WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS

I don't believe that Osama Bin Laden has just been waiting for a chance to terrorize us with bombs; he has succeeded in his threat to break the US economy. He has had willing partners in the greedy Bush administration to help carry that threat out with the war profiteering. All the mercenaries are not soldiers, many wear business suits and they all are bleeding our country and its people financially dry.

Bin Laden's speech of 10/20/2004 can be read here in its entirety. However, if you lack time, the most important part of his message was:

"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah"

Despite the many warning voices, plus this well publicized speech, Americans have allowed the Bush administration to fall into Bin Laden's trap. That is why we have not had a repeat of the bombed towers. We have had a Congress and Senate that blindly followed the leader and must carry the legacy they will have well-earned in the history books for future generations to see how badly run the country has been for these last eight years.

Bin Laden further said in that 2004 speech:
"That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinizes the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results."

It seems that no one listened to or believed any of the glaring truths of the plan from the 'enemy', outlined and fulfilled right before our eyes while the Bush Administration lied to us for these almost eight years. The saddest pill for me to swallow with all this is America fights and kills its people for greed, trying to make us believe it is for principle; the enemy commits atrocities and would have us believe it was their only choice for their principle. For me it is like a bad movie that should have been titled When Evil Meets Evil. The rest of us are just the 'collateral damage' from the actions of one side or the other.

YOU'RE OVERLY SENSITIVE

There are many techniques people use to shut off having to hear the emotions of others. One in the series of useless statements is the title here: You're overly sensitive. Where does one set the gauge or range of acceptable levels of feelings. I've always believed people feel whatever they feel , freely. Their actions may not be as free. Rage cannot give way to mayhem, violence, assault on another, or murder. However, one might fantasy all those things and cause no harm to anyone.

I've written before about the ploy of disqualifying someone's feelings to get them to stop speaking of them. Men, Nature's Natural 'Fixers', do this more than women (who can usually handle more feelings with less squeamishness). The usual ways of disqualifying are to ask, "Why do you feel that way?" without wanting to know the reason behind the feeling at all, but rather meaning, 'Why haven't you been able to turn off that feeling?", or simply stating, "Stop feeling that way."

Wikipedia defines emotion as an"affective state involving a high level of activation, visceral changes and strong feelings. Over the history of psychology there have been many different ways to classify emotions. Most current theories classify emotions as a set of basic emotions that can be blended.

Within psychology there are several, different, approaches towards emotions. Modern theories include cognitive functions of emotions, the neuro-psychology of emotions. There is an approach that emotions are evolutionary adaptations that allow people and animals to deal adequately with a broad range of situations with very limited conscious reasoning."

The area for which there is less research and understanding is how physiologic processes affect emotion. While that article deals with hormones and emotions, another deals specifically with pre-menstrual emotions.

One can learn to control emotions only by becoming skilled at acting, in whatever manner one believes to be a 'normal' reaction to the situation. We all have to learn to act at times. We try to control our tears and rage, we don't rant in places where we know we will be criticized rather than sympathized with, whatever we believe to be our suffering. Pride disallows an enemy to see our feelings for fear they will hurt us when we are vulnerable. Fear of 'hurting people's feelings' often makes people hold back expressing their emotions. There are many reasons why people 'act' differently than they feel. Our political campaigns are good examples. People only want to see and hear 'up' candidates.

When Hillary acted privately with her emotions she was viewed as cold. When she cried publicly in New Hampshire, she was accused of faking it. When Barack's minister expressed the rage felt by most blacks too close to slavery in their heritage, he chose to displace the rage rather than explain why he felt it. No reasonable person can hear a minister call God to damn our country and feel comfortable and patriotic. Not everyone has learned how to be tactful, politically correct, or discuss feelings instead of blaming others for their discomfort and frustrations.

Maybe someday we can go to a machine like an ATM, put money in, and get the proper balancing of emotions 'fix'. If all our money doesn't get spent in Iraq, we may go back to working on our own country and more research for a change.

