No more trickling down ... PLEASE!

As I listen (and listen and listen and listen) to the political rhetoric from both sides, there are things that I agree with on both sides and things that I don't. But I realize more and more as I listen to McCain and Palin that they are talking the same old trickle down economics that hasn't worked since forever.

You give a millionaire money and he/she doesn't put it back into circulation ... at least not with their employees. They put it all in THEIR bank account and they and their families go shopping and traveling while laying off employees. Cutting their taxes doesn't encourage entrepeneurship. It doesn't do anything for the middle class. It just makes the rich, richer.

Making the top money makers pay their share of the taxes is distribution of burden and I think it's about time.

Ready for election day

I am so ready for November 4th. I want to know the outcome so we can start moving forward. Of course, I say that, hoping with everything that I've got that it will be Barack Obama. I have been disappointed in McCain during this election cycle, but I don't worry about him winning except for the Sara Palin thing. I do not want her being VP. I do not want to risk her being President. She does not represent me or what I want for our country.

I am not nearly as well spoken as Colin Powell in why I want Obama for president. When I listened to Mr. Powell's endorsement, it's like he was reading my mind. He said all the things that I wasn't able to articulate nearly as well. I actually misted up listening to him. He was awesome.

I don't know what anyone can do about our current state of affairs, but Powell made feel feel hopeful. Obama makes me feel hopeful. I listen to him and he makes me feel like we can actually do it ... we can recover.

I want a sound country for my grandson to grow up in. I was him to have opportunities. I want him to be proud of his country. But I don't want him paying for our mistakes.

Sad storey

I was watching Inside Edition tonight and they had a story about a couple who has fallen on hard times financially. He had to retire early because of a back injury, they ran out of money, lost their home ... pretty much everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

Then, to top it off, when they lost their home they found an apartment but the apartment doesn't allow large pets. They had 3 labs that they raised from puppys. So they have had to give up their dogs. The dogs live at a shelter right now and they go visit them every night. Even the shelter manager is crying about the situation!

Here's a link to the story. http://www.insideedition.com/news.aspx?storyID=2249

I hope someone hears/sees their story and is able to help somehow. It's just all so sad. It would be so great to hear a happy ending in this time of unrelenting bad news.

More reason to hate HOA's

I went to an HOA meeting yesterday. I am stunned at how polarizing these meetings are. I have yet to see the value of these organizations. All I see are the fights that they cause between neighbors as everyone interprets the confusing legalese. Some of the "discussions" are scarey ... they are all uncomfortable to listen to.

There is a woman who lives next to a house that has been abandoned. The owners apparently had 10 dogs and they weren't good at keeping up with their pets. As a result the house is "destroyed" to use her words. She wants to know what the HOA can and will do about it. Obviously, the HOA can't help her. It is a legal issue. The bank has to foreclose on it, blah blah blah. So having an HOA didn't help her. All it does is let the busy bodies complain that someone's grass is 1" longer than it's supposed to be. It justifies neighbors snooping on neighbors.

I really think they are the most un-American thing I've ever seen. I'm amazed at how many people are so willing to just give up so many of their rights/freedoms as property owners. It's a slipper slope they are chosing to go down. One woman asked me why we purchased property given how we feel. Despite the rudeness, I replied. I said that we can't afford to custom build a house on a piece of property. If we want to live in a new home, we have no choice because it's the new yuppy trend.

Rest assured, if I win mega millions ... we are outta here. And I think I'll build a community that has no HOA for others like us who want to enjoy all the freedoms of owning their own home.

Awesome use of technology

I'm sick of bad economic news and bad political news and just bad news in general. And that's all I seem to see and hear. I was just checking out what's new at CNN and saw this:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/10/12/elephant.text.message.ap/index.html

Who could resist a headline that says an elephant sent a text message?! Just when you start loosing faith in your fellow man, you read something like that. Nice.

Now I just need another Redskins win and I'll consider this a good day. :-)

I don't get it

I just don't understand everyone's hang-up with gay marriage. What difference does it make? My daughter was raised without an awareness one way or the other about gays. They exist. Just like trees, clouds in the sky, birds, men, women, christians, jews, the list goes on. She is a great mother a good christian, a good citizen, a good tax payer and she still doesn't care of notice whether someone is gay. It did not challenge her faith or her concept of family to know that gays exist.

Gay couples are just like any hetero couple. They are as much a family as hetero couples. They love and care just as deeply. They help their kids with the homework. The biggest difference is that gays are probably better at teaching their kids tolerance of others because they have to teach them how to handle someone treating them and their family with lack of tolerance.

