The election was a euphoric and wondrous event for me and many Americans. It renewed my faith in the democratic process. Sorry for all the disgruntled GOP's out there who are bewildered and angry. The pendulum had to swing back eventually. No one can have their way all the time in a democracy.
But what we have is an imperfect system. The two party system is a failure to us all. It's become a wrestling match between two sides and nothing to stop the dirty tricks. I used to be a Republican way back when. I still embrace much of the fiscially conservative ideals of the party from over 20 years ago. But I do not have any affinity for the social agenda of the Republican party of now. The GOP's solid embrace of the very vocal minority of religious extremists has finally been it's undoing. The emotional tacticts used by the party to instill fear in people are very effective, yet those people go to the polls with their brains off. I think the socially conservative Christian's should have their own party and I think the two parties that currently dominate should share with other parties. I also disagree with the social platform of the GOP because it has no understanding or care for those in need. It is women and children who are thrust into poverty by so many conditions beyond their control. The American dream of working hard and getting ahead is a myth to some. The ways to realize this dream are real and possible, but not very many people know how to do it, and the weakest in our society suffer from that.
But the average American worker is at a disadvantage too. Lot's of things must change or we will lose our status at the top rung of the ladder in world leadership and economic strength. It can't be fixed in 4 years or 8. But it can be fixed. I don't claim to know the answers. One things seems right to me one day, and another the next. Less government here more there. I don't necessarily know the answer. I do know that fear, hate, and oppression are not part of the answer, but they are getting in the way of it.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Thank you John McCain
The Republicans try to trump the Democrats aces by nominating a woman to be McCains VP running mate. The Rebulicans only seem to show an interest in social change when social change might win them a few disgruntled votes. The problems with Palin aren't just her lack of political experience. Palin fails to represent what disapointed Hillary supporters believe in. Palin does not support women's rights. The only women I see getting excited about her are women who vote republican anyway. I say thank you to John McCain because by nominating Palin, I believe he sealed Obamas successful election to the White House in November. The very few Hillary supporters that pledged their disgruntled support of McCain may not care about a woman's right to choose, or being paid .72 cents for every dollar that a man with the same qualifications makes. But the vast majority of Hillary supporters do care. We supported Hillary because she supports OUR issues, as does Obama. Palin supports conservative Republican issues.
McCain may hope that the working mother that Palin is will appeal to those of us who balance work with families. I see Palin sacrificing the well being of her 5 month old infant for her career. Perhaps governing Alaska allows her to attend to her job as a mother still, but running a presidential election campaign will not. Her 5 month old disabled son will spend many days and nights in the arms of a paid caregiver, not his mother, getting his nourishment from a bottle of formula. Careers are important but motherhood is paramount. It's funny that a socially liberal woman such as myself says this about a conservative woman such as Palin. I'm a big believer in attachment parenting and breastfeeding. I firmly believe that when we have children our duty to them comes first and to ourselves and our careers, second. No woman, no matter how skilled or well staffed, can be both a great political leader and a great mother of an infant. Older children are easier to parent with a working mother, but an infant needs his mothers constant presence. Will Palin take her son in a bouncer seat or a sling to the senate floor? Not likely.
McCain may hope that the working mother that Palin is will appeal to those of us who balance work with families. I see Palin sacrificing the well being of her 5 month old infant for her career. Perhaps governing Alaska allows her to attend to her job as a mother still, but running a presidential election campaign will not. Her 5 month old disabled son will spend many days and nights in the arms of a paid caregiver, not his mother, getting his nourishment from a bottle of formula. Careers are important but motherhood is paramount. It's funny that a socially liberal woman such as myself says this about a conservative woman such as Palin. I'm a big believer in attachment parenting and breastfeeding. I firmly believe that when we have children our duty to them comes first and to ourselves and our careers, second. No woman, no matter how skilled or well staffed, can be both a great political leader and a great mother of an infant. Older children are easier to parent with a working mother, but an infant needs his mothers constant presence. Will Palin take her son in a bouncer seat or a sling to the senate floor? Not likely.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Presidentials
Write in Hillary. No actually support Obama. It's time to end the senselessness in the White House right now and get the Bush's and his clones out.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Personal responsibility and the Voluntary Fatherhood project
Whoa. I just visited the website of a group called the "National Center for Men's
Voluntary Fatherhood Project." These guys got me on the first complaint about men being FORCED into parenthood. Forced? Hello? Did you miss sex ed class? Did a woman FORCE you to have sex with her? Not likely. Well then, if you're one of these whiners then here's this. If a man voluntarily has sex with a woman, which is probably 96% of the time men have sex with women, then there's no forcing. The man is consenting, unless he is too young to consent or tied up and forced. News flash boys, sex creates babies!!!! Gasp, can you believe it?