WE TOO SOON FORGET OR MISS IT

Roaming through YouTube, I came across an interview that Crossfire did with Jon Stewart in 2004. Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson are the interviewers, Jon Stewart the interviewee. By his honesty and directness, Jon Stewart illustrated in only moments why the media is worthless today. It is shocking that a comedian shows himself the politically wiser and greater patriot while the interviewers stubbornly hear only their own voices without a perception of the reaction of their audience.. It is shocking that a comedian shows himself the wiser philosopher and patriot while the interviewers remain clueless and absurd. It is a must-view, even if you saw it and have forgotten it from 2004. He accused them of partisan hackeryand pleaded with them to stop hurting the country..

It took until January of 2005 for CNN to realize just what Jon Stewart had made apparent, that they had two ridiculous, self-serving people on view who were responsible for the speed with which viewers were jumping the CNN ship. MSNBC, who was then picking up more viewers made the mistake of hiring Tucker Carlson (whom they have also now kept more often on the bench, though he still creeps in on panels) and who finally proved himself as worthless to an audience interested in facts, not opinion. His show was canceled recently. Perhaps the powers looked at viewing numbers had noted that having Tucker Carlson on 2 hours of prime time was not productive. This viewer is trying to be patient and give David Gregory, his replacement a trial since I'm apprehensive he will also fall off his pedestal along with Matthews and Olbermann and Russert. I still have some hope for Dan Abrams.

WHAT HAPPENED TO DECENCY IN THE MEDIA

Apparently there are those who think that Howard Stern, the shock jock, is a model to emulate. They forget he is heard on a very protected venue. Do they not remember what Don Imus went through, nor the MSNBC guy, David Shuster, who is back on air again and who violated all decency with his remarks on Chelsea. I know that the Urban Dictionary allows a lot of things that John Q. Public would neither understand nor find acceptable, though some of us find it amusing. It would not be amusing at your grandmother's funeral, in church, grade school, or most state affairs. It seems that a few whose mouths are open on camera forget who is in their audience.

Randi Rhodes, an afternoon host for the progressive Air America radio network, was suspended Thursday after repeatedly insulting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event last month. Her network hadn't noticed until it was pointed out how badly she had behaved and what she had said. Then the network took action, probably in an effort to practice CYA, not because they found what had been said offensive. Michelle Obama's gaff got buried by the media, though the air is alive with tension over the negative feelings the media has for Senator Clinton and anything her spouse utters.

McCain has definitely been coddled by the media. Is it because some of them are nearing senior citizen status themselves? Bob Lobel might be a bellweather for those who are being asked to move over and make room for younger, lower paid 'stars'. "Tweety" and Russert, if you want to be remembered positively, start earning it again.

MEDIA NEWS: IT'S JUST MORE ENTERTAINMENT

While I have frequently written that I think the media has been against Hillary, the other day I was reminded just how nasty they have become. There has been much talk about how her continuing to campaign is hurting the Democratic party. I was shocked to hear (on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann), that she should be given the 'hook'. To me that proved that they are equating something as serious as our choosing a U.S. President with Vaudeville. I was as shocked as any American interested in bettering this country and correcting bad elections could have been.

Infuriated, I went to the MSNBC site. There used to be email contacts available for the major entertainers (I choke trying to call them anything else) but there is no longer anywhere I could find on the site to do so . If there is a place on their site, they have made it too obscure for me to find it. So I wrote to CNN (who still allows email to their people) and asked if Wolf Blitzer will pass on a message to the clueless Chris Matthews and MSNBC staff that there is a difference between race and ethnicity. Why Tweety has been permitted to make this error continuously for months appalls me but I am not surprised that people don't seem to speak accurately or use proper English on TV any more. I am reminded of the blue collar comedians saying, "There is no cure for stupidity!"

The station's sexism shows as women spit out the news in the daytime but the men hold fort during the prime time hours. The women, for the most part read the news. The men make more prejudicial comments with great assertion, as though their opinions mean more.

