Here's an open letter to the self proclaimed "Rosa Parks of the Peace Movement": Ms. Sheehan, As a longtime advocate for peace, I am appalled at your grandstanding. While I have tried to work for peace since I was old enough to stand the concept, you apparently had no problem with the concept of war even as you raised your son and watched him pack to head away to Iraq in a war he was WILLINGLY fighting. In fact, you seemed perfectly content to watch OTHER mothers send their children t...
LW wrote an article regarding the looters in New Orleans and pointing out that the majority shown on news clips were, in fact, African American. Of course, the resultant backlash came about, accusing her of racism. But the backlash, as usual, missed a point. You see, one of the adages that we have always heard since childhood is "Birds of a feather flock together". When the black community accepts as its leaders such men as career extortionist Jesse Jackson and inflammatory racist Al Sharp...
OK, ground rules here, this is not a partisan attack. Just because George Bush and Dick Cheney made their money (and continue to make their private fortunes) in oil, does NOT mean I implicate them in having a direct effect on pricing oil. And I believe that any accusation of such impropriety should be backed with proof, NOT mere speculation. That being said, I'm greatly concerned about the long range impact of this price spike. This comes immediately before one of the biggest driving weekends...
As many of you know, I am a news carrier (ahem! Media distribution specialist!) for the newspaper in the community nearest us. As some of you also know, I recently began working a second job with a Major Fast Food Chain (MFFC), initially with the intent of making enough extra to make a payment on a decent car, rather than continually throwing money into an endless stream of junk heaps to run my route. What began as a job to get EXTRA income has now become a job for ESSENTIAL income, and ...
One of our newer bloggers, schwarzmeecrob, wrote an article about an,err, encounter with some "organic" nachos ( Link ). He was less than impressed, and I don't blame him. In my years long battle against my waistline, I have usually tried to eat healthy (current Big Mac addicted status notwithstanding). I have tried it all to find food that was pleasing and satisfying. And "fake junk food" was at least consistent in that it always cameup woefully short. You see, fake junk food is manufac...
Link OK, I could give two shits on this one since I am about as likely to buy a Garth Brooks album as I am to contribute money knowingly to the DNC, but still (shakes head)... According to the link, Brooks has signed an exclusive distribution deal with WalMart and Sam's Club. That's right, when Garth puts out more music, it will only be available in the censored music capitol of the world. Now, distribution deals like this are nothing new. In fact, they're appearing to be all the ra...
Just a few miles east of the town nearest our own there is a sign. Not just any sign, this sign is a typical state highway road sign, arrows pointing off in various directions, in this case, two. The highway forks, and one fork of the highway, if followed far enough, will take the driver to Enid, Oklahoma. In this case the distance is just over 200 miles. Enid is the closest to a hometown I've ever known. I grew up in a rather nomadic existence, shuttled variously between my parents and vario...
As most of you know, my internet access is part time. As most of you also know I have ideas stewing in my head, sometimes for as long as three or four days, before I can find time between my two jobs to head to the library and get on the computer. So, it is quite possible that some of my articles are a little less than topical. Given those two facts, it also goes without saying that I don't have the time to peruse every forum article that has been posted in my absence. I don't even have ti...
I was reading the blog of another person whose material I read because I regard the person as a "friend" in the acquaintance sense of the word. Interestingly enough, we've never met...but there's a scant degree of separation between the two of us. And if it were not for the internet, this person would remain a complete unknown to me (although we probably wouldn't know the same people). Here's how it went down, for you newbies. You see, my family and I had moved to a forbidding hellhole so...
I have said it before and I will say it again: the reason we have poverty in this country is because it is big business, providing jobs for social workers, lawyers, help agency staff (where millions are raised in funds from rich suckers with guilty consciences and high administrative costs make the help agencies a lucrative prospect), and "trickle down" economy jobs from secondary symptoms of poverty such as crime, etc. A recent situation in the nearest reasonably sized town to us prov...
Flag desecration was once supposed to be a HUGE issue. Remember that? Politicians, wearing portions of the flag as articles of their clothing, often ties (ignoring the irony that their OWN actions are, technically, considered desecration as well) standing on their soapboxes and promising the full force of law to come down on Americans who desecrate our nations sacred fibers? Or how about cross desecration? Doesn't go over big in the Bible belt, last I heard. And, last, but not least, how a...
There have been a slew of articles on the issue of teaching Intelligent Design in the schools, so, it's only natural that I add my 2 cents here. While I am a devout Christian, I don't know that any lengthy discussion of Intelligent Design is appropriate for public schools. The primary reason, as stated by others more eloquent on the subject than I, are the lack of hard data to support the theory of ID, which belongs in the category of religion/philosophy, rather than science. Public education...
I have long used the term "victimless" crimes to discuss nanny legislation I would personally prefer to see abolished. While I knew the term was less than perfect, I used it as it was a generally accepted term with which most readers could identify. But, as we learn, we grow and evolve, and one of my latest readings has been the Peter McWilliams book "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do", which speaks of consensual crimes in America. He uses the term "consensual" crimes because many defendants ...
This is for all you CPS apologists out there: Link For those without the time, or inclination to follow the link, I will rehash the story. A North Carolina family has spent the last year fighting authorities over a picture the wife took of her husband holding up their year old son and kissing him on the belly button. The photo developer took the picture, saw the worst, and notified police, who also saw the worst. The children (the baby and his half sister) were taken away and the f...
Not long ago, LW blogged about her neighbor, now moved on to warmer mooching pastures. LW had done everything she could to help this neighbor out (enough so, in fact, to have people accuse her of being "Christian" on enough occasions for her to blog about THAT). But what LW brought out in her experiences is the psychology of greed, the fact that no amount of giving is ever enough. And it was followed up with another self deprecating "America Sucks" article that insisted that we as Americans n...