Fixing our world image

Evidently President Bush is feeling the heat from all his bad choices and has assigned someone to spin us a new image. According to an article by Reuters:

One immediate task for Hughes will be countering the negative effects abroad of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

Television images of desperate and mainly black survivors of the storm stranded in danger and squalor in flooded New Orleans fueled perceptions abroad that the United States was a racially divided country in which the government is unconcerned about its poorest citizens.

Umm, hello, they fueled the same perceptions at home. Or I should say added fuel to a perception that already existed. After the President got elected he was quoted as saying that:

"This is an impressive crowd -- the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite -- I call you my base.” -- George W. Bush

Some people argue that this was a quote repeatedly taken out of context. I would argue that simply popping in to his mind is an indication of his true feelings. And now we have thousands of poor people dying due to lack of a timely response to a disaster we even knew was coming. And since Bush had given only a fraction of the money asked for to shore up failing levies, it wasn't hard to imagine thay at least some of them might fail in a situation like this. How come no one asked, oh my what happens if our crappy levies are damaged by this class 4 hurricane? Damn, someone do their job please.

Ok, I'm pretty sure I'm PMSing so I'll shut up now.

Still learning the art of blogging

But, I am getting there. I just added 2 blogroll links to my sidebar. I am very proud of myself. Now I need to find a few more to add. The thing is I don't get "out" much to read everyone's blogs. I just pop in here and there to see what's about town, so to speak. I'm much more of an observer than I am a participator. But I like being exposed to all the different viewpoints, and just daily chatter. Maybe I'll start getting more active now that I have a few lessons under my belt.

You'd think that by working with and being friends with someone who's writing a book about how to blog (look julie, a link in my paragraph) that I'd be right up there on ability. Just goes to show you how non-participatory I really am...

The inmates are running the asylum

never has it been more true...

My one class

Well. School is back in. I have one evening class on Tuesdays. Psychology of Women. We will be examining gender roles and societies attitudes towards women in different cultures. Should be interesting. She's mainly lecture and video. Last night, though, was a shock to my apparently sheltered system.

We learned all about various endocrine insufficiencies during gestation that affect gender. We learned about babies born genetically male but with deformed genitals. And since it is evidently easier to make a vagina than it is to make a penis, they opt to turn the baby boy into a baby girl. Even though it is genetically a boy. They keep having problems with the kids when they hit puberty, basically being too much a boy and then opting for surgery to turn them back. I was really having a problem with why they were making an obviously wrong choice simply because the surgery was easier - to perform by the way not necessarily to withstand. So even though children are born every day with some kind of deformity that they must live with, boys born with deformed gemitals would some how be better off turned into girls rather than learning to live with their deformity or possibly waiting to repair the genitals when the child is older. How could they possibly survive the ridicule, was the justification! Hello, children are mean to each other all the time but that doesn't mean we put a bag over the head of the kids with cleft palettes or hide the ones that need leg braces. We address the issues and teach the kids how to cope. And at a young age, before those damn gym classes, it's much easier to hide deformed genitals than it is a limb or a face. I think the Dr.s are doing much more damage to these kids pschologically than if they were simply allowed to develope the way they were born rather than being forced into the wrong mold. I was having a real hard time with this whole thing...and I don't even like kids.

I could go on about this because it really seems to have messed with me, but I won't. Can't wait to see what I learn next week...

It's not looting people, it's survival

I'm not going to launch in to a big long rant on what ISN"T being done for the victims of Katrina. But I am going to say that when you are left out in the elements, with no food or water or medical care and there's a store right in front of you, and no aid in sight, it's not looting it's survival. Has any one bothered to look at the news footage of what these people are "making off with" when they show pictures of "looting"? Thi sis not the L.A. riots with people making off with TVs and stereos, these are people taking food, water, and medical supplies to try to keep as many friends and family alive as they can. Hello, anyone else hearing a wake up call?!