Blogging For Kicks

I have a new renter this week, Wonderland or Not, and I urge you all to click on her icon and pay her a visit. This is a student who seems aimed more toward the younger crowd, but I was struck by the fact that she is intelligent, coherent, and able to put her thoughts “on paper” in an interesting and understandable way, something too many “students” seem incapable of these days. I read through some of her posts, and I enjoyed them, even tho I’m not a young’un, so please go see what she has to offer. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, too.

Ok, I really wasn’t going to say any more about this, at least for a while, but after listening to W this morning I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I mean, honestly, could he really say what he did with a straight face? I guess that’s a dumb question, since he obviously did, but I’m still trying to figure out just who slipped up and let him run his mouth the way he did. I’m surprised someone didn’t run out there and kick him in the shins.

The law that regulates how spying on terrorists is supposed to work is too old, and so he decided to ignore it and do what he wanted? Is that what he said? You bet your bottom dollar, bucko. I simply couldn’t believe I was hearing it when he said it, and I’m still having trouble with it now. Good Lord, just how arrogant and self-serving can one man be?

Look, the laws are on the books for a reason, and no one, not even the President, can simply decide they don’t like the law so they’re not going to obey it. Stop and ask yourself this question: The speed limit between your town and the next is posted at 55. That means you can’t go faster than 55 mph at any time, no matter the conditions. Now, let’s suppose you have ten minutes to get to a very important meeting in the next town, and you know if you follow the 55 speed limit you won’t make it, so you decide to drive 80 miles an hour so you won’t be late.

You get stopped by a cop, and he starts to write you a ticket for speeding, but you tell him your story. Do you honestly believe he would then look at you, say “Well, I guess you had a good reason for driving so fast, so never mind”? Yeah, right! You’re going to get written up and you’re going to have to pay the fine. Speed laws are posted for a reason, and you can’t just decide not to follow them because they don’t suit you.

Well, Bush can’t ignore the law, either. So the law was written in 1978. So what? It’s still in effect, meaning he still has to go by it. He can’t change it because he doesn’t like it. For God’s sake, he had three days to listen in on those phone calls for each person they chose. All he had to do was go to the FISA court, who wouldn’t have told him no, I’m sure, and get the warrants to cover it. How hard is that? Ask any detective who’s ever wanted to wire a criminal whether he/she could live with that law. You’d get a resounding “Hell, yeah!” from each and every one of them. They have to get the warrant first, based on probable cause.

I’m sorry, but Mr. Bush just admitted, on camera, to the whole world, that he deliberately ignored the law of the land, and he simply cannot do that. He is subject to the laws, just as we are, and what he did is an impeachable offense. He just gave any court in the country evidence and a confession to that fact, and it’s enough to convict him. I always suspected he felt he was above the law, but this proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and it can’t be allowed to stand.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I by no means expect the Republican Congress to turn on their own, let alone the Supreme Court that he just managed to pack for himself. No, these guys will probably never bring down an indictment against him, let alone convict him of his crimes, but they should. If they have any morals and decency at all, they should. But don’t hold your breath, ok?

Sorry about not posting anything lately. I’ve started babysitting my grandkids and just haven’t found the time to sit here and mouth off about much of anything. Today I’ve caught a break, so here I am. Now, my only problem is, which of the myriad of dumba** things that have been going on do I want to jump on the most?

See what happens when you slack off? All these things start happening and before you know it there are so many things you’ve thought of ideas about that you have a hard time choosing just one. Well, I think probably the one thing that most bugs me is this whole eavesdropping thing, so that’s the one I’m going for today. Besides, there’ll be plenty of chances to rag on Bush’s pick for the Supreme Court and the things he’ll probably be doing once he’s in there, so I’ll leave that for another day. And the rest seems minor compared to the President’s belief he is omnipotent.

Honestly, where does he get off trying to convince us that the laws don’t apply to him? I am glad to see that, at least in this instance, there are Republicans who are just as upset with his mis-reading of the law as the rest of us are. I guess there are just some things that are so blatant you just can’t find a partisan reason for backing them wholesale.

First of all, there are laws on the books, put there specifically for national security reasons, that allow the government to tap anyone’s phone they feel needs to be tapped for NS reasons, and they then have three days to listen for free and come up with good reason for tapping that number. They then go get the subpoena that makes the wiretap legal. How hard is that? And yet, Dumbya and his cronies felt even that was too much trouble, so they set up illegal wiretaps on - well, who knows who all, and all in the name of National Security.

So, tell me something, if you can. Was your phone tapped by these guys? Were your conversations listened in on? How would you ever know, unless someday down the line, years from now, it becomes public knocledge and you see your name on the list? I’m telling you, it’s a really scary thought that the President of the United States can tap anyone’s phone, any time he wants to, and no one can say anything about it as long as he couches it under the umbrella of National Security.

The founding fathers created a three-sided government for just this reason. They didn’t want one person or group of persons to have the total, unchallenged right to do whatever they felt they wanted to do to the citizens of this country. They put a system of checks and balances in place to prevent it, so the President has to have the backing of either the Congress or the Supreme Court, or both, before he can do anything against a citizen. There is a good reason for that, and yet this fool felt he didn’t have to follow the rules if he didn’t want to. And he’s still out there, day after day, trying to convince our fellow Americans that he did, indeed, have the right to do what he did!

Now, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who believe him. He makes it sound somewhat sensible, I guess, but when you understand the laws and how it’s supposed to work, you realize he’s blowing steam out his a**, because what he did is totally, unmistakably, against the law. I don’t care what his attorneys say, either. Aren’t the Republicans the ones that declare attorneys to be some kind of low-life, good-for-nothing, lying sons of perdition, at the very least? Yet now they send out their attorneys, doing what any good defense attorney does, which is to try to make it seem their client did the only sensible thing under the circumstances and you can’t possibly say the law applied to them in the matter.

No, the Pretender-in-Chief clearly overstepped his boundaries, and he got caught at it. While he is clearly backpedalling to save his life by trying to convince as many people as possible that what he did wasn’t against the law, anyone with a modicum of legal knowledge knows he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Now, having the Supreme Court stacked with a majority of like-minded justices, he will probably be able to get them to side with him. We already saw how they are willing to throw the laws aside to get him what he wants, so it wouldn’t be any big surprise. However, he will never persuade those who aren’t beholden to him or his daddy for their jobs that what he did was legal and allowable.

So my question now is, if lying about getting a blowjob is an impeachable offense, what is lying about breaking the law of the land, usurping power that is not his, and ignoring the rights of American citizens who never did a thing to deserve it? And by the way, if you really believe he only listened to calls from “terrorist countries” to the US, you really are in need of a lobotomy. Once the whole truth manages to come out, and it will, we are going to see a good many non-alien, non-terrorist names on that list, and one of them could even be yours or mine. Mark my words.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Jellybean’s View is back as my current renter. Now, I’m not sure if she was so happy with her experience here last time that she just had to come back for more, or if my rent charge is so small she figured “Oh, what the heck, might as well”, but whatever, I’m glad to have her and her wonderful musings back. Click on over and check her site out, you certainly won’t be disappointed!

Man, I can sure get myself into some real pickles because of my curiosity, that’s for sure. I drive down roads I like the look of, wondering what I’ll find on down the way; I go into quaint little shops on side streets because I like the name, or the things in the window interst me, and I want to see what I can find; I hear about a meeting that sounds really interesting at the time….well, I just have a knack for letting my curiosity get the best of me, and a good part of the time I regret it.

The reason for this post today is that I just had one of those experiences. I think having the internet is especially dangerous for someone like me, you know? I’ve already had examples of things I’ve found just by following a link that sounds interesting, and mostly they’ve been the good experiences. However, I have gotten into some really strange places, and you’d think that would make me stop and think for a few minutes before clicking on anything new and unknown, but no, it doesn’t. If it catches my attention, I click, every time.

