Go Directly to Jail

I have been watching this story for a few weeks now and this dad just continues to piss me off. He may be heading to jail for violating his divorce decree by taking his three year old daughter to church.

Having taken my son to church for several years I think that I can say that a three year old doesn't get anything out of going except a snack and color time. There really is no reason to take a small child unless it is what the parent wants. Kids have no real concept until they are older. It is something for them to dread and have to sit still while their parents listen to long, drawn out speeches by people standing in front of the congregation.

When parents of different faiths get together, as these folks did, it should be decided what is going to happen when kids are born and what should be done or not done in regards to any religious education. In this marriage it was decided that they would be raised Jewish. Then after the divorce this guy gets something stuck crosswise up his ass and decided to bring his former religion in to the mix.

I would be as angry as this mom too. He got a television crew to follow him as he blatantly flaunted his disregard for the courts order. Granted they should both let it go until the kid is older and let them make their own choices, but since they have decided to go this route, I think the guy needs to get what is coming to him and go to jail.

The kid is three and has no idea what the parents are thrusting upon them. Just more nonsense in the name of God and religion!!

It's Lunch

No matter who you talk to everyone will have stories, or nightmares, about what they were either served or purchased for their school lunches. It is becoming the chat du jour these days with the First Lady getting gung-ho about juvenile obesity.

I applaud her efforts, but...what about the learning and examples that kids are meant to learn and see at home? Why is it that it has become the total responsibility of the scvchool systems/staff to ensure that kids get everything they need in/for life?

When I was in school my mom either packed our lunch and we ate what we got or traded. When I got to high school and could buy things I almost always bought the kind of stuff we did not regularly get at home. Stuff like pizza and burgers and most often the sweet treats and goodies.

At home my mom would make meals that had vegetables and fruits, some of them I really hated, but she insisted that we eat them. I still have a huge aversion to warm beets. I have a friend who will make separate meals for her kids if they do not like what the main meal is going to be. Are you kidding me?! Seriously I say no way. I never did that for my kid. He either ate what was for dinner or went to bed hungry and with no snack. It is not a crime to make your kid eat the food you buy and cook.

Granted I had more treats in my home, for my kid and myself, but I still turned him on to salads and other good food. he did not live on junk and did not take it to school either. What they do when they get older, in cafeterias and lunch places, is out of our control. They offer taco bars, pizzas with veggies and other decent fare. If you take away everything and try to go strict healthy I can imagine that most of them won't eat at all and will save that money to hit McDonalds after school.

When I was teaching many of the kids got free breakfast and lunch. Most of them either threw the lunch out, sadly, because there was fruit and raw veggies often. The breakfast was cold cereal and pop tarts. Nothing that they would not normally eat, but the kind of stuff that some would have done away with.

There could be some adjusting and creative, healthy changes made, maybe less sodas available and candy, but why not put the responsibility on the home and less on the school.

Wine & Scissors

The other night I got a bee in my bonnet. Or maybe I should say scissors in my hand!! This is what can happen after very long, stressful work days, several glasses of red wine and an attitude with the hair.

I have just gotten to the end of my rope with my hair. I am at work so often, with a sporadic day off and rarely two together, so I just got tired of the long hair. I have to pull it up to work and just got tired of having it down just one day here and there. Why wash it and go to all the trouble for one day and then pull it back up the next.

I had been toying with getting it cut. Well, once I did the bangs I felt bolder and did the rest of it. Actually my hairdresser thought it looked decent. He is just going to fix it here and there when I get the color done next time.

It does feel liberating!!

It's About Time

It's about time that the top military brass decided to let those who are gay openly serve! Seems that the top guys are now agreeing that "don't ask don't tell" just doesn't work or is not the right rule.


"The military's top uniformed officer declared Tuesday that gays should be allowed to serve openly in uniform, arguing that it is "the right thing to do.""

Yes it is. There is no telling the number of service personnel, who are gay and have taken the pledge to serve their country, but are afraid of losing it all if their secret would come out.

