Tea Party - Hijacked Movement

Hitch your political wagon to the Tea Party and you're assured a place in infamy.  This post is based on observation from reading various publications without reference to fact or figures.  After all, it's how most of us get our news these days anyway.  Even Obama's spokesperson thinks we get it from programs like Entertainment Tonight. How I hope she is wrong!

I do admire that a group of citizens fed up with out of control spending was able to cobble together a movement that is known as the Tea Party. There lack of cohesive leadership, however, has been detrimental to their cause and most certainly the Republican party.  Candidates who otherwise would not have had a chance to be elected were savvy enough to latch on to the Tea Party mantra thereby garnering their support.  Too many of them have been losers and good people have been turned out of office or kept in office because of them.  Sharron Angle losing to Harry Reid was probably the worst.  There was Christine O'Donnell who was odd to say the least. There are others. They all wear the Christian Conservative badge.  Now we're saddled with Todd Akin who seems to think the most important election of our time revolves around his being forgiven for a statement for which he obviously is not sorry. He is a Tea Partier.

If the Tea Party wants to maintain influence without a formal organization they're barking up the wrong tree.  They're going to have to vet candidates who claim to sympathize with them or we will continue to have a divided Republican party with moderates on one side and nut cases and obstructionists on the other and a Tea Party losing it's steam.

Granted, and I've said it often, a lot of the old war horses should be turned out to pasture but be sure it's for the right reason.  Willingness to work with the few Democrats who are also willing is not it.

Romney is a weak candidate.  I'd hoped he'd learned from his last run what he did wrong and make an effort to make corrections but that doesn't seem like it is to be.  When the VP candidate is more popular than the presidential candidate you've got a problem.  It's deja vu all over again!  McCain/Palin.  At least this time the VP candidate has some substance whether or not you agree with his positions.

Meanwhile,  as I often say, Syria continues to be a blood bath, our soldiers continue to be killed in Afghanistan and Iran is getting ever closer to a nuclear bomb.  Can we afford to turn a blind eye to the Akins of our political world hoping they'll miraculously 'get it' before it's too late?  I'd say the Tea Party has a part to play in this.  The ball is in their court. Tell Mr. Akin he must go.

Cavemen In Congress

 Picture the caveman dragging a woman by her hair with one hand and wielding his club with the other.  How often have you see that caricature?  Don't you wish that's all it was?  A caricature? Don't you wish we didn't have any such caricatures in Congress?

But we do.  This time it's Representative Todd Akin, Republican from Missouri.  He's anti-abortion.  No matter the circumstances which might have caused a pregnancy - like rape.  After all, he tells us, he understands from doctors that pregnancy resulting from rape is really rare and that if it's a 'legitimate' rape a woman's body can sense it and halt the pregnancy.

I'm not going to get into the breast beating about the horrors of rape and how demeaning this is to women.  Enough others are handling that.  What I wonder is how a grown man, regardless of his occupation, can be so ill informed this day and age!  What's worse is that he actually seems to believe it!  Whew!

I'll be generous and assume he misunderstood the doctors with whom he spoke.  If I weren't being generous I'd assume he spoke to no one, what's more a doctor, because this is what he wants to believe for what ever reason. Apparently it doesn't have to be based on fact, but then politicians have trouble with facts all the time.

He even supported rewording circumstances for federally funded programs to provide abortions only for  cases of  'forcible' rape versus 'ordinary' (my word) rape such as statutory rape.  I don't blame women for being upset.  I don't blame every one who is upset for being upset.  And I fully support every one who is calling for him to step down from the senatorial race against Claire McCaskill.  He should step down from office, period.

What apalls me most though is that he is a congressman in the first place.  He helps make the laws we live with.  I've often complained that too many in congress are totally ignorant of the subject matter and blind to the potential unintended consequences of the legislation they write and pass.

There is no better example of ignorance than this.  Yet he resists stepping down.  He is either monumentally stupid, monumentally arrogant or both. This affront to intellect has no party boundaries.  Both sides have members of an equal level.  It's just that Akin is the most recent to put his foot in it.  Don't accept the apology.  He doesn't mean it.

Don't reward him with any more time in office.  He doesn't deserve it.  And we can't afford him or any more like him.

Pure Evil

The world has gone mad, completely mad and both Christians and Israel are sitting in the cross hairs of the manifestation of hatred and evil beyond belief.

I could not believe this headline when I read it, Arab Spring Run Amok: 'Brotherhood' Starts Crucifixions.  Crucifixions?  Are you kidding? No. According to WND radical Muslims have begun crucifying those opposed to Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi. Naked.  On trees in front of the presidential palace.

I could not believe what I was seeing so I searched about a bit and found other articles reporting the same news. Apparently the victims can be anyone with extra brutality reserved for Christians.

Well, here we go again.  Savagery in the name of religion.  It seems it's not only a normal part of Islamic doctrine but obligatory according to the Quran.  Therefore the Muslim brotherhood is obliged to include it in their legal code in order to comply with Shariah.

We've long known the Muslims are bound to wage war against Christians who in many instances are synonymous with the west.  Us.  Are we not a 'Christian' nation?

Israel is in trouble because they thwarted an attack by Hamas trying to cross into Gaza.  Morsi used this as an excuse to purge the top ranks of the military, those who were fighting to preserve some degree of sanity.

