Velvet Ridge is dangerously close to Arkansas’ Bald Knob and from there it’s almost a straight shot to Cumming Iowa. However, Spread Eagle Wisconsin is a touch closer to Cumming and is a scenic trip just off old highway 69. 69 also leads to Felch, Michigan, though it’s usually a backdoor approach. I’d rather Ralph.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man.
On Thursday Al Franken announced the Senate Confirmation of Sotomayor for associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Chief Justice John Roberts swore Sotomayor in on Saturday. They actually work on Saturdays? I think they should have called in Al Franken to do the swearing in. He’s used to working Saturdays. I know it’s not normal procedure, but it would have given him a chance to swear her in as Stewart Smalley, “cause she’s good enough, she’s smart enough, and doggone it, people like her.”
Normally when a friend sends me a link to a news article it’s done knowing full well what side of the given news issue I will fall on and generally they just want to see me go stark raving mad into a rant complete with foaming at the mouth. On Friday I got an email request to blog about a certain news article and at the bottom it said, “I don’t care which side you take. I just want to see you tackle this.”
“If you don’t care what side I take, why do you want to see me blog about it?”
“Really, because I’m curious to see your reaction to it. Now dance, Monkey!”
I looked at the title and my eyes rolled into the back of my head, “Breast-Feeding Doll Too Real for Comfort?” I read the whole article from end to end. I have no strong feelings about a doll for children that simulates breast-feeding either way. It was the controversy about ‘over-sexualizing’ young girls that made my ass twitch.
However, a viral video demonstration on YouTube has been met with remarks that the doll is over-sexualizing young girls, or forcing girls to grow up too quickly, or teaching young girls about a natural part of motherhood.
Yes, breast-feeding requires breasts. In our Puritanical culture those evil things, which shall not be mentioned, are generally viewed as naughty pillows. They should be covered at all times for all reasons least the men folk go stir crazy at the sight and send young children screaming with blood streaming from the eyes. But breasts are also used by women to feed infants and though stimulating the milk to flow can have a very similar bodily response there is nothing sexual about it. Nothing! It would be like saying a job interview is the same as sex because your heart rate goes up and you sweat a little during both. Unless you’re a porn star or regularly date people seeking a sugar-daddy/sugar-mamma, sex and job interviews are not on the same playing field. And I hope you’re not sweating that much during interviews. By overreacting to anything remotely connected to sexual things in their twisted adult head these stupid dolts are just making sex a more forbidden fruit in the future and a much more enticing one at that.
“I heard people talking about it but, honestly, I thought it was a joke,” said Ilina Ewen, a writer for the Deep South Moms and her own blog Dirt and Noise.
“There are just things that I think kids are too little to understand,” she said.
Ewen worried that if her two boys, ages 4 and 6, saw the toy, they would be confused because neither had been breast-fed.
Yet Ewen admits she has seen many young girls mimic the behavior after watching their mothers nurse their infant siblings.
“They don’t understand they just see other moms doing that. Let kids use their imagination and play with a doll and not deal with what it can do,” Ewen said. “There’s no need to turn it into something that’s anatomically correct. Not at this age.”
The doll itself is as anatomically correct as any other on the market. This doll only works when the girl puts on a shirt that has flowers where her nipples are located. Unlike other dolls that girls pretending to breast-feed might actually put under their own shirt, this method is hardly anatomically correct. I have never in my live met a woman with flower nipples. Nor have I ever heard of a woman successfully breast-feeding a baby with flowers over her nipples.
I doubt it matters if children were breast-fed themselves or not. I stopped breast-feeding Sophia completely at about sixteen months. I seriously doubt she’ll remember if she was bottle-fed or breast-fed when she’s playing with dolls as a four to six year-old and to say a child doesn’t understand is a cop-out for ones own sensitivities to anything perceived as loosely connected to sex. Children do understand. They know A LOT, and trying to protect innocents really doesn’t serve the child well. It creates a category of information the child will learn never to ask questions about in order to not upset the ‘innocent child’ view of their stupidly sensitive parent.
Psychologist Jay Reeve, CEO of the Apalachee Center in Tallahassee, Fla., said Bebe Gloton’s realism goes too far.
Of course, children have played ‘parent’ with dolls for centuries, but this new twist seems to focus not on what babies are like as much as jumpstarting a focus on breast-feeding,” Reeve said. “I’m always a little disturbed by toys, games, or products that have the impact of accelerating childhood identification with being a full-blown adult.”
Is this a child psychologist? How can he not see the irony in his own response? That is exactly what role playing is all about! It’s moving into adulthood. Dumb-ass. I think giving an actual infant to a little girl and expecting her to give 100% of the care that would be accelerating adulthood to being a full-blown adult. It’s the perceived sex-thing about the doll isn’t it? I wonder what Freud would say about this?
Though I don’t care about the breast-feeding non-issue I still wouldn’t buy this doll for Sophia. I agree with the professor at the end of the article.
…toy expert, professor and author Diane Levin, said the problem with Bebe Gloton isn’t the breast-feeding. Levin has a problem with any toy that limits the play to a single activity.
“It’s not good for children to have everything structured for them,” said Levin…
… “As kids get used to instructive toys, they need more structured toys,” Levin said. “We take the creativity away.”
This is one of the reasons why I limit the battery operated toys Sophia has. The other reason is that I don’t want to have to buy millions of batteries, and third and most importantly I think any doll with any mechanical movements are fuckin’ creepy! Think Chucky.
“I’ve stopped taking my birth control pills.”
“Oh, you guys are trying?”
“No.”
“Ha! Well unless you stopped having sex, you’re trying.”
“No we aren’t.”
“Uumm yes you are.”
“We’re just letting it happen.”
“You’re trying.”
*Audible sigh*
*Three months later*
“I’m disappointed that I’m not pregnant yet.”
“I thought you said you weren’t trying.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man.
I hate electronics, computers (except my laptop *petting HP Pavilion*), and gadgets of all sorts (except my digital SLR *petting Nikon D60*). Anytime something is made in order to make our lives simpler it complicates things. It’s just one more thing to break. *grumble*
Last week we had a bit of heat wave. Shut up you out-of-staters! It was hot. Even I thought it was hot. I, who used to wear a poncho at work to make a statement about how fucking cold the office was during the winter or anytime the AC was on in the summer.
Even though Thursday was two degrees cooler than Wednesday, according to the weatherman, that day truly tested my patients. Truly. It actually started out well. Knowing I wanted to spend the day in the sun, I packed a soft-sided cooler big enough to hold at least a half-rack of beer. I didn’t pack any beer. The cooler was way more than I needed for snacks, but I brought a lot of water because it was going to be HOT.
Sophia and I went to her swim class then I took her to the beach. It’s not really a beach. There isn’t any sand, but it’s all we have, so it’s a beach. The parks and recreation department recently made “improvements” to the area and added a playground. It sucks ass for toddlers or anyone who is prone to motion sickness. The person who chose the park equipment apparently LOVES climbing and spinning in circles. The first is fine, the latter not so much. Spinning Sucks! We moved on to a different park within the area. It hadn’t been updated since the ‘70s. When was my last tetanus shot? *shrug* Oh well, at least there wasn’t any spinning.
So far, we had been in and out of the car three times. One more stop before heading home. I had to pick a couple things for dinner. I used the car remote to simultaneously lock and arm the car alarm as usual before heading into the store with Sophia. I grabbed the couple of things I needed, paid, and headed back to the car in the now blazing sun with my recently purchased perishables. I pushed the button that should simultaneously disarm and unlock the car. Nothing. Pushed it again. Still nothing. I pushed it another 500 times, each time thinking, “it’s gotta work *this* time.” No go. Poor Sophia, her toddler head was baking in the sun. I grumbled and headed back to the entrance of the store with the cart and Sophia to call my hubby. “How do I open this stupid piece of shit remote and what battery does it need?” I asked.
I opened the stupid remote and out fell the battery and the metal piece that is supposed to hold said battery in place. SHIT! I went back to the car. Holding the battery in place while firmly pressing on the metal piece to try and give it just enough of a connection I pressed the button. The alarm system was not convinced. Many sailor words, which some oddly refer to as “French” as in “Please excuse my French”, few out of my mouth. I don’t understand why it’s referred to as French. If they were at all French they would be spelled completely different. Shit would be “shautet” and pronounced something like “saw-eh” and Fuck would be “faucket”, pronounced “fock-eh”. Neither have the punch of a hard consonant ending that I sought. Don’t get me wrong. I love the French and their language sounds beautiful. They just add too many useless damn vowels. Except for maybe ex-president Dubya, one always knows the origin of a word like entrepreneur by the number of vowels.
With one last GODDANMIT-STUPID-FUCKER-WORK-ALREADY I said screw it and opened the trunk with the actual key. The alarm went off, of course. I put the groceries in, slammed it shut, and tried to open the door with the key. No go. Once the alarm goes off the doors remain locked. Bastard.
I wheeled the cart and baby back to the store to purchase a new battery. EVERYONE in the parking lot stared at me. I went back to the car with the remote and new battery. Nothing. Thoughts ran through my mind of being able to get into the car someday and then happily backing over the remote repeatedly. It made me smile briefly. I think the remote knew it. Bastard.
I didn’t know what to do. Everyone I knew was at work. If I called a towing company there still wouldn’t be anyway for me to get home. Even if they were inclined to give rides it would be illegal for them to take me without a car seat for Sophia. Oh wait! My friend who lives close is on maternity leave. Yay! I opened the trunk to retrieve my rotting-in-the-sun perishables, which set off the alarm again. People stared at me, again. I called my friend to pick me up.
I sounded like a lost kid calling mom, “can you come get me?”
“Where are you?”
“Fred Meyer”
Seriously, that’s how the conversation went. I was a pathetic lost puppy. Poor Sophia was confused about why we couldn’t just get in the car and why it kept making that sound.
Remembering that I had brought a cooler I went back to the trunk of the car and opened it one last time. The alarm went off AGAIN and people stared at me AGAIN. After removing our snacks and water all my groceries fit into it. Yay!
At one of the two playgrounds I frequent with Sophia, I overheard something that just made my ass twitch. This particular playground has a toy that mimics a front loader by use of two handles; one that lifts the ‘bucket’ and one tilts the ‘bucket’. A boy of about six or seven was operating the stationary front loader. He hadn’t been at this toy for more than five minutes. His mother stood right next to him. A girl walked up and politely asked the boy if she could have a turn. The boy’s mother in a syrupy voice said, “Oh she asked politely. I know you’ll do the right thing.” The boy stood up with his head down and left the toy to the girl. His mother began to praise him but he didn’t look up. She took his arm to turn him towards her and said, “I’m so glad that you made the right choice. I’m very proud of you.” The boy with his head still down, simply moved on without acknowledging any of the praise for his ‘choice’.
She didn’t really offer a choice and I don’t think he learn the lesson she wanted to teach. All he did was probably save himself a few minutes of nagging and lecturing where he would sit perfectly still gazing blankly at something while drooling from boredom. Poor kid. By the reaction of the boy I’d guess that this isn’t a new technique that mom is trying out. I bet that she proudly displays a helicopter mom certificate over the mantel which made its way there by her passively aggressively ruining her spouse’s “dogs playing poker” painting that once hung in it’s place.
I know everyone wants his or her child to be polite, courteous, and nominated best toy sharer on the whole planet but there is something to be said for the kid that can look another in the eye and say, “Not right now it’s my turn and I’m not done yet.” It shouldn’t matter how nice the other person asked. Maybe the girl needs to take a few lessons in waiting her turn.
Seriously can someone explain to me why giving up his turn was the ‘right’ thing to do just because she asked nicely?
Random woman: May I please have sexual intercourse with your husband?
Me: Well shit, I guess I have to say yes since you asked so fuckin’ nicely.
(Kurt, don’t get all excited. Nobody has asked for your hot body. Even if they ask nicely, I won’t say yes. It’s my turn F-O-R-E-V-E-R. *maniacal laugh*)
My actual problem with this hovering mom isn’t the lesson she was failing miserably to teach it was that she stepped in at all. Go sit on a fuckin’ bench already and let the damn kids work it out themselves! It’s a playground. It’s a place meant for playing. It is possible to learn appropriate social interactions without perpetual guidance.
At Sophia’s eighteen month checkup almost two months ago, she sat on my lap facing outward towards the nurse. The nurse commented on how big Sophia’s eyes are and said that she would be a heartbreaker, then chuckled and told me that Sophia rolled her eyes at the comment. Yep, I’m going to have my hands full. No doubt about it.
The Monday after her checkup Sophia simultaneously began the temper tantrum phase and the “I can do it myself” phase, probably catapulted by yours truly while attempting to put new shoes on baby-screams-a-lot. I bought her a pair of sandals in the hopes that someday winter will take a hint and acknowledge that it has overstayed its welcome, especially after the whole December flight travel crap.