Little White Lies?

Seems that the group, Focus on the Family, may be telling a little white lie. With their much ballyhooed Tim Tebow choose life Superbowl Ad.

The story about his mothers possible, or offered, abortion in the Philippines may just be a tad untrue. Seems that abortion was illegal at the time and any doctor suggesting one could have faced death.

Interesting how the Christians can manipulate the truth when it fits the fact/story they wish to convey. Kind of like the bible too. Appears they have been doing it for quite a long time.

Let's Not Get Serious

The reason I watch the Superbowl is for the commercials. Although I am actually supporting a team this year too! Go Saints!!

Anyway..... I do not want to be bombarded with information about God, fetuses, Christianity and the like.

I know that money talks and they were probably hurting for revenue during this weak economy, but I want to have fun and laugh, I do not want to have someone else's moral etc. rammed down my throat. I will either watch so I have something else to blog and bitch about, or I'll just leave the room or change the channel.

Round Two

Kudos to Maureen Dowd, of New York Times, for writing an excellent editorial/article about the two conservative, Republican gentlemen who are now fighting the good fight on behalf of gay marriage!

Ted Olson and David Boies are fighting the good fight on behalf of those who continue to get besmirched by those calling down the power of heaven and hell to disallow them the same rights, as human beings, that the rest of us are allowed.

Great read!

Same Sex Marriage is an American Value

"Legalizing same-sex marriage would also be a recognition of basic American principles, and would represent the culmination of our nation's commitment to equal rights. It is, some have said, the last major civil-rights milestone yet to be surpassed in our two-century struggle to attain the goals we set for this nation at its formation."

YES! Newsweek has an excellent article about California's Prop 8 that would legalize gay marriage. It is about time.

Ted Olson, a lifelong conservative Republican, has joined the ranks of those who support the initiative. He is taking a good deal of crap for doing so. I applaud and respect his guts for going against the natural grain of his own party. I am thrilled that he sees the value.

"Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social and economic partnership. We encourage couples to marry because the commitments they make to one another provide benefits not only to themselves but also to their families and communities. Marriage requires thinking beyond one's own needs. It transforms two individuals into a union based on shared aspirations, and in doing so establishes a formal investment in the well-being of society. The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in this vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this, rather than lament it."

"This bedrock American principle of equality is central to the political and legal convictions of Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives alike"

AMEN!

Besides God, What the Hell is Wrong with Pat Robertson?

Pat Robertson needs a good flogging! Has this man no tact?

'In short, Robertson claimed that the quake was divine retribution for a pact with the devil that was sworn long ago...... '

Why doesn't someone just tell him that he needs to shut up!

He continues to open his mouth and spew absolute crap and then pins it on people's lack of God in their lives. Personally, I can't think of anything that would turn me more away from organized religion, or God, than Pat Robertson and his ilk.

Hello Angry Christians

Overweight & Godless

As someone who has never been model thin I was thrilled to see that someone was finally using models/beautiful women who are a far cry from stick-like! It's about time that the clothing industry/fashion folks got a good look at who the real women are and maybe make clothes for all of us! There are a few fashion lines that I have looked at and their largest size is a medium!!

'In the '00s, the fashion industry talked the talk about curvaceous models. In the '10s, it might actually walk the walk.

Share

Top model says sometimes she thinks it would be nice not to be so nice.

The upcoming issue of V magazine, on newsstands Jan. 14, features a bevy of Botticelli-bodied beauties, flaunting their figures in everything from cut-out Gucci bathing suits to bottom-hugging Guess jeans to nothing but red lipstick, gold jewels and a pair of heels.'

Some magazines have been known to use computer work to minimize the size of Kelly Clarkson and Demi Moore on their covers. Clarkson raised hell after Self Magazine did it to her and many were happy to hear it.. There is nothing wrong with hat girls size and it was good to hear her put these fashion people in their place!