Well, a couple of weeks ago I was traveling the internet superhighway, having a great time discovering all kinds of new things, when I happened across a site that rates your blog. Now, being a person who is never sure of herself, I decided I’d really like an impartial opinion of my blog, so I bit. I thought they’d visit, read a few things, and let me know whether any of it is worth reading or not, stuff like that. I really thought it was the content I’d be judged on. But, no.

Apparently it’s more of a beauty contest, and had I realized that I’d never have entered, since I am the first to admit I haven’t a clue in the world how to do anything new and/or exciting with code. I simply have no idea how to use it. I fiddle around with it, using examples from what is on there to try to make things do what I want them to do, with some success, some failures.

Honestly, it’s like setting me loose in a foreing country, with no idea of how to speak the language, and having me do my best to figure out how to say “I’m hungry, I need food”, or water, or a bathroom, or whatever else a person needs to have each day. I’m sure I could get by, using hand signals, etc, but God only knows when, if ever, I would be able to figure out enough of the language to get by on.

Anyway, I finally went back to the place yesterday and found they had reviewed me, all right. But basically what they all said was “Too many pictures, too many ads, animation sucks, and who in their right mind underlines links nowadays?” So, how do I take this? Apparently my blog sucks, not because I can’t write for beans, or because I have no unique ideas for my posts, but because I like to “illustrate” my posts, and I put ads for sites that help me increase traffic, etc, in the blog as a quid pro quo thing.

Now, am I wrong to think that’s an awful superficial way to rate someone’s hard work? As a matter of fact, where the ads and underlining is concerned, that’s all the blog site I use, not me. Ok, yes, some of the ads are things I’ve put on as repayment for help given me, but I just barely managed to figure out how to put links to places I like to visit on there, and I only managed it by copying the code for other things on the site, put there by Blogsome, so I don’t think that’s my fault, either.

Well, you get the point, right? I thought it would be a good idea, give me a hint as to whether I’m entertaining anyone or not with my Blogal offerings, but it simply didn’t turn out that way. I blew it all on style points. But, as I said in my response to them, it’s my blog. I am happy with it, I like adding pictures to add interest, and I still figure if someone gives me a helping hand, I will return the favor, if only in a small way.

I have to say I enjoyed reading the reviews these ladies write, even tho they can get downright nasty at points. I would recommend their site, Italktoomuch.com, to anyone who wants to read some original stuff from writers who do a good job, but I’d have to say unless you have a hide of steel, maybe you should hold off on submitting your blog for their scrutiny. If you do jump, however, remember to do away with the underlined links first, and for God’s sake, HIDE THE PICTURES!!

Speaking of which, the picture with this post has nothing to do with the topic, but I wanted to honor Dr. King for everything he did for America, even if we aren’t black. He made a difference for all of us, regardless of color, and he is still missed.

Ok, a tip from a reader about a blog I might find interesting, and here I am, joining another “contest”. Well, it’s not really a contest, no one wins anything, it’s just a fun thing to do. Here’s the link, if any of you would like to join in:

http://intricateart.com/blog/archives/2005/08/11/thursday-thirteen/.html

So, without further ado, here are Thirteen Things About Me.

1. I’ve lost over 50 pounds since the picture used with this post was taken. I’ve done it the “right” way, with diet and exercise, and I’m very happy about that.

2. I have six kids, all grown, and not a stinker in the bunch. I’m proud of that, too.

3. Four grandkids - 18, 16, 7, and 2. All gorgeous, smart, and the light of my life. I figure grandkids are God’s payback for making us grow old.

4. I have finally found the haircolor I am happy with - Natural Instinct’s Black Berry. I just love it!

5. I have absolutely no patience with idiots, hence my aversion to listening to George W. Bush.

6. I love 24, and can’t wait until the new season starts. It is one of the most interesting and mesmerizing shows I’ve seen in years.

7. I am a chocoholic. I have no desire to stop.

8. My parents have both passed on, and I still miss them every single day. Isn’t it supposed to get better at some point?

9. My private wish is to own a buckskin horse. I never got over my childhood desire to have a horse of my own, and buckskins are just plain beautiful animals.

10. I hate squash. Always have.

11. I wish I could go back in time to my high school years, knowing all I know now, and relive them. I would have a much happier experience if I could.

