OK, I really need help. If my husband accepts the job he's about to be offered, we'll have to move to Charlotte NC. Now anyone who reads this blog knows that I am practically desperate to evacuate MA, but not necessarily to move to it's polar opposite on the extremism spectrum!
I've been networking (socially) trying to get feedback from people who either live there or have lived there, and I've gotten such conflicting views!
One woman (friend of a very good friend) told me she and her husband relocated from there to Chicago recently "kicking and screaming" because they loved it so much. Mind you, they have money, lived in one of the nicest areas, close to the city center, and sent their kids to private school, but when asked about religious prejudice, they said they didn't notice any at all.
Another woman (a realtor, so we have to take what she says with a grain of salt) says the schools are not universally good, and inexpensive houses are not as easy to come by as a few years ago, but that overall the place is diverse and socially welcoming, not to mention an easy place to live.
But today I spoke with a guy who just moved BACK to MA from there and to hear him tell it, his move was more like flight than anything. He said the place is run by the Christian Coalition, Jews are the "enemy" there, and "Jeezus" invades every aspect of your life, including work! He also said the schools range from "sub-par to flat out awful," and that most people are NASCAR nuts who's number one focus in life is how big their house is or what church they attend.
Now either this last guy is a flaming liberal who just plain couldn't handle the pro-Bush bumper stickers, or he's right. I mean, let's face it, to hear me talk about MA you'd think the place was the seventh circle of hell, and I'm not exactly "wrong" per se. I keep trying to separate the negative tone of what he says from the facts. OK, so there are lots of NASCAR fans, so what? I like NASCAR fans, they vote like I vote! But do I want to hang out with them all the time? Not really. Also, no matter what I may think of the blue states, at least I'm not worried about rampant unabashed anti-semitism. It would be pretty hard to pull off in MA or any other blue state honestly (not that it's not here, it's just very very hidden and will likely stay that way).
Then there's the schools. He thinks MA schools are great. I think they are awful. He bases his view on test scores. I'm not all about test scores. I'm more interested in curriculum and yes, values (i.e., is the USA "eeevil" or a source of good in the world, is red ink harmful or helpful, etc...). Then again, test scores do matter a bit and if he thinks these schools are good and Charlotte's are awful, what does that say?
HELP! Is this a blue-stater version of myself who was trapped in enemy territory with nothing nice to say about it, or does he have a point? I need to know ASAP!
OK, here's the question:
If you had a chance (i.e., a job) to move out of a state you hate to one you think you'd like better (but let's face it, aren't sure you would because you've only been there once, for like a day), BUT it entailed the following, would you do it:
And if your answer is sane "NO WAY!" Would you be at all concerned that in waiting until, let's say, next summer, that your options for less expensive housing on the other end would be diminished? Would you worry that the real estate bubble would stop leaking and all-out burst by then in MA, causing you to lose gobs of money on your house there while simultaneously having to fork over more to get into the market in NC? Would it be harder to move with two kids (on the outside of your body) as opposed to one?
How badly do you really have to hate a place to put yourself and your family through what I've described in the bulleted list above? How many major life changes is it wise to stack on top of each other at one time? One? Two? Three? At what point are you just asking for trouble?
I'm really torn! Part of me says "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING? Are you stark-raving-MAD???!!!" And another part of me is like "What if this is your last chance? What if it's even harder next year?"
Then again, the plan always was to investigate options this year, conduct a job search and move next spring or summer. The only reason this got moved up so dramatically was that an opportunity popped up out suddenly, bringing with it the inevitable "what if's" that come from having options and facing the choice of one over the other.
Any comments? What would you all do?
CAVEAT: If the job doesn't come through, it's a moot point, but assuming it does, what would you do?