We sit here taking no stand on the slaughter that continues in Syria.  We have taken a back seat to the entire theater of war that has been going on in the middle east for years, giving thumbs up to dictators who we declare redeemable but who never are.  Mubarak.  Ghadafi.  Al Assad.  Karzi.  Now Morsi.  We only give the thumbs down when it's apparent they can't extract themselves from the destruction they reigned down upon themselves.  Why is this?

I know the country is tired of war.  We get into them for all the wrong reasons and stay out of them for the same. Our foreign policy is floundering if indeed we have any.  Leading from behind is not a policy.  Or is it?  That makes it even worse.

Morsi is instituting a reign of terror to consolidate his power.  He will be attending a summit in Iran this month.  That does not bode well. He has an invitation to visit the White House in September.  They will try to convince us he is a moderate.  One more monster we wanted to see in power.

All I can do is ask why?  What are we thinking?  Al Assad is slaughtering his own people by the tens of thousands.  Morsi is having his opposition crucified.  This is pure evil.  Period. Yet we neither hear it, see it nor speak it.

We give Israel the cold shoulder, leaving them to fend for themselves.  We welcome these governments with open arms.  Something is drastically wrong.  We are the west.  We are mostly Christian.  We are targeted. Don't ever think we're not.  Just look at the number of our soldiers being murdered by the Afghans who we're training and providing with the very weapons they use.

Somehow, in the grand scheme of things, I could care less what Mitt Romney paid in taxes the last ten years or whether or not he releases that information.  You want something taxing to worry about?  Consider the future as the countries of the middle east fall like dominoes to the Islamic radicals.  Consider too, these monsters are beginning to be put into office by their own people.

What will we be putting into office?  Better yet, what have we put into office?

It Was The Best Of Times...And The Worst

People who love dogs know there is nothing in the world like them.  Least of all people.

Shortly after we lost our Saint Bernard Bacchus a new one came into our lives via You Tube.  Jub Jub.  At the time just months old and as owners of new puppies do, his owner flooded You Tube with videos of their adventures.  I received an invite that I would guess went to every Saint fan he could find.

It was all of our Saints all over again rolled into one.  I couldn't wait for new ones.  The timing was great because it helped heal the pain of my loss.

With time inconsolable grief turns into happy memories and you move on. At least it did with me and Jub Jub's young man.  He moved, the videos became less frequent but we were friends on Facebook and I check in every now and then.

Time came to clean some things out of our game room.  Sitting in a corner was a cardboard cut out of Beethoven I've had for 20 or so years.  I picked him up from our local video store just after we lost Oaf who had preceded Bacchus as head Saint in our household.  I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather pass him on to than Jub Jub and his human.  All because of their relationship - it's special, at least to me.  He's there now, in a place of honor on the wall above Jub Jub's sleeping space.  It seemed a happy and fitting thing to do, I had healed.

But you never really do.  My niece called me today in tears.  She had just had their greyhound euthanized.  The vet suspected a neurological problem for some time and yesterday it manifested itself to the point of no return.  She described it to me, her anguish palpable.  It brought back all those feelings as if my own experiences with Bacchus, all my dogs, had been yesterday.  My eyes are moist now.  For my niece and her family, for her Treason and all our pets that have gone before.

It hurts.  Oh my, I had forgotten how much. I grieve more for my dogs than I do for most people. I don't recall who said that dogs aren't your whole life but they make your life whole.  How true.

Such is the joy and the sorrow of allowing yourself to love that deeply and be loved equally as much in return.  Run free Treason.  That we could rejoin our dogs at some point in eternity would make all the pain and turmoil we live with in our earthly existance more than worth it.

Super Women - In Saudi No Less

For decades women in this country have been bemoaning the  inability to break through the glass ceiling.  Men, those evil creatures, have prevented it insisting women can't do it all and do it well. They, who don't have the burden of child bearing and rearing, are the most capable.

Of course women have tried and for every success there have been numerous failures.  I have no statistics, I just know.  I'm a woman and I know my limitations and those of my acquaintances. In this case there is some truth to that line of thinking.

So, how do women prove their capabilities?  Leave it to the Saudis to figure it out. Here is a country with a vast number of highly educated women who are restricted by their ultra conservative laws and customs.  Like not being able to drive nor mingle with men other than family.  The solution - at least on a trial basis - is women only cities!

Brilliant!  Within these cities women will rule by running the businesses and factories as well as being the workers. They will be able to prove their capabilities on a number of levels - like which are the businesses best suited for women.  More importantly, the women will be able to prove to themselves if they're really ready for prime time so to speak.

There are of course drawbacks.  They won't have men to blame and be sure, men will be watching.  They will be proving themselves against other women which in the world outside their cities won't be the case. Another aspect not discussed is the family unit over and above work.  Though they will live in areas adjacent to their cities, it can't be a true test unless they are solely responsible for home and family along with work.

If it does work well for them it has been suggested they enclose themselves within their little meccas of opportunity and let the men see what it's like without women to do their bidding.  Wouldn't we all like that at times!

Since this is an experiment being conducted in a middle eastern country perhaps it will provide real hope for the women residing in even more restrictive countries.  Those who not only cannot work, but are also denied education.  That doesn't necessarily mean they are without ability and there is nothing to say they couldn't band together, occupy their own piece of territory and fend for themselves.  No easy task to be sure.  If they fail they're likely to be stoned to death.

Never-the-less it's an experiment worth watching.  I think the close minded men will be shocked at what the women can do.  I think the women will find it's not as easy as they may think.  They both might learn the value of each to the other.

Wow.  Men and women complimenting one another rather than opposing one another.  What a concept!