RNC SURVEY
My husband received the 2009 Republican Party Census Document in the mail the other day. I thought I might fill it out to let them know what we think. Sadly, I quickly realized that all the questions were worded so as to elicit Yes answers, and all of them pertained to some imaginary form of the Republican Party that is nothing like the one that actually exists right now. Such as this gem:
Should the Democrats' so-called Stimulus Bill with its wasteful pork-barrel spending be repealed?
Now of course I answered Yes to this, but I had the huge urge to scribble in the margin: You no-good, yellow rats. You and Pres Bush opened the door for all this with the bank bailouts and now you're going to act like your hands are clean?
All the questions were worded so that any typical Republican would answer Yes to all of them. I answered Undecided on one Patriot Act question and No to a euthanasia question, not so much because I'm fully decided on that issue but just because I was starting to feel like my Yes answers were being taken for granted. If you design a survey with the intent of obtaining all Yes answers, you probably aren't very serious about really checking the pulse of your constituents.
Other questions annoyed me too, like:
Should Republicans filibuster judicial nominees who bring a personal, left-wing agenda on social issues to their jobs as judges?
Yes, but they also should filibuster any nominee with a blatant right-wing agenda. Judicial agendas are a bad thing, no matter which side. Don't get all high and mighty.
Should the Republicans continue to support the State of Israel?
Seriously, if anyone answered No to that, I wouldn't know how to keep my cool. I'm furious that it was even considered one of the 27 most important questions the RNC wanted to ask its supporters.
So I get to the end of the survey and start to think that my participation is pretty worthless. What have they learned from me? That I follow the basics of the right-wing talking points 93% of the time? That seems like a pretty worthless thing for them to learn about me...especially when I feel like they aren't answering Yes forcefully enough to most of these questions. Or they're totally missing the boat by not asking questions about immigration or gay marriage to really test their base and see how people feel.
So I was disgusted by the survey and didn't really think it was worth my time to mail it in. Then I noticed the final question:
Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?
Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing my most generous contribution of $500, $250, $100, $50, $35, $25
Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $12 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey.
No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.
And that's when I about flipped my lid.
Those are my choices? Either I mail you $250 or I love socialists? Really? That's the absurd choice you printed on this lame survey? It couldn't possibly be that I don't want to send you any money because this Democrat Lite you've been shoving down our throats for years is flawed? It's not possible that I think you're all a bunch of spineless sycophants who no longer represent me? That you're all just a bunch of wimps who are afraid of looking racist, sexist, classist, timecist, or whatevercist, so you grant the premise, thereby compromising our values and losing all moral ground?
And you want twelve wing-wangs just to cover the cost of this preposterous survey? You sent me a survey that you crafted so I'd answer Yes to every question, and then you want $12 for the pleasure of having me reassure you that you're on the right track? Not even close.
And don't think I didn't remember the irony of this paragraph from Tyler Cowen's book:
Does the Republican or Democratic National Committee make you angry? Run up the costs of their operation. Choose one non-profit you do not like and send them twenty bucks. Once is enough. Mention that you are thinking of putting them in your will, or perhaps let it drop that you play at the local polo club or own a yacht. Keep your name on their mailing list. Send in all future changes of address. This action will drain that cause, and it's like-minded allies, of hundreds of thousands of dollars for years to come.
You're lucky I'm only mad right now and not devious.
You want my support? Stop wasting money. Stop wasting it within your own organization by constantly sending me mailings begging for money and asking me to please use my own first-class stamp to help you cut down on costs. Stop wasting money once you're in office by playing Democrat Lite and pretending that this massive disaster we're facing doesn't exist. And I'm not even talking about Obama; I mean the fingers-in-ears we've been doing for years over Medicare and Social Security, the War on Drugs, Education, you name it. Stop taking in our tax dollars and pretending that you can fix anything. You can't. The only fix is to tell the American people to keep their own money, suck it up, and take care of their damn selves.
Stop wasting money. Stop asking for money. Stop creating surveys you already know the answers to.
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So, I'm not really sure where you stand on this, Sarah... *snort*
I agree totally. On the same wasting money tangent - Air Force Guy sends back all unsolicited credit card applications with trash in them. As heavy as he can make them, since they're all pre-paid envelopes. Someday they'll stop sending that crap out.
That stupid survey wasn't to actually GET opinions, it was a psychological ploy to make people think they're opinions are valued and matter and to make people have the feeling they are contributing to the national direction. The Democrats do it, too - I got tons of obnoxious "surveys" soliciting money because of my party registration before we moved out of CA.
Did they send a prepaid envelope with it? I would totally print out your blog post and send it back to them with the notation that they don't NEED false stupid survey money begging - they should actually ask for people's opinions.
Probably won't do anything, but it might make you feel better.
Posted by: airforcewife at June 07, 2009 02:54 PM (NqbuI)
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YOU should run for office. If you were on a ticket, I'd vote for you and I'm NOT a Republican.
Seriously though, you understand what the Republican party is supposed to be and you fiercely protect that. That's so much more than what I see from most Replublicans and the politicians that are supposed to be representing them.
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It's amazing how reliant some organizations and businesses are on tiny response rates. How many Republicans fill out junk like this - and mail it back? How many people buy the junk being sold by spam?
Your key line is:
"If you design a survey with the intent of obtaining all Yes answers, you probably aren't very serious about really checking the pulse of your constituents."
They want you to tell them they're OK. But they're not. And they'll keep doing whatever they want anyway. And call it "right-wing" and "conservative".
Notice the use of vague words like "left-wing" and "liberal". I doubt the survey allowed you to define them from context. From my perspective, the Republicans are becoming increasingly left-leaning liberals. By not defining these terms, they hope the respondent will assume that the Republicans are the 'good guys' fighting against a vague yet menacing enemy whose details are left to the imagination - it's as eeeevil as you want it to be.
I plead guilty to having used such vague terms myself, but I think you and I at least agree on what they mean for us. I don't think the RNC thinks of themselves as "left-wing" and "liberal". They define themselves as The Other. We're Not Them. I'm Not Obama. That is not an attractive message, as McCain should have learned (but probably didn't). It's a defeatist message. It lets the enemy define you. It reeks of weakness.
This whole letter is one long expensive confession of weakness. Help us! Reassure us!
But you won't.
I have never been a Republican and I certainly am not going to sign up now. Their opposition has been pathetic. The presidential election was embarrassing.
And I think the party will only become more self-destructive over time. I'm no insider - I barely can stand to glance at them at all - but I suspect they think they failed because they weren't cool enough. Not Obama enough. They want to be duh-lightfully D-lite and expect you to express your approval of this new duh-rection with your money. When the money - and the votes - stop coming in, when more people like us refuse to support their travesty, while the Original D take over, the Meghan McCains will think they need to move even more leftward and drive the party straight over the cliff.
I don't see any happy ending.
The American people don't want "to keep their own money, suck it up, and take care of their damn selves." The Omerican peOple want the gOvernment to take care of them. This includes the so-called Republicans, moderates, and even libertarians who cOnverted during the last election. Even non-cOnverts haven't thought out the issues the way you have. How many Republicans vote out of habit instead of - it's soooo hard! - thought?
This survey is crafted for the reflex Republicans, the mindless who will vote for anyone bearing the sacred letter, regardless of what it stands for, bailouts, amnesty, whatever. They are only capable of instinctively reacting to icons. To them, the R is all that matters.
But it is ideas, not mere labels, that really matter. How do we sell our ideas to a complacent, poorly educated populace including reflex Republicans? Are they willing to listen? Can they even understand us? When they get back Air Force Guy's stuffed envelopes, do they even know what that means?
The only language their superiors understand is money and power, and I'm not giving it to them. No payments, no votes, nada. Just opening their envelopes makes me feel like I'm wasting my time.
I've seen bloggers like you, commenters, so-called ordinary people, blow away these alleged superiors in terms of both intellect and knowledge. Those in power are so often those who least deserve it.
We can't expect a McCain to become whatever we want him to be. What is he going to do, rely on printouts of TTG to keep him straight? No, he's just going to remain a D-lite-fool maverick.
Since those in power do not and will not stand for us, I see only two ways out. Either we take power ourselves or leave the system. Like Val, I would love to vote for you. Move over, Palin, this Sarah is the real deal. I have met you. You have the charisma to win people over. More importantly, you have the ideas, the ability to think, the desire to grok. Alas, all that is lost on our people. Some of them might even confuse you with Palin! I am ashamed of Omerica, this thing our nation has become. The gulch looks more attractive all the time. Yet it too is not realistic.
Will we just have to sit back and laugh like Judge's earlier creations Beavis and Butt-Head?
Will those who say "uh-uh" to both Republicans and Democrats today be saying "huh-huh" someday?
Posted by: Amritas at June 07, 2009 10:20 PM (b3Ptv)
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When I get one of these pieces of tripe, I fill it out in red pen, adding in my own answers, instead of the "toe the party line answers."
Any questions that piss me off get special consideration--like anything on immigration, gets the response of "your last candidate for president was a fucktard when it comes to immigration. Borders exist for a reason, and if your candidate isn't willing to enforce them, I won't vote for him."
2nd amendment-- "If your candidate can show me one instance, just one, in all of human history, where limiting access to handheld weapons has made the population safer, I'll vote for him. Otherwise, he should be running on a platform of repealing all gun "control" legislation."
Healthcare--"It's not a right to have healthcare provided by the government. Show me where it says that in the constittution, or take the correct stand on it--all people have a right to emergency, lifesaving healthcare. They also have a right to pay for it, and the free market has produced the greatest healthcare system in the world, and screwing with that is ridiculous. If they want free healthcare, they can join the military."
Then, when the begging starts, I write, with big bold letters on the donation form--"Since I turned 18 and my opinion mattered, I've voted along republican party lines, for the most part. However, I'll not give youany of the money I earn until you actually put forth candidates who are truly conservative and understand the role of government the framers intended. Stop trying to be "democrate lite" and start acting like conservatives. Clean house and drop those who are supposedly republican, but vote according to popularity polls. (John McCain, for instance.) Start taking a hard line on who you support for office, and clean house within the party, evicting those with questionable voting records and even more questionable morals. Until then, you won't see a goddamn dime from my wallet."