12. Rain is one of the best things God ever invented. I love rain, and even wrote a poem about it. Maybe I’ll post it one of these days…..

13. I am so glad this is the last thing I have to write about myself. I am very boring, as you all can see, and I hate to let others know that. Admit it, if I hadn’t written this you’d all have thought I was way cool, right?

I have a new “renter” this week - Haunted House Dressing. Now, being an inveterate reader of anything I can get my hands on, I found this blog very interesting at first sight. Once I got there and took a look around I was a goner. Go check it out. Read a bit. Admire the wonderful artwork. I know you’ll enjoy yourself at least as much as I did. And enter the contest while you’re at it. If you love coffee, you’ll love the prize, and even if you don’t, the opportunity to read some original writing and tell them what you think is prize enough. Enjoy!

Ok, let me explain what this is. These are my otherwise gorgeous grandchildren, the two youngest. This picture was taken on New Year’s Day, when we were all at my daughter’s house for the annual Blackeyed Peas and Cornbread New Year’s Goodluck Feast, and being Grandma, of course, I simply had to grab a few photos of everyone.

Marcus, 7, and his little sister Mikal, 2, were all dressed and ready to go to church, since it was a Sunday, and I really wanted to save that look for posterity. Of course, when kids are involved you never know what you’re gonna get, and this was the first photo taken of the two of them. Marcus had to act like having his sister holding on to him in a loving manner was just too hard to bare, so he made a dumb face. Now, I’m not sure what was up with Mikal at that precise moment, but once the picture was taken and I looked at it, it looked for all the world like the two of them were suffering from an overabundance of New Year’s Eve celebrating - more commonly called a hangover.

Now, I’m posting this photo because in my travels around the Blog Universe I ran across one called “A Mama’s Rant”, and since it looked good and had interesting posts, I lingered and found the notice about a funny kid’s photo contest. All you have to do is put a funny picture of your kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews….whatever…on your blog, write a few words about it, link back to it, and you’re entered. So, here I am. Oh, and here’s the link so any of you can enter, too:

http://mamarant.blogs.com/amamasrant/2006/01/postapicture_.html

Now, I have only one more thing I’d like to add. I did manage to get a couple of good pictures of these guys finally, and again, being a grandmother, I’d like to show those to you so you can see they actually are as cute as I think. The first one is the photo I had hoped to get the first time, and I’m throwing in another one I just find too darn cute for words, just because. So, presenting Marcus and Mikal, the World’s Cutest Grandkids:

So, God and His son Jesus were kicking back on the clouds, watching the world they had made. “Man, it seems like things are getting really crazy down there, Dad”, Jesus said, and His Father agreed. “Yes, my son, man having been left to his own devices has become more and more unstable as the generations have passed. We knew it would be this way, tho.”

“Yes, I knew the general plan, but I had no idea it would get this bad before it was all over. This is horrible!” God watched his creations living their every day lives for a few minutes before responding, nodding His head all the while. “Well, it’s what we knew would happen when we gave man free rein to choose his path in life. It really shouldn’t be that surprising.”

Jesus thought for a moment, then replied “Yes, I knew man would manage to mess things up, but I really thought those who followed my teachings would do better. That’s the part that bothers me the most. They seem to have learned nothing from the things I taught them.” “Oh, not all those who heed your words are like that, son. There are many who follow your words, living their lives as they should. Those are the ones you should concentrate on. The others are earning their rewards, and nothing can be done at this point.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching life on earth go by. They smiled at times, such as the birth of babies and the Godly acts of those who lived as they should. And when something happened that wasn’t good, they looked away, not able to bare the sight. But they knew it was happening, and they knew where and by whom. Their hearts broke each time, knowing those that were doing these things were most surely lost to them.

As they watched, they saw something strange. One human, a man who claimed to follow Jesus’ words but never really lived them, made a hateful statement, and claimed God himself had told him to say it. God was outraged! “How can he say something like that and blame me for it?”, He asked His Son. Jesus was unable to explain it.