"Body size. Presently, it's a subject of great debate in the fashion industry. In one corner, editors are calling for an end to size zero clothing samples; in the other, designers are whittling down the women in their ad campaigns to cartoonish proportions. Everyone, it seems, has voiced his or her opinion on the issue, making it one of the most highly blogged and heavily Twittered about topics of the day. Here's our stance: big, little, pint-sized, plus-sized -- every body is beautiful. And this issue is out to prove it."

Tiger Woods may need many things in his life, but the suggestion of Brit Hume that what he needs is Christianity is a big, fat joke! Really Mr. Hume? Just another arrogant example of a Christian that feels that his way is the right way and it is the balm for every one's woes.

I have yet to find any use for it during any personal strife. It never did anything for me when I used it and now that I am free of its stranglehold I am free to think for myself and make my own decisions.

Tiger and his wife have many decisions ahead of them, but none that I see God stepping in to. The arrogant Christians should try and keep their opinions inside their churches and sheeple hordes. The evening news is not the place to state your personal religious views. You haven't heard any prominent Atheists coming forward to offer them advice. If I were to offer any it would be," Deal with it on your own terms and tell everyone else to butt out"!

Freethinking

"Humanism and Secularism will receive some great national media attention this week as Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, by Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, will be the subject of this Wednesday 12/23's episode of NPR's "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, and of a segment on Sunday 12/27's ABC World News with Diane Sawyer."

Something to look for if you are home this weekend.

I was recently informed that there IS a group on our local college campus for freethinkers! A fellow atheist told me about it and I looked them up. They will be resuming meetings when the semester resumes in January. I am looking forward to meeting with and talking to like minded folks in my area.

It's about time.

Such a Day!

Yes, I spent most of this morning in the ER. Not something that I had planned or relished. I thought that I was having a heart attack at work. It was scary. I finally called EMS. They took me in and this is where the story picks up.

By the way, John took the pictures to get me to smile, he takes that camera everywhere. I did smile.

I have been feeling a heart flutter for about two weeks. I have also been feeling anxiety, an inability to deal with life & work in general. Light headed, feeling like I was going to pass out at work. Waves of nausea and light headedness. I have a girlfriend who had a heart attck at my age and it had me even more anxious.

So they hooked me up to all the gadgets & gizmos. Took me in with oxygen on and all kinds of pokes, pricks and prods! Not to mention all the blood they took. Enough that I was craving a big, bloody hamburger afterwards!

After a few hours of waiting for the blood work to return it turns out that I have a totally non-functioning thyroid. If you were not aware of this fact, your thyroid controls your metabolism. Since mine does not work at all it was contributing to depression and other health issues.

I am taking some beginning meds and they said since I have none that I should begin to feel a vast difference soon and I am looking forward to that! It means blood work regularly and I will be taking them for life, but it beats the alternative!!

By the way, the nurses loved my hair!!

Welcome Back

A recent article, in Newsweek, states that activism for AIDS is returning. Something that I have been wondering about for some time.

I have always been a supporter of the movement, but in recent years I was quite dismayed that so few people were seemingly concerned or active in doing things about awareness etc.

I was most surprised, when teaching, at how little correct information kids seemed to have. Both high school and middle school students still carried around such outdated ideas about HIV/Aids and all related issues. So I had activists and speakers come in to school and do presentations. I personally continued to make donations, wore tee shirts and ribbons and bracelets to keep myself visible. I have looked for local groups, but there are none around here. Sadly, one would have to go to Cleveland to find the nearest activist group. Even on a college campus the cause has lost momentum.

"In my early days as a board member and earlier, there was a great deal of concern, worry, angst about HIV that has settled into this kind of benign complacency," says Marjorie J. Hill, CEO for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Many people, she says, thinks AIDS can be treated with a pill, and that living with the disease is now similar to living with diabetes or heart disease.