Then I sign my name and give contact information if they want to discuss issues with me.
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As a direct mail professional, let me assure you that this isn't a real survey, it is a fundraising piece. The survey is the hook to get people involved. It isn't about gathering data, it's about gathering donations. You took it seriously (as they hoped you would) but then it made you angry, understandably. It was never intended to be any kind of serious survey.
I get about 50 pieces of political direct mail a week, and most of it is just awful. Lots of sleazy fake surveys like the one you're writing about. Also lots of envelopes with 15-digit "official" sequence numbers on them, trying to make it look like it's some kind of big deal. (This was also a favorite of low-life mortgage brokers.) The message from direct mail like this, of course, is "we think you (our prospective customer/voter/contributor) are an easily-manipulated moron."
I think every industry forever bears the stamp of the era of its greatest success and growth, and in the eyes of most direct mail people (maybe Amy is an exception), it's always the 1950s, or rather some 1950s stereotype in which all the prospects are yokels, easily taken advantage of by the slick operators from the big city.
Posted by: david foster at June 08, 2009 03:53 PM (SpkYG)
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I don't do THAT kind of direct mail, more like official correspondence from companies, statements, things like that, along with other types of print/marketing materials. Nothing political for me. But I am aware from industry publications and the like that this is a predictable way to get people to open the piece, read it, get drawn in to answering the 'questions' and then hopefully donate. It's definitely hokey, as are the pieces where key sentences are underlined, like the sender actually took your letter and individually emphasized key parts. Or how about the ones that look like a page torn out of a newspaper with a post it attached? All kinds of tricks exist. What I also find interesting is that this whole direct mail approach has now moved over into the online world and they are trying to use a whole bag of tricks to get you to open emails, click on banner ads, follow links, etc.
Posted by: Amy at June 08, 2009 07:15 PM (9fDOS)
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Sarah! You're my new best friend! errr. wait. maybe that's old best friend. Anyway, the Republican party has a total inability to produce a piece of mail or information without pissing off a giant bulk of the intended audience. I'm not quiet about that fact, and I don't think that it's inherent to the GOP. But, when you're freaking not in control of the presidency or congress, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, one would think you'd find some better marketers.
You want my vote? my money? my time? quit freaking spending *any* time on these pointless pieces of crap. Did someone have a deadline and had to get something in the mail and this was the best they could do? Seriously? It's insulting.
Run for office. Or don't, really - why would you want that? Be the man behind the man and let's change these idots who think they can keep pulling the same crud again and again. I'm forwarding your post to my congressmen. And to the people who've suddenly placed me on their rediculous email campaign. I'll likely get a crap form-letter response, but hey, it's worth a shot.
FROM SMALLVILLE TO GITMO
So I'm still watching Smallville, even though it jumped the shark long ago. I can't give up this far into the game.
I've always wondered if the writers intentionally make parallels to the GWOT, or if it's coincidental that I find these metaphors. And lately, Clark Kent's slavish adherence to his moral code has begun to grate on me.
Green Arrow is a good guy, but he doesn't see the world as black and white like Clark does. He killed Lex Luthor to save Clark. And he nearly killed again last week to save Clark again. He's a good guy, through and through, but there's some Jack Bauer in him: he sees that the ends justify the means in some cases, and he weighs the fate of one against the fate of many. And to him, the fate of Clark Kent is intensely important.
He and Clark have butted heads in recent episodes, namely because Green Arrow wants Clark to kill Doomsday (I know, I know, stay with me just a little longer) but Clark wants to try to save him. Then Green Arrow admitted that he had killed Lex. Their animosity culminated in this exchange last week:
GA: You don't have the guts to take out that murdering bastard, so I come in and mop up your mess, and what do you do? You get all self-righteous on me. We do what we have to do, Clark.
When Clark isn't buying it, Green Arrow says that even though they don't always see eye to eye on methods, they're still on the same side. Clark looks him dead in the eye and says, "No we're not."
Clark's life and work is made inherently easier by the fact that Lex Luthor is no longer alive. He is now free to save lives instead of battling Lex, and Lex can no longer try to kill him. Instead of thanking Green Arrow for saving his life and helping neutralize the threat, he insists that, in killing his enemy, Green Arrow has now become his enemy. He denounces Green Arrow and says they're not on the same side...because
Green Arrow killed a murderous megalomaniac who was hell-bent on
killing Clark Kent, the last, best hope for mankind?
I find that frustrating.
GA: How many more lives are you willing to sacrifice if your plan fails this time, Clark? Put your ego aside; you have a responsibility...
CK: My only responsibility is to do what's right. Like it or not, we stand for something. We set an example for others to follow, and if we don't, then we're no better than the people we fight.
Does that sound like a waterboarding debate to anyone else but me?
What has been bugging me about Clark Kent lately is that he calmly accepts fallout from not taking action. Doomsday has killed hundreds of people, but Clark refuses to kill him out of morality. It's wrong to take a life, no matter whose. And killing Doomsday instead of trying to rehabilitate him is outside the bounds of Clark's code of conduct.
And I call baloney on that, like Green Arrow does.
Clark had the chance to kill Doomsday last episode and he didn't take it. So the body count keeps rising as more innocent citizens of Metropolis keep dying. I don't understand how Clark is making the more moral choice. He doesn't want to be responsible for taking a life, but by refusing to act, his inaction is causing the death of far more people.
In fact, Clark's morality is so black and white that he refuses to even kill in self defense. And I suppose that's a sustainable position for the Man of Steel, but for those of us not blessed with bulletproof skin and the ability to turn the earth backwards on its axis, things may not be so stark.
I find parallels here to the current discussion of enhanced interrogation methods. For me, it's not black and white. There are factors we can't know and can't control. There are choices that have to be made, and the fate of one does have to be weighed against the fate of many. Moreover, I personally find the whole discussion after the fact to be disingenuous. It reminds me of an opening thought experiment in The Black Swan:
Assume that a legislator...manages to enact a law that goes into universal effect on September 10, 2001; it imposes the continuously locked bulletproof doors in every cockpit (at high cost to the struggling airlines) -- just in case terrorists decide to use planes to attack the World Trade Center in New York City. ... The legislation is not a popular measure among the airline personnel, as it complicates their lives. But it certainly would've prevented 9/11.
The person who imposed locks on cockpit doors gets no statues in public squares, not so much as a quick mention of his contribution in his obituary. "Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease." Seeing how superfluous his measure was, and how it squandered resources, the public, with great help from airline pilots, might well boot him out of office. ... He will retire depressed, with a great sense of failure. He will die with the impression of having done nothing useful.
So now in hindsight we're trying to assign blame and point fingers, when we -- the general public, those of us who are not privy to top secret documents -- have no way of knowing what was prevented by some of these "enhanced interrogation techniques." And hell, in one case we do have a pretty good idea of what was prevented: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad spilled the beans on further attacks in other US cities. Like Clark Kent, we get self-righteous. We say what we would do in the scenario, but we just simply don't have all the information to make that call. So we discuss it in our homes and our coffee houses, from a position of safety, because other men shoulder the burden of protecting us, thereby enabling us to sip coffee with clean hands.
For me, there is a lot of gray in this issue. There is a line to be drawn, and I believe we should discuss where that line falls. I suppose I have a modicum of respect for people who say they wouldn't use waterboarding even if their own kids' lives were on the line, because I too have said that my values aren't relative, and that I wouldn't abandon my values to save my own family. If you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, I can respect that. It's not my position, but I try to respect its lack of hypocrisy, the same as I do for people who are strictly pro-life in all cases, including rape and incest. Not my position, but at least it's internally consistent. So I can muster respect for the worldview, even if it gives me pause.
Because I still think there is a debate here. I find myself frustrated by people like Jon Stewart, and like Clark Kent, who insist there is no line at all. That doing anything -- even just forced nudity and sleep deprivation -- to protect American lives makes us no better than terrorists.
I just don't think it's that simple.
And the simple-ness of Clark Kent has been bugging me lately.
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I don't think values are relative, but I would abandon everything except my god to save my family.
Framing of the question is an issue here. On the left, "waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong under any circumstance." On the right, "In certain circumstances, torture is acceptable."
Take circumstance out, and you either accept torture as a method or not. The arguments for "not" eventually boil down to setting a "higher standard" in effect, we are better than that, or than them.
Dunno how the left parses tolerance, diversity, and an idea that they are better than another person or group.
As a solider, I cast no aspersions that I will be tortured and murdered if anyone from our current enemies list captures me. If torturing an enemy saves one friendly, then its worth it. If torturing an enemy yields no results, then do it. Let the world know that we torture our enemies in ways most inhumane and foul. Let them know if they use children and women as shields, we will shoot through them to kill our enemies. They'll stop using them as shields, or run out of shields. Let them know that on a global stage, we are the cutting edge in torture. (no pun intended.) Let them know that if they are captured and choose not to cooperate, they will spend the rest of their lives in abject hopelessness and pain.
oderint dum metuant Let them hate us, so long as they fear us.
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This Smallville plot reminds me of what might be the most controversial Superman story ever. Fans are still debating it over 20 years later.
On a parallel Earth where Superboy died before becoming an adult, three escaped Phantom Zone villains run amok and eventually kill all natural life* on that planet, reducing it to a dirtball without an atmosphere.
(*There is a single artificial life form that survives; she is a synthetic replacement for that planet's original Lana Lang who was one of the trio's first victims.)
Superman travels to that world. He discovers the trio are each far more powerful than he is since that universe's Kryptonians are not like his species. Unable to outfight them, he depowers the trio with Gold Kryptonite and seals them in a cubic prison.
General Zod laughs at Superman. "You may have robbed us of our powers, Superman, but that will avail you nothing! We will find a way to get them back! We will find a way to get to your reality. And we will destroy you and your world!"
Superman cannot send them back to the Phantom Zone because the Phantom Zone projector his dead Superboy counterpart used was destroyed and its technology is alien to him.
Superman sees only one course of action. "You have ruthlessly murdered all the people on this planet - five billion humans! That is a crime without equal! The Nazi Holocaust pales by comparison!"