Sophia seemed to love the new sandals as she spent the following hour after arriving home from the store putting the sandals on and taking them off again. Sometimes she even put each one on the correct foot, but all bets are off when I put the sandals on her. Totally unacceptable and apparently overstepping my bounds as a parent by trying to get her out of shoes she was quickly outgrowing. The child doesn’t like change. I blame her father for this. He purposely passed on those genes to piss me off-fa-fah.
I wound up putting her old shoes on that evening just so we could go out peacefully, and then it started. At a restaurant of all places. Thankfully it was a place we go to frequently. We placed a well mannered toddler in the highchair and without warning; this devilish contraption turned her into exorcist toddler minus the green spewing from the mouth. She rocked back and forth wailing as if we had permanently removed her callused thumb and told her she can’t suck it anymore. That’ll come soon enough, but I promise we won’t actually remove her thumb so put the phone call to CPS on hold for a little while. By the way, she absolutely loves her sandals now and will hang onto my shoulder and lift each foot for me to put them on or of course she’ll put them on herself.
We discovered that she calmed right down when I let her sit in the big people chair next to me. Seriously? She thinks she’s a big girl. She can’t see over the table and she drinks from a sippy cup, but she’s a ‘big girl’.
The next day was a sunny one and the beginning of swimming again. Oh what a relief! The pool was closed for the month of March for cleaning. I was so happy for some scheduled thing to do that I had a great day despite the little one throwing four separate tantrums including two in the locker room before and after swimming. All four occurring before naptime, and included her learning to bite me on one occasion that day. I think she hit the terrible twos at eighteen months. I guess the terrible eighteen months just doesn’t roll off the tongue like the terrible twos do. How long does this crap last anyway?
I need some scheduled activities to help me through the week, so I was happy to sign Sophia up for gymnastics which started two weeks before swimming picked up again but despite the age range listed on the catalog, Sophia simply was not ready for it. Gymnastics was too structured for us. Unlike swimming where we just recite nursery rhymes and encourage kicking across the pool interspersed with moms socializing while the kids from age six months to three years play with water toys, gymnastics insisted that for the entire time children from eighteen months to three years follow a course and listen to what the teacher says.
Through the course, there was a cushy red balance beam no more than six inches high. I tried to help Sophia follow the others but when it came to that spot, putting her on that was like trying to place a cat in a bath tub. She wouldn’t put her legs down at all and wiggled more the closer I brought her to it. She didn’t want to touch the red beam. She didn’t follow any of the directions and she basically just wanted me to carry her all through class. She did like the trampoline, but there was no, grab a toy and bounce on the trampoline with everyone in this class. They only allowed one kid at a time on the trampolines. It was expected that the kids jump while making their way across the trampoline and not linger while the rest had to stand in line and wait their turn.
Sophia is still learning to follow my instructions at home, “no standing on the chair”, “sit on your butt”, and we practice waiting our turn on the slides at the park. That is really enough structure for us right now, thank you very much. We will stick with swimming. Though my I think the nap time benefit of swimming is backfiring on me. She does take good naps but it’s also building her endurance. A couple weeks ago, Kurt and I went for a walk and the midget walked about three quarters of a mile pushing her own stroller.
The tantrums with biting went to the wayside after about three times. My only reaction to them was to yell, “OUCH” and not do what she wanted until she calmed down. But the tantrums continue and ignite with anything from not wanting to get dressed or get a diaper changed, refusing to use known signs or words to convey wants, and demanding to play with certain objects.
Yesterday Kurt and I went on a bike ride and insisted that Sophia wear a helmet. I think bicycle helmets are retarded but we have her wear one because she is up much higher sitting in a chair attached to the back of my bike than she would be if she could ride her own bike, and if I crashed, she would hit her head since she’s strapped in. Otherwise, I think they’re completely useless especially against getting hit from a phantom car that shouldn’t be on a bike trail anyway. In the few times I’ve ever fallen off a bike I’ve never hit my head. I have sprained a wrist but that’s it. I see whole families of helmet people all over. Dumb. And we saw a girl with her helmet family on a pristine powder blue bike wearing a helmet and knee pads. KNEE PADS on a bike, really? I wanted to run over and wrap the child in bubble wrap for her parents. Bubble child just couldn’t be protected enough. *eye roll* Apparently it’s beyond amazing that I survived my childhood because I rode my bike on streets without a helmet or knee pads, but I digress.
My little angel threw a fit as we tried to apply a helmet to her noggin. Secretly I’m thinking, “that’s my girl”, but we insisted. She stopped screaming and crying once I got going but she kept her grumpy face on for the five miles until we reached our playground stopping point, then she got all excited and was trying to get all the straps off to go play.