Just because you are a sexually mature male in the post sexual revolution - legal birth control age, does not alter what mother nature intended. In spite of birth control and abortion, no man or woman is entitled to free sex without the risk of mother nature succeeding. Reproducing is the only reason sex was granted to humanity. The pleasure of sex is nature's way of fooling you into doing it many times to ensure the survival of the species. No matter what technology we apply to ourselves today, the main purpose of sex remains the same.
The sense of entitlement men have is predominant in the singles dating scenes and among the dead beat dads who think they were wronged when some women got pregnant and had the audacity to inconvenience him by giving birth. Get this through you heads numb skulls, the existence of abortion doesn't entitle a man to being freed by one when birth control fails. Another point, In spite of it now being the 21st century and we're so advanced, a double standard about birth control still remains predominant. Men still expect women to provide the birth control and think it's their right to accuse them of failing to use it, when it fails. These same men are rarely willing to use the birth control available to them, and almost never willing to fore goe sexual intercourse to avoid a pregnancy. Condoms work very well and yet men make excuses for not using them. If you're a man and making excuses for not using condoms, then you either need to quit having sex with women, or get ready to be a dad. If you can't take a little responsibilty for your penis, then you have no right to complain about the responsibility that you get hit with later. A few boxes of condoms cost a lot less than raising a child, and there's such a vast variety of them available, there's something for every man.
Birth control and abortion have been embraced by men as license to be the complete selfish sex driven dogs they always wanted to be but social restraints wouldn't allow. But when reality checks in, and men find out that 1)birth control fails 2) abortion isn't guaranteed they instead run away, accuse the woman of trapping them, expect a woman to abort, and play the victim when she doesn't. Men think they can lie to woman about loving her so she'll have sex with him, regularly. Men lie about wanting children with a woman so that she'll have sex with him willingly. But then when the woman gets pregnant, whether by oops or by her believing his b.s. or by mother nature's call to motherhood being stronger in her, then men think they are the ones who are betrayed. While making babies these men are being big babies.
Society as a whole is falling to pieces because of this kind of crap. The sexual revolution has betrayed us all. Now our children are growing up without fathers because the father's are too irresponsible and childish to stick around for them. The hordes of determined single men running around with women making babies complain that women are trapping them. They give no real emotional substance to relationships yet expect women to be some fairytale that charms them into love. In the old days, men knew that survival was vested in him having a family and caring for that family. Just because someone allowed sex to be fun, doesn't mean it is no longer about creating children who need to be cared for.
Sex is fun, but relationships and families are still the substance of a healthy society. Those wandering dogs that have grown into out of control packs, abandoning the women they impregnate and the children they create, are the down fall of our society, the reasons children are struggling to find what is normal and the reasons why relationships are so hard to be satisfying. We now live in a culture of entitlement that imposes that sense of entitlement in areas that it has no business being. A sense of entitlement to free unrestricted sex without consequences is based in unhealthy fantasies. It's not a reality. And the sense of entitlement seems to carry over into every aspect of dating and relationships. These same men seem to think that women are just prostitutes to satisfy their every whim, giving nothing of emotional substance in return. The lies necessary to make these arrangements happen in the first place are a clear indication that the man dispensing them is the very kind of man who will complain and call himself victim when he has a child to care for.
No one forced the man to have sex. Therefore he has no claim to being forced into parenthood. So shut up, grow up and be a man you whiners! By being a man I mean be decent to the mother of your child and be a father to them.
Voluntary Fatherhood Project." These guys got me on the first complaint about men being FORCED into parenthood. Forced? Hello? Did you miss sex ed class? Did a woman FORCE you to have sex with her? Not likely. Well then, if you're one of these whiners then here's this. If a man voluntarily has sex with a woman, which is probably 96% of the time men have sex with women, then there's no forcing. The man is consenting, unless he is too young to consent or tied up and forced. News flash boys, sex creates babies!!!! Gasp, can you believe it?
Just because you are a sexually mature male in the post sexual revolution - legal birth control age, does not alter what mother nature intended. In spite of birth control and abortion, no man or woman is entitled to free sex without the risk of mother nature succeeding. Reproducing is the only reason sex was granted to humanity. The pleasure of sex is nature's way of fooling you into doing it many times to ensure the survival of the species. No matter what technology we apply to ourselves today, the main purpose of sex remains the same.
