TMI a little place to whine

Everyone claims they want responsible this or that, you know - citizens, government, business practice, schools - but no one wants to claim responsibility. No one wants to show responsibility. Maybe this little list of guidelines will help.

Problem: I don't want to be fat but it's the food they sell that makes me that way.

Answer: It's not the food's fault, it doesn't jump into your mouth and force itself into you stomach. If you don't want to be fat then eat responsibility. No one MAKES you chow down on Lays potato chips, Big Macs and French Fries. Take responsibility for you life and health and pick the right foods and eat them in moderation.

Problem: I want my child to be taught how to behave.

Answer: So act like a parent and take responsibility from the day of his/her birth to teach your child what is acceptable behavior, and what the consequences of not behaving will be. Be responsible for your child, and accept responsibility for his/her bad behavior if you haven't taught that child otherwise. Making excuses for a child's bad behavior isn't teaching him/her anything except that they can do anything they want and it's not their fault. DO NOT expect teachers to discipline and correct your child and perform miracles if you have not laid the foundation while that child was young enough to teach at home. Be a parent.

Problem: Nothing I buy is safe. I can't trust any product to be free of defect, or not be harmful to me and my family.

Answer: Manufacturer's should NEVER release any product that they know will cause harm to the person buying or using it. They should be held responsible for placign greed before the welfare of their customer, the consumer. Complain and make sure the manufacturer and the state legislature knows that things are unsafe and demand that they be removed from sale. Do not patronize any manufacturer who knowingly ignores your safety.

Problem: All politicians are crooked and I don't trust them to represent me as they should.

Answer: Take your right to vote seriously. If your elected officials are not good it's because you have not made them responsible to you. Get involved in your local p0litics, watch your represenatives and make sure that they know that you care about what they do on your behalf. Be a responsible citizen.

Problem: It's not my fault that the world (my job, my family, my town, my state) is a mess.

\answer: Yes it is!!!! If you don't do something to change things and take responsibility for youself and your surroundings then it IS your fault for not doing everything in your power to change things.

Seems I suffer fools less gladly lately.

Can't be bothered to keep correcting people's mistakes and or re-educating them. It seems like a waste of time, both mine for knowing better, and theirs for being to stupid to realize it..

Literalists.

Linear thinkers.

Those who accept all that is said or done without criticism.

Those who never ask questions or demand explainations.

Non thinkers.

Rote memorizers.

They scare me on a personal level and bore me on an intellectual one.

Whether you agree with the current war, or any war, remembers it's the soldiers who pay the price for the politician's folly.

Remember especially today, to take a moment to pray for or merely remember those who are fighting and those who have died.

Pope Benedict XVI is considering bringing back the Latin Mass. He is considering it because of church Tradition, negating all the changes to the liturgy since Pope John XXIII's Vatican Council.

Here we go, marching into the 16th Century.

Does this mean no more Lay participation in the liturgy?

Does this make female Catholics only good for joining the Catholic Women's groups to raise money? And staying at home praying the rosary for the poor souls? And of course procreating through means of natural family planning methods.

Does this mean no more female instrusion into "men's territory"? You know all that philosophy and theology stuff that women dont' have the brains to figure out?

Or is it fear that we already reason too much?

Latin as a liturgical language is actually pretty much a good thing. There would be only one way to communicate, one set of prayers, and it would feel just as comfortable for a Catholic to hear mass in Lisbon as it would in Prague, Sydney, Hong Kong or Cleveland. But it's the hands off attitude that worries me.

At Confirmation one year, here in our parish, the Bishop asked a young girl a question, as he is supposed to do, to test her knowledge of the faith. . He asked how many sacraments are there.

She answered, quite correctly, that there ar 7 sacraments for boys, and 6 for girls.

So, what happens now? Is Benny going to move us down the sacramental peg even further?

One simply asks a question.

If the pope is infallable in matters of faith and morals, then how can one pope undo the work or docterine of faith that another pope established?

Just curious.

Do you take a glass "full" of water from the tap and then take a few sips and dump the rest.

Don't.

You are wasting water.

Do you buy more food than you can eat, ask for a doggie bag at a restaurant and then trash the food 3 days later because you didnt' eat it?

Don't.

You are wasting food..

Do you ask for plastic bags at the grocery store and then fail to use them again, or recycle them?

Don't.

You are using petrolium products and polluting the environment.

Back when I was still in High School, around 1964-65. I got very upset with Bic and Gilette for introducing "disposable" pens and razors. Before then a pen was a ball point, with a refillable ink cartridge. The pen remained as long as you didn't break it and the ink refills were cheap and had very few "disposable parts". I remember most of them being metal that could be recycled.
Razors came with little knobs on the bottom that allowed you to open, insert and then adjust a 2 edged blade as you shaved. The razor handle was metal, the razor blades were metal and both could be used and recycled.

But it was more convienent to just buy something made of plastic and then toss it into the trash when you used it all up. The ultimate economic variation of planned obselence. You buy it and then trash it and buy a new one. Great for profits, lousey for the environment.

I wrote to Bic and Gilette and wrote them very long letters telling them that in 20 to 30 years landfills would not be able to handle that kind of waste.

They politely wrote me saying that by the I was "projecting" there would be ways to deal with it and basically I shouldn't bother my pretty little head with such things because big business wouldn't do anything to hurt us all.

So now we promote consumerism.

We buy new and trash old.

Tear in your slacks? Put them in the trash or give them to Goodwill. Hey, what about getting a needle and thread and MENDING them. You know, sew the tear with a bit of matching tread and guess what? You can wear the slacks again. Radical concept, huh?

Do you let the water run when washing dishes?

Don't.

Use a dishpan and wash the dishes in that hot soapy water. Only run the water once to rince the pile of cleaned dishes before towel trying them.

Yeah, towel drying.

And the beauty of that is that if the towel gets damp you can hang it up and let the air dry it and reuse it. Amazing concept (to the younger generation that is.) And if you want to be really conservative (that's what conservationist used to be called before the term was usurped by the politicians) use the "dirty" dish water in the pan to water your garden plants. Wow, who whould have thought of that? (my grandmother, and she had the nicest summer flowering garden in her front yard.)

Remember, the earth is your home. If you f*&k it up where are you gonna live?

Prof. Froomkin read my blog and offered me 25 cents today, but he didn't have a quarter on him. So if he remembers tomorrow and gives me a quarter, I am on my way to being a millionaire.

Only 3,999,998 more quarters to go!!

Just for fun I asked our work study student if she had $1 million to give me (not loan - give). She said she did not, but she did give me a promotional quarter that had a Silver Surfer sticker or something pasted on it.

She said all I had to do to get $1 million was to get 3,999,999 other people to give me a quarter.

So I am putting the suggestion here.

If you want to give me a quarter I will add it to my total of 25 cents collected so far, and if I get 3,999,999 responses I will then have my million. I will put my mailing address in "comments" if anyone shows an interest in sending me a quarter.

So simple.

Why didn't I think of it before?

At the corner of 107 and Quail Roost Rd. when 107 become Marlin Dr. There is a U-gas station, where I purchased unleaded regular gas for $3.05 a gallon today.

In South Miami, just before the main shopping dictrict, there is Chevron gas station that has unleaded regular gas for $3.64 a gallon.

Most gas stations are averaging $3.16 a gallon.

How can the same comodity, at a different location, vary in price by 59 cents?

Makes no sense to me. Gas is gas.

Miami.

Sun.

Heat.

Smoke (from fires nowhere near here)

Sinus headaches.

Welcome to paradise (not)

When I got grocery shopping there is always comment about how I buy too much and I spend too much on things I don't need.

Yet when my family members, who rag on me about such things, go to the grocery store and bring back things I don't need that's ok.

I mentioned it because my husband and daughter went to a huge discount warehouse store. I told them we needed toilet paper. I told my daughter NOT to bring tomatoes because I had some and because I get the Share groceries tomorrow and I don't know what we are going to get.

They brought back tiolet paper, and tomatoes and a very large box of frozen pretzels. I didn't need the tomatoes and I don't have the roomin either freezer to put in the pretzels. Tomorrow when I get the packages from Share I won't have any place in the freezer for the meats.

So now I'm a bitch because I don't appreciate the suprises.

I can't win.

So a clue at last.

The anarchist must read my blog.

The book was out of sequence yet again, but this time it was on the TOP shelf.

I am not tall enough to reach the top shelf without benefit of the library "kik step". But reach it I did.

The book is back in it's proper place.

Advertisers would make you think that today is about taking mom out to a restaurant or buying her flowers and a card or doing all sorts of other expensive Mothers Day gifts so that you mom will feel appreciated.

I have an idea. This works for both living and deceased mothers. In honor or or in memory of your mother why not send a cash donation to an organization in your city that helps homeless or abused women?