Jeff makes the following excellent point in response to my previous post about the war in Iraq:
I would disagree with one thing - pulling back to Kuwait. We should be pulling back to Kuwait and Kurdistan. The Kurds, unlike many of the Sunnis and Shi'ites, like the US. They have had a semi-democracy for over a decade. They have managed to keep their four provinces and change pretty quiet. Unlike their Arab and Turkic countrymen, they have managed to mostly avoid turning on each other. An independent Kurdistan, surrounded by nations that are hostile to varying degrees would have an incentive to a) allow US troops to stay and b) keep Kurdish terrorists, which are a problem, particularly in Turkey, under control. It could also serve as a homeland for the Kurdish Diaspora, bringing in talent and money from abroad and allowing the Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iran and Syria to have a more hospitable place to go. Let the Sunnis and Shi'ites fight it our in the civil war that has already begun. But, we should not abandon our Kurdish allies after protecting them for almost 15 years. Kurdistan could become another Israel: an economically vibrant (particularly if we assist them in keeping the northern oil fields) and democratic country in the midst of the theocracies and authoritarian states of the Middle East.This should have been our first action upon removing the Hussein regime. Hopefully, as we move towards disengagement, we do not overdo it and leave the Kurds to their fate.
The bottom line point is the same, however, and that is that we should stop feeling "guilty" for looking out for #1. The left can whine and cry all day long about how that's always what we do, but the reality is that we didn't become the world's foremost superpower wiping other people's asses! For all the "good" we did with the Marshall Plan, we did it selfishly. Name one totally "selfless" thing we've done with our military that turned out well?
C'mon, I'm waaaaaaaiting!
I have avoided blogging on whack-job Cindy Sheehan because it sickens me how much attention she's getting WITHOUT my adding to the noise. I've also avoided commenting on how the war is going lately because I wanted to see if anyone smarter and more experienced than I would have the testicular fortitude to speak up and say what's REALLY wrong with the war--what's really been wrong with it since the day Bush landed on that carrier declaring that the hot-war was over.
Here it is, listen up: WE LET THE POLITICIANS MAKE TOO MANY DECISIONS TOO SOON!
Can you imagine if we'd fought WWII only until our first major battlefield victory? Can you imagine if--even after we'd demolished half of Europe (even on the soil of our allies) and Japan, and had received unconditional surrenders from both nations--we'd let those two country's own people just take over rebuilding their governments?
Let's remember, we didn't do that with either Germany OR Japan. McArthur was practically King of Japan for a while--pretty much telling them exactly what they were going to do, when, where and how (and openly using the Emperor as a figurehead only), and Germany and Italy? They were treated like the cripples they were and their "democracy" was hand-built by the allies. Sadly, of course, one of those "allies" had ulterior motives that resulted in the Iron Curtain and the cold war, but Germany wasn't a threat to us anymore, that's for sure.
Can you imagine if Truman and Churchill had to listen to the whining of a bunch of Hollywood liberals, media morons and others, admonishing them not to "impose" our will on these two nations? Can you imagine what would have become of Western Europe in particular if we'd packed up our kit-bags and gone home without bothering with the Marshall Plan?
My point is, not only did we declare the war "over" too quickly, we never fought it like it was our own in the first place. We were led into war on the premise that WE were in danger from WMD. The notion was that 9/11 "changed everything" and we couldn't wait for another worse attack--one with WMD--to find out if Saddam would team up with the likes of Al Qaeda or not. The stakes were too high, the likelihood too great. All well and good, all responsible thinking by a President--even if (and I stress this, EVEN IF) the President wasn't "sure" there were WMD there at all. Should he have waited to be sure? When might that have been, after an attack?
So having gone in to protect ourselves--NOT TO FREE IRAQ--we should have continued in that vein and fought like WE were the targets we so obviously ARE. If there is a connection to the "war on terror," then we should have pulled out all the stops. In other words, we didn't worry bout collateral damage when we bombed the shit out of Dresden, or nuked the crap out of Hiroshima did we? Does anyone out there doubt that the so-called "insurgents" wouldn't even BE in Iraq if we'd simply bombed the shit out of any area from which attacks against our soldiers were coming? Wall off Falujah day one and fire bomb it. Level areas full of radicals and others who not only mean us harm, but who would love to take over and turn Iraq into something more dangerous than Saddam created. What the hell happened to "shock and awe?" The only thing shocking to me about the war was that we fought it so fucking "nicely!"
