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Post by gailkate on Nov 2, 2011 10:58:45 GMT -5
People stopped smoking and started eating. That's not the only reason, but it'sanother addiction. Neural pathways for fat/sugar/salt get established in the brain just like drugs. (Well, I know that's not scientifically expressed, but the science is there.) It seems to me we really have to think about how people handle stress - also how we occupy free time. TVs and computers lend themselves to gnoshing and indolence. Hmm... do I want a smoke or a bowl of chips?
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Post by Nomad-wino on Nov 2, 2011 17:56:56 GMT -5
Gail, interesting point of view. I find the subject of obesity in America fascinating. By Japanese standards I am obese and yet when I visit the States I look around and feel like I'm not very fat at all. I'm sure I get most of my excess calories from booze. The results of my recent physical indicate that a life style change is in order and I've severely restricted my alcohol intake and I also changed my food selections to a more fat free daily diet. I still eat full meals, drink lots of water and the results have been delightful. I feel good and my weight is slowly coming down.
I thought about starting a separate thread on this subject of obesity and the effects of it on individuals and the country; as well as ideas on healthy and satisfying ideas on eating and exercise. But I thought it might not be very interesting to everyone else.
Anyway, I'm glad I like tofu! ;D
Mike
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Post by BoatBabe on Nov 2, 2011 21:10:42 GMT -5
Oh! My! Gosh! how can anyone like tofu!?!?
;D
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Post by doctork on Nov 2, 2011 23:37:26 GMT -5
IME tofu assumes the taste of whatever else you cook it with, so it's fine by me in casserole and stir-fry wok dishes, that kind of thing.
I think a separate thread on obesity would be great Mike, but I'll leave it to you if you'd like to start one, so you can start it the way you like.
The decreased smoking is a factor in adult smokers/obese people, but doesn't really account for the marked increase in obesity among very young kids. And the neural pathways theories support why it is hard to lose weight once you are overweight, but why you gain to excess to begin with - not as much.
More computers and video games - definitely a big factor with kids. Also perceived lack of safety playing outdoors. I think about when I was a kid, and we kids got together in the morning, didn't reappear until supper time. Well maybe at lunch time - we all went over to somebody's house for lunch, who ever it was their "turn" to sponsor Lunch For All The Kids.
Now it is all scheduled play dates and official ball leagues, during which games most kids stand around and do nothing most of the time, not really exercise. Nobody lets their kids play "loose" any more - they might get stranger-abducted or something. And schools have reduced or eliminated PE nowadays.
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Post by doctork on Nov 9, 2011 0:35:23 GMT -5
Roger, you can rest easy, as the Mississippi "fetal personhood" bill failed. I saw some news stories featuring hard core Right-to-Life veterans who opposed the bill as too radical. I think they could see that prosecuting every woman who had a miscarriage (20% of all pregnancies) for manslaughter would not be a vote-getter. A woman who continued to work or lifted a heavy object while pregnant, thus "causing" a miscarriage should end up in prison? I don't think so. And the first time a woman with an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy bled to death because the doctor didn't care to serve time for "murdering" the fetus by removing it from the tube in order to save the mother's life, well that would garner some really "pro-life" headlines, wouldn't it?
In a related campaign, Russell Pearce, (now, soon to be former) President of the Arizona State Senate, appears to have lost his forced-by-recall bid for re-election to Jerry Lewis (not the comedian), another Mormon Republican like Pearce, but a newcomer to politics. The district is conservative Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, but even there, they got fed up with Pearce's gratuitous "anti-immigration law," (aka SB 1070) which has cost Arizona a lot of business, a lot of jobs, and a lot of money in unnecessary court challenges.
Partisan political grandstanding in open violation of the Supreme Court and the law of the land, funded by hardworking taxpayers, is becoming unpopular.
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Post by doctork on Nov 9, 2011 20:34:02 GMT -5
The local news tonight is leading with the upset victory of newcomer Jerry Lewis over Senator Russell Pearce, probably one of the most powerful politicians in Arizona, or at least he used to be.
