THE REPUBLICANS ARE MAKING A JOKE OF OUR FOREFATHERS WANTING TO KEEP RELIGION OUT OF POLITICS

Laurie Goldstein, writing for the New York Times:  "A poll by the Pew Research Center, examined the impact of religion on the 2012 election in light of claims by some analysts that a Mormon stigma is significant enough to impede Mr. Romney’s run for president."  The Christian right seems to mistakenly assume that our country is Christian.   Even as Christian as Catholicism is, it isn't the 'right' Christian belief for many who seem to think Christianity was properly defined before the Bible was written and before God hadn't stopped talking directly to properly anointed and psychotic people to tell them what is acceptable behavior and belief for them.

While we have come to know some imposters in our present world, all the people who wrote in the Bible were clearly not, though there is no real proof that anything the Bible says has actually been tested or proven.  Their information, guidance and logic, came straight from God and, later, in the New Testament, straight from Jesus, or someone who should be believed over all others regardless of facts.

As is always the case, we have a plethora of non-believers.  Many of them think that the Mormon church should not be allowed to have a member as its President as the wealthy church has become too powerful and our country will then be leaning too far towards Mormonism  and Mormons controlling us all.  For someone's documentation of that belief, click here.

Meanwhile, most of us know that we defy our Constitution since our leaders signed a Bill of Rights to go with it which tells us 'All men are created equal'  However, since that was only as recently as a little more than a couple o hundred years ago, definitive word on that hasn't gotten around yet..

Of course we all know that our modern day churches are well-run businesses.  The real purpose behind most religious groups is to gain power.  The power may be big enough to sway the congregation or even big enough to control whole countries of people.

2011: THINGS FOR WHICH WE ALL HAVE TO BE THANKFUL

Strength in numbers has been often proved.  I believe that to be true and I am thankful that the American middle class has finally joined forces and is fighting back the rich and power hungry who had decided to make our country a slave state.  Occupy Everywhere is a good start and even the Republicans would do well to listen if they consider their re-elections are no longer a shoo-in.

We should all be grateful for the Internet and the way that the world is able to freely share information so quickly.  Without it, we would have to rely on the Rush Limbaughs of the world and Fox News.  Interesting research by Fairley Dickenson showed that people who watched Fox News were 18% less informed even than those who watched no TV news.  It is nice to have many sources for finding what is really going on in the world since the world's major newspapers have an English page online which is globally shared.

It is good, after all the lies the Republicans have given us and continue to do through its candidates for President, we are being shown how inadequate the Republican party is to govern America,  Not a single Republican candidate is sufficiently prepared to be President and keeps proving it as the debates go on so endlessly.


The Teapartiers claimed to want to take their government back.  Nevertheless they did nothing to take us back to anything vaguely resembling our government working at its best.  It is pure folly to think that our country could be run without the support, checks and balances our government offers us.  Headless organizations have not a track record to prove they work.

THANKSGVING TRADITIONS

Happy Thanksgiving to all

None of us were at the first American Thanksgiving Day celebration.  We can only suspect those present at the time would feel surprise at the way (and reasons) for giving thanks has changed.  History tells us that the first Thanksgiving was shared with Indians who  helped the colonists survive

Today, thanks is mostly for the fact that it is a day off from school or work.  While no Indians grace any table at which I am at, many of the people seated at the table are there to eat, not work, and thankful they did not have to shop and cook the meal.  Many seem to feel that having a blood and genetic tie gives them license to grace a table on all holidays and express their disapproval for the personal and political views of all others at the table.  It was always fun when the Yankee and Greek relatives met and mixed.  The closest description of it is 'when oil meets water'.  My in-laws were always polite, arrived when the meal was said to be served, ate quietly and mentioned only totally benign subjects, excusing themselves to leave when the meal was finally over.

The Greek side came 'whenever', known as Greek time.They expected a cocktail hour and lots of hors d'ouevres.  I always knew the meal would never be served for at least a couple of hours after the 'eta' (expected time of arrival).  The most sober of the men was asked to carve the turkey while the women hustled to get food onto the table.  Despite the amount of food being eaten, the Greeks managed to talk all the way through the meal, acting like the 'insinkerator'.  The Yankees ate quietly, speaking little, and shuddering at the topics being discussed.  Every Emily Post rule would be broken as far as topics to be discussed was concerned.  Religion, politics, bad food, illnesses, arguments, personal details (of others, not the speaker) were all heard with no reaction from the Greek side and shock on the faces of the Yankee side.  Described differently, the meal was a 'reality show' for the Greeks and a 'horror show' for the Yankees.

People were forced together who neither understood nor particularly cared for one another.  The best thing that happened was they all liked the food and after a few years of these obligatory events, most got to like and respect one another for their similarities and differences.

I'm shocked that being put on administrative leave is a solution for the outrage of pepper spray on these young people at UC Davis, though the police chief was 'suspended..  To subject them to respiratory damage, damage to their immune systems and neurological difficulties is unconscionable.  Nothing is being mentioned about the training these police staffs need to have, will receive,  not how pepper spray should be removed as a tool available to them.

Pepper spray is not a benign deterrent. It has neurological consequences; no one is clear on the length symptoms remain after being a recipient. People into manipulating pictures have already started having fun with this subject.  The little girl running naked down the street in Viet Nam graphically demonstrates the torture to an already sensitive skin this substance can produce. 

In the last few years our country has become terribly insensitive to cruelty that is inflicted constantly both physically, emotionally, and by denying people those rights which have come to be a part of life in this USA and what used to be a democracy.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Science Writer, Deborah Blum, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, described pepper spray on the Rachel Maddow Show , MSNBC, 11/22.  She said it was above the Scoville Scale of 'heat' by its pure capsaicin composition.