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should have willy nilly slaughtered civilians, but I am saying that the ONLY way to deal with enemies like the islamofascists (like their predecessors, the German, Italian and Japanese fascists) is to ANIHILATE THEM. They don't fear death. They don't respect life. They don't give us bonus points for being "nice," not any more than they hate us more when we kill innocent Iraqis by accident. They prove that every time they do it ON PURPOSE.
What should we do now? Simple. We pull our troops back to Kuwait, totally vacating Iraq, and we make a decree: You're on your own, go ahead and make your own Constitution, your own government, your own future, BUT if you choose to have any of the above be of a nature that is openly hostile to the US or its allies, and if you grant safe harbor to those who have killed, tortured or threatened us, we will not send our soldiers back to do anything other than take over your oil for us. We will instead send missiles and we will turn Iraq into a wasteland good for nothing other than oil production.
We won't do that though. We'll keep pretending the Iraqis are "just like us," just like we pretend that the terrorists are disgruntled people just like us. We'll keep letting journalists and movie stars dictate our policies on the ground, and not only we we be attacked again at home, Iraq will be a total failure. I hoped it wouldn't. I hoped Bush would have the balls to put some real muscle behind the effort, but instead he's pussied out, big time.
It's not the staying in Iraq that's the problem, it's that staying there as sitting ducks is. We've handed over power WAY too soon. Did anyone besides me notice that the missile attacks on our ships last week were carried out from Jordan by--among others--an Iraqi?? How much more of this shit are we going to allow? If this happened in the aftermath of WWII, would we have stood for it?
I'm happy the good Iraqi people are free of Saddam's terror, just as I would have been happy that decent non-anti-semitic Germans were free of Hitler's tyranny, but make no mistake: I would not have advocated war to achieve either as a sole goal. It's not our job to "free" people. If it were, Rwanda would look a whole lot different than it does today, so would N. Korea, Cuba, etc...
There ARE lies being told, just not the ones the liberals are whining about. We're lying to ourselves every time we say that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terror, and then turn around and turn its success over the the Iraqi people. Either we are there for our own defense, or we're NOT. It's time to decide.
I just have one question: If a bunch of rich self-indulgent retards decided it would be fun to spend their money burning down your house and selling tickets to the spectacle to anyone and everyone who'd pay, even non-Americans--specifically our enemies-- would you just sit back, shrug and say "What can you do?"
Better come up with a better answer because that's pretty much exactly what Hollywood's about to do.
Imagine Leni Riefenstahl cross-promoting "Triumph of the Will" with People Magazine covers and E! Channel specials. That's more or less what Hollywood has in mind.
Go read the article and the list of upcoming films (already in production kids, not just waiting to be funded).
The only upside I can see is that I no longer lament the fact that having kids has kept me from going to the movies.
Finally, some real condemnation of terrorism.
When Muslim extremists murder innocents in cold blood, there is often a politically-correct reluctance to call the killers terrorists, or to denounce them unequivocally. But there was no such reluctance last week when an Israeli Jew, Eden Natan Zada, opened fire inside the bus he was riding through the Arab town of Shfaram in northern Israel. Zada, 19, was active in the outlawed extremist Kach movement, and had deserted his army unit to protest Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. His rampage left four Arabs dead -- Michel Bahus, 56; Nader Hayak, 55; Hazar Turki, 23, and her sister Dina, 21 -- and another 12 wounded.
Zada was immediately labeled a terrorist and widely condemned. "A reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist," one Middle Eastern leader called the massacre. Another said he was "deeply shocked and distressed by the murder of innocent people." From a senior cleric came a statement expressing "disgust and severe condemnation at the despicable act . . . . a murder that is impossible to forgive."