As I mentioned, both candidates are Mormon, and Mesa had historically been a Mormon neighborhood, though recently a lot of Hispanic Catholics have moved in, and they are actually reportedly integrating the neighborhood very smoothly.
And it turns out that hundreds of Hispanic youth had organized separately (by AZ law they couldn't be affiliated with the official Lewis campaign, so Lewis was not aware of the extent of their effort) to get out the vote for Jerry Lewis, as of course Pearce was perceived as anti-Hispanic in his enthusiasm for "immigration reform." I think that was an accurate perception, and it reflected wrongly on those of the Mormon faith as well. For most of those Hispanic young people it was their first political campaign, just as it was Jerry Lewis' first campaign. I found all the interviews on TV were quite touching.
It reminds me of when we were young and hopeful, and found that we (Boomers) could participate in the political process and have an effect - force two presidents out and an end to the Viet Nam War. And I guess most of us had similar hope with President Obama.
Oh BTW, if you haven't heard much yet about "Fast and Furious" there is supposedly a scandalous report coming out tonight identifying the US Attorney who leaked the information about "Fast and Furious" to the press. Eric Holder refused to reveal the source in Senate testimony today, and in fact he has denied advance knowledge of the ATF action that resulted in the US donating thousands of weapons to Mexican drug dealers, as well as the killing of many innocent civilians, not to mention the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry here in Arizona.
Holder has never apologized nor has he ever bothered to communicate with Terry's family, or attend the funeral or any of the memorials. It is my impression Holder has lied under oath in his testimony concerning this matter.
Have these politicians no shame? Nor even a shred of any concern for anything beyond their own political career?
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Post by doctork on Nov 10, 2011 21:05:54 GMT -5
More Arizona news of possible national significance.
Tonight Richard Carmona, former Surgeon General of the US under Bush 43 has announced that he will run in the Democratic primary for the Senate race in 2012 to replace retiring Republican Senator Jon Kyl. I have heard him speak several times, and met him in person at one of those meetings. He is a phenomenal individual - high school drop out who obtained his GED, joined the Army special Forces where he served as a medic (Viet Nam combat-decorated), then became an EMT, then and RN, then a LEO on the Tucson SWAT team, and then a board certified trauma surgeon, and then Surgeon General.
Though he was/is an adept politician too, served well during his 4 years as Surgeon General, he became a fierce critic of the Bush administration when he left office. His criticism was solidly justified - he really slammed Bush for suppressing scientific evidence in favor of political advantage.
At one of his talks, he said the best advice he got at the start of his term in Dc was the following:
If you want a friend in DC, get a dog. In fact, get two, because before you leave office, at least one of them will turn on you.
I may change my voter registration to AZ and as a Democrat, to vote for him in the primary. Like Carmona I regard myself as an Independent now, but sometimes you have to register one way or the other to make your vote count.
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Post by jspnrvr on Nov 14, 2011 20:53:50 GMT -5
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Post by joew on Nov 14, 2011 21:19:41 GMT -5
Also 10 of 10.
Spoiler Alert — Don't read the following if you haven't taken the test yet. One of the questions did not have a correct answer — the one about the Electoral College. The one that gets scored as correct says the Electoral College is an "assembly" that does something — I forget exactly how they describe it. But of course it is not an assembly since it never meets as a single body. Each state's electors meet in their own state's capital.
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Post by rogesgallery on Dec 27, 2011 15:22:29 GMT -5
No posts since November; no significant US news in almost two years. Oh sure there was the killing of Bin Laden but that was all in good fun, and anti climactic.
Yes there has been some indiscriminate pepper spraying of protesters but we pepper spray animals with an expectation of impunity and lets face it humans intentionally kill more humans yearly in California alone than animals probably do in the entire world. What in the hell was an 84 year old woman doing in the middle of a crowd of protesters when serious protests in this country have historically always been the scene of mass violence.
Regardless of this distraction, the Occupy movement seems to have Wall Street chewing their manicured fingernails. Fuel prices are not bouncing around at the whim of investors.
