I Made The List!

I know, I shouldn't be such an eager beaver, but there you go. For the first time, I made John Hawkins' list of favorite bloggers--and I'm not at the bottom either. #17--Not too shabby! Maybe, just maybe, I'll up my game so much that I end up first. Hey, a girl can dream.

Fixing Higher Education--Guest Posted by Lorne Carignan

Editor's Note: I'm including a post from my friend Lorne Carignan, a lawyer and writer living outside Flint, Michigan. Lorne and I debate many things political and policy. He is "left leaning" which I interpret as a statist--that is, he believes the state can solve many things whereas I believe the state can turn pretty much everything to shit. Still, we agree to disagree. In this case, I agree with nearly everything he says and have some additional thoughts at the bottom of his piece. Enjoy.

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Higher education is expensive. Along with K-12, education is usually one of the largest items in states' budgets, consuming as much as half or more of all revenues. It's also a fair chunk of the federal budget. Governments provide funds directly to public universities as well as offering numerous grants and incentives for specific research and development projects.

Governments furthermore subsidize the attendance of students with grants, loans, and tax credits, while parents take out a second mortgage or otherwise find ways to scrape up the several thousands of dollars needed each year to send their child to college. But, of course, all of this money is seldom enough to satiate the ever-widening maw of higher education. Tuition rises each year and schools demand more government funds.

One function of the high cost of education is the amount of time it takes to complete a traditional four-year degree. The raw cost of education is not the only cost of sending a kid to college. Room and board, transportation, entertainment, clothing, and numerous other expenses add up to a substantial portion of the cost of higher education. This cost is multiplied for each year that a student remains a student, which is getting longer and longer for the traditional four-year degree. In some universities, it is taking students six years to graduate with a "four-year" undergraduate degree.

Part of the problem is that the high cost of education forces students to work longer hours, which results in taking fewer classes and staying in school longer. But arguably, a larger part of the problem is that college is a highly enjoyable protracted adolescence where young people live a hedonistic, irresponsible lifestyle funded by mom and dad and easy-to-get government loans. Scholarship quickly takes a back seat to pleasure in today's colleges, and students opt for lighter courseloads so they can allocate more time to extracurricular activities.

In addition to increasing the cost of education, lengthy stays in college increases the time-to-market of trained college graduates. With the ever-increasing pace of technological change and knowledge growth, the job market needs workers to bring state-of-the-art training to the workplace as quickly as possible. In the course of a typical stay at a four-year university, students may well find the first two or three years of coursework obsolete by the time they graduate, particularly if that coursework involves using highly specialized tools and software.

Finally, one of the most disappointing costs of higher education is waste. Too many young people graduate from college with "worthless" degrees -- degrees that do not provide them with necessary professional training to earn a wage that justifies the expense of going to college. Many colleges continue to offer degrees in fields that are already saturated with job candidates and for which there is little or no demand. The result is that, later in life, many graduates are forced to return to college to retrain for another career. This move is complicated by all the cost factors already discussed. But particularly frustrating for graduates is discovering that obtaining a second degree requires completing a number of additional "general education requirements" that were not required in their earlier program. These general education requirements can easily tack another year onto the process of earning a second degree.

What to do?

First, we need to decouple the notion of job training and education. Trade schools already do this for a limited field of vocational occupations. It's an admirable concept that needs to be extended to more traditional four-year programs. Eliminating the general education requirements from degree programs will reduce the amount of time a student has to spend in college. There's no need for a computer scientist to take a certain number of credit hours of humanities, social science, natural science, English, and history. Let them take their computer science courses and get out and go to work!

The ostensible reason for these general education requirements (GERs) is to create a "liberally educated" well-rounded individual, i.e, an "educated" person. The reality is, they are "blow-off" subjects that pad university revenues and students' g.p.a's. They are unnecessary, expensive, and worthless (or nearly worthless) wastes of time and money. Eliminating these GERs would shorten the time to graduation by as much as two years and make obtaining second degrees much more practical for workers in need of job retraining.

Next, consolidate programs at state universities to eliminate redundancies. There's no need for every state university to offer all of the same programs and maintain all of the same departments and faculty when educational functions could be consolidated in one or two schools and adequately serve the demand. Why maintain a half dozen or more state universities that all train teachers along with a host of private schools and community colleges? One or two state universities training teachers would be enough to ensure that the demand for new teachers is met. The same is true for many other degree subjects.

