like acorns and leaves he/she collects from walks with you or from the yard, pressed butterflies you tried to save, a rock found, a pet loved, a grandmother adored, now gone. I know many other memories as individual as families exist for your own special family. We should all try to make this holiday season one to cherish as we all try to bring back loving days of old when we were happy and well fed and proud of our country. It is up to us to try to recreate memories and country. Your child will love this forever. BTW, I still have a letter from an old love that has a crumb from brownies he was eating. The crumb is intact, honest.

Edited for following: I don't mean a pressed pet, but a photo of one would be great in that little person's treasure book.

In addition to writing and spelling, we could just rent talking books and not have to learn how to read. We already ignore history, and most people cannot even tell you where Washington, D.C. or Washington state are located. After all, how important is that. We all know that most do not need to know math, so let's just stop educating anybody. Of course the elite can have governesses, and so forth. Gee, what century does that sound like.

Cursive writing was my first introduction to the artistic side of my brain. IMHO, it is very important and I am saddened by its demise.

It's hard to explain what the gulf means to us in So. Louisiana. There are many, many people just as devastated in other states. Our hearts just can't take much more here. I believe we are all clinically depressed. Of course, there will be no remediation from BP for that, and, indeed, no one can fix our broken hearts and destroyed lives. It's bad enough to know so many people are suffering financially; but, add to that the stress of knowing the suffering that our poor wildlife is going through tears us to pieces. Much of the world is suffering with us. BP can't mend this; but, we can make sure that it does not happen again.

President Obama needs to step up now and truly be the leader of this land. Does he have any idea of the grief of every school child who has been told that turtles are being burned and dolphins and whales are struggling to breath. Why in hell doesn't he stop the dispersants from being sprayed all over our beautiful gulf, making it harder and harder for it to ever recover? If he doesn't do it, no one will. This was caused initially by the lack of regulation that has been happening for years, ever since Reagan. I do not know what Clinton did to stop it, but I am sure it was not enough, if anything. How much money are the oil companies paying all of our politicians to look the other way. The democrats will lose big if President Obama doesn't do something quickly. He has no idea of the heartache he is causing in this world by his slipshod methods of dealing with this financial and ecological emergency. The very least he could have done was to forbid the use of dispersants. They are only used to hide the amount of the oil spill so as to save BP a lot of money. Before long those damned chemicals will be in the air I'm breathing in Lafayette. Damn them all to Hell.

It is very difficult to see this, and I have been bypassing this post for this reason. Our hearts are breaking in South Louisiana and we ask for your prayers and your inimitable activism on behalf of all the many things Americans and the world love about Louisiana and the wonderful wildlife we were supposed to protect.

I say activism because I believe it is time to remove all oil rigs from the gulf. This will not be popular because so many think we are helpless without oil, and I must agree that we certainly enjoy a lot of profits from oil and gas in Louisiana; but, at what expense?

I am very ashamed of this, but, I did not know until this happened that so many species spawned here; so, the enormity didn't hit right away. What we have lost is uncalculable, so mere words cannot express our heartbreak here, and I am sure it is shared by millions across this world that is so beautiful and loved by so many. It is unquestionable in light of this disaster that it is also very vulnerable. It is, perhaps, too late, but we need to try with everything in our being to speak up loudly and clearly for what we know should be this country's direction. Clean energy is needed not only for the consumers, but, for the unemployed in our nations and across the world.

Please, people, accept no less. I am trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, but, it is difficult. When he was elected, we all thought that clean energy and innovative ways to run our machines and our lives would be foremost in this country's directives, not to mention new jobs for our unemployed. I know he can't do everything at once, but when is he going to fulfill even one of his promises? I feel like singing that song, "You Made me Love You, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it." I have grown to love him and his family, but, as with the Clintons, we have to keep his feet to the fire.

Please know, if you don't already, that the oil from the BP spill, or catastrophe would have gone to China, not us, though the US is a member of the powerful OPEC that makes all decisions BIG OIL related. So, it's really us against the world. We need to speak up loudly and proudly whenever we can.

Thanks for allowing me this diatribe.

Thanks for putting into words what so many of us are feeling and are too outraged to speak. I wondered yesterday if our beloved South Louisiana way of life and diet of seafood is ended, the seafood that defines us and brings thousands to our shores. Will it now be oil and greed that defines us? I hope instead it will be courage in the face of insanity and that we will prevail. We must all pray and work to that end.