Israel and its supporters complain with reason that Arab terrorism against Jews is too often shrugged off or excused by Arab and Muslim leaders, or that a murderous attack will be condemned in English for international consumption, while the government-run local media extols the killers in Arabic. But when the terrorists themselves are Jews -- admittedly a rare event -- do Israel's defenders live up to the standard they expect of others? How many of the statements quoted above, for example, would leading Israelis have been willing to make?
All of them.It was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who described Zada as a "bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist" and Shimon Peres, the vice prime minister, who referred to the attack as "the murder of innocent people." The cleric who pronounced Zada's "despicable act . . . impossible to forgive" was Rabbi Shlomo Amar, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel. And headlines in all the country's major newspapers bluntly labeled Zada a terrorist.
Of course it's a rhetorical question. We all know the answer, don't we?
*Sniff* I guess I've drunk my last Grande Chai (iced or otherwise).
No, it's not because I'm pregnant (although that has curtailed the amount I would ordinarily consume), and it's not because of the high (absurdly so) cost of these beverages (although that matters too). It's because of something I always suspected, but can no longer ignore.
No, I'm not some raving narcissist who thinks the company literally hates ME personally, but I do now realize that they couldn't give a rat's ass about anything I care about. In fact, they seem instead to go to great lengths to support causes--directly and indirectly--that offend me. Spending my money there only helps them do it more often or more flagrantly, so I guess I won't do it anymore.
Picture this if you will: It's the early 1900s, immigrants from Eastern Europe are pouring into our country, many of them Jewish from Polish and Russian villages called "shtetls." They are persecuted people back home, so taking the risk to emmigrate is a no brainer. They don't speak English, they don't even speak a recognizable major foreign language, but rather something between German and Polish and Hebrew called "Yiddish."
Now picture that instead of it being the early part of the last century, it's present day. There is TV. Specificaly, PBS and the Children's Television Worshop. Now imagine that the flagship show of that network--Sesame Street--devotes a portion of every show to teaching the "Yiddish" word of the day, and to profiling the "culture" of the Jewish immigrants to this country (most of whom, by the way, came here through Ellis Island LEGALLY, and none of whom benefitted from social programs paid for by others because they didn't exist yet).
Mind you, the immigrants of whom I speak took great pains to a) learn the language (ENGLISH), b) allowed their names to be changed to something more pronounceable (as if they had a choice) c) arrived with enough money to be shipped back immediately if they were sick with so much as the common cold d) had to find jobs and prove they were employable when they arrived e) WANTED to assimilate into "American" culture and probably would have been horrified to have their own culture singled out for examination and "celebration" like they were animals in some multicultural zoo.
I have you imagining all of this because if you fast-forward to today with TODAY'S population of immigrants (many if not most of whom are illegally arriving across our borders), you have exactly what I've described on Sesame Street. Today's ENTIRE program had a "Mexican-American" theme, the goal of which was (obviously) to teach the audience of children how nifty it is to be Mexican, and how great it is to be distinctly Mexican even if you live here in the US (even if that means you speak little or no English). Not only was my child being "taught" several Spanish words at 7:00 a.m., she was being taught how swell it is to be a Mexican Cowboy. I had to wonder, why was there no program focused on how swell it is to be an AMERICAN Cowboy?
Oh yeah, I already know the answer: Because Amereican "Cowboys" are baaaaaaad! Evil in fact. Just ask Michael Moore, or any European (and probably any Mexican too). Apparently, only ethnic versions of Cowboys are "cool."
Anyone else out there sick to death of the way in which we are glorifying "other cultures" and pretending that we don't have one of our own that's worth protecting?
Anyone else sick of our kids being taught Spanish while Spanish-speakers are not even "encouraged" to speak English???
Anyone else sick of PAYING for all this crap?
Because we are. Sesame Street is funded in part by a "Ready-to-Learn" grant from the "No Child Left Behind Act." That's our tax dollars. Public schools that still teach bilingually are funded by our tax dollars, and the social programs and handouts that draw so many here in the first place (and encourage so many to stay and remain as poor and ignorant as they are when they get here) are definitely paid for by our tax dollars--many billions of them in fact!