Zod smirks. "And what can you do, you who wear the mantle of Superboy? You share his pathetic idealism. You cherish life, even ours. And that is what makes you weak!"
Superman takes out a canister. "I'm not weak, Zod. It is you who are weak. You three, who have used your powers only for evil. That is the easy way. And while you are powerless now - you are still Kryptonians! What I must do is harder than anything I have ever done before. But as the last representative of law and justice on this world, it falls to me to act as judge, jury ... and executioner."
Superman uncovers the canister to reveal Green Kryptonite.
Criminal Quex-Ul strangles Zod before succumbing to Kryptonite poisoning. Faora begs Superman for mercy before collapsing and dying.
Superman sheds a tear.
What would you have done if you were Superman?
Superman was rebooted in 1986, just as Star Trek was recently rebooted.
In the last pre-reboot Superman story, Mr. Mxyzptlk engineers a plot that exposes Superman's secret identity and leads to the death of almost everyone Superman ever loved. Mxyzptlk has a power not even Superman can beat - magic. Superman's powers are physical, not mystical. Mxyzptlk is immortal and omnipotent. He declares that he will spend the next 2,000 years being evil out of sheer boredom. Superman has seen enough carnage over the last day. If left unchecked, Mxyzptlk will kill again and again.
Superman faces Mxyzptlk with the Phantom Zone projector that can beam criminals into another dimension. Mxyzptlk says his name backwards to teleport back to his home in the fifth dimension just as Superman fires the projector at him. Torn between two dimensions, Mxyzptlk dies.
Superman explains his reasoning to Lois: "I just couldn't risk letting anything that powerful and malignant survive, so I made up my mind and I did it. I broke my oath [against killing]. I killed him."
Lois says, "B-but you had to! You haven't done anything wrong."
Superman closes his eyes. "Yes, I have. Nobody has the right to kill. Not Mxyzptlk, not you, not Superman. Especially not Superman!"
Superman exposes himself to Gold Kryptonite to depower himself. From that moment on, Superman is no more.
Years later, we see that the former Clark Kent has assumed a new identity as regular human Jonathan Elliot, husband of Lois Lane.
In this story, Superman committed what he thought was the ultimate crime and punished himself for it. This story is not controversial. In fact, it is beloved and has been reprinted unlike the other one. Is it better or worse? I leave that up to you to decide.
I won't discuss torture except to point out one thing. Killing Doomsday, the Phantom Zone criminals, or Mxyzptlk definitely eliminates evil. The dead don't kill again (unless they're zombies). But torture is less definite since it may or may not work. One can favor the execution of murderers while still rejecting torture.
Posted by: Amritas at May 13, 2009 12:15 AM (Wxe3L)
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I should also point out that execution in the real world isn't as clear-cut as my Superman examples make it out to be. We don't always know for sure if someone will kill again, and sometimes we don't even know for sure if someone had killed anyone to begin with. Fiction is rigged: e.g., we know with absolute certainty that Mxyzptlk will go on a two-millennium murder spree. There is no question of future crimes or past guilt. He has to be stopped. Permanently. Period. So some may favor Superman as an executioner in comics but still be less enthusiastic about execution in reality.
Posted by: Amritas at May 13, 2009 12:29 AM (Wxe3L)
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I've always thought it both interesting and strange that among German
opponents of Naziism, there were quite a few who were willing to risk
(and often lose) their own lives but were opposed to killing Hitler
beause they viewed it as "murder."
Posted by: david foster at May 13, 2009 11:52 AM (ke+yX)
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Excellent post. Very thought-provoking - thank you! :-)
On a related note, I watched Taken last night. Also thought-provoking, along the very same lines...
Posted by: kannie at May 13, 2009 01:42 PM (S6srO)
DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE
I was looking for an old blog post and stumbled upon something remarkable...
Here's an interesting little dig I found in the MSN movie review for Day After Tomorrow:
The Story: A paleoclimatogist (Dennis Quaid) races to save the world
and his Manhattan-trapped son (Jake Gyllenhaal) from an impending Ice
Age brought on by the effects of global warming (or, as the gun-shy Fox
marketers call it, "global climate change"), which causes cataclysmic
hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, hail, heat and a colossal tidal wave.
Not for the weatherphobic. [emphasis mine]
Amazing what a difference five years makes. Nowadays, it's not a right-wing conspiracy to call it "global climate change"; it's the preferred nomenclature! (Pssst, because we're not warming anymore.)
Who knew that Fox was the vanguard of global warming terminology?
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Wow, great find! I'd love to see who was using "global climate change" in 2004 as opposed to who was using it this year. Unfortunately, Google can only find results within the last year, and archive.org doesn't support word searches. But linguists armed with webmining tools could get the answer ... at least until Minitrue liberates us from the inconvenience of the past.
Posted by: Amritas at May 06, 2009 04:58 PM (+nV09)
MY RUN AT MISS AMERICA
Unliberaled Woman posted again on Miss California. You know, this story has really been bugging me. Unliberaled Woman is right that it's a huge double standard for Perez Hilton to say that she should've "left her politics out" when he asked her such a question. What did he expect? A majority of Californians recently voted to ban gay marriage, but he somehow assumed that she was not one of those people. And then got mad at her for not being what he wanted her to be. Unliberaled Woman said:
It’s unfortunate that liberals continue to play from the standard persuasive tactic of “your viewpoint must cater to mine despite your individualism because your perspective might be offensive to me despite the fact my perspective could be offensive to you.”
I think that is a great way of phrasing this type of behavior. Don't ask a controversial question if you're not ready for a controversial answer. (And remind me again what's so controversial about the majority position in this country! Again, see The Occult Meaning of "Controversial" at Powerline.)
And honestly, when I heard Hilton's question for the first time, I thought of a way more radical answer. Let's see how well I play Miss America:
Perez Hilton: Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit, why or why not?"
[Big vaseline smile] "Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage." [Oy, that was a bit stumbly, Miss California. But I'm right with you up to here. Now here's where I'd diverge.]
California can be whatever the people in the state want it to be. They can have universal health care, high taxes and wealth redistribution, environmentally restrictive building codes, labor laws that favor the laborer over the employer, and cliques and factions that support this or that version of political correctness. They can do that, and (as IÂ’ve said before) I would fight to the death their right to make those decisions.
I support the right of any state to legalize gay marriage by a statewide vote. If it passes, it is the law of the land. But I also support the right of states to ban the practice. And I firmly support the right of every American to "vote with his feet" and move to the state which best represents his principles and values.
So, no, I don't think that every state should follow Vermont's example of legalizing same-sex marriage...only the states which put the issue to a vote and decide through the ballot box to legalize it. And I would respect the vote of the American people no matter which option they chose in their states. That's what our country is all about.
Thank you.
(Yeah, I don't think I'd end up Miss America either.)
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at April 23, 2009 07:43 AM (KoNtx)
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Heh - I'd LOVE it if someone started in on a real live soapbox like that, just for a change!!! :-)
Posted by: kannie at April 23, 2009 09:07 AM (iT8dn)
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I wish you WOULD be Miss America though!
And I agree with everything you've said. Most especially regarding Perez Hilton. I can't believe he said that she should keep politics out of it. That was a poilitcal question! And a quite controversial one at that! For Pete's sake.
My only remark would be that it is an unfair generalization to say that all liberals expect people to feel the same way they do and get offended when they don't. Perhaps this is again my opinion based out of my region of the country, but I see just as many republicans behave the same way. To me, it's an issue of whether the person is an intelligent and respectful person or not, regardless of political affiliation. I personally don't care what a person believes as long as they think carefully, respond intelligently and try not to be as offensive as possible along the way. To clarify the last point: people's emotions are they're own responsibility. However, many times people make stupid remarks that are meant to insult those different than themselves. So I am not referring to the easily offended.
Posted by: Sara V. at April 23, 2009 09:24 AM (+ji5f)
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first off who gives 2 shits about Perez....seriously.
second great answer, very WWLD.
Posted by: AWTM at April 23, 2009 01:56 PM (8lhB1)
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I take umbrage with the fact that he asked her opinion and then judged her based on her opinion--not by its content, well-reasoned logic, or even her ability to express it, but simply because he didn't agree with it.
And Chucks answer would've been even easier:
Personally, I can't understand how anyone could enjoy taking it up the ass, or look at another man's hairy ass and say, "oh, I gotta have that". As far as marriage goes, what the hell, homos have as much right to be miserable as the rest of us. The simple fact is that I am not gay, so "supporting gay anything" isn't in my self-interest. I could care less if you can marry or not. A power not given to the federal government in the constitution is left to the states, or the people. I support that you have as much right as any other to change or petition for redress of grievances, but marriage or "civil union" is a contract no different than any other contract between two people, and the government shouldn't have any authority over that contract than they do over a contract between me and someone who rents a room in my house.
Having said all that, ewww... queerbait!
Posted by: Chuck at April 23, 2009 04:44 PM (meX2d)
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OK, just wanted to let you know that I love your lengthy political pieces but I'm almost always handicapped by two different things to prevent me from commenting: 1. the overtaxed brain can never think properly to form the right intelligent comments and 2. Fluffy the Spamhound says I can't!
I'm just giving you the FYI ... cause I love your blog.
Posted by: Darla at April 23, 2009 05:56 PM (QXKMC)
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Hi, i've been reading your blog for awhile but have never commented.. Was just hoping you could help me understand a little better...
I live in Australia, therefore, whilst I have some knowledge of American goings on, I find it sadly lacking.
So, just to clarify; I understand California voted no to Prop 8. My question is, what happens to all the marriages that occurred between its introduction and its exclusion? Are they annulled? Or deemed illegal once again?
What are the rights concerning those parties involved in relation to powers of attorney and such?
Also, in relation to the recession we're all finding ourselves involved with, what is the timeframe that America is expecting it to last? How effective has it been upon small businesses and those of the working class?
I don't expect figures or statistics or anything, just an opinion on how long it's expected to continue..
Ta much,
Justine
Posted by: Justine at April 25, 2009 10:45 PM (eBntH)
HARMFUL?
I had to work this afternoon demonstrating another science kit. This one was aimed for four year olds, so it was pretty basic. But the kids seemed to have fun.