With most of the news channels on my 'do not watch' list, I spend more time running around the world for news of America. What a different view the world has of us than we, ourselves, try to convince others.

DON'T MAKE DECISIONS ON TUESDAY

My father used to advise not making decisions on Tuesday as they invariably turn out bad. He never passed papers on properties on a Tuesday. I hadn't thought about that bit of advice for many years as my life rarely allowed me a choice...whether it was Tuesday or not, things had to get done.

However, today brought it all back. I realize now that there are not only Poltergeists in my life, but they are Tuesday Poltergeists. It is not that I haven't spotted them on other days but apparently Tuesday is their day for fun and today the April Fools were partying with them.

One of my computers has the folder with the tax filed for 2006. I did not wish to use that computer this year, preferring to put TurboTax on my laptop so it could be moved around the house. Following instructions, I put the 2006 tax file on a flash drive. Each time I checked properties it read "read only". I would un-set that and put it on a flash drive only to find that it had re-set itself to "read only". This happened too many times to count until I was in complete frustration and stopped trying. That I was tired and hungry by then made me more aware that something was wrong and then I realized it was a dreaded Tuesday.

It was as though everything without a mind had suddenly developed one that worked independently of any previous rule or precedent. The CD/DVD drive refused to recognize either disk placed in it and would only spit it out if I rebooted. After 2 very frustrating hours, nothing worked, Square One remained Square One and I realized that two more hours of my life had been used up unproductively never to be lived again.

At last, the end of the day was near and I had not written a blog for the day. Anyone reading this will never get to see the blog-that-got-away. It was funny, brilliantly written, and would have been tremendously enjoyed by any reader! However, after another frustrating time, it neared midnight. I had deleted two attempts because blogspot would not take a single instruction from me. Fonts were gigantic, boxes of color framed paragraphs, Fonts changed size between conversion from draft to published; the whole program was mad! At midnight, after I deleted two attempts (both of which would not give up their impossible format, I am able to write this one, easily, then realize the reason. It is past midnight and no longer Tuesday!) Even the torrential rain outside has stopped............

LEDs

When it is dark, my house is lit-up like Times Square by all the glowing LEDs. Between the LEDs and the digital clocks on the stove, microwave, and all the other appliances that have them, it doesn't 'light up my life' but sure saves me turning on any when I get up during the night. Even my toothbrush and ladies shaver in the bathroom have LED's to prove they are charging themselves; I never need a night light there either.

I don't need one in my bedroom because my clock radio throws almost enough light from the digital readout to let me read the Oxford Dictionary in bed. Across this small room I have a binary clock (a gift to me) that uses LEDs to indicate (in binary number lighting) what the time is. It was a gift a few years ago and is as useful in my knowing the time as the sun dial my husband had on our cabin. As soon as he looked at the sundial, he would immediately check his watch! The DVR has an LED clock when it is off and more lights when it is on!

In front of my most used computer, it is as though I won an LED jackpot. My cable modem (with built-in router) has 8 yellow LEDs, most constantly in blink. Beside it is a red LED on the phone which also blinks when there is a message. A USB hub on the floor beside me has two more and each of my computers, when on, have a couple of lights. The two monitors have an LED to indicate they are on, as do external hard drives. A couple of AC adapters have them and the AC strips (I think there are two or three on the floor as well as grounded plug on the wall with lights).

My conclusion is that it is no wonder that I get less done than I would wish. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights in my house much of the time. Being fortunate enough to have a plethora of toys and tech goodies around makes for fun but adds a lot of responsibility and maintenance. Would I give them up? Absolutely not! I will keep them all and just rant about the time, cost and energy it takes to have my toys. I will feel self-satisfied though I am no longer up on the latest technologies though I am more so than most of my friends. I will know that most of my tech toys will become totally obsolete before I do.

Lights out at bedtime is now only a euphemism.