Something that I believe is noteworthy is the discussion as to whether members of congress are guilty of or ever prosecuted for insider trading.
It seems antithetical to me that Obama is blamed for ineffectual governance yet we are experiencing a period of comparative peaceful non newsworthyness.
Gotta go.
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Post by Nomad-wino on Dec 27, 2011 17:49:41 GMT -5
Either no news is good news or we don't read the news, or, nothing is news worthy anymore. Perhaps "I don't care and I don't give a damn" is the new "don't ask, don't tell". Will anything ever shock us again? Will anyone ever say "holy cow! did you just hear the news!". Maybe the next occupy movement will be to un-occupy the news. When you watch the news and they interrupt the main story to report that Kim Kardasian is getting a divorce but keeping the 2 million dollar wedding ring... maybe it is time to un-occupy the news.
Anyway, holy cow! did anyone hear the news, the war is over in Iraq?
Mike
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Post by joew on Dec 27, 2011 18:46:02 GMT -5
…Anyway, holy cow! did anyone here the news, the war is over in Iraq? Mike Before the fighting started, I imagined that it would be possible to leave a peaceful, democratic, post-Saddam Iraq. Now I'm afraid that we'll just see Sunnis and Shiites fighting each other interminably and Islamists killing Christians, as they do in Egypt and Nigeria, unless a new military dictatorship comes along to impose "law and order," through repressive measures.
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Post by gailkate on Dec 28, 2011 0:48:36 GMT -5
And the tragedy is that we knew this from the beginning. Saddam ruthlessly held together what is basically 3 countries. Unfortunately, here's no way to divide them and make each independent, just as there's no way to satisfy Israel and Palestine. As there would be no way to divide the Reds from the Blues here. The old Mason Dixon line sure won't do it, but the divisions seem as irreconcilable as they were 150 years ago.
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Post by rogesgallery on Dec 28, 2011 22:24:47 GMT -5
Humanity — Morality Fit together as perfect Irony
Always beneficent and ready to attribute his own fine qualities to the bulk of humanity, Joe said:
Sadly, Total Cultural Reorganization's most reliable companions are wholesale destruction and genocide. Take Japan for instance — the most successful new democracy of the old world. Hundreds of thousands of indiscriminate deaths from Firebombing and Two major cities leveled by Nuclear bombs, a 6 year allied occupation, plus the fact that they were surrounded by neighbors they had horribly alienated. It all added up to a perfect recipe for total cultural and political reorganization.
That can not be forced in the Middle East because what we call borders are just lines in the sand. Lines miscalculated by the Christian cultures of Europe to divide and destroy the established tribal alliances that were the heart of the almost 700 year success of the Ottoman Empire. The borders attempted to consolidate pieces of 1000 year old dissimilar cultures under new centralized puppet power brokers.
By the end of WWII the colonial system had all but failed and the wealth to be had from Middle East black gold had been realized. It was cheaper and less painful to support the puppets than to colonize. Chevrolet challenged Ford for the biggest gas guzzling family car in the world and modern finance introduced America's middle class to the Jones'.
The middle class of the Middle East was tossed beneath the tires of the puppet leaders luxury cars and the oil giants tried to pave them over. The Middle Class of the Middle East would not lay down though.Their gods gained strength as all gods will when their followers are threatened. Their Gods buoyed them up through class war and culture conflict until finally in one ancient land their gods gained control and all the region watched as their gods fought the last of the puppet leaders to a standstill. It was now known that the White Western Christian god was no stronger than the gods of the Middle East.
We the west were forced to face our folly even though we were blind to to the fact that even Jesus now drove a luxury car and was a pawn to the corporate churches with their mall sized parking lots.
Jesus Christ we cried as the Twin Towers fell, but he was having none of that. Mohamed and he had duked it out centuries ago and found they were equals. "Send your reserves" he told GWB "They can't refuse if they want their benefits".
So here we are in the same place Jesus and Mohamed were centuries ago, at a standoff. Jesus and Mohamed are watching us over Monk brewed beer in some other-world bar— Jesus with a smile and his bevy of high budget whores and Mohamed with a frown and a harem of virgins. Go Figure[/quote]
I am... just speculating
Roges
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Post by BoatBabe on Dec 28, 2011 23:41:29 GMT -5
Well, ya know the whores and virgins story is intriguing.
This quote from Mike has a lot more to do with MY non-news reporting:
"Maybe the next occupy movement will be to un-occupy the news. When you watch the news and they interrupt the main story to report that Kim Kardasian is getting a divorce but keeping the 2 million dollar wedding ring... maybe it is time to un-occupy the news."
I watch my local news when it isn't too depressing. And a lot of the rest of that crap, I just don't either care about or just can't internalize.
I get up between 5 and 6 a.m. in the Pacific Northwest, and by then the rest of world is either half through or done with their day. How many weeping, wailing, prostrate North Koreans did I really need to see this morning? I was done with it by 5:30.
There are a lot of interesting analogies that can be drawn from The News, particularly if you add the past/present/future thingy.
As I told My Dahhlink this past weekend, "I used to think that my job while you were gone was to continue the upgrades we did while while you were here. Then I got used to my maintenance job. Later, I have come to understand that if I just Don't Sink The Boat, I am a success."
He kissed me. I am a success.
I am more and more turning off The News and turning on The Music.
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Post by gailkate on Dec 29, 2011 0:47:10 GMT -5
The middle class of the Middle East was tossed beneath the tires of the puppet leaders luxury cars and the oil giants tried to pave them over. The Middle Class of the Middle East would not lay down though.Their gods gained strength as all gods will when their followers are threatened. Their Gods buoyed them up through class war and culture conflict until finally in one ancient land their gods gained control and all the region watched as their gods fought the last of the puppet leaders to a standstill. It was now known that the White Western Christian god was no stronger than the gods of the Middle East. I'm not following this very well. Was there really a middleclass in the Middle East? Maybe a narrow middle class, but my memory of history is that the haves and have-nots were sharply divided with nothing in between. I've backed away from the news, though I couldn't live with just local news. Ours is really too weak to rely on.
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Post by doctork on Dec 29, 2011 8:12:18 GMT -5
I'd say my impression is like yours gk. Not much middle class in the Middle East, just a few rich people and a lot of poor people. And in Saudi and the Emirates, not many Saudis or Emeratis (rich, middle class or poor), but lots of near-slave workers from other countries. Just an impression as I've never been to Saudi, and have visited Israel (which does have a sizable middle class) and Dubai only briefly, and I don't think Persia counts as Middle East.
We don't really have much local news - TV is out of PHX, radio is somewhat limited, print and internet is more national focus. I do often watch national broadcast news evenings if I get home in time (by 5:30 or 6), Today Show in the morning if I haven't left by 7 am, and I read CSM, WSJ, NYT, WaPo, USA at least in part.
I don't follow the Kardashians or Lindsay Lohan though - those stories seem to run after I leave for work or before I get home, and if they show up on the internet, well I just don't click on them!
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Post by rogesgallery on Dec 30, 2011 5:03:22 GMT -5
The middle class of the Middle East was tossed beneath the tires of the puppet leaders luxury cars and the oil giants tried to pave them over. The Middle Class of the Middle East would not lay down though.Their gods gained strength as all gods will when their followers are threatened. Their Gods buoyed them up through class war and culture conflict until finally in one ancient land their gods gained control and all the region watched as their gods fought the last of the puppet leaders to a standstill. It was now known that the White Western Christian god was no stronger than the gods of the Middle East. I'm not following this very well. Was there really a middleclass in the Middle East? Maybe a narrow middle class, but my memory of history is that the haves and have-nots were sharply divided with nothing in between. I've backed away from the news, though I couldn't live with just local news. Ours is really too weak to rely on. Gail? I'm Having a hard time imagining that you think that The middle east is populated by Slums and Shepherds. Maybe you have never looked beyond the blast barriers at the buildings and freeways that were destroyed in the war. In Iran there is a very large middle class. Engineers, Doctors, Scientists, Oil field workers, Successful farmers, Import export firms. Here is the UN's country profile for Iran. data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Iran%20%28Islamic%20Republic%20of%29You will note that there has been steady growth under the Islamic Republic after the Iran/Iraq war. You might be rather shocked by the demographics of Iraq under the Bathist Regime. I believe their literacy rate was higher than ours and participation in primary and secondary education was 100%. Life expectancy at birth is right up with ours and and that is not indicative of a low class society From that site you can check out any of the other countries in the the region I am talking about the Persian Gulf states And their poverty percentages are no worse than ours. When did our middle class begin to blossom? Certainly not until after the labor wars of the early twentieth century and the Depression era. In reality our middle class is built on borrowed money that is seldom paid back in full. The bulk of many middle class estates end up in the hands of the state for repayment of late life medical bills. Hey... I wasn't trying to be serious. I was just having fun with a brisk overview. Maybe it would have been easier to say that there are about as many camels Tehran as there are horses in San Diego. That's kinda what we're comparing here.
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Post by gailkate on Dec 30, 2011 10:56:24 GMT -5
I think it was all the metaphorical imagery that confused me - the gods and who's on top. That UN site is terrific, but I'll need to delve into it more. (A techy could do comparison windows and see the contrasts, but i doubt i can do it.) It seems to me the story of the last 50 years has been more and more repression, uneremployed and frustrated young people. Women's rights have definitely been eroded. Big statistical averages can be very misleading, as you well know. Better to look at median - or mode, my favorite indicator, which they rarely publish in any form.
I'd never argue that our own middle class was a model for anyone else, and our health stats are a disgrace.
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Post by rogesgallery on Dec 30, 2011 15:13:22 GMT -5
Ahem... The entire world, US included, struggles with a woman's rights — the right to sell sex. Such a marketable skill should be embraced by a capitalist society but the men that run society are afraid to give women that ultimate degree of power. Certainly the health issues of prostitution would be more manageable on the open market.
Real men don't quiver or beg though (Bull!), so man has tried to maintain the facade of ownership while sneaking in a quickie in a dark alley.
The evolution os stupidity is a slow process and if there are Gods that is their entertainment.
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Post by BoatBabe on Dec 31, 2011 0:24:54 GMT -5
Ahem... The entire world, US included, struggles with a woman's rights — the right to sell sex. Such a marketable skill should be embraced by a capitalist society but the men that run society are afraid to give women that ultimate degree of power. Certainly the health issues of prostitution would be more manageable on the open market. Real men don't quiver or beg though (Bull!), so man has tried to maintain the facade of ownership while sneaking in a quickie in a dark alley. The evolution os stupidity is a slow process and if there are Gods that is their entertainment. Forgive me, but I was not aware that "women's rights" were defined as "the right to sell sex." I thought "women's rights" were about fair pay for the same job done, the right to own land, the right to an education, the right to vote, the right to not get burned and killed if your dowry isn't acceptable and the right to speak and drive a car. Prostitution includes men and children of both sexes, and really has no bearing on a women's rights discussion. But you are right, Roges: worldwide, there are men in every society that "are afraid to give women that ultimate degree of power. " There are many more graduated degrees of power that are afraid to be given as well. It is only with women that we discuss "power being given." Men discuss "taking power." All of the Gods have been highly entertained.
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Post by doctork on Dec 31, 2011 0:34:44 GMT -5
Some countries have experienced an exodus of the middle class, particularly in totalitarian regimes where anyone with education is declared an enemy of the state.
I'd say questions of women's rights have to do with more than an ability to sell sex, and some "Middle Eastern" or "Persian Gulf" states have imposed distinctly second or third class citizenship on women.
Good point about stats and the significance of mean, median and mode, gk - not much without some accompanying measure of central tendency.
The stats on Iran raise a few questions in my mind: Why is infant mortality so high if health care is so great? Why are there 103 men per 100 women, particularly in a country with "good health care" (should not be much maternal mortality) and that has been at war (usually high male casualties)? And how does that jive with a fertility rate of only 1.7 - well below replacement rate, yet the country posts a growth rate of 1.7%?
And what about the 350% inflation, along with a four-fold increase in exchange rate relative to the USD? And all the while per capita income increases from 1550 to 4800? Why no balance of payments, current accounts listed since 2000? Isn't it a bit unusual to list unemployment from age 10 years on up? Especially if there is supposed to be high participation in education?
I do not know anything about Iran (except they have a lot of refugees from Afghanistan), but the UN data raise more questions than provide answers in my mind.
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Post by doctork on Dec 31, 2011 0:42:44 GMT -5
Boat Babe - cross posting, but yeah. What she said.
Though maybe the burning and killing has to do with "honor killing" when the brothers and fathers are offended that the sister/daughter has got the nerve to get raped so they have to kill her to avenge the family's lost honor. Then I think the poor dowry is rewarded by stoning to death. Or maybe that is adultery, but I the punishment is only for the woman, not the man. Who knows? I'm not sure myself, but I guess it is pretty bold for women to ask for the right not to be burned, killed, stoned to death.
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Post by BoatBabe on Dec 31, 2011 12:03:21 GMT -5
Yup, crossed posts, doc. Should a known we were talking at the same time. One of my main concerns in the humanity/morality arena is our older population. I hate to talk in societal generalities, so I need to make this personal. In my neighborhood, I am seeing more people living longer than their money lasts. These are people who worked their whole lives, were frugal, savers, middle-class homeowners who now can't scrape together the money to pay the taxes on their house and lot. Yes, and most of these people I know are women. Over the years, I can now spot the signs of their money getting tight, and eventually the time comes when the house must be sold to provide the money for the low-income apartment which turns into an assisted living room which turns into a Medicare/Medicaid nursing home bed which turns into a coffin. Not to be macabre, but my concern is with their quality of life before the coffin comes into the picture. It seems as though their health and quality of life is directly proportional to their available money. It is an odd state of affairs when the highlight of the week is to come into the bank on Fridays for free coffee and cookies, and sit for hours visiting with the other folks who are in the same situation, somewhere on the downhill slide to abject poverty. The lucky ones are the ones who have not outlived all of their family. I see family and friends stepping up to help some of these delightful folks. But there are lots of folks who don't have that help, and the lack of our awareness as a society of their needs is appalling. And Yup, I'm talking about my Mom here, too. She is one of the lucky ones, but she is still on that slide.
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Post by Jane on Dec 31, 2011 12:38:59 GMT -5
Amen to that, BB. My dad worked and saved his whole life to leave money to his children. My mom did the same. Now we are paying $5000 a month to warehouse her body. My mom is gone; her body keeps on. She has lost her dignity, her self, the love she had for her family. Nothing is left. If she knew what she had become, she would be devastated. It isn't right.
Perhaps what I am arguing for is euthanasia. I'll tell you the truth; I would do it if I knew I would never be caught. I love my mom, but she isn't there anymore.
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Post by doctork on Dec 31, 2011 16:04:20 GMT -5
I wonder if smaller families and the tendency of kids to move away is a big part of this picture.
This is why Medicaid is really a middle class subsidy program, not a poverty program. In most states the bulk of Medicaid dollars go to pay for poor elderly people (formerly middle class, but impoverished by aging and illness) to receive expensive tertiary medical care and live in nursing homes, instead of far less costly alternatives. (Most Medicaid recipients are mothers and children, who are cheap to take care of.)
I'll personalize based on my patients, as my parents both died "young and healthy," my F-I-L died of a heart attack in his 70's when they still had sufficient money, and my M-I-L was left a generous bequest by her brother-in-law that keeps her in a luxurious assisted living facility.
When I practiced in Denver, many of my patients had elderly relatives elsewhere far away, or were elders themselves whose kids were elsewhere. The situation was usually as Boat Babe describes in her bank clientele.