Finally, curtail or eliminate the antiquated and unreasonable "vacations" and "sabbaticals" that pepper the higher education calendar. There's no good justification for completely suspending education during the summer months, allowing a professor to take a year of paid leave, or giving students and teachers several weeks off in spring and winter along with the extended time between terms. The so-called "pressures" of teaching and learning are myths in today's world of graduate assistants and cushy courseloads. The ordinary demands of higher education are no more enervating than those regularly placed on workers in many professions, and often much less. There is simply no justification for these extended breaks and sabbaticals. Students need to get into college, learn quickly what they need to know without unnecessary interruptions, and get out as soon as possible so they can be productive members of the workforce.

These changes would reduce the funding necessary to maintain state universities, reduce the tuition subsidies to parents, make college affordable for more students, make job retraining more practical for displaced workers, shorten the time-to-market of state-of-the-art skills, and make more workers more productive in a shorter period of time.

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One problem in American education is that the broad, liberal education from High School no longer exists. My own American History class in High School was ridiculous. My Honors World History class followed U of M's curriculum and was based on original works, but there was no continuity or time line, no perspective. So students getting into college have spotty liberal education. They leave with spotty education, too:

At universities such as Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and Berkeley, seniors scored lower on the test, available here, than freshmen, living proof of the broadening relevancy of the old Harvard adage that the university is a storehouse of knowledge because "the freshmen bring so much and the seniors take away so little."

The average foreign student studying in an American college learned nothing about the country's history and its civic institutions, according to the study.

This is a problem, but I'm not sure the solution will come in the public schools or in colleges at this rate. The educational standards are too politicized. The post-modern take on subjective "truth" forbids honestly looking at history, economics and civics. The bias against rote memorization precludes a broad base of knowledge.

Basically, any subject outside of science and math means uneven education. The SATs focus their verbal scores on grammar, analogies, comprehension, etc. But the guts of the content is pretty meaningless. And in the business world, a liberal education doesn't serve one much anyway, but a math, science, finance, accounting, engineering or some other specialized degree will.

Beauty Is Truth

The things in the world that interest me are the things that have no "useful" purpose like big ideas, and imagining a future that could be, or fantasizing about technology that will clean my house, go grocery shopping and cook for me. Some "useless" things sit right in front of me. Take flowers for example. James Lileks says:

I think we’re just lucky that flowers are beautiful; it would be a strange world if flowers and most plants revolted the hell out of people the way most large insects do. Well, you can say, our aesthetic preference to flowers is simply the result of millennia of acclimation. There is no inherent beauty there; we mistake our inbred subjective reaction for an object truth. If flowers looked “hideous” in the same sense as big insects – a revulsion that’s also grounded in subjective reactions, not AGGGH THERE’S A COCKROACH ON THE DESK GET IT OFF GET IT OFF

Sorry; it was just a shadow. Anyway: we would have thought “ugly” flowers were beautiful if our species’ consciousness had evolved alongside “ugly” flowers, or perhaps we would have regarded them as neutral, the way we regard most small ordinary rocks. It’s possible another species might land on Earth on a mission
from Voltarus IV, examine our great botanical gardens, throw up en masse and leave, never to come again.

Possible.

So why are the heavens so beautiful? Why, when we look deep into space with the eyes of Hubble and other machines, does everything seem so gorgeous? It’s not as if we evolved looking at that.

It would be interesting if it turned out Keats was right: beauty is truth. Imagine that: an aesthetic standard that exists whether we do or not. The tree that blossoms in the forest with no one around to see it.

Why do flowers exist? Why do manatees exist? I have to admit to a strange fascination with those creatures. They are benign, not very beautiful but seem to be utterly peaceful and gentle. They don't have "usefulness" though--not like a cow or even a dog. Although my dog is completely useless, unless you consider cute and pooping in my office useful, which I don't.

Anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Why is it that we all find the same things beautiful? We tend to all love Halle Berry's physical attributes for example and agree that she has a beautiful face and body. We all look at Denzel Washington and think--wow, he's handsome. And I don't know why I came up with those two examples except they are the first actors to pop into my head. That, and I saw part of that movie American Gangster and boy can Denzel act. He scared me and made me feel sympathetic for him at the same time. That was a weird digression.

Lileks concludes and I agree:

But I suppose if you believe that, you think flowers have inherent beauty, and we’re more than chemicals and subconscious commands from the instinct gland in the bottom of your brain. You do? Me too.

I believe in inherent beauty, transcendent beauty, that is just there for our pleasure. And the pleasure is the purpose.

Michelle Obama's Heart

Sigh. I don't like the candidates this year. And I don't like the Democratic candidate's wife and husband. They are just lame on so many levels it's fatiguing. One week it's Bill Clinton shooting off at the mouth. The next week it's Michelle Obama. She calls to mind a scripture in Matthew 12:34:

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Michelle Obama's heart appears to be filled with America loathing. Gateway Pundit reports what she said:

"It's easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance...That's AMERICA"

Michelle Obama
Campaigning for Change at University of South Carolina
January, 2008

Oops!... She did it again!
Michelle Obama bashes America

I watched the video and as usual, it seems rather benign. She is admonishing students to interact more on campus. I remember the self-imposed segregation at my small college. It never seemed like racism or exclusivity to me and it didn't happen all the time. It struck me more as finding people like yourself with similar experiences and finding a connection. Still, it was a color divide sometimes. However, it didn't bug me personally because I counted many in the "black group" as friends.

Obama frames this issue as one of ignorance and stereotypes. I didn't feel that the "black group" was ignorant or steeped in stereotypes any more than I felt the greater majority of white people were ignorant and steeped in stereotypes. It seemed a matter of comfort. And yes, sometimes it's good to push past a person's comfort zone. But no, I don't think that Americans feel generally "justified in their ignorance". What a sweeping statement to make about America. Sure it describes some Americans, but all of America?

And if integration and stepping outside of the comfort zone is so important, why does Ms. Obama go to a black church teaching black superiority, hate toward Jews and weird conspiracy theories designed to inspire paranoia of America? You'd think she'd go to a multiracial church where universal values like love, forgiveness, reconciliation and charity are taught.

"Most Women Are Liars, Manipulators and Backstabbing Bitches"

Yes, well, I'm receiving interesting emails, that's for sure. This one came in over the weekend and I've been debating how to respond to it. Here's what a reader named Komolan asks:

My name is Komalan [I'm striking his middle and last name for anonymity -ed.]. I'm 28yrs-old,grew up between Italy Switzerland and a few years in South-Africa too. I'm currently studying in Manchester UK.
I'll get to the point; I was grown up by my mother to respect a treat women as if they were all nice and righteous... fact is that after being single my whole life, and being treated like scum by women, I've come to the conclusion that, most women, are manipulators, lying and back stabbing bitches. I treat women nicely and get treated badly back. Don't get me wrong, I'm good looking, honest and treat everyone with respect; but I don't get that from women, well, most.
When I greet a woman maybe in a public place, she will "nod" and look at me as if I'm raping her...I can say that I cannot even have a normal conversation with a woman without being harrassed by one of them.
Can you explain why they behave this way...truth is that we men are really second class citizens.

Regards.

Komalon,

I'm sorry your experiences with women have led you to believe that most of them are bad. While it's true, there are some bad women out there, there are some good women, too. Your concerns are legitimate and I will address them in a minute.

First though, I want to talk about the concept of like attracting like. I'm not the only one to notice the pattern that birds of a feather flock together. Often we draw to us the exact sort of people we are like ourselves. Sometimes it's good to look outside your life like an impartial observer and see if you find patterns to the people you attract into your life. A friend of mine dated, successively, men of similar face, build and temperament. If you find yourself attracting a certain kind of woman, you might question what it is about you that attracts this kind. And ultimately, you have no control over how another might act or treat you, but you have control over how your actions and what you find acceptable in the behavior of others. Examine yourself. You say that you treat all people with respect and most women don't treat you with respect. Seek and build relationships with those who do treat you the way you wish to be treated.

Second, and more to what you're asking: Why are women lying, manipulating, backstabbing bitches? Lying: All people have trouble with the truth. Getting a straight answer from a woman can be even more difficult. Maybe conflict bothers her. Maybe she's afraid of hurting you. Maybe she thinks it's okay to lie because she has no moral foundation. Manipulating: People who manipulate see themselves in the one-down position. That is, an overt action would likely be met with confrontation, so manipulation is used to control. It's nasty behavior and difficult to deal with. Backstabbing: I'm taking that to mean that she acts one way to your face, but secretly does things that are mean or awful to you and you find out later. Some people just are out for themselves. Period. They will do anything to anyone to get what they want. It is wise to avoid these people, men or women. Unfortunately, they can be difficult to spot because they seem nice. Here's my advice, though. As soon as you see the bad behavior, bail. When someone shows you herself, believe her.

I'm going to give bitchiness its own paragraph. I have noticed that bitchiness as a character trait in women has come to be extolled especially among the younger women I see. Maybe it's the Paris Hilton effect. I don't know, but women seem to revel in being a trampy looking tease and then biting back and hard when a man appreciates the physical form--an action the woman was obviously trying to provoke. This double-bind is bullshit. Now, I've also known borish, aggressive men, but this post is operating under the assumption of a respectful, appreciative guy. There has been societal support for women to be ungrateful, using, and disrespectful. Maybe it's because they don't respect themselves. Or, more likely, maybe it's because they are spoiled rotten, entitled brats who are used to having things go their way.

Men struggle to be chivalrous, like I encouraged before, and are met with women who feel entitled to the respectful behavior while being bitchy and disrespectful themselves. Girls are socialized with Bratz dolls, see snotty, ditzy, superficial behavior in young adult role models, and hear how awful men are from the older women in their lives. Boys are made to seem bad by schools throughout and by college, girls are steeped in feminist culture where "sex is rape"--or that's what they hear in class. That message is mingled with "embrace your sexual freedom". So young women have this superficial view of women--empowered cock teases, essentially. And sometimes more than teases. They have sex, empty sex, and are taught to remove their attachment to the man and act "like a guy". They get hardened, because women are NOT wired like men and have a more challenging time having random sex. They feel used instead of empowered. They get bitter. And then they wonder why they hit 50 and don't ever get married. They tell themselves, "Men just can't handle a smart woman". Um, honey, maybe a man doesn't want your brand of woman. And then the woman herself feels betrayed. She bought the feminist crap and believed it and lived it.

Of course, not all women are like this. In fact, most women are not at all like this, but it takes time and patience to discover what sort of woman you're dealing with. And some women let you know up front. You have many years of dating ahead of you. I hope you'll look at yourself first--it's really the biggest part of the puzzle you control. And you also have control over who you ask out.

Be choosy.

The Pain of A Love Leaving

But you can’t feel sorrow like this without truly loving someone, and I figure, it’s worth it. I know it is, and I feel incredibly lucky to adore someone so much that his absence feels like a hole in my soul.
--Rachel Lucas on her boyfriend leaving for Iraq

Back From The Dead

Have you heard about this guy who was declared dead and then moved and says that he heard them declare him dead? Now, his family had approved of having his organs harvested. Do you wonder how many times people have been alive while presumed dead and had organs removed? How about people who are dead and are just alive and allowed to fade away? These are disturbing thoughts.

Religious Discrimination and More Stifling of Free Thought On Campus

Mike Adams, professor at University of North Carolina at Wilmington, shares his experience:

At first, I thought the decision to ignore our requests was due to the fact that the College Republicans are sponsoring Frank Turek’s talk. Then, I scrolled down the page and saw that the university had advertised a recent voter registration drive sponsored by the College Democrats. Certainly, the university is incapable of engaging in blatant political discrimination. And certainly Mike Adams is incapable of engaging in blatant sarcasm.

Read the whole thing.

Hillary Caught Lying--UPDATED

How do you know a politician is lying? Yeah, yeah, her mouth is moving:



UPDATED:

I thought this clip was so comically hilarious, that I'd leave it to speak for itself. Hillary is a liar. Lie. Lie. Lie. You know what? She always has been. This isn't surprising. Does anyone in the world believe that she hasn't known about Bill's proclivities? Please. She's a Yankees fan, too! And she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary! The list of these "misspeaks" is endless. The Anchoress says (and she has a great round-up):

Ace has more. I’m betting that the press will allow Hillary to get by with the “misspeak” claim and will not press her further. They’ll do that partly out of habit, but also because it’s more fun for them, news-wise, with Hillary in the race than out of it.

My goodness, this is one uninspiring election season. I want all new candidates, please. These have been around so long they are, like fish, raising too great a stench.

Indeed.

Protein Wisdom's "A" Game

Wow.

Today's blog that you must visit is Protein Wisdom. Jeff Goldstein mumbled something about steel genital cups, catch wrestling and a friend in need, so he hasn't been blogging there, but that doesn't mean that there isn't good stuff to read.

Darlene Glick had me laughing out loud with her Photoshopped Trix cereal box with that silly rabbit Barack Obama. She calls Obama: All brand, no nutrition.

Karl does a fantastic job noting how Obama has weaved religion through the campaign and how the religious questions were inevitable with or without Wright. Obama has used "faith based appeals" to reach out to all voters.

And Dan asks, well someone's grandma asks, "Are you a typical white person?"

No Pain, No Gain, Insane

By the "no pain, no gain" measure, I should be gaining big time, right now. My quads and glutes are screaming. Three days ago, my girlfriend thought it would be a good idea to go work out. I did my normal weight, normal work-out, except I added lunges, those heinous, damn to hell exercises that ostensibly lift your ass so it doesn't just perch on your legs like a floppy hat. Well, they hurt and hurt and hurt--not while doing them, mind you, afterward. Walking upstairs is excruciating. Sitting down requires a chair with armrests so I can use my arms to rest my sore ass slowwwwly into the chair.

For those who don't believe in God, I'll have you know, there is one and He has a sense of humor. Taking the kids to the park yesterday, my three year old gets stuck 15 feet up on the jungle gym. Oh yeah.... Mom to the rescue, right? Well, my legs hurt so bad, I'm cursing my tortured muscles as I struggle up the side. It was a lovely sight. The lady watching her little angel clamber up with no problem looked at me with all the mystified scorn she thought she hid well. And then, and then, I try to explain. I sound lame. I know it. That got the tolerant smile. I hate the tolerant smile.

The thing is, with weight lifting, "no pain, no gain" isn't really true. Pain gets you side-lined for a couple days which precludes the gain you could have been making. Steady increases in weights helps build the muscle and really, when you do it right, there isn't pain just fatigue. I did it wrong.

Our relationships can be the same way. Some of us associate pain with people and we kinda like it. Oh, we don't say that we like it. We say that we're tortured and miserable. Sometimes, things just seem too good, so we sabotage them and make them not-so-good so we can have an excuse when it doesn't go well and it doesn't go well because we sabotaged it. If that seems convoluted it's because it is.

Relationships shouldn't be painful. Good ones build and require the same kind of maintenance or at least the respectful willingness to not undo the work that has been done. Sometimes, there just isn't time or energy to devote to relationship building, but care must be taken so that the relationship doesn't end up flabby and neglected.

Or excruciating. Life is challenging enough. If you have the idea that physical pain is required to build your body into some sort of machine, you'll likely injure yourself or frustrate yourself out of physical fitness. The same goes for relationships. The truth is that healthy people gravitate toward pleasure and away from pain and work enough to build the relationship but take care to avoid hurting it. And that's as it should be. When a person gravitates toward discomfort, it's a sign of dysfunction not health.

A caveat: Pain avoidance is not necessarily healthy either. Growing muscles can cause fatigue and requires recovery time. So, a person must push their comfort level to get the body or the life that they want. A fit body doesn't happen magically. It takes work. A fit life takes work, too. Relationships are what a fit life is made of. Truly, rich or poor, sick or healthy, no matter the material circumstances, relationships matter most in the end. They are worth maintaining.

Meanwhile, I won't have any problem remembering these lessons. I'll be laying off the lower body workouts while my sore ass and thighs recover. Waddling is so embarrassing. Insane!

I'm Baaaaaaack

Yeah, well, you probably didn't even know I was gone except for the radio silence on Saturday. Siena beat Vanderbilt so it was cool to see the upset live and in person. No beer at NCAA games. It was rather subdued. Sports needs beer. It's just axiomatic. Change the drinking age to 18, I say, and let the brewskies flow at college games. The world is already too dull. As an aside: Don't give me shit about this people. If you can vote for the president and kill yourself in service to your country, if you can get married and have kids, you should be able to drink a beer to numb the pain. Just sayin'.

Today, if you read one thing, this post by Rachel Lucas must be it. She talks about racism and race in general and it is excellent. I'm not even going to give you an excerpt, because then you'll think that I picked the best paragraph out of the piece (which I would) and then you'll think you've gotten the gist (which you wouldn't). So, just go read it. Her treatise explains why race will be a problem for a long time, probably forever, in America and the rest of the world.

I'm also putting up links for John Hawkins over at Conservative Grapevine. There's some good stuff there. I'm particularly pissed off at the weenie nature of Network Solutions who is currently being chicken assed bucklers to some psycho Hezbollah jihadits. Apparently a Dutch movie about the Quran pisses terrorists off and the American company can't take the heat. Grrrr..... Let freedom tinkle into oblivion one gutless decision at a time.

This hasn't been covered here, but I just wanted to pass along my love of and devotion to and fascination with Facebook. My goal is to have 1000 friends by the end of 2008 who I actually know, or get to know. The number is totally random, by the way. This weekend the girl who graduated first or second from my class at Chiropractic college found me. She was a complete brainiac and it should comfort you that people that smart are doctors. (I won't talk about the idiots at the bottom, but keep in mind that there are dumb doctors--the screening process isn't that good.) So, if you're on Facebook, make me your friend and send me a virtual cocktail. The nice thing is that they're calorie free. For giggles and grins, I just joined the joined the group Stuff Educated Black People Like. I have an educated black person for a friend. More than one actually. I'm curious if educated black people like different things, say, than educated white people or educated Latino people or educated mixed-race people.

I'll be around. Also will put together a post for John at Right Wing News, so check back.

Keeping Focus On The True Messiah

Well, folks, I'm going to depart from politics for a moment. For my blog readers, that's not a surprise. Lately, all I've been doing is departing from politics. For John's readers, if you haven't visited my blog, it will be a little different.

The church bells ring behind me as I sit on my friend's porch. Beyond the bell tower, I see the gulf where the sun peeks through the clouds as I listen to Ode to Joy. It is a beautiful, meaningful day for Christians around the world. My friend's children exulted in Easter baskets and delighted in found treasures. It has been magical watching another family revel in their tradition.

Holidays are a nice time to slow down, take stock and refocus on what is truly important. Some things in life are so transient and fleeting. The concept of eternity, living forever, puts the temporal in perspective. We aren't here for long and what consumes us day to day often matters little in the big scheme of things.

Now, that concept is something that bothers unbelievers mightily. They feel that belief in God makes a person lazy both in thought and action. It excuses "sin" and forgives sloth. A Christian won't reach his potential because he will wait for God's will. A Christian loses his will when he surrenders to God.

A Christian knows this is not true. A Christian is freed from having to control everything. A Christian controls what is in his power to control and has faith that God is in charge taking care of the rest. Far from absolving a person of responsibility, the Christian feels moved to do more with what he has because he has been given so much.

Okay, so maybe I will talk politics for a minute. The Messianic obsession this election cycle, the live-or-die nature of the attachment to the candidates (on the Left, does anyone feel super passionate about McCain? I think blah feelings is what you get when you're a moderate) reveals a true lack of faith generally. People look to people or people look to government which is just a bunch of people to do what people used to have faith that God would take care of.

Most of us have been recipients of Christian charity at some point in our lives. I know I have. When my sons were in the hospital and every day was a financial struggle, a church I used to attend sent me $5,000. No strings attached. They gave it in faith. And I used it in faith. It paid for food, parking, rent, everything I couldn't afford while I was at the hospital. It was humbling. It was a bit embarrassing. I had never relied on anyone for anything and it was almost more than I could bear needing it so badly. It pricked my pride.

In contrast, when my son came out of the hospital we had no insurance. We were poor by any measure. He was 4 pounds 6 ounces, we were heading into the winter season and one bout of a common cold (RSV) could kill him. I sucked up my pride once again and went to the Welfare office. After hours waiting, I talked to a very kind social worker who understood my plight but explained that we didn't qualify because our car was too new (we needed a newer car, because our old one couldn't make the trip to downtown reliably and we didn't want the car to die with me in it with a tiny, sick baby). You do qualify for food stamps, the man told me. I hung my head. No. Way. There is no way I'd go to the store and buy my food with food stamps, baby or no. I'd starve first. I politely declined and marveled at the horror and humiliation of the whole experience.

Now, you might think that I cursed the government for their arcane rules where someone barely making it couldn't qualify to have a sick child covered. That wasn't my reaction. I decided then and there that we'd have to make more money and we'd find insurance one way or another and that I would never, ever, ever step foot in a government agency that way again. It was one of the most demeaning experiences of my life.

The contrast was real. The church people gave and had faith in me, but more so in God. It wasn't about me. It was about laying up treasure. And they weren't doing it to make brownie points for the afterlife (and if they were, they've had their reward), they were helping from a place of love. The government workers had tied hands. They had rules. They had limitations. They had to be wary of scammers. They were jaded, and understandably so. Had I been more wily, I suppose I could have gamed the system. I could have lied about the car. I could have put things in other people's names. There were all sorts of things people did to comply, but at what cost to the dignity of the individual and to the fabric of society as a whole?

Believing in a man or a woman, like the Hillary and Obama zealots do, is bound to be disappointing. They are human, fallible, selfish, people. They aren't God. Today is a good day to remember who God is and who God isn't. Only one person in history rose from the dead giving hope of a perfect government to the world and that person isn't [Update: oops! I saw the error but my internet connection in Florida lacked power] running in this election.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Good Friday? Great Friday!

I want you all to have a great Good Friday so I'm putting together some interesting links for you to peruse at your leisure. Yes, you're spoiled rotten, but since you don't whine and wake me up in the middle of the night, I like you.

First, it's March Madness. Brendan, brace yourself and don't be hatin' (for those who don't remember, Brendan is my blog husband, yes, he's married, yes his wife just had baby, yes, he's a lawyer in Tennessee, yes, he's my junior by a decade, but in an alternate universe we discuss college basketball, Tolkien, politics, and sci-fi and I ignore his weather babbling), anyway, Brendan, I'm going to the NCAA tournament game tonight--Vanderbilt verses Sienna. I care little about either team, but it will be an experience. And it's okay to love Pat Summit. It's okay. If your wife can share, I can share.

Do the Democrats want expensive gas or don't they? My thought? They want to bitch about high gas prices and also tax gases for supposed environmental reasons (aka increase tax revenues to dole out pork). Yes, it's contradictory, but who says that they make sense? That's right, no one.

The Anchoress brings to mind this memory: When I was a toddler, I lived in Detroit on a street where we were the one white family. My best friend was a little black boy my age. We moved out a bit when I got a little older, but went to a church that was half black and half white. My parents were very open about race. My parents liked cards--specifically pinochle, bid whiz, and bridge. We'd go to friends houses all over Detroit, sometimes needing an escort out of the neighborhood after dark. We'd have friends over to our house too. It caused problems once or twice with white neighbors, but my parents didn't buckle. Well, we had a church fundraiser and the ladies made Raggedy Ann dolls and I remember my mom sewing black Raggedy Ann dolls. It seemed normal to me that a black girl would want a black doll. But the store shelves had white dolls only. My sense of justice found this situation angering. It wasn't fair for a girl to not have a doll that looks like her. That has changed, as The Anchoress notes, but some racial attitudes still pervade society. She says this (please, please, read her whole post):

Dolls and action figures have changed, of course, but both this incident and the other, at work, made me think of the psychic duality that must be part and parcel of being black in America. You’re not simply a man or a woman, you’re a black man, a black woman, and when people see you it is what they notice first, and then their brains begin to process stereotypes and horror stories or stories of ridicule. And the psychic duality is that your fundamental personhood is being challenged daily, by a thousand little unintended insults - like the lack of a black doll to play with - that you’re supposed to over-look, and by other, more overt and intentional insults (or buffooneries) that you are supposed to transcend, all while maintaining your dignity.

Some might say all of that is not limited to the black experience, that a fat person faces those same snap-judgments and stereotypes, and that is true, but only to a point. A fat person may shed the extra poundage; a black person cannot shed the skin.

There is absolutely nothing simple in the matter of race in America, and I don’t envy any black man or black woman their daily grind

We do have a long way to go with race in America. A long way. It seems to me that the pass given to Obama is because of his skin color. People are afraid to criticize for fear of being perceived as racist, which is, in itself, racist. We have a long ways to go.

Staying with the race theme, Ann Althouse has a video that was made by some marketing firm, but forwarded by a guy in McCain's camp. She feels it's incendiary and offensive. What do you think? I think this proves The Anchoress's point, is what I think.

As an aside, I believe Obama has the Democratic nomination sealed. There is no way the Democrats will go for Hillary now. It will seem racist to deny Obama. And Obama will lose to McCain. It's done. MaxedOutMama has a complete and thoughtful analysis of the whole thing and believes the same problem afflicts both Hillary's and Obama's campaign:

The questions about Obama's psychological maturity are what he really has to face. He's relatively young, very inexperienced, and it is reasonable for the voters to care a great deal about his fundamental character. It's fine to be hopeful and optimistic. We could use a heaping load of that in our leaders. We also need that optimism to be deeply infused and engaged with reality - otherwise it's just wishful thinking. And yes, some of Obama's comments about sitting down to talk to certain world leaders do strike me as wishful thinking.

A president infected with victimology would be a disaster, and I think that is precisely what is causing Hillary problems.

Now, to something less weighty but revealing nonetheless. Just keep Shelley's quote in your mind: The eyes bring to seeing what they wish to see. Also, consider this when you contemplating "eye witness" testimony. It's not all that reliable.

Want to be a blog star? I know I do. Will it happen? Not sure. But here's some good points. My least favorite point: Don't expect to make money. Hmph! I want to make money doing this!

Money can buy happiness, but there's a catch. It's an important catch.

Hope you all have a great Friday!

10 Places To Meet Quality Men and Women

Once again, I'm writing about dating stuff. A guy asked where to find good women. Just as a general principle, I think we find what we're looking for. That is, if you expect that all women are conniving witches with a "b", you'll find evidence to support that expectation. Women, if you believe that all men are jerks, you'll tend to find jerks. Or rather, they'll tend to find you.

