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Saturday, August 02, 2008

OK, not to inflate your expectations, but...

I listened to this today on my iPod and had to share it. It's a humorous tale, made more so in that it was told by a 94 year old woman as she related a story of her youth.

Sometimes we tend to create these fanciful ideas about our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, that they were prudish and cared little about the attractions of male and female. That discussions of love, sex and relationships were at most minimal.

Granted, they were much less graphic and "in your face" compared to today's mores. Still, in their own way they went about the task of attracting the attention of the opposite sex in ways not so dissimilar to today's youth.

Betty Jenkins tells a tale that, except for the technology of the times, could very well be any young woman's story today, except that today it probably wouldn't have blown up in her face.

Read about it on NPR's Story Corp website and listen here...









"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson

Politics, power and pocketbooks...

It’s been a few days since posting. Lot’s of personal responsibilities clamoring for attention drew my attention away from the computer, but not the news. Still, in the coming days it will be a balancing act to write while continuing to take care of business at home.

Of interest is the today’s story on the draconian measures of House Democrats to shut down Republican efforts to pass legislation to deal with the current rise in prices digging into the pocketbook of American families.

The House leadership, without debate, passed a resolution Friday to adjourn that legislative body for the next five weeks. In doing so they effectively turned a deaf ear to the cries of Americans seeking relief from high gas prices.

Democrats are reticent to enact any legislation that brings relief to high oil prices, preferring to play on the American distrust of oil companies that has been perpetuated by their rhetoric and media misinformation.

The ban of offshore drilling will expire September but it is still a toss up whether Democrats will chance angering voters by extending the ban.

After the adjournment, Republican held a protest on the House floor with Representative Thad McCotter (R-Michigan) proclaiming, “he believes part of the reason Congress is so hated by the American people is because they ‘care more about politics than about working people.’"

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind, declared, "Republicans will not go quietly. Let us demand that the president of the United States ... call a special session of this Congress on energy."

So what’s up this Democrat Congress? Why won’t they address the issue of high oil prices? I believe, like many others, it’s because they want oil and gas prices to remain high, at least through the November elections. What better tool to demonize Republicans than to paint them and the Bush administration with the false colors of complicity with “big oil.”

The ignorant voter base of the Democrats who will not educate themselves on the facts of the issues will blindly fall in line. Many other Americans who remain more interested in entertainment and celebrity than arming themselves with the facts will follow along.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has flipped and now supports drilling offshore. That’s a 180-degree flop from his strongly held, immovable and principled position of only a few weeks ago. One would have to believe that his principles can be bought and the change we can believe in it the changing nature of Mr. Obama’s positions.

And the beat goes on. Meanwhile, while the American people struggle with high fuel prices, spiraling grocery prices and an economy that seems to be faltering, succumbing to the efforts of the Democrats and their media crony’s, Democrats and Republicans go on a spending spree.

The spending bill passed on Friday included 510 earmarks. These spending measures are stuffed into legislation, most going unnoticed until after the final vote. Most of the money spent goes to pet projects in the representatives’ district and much of it isn’t even requested or lobbied for by the recipients. Their primary purpose is to memorialize the representative or senator who lassos it.

Meanwhile, weighed down by the aforementioned increasing cost of living, American families are paying for the vanity of their representatives $17 Billion addiction. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, politicians spent $17.2 billion on 11,610 pork projects in 2008. It cost’s every American family $153.57. That’s more than a week’s worth of groceries for most families, money they could sorely use in their own budget yet Congress persists in pilfering the pockets of the public for their own pernicious practices.

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson