THE CONS ARE ON EVERYWHERE...IT STARTS AT THE TOP

What happened to the supposed truth in advertising that is supposed to have been beefed up?  Or do the TV stations continue to take anything green that is flashed in front of them with no thought to what they are wishing on a stupid and unsuspecting public?  Google recently paid a large fine because it allowed drug ads from Canada or some such.


Nothing, however, bears the biggest con of all.  The Teapartiers who are telling you they understand 'God' better than you do and understand why he is wishing natural disasters onto us.  In a sense, religious leaders are advertising their product and trying to 'sell' it to the masses.  The regulations for truth in advertising suggest that:

• Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;
• Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and
• Advertisements cannot be unfair.

Thus, given that criteria, people talking about religion cannot be truthful as what they are saying cannot be proven and often many representing religions have been deceptive, promising after-life; eternal damnation in the fires of Hell, 72 virgins after a martyrs death, and all sorts of promises that would make the worst, lying politician look good.

Campaign promises might even fall in this category.  Bachmann says she will see that gas will sell under $2 as gallon if she is elected.  It would be quite evident to anyone knowledgeable about how gas prices are set that it is impossible within the next four or five years to 'promise' that.  Secondly, it is not the Presidency that sets those prices.  Yet so many people do not see the falseness in her promises.

If you believe the Teapartiers and voted them in, you deserve what you got but the rest of us don't.deserve the inflicted pain by the power of the those ignorant of the Constitution, how government actually runs, how laws get passed, how amendments to the Constitution get made, and so many more aspects of what it takes to run a country.

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE REPUBLICAN HOUSE LEGISLATORS IN WASHINGTON

Let's fave it, Americans, we are being controlled and led by a rudderless ship.Rush Limbaugh seems as much of a leader, apparently, since Boehner snapped to when Limbaugh said they should not give in to Obama's request for time to discuss his plans to create jobs.

On Thursday evening, Ed Schultz ha a theory on his show about a leaderless Republican party.  It had been said that Boehner was going to allow President Obama the time for which he had asked.  However, as Ed Schultz put it, when the real leader (Rush Limbaugh) spoke up, Boehner then stood firm as he was asked to do by the 'boss' and there it stands today.

The lack of respect for the Office of the President is scandalous, and a first, in my many decades of life. It certainly come out of a lack of accountability within the legislative branch, lack of regulation in all the areas that need it for the health and safety of our food systems, medications and other imbibed substances like supplements, vitamins and minerals, all so-called 'natural substances' (among which, by the way, marijuana is one), the additives, hormones, as well as toxins added to our water, air, and foods.

I know of no business that would continue to pay its employees who refuse to fo their job, demand long vacations, and money and staff to do most of their work with the exception of controlling their mouths.  To truly understand the behavior I discuss, check out the following site:  a summary of the book Lord of the Flies.

POLITICS HAS FAILED TO MATURE REPUBLICANS

Summer vacation is over and the House and Senate Republicans are back in Washington behaving like Middle Schoolers.  They are bullies, cry-babies, vengeful, selfish, and unable to see any consequences to their oath of office for their actions.  Their votes are certainly not in the best interest of the American people who have been trying to tell them that with every poll.  Instead, they are determined to make Obama a 'one-term- President.  Would any one of the Republicans give me a good reason why he should be.  He has been far better for the American people than his predecessor.

Middle Grade Students:  For the source, The California Department of Education Publication,  click here.

1. Are often erratic and inconsistent in their behavior; anxiety and fear are contrasted with periods of bravado; feelings shift between superiority and inferiority;
   
   
2. Have chemical and hormonal imbalances which often trigger emotions that are frightening and poorly understood; may regress to more childish behavior patterns at this point;
   
   
3. Are easily offended and are sensitive to criticism of personal shortcomings;
   
   
4. Tend to exaggerate simple occurrences and believe that personal problems, experiences, and feelings are unique to themselves;
   
   
5. Are moody, restless; often feel self-conscious and alienated; lack self­ esteem; are introspective;
   
   
6. Are searching for adult identity and acceptance even in the midst of intense peer group relationships;
   
   
7. Are vulnerable to naive opinions, one-sided arguments;
   
   
8. Are searching to form a conscious sense of individual uniqueness­ "Who am I?";
   
   
9. Have emerging sense of humor based on increased intellectual ability to see abstract relationships; appreciate the "double entendre";
   
   
10. Are basically optimistic, hopeful;
    
    
11. Are psychologically at-risk; at no other point in human development is an individual likely to encounter so much diversity in relation to oneself and others.

4. Social Development

Middle Grade Students:

1. Experience often traumatic conflicts due to conflicting loyalties to peer groups and family;
   
   
2. Refer to peers as sources for standards and models of behavior; media heroes and heroines are also singularly important in shaping both behavior and fashion;
   
   
3. May be rebellious towards parents but still strongly dependent on parental values; want to make own choices, but the authority of the family is a critical factor in ultimate decisions;
   
   
4. Are impacted by high level of mobility in society; may become anxious and disoriented when peer group ties are broken because of family relocation to other communities;
   
   
5. Are often confused and frightened by new school settings which are large and impersonal;
   
   
6. Act out unusual or drastic behavior at times; may be aggressive, daring, boisterous, argumentative;
   
   
7. Are fiercely loyal to peer group values; sometimes cruel or insensitive to those outside the peer group;
   
   
8. Want to know and feel that significant adults, including parents and teachers, love and accept them; need frequent affirmation;
   
   
9. Sense negative impact of adolescent behaviors on parents and teachers; realize thin edge between tolerance and rejection; feelings of adult rejection drive the adolescent into the relatively secure social environment of the peer group;
   
   
10. Strive to define sex role characteristics; search to establish positive social relationships with members of the same and opposite sex;
    
    
11. Experience low risk-trust relationships with adults who show lack of sensitivity to adolescent characteristics and needs;
    
    
12. Challenge authority figures; test limits of acceptable behavior;
    
    
13. Are socially at-risk; adult values are largely shaped conceptually during adolescence; negative interactions with peers, parents, and teachers may compromise ideals and commitments.

5. Moral and Ethical Development

Middle Grade Students:

1. Are essentially idealistic; have a strong sense of fairness in human relationships;
   
   
2. Experience thoughts and feelings of awe and wonder related to their expanding intellectual and emotional awareness;
   
   
3. Ask large, unanswerable questions about the meaning of life; do not expect absolute answers but are turned off by trivial adult responses;
   
   
4. Are reflective, analytical, and introspective about their thoughts and feelings;
   
   
5. Confront hard moral and ethical questions for which they are unprepared to cope;
   
   
6. Are at-risk in the development of moral and ethical choices and behaviors; primary dependency on the influences of home and church for moral and ethical development seriously compromises adolescents for whom these resources are absent; adolescents want to explore the moral and ethical issues which are confronted in the curriculum, in the media, and In the daily interactions they experience in their families and peer groups.

GRAMMAR AND SPELLING IS LOST TO US

The tragedy of our education system is showing up more glaringly daily.  Anchors on news media have no sense of grammar, and those who type out messages and subtitles cannot spell properly with any consistency.  Today on MSNBC, misspelled words appeared again. Aggressive was spelled with one 'g'.  It didn't look right and when I checked it in a dictionary I realized the spelling error.  Do they not use a spell checker?  Everyone else does.  Occasionally the spell checker will not correct a word such as 'than' when what was meant was 'then'.  It can read spelling, not intent.

This afternoon, also on MSNBC, someone had a caption as being an 'economic' for VP Joe Biden. Unless I am mistaken  in thinking this an error, I assumed it should have been economist.  An amusing one though probably not from a misspell but from carelessness was a substitution of opera when clearly operation was meant.  


There is a wonderful site apparently devoted to catching these on TV  Click here for the site.