Also, I do think it's more challenging once you're out of a date-rich environment like college or graduate school to find compatible people. Challenging, but not impossible. So where to go?

1. Go to church. I know. I know. You're more spiritual than religious. Then go to the Unitarian church and meet the hippie woman of your dreams. Many big churches have excellent singles programs. I know a couple people who found their mates through a singles bible study group or a divorce bible study group or a widow's bible study group.

2. Join a club. What interests you? Find other people who like what you like and hang out. Are you a Trekkie? Go to their convention and get in online chat groups. Are you a bibliophile? Go to the local Barnes and Noble's book clubs or start one of your own. Be a joiner. If you love running or biking or motorcycles or books or photography or foreign language or you're a fan of a team, there is a group for you and people who love what you love.

3. Join a support group. Hear me out. My husband's uncle found the perfect woman for him after his wife died by joining a Jewish widows of cancer death support group. His new wife lost her husband. They have much in common--religion, similar life stories, and of course, their loss. People can be bound by their losses and frailties. Recovering together can be powerfully bonding.

4. Look around you. There are nice people at the store. You meet them every day. Are you thinking in terms of dating? If you want a relationship, you should be thinking in those terms. They are in line at the bank. They are behind you in line for gas. They wait at the post office with you. Pay attention!

5. Join a gym. You're working out at home. Or you don't work out. Well, you should work out, anyway. So get out of the house. You'll meet people. They'll get to know you. You'll get to know them. There will be regulars. There will be new people. You want someone who is working on improving him or herself? A gym might have that person.

6. Try online dating. I personally know two people who have meet their soul mates this way. It's a new medium, but the principles are the same. People desiring to meet people are gathering in one place. These people WANT to meet you. It's an added bonus.

7. Tell friends that you're looking. In college, I operated as a matchmaker on a couple of occasions. In both cases, the men were shy or oblivious. In both cases, I encouraged the woman to approach him. I knew the guys and knew they wouldn't be put off--they were shy and would appreciate the interest. Both couples have been married over 15 years. Now, I've had some clunkers, too, but friends can help friends find love.

8. Go to the bar. Oh come on! I know a couple friends who met this way and have had nice long, happy marriages. The key is getting out and meeting new people. There are nice people at a bar or at a club. They are not all immature, superficial poseurs. Find the nice ones.

9. Work. A friend met his wife when she came into his video store. Another friend met his wife when she came into the convenience store he worked at. Another friend met a guy from another division in her company and they got married. Sure, dating a co-worker is dicey, but it happens and should be done with care. The nice thing about meeting someone through work is that you know their education, job, reputation, so you start with a whole lot more information.

10. Just get out of the house. I can guarantee you, you won't find someone by staying at home and complaining that there's no one to date. My friend met someone while acting in a play. He was in the audience and dug her. You have to get out of your normal routine. We can tend to wear ruts into our life and wonder why we have no new experiences. Vacations are another place you can meet someone. But it can be problematic because you live in other parts of the country. Oh well, if he or she is worth it, you'll make it work.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Love is all around. You have to be willing and open and want to be found. Some of you say you want a relationship but carry the weight of your past around like an invisible chastity belt. People get your vibe. People get your insecurity. People get your neediness. People get your fear. People get your suspicion. People get your distrust. It's off-putting.

A friend is doing some online dating and I looked through some profiles for him. It was amazing how people conveyed their cynicism and negativity. We have all been hurt and wounded in love if we've made it past our teen years. Pain is inevitable when we extend ourselves. Still, misery is assured if we wither and involute.

Ultimately, this is a spiritual issue. Our beliefs drive our actions. And our actions, often the same actions we've taken over and over, confirm our beliefs. We always want to be right, even when being right feels really terrible so we find evidence to support our beliefs. Well, when it comes to men and women and dating and love and marriage, it's worthwhile to challenge your beliefs. Maybe they no longer serve you. Maybe they are limiting your life.

And that makes me think of something else, too. If you're looking for the perfect person who will make you happy and make everything all better for you, than a relationship with another person is not what you want. No one person can do that for anyone. That doesn't mean that a love can't help heal some of your past wounds, because it can. But your own mind-body needs to do the healing, another person can only be the catalyst. Too many potential relationships break under the burden of the romantic notion that the "perfect" person will solve everything. Doubtful. Impossible. You are setting yourself up for disappointment. Don't do it.

He or she is waiting for you to find them. Believe it. Now find them.