In West Virginia, extended families were larger and closer to home. Being rural, there were large properties with a "main house" where the senior family lived (however that family defined senior) and then numerous trailers/mobile homes also located on the property where other family members lived. Pretty low cost, as property taxes were low and homestead exemption usually covered a trailer in full. There were usually lots of family members around to help provide care for frail elders, pregnant moms put on bed rest, and lots of kids. There might be only a couple of wage earners among the lot, but that could still suffice.
Now I work on the Navajo rez and it reminds me of WV - large extended families who generally respect and care for their elders at home. I don't begin to understand all the details about being an enrolled tribe member living on the rez, but I have gleaned that it is quite low out-of-pocket cost. No or minimal land lease cost (they do not own the property because it is "held in trust" by the federal government), trailers and hogans for housing (no mortgages if you don't own the land), and as I've mentioned before, many people do not have plumbing or electricity so no utility bills though they do have to haul wood and water.
Health care is provided at very little out-of-pocket cost through IHS. Arizona has a program called ALTCS - Arizona Long Term Care Service if I have the acronym right - that pays relatives to take care of frail elders or disabled family members. So if family members need to quit a wage job to care for an elderly grandma or a disabled child/sibling, they will receive a modest wage that replaces a portion of what they would have been earning in the wage job. The person needing care is always eligible for AHCCCS (Arizona's Medicaid program), so the state saves a lot of money by paying a relative $10,000 a year instead of paying a nursing home $60,000.
Please don't confuse "low out-of-pocket" with "free." Native Americans have paid dearly for their "free" services."
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Post by doctork on Jan 1, 2012 11:27:06 GMT -5
Is everyone else sick of The Iowa Caucuses?
Does anyone else hate Iowa for co-opting our holiday season by maneuvering to drench us in ugly ads for two solid months during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years - all so they can be First In The Polls?
I do not recall this presidential politicking starting so early and being so lengthy and vituperative in any other previous years.
I liked it better when Iowa and New Hampshire were of minor interest and no one got serious about presidential elections until about March or April of the actual election year, not the first Wednesday of November in the "off year election," a full two years before the next presidential election.
I do not live in Iowa, but I have had to put up with campaign ads if I want to watch CSI or any number of other shows that do not involve talking heads or news.
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Post by joew on Jan 1, 2012 12:28:34 GMT -5
Is everyone else sick of The Iowa Caucuses? Does anyone else hate Iowa for co-opting our holiday season by maneuvering to drench us in ugly ads for two solid months during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years - all so they can be First In The Polls? I do not recall this presidential politicking starting so early and being so lengthy and vituperative in any other previous years. I liked it better when Iowa and New Hampshire were of minor interest and no one got serious about presidential elections until about March or April of the actual election year, not the first Wednesday of November in the "off year election," a full two years before the next presidential election. I do not live in Iowa, but I have had to put up with campaign ads if I want to watch CSI or any number of other shows that do not involve talking heads or news. I haven't seen any political ads. That's because I haven't watched TV. ;D
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Post by BoatBabe on Jan 1, 2012 18:12:50 GMT -5
Amen to that, BB. My dad worked and saved his whole life to leave money to his children. My mom did the same. Now we are paying $5000 a month to warehouse her body. My mom is gone; her body keeps on. She has lost her dignity, her self, the love she had for her family. Nothing is left. If she knew what she had become, she would be devastated. It isn't right. Perhaps what I am arguing for is euthanasia. I'll tell you the truth; I would do it if I knew I would never be caught. I love my mom, but she isn't there anymore. I am so sorry to hear this, Jane. My heart is with you.
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Post by joew on Jan 1, 2012 18:35:26 GMT -5
Amen to that, BB. My dad worked and saved his whole life to leave money to his children. My mom did the same. Now we are paying $5000 a month to warehouse her body. My mom is gone; her body keeps on. She has lost her dignity, her self, the love she had for her family. Nothing is left. If she knew what she had become, she would be devastated. It isn't right. Perhaps what I am arguing for is euthanasia. I'll tell you the truth; I would do it if I knew I would never be caught. I love my mom, but she isn't there anymore. That must be really heartbreaking. There is something definitely wrong when care of an elderly person costs $5,000 per month. I have no idea what the solution is, but there has to be a better way.
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