I thought of this recent Joanne Jacobs' post (via Amritas) while I was there. I was looking over the other science kits on display, and the one for the kids aged 8+ had a warning label: "This set contains chemicals that may be harmful if misused." On the back of the box was the list of contents: gelatin, sugar, baking yeast, and food coloring.
Now I freely admit that chemistry was my weakest subject in school, but I'm having a hard time figuring out a combination of those contents that could be harmful. Am I missing something? Or is this an example of warning labels gone wild?
It's a far cry from the 1950's kit with uranium and a geiger counter!
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Anything is harmful in the hands of MacGyver!
But MacGruber would be blown up before he could do anything with that kit.
Posted by: Amritas at April 11, 2009 08:06 PM (Wxe3L)
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Hmmm...
I guess if my kids spilled the dye & stained my carpet, I might harm them.
If you have gluten sensitivity, maybe the yeast could make you feel bloated?
Sugar...well, that's just the DEVIL, right!?
I'd be interested in knowing what combination of those things would be harmful. I guess the key is 'misused' but I have trouble envisioning that too!
Posted by: Guard Wife at April 12, 2009 02:16 AM (TWet1)
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GW (not Bush!), I think we always used Paas kits in the kitchen which had a tile floor to avoid staining the carpet.
I might harm them
Sounds like you need a warning label! That's what T-shirts are for ...
Posted by: Amritas at April 12, 2009 10:29 AM (Wxe3L)
UGH
Just another one of those days where everything goes wrong: it's a training holiday but my husband's company was made to work; had to run an errand for a friend and stood in line forever behind a lady on a cell phone who couldn't decide on a Gatorade flavor; still in pain but can't take meds because I had to go to work, etc. I didn't think it was possible to be in a worse mood today. It was. Remember my nice new windshield? Not so much anymore.
I give up. Let's go back to bed.
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HERE WE GO
Tra la la, tra la la. Here we go down the slippery slope:
Sarah Anderson, an analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies and an advocate for more stringent controls on executive pay, said she hopes the AIG situation will prompt Congress to pass heavier taxes on executive pay even at companies that are not receiving government funds. [emphasis mine]
[...]
“They need to put restrictions on all forms of compensation at these companies,” Anderson said.
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AIG BONUSES
Everyone seems to be talking about the AIG bonuses. The freakiest quote I've heard so far?
"We've created this mess. Everyone's responsible for allowing executives to receive these bonuses," said George Ayoub of Toronto, Canada, an American who was visiting Los Angeles. "Probably every company needs to be nationalized, and the government will own the corporations instead of the corporations owning the government."
Wow.
Guard Wife has a good post explaining contract law. And Glenn Beck got in the game and showed just how inconsequential this $165M is in the grand scheme of things.
And this is the problem with government meddling in business:
Experts in corporate law said the Obama administration has an important advantage in the controversy. In return for the bailout, the government now owns 80 percent of the company. "They're the big dog in the room now and can put some leverage on AIG to straighten this out," said attorney Jim Ervin, a partner at Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff Llp in Ohio.
Now that Obama owns you, he can force you to break contracts, which, according to my understanding of Boortz today, means an even bigger payout:
Here's something I'm guessing you don't know. The Financial Services Division of AIG is headquartered in Wilton, Conn. In Connecticut they have a little gem called the "Wage Act." This law says that if an employee has to sue for wages payable pursuant to a contract they recover twice the amount that is contractually owed. That would have meant $330 million instead of $165 million. Add some attorney's fees on top of that. So ... you're running AIG. What would YOU do?
So tell me how getting worked up over this makes any sense!
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LYING BOOKS
Teresa found a list of the top ten books that Brits lie about having read. Heh. Well, I've read six of those ten books, and two of them in the original French. So la di da for me.
And I wouldn't read Ulysses or Dreams From My Father if you paid me. I took a course in college where the professor offered that if any one of us could 1) read and 2) understand Ulysses, we'd get an automatic A in the class. No takers.
Incidentally, I find it hilarious that people are lying about having read Obama's book.
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I've read only one! The first one, of course. And I might have read it in 1984 (or was it late 1983?).
I started reading the Bible back in 1992, but never finished.
Did you read all seven parts of Remembrance of Things Past?
I'm surprised Obama's book isn't number one.
I wonder what the American top ten list would look like.
Posted by: Amritas at March 06, 2009 11:36 AM (+nV09)
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Amritas -- Oh yeah, you're right: I only read the first book of Proust. Whew, that was plenty though.
Posted by: Sarah at March 06, 2009 12:03 PM (TWet1)
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Yeah . . . I wanted to read 1984, but never did.
I've read the Bible, but it's not really one of those books people read all the way through at once. I've read every word at some point, but never in order, and never all at once.
Teresa makes a great point, though, which is why I probably didn't do well in my AP English class: I could never figure out why all the books people insisted where "great literature" had to be so damned depressing.
No joke! We had to read Crime and Punishment in AP English. The only reason I passed that portion of the class is because my boyfriend read it, loved it, and explained the rest of it to me. I was depressed enough by life – I didn't need a modern Russian author making it worse. :p
Give me my sci-fi and fantasy brain candy!
And Ayn Rand. Because she makes literature WORTH it!
Posted by: Deltasierra at March 06, 2009 02:06 PM (fPHZv)
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Top 10 books Sovereign Kingdom University students claim they've read:
1. القرآن Al-QurÂ’ān
2. Dreams frOm My Father
3. The Audacity of hOpe
4. The Communist Manifesto
5. 毛主席语录 Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, a.k.a. The Little Red Book
6. 김일성 전집 Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works
7. 세기와 더불어 With the Century (Kim Il Sung's autobiography)
8. 김정일 전집 Complete Collection of Kim Jong Il's Works
9. Mark Zepezauer, The CIA's Greatest Hits
10. Anything I wrote
Posted by: kevin at March 06, 2009 09:59 PM (Wxe3L)
DESIGNER BABIES
I thought I'd weigh in some thoughts on the "designer babies" thing that hit the news. I don't know if I'm gonna say what you think I'll say.
Two years ago, back when we thought we could control our destiny, my husband and I had a discussion about which month of the year we'd prefer our baby to be born in. Subtract 9 months, and that's when we should get to work. I can't even laugh at us because I still find it so frustrating. We also had a definite gender preference and a few other minor desires.
Nine months later, when I finally did get pregnant, I had been hit with a good dose of perspective. I wrote that I had decided that none of these preferences mattered anymore, and that all we wanted was a healthy baby to join our family.
But when that baby died, and then the next one did too, I started to lose that sense of perspective. I hate to say that I started to feel entitled to happiness. We now deserve to get exactly what we want -- boy and girl twins, of course -- because of the heartache and headache we've endured. And now at this point, if I could make it be twins, I would. I would also select for gender if I could. And one of my worst fears is spending these years trying to have a baby and then to get one who has severe health problems or birth defects. I would factor that out as much as I could.
So I kinda understand where these people are coming from.
I haven't yet had to do IVF. IVF is rough. It's painful. People who do it have been through years of sorrow and then endure physical, chemical pain in order to conceive. And I don't blame them if they want to tweak the results a little bit.
I don't see this becoming The New Thing. I don't imagine that people are going to bypass the regular old having-sex route to babies and opt to spend tens of thousands of dollars and give themselves painful shots, just so they can pick blue eyes.
And, from the CBS article, I don't give a rat's behind about this "worry":
Secondly, you're going to have the rich using these technologies, and that's going to advantage them further. It's not going to be something the poor get to do.
Cry me a river. Conversely, the rich aren't going to get welfare checks to raise their 14 babies.
I understand people's revulsion to the "playing God" aspect, but I've never heard anyone bring up this argument. I'm open to discussion on this idea, and I know I haven't thought every aspect through, but I can sympathize with these IVF patients that they feel they're due a little control in their lives. I grok that.
I heard Rick Santorum on TV the other day discussing this, saying that artificial insemination is an abomination against God. It reminded me of the time Bill Maher said that people who can't conceive should "take the hint."
The only abomination is being emotionally and financially ready to raise a family and to find yourself thwarted.
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I do see this becoming the next big thing among the wealthy actually. There have been many studies done about how physical attributes affect how others treat you and increase your future income. For instance for every inch over 5'8" you earn (typically) and extra $800 per inch.
This is just one more advantage they can give their children. Blond hair and blue eyes are traits that people find more attractive. And they are just getting started. What about height? or IQ? What if they can isolate a gene sequence for musical genius? This does put lesser economic classes at a disadvantage. Unless of course health insurance starts covering fertility treatment (that's a whole other issue)
I don't believe you should be able to even choose the gender of your child. Look how well that's working out for China? It starts us down a slippery slope that sounds scarily like eugenics.
I understand that people think they deserve to have what they want because they have spent good hard earned money on it. But they are not buying a car. It does not work that way.
I very respectfully disagree with you on this.
Posted by: Mare at March 04, 2009 04:16 AM (APbbU)
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I have an argument pro-gender selection: I know of some cases where both parents were carriers of a genetic disease, and if their child was of one sex it would have a 50% of being afflicted, and if it were the other it would only have a 50% of being a carrier. They profiled a few families where they had already had one child who had died, because of having this disease. So they decided to spin the sperm so as to separate the x and y chromosome carrying ones, to favor the sex that would only become a carrier. Some would disagree with this, saying the other sex should still have a chance, but I think this is a completely valid argument. It's a choice for gender, not for gender's sake, but for the sake of having a healthy child.
But of course that could be the beginning to a slippery slope, but I still feel that in some cases it is justified.
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at March 04, 2009 05:03 AM (irIko)
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Rick Santorum and his wife have already had one child die, and it is highly likely that their most recent baby (whom I believe is about a year old) will also die. She's a Trisomy 18 baby, SEVERE birth defect. So he's not just speaking off the cuff about birth defects from the pulpit of several easy pregnancies and healthy kids.
I get both sides of this - I really do. I had my own problems getting babies to "stick" and short of abstinence as a married lady I got pregnant no matter what. For a long time there I felt like I was having miscarriages rather than periods - that was just my personal "cycle." I think if I had been able to choose gender selection to factor out one of the issues causing my miscarriages I probably would have.
But then I wouldn't have had my son.