The way I feel is that if my great-grandparents had to give up their "Shtetl Chic" to avoid being persecuted and shut out of the marketplace of commerce and ideas, then why should today's immigrants be any different? Whether they be from Mexico or Manilla, I couldn't care less, the point is the same. It's not our job to teach our kids about how great it is to be like them, it's our job to teach THEM how great it is to be like US.
Problem is, too may of us apparently don't think it is, and that is what will ruin us in the end.
So let me get this straight, the NYTimes wants to protect Big Tobacco? I can't see any other reason they devoted so much space to Peter Jennings' Eulogy without ONCE mentioning that the guy was a lifelong smoker!
NORWOOD -- It was hard not to notice her, the woman lighting up in the funeral home parking lot after paying her last respects to a woman who lost her life to lung cancer.Denial can be more lethal than cigarettes.
That might explain, as well, why The New York Times managed to expend some 2,000 words on an obituary for Peter Jennings without ever mentioning that the ABC anchorman who also succumbed to lung cancer this week had been a smoker. Or why the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute failed to anticipate the outrage earlier this year when it appointed a tobacco industry executive to its board of trustees.
At my Aunt Peggy's funeral yesterday, a few smokers took pains to point out that the good-humored mother of eight never smoked herself. That she was married for 55 years to a veritable chimney was presumed to be beside the point.Lung disease took Uncle Vincent, too, as it had taken his brother, Daniel, my father, and a score of other McNamaras, including my mother, Frances. Most of them, like most Americans who die of lung disease, had been smokers.
To be reminded of the frightening numbers compiled by the American Lung Association is to be astounded by the continued tolerance of this killer in our midst. Lung cancer is the number one cancer of men and women. Smoking causes 87 percent of the estimated 160,440 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year. More than 440,000 Americans die each year from all illnesses related to tobacco use. Secondhand smoke causes thousands of additional deaths annually, as well as the hospitalization of hundreds of thousands for respiratory ailments. Smoking contributes to premature birth, low birth weight, and the epidemic of childhood asthma. It lowers economic productivity and raises healthcare costs.
If mercury levels rise in swordfish, we yank it off the menu and out of the market. Why then do we still sanction the sale of tobacco products? Why are our anemic public health efforts aimed at eliminating smoking in public places or restricting tobacco sales to those over age 18? Why do we talk about tobacco control instead of tobacco elimination? Why do we spend precious research dollars trying to develop screenings for early detection, instead of focusing scarce resources on prevention efforts?
And if Democrats are so concerned about our "chiiiiiiiildren" then why ARE they doing little more than their Republican counterparts (those most often accused of being soft on Big Tobacco) to ban smoking? So what if it's illegal to buy smokes until you're 18, if you grow up around smokers who are of age, you might as well be smoking yourself! If towns such as Brookline can outlaw spanking, why not outlaw smoking in a home populated by children under 18 huh? Seems to me a spanking or two (not a beating, just a smack on the tush) never killed or caused life-threatening asthma, but growing up around smokers has!
For starters, mokey-see-monkey-do, and whenever there's a mixed-message, kids will tend to pick the meaning that seems most "fun" or that allows them the greatest opportunity to "fit in" with their peers or what they perceive as "adult culture" (neither of which have their best interests at heart).
Ninety percent of smokers pick up the habit before they turn 21, an age at which no one fully appreciates either the consequences of their risky behavior or the nonnegotiable nature of personal mortality. That is why, despite health education classes and hovering parents, 22 percent of American high school students in 2003 identified themselves as smokers and every day more than 5,000 youngsters sample their first cigarette.State and federal governments are failing to protect our children. After tobacco companies were prohibited in 1998 from using such cartoon figures as Joe Camel to hawk cigarettes to kids, the industry began marketing candy-flavored cigarettes to them. That practice would have been prohibited by legislation buried last year by members of the House and Senate disinclined to give new power to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate an industry that contributes so generously to their reelection campaigns. Prospects for the bill, reintroduced in March, are little better this session.
