WHT IS HAPPENING TO OUR DEMOCRACY?

The Republicans could not win the presidential election.  However, we are currently learning the dirty tricks they have used to put their candidates into Congress though the popular vote was greater for Democrat candidates.  We are seeing the plans being drawn by gerrymandering (gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan advantaged districts. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander (/ˈɡɛrimændər/, alt. /ˈdʒɛriˌmændər/); however, that word can also refer to the process. When used to allege that a given party is gaining disproportionate power, the term gerrymandering has negative connotations.)

Gerrymandering is not a new concept but it seems to be going beyond our democratic system of fairness in voting.  It is difficult to get an honest read from the media.  We need to have some legal experts let us know how fair voting can be brought back to our country. We cannot allow Republican governors to make a mockery out the rights of voters.  We cannot allow cheaters to control our country any longer.

WHEN CHANGER IS SLOW AND MEN GAVE IT TO WOMEN

Much to the dismay of podiatrists, women have been ruining their feet because of men for years.  The wealthy Chinese made it a fetish to prove their wealth by making their wives into toys who could not walk and were helpless.  Women's feet were bound, deformed, but considered a sign of beauty.  Ballet dancers also have feet that are misshapen and deformed.  They do it for the sake of art and the beauty of the ballet.  Even though they break bones and live and dance in agony, it is endured as a privilege to have that talent for dance fostered.

Fashion also demanded that women are more desirable in stilettos, four inch heels   Apparently men gave up heels when the pain wasn't worth the gain.  They have forgotten the pain of walking in these shoes for hours on end.  Today's men no longer need high heels to stay on a horse.  They make the horse adjust to their need instead.  Today's women no longer cater to fashion to previous degree with rare exception of some special events and those women who live for admiration of themselves.    Entertainers, models, hookers, and any woman whose male is 'turned on' by the look, regardless of the discomfort it causes, will still wear what they feel enhances their seductiveness and beauty, regardless of discomfort

It makes me wonder what it means that our society will suffer for the fetish of others.  That is why an articles in BBC News caught my attention.  Women have taken much away from men, without a doubt.  However, I wonder there weren't men chuckling to themselves when they gave their high heels to women.  Like so many things, function was disregarded.  The new function was seduction/.

These are just a couple of comments from and article you may wish to read further.  "The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the near east as a form of riding footwear," says Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

Good horsemanship was essential to the fighting styles of the Persia - the historical name for modern-day Iran."  Well, guys, we may keep the ballet toe shoes, some people need them as much as others want pets.  However, beautiful or not, it is nice to see women wearing walking shoes to work though they might put on heels in the office..   Bringing 'sensible' shoes to fashion has has always been a slow movement but eventually one can get acclimated to almost anything.

RAND PAUL DEMONSTARTES IN HEARING OF HILLARY CLINTON'S TESTIMONY WHY HE WOULD IMMEDIATELY FAIL AS PRESIDENT

At the Benghazi hearing, Mrs. Clinton proved by her testimony how her capability on her job the last four years was such a success.  While her body language gave away her controlled anger at Senator Paul who spoke naively and critically of the way she handled Benghazi,   McCain, the sore loser, was also critical but Rand Paul tells her if he had been President, he would have relived Clinton from her post for the incompetence way she handled the whole affair at Benghazi and her job. He showed his inability to conceptualize the complexity of her job.

The committee was full of partisan questions and rancor which was a shameful reflection on the Republicans who acted so unprofessionally.  Maggie Haberman (who writes for Politico), felt that Rand Paul's statements might have spoken to his base but will not move a single vote.  BBC wrote on her response to some Republican comment.  Click here.Throughout her comments, she spoke of not having been funded sufficiently though the money had been appropriated, she spoke of what needs to be done int he future and what she has recommended for the future course of our foreign policy.  Interestingly, Sen, Paul's lack of readiness for such a job as the Presidency was highlighted by mentioning that the most he had directed is a clinic which hardly comes up to the job of Secretary of State, let alone President.  He criticized Mrs. Clinton for not having read all the cables and not being fully informed.  She later pointed out that they get millions in a year and there are many people whose job it is to read them.  The man continued in his tirade to do no more than demonstrate how little he really knows about running the government.

Mrs. Clinton's superior professional manner in getting a point across without direct negative accusations clearly made clear why Rand Paul's Presidential hope for 2016 shows he is hardly ready for prime time.  For a transcript of her testimony, start here and follow along with the videos and text.

FRUSTRATED WITH A COMPUTER PROBLEM

Life used to be simple.  I knew how to fix most anything that happened on my computer but things have become more complicated.  One of my computers is a laptop, using WIN 7.  Normally, I use my desktop which is still XP.  I also have an iPod.  It is akin to living in three places,  You have to remember where everything is. What you think you have is really in one of the other houses (or computers, in this case).