So that leaves me back at, "I have no idea what the answer is."
Posted by: airforcewife at March 04, 2009 05:58 AM (Fb2PC)
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AFW, I did not know that about Santorum, which does make his statement look less crappy. But I still disagree with him.
Posted by: Sarah at March 04, 2009 06:40 AM (TWet1)
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Yes, we do not have to agree with someone because of their family tragedies and you would think it would make them more compassionate. However, I do sympathize with their problem.
I still have faith that you will have a baby or two or more. Human beings are so complicated but the biological trend is reproduction. I also think it would be great if you could choose what you get, in this case and others like it. I definitely don't like the Chinese thing of aborting the sex they didn't want. They do have a problem now of not enough women. Serves them right!
Posted by: Ruth H at March 04, 2009 06:54 AM (hBAQy)
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Appearance matters. As a short nonwhite person who has to look up to nearly everyone every single day, I think about this all the time.
Even so, I don't think it counts as much as other things. The advantages of height, blond hair, and blue eyes are trivial compared to a prep school education or an Ivy League degree.
The children of the rich are more likely to have all of the above in the future. And more, like IQ due to associative mating and a better environment. If equality is a concern, why worry about their hair color when there are bigger causes of disparity? Why not ban everyone whose parents have an income higher than $X from private schools? Every seat taken up by some Paris Hilton should go to a poor kid who really wants an education. I've seen rich kids waste space in expensive schools. It's disgusting. It's not fair.
The big questions are, what is 'fair', do we enforce 'fairness', and how do we enforce it?
There is a slippery slope favoring the elite. But there is another slope in the other direction exemplified by Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron". I doubt anyone really wants an HB-like society. But that still leaves an enormous spectrum of possibilities.
And in any case, the rich would pay for genetic engineering. Banning something won't make it go away. Let's suppose genetic tampering were illegal and the press found out that Richie Rich was an unnatural blond boy. Should the parents be fined? Jailed? What about Richie? Is it 'fair' for him to live with advantages his parents bought for him? Should he be subjected to a 'fair' random genetic remix? (I'd like to write a story about that ... without the trademarked characters, of course.)
Posted by: Amritas at March 04, 2009 07:25 AM (+nV09)
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Ruth -- I agree that the aborting of babies based on gender is abhorrent. While I might not mind the practice in a petri dish, once it was implanted, the choice would be made and done.
Amritas -- Thank you for reminding me of "Harrison Bergeron." And I think you're right that hair color isn't as important as other factors. Ha, wouldn't it be funny if there turned out to be some sort of physical trait affirmative action backlash? That people who got ahead based on their looks would then be suspect of whether their looks were natural or genetically chosen for? Ha.
Posted by: Sarah at March 04, 2009 07:57 AM (TWet1)
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Neat speculation, Sarah. Also, the perceived 'value' of physical traits might change along with their frequency.
I didn't address enhanced IQ and musical genius, which seem to be much more important than physical traits for determining a child's future. Could one ban mental 'improvements' but allow (certain?) physical ones if they are trivial? I don't think the mental 'upgrades' will necessarily lead to what parents want because of free will and environment. I have seen high-IQ people squander their intelligence. Rich parents could buy IQ, but not necessarily nurture it. And even if a kid is forced to jump through intellectual hoops, he may still reject the cerebral life when he grows up. Ditto for music. Kids aren't robots. You can't program them, not even genetically, to do what you want them to. Buying raw materials does not guarantee a house. As you wrote,
It's a waste of your money, but you have a right to waste your money.
But do we have a right to change our children? For better, for worse, or in any direction at all? People are capable of the craziest things. The potential for engineering ... arguably detrimental traits exists. Does affordability equal morality?
Posted by: Amritas at March 04, 2009 09:32 AM (+nV09)
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I have no problem with gender selection (in this country, anyway, as I think things would balance out here even if they don't in China), and I don't have any problem with the selective avoidance of disease or genetic disorders.
When it comes to picking and choosing traits (IQ, natural talents, hair/eye color, etc.), I start to feel uncomfortable. And for me it is sort of because of the "playing God" thing. I mean, IMO, such choosing should have been done by the choice of your mate. The choice of a mate (or in certain IF cases, of the sperm/egg donor) is when (again, IMO) you choose your children's potential intelligence, their potential talents, and their potential looks. Digging into their DNA to cut & paste desired traits sounds to me like it has the potential to cause more harm than good, both in potential "side effects", and in the increased ability for a rich parent to treat their child as a trophy, like a fancy purebred dog, rather than as a loved and treasured member of the family (Something I have already seen among certain mothers of overseas adoptees in some of the more affluent areas of our city - the "Oh, where did you get yours?" thing that makes me grate my teeth when I hear it).
Basically, I'm not a big fan of the idea of genetic engineering if it is not for a specific medical purpose - to avoid disease or defects.
Posted by: Leofwende at March 04, 2009 10:26 AM (jAos7)
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CVG - In that case can't they also do genetic testing to see which zygote's aren't carrying the defect? If they were trying to skew the odds in hopes that they would all not have the gene then I have no problem with that. What they did was no guarantee, they were just trying to better their chances. I fully believe science should be used to better the odds that a child will not be born sick.
Amritas - Nothing in life is fair. It's sucks, but there it is. No one is entitled to anything. I got picked on when I was little for being heavy and I've gotten picked on as an adult for being un-naturally tall. I spend half my time in the grocery store getting things off the top shelf for people so they don't hurt themselves climbing up. I think this designer baby thing would become the next 'in' thing. People respond to physical attractiveness more favorably. Will that be the 'edge' that gets a kid into Harvard? Maybe.
Your scenario would make an intriguing short story.
Posted by: Mare at March 05, 2009 03:56 AM (APbbU)
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This reminds me that I need to watch Gattaca again.
Posted by: Leofwende at March 05, 2009 07:59 AM (jAos7)
ANNOYING
OK, so I love my husband a little less right now.
I need something on his laptop. It is turned off. It is password protected.
I figured I could guess it. My husband is the only person in the world who could know my password based on the prompt question, but he would know it instantly.
My husband's prompt question is absurd. I have no idea what the answer is.
1
OK, so I love my husband a little less right now.
1% less of infinity is still infinity:
Pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idam
Pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
Pūrṇam eva avaśiṣyate
That is whole, this is whole
From the whole, the whole arises
When the whole is taken from the whole
The whole still will remain
- Isha Upanishad
(Pūrṇa literally means 'full' and is cognate to 'full'.)
Is the question in Persian? That wouldn't help.
Posted by: Amritas at February 27, 2009 07:36 AM (+nV09)
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The title of this post also describes the struggle to post comments here!
I must see this message at least a dozen times per day - if not per comment!
Due to high levels of comment spam, commenting at mu.nu has been suspended for a brief period. You will be able to comment again as soon as the flood of spam abates somewhat. Please try again in a minute or two.
We apologise for this, and believe us, we hate spammers even more than you do.
Yeah, yeah, I know ...
Posted by: Amritas at February 27, 2009 07:54 AM (+nV09)
UNSETTLED
I'll admit that I've been watching too much Glenn Beck lately, but I have worked myself up pretty good this afternoon over the future of my country and the world. Hugo Chavez cancelled Valentine's Day, China said flat-out that they hate us, and Iran and Russia are testing nukes together.
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You know my fondness for China, so I immediately clicked on that link and have to say that I agree with the guy...I don't think he means that China hates the US, but he hates it that the dollar has become such a poor investment, because of decisions by our government. Yes, it came out poorly, but I think this is similar to Rush saying he wants Obama to fail. I think Luo meant he hates it that we are cheapening things like this, because the dollar used to be the mighty dollar and now it's not. I don't know, but I read it that way...?
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at February 25, 2009 12:52 PM (irIko)
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CVG -- I'm not shocked that he means it, I'm just shocked that he said it out loud, so blatantly...and what it means for the world economy.
Posted by: Sarah at February 25, 2009 12:56 PM (TWet1)
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OMG in a dorky way. I was watching him and thinking of you! I bet you like that planetarium coming to IL. So bizarre ... the state of things.
Posted by: wifeunit at February 25, 2009 01:18 PM (t5K2U)
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I agree with CVG about Luo Ping. I was expecting a lot worse. Marg bar Amrika-worse. I'd rather have him say what he really feels than pretend to be our friend.
And I do share your fear about the world economy. When America falls, it will take the world down with it. The Chinese are not the superpower some have made them out to be. Luo may realize how dependent China really is.
Posted by: Amritas at February 25, 2009 03:04 PM (Wxe3L)
"Just the fact that they put a monkey with gunshot wounds in his chest, it gives the idea of an assassination," said Peter Aviles, 48, a building superintendent.
I sure hope Peter Aviles was sufficiently outraged when Death Of a President came out. You know, the movie about assassinating George Bush, not just a drawing of a monkey that some people think was meant to be Obama. (Which I think was a lame cartoon, but not a depiction of Pres. Obama.)
If the President is a Republican, it's fine to call him a "chimp." In fact, it's morally superior. But if the President is a Democrat, you can't call a chimpanzee a chimp lest someone think you might have been referring to the President.
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I am so sick of this moronic cartoon. If any other animal had gone berserk and been shot, the cartoon would have depicted that animal instead. Would Sharpton be complaining if a lion were shot? Probably.
Posted by: Amritas at February 20, 2009 12:36 PM (+nV09)
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I always have to do my deep breathing exercises to lower my blood pressure after reading these posts. The disconnect is. so. *frust*rating.
Posted by: Lucy at February 20, 2009 07:04 PM (HGFog)
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So then following that logic I would say that comparing President Obama to Lincoln and JFK gives the IDEA of assasination.
All I can say is WTF? Srsly?
Posted by: Mare at February 21, 2009 03:15 AM (APbbU)
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Mare,
All comparisons of the One with others are an insult to Him because they violate tawhid. Like Allah, Obama is
... a thing, but he is not like other things; he is omniscient, all-powerful, but his omniscience and his all-mightiness cannot be compared to anything created.
His uniqueness makes me feel thrills up both my legs!