As they watched, they heard the man say one hateful thing after another, and each time he claimed God told him to say them. “Now, he’s gone too far!”, Jesus exclaimed, and he raised his hand, ready to strike the man down. “NO!”, God said, grabbing His Son’s arm and stopping it. “That’s not the way we handle sin now, you know that. Just let him be. He will pay for his blasphemy soon enough.” “But Father, he is leading many people astray! They truly believe he speaks for us, for you. We have to stop him!”

“No, son, we can’t. We clearly told mankind what we expected of them, and what their rewards would be, depending on whether they followed your teachings or not. As much as we may want to, we can’t change the rules now. All those who follow him willingly do so at their own peril. They have had the same chance as everyone else, and it’s their choice.”

Jesus sat back down on the cloud and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He knew His father was right, as He always was. Once he had calmed down, they turned their attention from the man and watched others, trying to concentrate on those who were doing as they should. And that’s the way Pat Robertson was saved from having his rear end handed to him on a platter by the One who he was slandering with every vile word out of his mouth.

Have you ever wished you had magic powers and could make things the way you want them to be? I have, and from talking to friends and family I’d say most everyone else has, too, at some point. It’s a normal, human feeling to want to do away with the bad and make everything right. We all want to hit the jackpot, win the Lottery, find the cure for all illness, and vanquish evil in all it’s forms.

Well, if I had a magic wand, I’d do all that. No child would ever be sick or go to bed hungry. Everyone would live in a safe, warm, adequate home of their own, and there’d always be food on the table and warm clothes in the closets. Cars would be cheap, as would the gas to run them…..wait. Actually, cars wouldn’t run on gas, they’d run on solar power or the hydrogen in water or something like that.

If I could wave a wand and speak some words that would change whatever I wanted, I would end all sickness, wars, and bickering between those of us who share this world. Peace would be the rule of the day, and all weapons of every kind would disappear. Love would be easy, with no heartbreak and no betrayals. We’d all have everything we need and want, Nature would be allowed to flourish, and the air and water would be clean again.

Last but not least, I would make sure the media had nothing hateful to print about anyone or anything, and those who do the reporting would only tell us what they knew to be a fact, nothing more. The latest episode of going with the story before all the facts were known has been one of the worst examples of this that I can remember, but it can’t all be blamed on them.

Somehow the news from those who found the miners in W.Va got jumbled up and we were told that all but one was alive and coming home to their families. We went to bed that night feeling all’s right with the world, and miracles really do happen, only to awaken in the morning to find it had all been horrible mistake and the truth was that all but one were dead.

I know how I felt upon hearing that news, so I can only imagine the depths of despair, anger, and disbelief the families and friends of all those men were. For three hours they celebrated the good news, waiting to see the men they were promised would be coming up from the mine to meet them any time, and then they were told the truth and all hell broke loose, quite understandably.

How could such a thing happen? I’ve heard the explanation that because of the breathing apparatus the person who contacted those up above wore, his words were garbled and hard to understand. Ok, that makes sense. What doesn’t is the knee-jerk reaction by whomever to start spreading the “good news” to everyone else, including the reporters, and once they got ahold of it, it spread like wildfire all over the world. My question is, if they couldn’t really understand what the guy said, why pretend like they did? It’s simply unbelievable.

If there ever were a time to be absolutely, 100% sure of what is being reported, it should be at a time like that, when the hopes of so many are riding on the slim chance of such a miracle occurring. Let me say here, however, that it might have been a lack of access to those in the “command center” that caused them all to grab on to what little information they could get, but still, they should have gotten better confirmation of the veracity of it, especially since the word had gone out earlier that there was very little hope any of them survived that long in all the gasses they had to breathe.

So yes, if I had a magic wand, this kind of thing would never happen again. But, I don’t, so it probably will. My hope is that next time the reporters will think twice before rushing to put out news they hear, especially when it will affect so many people. The pain of losing a loved one is bad enough without having some well-intentioned fool give you hope that what you fear has happened really hasn’t, and then having that hope yanked out from under you again. It’s like losing them twice, and that’s simply not acceptable.