Of course, HIV/AIDS is not nearly under control: it affects 33 million people worldwide, and in America, it's the No. 1 killer for women under 35, according to the MAC AIDS fund. The Centers for Disease Control reports that new infections have not declined in the past decade, and while people under 30 are at the greatest risk, so are those in their 50s and 60s. As patients living with HIV/AIDS get older, more potential side effects of the drug cocktails become apparent, including premature aging and dementia. And while many people think AIDS as a medical condition is no big deal, people are still afraid to confront it. "The stigma against people with HIV is still so strong," says Hofmann, who notes that fear of social consequences has kept many patients silent. '

How can it be the number one killer of women under 35 and people are just not that interested anymore? Especially when it is just not a "gay disease" any more! Like they say, the stigma is still quite strong, and people do not want to talk about or be associated with it.

Not only was I personally involved with someone who died from AIDS complications, but my brother-in-law had been the first person in Northeast Ohio diagnosed back when it first came out as a named disease and he was an active motivator in and with issues involving HIV/AIDS for many, many years. Sadly it did not kill him. Asthma did.

Even though I have many conflicting feelings towards my employer I am at least happy to say that they do make donations, like yesterday fro World AIDS Day, they donated 5 cents from EVERY hand crafted beverage sold. We sell mugs and coffee for the cause.

There are many other places, such as the GAP, who sells tee shirts, there are others who have bracelets that will make donations from their purchase. There are those still involved and still caring.

Maddness

I watched this show once or twice, it was humorous and snarky, but not anything I want to go out of my way to DVR. That being said I did have to laugh when Time asked in a recent article if the show was "anti-Christian". Who cares!! I am SOOOO tired of this whole movement, started by the Christians, that suggests that everyone is out to get them.

For a better part of this year we have had to endure an onslaught of articles and news chatter about how the entire well-being of Christians is at stake. Maybe they just need to get rid of their televisions, stop reading books other than the Bible, and just stick with folks of a similar mind. Seriously, maybe they need to find new places to hang their hat and leave the rest of the world alone!

There is still a great deal of unoccupied land in the Western U.S.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Had my eyes opened. Took my corporate blinders off. The company comes across with all their cool,"we support causes and act on conservation", B.S. Yet they are really just another corporate entity complete with typical conservative values, beliefs and behaviors.

Guess the economy must be getting stronger because our fearless leader is giving himself a nice raise, or maybe it is just a cost of living increase! He had seemed to be feeling our pain when he decided to take a salary of $10,000 in 2009, but looks like he is jumping up to 1.3 million for 2010. Mama must need a new pair of shoes!!

That aside, I don't know him personally so I can only speak about the people that are in my personal orbit. That is where this all begins. I just am not the cookie cutter type management people that fit in with them. Seems that their idea is to use me for some ones maternity leave and then let them stay at my current location and move me a drive from home. Or I could just turn down the promotion, stay where I am and make enough money to get by AND go back to subbing until I can get back in to a school.

I went to a training class this week and they sent my boss a really crappy e-mail about my look and a few other tid bits. They had asked for us to share anything that we felt needed to be anonymous and then they went and included that in the e-mail too! Now this is going to stir up a whole ton on crap for me and others at work. So much for trust and anonymity. Assholes.

John says that I have been doing WAAAAY too much for my boss and the company for no increase in pay. That is just how I am and I am sure that some of you can relate. You just want to see stuff get done and you are driven and want it to be done right. I have always been a leader. That is how I ended up in charge of many different organizations etc.

It is hard to back off and let go. Today made it much easier. My regional person was in and did not even speak. Walked right past me as if I was nothing and that is the person who knows about my desire to get promoted AND is responsible for said promotion! Hell, even my boss did not introduce me to the regional other guy even as I was standing there putting my coat on!!

Needless to say I am tired and pissed off with the whole bunch and ready to throw in the towel, but like most of middle class America I am stuck because I need the health care. I am just another statistic stuck in a job I hate because I need the health care.

Moral,Schmoral!!!

