The media lately has fallen down on the job. Sympathizing with rapists, failing to sympathize with the victim, failing to censure the people who blame the victim… I could write about that. But I am not going to. It has been written and reported about. Over and over again. Sometimes well and sometimes not.  I am also not going to write about whether or not the boys deserved what they got (the answer in my mind is they didn’t get enough consequences) or whether their lives are effectively over (they aren’t). I am instead going to write about Jane Doe, the...

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A couple of weeks ago I ran across something online that really bothered me. At the time I didn’t feel up to tackling the ways in which it was wrong. But it won’t go away. Keeps haunting me. So, as with all such things? I will write about it to exorcise the ghost of it. The story/joke is this (and many of you may have already seen it): The $50 Lesson Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in the front yard, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home from walking their dog. During our...

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An online friend of mine posted part of an email from his son where his son railed against stupid people voting. Because, I assume, he believes it is stupidity that will be the cause if the far right gains Presidential office this coming election. Now, while I do not have a very high opinion of the collective American IQ, I think that it is a mistake to think that stupidity is the motivator. Perhaps even a dangerous one. Because stupidity and ignorance can be ameliorated with the right information and a little (okay a lot) of patience. But the...

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Social media is a funny thing. It has taught me things I never thought to learn. Recently it has shed a spotlight on the fact that the people in politics are completely out of touch with the general populace. Which is probably not an earth shaking revelation for most of you. But what it also has proven to me is that the majority of us, no matter which political bumper sticker we are apt to buy, are more the same than we are different. My Facebook wall is a bit like Switzerland. Neutral ground. I am the kind of...

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When you have kids you always have a vision for them. Mine was kind of vague  in reaction to how I had been raised. I wasn’t going to push my kids to be anything but happy in what they did. I kept that promise to myself, too. I never insisted, only suggested. I didn’t force music lesson, sports, enrichment classes or anything else on them. If they were interested in something? I made it happen. So my kids have always been free to make of themselves what they will. What I didn’t realize at the time was what it...

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The older I get the more I pay attention to politics. I’m not sure why that is. I’ve always paid enough attention to vote intelligently and I’ve always voted but…I didn’t care as much 25 years ago. I didn’t check out Canada’s immigration policy just in case… The upcoming elections frighten me. I don’t have much hope that Obama will get a second term and as an incumbent he’s the only choice I have on that side. Which is unfortunate. It isn’t that he is a bad President…it is just that he isn’t a terribly effective one. He reminds...

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If that doesn’t get your attention, congratulations. You are less prurient than 99.9 % of the world at large. Maybe it is just that I am in a cynical mood. I’m sick, I haven’t been sleeping well and I have much more personal issues to roll around in my head than what I am about to write about. But I think it may be more than that. That there is some point that needs to be made and that I, in my infinite hubris, am the one who should make it. What is this about? Well, a marijuana advocate,...

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