Recently a screen keeps popping up which tells me that the SSL certificate is out of date (to my email program or any site I wish to go to on the Internet) and will not be renewed until 2005.   Even as dense as i can get at times, I knew that indicated a significant problem then and there.  I decided that it might work if I just hit yes to allow passage to this unsafe place that I go to regularly, safely, like Google specifically.  It tells me Google's certificate is out of date and therefore not safe to go to., But Bing is okay. (I never did trust Microsoft) but I am not at all sure of what it is I mistrust here nor whom to contact.

Like everything else, I am sure there is a simple solution but since I don't have it, it can no longer be referred to as 'simple'.

Rather than write a blog today which would only reflect my frustration and little else of import, I will attempt to get my mail program working again, simplify my life, and go back to watering my plants..

CARPE DIEM

We watched this inauguration and O, for one, was filled with pride.  The whole day was nicely orchestrated.  The speeches were good and raised hope.  There was no whining in them.  At one point in the day, after watching people with their right hands across their heart, something no longer seen at most ball games, when the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag is spoken, or when the Star Spangled Banner is sung.

The feelings engendered in me, having been missing within for many years, was once again the feeling of pride and unity with the people of my country such has not been experienced within since WWII.  Admittedly, it will be short lived as the Congress convenes again tomorrow and the secessionists and the haters and obstructionists will re-emerge from their caves to sit pontificating their nonsense and demonstrating their lack of qualifications to hold their office in Congress.

In the real world, jobs today offer few perks and hardly offer life support and perks for those who work, for themselves and all family members.  I will reiterate that jobs require an evaluation of performance and whether goals have been met (after defining them in the last evaluation) and the employment continues on the contingent that those goals will be met until the next evaluation in a few months.  This is not true of the Congress because so many do not live in a real world.  This Congress, with its low poll ratings, deserves more than just censure for their poor job performance  Some of them deserve to be impeached, for the pain and suffering their heartlessness has inflicted on hard working American families and those families frustratingly seeking employment..

Meanwhile, does anyone know what the ready and armed militias is doing and planning? 

IMMATURE JOURNALISTS AND POLITICIANS BELIEVE THERE MUST BE HATE TOWARDS THOSE WHO DISAGREE WITH US

Shortly before the Ravens and the Patriot game started, an interviewer was walking around talking to people about what they felt would happen with the game.  Two young women, stating their close friendship. were each cheering for different teams.  The journalist commented, "It's hard to believe those two girls are friends."  It pointed out the current political belief.  You can't be liked if you disagree!.

That is such an immature view of character and life.  The notion that you must dislike anyone who disagrees with you epitomizes the stance of the Republicans in Congress.  A few years ago I lost a friend because she was angry at a mutual friend of ours.  She insisted that I not speak to this person if I was a good friend of hers.That is behavior most grow out of in Middle School but it seems to follow Republican politicians and the media.

Divorce brings those feelings of the need to take sides because of the differences.  I was so touched that good friends said they wished to remain friendly with both me and my es-husband.  This seemed perfectly natural to me and I welcomed them as true friends for maintaining their own integrity.  I only wish that the media cared more about truth instead of trying to provoke fights between people to keep their ratings up.. We have developed a world of peeping Toms with the paparazzi, magazines like People, and everything else that allows people to think that if a person has a public persona, their life should also be made public in every detail.  Apparently more people tune in to stations that give them more gossip and have less interested in what is happening in the world that will actually effect them..  Shame on the stations and the viewers.

WE ARE STRANGERS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD

My street is only one block long.  There are ten houses on each side of the road.  When I first moved here, we were younger couples with children, had a lot in common and many of us got together socially and even had neighborhood parties.  The first divorce on the street started a change. As years went by, there were seven divorces and that number grew in time, and soon people stopped knowing one another as new people moved in and out of the neighborhood  Following the spate of divorces , as neighbors grew older, deaths removed many people and it seemed that most people isolated themselves.  We stopped having parties that included most of the neighbors.  One newer couple had Christmas parties for a few years and connected neighbors.  They stopped and we have become a street of strangers, for the most part.

It makes me wonder if this is reflective of the country at large but I have no way of knowing.  It saddens me  that a way of life has become one when each house remains alone in a a crowd,  To the best of my knowledge, people no longer visit one another's houses.  There seem no shared interests and little in common, or just the lack of awareness if there is.

This effects cohesiveness of effort.  President Obama is trying to bring the country together. 
we need someone with youth and energy to do the same with the people on this one little block.  We, on this street,, represent the disparity of our nation.  We need to start relating to real people who live next door rather than the limits of contact through Facebook,  We lose much of the basis for being in America.  We know facts but not people.  As I think more on it, there are some assets to Facebook but people rely on it too much and relate with the emotional distance of its founder.