Something needs to happen with the health care system in this country. End of story. I won't claim to have all the answers or even begin to dissect all the arguments.....BUT.....

I am sick, sick, sick to death of hearing about the abortion issue holding crap up. I am tired to death of people STILL using this outdated argument as a reason to argue!!!! I can not believe that there are so many kids/families out there who can not afford to care for themselves and yet abortion is still a sticking point.

This article, at Newsweek, points out that there are MANY other so called "moral issues" involved in our health care debate than just abortion.

Married Gay, Stoned and Vacationing in Cuba

Slate magazine says that it is time to end the prohibition on gay marriage, travel to Cuba and the legal stigma attached to pot.

Aside from the Cuba issues they are topics that I have felt strongly about and have spoken of often. It's time.

Weird is Good

We must overcome the notion that we must be regular. . . it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. Ute Hagen

Today's Meditation: In our family, "Weird is good." Whenever one of us does something that goes against the norm or that seems to be a bit strange, we tell that person, "You're so weird!" And the response is always, "Yeah, and weird is good!" In this way we allow ourselves to stray from the normal--and not just to stray from it, but to embrace the abnormal, the different, the unusual. In the regular things of life, there's very little--if anything--left to be discovered. Because so many people strive to be "regular" every day of their lives, they take away the new and the extraordinary from that regular side of life, and they convert it into the boring and the usual. Mediocrity rules in the regular because the regular doesn't encourage us to take chances or to move in new directions or to try to find the new and extraordinary. Our whole lives long, we're encouraged to be regular by teachers, parents, friends, relatives, and other members of society. If we're "regular" kids, we won't embarrass our parents. If we're regular in the classroom, the teacher won't face any new or different challenges. There are times when being regular can be valuable. My employer would like it if I can maintain a certain degree of regularness in my job. My step-kids would appreciate it if I'm regular in my financial dealings so that they don't face serious financial problems in their future. But regular doesn't have to rule our lives. There's much of the extraordinary out there in the world, and if we're to find it, then we have to look for it. And we can't do that by settling for mediocrity and boring status quos.

Questions to consider: From where do we get the notion of the value of being regular? What kinds of new and different things do we discover when we're focused on conforming to what society sees as "regular"? What's the value in settling for mediocrity?

I loved this thought today. It has been a very long time since anyone, including myself, have seen me as a "regular" person. I tried for many years to change my image and inner self. Tried to be what I saw as acceptable in society. By the way I dressed, wore my hair etc. That was also a big part of my "church shopping" years as well. The trying to fit in and be a regular part and person of the acceptable parts of society and the community.

It wasn't until a few years back that I began to find my way back to my "real" self. The person that I had been in my early 20's. The girl that did not fit into any particular mold. The girl that read a great deal and questioned many things. A funny thing happened as I was bringing her back....I began to feel comfortable, once again, in my own skin! But....I also began to face opposition from the "main stream". I had forgotten how that felt. The churchy folk did not care for the "real" me and that was when I saw the hypocrisy and silliness of it all and got out of there ASAP!

I had been brainwashed for much of my child's life thinking that in order to be a good parent that I had to look and be just like the rest of them. I had to do things the way they all did them. I let myself be molded by mediocrity.

Now that I am free from it all I have discovered so many exciting things about life and myself and my place in the world. I enjoy it all so much more while traveling to a different drummer. Finding your own beat can make all the difference.

Doing the things I need to do in my work life, even when I was teaching, can all still have a flavor of me. I don't have to succumb to the demands of the status quo. Freedom is liberating. Breaking the bonds of regularity & mediocrity has made all the difference!!

Viva la difference!!!

Playing Dress Up

My pal and I dressed up as beverages today at work. Our other friend dressed as "Toddlers and Tiaras". I hope to have some of those pictures later. I wanted to get therse out there. It is the first time in a very long time that I have actually made something to wear for Halloween. It was fun and a big hit as well!!