The sense of entitlement men have is predominant in the singles dating scenes and among the dead beat dads who think they were wronged when some women got pregnant and had the audacity to inconvenience him by giving birth. Get this through you heads numb skulls, the existence of abortion doesn't entitle a man to being freed by one when birth control fails. Another point, In spite of it now being the 21st century and we're so advanced, a double standard about birth control still remains predominant. Men still expect women to provide the birth control and think it's their right to accuse them of failing to use it, when it fails. These same men are rarely willing to use the birth control available to them, and almost never willing to fore goe sexual intercourse to avoid a pregnancy. Condoms work very well and yet men make excuses for not using them. If you're a man and making excuses for not using condoms, then you either need to quit having sex with women, or get ready to be a dad. If you can't take a little responsibilty for your penis, then you have no right to complain about the responsibility that you get hit with later. A few boxes of condoms cost a lot less than raising a child, and there's such a vast variety of them available, there's something for every man.
Birth control and abortion have been embraced by men as license to be the complete selfish sex driven dogs they always wanted to be but social restraints wouldn't allow. But when reality checks in, and men find out that 1)birth control fails 2) abortion isn't guaranteed they instead run away, accuse the woman of trapping them, expect a woman to abort, and play the victim when she doesn't. Men think they can lie to woman about loving her so she'll have sex with him, regularly. Men lie about wanting children with a woman so that she'll have sex with him willingly. But then when the woman gets pregnant, whether by oops or by her believing his b.s. or by mother nature's call to motherhood being stronger in her, then men think they are the ones who are betrayed. While making babies these men are being big babies.
Society as a whole is falling to pieces because of this kind of crap. The sexual revolution has betrayed us all. Now our children are growing up without fathers because the father's are too irresponsible and childish to stick around for them. The hordes of determined single men running around with women making babies complain that women are trapping them. They give no real emotional substance to relationships yet expect women to be some fairytale that charms them into love. In the old days, men knew that survival was vested in him having a family and caring for that family. Just because someone allowed sex to be fun, doesn't mean it is no longer about creating children who need to be cared for.
Sex is fun, but relationships and families are still the substance of a healthy society. Those wandering dogs that have grown into out of control packs, abandoning the women they impregnate and the children they create, are the down fall of our society, the reasons children are struggling to find what is normal and the reasons why relationships are so hard to be satisfying. We now live in a culture of entitlement that imposes that sense of entitlement in areas that it has no business being. A sense of entitlement to free unrestricted sex without consequences is based in unhealthy fantasies. It's not a reality. And the sense of entitlement seems to carry over into every aspect of dating and relationships. These same men seem to think that women are just prostitutes to satisfy their every whim, giving nothing of emotional substance in return. The lies necessary to make these arrangements happen in the first place are a clear indication that the man dispensing them is the very kind of man who will complain and call himself victim when he has a child to care for.
No one forced the man to have sex. Therefore he has no claim to being forced into parenthood. So shut up, grow up and be a man you whiners! By being a man I mean be decent to the mother of your child and be a father to them.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Lesbian mothers and breast feeding
Do many lesbian biological mother's breastfeed their babies? Recently, I was at a brunch of lesbian/bisexual single moms and I was rather embarrassed at the shocked look on the women's faces when I nursed my daughter. I only know of a limited few lesbians that ever breastfed their babies and only one who is, like me, doing extended nursing (nursing beyond 12 months). I admit while I'm in touch with the lesbian community, I don't spend enough time immersed in it to appreciate the norms on issues like this. Many of the moms were adoptive moms, which presents a challenge to breastfeeding. One must induce milk with medically prescribed hormones and a rigorous routine of pumping to get a partial supply when not giving birth. Understandable why some adopting moms choose not to undergo that course.
Breastfeeding beyond a year around other people is a challenge of it's own. I guess I didn't expect negativity from a group of women who daily have to defend their rights to be parents. Personally, I think homosexuality is as natural as breathing, no matter what degree it expresses its self in a person. To me, it is as natural to love a woman as a man. So I don't get it. Lesbians are women, just like me. Many lesbians are mothers, just like me. So why is it weird that I breast fed my child in front of them?
Breasts are nice to look at when there's not a ravenous, wiggly child attached to them. The mountains are nice to look at when there's not a ski lift attached to them as well. It certainly isn't a sexual feeling since breast feeding frequently hurts, especially when nursing a child with teeth who likes to bite, and pinch with fingers.