In Massachusetts, a Republican governor and Democratic legislature for years have slashed funds for groundbreaking antismoking campaigns developed a decade ago by the Department of Public Health. A paltry increase in this budget cycle is unlikely to improve the record much from last year, when the American Lung Association gave the state an F for its smoking-prevention efforts.
The only hope I have, sadly, comes in the form of NON-smoker Dana Reeve who recently confirmed her diagnosis with lung disease. Now that Jennings has died and another celebrity has announced they have the same disease that killed him (in the same week), the media is finally doing its homework. They are finally reporting that women--be they smokers or non-smokers--are more likely than men to get the disease, and that non-smokers will make up 10-20% of new cases of lung cancer this year.
Clearly, there are still too many people making money off our ignorance and confusion, otherwise why would ANYONE light up these days? As long as media resources like the NYTimes focus more on the dangers of back-alley abortions than on the dangers of smoking, there will be people lighting up right after funerals for victims of this legal poison.
Oh, before you go comparing alcohol consumption to smoking, rest assured I'd rather see stricter punishment for drunk drivers and those who sell alcohol to minors than we currently have for LICENSED gun owners who shoot a robber in their own home during a robbery. And if smoking only killed the person who lit up, I'd be less angry too. I'm practically libertarian, remember? Problem with smoking is that it infringes upon the rights of ALL of us. People who live with or grow up around smokers are in danger, our healthcare costs are dramatically affected, our economy is affected when smokers get ill and don't go to work, and let's not even get started on the butts tossed out car windows, on the beach, sidewalk, etc... that will be here longer than the cockroaches!
Smoking is a FILTHY DISGUSTING DEADLY HABIT. If you can't find another reason to quit, just think of the people still getting rich off your bad habit and sock it to them. At the very least (if you're the type who whines about the evil rich who run Halliburton) acknowledge your own hipocrisy.
That's my new name for "liberals," like it? After I heard this story about how the "New York Slimes" was investigating the adoption records of Judge Roberts' children, it was clear that "liberal" just doesn't cut it anymore.
How disgusting, and yet, how predictable. Do whatever is necessary to ensure a woman's right to kill her unborn child (so people like the Roberts' won't have the chance to adopt it and give it a loving home and preppy outfits to wear on TV), even if "whatever is necessary" is going after thriving and happy (and LIVING) four and five year-old kids.
The NYT can disclaim Drudge's story all day long, they can claim it's all part of their "typical background check," but just imagine the reaction on the left if Judge Roberts were a pro-choice Democrat instead of a Republican. Actually, come to think of it, I think I'd like to see Teddy Kennedy's forehead vein explode, wouldn't you?
Next time you hear a Democrat whine about how it's "all for the chiiiiiiiiiiiiildren," or lecture you on how it "takes a village" to raise your kids, remember this story. I don't know about you, but I'd rather raise my kids on a deserted island than in any village populated by people who value killing the unborn more than protecting the already born.
Make no mistake kids, smoking kills. I know. My step-mother died of lung cancer at 52, and she quit at 36!
So for those of you who smoke, quit. I don't care if you're 16 and think you have all kinds of time to play with your health, figuring you'll quit in your thirties and be fine, quit. No time is too soon, and unless they've told you you're already dying, no time is too late.
For those of you who live with smokers, do whatever you can to get them to quit, or get ready to watch them die, and quite possibly get ready to die yourself. Living with smokers can be just as deadly as doing it yourself. My step-mother's parents both smoked so technically, she started smoking at birth. Kinda puts the quitting at 36 thing into perspective, doesn't it? Poor thing probably was doomed the first time she lit up.
