Politics
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Vote Early, Vote Often
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dPF0SGh_PQ[/youtube] I kid! Only vote once. But some of you can vote early if you want to. Long lines and long waits are predicted on election day, so if you have the option to vote early, you might want to think about it. Could save you time, and take a bit of the crunch off of the poll workers on November 4th. Also, less chance of any shenanigans occurring with your ballot. 😉 The video is for the ladies, and a reminder to all of us that we should never take any of our rights for granted. They can all be taken away. Fight for them, and get out and…
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Paradox of Thrift
(image found here) Have you heard of the term, The Paradox of Thrift?  Simplified, it means that what is best for the individual may not be what is best for the collective. If you decide to tighten your budget during difficult times, and if you’re unwilling to spend money on unnecessary items, that’s good for your household budget. It’s smart to not let yourself spend more than you make, and it’s smart to save money and be careful with what you do spend. The overall economy, however, is based on growth, which means consumers buying more each year than they did the last year. If you spend exactly the same…
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Supply and Demand
If you drive, you’ve surely noticed that the price of gas has fallen lately. Here in the Bay Area, gas was about $4.70 or so at its highest, and now it’s closer to $3.25. (That graph there shows that the price of oil has fallen by 50%…so why hasn’t gas fallen as drastically?) (Cherry said she got gas the other day for $2.99, at Costco) The reason for falling oil prices is lower demand. It’s not that there’s suddenly any more oil out there, it’s just that with fears of a global recession, the demand has fallen. And, of course, people are conserving a lot more than they used to,…
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For Jimmy
See Jimmy, you can come over to the light without fear! Join these old boys!
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WTF???
This is totally not going to be an in depth examination of California’s ongoing budget crisis. No one outside of California cares, and it’s Friday, so no one is reading anyway. Besides, the country’s economic issues are so serious, and we’re all so screwed for this next little while (how long? Oh, just long enough to lose your savings if you have one, just long enough to lose your house if you have one, just long enough to realize you’re how screwed you are if you have nothing), that probably the 90% of my readers who don’t live in California have bigger fish to fry. But if you live in…
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HPV for Boys
We’ve all seen the commercials, right? The ones that say, “I want to be one less”, the girls who don’t want to become a statistic, to get cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine prevents a few varieties of the virus that causes cervical cancer, so while it isn’t a cure, it could be a step in the right direction. Well, Maya is 12 now, and not really acting interested in boys. We’ve been deciding whether to vaccinate her now or later. It’s not a matter of whether to vaccinate her or not…if we can protect her from the possibility of dying from cancer, wouldn’t we want to do so? And HPV…
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Back to School
The other night was ‘back to school night’ at Maya’s middle school. The evening started with speeches with the Principal, the Superintendent of the district, and the head of the PTA. They talked about how lucky we are to have such wonderful kids, how our district is in the top 95% of the state in test scores, and how parent involvement and dedicated parents help to make this the case. They talked about how raising healthy, happy children was about much more than these test scores, but still, yay test scores! Then we went and sat in each of the classrooms that our child attends for 10 minutes each, and…
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We Get the Government We Deserve
As I was laughing hysterically at the comic above (this is just one panel…click here to read the whole thing…I love Bad Reporter) in today’s paper, Ted was reading about how Obama’s poor choice of analogies is pushing voters over towards McCain/Palin. I will admit, when I heard Obama’s comment, I thought, “That was not a smart comment to make. Even though McCain made the SAME COMMENT about Clinton and her policies last year, in this charged environment, and so soon after Palin’s folksy joke about Hockey Moms and pit bulls with lipstick, it did appear that he was calling her a pig. Not wise. But clearly, people are getting…
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September 11, Again
This is the third time I’ve posted this. Part of me thinks I should publish something new on this, but part of me thinks I said everything I had to say back then. I’m tempted to get political this year and ask if you feel safer this year, and if Osama bin Ladin has been caught “Dead or Alive”, like we were promised…or if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq look close to being over. I’m tempted…but I won’t. Wait. I just did. Sorry. Edelmiro Abad of Brooklyn at a wedding with his close-knit family: his wife, Lorraine, and in white from left, daughters Serena, 19, Rebecca, 26, and Jennifer,…
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Conversation about Politics, via email
With my dear friend, who shall remain nameless, because I didn’t ask her permission to post this. This is from an email conversation we had yesterday. ************************************************************ DEAR FRIEND OF MINE: Hey darling, I had a great time a dinner too. I am glad you love me because of what I am about to say. I really like Palin. I appreciate the fact of her trying to raise a child with special needs and being a working mom. She had gotten a lot of flack and people have said how could she possibly be Vice-Pres with a small child but give me a break, how long has everyone said women…
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Talking Politics with a 12 Year Old
Last night, watching Palin speaking at the convention, Maya started asking us, “Is she lying?” She’s 12. She does not understand nuances yet, sees the world in black and white, us and them, good and bad. She likes Obama, and therefore if there’s a woman up on stage trash-talking him, she wants to know if that woman is lying. She doesn’t yet see that, sadly, ALL politicians skew the facts in their own favor, ALL politicians pump up their own resumes in order to make themselves more electable. What she wants to know is, “Is she lying?” So, I printed this article up for her today when I saw it…
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One Cure for Racism…
My Grandmother, who is the granddaughter of slave-owners on the Southern side of the family…my Grandmother, who blames black folks in this country for the fact that her Grandfather on the Northern side of the family died for their freedom in the Civil War (conveniently ignoring the blame to be held by generations of our Southern side for the crimes against humanity that they committed)…My Grandmother, who, with half a glass of wine in her, will volunteer that no matter what anyone else says, there’s just ‘something different’ about black people, something that somehow makes them less than the white folks amongst us…. My Grandmother is voting for Obama. See…
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My Cynicism is Melting…
This may be the first time in my life that I’ve ever had the opportunity to vote for someone I can truly believe in for President. Every time before now, I’ve held my nose. Every time, I’ve been sure that the talk is just rhetoric, not much more. Watching Obama accept the Democratic nomination tonight, I found myself, finally, getting excited, at least a little bit. Feeling hopeful, at least a little bit. My skeptical side fears that big business is too deeply entrenched in our country, and no matter what his good intentions, and those of the folks in congress, nothing substantial will change. But my hopeful side says,…
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Political blurb…
Just finished watching Clinton give her speech. She rocked. We were watching on MSNBC, and when she finished, they started saying what a great job she did, and how she hit it out of the park, and how supportive of the Democratic cause she was. How she slammed McCain and supported Obama. Then we switched it over to Fox News, and they couldn’t shut up about how she never got around to saying that Obama would be a great president, how she didn’t put herself 100% behind him. How she didn’t really slam McCain, and you’d think to listen to her that we had been living in Belarus rather than…
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Time to Pay Attention
We’re getting to the point in the Presidential Campaign where it’s becoming more important, I think, to start paying attention. Which is too bad, because we’re also at the point where we’re all sick of this never-ending campaign that feels like it started back when Moses was a child, and we just want it to friggin’ END already. Well, we’ve got maybe 9 or 10 more weeks to go, so suck it up and pay attention, OK? This week is the Democratic Convention, where Barak Obama will receive the nomination for Democratic candidate to become President of the United States.  There will be a floor vote, as there has been…