Posted by: kevin at February 21, 2009 06:53 AM (Wxe3L)
BABY MAMA
Last night the husband and I watched the movie Baby Mama. We had thought about seeing it for a long time but we weren't sure if it would make us laugh or make us depressed. It turns out that it made me laugh until about the last ten minutes. Then I hated it, choked back tears, and wanted to strangle someone.
Spoiler alert: I am gonna talk about the end of this movie.
more...
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A shite ending to be sure. Mark really likes saying what Stefani says when the natural birth proponent asks who is gonna use evil bad numbing drugs. Like if you were to ask him 'Do you want some chocolate milk?', he would give that as his answer.
Do you have any idea what I am talking about?! I cannot attempt to spell that. I can but I keep erasing it.
And I really hate the RELAX RELAX RELAX advice. Is there a person on the planet who hears that without their blood pressure rising?
Posted by: wifeunit at February 15, 2009 07:09 AM (t5K2U)
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Yeah, I thought the ending was cheap too. I thought it was good when she told Amy Pohler's character, "um, no, we probably won't ever see each other again", just before they went to the hospital. That was real. And then it went downhill from there...
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at February 15, 2009 07:50 AM (irIko)
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Dear Wifeunit, I know you hate the relax advice but study after study after study has proven that relaxation techniques improve your chances of conceiving.
The reality is that these techniques may not work for you and you may never have children. I guess you have to decide for yourself how you'll handle your future if that's the case.
Yes, people say a lot of stupid things to try to make you feel better. They are trying to offer hope. They are trying to express the fact that they love you and care about you and hurt for you because you are so unhappy that you don't have a child in your life.
The only thing I consistently hear from people who have infertility issues is that they don't want to hear about hope. So when someone brings it up now I just smile, wish them the best of luck and change the subject or gently remind them that sex, politics and religion don't make for polite dinner discussion.
Posted by: mare at February 15, 2009 08:06 AM (APbbU)
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I just love the movie "Raising Arizona." When you think about it, kidnapping a child is our favorite movie? Well, yes it is. It is such a touching movie.
As for relaxing, what can I say. Apparently it does work for some people. But who can say who that will be? It happened for neighbors of ours who had never even tried because they thought when they got married, 15 years before she would never be able to conceive. They just call it a miracle, I think it must have been. I have known of one case where a woman conceived after adoption and in that case she went on to have another child years later. There are so many different and combined reasons for infertility.
One good thing we do know about you , Sarah, is that you can conceive. It's not easy and it hasn't lasted but it has happened. That is your hope. And it is also a grief.
I didn't mean this to be so grim. Sorry.
Posted by: Ruth H at February 15, 2009 09:18 AM (4eLhB)
5
I dunno.
I myself was the "miracle baby" that happened "just as my parents were about to adopt" ... and ended up being the first of five ...
I don't know, both kinds of stories need to be told, because both happen.
Some people get that kind of miracle, I guess; some don't. And I don't really know why. And I guess it must be really, really hard for the people who don't know how their story is going to end ... whether they will get the miracle baby, or not ...
the whole choose your own adventure thing again, where the choice isn't yours ...
for us, we haven't started trying yet ... I'm on the pill until I get out of school, but right after that we're going to start trying, and I have NO idea how easy or how hard it will be.
I don't know. But even if you don't want to hear about the possibility of a "happy ending," I still want to hope and believe for you.
Posted by: TW at February 15, 2009 10:54 AM (ZfS8j)
6
Oh. And I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know if the miracle ending was really cheesed up and unrealistic even if that kind of thing does happen on occasion in real life.
Posted by: TW at February 15, 2009 10:56 AM (ZfS8j)
7
TW -- I get it; my mother was that miracle baby too. (Her older brother is adopted.) What I object to is when people use those anecdotes as evidence that everything works out in the end. There are plenty of stories that don't have happy endings; it's just that no one tells those stories.
And yes, I am at the point where I don't know how my story ends. It looks bleak now, but perhaps it will all work out in the end. But I just hate when people assure me that I will have a happy ending. There is no reason to automatically conclude that.
Posted by: Sarah at February 15, 2009 11:04 AM (TWet1)
8
Well that's not right, no one can assure you of anything in life. Personally I respond on a gut level more to empirical evidence and actuarial data. Perhaps science has tried to sell hope when they should not be in that business at all.
I'm just saying is that there are people out here hoping for you for a good outcome. I hope that you have a happy ending.
And that ending was a cop out but what do you expect from Hollywood. Though I do expect better from Tina Fey.
Posted by: Mare at February 15, 2009 12:16 PM (APbbU)
9
And on another grim note - they are called miracles because they are so rare.
My personal opinion though is that any baby is a miracle and a blessing.
Posted by: Ruth H at February 15, 2009 02:36 PM (4u82p)
10
In all honesty, I do know a couple, friends of my parents, who suffered through infertility, and never did have kids. They are wonderful people, and chose to do other things with their lives since they were never able to become parents.
But I also know a couple, my husband's aunt and uncle, who tried for 8 years before she quit her high-stress job and they took a long vacation, after which she found out she was pregnant with the first of their 3 children.
It happens differently for all sorts of different people. There is no normal, typical, expected solution for anybody. And I agree, every baby is a miracle - I only wish all the miracles happened to people like you who deserve them, and not to the crackheads and teenagers who don't.
Regardless, I will still keep praying for your little miracle to come along.
Posted by: Leofwende at February 15, 2009 05:28 PM (28CBm)
11
My sister struggled with infertility and I said everything I shouldn't. I thought I was being helpful until she sat me down one day and told me to STFU and just listen. She said that me (fertility of a rabbit) saying those things just made it 1,000 times worse. Lesson learned here! So, while people that say that annoy you, they say it out of love. If you know them well enough, do what my sister did and tell them how it does NOT help you at all.
I then took myself to the library, found a book on infertility that had a chapter in it for those trying to support someone going through it. I read that chapter, my eyes were opened to the dumb things I was saying. I changed how I supported her and things were much better.
I am purposely leaving out my sister's "ending" because it may or may not be your ending.
Know that people are praying for your ending to be what you want it to be.
Posted by: Tracy S at February 15, 2009 07:13 PM (gNojb)
12
Yeah, I hate it when people tell people with fertility issues that they simply need to relax and everything will happen for them. Seriously? Most of the time it's the people that have never been through it that are the ones saying relax. They've never been the ones sitting there wondering if they will ever get that chance to feel a baby move within them, will they ever get a chance to have that "moment" when they finally pee on that darn stick and see what they want to see. I'm still hoping for you...I will continue to do so on your behalf, so that on those days when you can't, someone out there will be hoping for you!
Posted by: Stacy at February 16, 2009 08:58 AM (d3Lw1)
13
oh okay. I see.
Yeah, if they happened to everyone they wouldn't be miracles.
I guess people say those things because some people are happier when they can convince themselves that it is going to happen, in spite of the chance that it might not. Some people find comfort in that sort of blind optimism.
Posted by: TW at February 16, 2009 07:55 PM (ZfS8j)
14
I think I mentioned that I already watched this as well. Doesn't that ending totally bite? But yet the first many points totally reminds me of your book preview in a way!
Posted by: Darla at February 17, 2009 02:29 PM (LP4DK)
DOING SOMETHING"
At least we're doing something. What a hollow statement. We don't have any idea if it will work, but at least we look like we care about the problem.
Seriously, everything coming out of DC these days sounds like it could've been dialogue from Atlas Shrugged.
And the Wesley Mouches of the world waste our money...
1
This kind of stuff, seriously, makes me want to commit random acts of self-mutilation. Pencils in eyes, paperclips in ears, walking on hot coals...
WTH?!
They are hurrying this along b/c they know the recession (if they stop all the doom & gloom, apocalypse now talk) will begin to right itself in the very near future. It is government meddling that brought us to this point & it will certainly not be government meddling that rights the situation.
I feel a closer connection to those "crazy" colonists who left England behind & then fought for their freedom with every passing day.
Posted by: Guard Wife at February 13, 2009 05:13 AM (N3nNT)
2
Well, if they really want to be seen as just “doing something” no matter if it’s right or wrong, may I suggest mass suicide of all those who voted in favor of this crap.(Man, talk about record ratings for C-Span…) There's some Hope/Change I could get behind.
Posted by: tim at February 13, 2009 05:39 AM (nno0f)
3
Mass suicide, Tim? How ironic. Who's more alive, you or us? Unlike you laissez-faire, lazy fat cat Republicans, we are aktive. We mesmerize the public with our dynamism! Why do you think they vote for us? They don't want boring old white males who look back to the lame capitalist past. No, they want the cOlOrful vanguard of the sOci@list future, confidently leaping into the abyss. So what if we take down the whole country with us? We'll rise again. We are rich. We are smart. We are rich because we're smart. Let the dumb, bitter God-'n'-gun-clingers sink to the bottom where they belong. They don't deserve to be ikwo. Nothing for them means more pork* for us!
*Vegan halal pseudopork, of course.
Posted by: kevin at February 13, 2009 06:37 AM (+nV09)
4
Rambling, cryptically, nonsensical bullsh*t. Perfect, just like the reasoning and justification for the bill.
Hope/Change? Naw, furget dat, it be Dope/Range...all ready on the right, all ready on the left...bullseye! Right between your freakin' eyes.
Posted by: tim at February 13, 2009 10:00 AM (nno0f)
We Are All Socialists Now:
In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.
The article blames the whole thing on George Bush, and trust me, I think he deserves some blame here for his obscene spending problems. But the article was a little too triumphant about laying the blame at Bush's feet and washing Obama's hands of any culpability.
Nestled in this article is a little gem:
Polls show that Americans don't trust government and still don't want big government. They do, however, want what government delivers, like health care and national defense and, now, protections from banking and housing failure.
1
We're all French now?
Lovely.
So our old people can die in nursing homes with no a/c while the staff is all on holiday.
On the plus side, that will help with the growing medicaid bills for everyone too old to care for themselves.
Posted by: airforcewife at February 10, 2009 04:28 AM (Fb2PC)
2
Just to run the numbers from the first bailout: http://justwanderingthrough.blogspot.com/2009/02/we-get-government-we-deserve.html
I'm afraid to see what they were for the up-for-election Representatives and for this current "stimulus". But in the end, I bet we're getting what we deserve.
Sadly.
