they left her high and dry. Listing them numerically should not be taken as an assignment of 'order;' it's just convenient.
1. Whoever dragged her on to the national stage last year. The McCain campaign was not populated with novices. They were experienced campaigners. It was quickly obvious that she was not able to handle it, and that the more opportunities she was given to speak, the less she could manage to control the message.
2. Herself, for craving the limelight to such a degree that she "said yes without blinking." Had she blinked, it might have occured to her that she would have both positive and negative stories told about her. She would have known that scrutiny would begin as soon as they were off the stage, and that her real life would not fit the story that she was packaged with for the benefit of the "base," for whom she was specifically chosen to mollify.

Both of these people owe her, and her family an apology.

Big Bang

2009-07-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

The darkness that came that night
was not like the darkness at the end of day
it was as if there had never been day.

It was the darkness your dad says
does not exist when you are afraid

at night-

under the bed

in the closet

but you know it is there.

Will there ever be light again?

Will we adapt as the fish in the deep ocean

who no longer need light?

What will we eat?

Will we forget the sound that came before the light

went away?

Was there a noise like that when the big bang happened?

There was darkness,

then sound,

then light and energy.

Now I have hope.

Extremists Make Your Side Look Bad

2009-06-07T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I am one of two or three liberals in my family. I am the daughter of a dyed-in-the-wool, proud to claim it, far right wing, fundamentalist who thinks George W. Bush was one of our greatest presidents. She's been depressed ever since Sept. 2008, when it started looking pretty clear that Barak Obama was going to win the presidency. Sometimes she scares me, and sometimes she makes me want to pull my hair out. Her only news source is Fox, and she would rather die than believe that Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly would ever lie. Sometimes she can take a joke about it, and sometimes she can't.

This week we went to her house for dinner, and it was one of those times when she couldn't. She and my dad had changed their cable company, and they were having some trouble with some of the channels. I teased her that it was the company that was the problem, it was a sign that she should stop watching Fox. Her face turned red, and she started carrying on about how none of the other channels talked about the murder of an army recruiter in Arkansas by a Muslim extremist. I thought to say, though I didn't because at 52, I'm still scared of my mother, "How do you know they didn't, you only watch Fox?" But I went home and looked into it, and of course, she was not correct. Not only that, but Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC did a long story about it that night.

So the next day we spoke on the phone and I mentioned this, and she suggested it was only because Bill O'Reilly was on their case that MSNBC mentioned it.

Now, many years ago, and both due to the health of the mother, there were some abortions in our family. She supported them. But now she says that even though murder is always wrong, Dr. Tiller should have been charged with murder for all the babies he's killed. I had to suck hard to get a breath, and remind her that what he did was legal.

Later this week came the story of the Utah man "on a mission to kill the president." And Newt Gingrich claiming we are "surrounded by pagans." Then he and Huckaby bleating loudly about gay rights and abortion. I feel like a tiny snow ball rolling down a high, snow covered mountain, growing bigger and going faster and faster and faster.

I have never seen the like of insanity going on in this country as I have since President Obama was elected. I remember getting to a point where I couldn't stand to see George W.'s face on TV, and many people I know felt the same way. But we never threatened to kill him, or made encouraging noises about anyone who said they wanted to. So this is all bizarre to me. First, I've never seen such sore losers. I mean, really! But all this hatred and venom is just weird to an extreme that I can't figure out.

But more than anything, it is not based on anything that can be explained to me. I've even asked one conservative who said she is sick of seeing Obama on TV to tell me specifically what he has done wrong, and she just couldn't tell me anything concrete. Nor can anyone who calls him a communist, or a terrorist. They have nothing but fear and smear to use, and they didn't even give him a chance to mess up yet. I've asked some to explain what he has done that is socialist, they mention the banks, though that started under Bush. I ask if they've ever heard him mention Marx as a favorite author, or has he said that he believes socialism has worked well in any society he's observed, they can't.

The truth is, they've got nothing. NOTHING.

I remember when a certain super-liberal website opened up and seemed to compare the Bush administration to Nazis. I thought then, even though I agreed with many of their positions, that such rhetoric would only serve to make the left look too negatively extremist. And I now say the same thing to the far right. Disagree with the president, it's ok. Dislike him if you wish, that's ok too. But stop the crazy talk. It makes you look bad, and him look even better. If you can't think of anything rational to say, don't say anything. If you can't support an argument with anything but fear and smear words, wait until you can make a real case. When you say crazy things, it often makes the other side look more rational and then you lose.

Person's Best Friend?