If your first language was not English, you might be forgiven.  We don't do well with foreign stuff either. We don't even do well with English these days.  I too often hear double negatives.  A famous Blues musician who died today wrote his autobiography titled "I Don't Owe the World Nothing'   I often hear "It's me!"  In fact it is so often said that most assume you are the one in error if you say, "It is I"  Most in their second decade of life "Let's me and you..."  or 'Me and him plan to...."  Oh well, I will go to my death remembering  practicing Palmer Method for hours and still write legibly.  There are rumors that cursive writing will not be taught much longer in school, going out to the same place to die as slide rules did.


Just think of how many spellings there are to spell Gaddafi.  There are 112 of them posted on this site. taken from Nation.  We are told it is because Arabic is so difficult to translate.  And to think, we lost 28 translators due to the 'Don't Ask; Don't Tell' era.  When will we stop hurting ourselves by giving into people's foolish, biased whims?

WHO DO PEOPLE REALLY THINK IS READY TO BE PRESIDENT?

 There seem to be three choices:

1. One who is not good at knowing things and making decisions but knows people who are so and who can be brought into the administration.
2. One who knows a lot, is good at handling people but little trusts the judgement of others.
3. One who is both smart, has made excellent judgements in the past, and brings close many people with equal knowledge and good judgement.

If your answer is three, you should vote for Barack Obama.  If your answer is two, Rick Perry is your man.  If your answer is one...who will actually be your president?

Can you guess which politician will be chosen in the picture below?  Can you guess why?

 My best guess is that you might be able to tell if you can regularly see the followers.

For some reason there always has to be one who talks to God.  Bush did; Michele Bachmann hears from God; Rick Perry gets messages from him as well.  People who talk to God can readily be found in mental hospitals.  Some make it to politics instead.

HURRICANE IRENE STOLE OUR ELECTRICAL POWER FOR A DAY

Even forewarned, it is always a shock to lose electrical power.  With a storm such as that, it is always a possibility.  Suddenly as always, everything squeaked and went off just before noon Sunday, and back on 24 hours later...so here I am.

There has never been a storm in which we were so well warned.  However, without electrical power, that gets lost. However, having been through loss of power before, I was.was physically ready with lots of flashlights and candles.  (Thankfully, no one knows what to give me for Xmas so I get lots of candles!)  What cannot be planned is the urge to climb a wall in frustration not being able to see TV, or use the Internet.  Actually, though people love to call missing the Internet an addiction...it is no more an addiction than the need to eat.  It has become a life necessity...to pay bills, to get mail, to stay current with the world, and to live without reference books.  Not all dependencies are addictions.

That's all folks....for today.

WAITING FOR THE BIG WIND

In my many decades of life, I do not remember ever watching the slow passage of a Hurricane all the way up the East coast.It was lovely to watch it weakening hour by hour, to see that the eye will not be passing over us here, and the likelihood would be that the worse that might happen here will be loss of electrical power.  It surely takes many hours of anxiety away, thanks to the media stations who never quit the reporting.

Goodnight, Irene

Nor, in years past, did people know enough in advance to put out signs, directives on how to prepare  for safety, or even not to bother taping up windows.  Never has a weather event been better covered in my lifetime...far better than any war or political event.


It is comforting to know that if power is lost, I can still flush a toilet and get  water to drink and bathe.  There are some advantages to less rural living.  My educated guess is that the worse that will happen will be a loss of electrical power, in which case I will lose some frozen and fresh food.  Given the loss of life in Virginia, I can, in all reality, 'live' with that.


MSNBC has had this coverage on 24 hours a day for several days now.  How boring this must be for people in the mid-West and West   I know how bored I have been when coverage for days has been a boring repetition about places like mud slides in CA of million dollar homes.  After the first mudslides were reported, it was hard for me to raise empathy for the people who moved there or rebuilt    I'm sure if I knew the whole truth I would find out that people had no choice to do otherwise due to financial constraints or other information I am lacking.


Despite an East  coast earthquake this week and a hurricane up the entire East coast, I still believe this is one of the safest areas in the country from nature's weather or earth events.