political emails

I am very disturbed by people sending me their political emails. Not the random "support our candidate" emails but the ones from friends and associates that feel compelled to include me in their email list and forward me things like what a wonderful job GW is doing and how under appreciated he is. I do not send them emails asking them to support views I know are not theirs, I do not send them emails that I find humorous based on my political views, that I know would offend them. I don't get up on my political soapbox and preach to them, why must they feel compelled to preach at me? I know it might be important to try to change some peoples minds, but you don't do that by forwarding aggressive emails, you do that by sending factual emails if you must send emails. Personally I only forward those things on to like minded individuals. I'm not big on political confrontation.

Obviously I just got an email. It was forwarded to me by someone I like, however I know our views are very different. I don't send her emails pointing out how lame our current president is, how corrupt he is, how inept he is. I do not feel like I should have to get emails going on about how we should be behind GW in the war in Iraq regardless of the reasons he gave for getting us there, an email that goes on about how Michael Moore's documentary has been all but disproved by the 9/11 committee - hello, what report did you read!? And, I do not like being treated like sheep. If Bush wanted a war in Iraq over the way Saddam was treating the citizens then I may well have signed on for that(although since he didn't give two sh!ts about California during our energy crisis I'm not out of reasons to not support him either). But you don't get to play that card AFTER you drove us to war using the 9/11 conspiracy theory. And another thing, just how does presenting the images of completely anonymous flagged draped coffins returning from Iraq invade privacy? We do not know what individuals are in them and we are not invading a private family service. It is not an invasion of any privacy, it is this administrations way of keeping a human face off of the hard numbers of US soldiers deaths.

Just once I would like to see some more people think for themselves rather than spouting the party line. Do you honestly think GW is doing a good job? Were you living in the same state as me? The same country? How many people do you know that have the same job they did 3 years ago? Are you not hearing more about the whole energy crisis manipulation that GW's buddies ran on us? I would like all of the Republicans that are supporting Bush to ask themselves what they are first, an American or a Republican? Personally I am first an American, second a Californian and third sick and tired of being lied to and manipulated by politicians, be they whatever party. Engage your brains people, open your eyes, hell if necessary ask yourself what you'd feel if he were a Democrat - maybe then you'd give yourselves an honest answer.

oh where has she gone?

I volunteer with a non-profit animal rescue. I foster dogs, I am on the board, I maintain the website, and with the leaving of our Treasurer (sometimes referred to as our "treasure") for the Lone Star State I am now the new best friend of the Dog Team Leader. Don't get me wrong, I like her a lot and couldn't do half the fostering she does/has done, but where oh where has my "treasure" gone? I kid you not, I had 5 calls in a 6 hour period yesterday. It got to the point where I yelled "not again" when the phone rang before I even looked at the caller ID. Granted, I had a major headache and was also trying to study for a midterm the next day, but still. I don't know if our "treasure" actually got all those calls or if it's just that now I get her half as well. Either way, I think her husband should quit that job and they should get their little butts back where they belong, where they were doing some good, where they were making a difference in our lives. Got to go, the phones ringing...

summer school was supposed to be fun

I know, that sentence in and of itself is what makes me old. But, I was looking forward to taking both Sociology and Anthropology as television courses. I would tape them, watch them in the evenings or on the weekend, and do my homework. But a programming error on my part with the VCR has set me back a week in Anthropology trying to play catch up. And then even though I've watched the first 4 episodes of Sociology and done the practice tests I have not done any of the essays - 1 for each episode, 250 to 300 words each. Plus, I now need to watch the second 4 episodes, take the practice tests and write the essays. Fortunately I have until the last week of class to turn in all of the essays, but I don't want to be like that. And next week I have a midterm for each of the classes. The midterm for Anthropology is all on an episode I have not even re-taped yet. If it screws up I am equally screwed. Funny thing is, I thought Anthropology would be the more interesting of the 2 and I haven't even been able to do any of it yet. Oh, I just hope I make it through the summer semester somewhat intact. Let that be a lesson to me, if I think it sounds easy it won't be.

people suck!