They have all the negatives of being a couple/family ... disagreements, keeping relationship from falling apart, sick partners/family members, money problems. Let's allow them some of the benefits too.

I am disappointed that politicians try to play both sides by saying they are FOR civil unions but AGAINST gay marriage. It's the same thing people. If churches don't want to perform a marriage ceremony for gay couples, that is the church's right. But we have separation of church and state in this country, so they have the right to go to a courthouse and get married just like I did. I don't call my marriage a civil union just because it occurred at a courthouse. I'm married. Period.

People seem to think they are SAVING the definition of family by denying gays the same basic human rights that hetero married couples have. Like the right to inherit property. The right to make medical decisions for an incapacitated partner. The right to have family health insurance. Gays are not challenging what a family is ... they are enforcing it. The care for each other just like we do. They support each other just like we do. They pay taxes just like we do. They join neighborhood watch groups just like we do. They take their kids trick-or-treating just like we do. It's not like their lives are different than ours.

The rolls are basically the same, they are just being carried out by 2 men or 2 women. It really is that simple. We need to stop reading more into it than it is. We need to stop teaching our children intolerance, you are just making their adulthood more difficult for them. This is the world they will live, work and marry in. You are crippling their coping skills by focussing on people who are different.

Everyone who cares, you are free to be negative and make your childrens' lives more difficult as they move into adulthood in a world that is not what you teach. Your church will support you, so that's where you should hide. But I ask that you stop trying to deny people their rights based on religeous belief. That is NOT what this country is about. That is NOT what this country was founded on. That is NOT good manners.

I know that in these scarey times since 9/11 people have run hysterically towards religion. It's been done before and it will be done again I'm sure. And that's wonderful. That's what our faith is for. It helps us though difficult times. But it is very important that we don't go overboard with it. Stop blaming lack of religion in schools and government as the source of our problems. That is DEFINITELY NOT the case. I am 56. I was raised without prayer in school and I am not gay nor a terrorist. I learned prayer where I was supposed to learn it ... in church and home. School was for facts and arts ... and phys ed. That's what our ancestors came to this new land for ... religeous freedom. They separated church and state so that people weren't judged and treated by their government based on religion.

I think they were pretty smart. I look at countries that have been fighting for generations and the biggest difference that I see is that they have not separated religion from politics. That makes politics much more personal and volatile. I do not want that for this country or my grandson. I want him to have the same experience that I had and that his mother had.

This is a great country. It has been a great country for over 200 years. I think what we've been doing so far has worked pretty stinking well. Let's not mess it up. Ok? Disagree with me about whether or not gays are just like us. But please, don't mess with my country. I like my country just the way it is ... a melting pot that has been set up to be as impartial towards its citizens as possible.

The Golden Years

I think that whoever came up with that phrase was clearly not there yet. They were hoping that's what the other side of the hill is like.

It's hard to explain, but I just don't have the motivation that I used to have. Our daughter is grown and off building her own life. So it's just my husband and I which is nice in a lot of ways, but I don't know what my purpose is anymore. I get up, go to work, come home, repeat 5 times, then the week-end. Sometimes golf. Always chores. But no fire. No wondering but also not nearly as much worrying. I guess life is just too smooth/bland. I couldn't wait for peace and quiet when dealing with a teen aged daughter, and now I complain that life is too quiet.

I'm not retired so I do have to get motivated to go to work. I used to think I wanted to retire, but that's what I used to say when my daughter was making me nuts. Maybe I should stop wishing for too much peace and quiet.

Plus our body isn't what it used to be. I used to sleep like a rock. I used to be able to jog and not be limping for 2 days afterwards. I know I'm a lucky person. I'm also a floundering person. I want to know what I contribute to the world anymore.

The golden years, indeed.

This election is scarey

This election makes me very nervous. The folks attending the republican rallies are getting really scarey. They yell things like "off with his head"! Yikes! That's not cool. Especially in light of what happened in Iraq to kidnap victims. Is this the democracy we want to spread around the world? I don't blame them for not wanting it when they see how we behave over politics.

It's always amazing to me how a liberal and a conservative can hear the same speech, debate, whatever, and hear such totally different things. I mean, I remember the telephone game where one person whispered something into the next person's ear and on down the line. Then the last person says what they heard and the first person says what they said and everyone laughs because it changed so much as it was passed down the line. But, I really don't get what I see today.

I was reading an article talking about the angry crowds at the republican rallies, and when the reporter interviews a couple of attendees they say they aren't angry. It's just frustration. "Off with his head" is frustration? The tone that I hear on the nightly news doesn't sound like just frustration. It sounds like they want to rip someone's head off. It sounds angry.

