I can identify with this so much. I'm sick of some of the crap I read from the left. Is Obama perfect? Hell no. But there are some on the left who seem to expect him to be perfect. Does he deserve criticism? Yep, he does. But screaming at the top of ones lungs 24/7, bitching constantly, and expecting that Obama was elected to office just to take care of your personal issue drives me crazy.

Everybody has things they want to see happen. Everybody has an issue that for them is number one. Everybody. And there ARE a lot of issues to deal with. And I DO think that people need to make their voices heard. They DO need to keep calling for the changes they want. But for those who throw tantrums when their issue doesn't get taken care of RIGHT NOW, I don't have much patience for you.

Obama is NOT a miracle worker, and the fact that he isn't doesn't mean he doesn't give a shit about your issue. It means that some changes, many changes in fact, take time. Obama is not the end all and be all; he doesn't run this ship by himself. If all you can do is bitch, you aren't helping. It's highly unlikely that Obama is going to come to you, perched upon high on your throne, and hand you what you want on a silver platter. If you want him to get his hands dirty, guess what? You have to get your hands dirty too.

(And FYI, like BooMan, my remarks are directed at the people guilty of what I'm talking about. They are not directed at everybody who has a cause or an issue that is of utmost importance to them. Many people ARE out there getting their hands dirty, fighting like mad for what's important to them. To you, I say, carry on!)

"Lies" by The Thompson Twins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA43ETEU1Vg

Between the co-pays every time I walk into the doctor's office, and the fact that, oh by the way, they aren't going to pay for my visits to physical therapy and the splint they made for me (because none of the ones the doc had fit), I've already paid $450 out of pocket, and this is with insurance.

It sucks when you DO have insurance, and you still get taken to the cleaners.

And yes, before anyone yells at me, I know that it would suck far worse if I didn't have any.

They are doing this thing called "Capture the Recession", where you take a picture in your area that, for them, shows the effects of the recession. My daughter's picture, "Tent City in Seattle, WA" is currently ranked #1. I'm impressed!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/c...

Edited to add a shot of the picture she took:

And the temps are just going to go up over the next couple of days.

I see that some of you are offended by it, and I'm not here to tell you not to be.

But I do want to say something about it. There are words in our language that have different meanings, depending on who is using them, and the context within which they are used. Tone also plays into it.

In this case, I frankly have no problem with the word bitch. In the context in which MrS wrote his OP, I get it. I did not read it as an insult to women, but as an insult to Crowley. He could have used bastard, asshole, cocksucker, fuckwad, pecker, dick head, or any number of other words.

I have had people call me bitch, but some situations piss me off, and some make me laugh. For instance:

I was in line in a store one day, and the person ahead of me was gabbing on her cellphone, in spite of the clearly posted notice to not be on your cell when it was your turn to be checked out. The cashier told the woman that she was going to check me out first, and then would check her out when she was off the phone. The woman said, "Oh no you won't!" So I said, "Well, get off your phone then." The woman turned to me, and said, "Shut up, bitch!"

In another instance, I went to the store, and on my way out, a man asked me for money. I didn't have any cash on me, and told him so. He called me a bitch.

In those two cases, that word was meant as an insult.

Two other examples:

On more than one occasion, my husband and I may be bantering, fake-fighting, and he will call me a bitch, or I will call myself a bitch. I call him a bastard. We laugh, because both of us know that no insult was intended.

My sisters and I, when we are together, will start laughing at different things, and we call each other bitch. We laugh.

Yes, the word bitch can and is an insult in many cases.

But I think that in some cases, it isn't. It is a multi-faceted word, in my opinion, not a one-size-fits-all word. Same with the N word. For the most part, I think that a white person using that word is a huge no-no. But if any of you have seen the original version of "Brian's Song," there is a scene in there where Brian Piccolo calls Gale Sayers a "n****r". Gale laughs his ass off, because of the context in which it was said. Had some other white guy called him that, he probably would have had his nose flattened, and rightfully so.

I've seen the word "beyotch" used in place of bitch. I've seen "bastid" used in place of bastard. Obviously, there are people who think that changing the spelling of a word makes it okay. But really, if you are insulted by the use of the original word, why would you not be insulted by the altered version of it? If the changed spelling of a word makes it less insulting, could you not expand that thinking to the context in which the original word is used?

Again, I'm not trying to tell you what to think, but I am telling you what I think. As I said, some words are not one-size-fits-all. Life is not one-size-fits-all. And sometimes, when we get so hung up on the use of a particular word, we end up missing the context of the message.

Was at a small party with some women I went to school with. We were laughing and giggling, and the windows were open. A neighbor called the police on us, and EIGHT policemen showed up (there were 6 of us). We had some beers, and yes, all but one of us was under age. Busted there. But then the cops started going through drawers and stuff, which they had no right to do. The woman whose apartment it was lived there with her boyfriend, and he had a hash pipe stuck in the back of the bottom drawer of the dresser. Cops found it, and they not only charged us with minor in possession, but with criminal drug promotion.

CRIMINAL DRUG PROMOTION????? WTF???? Made it sound like we were hanging around the playground of a gradeschool, getting the little kids to buy our wares. Well, I told my parents (I still lived at home at the time), and they were livid. Not at me, but at what I had been charged with, and with how many cops showed up at the door of that apartment. None of us had any drugs, and there were no drugs in the drawer with the hash pipe. We went to see an attorney, who knew that the cops in that town tended to be jerks more often than not. He placed a call to the Chief of Police, and told them what I had relayed to him. Conversation lasted about 10 minutes, and when he got off the phone, he grinned at me and said the charges had been dropped, including MIP, which I actually was guilty of.