Some women today are worried mothers. Not worried about what gift they will receive or what restaurant they will be taken to for lunch, brunch or dinner. There are Mothers who are wondering what they can feed theit children today, or what they will feed them tomorrow. Some are worried that their spouse or domestic partner will beat them today, or harm them in another way.

Don't you think your mother would think that she did a wonderful job of raising you if you showed her that you have compassion for those less fortunate than yourself? Show you mother the fruits of her labors were not in vain. Show your mother that you learned good things because she spent the time and had the love to teach you. Don't you think that a mom would be gratified to learn that the values she had tried to instill in you actually took and you understand the meaning of sharing?

Show your mom you love her by showing her you care for others too.

Why is the world awash in trash and overfilled landfills?

Fashion.

When something becomes outdated - be it clothes, shoes, furniture, electronics - we are encouraged to throw it out.

Our president wants us to keep the economy runing through retail sales.

Buy buy buy. Get new stuff. Replace everything.

So we have bought into that hype and what do we have?

People throwing away usable goods.

Just because a new model washer dryer comes along we have to buy new. Because the new iron takes less time to use we trash the old one and buy it. Because blue geese are not longer the fashion rage for kitchen acessories we have to replace all the dishtowels and salt shakers and placemats, is that it?

Because the bedroom set we bought 25 years ago is "dated" we have to replace it, and in doing so we redecorate the bedroom, buying new paint and do dads, new sheets and covers and bedspreads and curtains all because things "MUST" be coordinated and match.

I wonder, do unmatched blankets warm you less? Because your pillowcases and sheets don't match do you sleep less soundly?

Fashion dictates that if it isn't "new" it isn't right. And we believe it.

And to prove it we have wasted resources replacing usable items for the sake of "fashion."

Shame on us all.

Usually when we talk about isolation we are talking about nations who wish to remain apart from the rest of the world. Those nations who do not want to take on the problems of others because they focus on themselves and their needs.

Well in this case, I am talking about a friend whom I have known for decades.

This friend has lived in the same city, and basically the same neighborhood as her parents all of her life. She knows that neighborhood like the back of her hand. She knows where to shop, where to eat, where not to go after dark. She knows her neighbors and her church friends and she knows her family.

She has a college degree and considers herself well educated. She has traveled, been to Europe and around the United States. So she thinks that her observations from 2 week vacations away from her neighbors makes her qualified to judge the rest of the world and their actions.

But she is not.

She has isolated herself from the rest of the world, because in her mind there is her world - which is reality - and the rest of the world - which is a nice place to visit.

Oh sure, she reads the paper and watches the news and says "my my what a shame" when bad things happen, but she is just about the least likely person to involve herself in anything that doesn't directly impact her little world.

I pity her.

But I also fear her.

Why? Because I would venture a guess that most Americans - comfortable in their little nitche of life - are exactly the same.

If I am right and this is what America has become then I fear we are lost.

Global warming is not a myth.

Ask those suffering from respiratory troubles in Miami. We are covered in smoke and ash from the fires in Georgia and the northern parts of Florida.

The "river of grass" is tinder dry.

Acquifers are suffering from salt water intursion.

Our largest source of fresh water, Lake Okechobee, is at it's lowest level in years - perhaps ever.

We need rain.

But more to the point, we need to change our lifestyles.

Anarchy is at it again.

I went to the 3rd floor this a.m. just before 9 a.m. to make a delivery to a professor. The anarchy book was nestled in it's place.

At 11:35 I returned to the 3rd floor for another delivery. The book was two shelves below it's assigned slot and it was lying on its side.

So I know who was NOT in the building today, and my main suspect was not here. Back to square one I guess.

Who is the anarchist? Inquiring minds want to know.

Isn't there a saying that "ignorance is no excuse" when it come to the law?

Well then, why does Paris Hilton think that because she was ignorant of the law regarding her suspended license that she is being picked on because she got caught breaking the law?

She says that she's being singled out because of her name and what she does.

What she does?

What does she do?

She prances around the US buying fashion stuff, and smiling and being pretty and rich and living off her name - oh yeah, she models. Like that really adds something to life.

I don't think being rich and pretty makes you any less responsible for your actions. Just like being an uneducated black man would make you any less responsible.

After all if a black man got a DUI and lost his license and then drove anyhow and got caught wouldnt' he be put in jail for 45 days?

So what makes, blonde, white, rich model Paris Hilton exempt from the same punishment?

NOTHING.

Now she has some webpage pleading with her "fans" to have the governor of California pardon her. OH please.

Hey Paris, honey. You did the crime, now do the time. It's about time you learned that being pretty and rich doesn't mean "anything goes."