And for those of you who think "Well my grandpa smoked until he died at 100 with a cigarette in his hand!" THIS IS NOT YOUR GRANDPA'S TOBACCO! What he smoked (and what mine smoked, until he was in his 70s, and he lived to be 94) was pure tobacco most likely--not the chemically manipulated poison the cigarette companies have been pushing for the past 50 years. And if your grandpa or grandma is still smoking and is older than you hope to be, consider them just plain LUCKY. That's right, part of surviving exposure to toxic shit is LUCK, or good genes, depending how you look at it. Some people can walk through a vat of acid wearing an asbetos mask and come out unscathed, others can smoke a single pack of cigarettes in high school and end up dying of lung cancer--some can just live or work around smokers and die from it. Do you want to play the lottery with your LIFE?
Finally, whether you smoke now or not, if you EVER have, or if you live with or work around smokers, or live in a polluted area, or are female (lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer, believe it or not), get an annual chest x-ray. This doubly applies to you if you get bronchitis, laryngitis or walking pneumonia a lot (yearly for example). They now know that all of these can be warning signs of something brewing, and yet ALL of them were missed for years in my step-mother (who had all of them, practically every winter). The tragedy of lung cancer is that it is so deadly (5 year survival rate is only 30%) primarily because it takes so long to be detected. Even that chest x-ray might miss it if it's small, but if you're a smoker, TELL your doctor and ask for more tests if you have any of the other symptoms. Even if you have persistent shoulder pain, shortness of breath going up stairs, and even if you are 30, don't be ashamed. If caught early, your chance of survival is much much better.
As painful as it was to realize that I had been right when I was a teenager and I yelled and screamed at my step-mother to quit or "You're gonna die of cancer!" I still wish I'd tried harder to get her to quit sooner.
If you smoke, quit. If you don't smoke, don't start. If you know or hang with people who smoke a lot, find new friends, move out, or do whatever you can to get them to quit. Whatever you (or I) think of Peter Jennings' politics (love them or hate them), he did NOT deserve this disease, no one does. Cancer of all kinds is heinous, but most lung cancers are preventable, so let's do what we can to prevent them.
Can we have a provision that a modicum of intelligence be required to vote? Seems to me the people (celebrities included) who marhed in this march don't qualify.
Do they HONESTLY believe that they're going to lose their "right to vote?" Do they further really believe that if they do, it will be all the eeeevil Bushitler's fault?
GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!
Perhaps if they actually shrugged off the giant chips their shoulders (the 40 year old ones) for five seconds, or long enough to READ what's being proposed, they'd calm down a bit. Restricting the number of kinds of photo ID you need to vote from 17 different types to 6 is discriminatory? I have to show a driver's license or a passport, I have no other options, should I feel put upon? D'ya think it's antisemitism at work? Hmmm...Maybe I should organize a march...
This is preposterous, and just another example of what the Democratic conspiracy to keep minorities poor and stupid hath wrought.
Introducing Lily Grace, the Insomnomaniac Baby #2! Ten fingers, ten toes (we counted with Emma, being sure to include the "Ah ah ah" after each number like the "Count" on Sesame Street).
Emma keeps asking me to "ope-ope" (the way she says "open") my belly so she can say "hi" to "Li-wee," but how do you explain to a 21 month-old that her baby sister isn't quite cooked yet? I'm not even sure she fully comprehends the fact that the baby is real and not just a game we're playing to explain Mommy's all-too-rapidly expanding girth, but at least we're taking steps to avoid having the arrival of a noisy, smelly interloper come as a total shock to her system (can you tell I was an eldest and have some angst about helping Emma adjust and not feel at all displaced?).
According to the docs, Lily's still due to arrive New Year's Eve. Well, at least I'll have something to do, right? I'm hoping she'll be just early enough to ensure a 2005 tax deduction, but not so early that we find her under the Christmas Tree! Not sure which is worse: being the Baby New Year or having your birthday too close to Christmas? Neither sounds appealing. Then again, my birthday is two days after tax day and both my Dad and husband routinely forget until reminded and then give puny gifts using taxes as an excuse.