Today is one of the days I get to watch the phone lines for the animal rescue I volunteer for, in addition to the daily emails with pictures. People suck. Everyone wants to bail on their pets. "We no longer have the time to give our family dog of five years so we want to do the right thing by him and find him a home that can give him the time and attention he deserves". How altruistic of you. Right, like those exist. What they really mean is "this is way more work than we thought and we're just tired of dealing with it, so we'd like to dump our responsibility on someone else. We don't care that it's traumatic for the dog, we really only care about ourselves anyway and the fun has worn off". Today alone I have 6 dogs that are now looking for new homes - I think the oldest is 5 years old and the youngest is 2 years old. And oh by the way, they need to be gone like yesterday because "we're moving tomorrow, going out of town tomorrow, the landlord found out, etc." whatever makes us think they are the most urgent. And lets not forget that if we can't run right over to their house to pickup the dog - because they couldn't possibly bring them to us or give us some time to make room - it will go to the shelter to be put to sleep and it will be our fault because we didn't take it. Nice rationalization, anyone's fault but your own I say.

Let's be clear, a pet is a commitment for the life of that pet. You make sacrifices like you do with other loved ones, be they children, parents, other relatives or dear friends. A pet is not a toy. You do not get to just get tired of the work and dump it on someone else. Sometimes it will be VERY hard. Sometimes you may have to go home when you want to go out with your friends, because you need to feed the dog and play with the dog since you worked all week - like all of us do by the way. I don't personally know of any rescue people that have the luxury of simply staying home all day to foster unwanted animals. I'm sure they're out there but I don't know any. The ones I know work,may go to school, have families to care for, have their own pets to care for, and now have someone else's pets to care for. If you think you're too busy to take care of your pet, try being the people you're going to abandon them to. Get your head out of the fantasy world that when you dump your pet they get to go to the "perfect home" and live out their lives as all pets should. Hopefully they get a home better than the one that decided they were no longer worth the time and effort but very few will get a perfect home any more than the majority of us had the perfect family.

I'm all over the place in this I know. But I am so tired of not being able to tell these idiots exactly what I think about what they do. Get your head out of your ass and deal with the responsibility you took on - it's not like you got pregnant by accident and had a puppy or kitten - YOU WENT OUT AND GOT IT!!! You made the choice to have it in your life, now deal with it and deal with it the right way you pathetic bunch of losers.

I'm not anywhere near feeling better but at least I did get to pretend yell.

had to go for something simple

This isn't really much of an entry. I was looking through my posts and thought to myself, this is hard to read. So, new template. Now it is easier to read, aside from my writing...

2005

My friend Nancy sent this to me, and I love it. We don't know where it started or I'd give credit where credit is due, but I can't. In the meantime though, enjoy.

GO FOR IT!

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from across
Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to
the U. S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with
President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president
and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the
same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no
longer president and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and,
again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very
same U. S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President
Bush."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and
said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to
speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the
president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love
hearing it."

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow."

MAKE IT HAPPEN -- VOTE and get others to vote, too.

Are the odds really this bad?

OK, before you read on be forewarned that this is mostly depressing, I think.

Cancer seems to be the word circulating among my friends and acquaintances these days. I have a small group of friends and it is touching us all in some way. Now, my dad died of lung cancer many years ago but he was 1. a smoker and 2. involved in nuclear testing in WWII. And at that time he was the only person I knew with cancer. Fast forward 20 some years and in just the last 6 months-
-my sister in law lost her long battle with breast cancer, she was 52
-my aunt had a reoccurance of her breast cancer, she is 80 and was 72 the first time
-one of the women taking care of my niece (the niece that lost her mother to breast cancer) was diagnosed with breast cancer, she is 50
-one of my best friends childhood friends ( and my acquaintance) is now fighting breast cancer - she went the full mastectomy route and is doing chemo, she is 45
-the same friends co-worker has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and despite going in for a yearly mammogram because her mother died of ovarian cancer and her sister got breast cancer at 19, they did not notice it (it was there for like 4 years unnoticed). She now has it in her lungs and liver so things do not look good. She is in her late 40s I think and has a 19 year old daughter.
-an acquaintance's mother is currently in the hospital with a colon tumor. No one has said cancer yet but I am a bit removed from the immediate situation so it may be. I guess in light of the others my mind goes right to it.

It just seems to me that this word has been coming up a lot lately. I don't know if it's my age and thus the age of my associates, or if there is some increase going on. It seems to be awfully damn close. And the one that bothers me the most is the woman that did the right thing, and though the cancer was growing on the mammogram they didn't catch it. Is it a womans' health care issue? Is it increasing? Am I reaching the age where we just start getting it and seeing it more? 50 isn't old to me. Not even when I was a teenager. And most of the people I hear about are 40s and 50s. Is the planet trying to thin the herd because we keep curing things it throws at us?

Sometimes I actually believe that one. We've done such a good job of protecting those that would normally extinguish themselves through stupidity that the world has had to counter with things much more aggressive. Hmm.