2009-05-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have a great family. A large, loving, quirky, complicated family. And I love dogs. All dogs. I think most dogs are beautiful, and there is only one dog that I could not connect with despite trying, and that is my brother's old, highly protective Catahoula-lab mix, Chief. I've tried all the friendship tricks that I can think of, and everything I've ever learned on the dog programs on the Animal Planet and National Geographics Channels, to no avail. But I digress.

My youngest sister and I are very close. We have quite similar interests, though she is much more disciplined and organized than I am. She has a husband who probably helps her maintain that discipline, because he is one of the most disciplined people I've ever known. In fact, I think I may have only known one person in my life who can beat him in that. He also has a great sense of humor, and is one of those high energy people who never stops working at something or other. He is also a well trained nurse, and adores working with patients. He loves helping people. Loves it.

To bring all this together...that brother doesn't always understand my love for dogs. It took me a long time, but I think I finally understand this. In the last two years my husband and I have experienced some difficult struggles, which have led to some deep emotional problems; depression, arguing, sometimes feeling hopeless and ready to give up on the marriage. In February of this year, 2009, we lost our beloved labrador, Maddie. She was twelve, and had lived a good, loved dog life. But I have always been the dog person in our relationship; and I have always preferred bigger dogs. I used to say that it isn't a realy dog unless it is at least 25 pounds (beagle, basset, that was about as small as I wanted to go.)

When my first marriage was breaking up in the 90s, I credit the dogs we had with literally saving my life, because I was sometimes suicidal in those days, but on days when I was sitting on the stairs crying, the dogs, bassett hounds, would lay there heads on my lap, and look up at me, and I knew that, despite the despair I was feeling at this "failure," I was both loved and needed. So after

Maddie, I just couldn't see myself coming home to a house without a dog. So I went to our local shelter and picked a dog. Or maybe she picked me when she wiggled her entire body to the front of her kennel and pleaded with me to take her home. She is a small terrier mix, no idea really what she might be, but it was a doggy love I never thought I could feel, for a small dog. My husband is also smitten in a way I've never seen him with a dog.

All this is to say that I think I finally understand the difference between myself and my brother in law. I had one of those "Aha!" moments this week, and I hope that it will lead to a greater tolerance of this difference. Maybe he and his boys can stop joking that if I love dogs so much, next time I come over they will sniff my rear instead of giving me a hug, etc...(yes, I laugh at the jokes!) I once told my sister that I don't love dogs more than people, but I love most dogs more than some people. When my brother in law has been at his very lowest points in life, he had my sister. He had people to help, and he could bury himself in that and work through those times. I've had the same thing, but during some of the worst times, the people I would turn to lived far away from me, and phone and email just don't do the same thing. But I had dogs with me. The didn't judge or question me, they just came to me with a wag or a lick, and made me feel as if there was a reason to go on. It's not that the people in my life wouldn't have made me feel the same way, but they just weren't near enough for a hug at that moment. So my devotion to the dogs deepened. And it has never been betrayed. So, yes, I deeply love my sisters. I have often said they are my best friends. They haven't been replaced by dogs, and I don't love dogs more than them. The relationships are different, and as I've always told my kids, different isn't a bad thing. It's just different.

Questions

2009-05-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

Cheney et al lied about everything for eight years. Why should we believe that they only waterboarded three people?

I'm curious about all those who say that we should not close Guantanamo? What was going going happen to the people there who couldn't be tried? Were they going to be kept there until they died-withouth any sort of trial (military or civilian?) Or would a scene from "Shawshank Redemption" and have the guards shoot them and say they were trying to escape?

Speaking of Gitmo prisoners...in the comments of the people who refute the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) arguments, it is said that there are many terrorists already in our supermax prisons. So, how come we've never heard of this? Who are these terrorists, and when were they tried?

If "enhanced interrogation techniques" prevented specific, provable terrorist incidents, why wasn't that advertised? It seems to me that all we would need is some proof from the officials who did it, and all the foo-faa would be over. My uneducated guess is that it isn't there. I hate to think that the government would lie to us...but I was alive in the 70s.

Is it a Coincidence?

2009-05-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

I tend to both chuckle and disregard conspiracy theorists. Honest. But I am not alone in having noticed that quite often during the Bush administration, homeland security alerts would grow in intensity just before an election. Remember? We would go for months and months at "yellow," but as the election neared it would go to the next color up. So, I couldn't help but notice the timing of the arrest of the four suspects in last week's terrorist plot to blow up a New York synagogue. After a full year of "investigating" this plot, why was there this very public arrest on the day that Dick Cheney was making his speech competing with President Obama's speech about torture and Guatanamo? Interestingly, I haven't heard anyone else taking notice of this, but the timing could not have been more suspicious.