Is it just because Americans have such problems with breastfeeding? Or is it because lesbians seem to have more negative feelings about the female body and it's biological functions? It's bad enough to have to endure the negativity and rejection of society telling you that you're unnatural. So why then make it harder by seeing your body as unnatural?
Breastfeeding beyond a year around other people is a challenge of it's own. I guess I didn't expect negativity from a group of women who daily have to defend their rights to be parents. Personally, I think homosexuality is as natural as breathing, no matter what degree it expresses its self in a person. To me, it is as natural to love a woman as a man. So I don't get it. Lesbians are women, just like me. Many lesbians are mothers, just like me. So why is it weird that I breast fed my child in front of them?
Breasts are nice to look at when there's not a ravenous, wiggly child attached to them. The mountains are nice to look at when there's not a ski lift attached to them as well. It certainly isn't a sexual feeling since breast feeding frequently hurts, especially when nursing a child with teeth who likes to bite, and pinch with fingers.
Is it just because Americans have such problems with breastfeeding? Or is it because lesbians seem to have more negative feelings about the female body and it's biological functions? It's bad enough to have to endure the negativity and rejection of society telling you that you're unnatural. So why then make it harder by seeing your body as unnatural?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Integrity like trees
Personal integrity though talked about, is under appreciated until the chips are down. The interesting thing about personal integrity is that it grows with a persons creations. If you run a company, the people you hire and maintain in your company, in some way reflect your own personal integrity. If yours is weak, then often, those that you attract to your business will also be weak. Those with strong integrity who come to work for you, will not stay long. They will go find a place to work where stronger values are appreciated and practiced. If yours is strong, you will systematically drive away employees with weak integrity and hang on to the ones who's integrity reflects yours.
I work in a business where personal integrity is essential. We care for disabled people and ensure the quality of their lives. The agency I work for is meticulous to the point of driving you mad. But they put the quality of care of the people in our service as well as the accountability for that care in such great importance, that mistakes are few, and dealt with swiftly. Sometimes the agency has to contract the services of other agencies to help with services. That's where the disparity really shows. Right now one of my clients gets the majority of his care from the high integrity agency. But his day program services are with a different agency that has the opposite practice of integrity. It's absolutely appalling how the incompetence and attempts to cover for it are evident at every level of the organization. furthermore, they constantly try to cover for it by shifting blame. But they lose in the blame shifting because the meticulous agency is well, meticulous about record keeping. So any accusations are dispelled quickly based on documentation of care given, problems addressed and so on. So it's like starting a fight with someone bigger than you and then realizing your outmatched and ducking out, only to try again another day in the same manner. What is surprising is the agency with the problems doesn't get it. No one there takes it upon the company to improve themselves, because these problems go up to the highest levels. I worked for this company for a short time and left because of the ways they cheat both the people they serve and the people they employ. I work for the company with integrity now, and in spite of the headaches of all their requirements, it's so worth it to be doing the right thing and have proof of it.
Integrity is like a tree. If the trunk is strong, the whole tree will thrive, producing strong, healthy branches. The weak tree will produce weak branches and not thrive.
I work in a business where personal integrity is essential. We care for disabled people and ensure the quality of their lives. The agency I work for is meticulous to the point of driving you mad. But they put the quality of care of the people in our service as well as the accountability for that care in such great importance, that mistakes are few, and dealt with swiftly. Sometimes the agency has to contract the services of other agencies to help with services. That's where the disparity really shows. Right now one of my clients gets the majority of his care from the high integrity agency. But his day program services are with a different agency that has the opposite practice of integrity. It's absolutely appalling how the incompetence and attempts to cover for it are evident at every level of the organization. furthermore, they constantly try to cover for it by shifting blame. But they lose in the blame shifting because the meticulous agency is well, meticulous about record keeping. So any accusations are dispelled quickly based on documentation of care given, problems addressed and so on. So it's like starting a fight with someone bigger than you and then realizing your outmatched and ducking out, only to try again another day in the same manner. What is surprising is the agency with the problems doesn't get it. No one there takes it upon the company to improve themselves, because these problems go up to the highest levels. I worked for this company for a short time and left because of the ways they cheat both the people they serve and the people they employ. I work for the company with integrity now, and in spite of the headaches of all their requirements, it's so worth it to be doing the right thing and have proof of it.
Integrity is like a tree. If the trunk is strong, the whole tree will thrive, producing strong, healthy branches. The weak tree will produce weak branches and not thrive.
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