Posted by: Meadowlark at February 10, 2009 08:07 AM (SXBsQ)
3
Oh, I've never seen such a good time to become personally skilled in the cultivation and use of medicinal plants. Also to get some skills beyond first aid. Especially with this article I saw on Drudge about part of what's in this "stimulus" bill:One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446).(emphasis mine, of course)ACK. What happens when the euthanasia movement gains more traction???
And I feel the need to blog about it, but I'll just state it quickly here: "We" are NOT all social-ists.
Posted by: kannie at February 10, 2009 08:27 AM (iT8dn)
4
When the revolution comes it's not going to be pretty.
Posted by: Mare at February 11, 2009 03:38 AM (APbbU)
Posted by: Amritas at February 11, 2009 04:51 AM (Wxe3L)
6
By Barack, at last, my dream is coming true ...
We are all ikwO now.
Can't help but do a victory dance at the grave of capitalism.
The words just roll off my tOngue:
Sarah ... soci@list!
airforcewife ... soci@list!
kannie ... soci@list!
Mare ... soci@list!
So how does it feel to be my cOmrades? Let's make revOlutiOn together!
Why can't we be friends?
All is fOrgiven if you say the soci@list shahada:
"There is no one but the One."
Posted by: kevin at February 11, 2009 05:11 AM (Wxe3L)
7
@kevin - LOL :-)
I believe the appropriate response is actually to rip off my hood and "show them how an [American] dies!!!" ;-)
Posted by: kannie at February 11, 2009 02:44 PM (iT8dn)
8
I hope we will still recognize America by the time we get a chance to vote Obama out of office, and maybe the American public will have a serious case of "buyer's remorse" for giving control of both houses of Congress to the Dems when the 2010 mid-terms roll around. One can only hope. My fear is the damage done before then (especially with all those little things tucked away inside this "emergency" "stimulus" package that they are all in too much of a hurry to pretend to notice, or for US to get wind of it).
Posted by: Miss Ladybug at February 11, 2009 09:09 PM (paOhf)
PAIN IN THE NECK GUESTS
As I was working today, I thought back to another quote from that Wal-Mart article that resonated with me:
As I patrolled the aisles, repositioning misplaced items and filling gaps in the shelves, I realized that Wal-Mart "guests" really are like guests. They are visitors who move things around and create a mess before they go home. Cleaning up after them was not very different from doing housework.
I've never been one to shove items where they don't belong, but now that it's my job to un-shove, I am even more diligent about it while shopping at other stores. I make sure to take unwanted items right back where I found them.
I spend a lot of my time putting stuff where it belongs. It never ceases to amaze me that I can almost hear a shopper's inner monologue: "I want to buy this purple yarn...(walks around the corner)...No, wait, I want this purple yarn...I'll just shove the three balls of other purple here, whatever." I am constantly pulling purple out of green and green out of orange, all day long. And taking cake decorating and beading supplies back to their own parts of the store.
It's ridiculous how many people just drop stuff wherever they are in the store.
Oh, and also how I spent two hours of my Christmas Eve making a pirate ship that was manhandled and destroyed within days of putting it on the shelf.
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PAIN IN THE NECK GUESTS
As I was working today, I thought back to another quote from that Wal-Mart article that resonated with me:
As I patrolled the aisles, repositioning misplaced items and filling gaps in the shelves, I realized that Wal-Mart "guests" really are like guests. They are visitors who move things around and create a mess before they go home. Cleaning up after them was not very different from doing housework.
I've never been one to shove items where they don't belong, but now that it's my job to un-shove, I am even more diligent about it while shopping at other stores. I make sure to take unwanted items right back where I found them.
I spend a lot of my time putting stuff where it belongs. It never ceases to amaze me that I can almost hear a shopper's inner monologue: "I want to buy this purple yarn...(walks around the corner)...No, wait, I want this purple yarn...I'll just shove the three balls of other purple here, whatever." I am constantly pulling purple out of green and green out of orange, all day long. And taking cake decorating and beading supplies back to their own parts of the store.
It's ridiculous how many people just drop stuff wherever they are in the store.
Oh, and also how I spent two hours of my Christmas Eve making a pirate ship that was manhandled and destroyed within days of putting it on the shelf.
1
I think there should be some sort of cart at stores where people can put back stuff they are either too lazy to put back themselves, or just can't remember, just like the cart at the library, where they basically plead with you not to put the book back yourself, because they are afraid you will do it wrong and it will be lost forever until they do some general inventory. I think that would save a lot of time for stores, and appeal to customers' sense of entitlement that they don't have to put things back, because that is a part of customer service.
Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at February 09, 2009 12:59 PM (irIko)
2
That's a great idea, CVG! It would have saved Sarah a lot of time today.
Too bad it doesn't work 100% for libraries. Out of hundreds of books that I borrowed from the University of Hawaii library over a decade, only one was lost forever after I returned it.
Like Sarah, "I make sure to take unwanted items right back where I found them." And I think long and hard about buying something so they're not unwanted (and end up far from their original aisle).
I'm sorry about the ship's sad fate. Poor foamie. I had assumed the display models were under glass.
Posted by: Amritas at February 09, 2009 02:05 PM (Wxe3L)
3
Heh. I worked at a Michael's during graduate school. Incredibly, the messiest were the "fine art" people. Expensive oil paints with lids off and laid anywhere in the aisle or elsewhere, for example. But yeah, the whole store was just a big playground for misplaced items.
I had an incredibly dense and power-tripping manager with no concept of incentives. The reward for those of us who did our "housekeeping" on our own departments quickly at the end of the night was ... to be commanded to help the slowpokes. Ugh.
Posted by: Anwyn at February 10, 2009 06:18 AM (dzxw9)
4
Anwyn -- I am lucky that my managers are both cool. One thing I've noticed is that they always say "Bye! Thank you!" at the end of my shift. I chuckle every time they thank me for working, but it fosters a good environment. I feel appreciated.
Posted by: Sarah at February 10, 2009 06:26 AM (TWet1)
5
I think that is what is considered, in some form, job security. They need 'somebody' to straighten it up. Atleast, that is how I dealt with when I worked retail. If customers were clean, could answer their own questions, find what they were looking for, why would the store pay me? That is how I dealt with the slobs.
Posted by: rayanne at February 10, 2009 03:25 PM (l/CzG)
A SAFE ZONE
I didn't see Jay Nordlinger's My Kingdom For a Safe Zone when it came out, but I just saw that Varifrank linked to it. The stories are all too familiar, but the very last one is just abominable.
My personal philosophy is to always assume that I'm surrounded by Democrats. I never assume that someone agrees with me until I have it 100% confirmed, on his initiative. And even then, I am quite reluctant to go the full nine yards.
Only once have I heard a conservative make me uncomfortable in public like this. I was at my knitting group and a woman stopped by to see what we were doing. We told her we knit for preemies, and she remarked that she couldn't believe how tiny the little caps are. And then she said, "These babies can be born so small and still survive, and that's why I am pro-life." She continued talking for several seconds about abortion, and my eyes were like saucers. I am screaming in my head, "What are you doing, lady? Why do you assume that people want to have this conversation in the middle of a yarn store? Don't you realize you're being confrontational and controversial?" I found it horrifying, in the exact same way as when random tourists on the Vegas monorail blab on about Bush.
Despite the fact that I was sitting with a group of elderly women who knit for charity, I have never assumed that they are conservative or pro-life. I always assume that they disagree with me and that I should keep my mouth shut.
Sadly, these clods Nordlinger's readers wrote about haven't gotten the hint.
1
Isn't it amazing that we were supposedly living in a repressive Bushaitanic police state until the inauguratiOn, and yet you felt the need to keep your mouth shut even though you were on the side of the eeeevil regime?
I'm keeping my mouth shut, no matter who's in office.
Very frankly, I'd rather be raised by wolves than by humans.
What is with this need to show off one's beliefs at every conceivable moment? "Look at me! I am gOOd!" The endless craving for approval is embarrassing. It shows that these people need to be validated by others. To be alone, to be unapproved - that is their worst nightmare. They must keep up with the latest definition of cOrrectness. They are creatures of fashion. Is that what humans are? Shouldn't our species be something more?
Posted by: Amritas at February 07, 2009 03:11 PM (Wxe3L)
2
Honestly, I have a hard time keeping *all* of my thoughts to myself unless it's a completely inappropriate time. It's just part of who I am; so much of what I do is motivated by deeper feelings and reasons, that it's all just integrated as one natural whole of my life at this point. The reasons that I pipe up are 1) because I feel that it's necessary to stand up and be counted, one way or another - I hold myself responsible for tacit consent; and 2) the truth matters - whether it's popular or not, it needs to be heard.
(The feeling that I'm sufficiently skilled to *articulate* the truth as I understand it, OTOH... is that narcissism, or just duty-bound confidence? Well, whichever, it's necessary for blogging, at least, right? ;-)
However, there are ways to express opinions that are less offensive (or even inoffensive to reasonable people); and I think *tact* is in short supply in society. People can disagree and still be respectful and/or civil. (No sophomoric jokes about the President's daughters, for example.) And if you never pipe up when you could be in the minority and have something to offer, (cowed by political correctness or just plain old fear), the majority remains ignorant; and in some cases, *dut-dada-DAH* Stupid Things can happen.
That said, I would NEVER bring that sort of thing up while functioning in an official capacity at an event whose (? "which's?") purpose is not specifically politically-geared or tailored to that particular audience. It would be irrelevant *at best*. (That "classless society" quip was priceless, BTW.) Fluid, interpersonal dynamics are one thing; formal environments and ceremonies are quite another.
Posted by: kannie at February 07, 2009 09:47 PM (iT8dn)
3
I do the same thing except the other way around, of course. No dems in Texas really. I was at a party a few weeks ago and my dad and husband both called me out at dinner to a bunch of conservatives. No big deal if they're friends right? Well, two of them I know for sure will neither ignore my dem-ness nor discuss things without argument or acustion or getting angry. And of course they started to ask questions, I politely diverted the answers elsewhere but they still got mad. I was so embarassed that that problem had to come up. My dad and husband later apologized for putting me on the spot like that.