Mighty grateful to that attorney, and very VERY grateful to my parents, who stood by me.

Not so very grateful to those asshole cops. And no, I don't think they all are; I dated a cop once, and knew quite a few of his buddies on the force (a different police force than the one that had busted me). But I know that some of them tend to abuse their power.

Started in 1971, when I shared a locker with my best friend. Her boyfriend was jealous of our friendship (oh, those dramatic days of high school), and complained to one of HIS friends about it. This friend, Karen, decided that the way to punish me for that friendship was to spread the word that I was a lesbian.

Lots and lots of people bought into that, and after she did that, when I walked down the hallway, it was like the red sea parting in front of me. Some of the girls would literally gasp in horror if they brushed against me in the hallway. Obviously, they were afraid of catching teh gay.

It didn't hurt to be called a lesbian; my mom had a number of lesbian friends from work, and I had been around them most of my life. No, what hurt was to be treated as if I had some disease. It hurt to be scoffed at and laughed at. It hurt to see people turning their backs on me. It hurt that with being given a label, some people took it as license to treat me like shit.

Today, if that happened, I'd probably put a smack down on them, again, not for calling me what they consider a bad name, but for how they treated me because of it. In 1971, I was incredibly shy, and mostly tried to be invisible. After the rumor started, it was hard to stay invisible.

I know that my experience in those long-ago days doesn't come close to what many in the GLBT community go through every day. But I think it gave me a small glimpse of what it's like to be treated like shit just because of who you are.

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN PATRICK LEAHY: Judge Sotomayor, welcome to you and your large and lovely family, including your mother, who I believe saved up to buy your first encyclopedia when she was a hard-working widow. Let me begin the opening statements by noting that you have more federal court judicial experience than any nominee to the United States Supreme Court in nearly a hundred years. And the Constitution — is that a great document or what? And now, the ranking Republican from Alabama.

SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS: Thank you, Chairman. Judge Sotomayor, let’s talk about empathy. I find it shocking that President Obama said that judges should have empathy. I hate empathy. My Republican colleagues hate empathy. In fact, I am proud to say that we’ve reached an all-time low in the “understands the problems of ordinary people” category.

SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD: Judge Sotomayor, if confirmed, you will join the Supreme Court with more federal judicial experience than any justice in the past 100 years. And, therefore, I will devote my time to complaining about the way the Bush administration pummeled our civil liberties.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to point out that we once had a Hispanic nominee for something, and the Democrats filibustered him.

Full piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/opinion/...

Dick Cheney's accountability moment may finally be arriving.

After years of pulling punches, Democrats in the Senate are throwing them at Cheney, following the revelation that the man who operated as something akin to a co-president during George Bush's first term ordered the CIA to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress.

There "absolutely" needs to be a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of Cheney's assault on the system of checks and balances outlined in the essential sections of the US Constitution, argued Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Illinois).

"The executive branch of government cannot create programs like these programs and keep Congress in the dark. There is a requirement for disclosure," the chamber's number two Democrat said on ABC's This Week program. "(Any investigation) has to be done in an appropriate way so it doesn't jeopardize our national security, but to have a massive program that is concealed from the leaders in Congress is not only inappropriate; it could be illegal."

Link to article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090720/nich...

"After twittering our intention to examine the racism on freerepublic, now the conservative site spews homphobia."

Yep, that's pretty much what they're about.

The hyprocracy of the "pro-lifers" should be pointed out at every chance, as well as their shortcomings where children born into less-than nurturing environments are concerned. They need to be called out every time they turn their backs on women and their children.

And the people who work in women's health care should be left alone to do the work they do so well. They are there to help, educate, inform, support, provide for, and take care of. What is the harm in THAT? There IS none! The harm comes from those who protest, who refuse to give a flying fig about these women and children, and especially from those who would celebrate the brutal murder of a man such as Dr. Tiller.

Thank you, Nance.

You took the words right out of my heart.

I was walking to the store near my office, and kitty-corner to where I was, this elderly gentleman was trying to walk across the street. He was walking extremely slowly, and when the light turned green for the people sitting there, he was smack in front of the lead car.

The driver got out, and offered the gentleman his arm, and started helping him across the street. Another man, out walking his dog, went over and got the older man's other elbow, and both of them helped him get across the street. The driver then went back to his car (the light had cycled by then), but no one in that line of cars honked their horns or yelled, because they saw what he did.

The dogwalker was smaller than the elderly gentleman, and so I was going to cross the street and help, but I had to wait for the light. As I was, another driver who had been in that line at the light pulled out of line and crossed the lane, parked his vehicle, and he and the dog walker assisted the elderly gentleman over to the vehicle, so he could get a ride home.

The kindness of what I saw just really touched me.

Being broke also means not answering the phone, because more likely than not, the person at the other end of the line isn't a friend or family member; it's a bill collector, calling to ask for money you just don't have. That's not okay with them, though. They threaten you, they call you names, they yell at you, and they make you feel like you are the lowest form of scum on the face of the earth.

Been there, done that. And constantly felt sick and scared and angry, because these people have NO empathy, NO sympathy, and they all act as if the money you owe the XYZ Company is money personally owed to that person on the other end of your telephone line. Once upon a time, I actually had a person from the utility company demand that I pay her "her" money. I asked for her supervisor; she was even worse.

Being broke means that those in power feel ever-so-free to take out all their aggressions on you, to kick you to the curb and then spit on you, kick you, and burn you with cigarettes, just because they can.

Being broke means that those in power really show you how much they don't give a fucking shit about you.

In this country, if you don't have wealth, you don't have worth.