I hope this delivery is easier than the last one! Then again, as my husband points out, even if it's only half as hard, it's still going to SUCK. At least this is the last (I mean it, LAST) time I'll have to go through this. I'm not a happy pregnant person. In fact, I don't trust those women who claim to "love being pregnant." To me, the clear skin, shiny hair and strong nails just don't make up for the goofy clothes, swollen ankles, inability to sleep on your back or stomach, constant puking (in the beginning anyway, which for me was three months long this time), vicious insomnia (worse than usual for me) and absent-mindedness bordering on senility, but that's me, I'm funny that way!
Still, it's all worth it in the end when you have that healthy child in your arms. I'd gladly go through my first labor all over again for Emma that's for sure! This child is so unbelievably adorable--the other morning, my husband and I went into her room to get her when she woke up, and she rubbed her eyes and smiled and said (gleefully) "Bofe?!" meaning "Both of you???" probably because she's used to seeing one or the other of us in the early a.m., and then she tilted her head to the side, reached out her arms and said (clear as a bell) "HUGS!"
If it were possible to literally melt, I'd have been a puddle on the floor instantly. These are the moments I have to memorize and recall when she's 13 and screaming that she "hates" me for some reason, right? Hehehe
Apparently, there are plenty of people who read this blog who have NO PROBLEM with stereotyping, and thus--I infer--with profiling. If you read my two posts below, and the comments thereto, you'd think everyone who lives south of the Mason-Dixon line (or, I presume, West of PA but East of California) is a "red-neck" "fundy" who eats at "Red Lobster" watches NASCAR all day and (I'm guessing) drives a pick-up with a gun rack in the window.
What I find ironic--no, MORONIC and suididal actually--is that these SAME PEOPLE who can't resist the urge to label, deride, mock, judge and (I presume) hate the people who live in states that voted for Bush (even when they--as NC does--have Democratic Governors and at least "purple" Legistlative bodies) have a major problem having police search anyone with a tan and a beard in the Boston subway and bus system! God forbid the police don't waste gobs of time and taxpayers' money searching moms with strollers on their way to the New England Aquarium from Beacon Hill. God forbid they forget to write down the ethnicity of each and every person they do search to prove how truly "random" they've been in their searches. God forbid they acknowledge REALITY: that while all Muslims aren't terrorists, all the terrorists who've attacked us and our allies have been Muslim males.
I just wonder how fast these same libtards would scream "PROFILE THE RED NECKS!" if our attackers were guys named Billy-Bob instead of guys named Mohammed? I wonder how often they'd refer to them as "bombers" instead of what they are--TERRORISTS--if Billy-Bob and his cohorts were killing us in the name of their Fundamentalist Christian ideology?
Does the expression "in a New York Minute" ring a bell?
There's nothing "liberal" about liberals, least of all those from Massachussets. They are not equal-opportunity lovers OR haters, they only care about those people who agree with them on every point they care about. Agree with them on everything BUT abortion, well you're a right-wing reactionary. Agree with them on abortion but not on gay marriage? Well, you're a homophobic cretin. There is no halfway or "moderate" point with them, none.
In this state where guns are considered more dangerous than drunk drivers and repeat sex offenders (literally--check the laws on all and you will see, if you want to defend yourself here, get drunk and ram your car into your attacker and you'll be in better shape than if you shoot him or her in self-defense with a LICENSED handgun) we have people who think it's funny, sane, cute and justifiable to lump an entire population of an entire region of their own country into one ugly stereotype.
All I can say is, I sure hope they enjoy living under Sh'ria law because if they keep acting like the problem with this country are its "red-necks" and not it's sleeper cells of Muslims, that's just what they'll get.
Oh, and to "someeuorpean," all I can say (if you really are European) is that it's going to happen to you a whole lot quicker than it will ever happen here, and who are you gonna call to bail your asses out then eh? Lest you forget, it's the so-called "red-necks" and "cowboys" who make up most of the U.S. military (God bless 'em). Maybe next time they'll take your insults to heart and tell you to go cry in your Q'ran, they're not risking life and limb to save your sorry asses from tyranny (again)!