I'm very good with guaging whether a person will talk politics with me but most of the time I feel such conversations go no where good. Even with people who agree with me, sometimes!
Posted by: Sara at February 08, 2009 05:21 AM (BmNMZ)
4
Usually I am the same; I just keep my mouth shut in general. But a couple of weeks ago walking to the bus after a long, frustrating day at work, after the third Greenpeace guy shoved a clipboard in my face and wouldn't leave me alone, I finally exploded with "No! I'm an 'evil conservative'; leave me alone!", and it worked. He looked surprised, and actually backed off.
I have to admit that it felt good. I smiled to myself for a while on the bus ride home that day.
Posted by: Leofwende at February 09, 2009 06:56 AM (jAos7)
5
Leofwende, I'd have done the exact same thing if I were you. There is a proper time for outbursts. You were defending yourself against aggression in an explictly political situation. That's a rare circumstance for me. At work I never hold back when it comes to work-related matters. But politics? Religion? Not relevant and not worth fighting over as long as I'm in the office.
Posted by: Amritas at February 09, 2009 07:40 AM (+nV09)
BOGGING DOWN THE SYSTEM
I grew up in a state that didn't require vehicle inspections. This is a new and highly annoying process for me. I just sat for an hour and a half so they could tell me that my three year old car isn't a safety or environmental hazard. What a surprise. And I got to pay $30 for the pleasure...and I go back on Monday with our other car.
All that waiting was giving me flashbacks to the emergency room last Friday. There was one story I haven't yet told from that night.
I decided to go to the emergency room because it was a Friday night. If it had been any other day of the week, I would've waited it out and called the next day for advice. But since I already had the procedure booked and needed to know if I should continue with the meds or stop, and since I know someone who nearly died from Clomid complications, I decided to play it safe.
It's darn near impossible not to eavesdrop on other people in the emergency room. All that separates you is a curtain, so all night long my husband and I were also privy to the medical business of the patient next to us. I am not going to reveal any details, but their presence was baffling and a tad infuriating.
The gist is that the daughter had a chronic problem that had been happening for months. The parents were separated and the mother was "too lazy" to make the kid an appointment. The dad said that he works here in the hospital and had asked colleagues about his daughter's problem, but since it persisted, they wanted to have it checked out.
On a Friday night. In the ER.
There was no emergency, no sudden change in her condition that made them feel that treatment was necessary, nothing like that. This dad just brought his three kids in to spend the night in the ER. My husband and I were there for eight hours, until 5 AM, and this family had arrived before us and was still there when we left.
That is not an emergency.
This family was clogging up the ER and making me and, more importantly, other people with more pressing problems wait longer. They were sapping resources. If you work in the hospital, can't you find the time to make an appointment for your daughter? Why are you taking care of a child's chronic health problem in the middle of the night on a Friday?
Because you don't have to pay anything either way, that's why.
Why make a regular doctor's appointment during the week, and have to ask for time off work and take the kid out of school, when you could just bring everyone to camp out in the ER all night. There is no cost difference, so it's just easier to do it off hours.
No wonder it took me so long to be seen. And I feel even worse for the guy with the gall stones; he really would've liked to have been treated faster.
I am sure that this family isn't the only one of its kind. They bog down the system for all of us. A problem that's been going on for three months is not something that requires ER care on a weekend. Make a normal appointment and free up that ER doctor for someone who really needs him.
1
Just wait, it'll get better once itÂ’s all nationalized.
Posted by: tim at February 06, 2009 07:20 AM (nno0f)
2
The ONLY way I could give this dad a break is if he doesn't have custody of the kids & only had them on a weekend. Of course, urgent care would be better & the ER is not meant for these kind of things & it makes it harder for everyone else to be seen when folks like that are taking up a bed...I think it's dumb what he did, but I could see him being an either/or, all or nothing kind of thinker & just taking her where he knows people not thinking to the next step that this is the EMERGENCY room.
Posted by: Guard Wife at February 06, 2009 08:44 AM (N3nNT)
3
At least you weren't 'shaken' (車検
up ... Japanese-style:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
Before a test can be administered on a vehicle the owner of the vehicle must call up a shaken [Japanese official car inspection] center and make an appointment by phone after which the owner must fill out paperwork at the center. The cost for the shaken is broken up as follows: 1,400 yen for paperwork and processing, 25,200 yen for the testing, 29,780 yen for 24 months of validity and 8,090 yen for the "Recycling Department" with fees being added depending on the vehicle and its intended use (business, personal, commercial, etc.). These variables can result in a shaken costing from 100,000 to 150,000 yen or more.
That's equivalent to US$1,100-$1,600 per car!
Posted by: Amritas at February 06, 2009 11:01 AM (+nV09)
4
tim, slowly you are becoming a gOOd persyn. Healthkare will get better. You are beginning to see the benefits of a tOtal cOntrOl ecOnOmy. Once gOsplan takes over, everything will be fairly allOcated: wagyu steak for us, Soylent Green for you.
Guard Wife, there is a simpler explanation. The androppressor was a member of the nOmenklatura:
The nomenklatura were a small, elite subset of the general population in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc. The nomenklatura was analogous to the ruling class, which Communist doctrine denounced in the capitalist West.Without exception, they were members of the Communist Party.
An Officer of the peOple always takes precedence. This is the true equality of sOci@lism.
Never give the state control over your life, because they won’t “take care of you” - they will make a token effort and leave you up the creek when it suits them.
- James Hudnall
Posted by: kevin at February 06, 2009 11:25 AM (+nV09)
5Never give the state control over your life, because they won’t “take care of you” - they will make a token effort and leave you up the creek when it suits them
הוו זהירין ברשות, שאין מקרבין לו לאדם אלא לצורך עצמן: נראין כאוהבין בשעת הנאתן, ואין עומדין לו לאדם בשעת דוחקו
אבות ב,ג
Be wary of the government, for they don't relate to anyone unless it is in their own interest: They appear to like [one] when they benefit from it, and they don't stand by him in the hour of his need.
Avot 2:3
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at February 07, 2009 07:17 AM (/8I3y)
6
My sister is an RN in an ER. The stories she tells
(and has told for years) make you realize that a
significant portion of our population don't have
a whole lot of common d@mned sense.
Posted by: MaryIndiana at February 10, 2009 03:20 AM (alEvL)
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While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending. --Deskmerc--
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If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass. --Sheriff of East Houston, Superman II--
Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind. --Jed Babbin--
Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. --President John F. Kennedy--
War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. --General Patton--
We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over. --Full Metal Jacket--
Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. --Dick Cheney--
The Flag has to come first if freedom is to survive. --Col Steven Arrington--
The purpose of diplomacy isn't to make us feel good about Eurocentric diplomatic skills, and having countries from the axis of chocolate tie our shoelaces together does nothing to advance our infantry. --Sir George--
I just don't care about the criticism I receive every day, because I know the cause I defend is right. --Oriol--
It's days like this when we're reminded that freedom isn't free. --Chaplain Jacob--
Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face. --David Smith--
The success of multilateralism is measured not merely by following a process, but by achieving results. --President Bush--
Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
--John Galt--
First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down. Then, watch Ace Ventura. And after that, buy a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and come talk to me. You really need to lighten up, man.
--Sminklemeyer--
You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting --General Curtis Lemay--
If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight! --Patrick Henry--
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American. --President George W. Bush--
are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with. --Bill Whittle
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--
We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other. --General George Marshall--
We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
--Buzz Aldrin--
America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
--Dinesh D'Souza--
Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side. --James Lileks--
As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
--James Lileks--
I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
--Froggy--
You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties.
--Varifrank--
In a perfect world, We'd live in peace and love and harmony with each oither and the world, but then, in a perfect world, Yoko would have taken the bullet.
--SarahBellum--
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. --Ronald Reagan--
America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large. --E.M. Forster--
Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse. --Mark Twain--
The Enlightenment was followed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which touched every European state, sparked vicious guerrilla conflicts across the Continent and killed millions. Then, things really turned ugly after the invention of soccer. --Iowahawk--
Every time I meet an Iraqi Army Soldier or Policeman that I haven't met before, I shake his hand and thank him for his service. Many times I am thanked for being here and helping his country. I always tell them that free people help each other and that those that truly value freedom help those seeking it no matter the cost. --Jack Army--
Right, left - the terms are useless nowadays anyway. There are statists, and there are individualists. There are pessimists, and optimists. There are people who look backwards and trust in the West, and those who look forward and trust in The World. Those are the continuums that seem to matter the most right now. --Lileks--
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston Churchill--
A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it. --Arthur Conan Doyle--
A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself. --John Stuart Mill--
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." --Dave Grossman--
At heart I’m a cowboy; my attitude is if they’re not going to stand up and fight for what they believe in then they can go pound sand. --Bill Whittle--
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. --Alexander Tyler--
By that time a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice. --Atlas Shrugged--
I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too." --Alabama Worley--
So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists don’t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we haven’t yet held talks without preconditions with.
--Mark Steyn--
"I had started alone in this journey called life, people started
gathering up on the way, and the caravan got bigger everyday." --Urdu couplet
The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off. --RZA--
It's a daily game of public Frogger, hopping frantically to avoid being crushed under the weight of your own narcissism, banality, and plain old stupidity. --Mary Katharine Ham--
There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms
of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. --James Madison--
It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle. --Larry Elder--
Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard. --from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--
The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced. --VDH--
Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves. --Marcelene Cox--
Seriously though, you understand what the Republican party is supposed to be and you fiercely protect that. That's so much more than what I see from most Replublicans and the politicians that are supposed to be representing them. 
And Ayn Rand. Because she makes literature WORTH it!
up ... Japanese-style:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
Before a test can be administered on a vehicle the owner of the vehicle must call up a shaken [Japanese official car inspection] center and make an appointment by phone after which the owner must fill out paperwork at the center. The cost for the shaken is broken up as follows: 1,400 yen for paperwork and processing, 25,200 yen for the testing, 29,780 yen for 24 months of validity and 8,090 yen for the "Recycling Department" with fees being added depending on the vehicle and its intended use (business, personal, commercial, etc.). These variables can result in a shaken costing from 100,000 to 150,000 yen or more.
That's equivalent to US$1,100-$1,600 per car!