I hope everyone brings themselves to our beloved Gulf by thoughts and deeds as we struggle together to right this terrible wrong and attempt to keep it from happening anywhere else on this planet. "This Land is Our Land"; but, only if we have the courage and tenacity to hold on to it.

replace my Whirlpool appliances with any that are not manufactured in this country. This is getting more and more difficult, as most are being made out of this country. I used to love Maytag, now the quality is diminished. I have appliances no more than two years old that now need major repairs. Color me disgusted.

What kind of reasoning is this? We send jobs overseas, and this leaves fewer and fewer people to purchase these imported items. So, what happens to the people without jobs in this country.

I believe we should start investing federal and state money into communes, so that our homeless can begin to live again and support themselves. All they need is good earth, seeds and muscles. We are investing in the wrong things. Unemployment benefits are great, but without plugging the hole that is sending our jobs and money out of this country, these people will either die naturally from lack of health care or food, or die killing those of us who are better off. Revolution is a tame word for the chaos that will ensue. In this country we have millions of acres of land that is owned by the people, or supposed to be. Unfortunately, it is more and more given to corporations to plunder. Frankly, I would rather have the homeless plunder it than the evil corporations, who have no true love for this country unless that love puts money in their pockets. As we go down, eventually the only direction is up.

He and our team are so loved down here. They could so easily have deserted NOLA. They will never have fans that are more devoted, win or lose. It is so easy for some people to trash Louisiana; but I have lived in large cities in 5 southern states, and Louisiana has the deepest love for their fellow man that I have ever experienced.

When Katrina hit, we had boatloads of people heading into the rivers and bayous to rescue the people trapped and suffering in New Orleans and other Parishes. Our brave and strong people in their boats with their own supplies, were turned away by police and guards and we were all forced to watch the debacle unfold with tears streaming down our faces. It was a common sight. The heart of our state had been ripped out and we all were grief stricken and in a hopeless state. This helplessness contributed greatly the post traumatic stress that many of us still suffer from today.

I hope Katrina is remembered for all time as a horrible example of government run awry. What was done to this state by our "elected" government was detestable. Getting over this is difficult and some of us never will be whole mentally because of the trauma.

I hope everyone remembers this as the horrible devastation in Haiti unfolds. Give with everything you have, including your heart; for this love for our fellow man is vital to the health and well being of our world.

I would like to again thank everyone who helped in so many ways to bring America's favorite city back and to help rebuild So. Louisiana. While suffering a horrible tragedy, we survived knowing that the worst and the best had come to our state. We had to start sifting and building.

We are grateful for Drew, Brangelina Oprah, Ellen, Cooper and the list goes on. Our hearts are on the mend in large part because of the tremendous love given us by our fellow man.

We must send that love now to Haiti.

Of course, it can happen and pledged delegates can become unpledged. All in a day's work, if the work puts you in a good position to take over the lead. It's the rules. Pledged and super delegates are allowed to change their minds.

I have a feeling that a lot of glitterbabies are rubbing that stuff out of their eyes. He's not a good candidate, folks. He's just not.

While Hillary was a senior in high school, I was four years out of high school and working as a secretary in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. My life would be forever changed by the treatment I watched Dr. King and his marchers receive on my street.

The front doors of our business were padlocked, but were all glass. We were worried that bricks would be thrown through the glass. We saw the marchers in the street, the dogs and highway patrolman on the sidewalks, supposedly protecting white businesses on either side of the street. I watched Dr. King in all his magnificence and his followers and supporters bravely march down that street with dangerous people watching. It was a terrible time and a lot of very good people realized that their convictions were not based on their beliefs, but that of their parents.

I was one of those people forever changed, and, eventually, left all of this horror behind me. Dreams of the mistreatment of the marchers, the frightening bricks thrown in the windows of white people's cars if they came too close, the bullhorn of Bull Conner, the dogs, the firehoses; and, worst of all, the bombing of the church and the killing of innocent children will remain with me forever, and the experience colors everything I did afterward and now. I raised my children to hate no one because of the color of their skin, and I did everything I could to make sure Dr. Martin Luther King was a respected historical figure in our household. I am white and aware that my history was very different, though with different struggles.

No struggle makes us different from other people who struggle. We need to love and try to understand all of those people and the individual roads we all have walked. Being a democrat should make us proud, as so many of us struggle every day to be better people and more understanding of the heartaches of others.

I love being an elder American. Though I am older than Hillary by about 6 years, we both personally experienced black America during its most traumatic time; the thrill and danger of the movement and the horror and sadness of the deaths of Dr. King and JFK and RFK, and the turmoil of those times are horrific and mind boggling.

I will take my history living life above all of you young whippershappers in an instant. Perhaps you should be looking for a leader with these kinds of eye opening experiences to lead you, rather than untried young people, who lack maturity and judgment.

Most of us Hillary supporters are not against Obama, we're just against Obama now. A lot of us have lived long enough to appreciate the wisdom of years. He's too young, McCain is a pug and too old, but Hillary, my gosh, is wonderful and just right. Our first woman President and one who has had amazing experiences of history in the making and is ready to make her own.

Jump on board children, jump on board.

I am 64 and have diabetes. My brother, who is four years older than I, has Parkinson's. I would dearly love to be able to carry on a conversation with him again. He's a brilliant man. Was doing complicated mathematical research.

He got his Phd from U of Chicago when he was 23 yrs. old. He was the youngest member ever accepted when he was admitted to the World Society of Mathematics (I believe that's correct, if memory serves me.) Of course, as he got worse, the mathematical research slowed and then stopped. What he was doing was very important. Who knows what he would have accomplished. He was a poet, an author, college professor, resident Phd for a large oil company (being a liberal, he got away as fast as possible) and a father.

He and I were very close. Now distance separates us. It's hard for him to talk on the phone, and impossible for him to write, so communication is extremely difficult.

Just one story, among many, that illustrates the importance of stem cell research to us and the world we live in.

Most of us loved Theresa Heinz Kerry. She, also, was a wonderful asset for John Kerry, not to mention the affection we all feel for Elizabeth Edwards.

I personally believe that anyone who posts about the future presidential race should state the dem they are supporting. I do not mind posters who are against Hillary; however, I believe we should all be up front about our potential bias.

It looks as if, to me, that the remarkably charismatic John Edwards will be Hillary's biggest competition, if she runs; and, I have to say, that as much as I love Hillary, I also love the Edwards.

We have a plethora of marvelous democratic talent; and, I believe we can boost our own personal choice without tearing down very influential and valuable members of our own party. Let's please leave it to the pugs to swiftboat our guys, not us, personally.

Just sayin'.

I will fight like crazy for any one of them; however, Hillary deserves her chance like anyone else. I will support her through the primaries and will then throw all of my heart into the primary winner's campaign for the White House.

I will accomplish this without trashing any of our great democrats who might be running for the presidency. Please remember that we are all in this democratic boat together. We all need to be rowing together, not sinking the boat.

I am really tired of these stupid Hillary threads. I know everyone doesn't love her, but there are plenty of dems who do. Also, it's past time for everyone to realize that she is a Clinton by marriage only. Her election would not add to any dynasty. That's Rodham blood flowing through her veins.

She is a smart, experienced and very attractive democrat. I am so proud that she is one of us. Yes, I said one of us.

You know, the only time I ever got in trouble on this board was when I trashed Lieberman. I'm amazed at what the Hillary naysaysers are getting away with; even to the point of posting right wing talking points!!!!!

He was honest and sincere, and they wiped the floor with him. Under Hillary's outward softness is a steel core, and flanking her is a wrought iron icon.

It's past time for us to get behind our very best chance.

Hillary is probably the most popular woman in the world, outside of actresses, maybe. Her name is synonomous with intelligence, compassion and courage.

We are very lucky to have her. Remember during the Lewinsky scandel how other countries were crying "Let us have Bill". They would be just as thrilled to have Hillary. She is one popular woman, and not because of her beauty, though she is certainly a very attractive woman.

It is way too easy for dems to forget what inexperience and stupidity have wrought in this country. Hillary = Wellesley, Yale, Lawyer, Arkansas First Lady, America's First Lady, U. S. Senator, and not at all the least of these, an excellent mother and wife. How many of you have read her autobiography?

She is a freakin' dream come true. What is with you people?