While it may take a long time for cases to go through trial on this subject, Jonathan Turley  law professor,said on an interview that he is heading a case that has been in the courts for ten years already.

WHERE DID OUR DEMOCRACY GO?

Is there no one who goes to the Internet to re-read the Constitution any more?    What has happened to free speech?  Who allows police brutality to unarmed students and protesters? Pepper spraying unarmed students lined up facing the firing squad of police emptying can upon can of pepper spray on them seems to have little is being said by anyone other than the victims.

It is incredible that Chancellor Linda Katehi has such little wisdom as to think that she can stay on her job with any respect for her decision making.  She has irrevocably tarnished the image of the  school to say nothing for student and staff morale. While she immediately called for a task force for an investigation, no one is looking back historically.  Why is it that people allow emotions to steer them from learning from history to prevent repeating the same mistakes which inevitably have the same consequences?

An Opinion article written in the Los Angeles Times says:  "Even if the last major waves of campus protests were a couple of decades ago, quelling student demonstrations without harm and with a minimum of residual outrage should be at the top of university training programs for police staff."

The Chancellor gave a speech of apology and said she was as unhappy with the University that day as were the victims.  However, she did not give anything but lip service to the fact that she was where the buck stopped.  Her people were not well trained nor was she visible while the violation to the students with the pepper spray was going on.  One unarmed student was actually hospitalized.  While I heard some people defending Chancellor Katehi, there were more who seemed to be calling for her resignation with rather compelling reasons.  I guess we will have to stay tuned just as we are regarding the boycott in Congress's attempts to avoid makimg America a better place to hope for a better future and jobs for people.

LEAVING HOME FOR A FEW DAYS

It is hard to remember that there were times in my life I looked forward to leaving home for long periods.  Now, I do everything possible to stay at home.  I need only to look in the mirror to know I have changed places with my deceased mother.  This shift is simply evidence of how one changes as life is lived. Some people want to see every continent; they live to travel. All but travel is simply existing for them. That gene missed me as I recognize my parents didn't have it to pass on to me.  

Preparation for a trip sucks away much of the joy of anticipation. " How will I have to dress for a different climate?"  Thankfully, the Internet provides long term predictions (at least five or so days) on the weather anywhere in the world.  My answer was to be prepared for rain a couple of days and temperatures 10 degrees colder than home.  No doubt the weather pattern where I am going will change as soon as I leave my computer behind.

Most past trips have been two to three weeks, requiring larger suitcases than what I need for four days.  Furthermore, most short trips have been by car so I was free to dump anything into the car, when in doubt, .  Since you have to carry and pay for what you take, it requires judicious planning..  Extra caution is needed not to forget essentials.  I have dreaded visions of my luggage being lost (as it once was) and having no change of underwear and no way of buying any!  Even worse is no toothbrush and deodorant.  Ah, is that carrying the concept of clean air too far?:

No access to a computer is anxiety producing. I will be staying with relatives who have not yet arrived into the 21st C:  I will be armed with lots of notebooks. I know there will be much I will want to look up on return.  My cousins are not particularly interested in US politics and have little awareness of things which interest me.  I will not bore them with my silence because they entertain themselves easily with recipes, health, and gossip, especially about people I don't know.  I understand their language but speak only a kitchen version of it so I am constantly a source of amusement to them as I butcher their native tongue.

If Air Canada does not fail, I will be so happy to be back home; I will wonder why I let myself be talked into going away; my explanation to myself will be that I love my relatives and we are of an age that we may never meet again; I will continue to rant while taking every advantage possible to hang on to connectedness to my origins even though I have to fly there actually rather than virtually.  Home is indeed where your heart is, even though you sometimes have to travel to connect the parts.

THE COUNTRY IN MIDDLE SCHOOL BEHAVIOR

Too often we hear people threatening to not vote for Obama if he doesn'[t give in to their demands.  The most recent that caught my eye was Gene Karpinski from the League of Conservation Voters,  Without question air quality is an important issue, but with the Republican Congress saying "NO!" to everything raised by the President, I readily understand why Karpinski was told that Obama would take it up if he was elected to a second term but could not do it now.  The top priority right now has to be economics and jobs.  The greatest country in the free world is hardly living up to that label these days yet many in the USA have not caught on to that and are living with the past way of doing things.

In March, one survey found that Education was a top priority.  Read more.

For CEOs it was 'how to promote creativity within their organization'.  Read more

With Christmas approaching as well as the end of the year for people to offset taxes by gifting to charity, 'our mail cup runneth over.  We mourn the waste of resources trying to squeak out more money than we have to give. Everyone but the top 1% seems to be suffering, clamoring for assistance, and it all seems to be as basic as survival.  For this country to have so many people on the verge of malnutrition and starvation, homeless who are living exposed to the elements, returned war veterans left bereft of acknowledgement for what their service cost them and their families and jobless, it is not a pretty sight and a real blemish on the face of the United States of America.

Is it any wonder people are resorting to protesting in the streets.  How do the police justify their brutality for peaceful protesting and the right to free speech when the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are individuals and that obscenely generous campaign contributions are protected by the right to free speech.  People may not complain of the injustice to our democracy while the Supreme Court justifies changing the reading and meaning of the first amendment which has stood for

The amendment reads:  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  It does not limit as to how that speech can be delivered but peaceful protest has always been acceptable.  Even in the Colonial days, the soap box became the stage for citizens to speak out in the town parks.  Why are we allowing these values to dissipate?