Hey, I had to suck it up over George Bush ... TWICE! These 8 years have been pretty much hell for me, but I'm not biting off the heads of my conservative friends. I understand frustrated. I've lived frustrated for 8 years. I don't understand what I'm hearing.

We are starting to sound like the Sunni and Shiite and other factions in the middle east. You know, the groups that hate each other enough to go to war and stay at war for generations. We are starting to sound that angry to me and I don't like that one bit. I have a grandson who I love and I don't want that world for him at all.

How the hell did we get here? What's the deal? I really feel that the ultra conservative news outlets have done more to foster this hatred that any other source. They nuture it every day with venom. They whip people into a frenzie ... it's mob mentality with a license.

Can someone else besides me see this? Can we stop this? Probably not. I hope we don't end up like the Sunni and Shiite. I hope we aren't in a war with ourselves that we can't stop.

HOA the Anti Homeowner Association

Who thought these organizations were a good idea? How did this country manage to under-regulate the financial market so hugely while at the same time giving HOA's so much power over homeowners ... to the point where homeowners are frequently afraid of "their" association?

When you buy a home in a new community today, you are handed a 500-800 page document in convoluted legalese that is incomprehensible to the lay person. These disclosures, covenants and by-laws are intended to protect the value of everyone's property by making sure that no one puts too many lawn ornaments up or use an old toilet as a planter. What these documents do is empower little Napoleon types to run amok with authority and pit neighbors against each other. Plus these are homes first and investments second, thank you very much. At least, mine is.

These associations and their documents do nothing but alienate neighbors from one another and put money in the pockets of lawyers and property management companies -- which are also the only ones who understand the stinking documents.

And none of these documents are written to consider the local culture. They are standard boilerplate documents that look the same in Arizona as they do in a coastal town.

If you Google "HOA" you will be amazed (or maybe not) at how many people HATE, not just dislike, they HATE HOA's. The comments show how divisive these organizations are. Read about the "Right To Dry" movement which came to exist because of and to fight HOA's.

I will be writing my legislators (at all levels of government) asking them to undo the wrong that has been done in creating these laws and organizations. HOA's deprive home owners of their basic rights as property owners. They are absolutely UNAMERICAN! No more HOA's!

Campaign 2008

I'm a baby boomer who has seen a lot of elections. I remember Kennedy as a child. I remember Nixon. I remember Jimmy Carter (my favorite). The negativity seems to have grown enormously. I was recently driving to work and listening to NPR as usual. They were doing a segment on a documentary from Stefan Forbes titled "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story". I had forgotten the ads from those elections, but was stunned to find out that one man was behind them. And that he was proud of his work. This baffles me.

As I look at elections today and the Fox News cable network, I see that his work has mushroomed into the most incredible machine ever seen. It's impressive actually. But it's also depressing. Yep, I'm a liberal. I'm also stunned at how much conservatives love to hate. But they do it with a smile, so I guess that makes it ok. And they do it as Christians which also makes it ok. In the NPR interview on the documentary it was said that democrats have never learned how to counter those huge negative attacks. I think I'm actually proud that they can't play that game. I would be disappointed if we were to sink to those levels.

And guess what! I'm a Christian too. I'm pro-choice. That doesn't mean I'm pro-abortion. It doesn't mean anyone is. It just means we want people to have that choice. I would be delighted if people didn't feel like they needed to take that option, but I'm not going to deny them that right. I believe that I am as good a Christian as anyone on the righteous right.

My problem with the oh so pious and righteous is that they feel they are better than everyone else. They feel they have the right, no the duty, to look down at people who don't believe the same as they do. They mistake the act of going to church as signifying their goodness. They have a God given duty to show their superiority. Ugh. Enough already!

I pray every day. I talk to God every day. I believe in stem cell research. I believe in the right to choose. I believe in separation of church and state -- as did our forefathers. I believe that we are loosing our ability to be tolerant. We were making progress towards tolerance, but we seem to have lost our way and are back to hating. It makes me very sad. Very sad.

I am particularly bothered/annoyed that Mrs. Palin feels that it is all right to say the things she is saying about Obama. He associates with terrorists?! Come on! She calls herself a Christian but can say those words with a straight face. She can put her head down on her pillow at night and close her eyes and actually sleep soundly?! Stop it. Stop it right now. If that's what you have to do to win, then you've lost. Shame on you.

Using Obama's middle name as a way to try and strike fear in people?! This is the Christian way?! This is how you treat people who have a different opinion? Come on!

Argue the issues. Discuss the differences. Say what you'll do. Stop the crap. You're an embarrassment to the United States and to our political system. Stop the Atwater tactics now. It's not too late to actually act like the Christians you say you are.