As long as there aren’t a bunch of rambunctious older kids on a playground Sophia runs to play areas and even engages other children. By engages I mean that she follows boys her own age and older girls. She also tries to politely play with their toys. One time a girl about six years old had a toy cell phone that Sophia wanted to play with. She stood next to the girl watching and then pointed and grunted, which is her own way of requesting just about everything. But if we take the child to a restaurant with a group of Kurt’s coworkers, which we do about once a month, she becomes clingy Velcro baby. She won’t even sit in a chair next to me or go to dad. She must sit on ME, and often times will curl up into a ball on my lap.
With some people, it doesn’t matter how often they come over to our house. Kurt had a friend over to watch motorcycle racing and all Sophia did was sit on Kurt’s lap and give him the baby evil eye from across the room. Sophia does do well with some individual friends though. I’ve gone to the zoo and other outings with a friend that Sophia actually let take her out of her car seat. Another friend who has a three month old of her own is able to get Sophia to laugh and interact with her. Yay for some toddler socialization.
It isn’t fiction, viewed as disloyal by Union officers for siding with Virginia in secession Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs appropriated Robert E. Lee’s farm for use as a graveyard to mostly Union soldiers after the Civil war. His intention was to make the house uninhabitable in case the Lee family ever tried to return.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man.
For the past nine or so years, they have put out the “What is a mom’s work worth” around mother’s day, and every year Kurt starts ranting as soon as it comes on without even listening to it. He acts like it’s painful to even consider.
Kurt: What about dads? Dads come home from work and then become the handy man, carpenter, landscaper, daycare/babysitter, auto mechanic, and porn star.
Me: *snickering*
Kurt: Don’t laugh, I’m a porn star, and I want to be paid for it!
Me: *laughing*
Kurt: *raised eyebrow* I am a porn star?
Me: Yes, you’re a porn star.
Kurt: Good, you may live.
Now there is a calculator on salary.com to find out what a mom and dad are worth weather they’re stay-at-home or working. I have several beef’s with this calculator however.
I must start by saying that the neither original email nor person that sent it offends me. I totally understand not wanting people illegally living within our borders to receive benefits–especially benefits that are already in jeopardy for its own citizens. Fortunately, the email is a false alarm. I privately sent the link to the corresponding Snopes article to my friend. Here is the original email sent out that started my email debate with a total stranger:
SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGES
It does not matter if you personally like or dislike Obama. You need to sign this petition and flood his e-mail box with e-mails that tell him that, even if the House passes this bill, he needs to veto it. It is already impossible to live on Social Security alone. If the government gives benefits to ‘illegal’ aliens who have never contributed, where does that leave those of us who have paid into Social Security all our working lives?
As stated below, the Senate voted this week to allow ‘illegal’ aliens access to Social Security benefits.
Attached is an opportunity to sign a petition that requires citizenship for eligibility to that social service.
Instructions are below. If you don’t forward the petition and just stop it, we will lose all these names.
If you do not want to sign it, please just forward it to everyone you know.
Thank you!
To add your name, click on ‘forward’.
Address it to all of your email correspondents, add your name to the list and send it on.
When the petition hits 1,000, send it to comment@whitehouse.gov
PETITION for President Obama:
Dear Mr. President:
We, the undersigned, protest the bill that the Senate voted on recently which would allow illegal aliens to access our Social Security. We demand that you and all Congressional representatives require citizenship as a pre-requisite for social services in the United States.
We further demand that there not be any amnesty given to illegal aliens, NO free services, no funding, no payments to and for illegal immigrants.
Hours after receiving this email from a friend I received a response from someone I didn’t know. I should have deleted the email but I read it, so I felt compelled to respond. Email from a total stranger:
Hey Guys~~ ALWAYS check any of this kind of junk out on
before you get all upset and send it out for a thousand signatures. The place to send anything political like this is directly to your representatives in Congress, and you can find their names at . After you figure out the site and copy or write your beef, I always pay the extra little bit by credit card to have it HAND-DELIVERED to whomever!! It can also just be sent by e-mail from there and it’s free, but they get millions of those, so the hand-delivered ones have more clout. I can’t remember how much it costs, but it isn’t terrible, and you just do it through a credit card. Then I also write myself a note and stick it up by my computer, so when I see a weird charge on my credit card statement, I’ll remember what it is!! However, yes, I agree, the illegal aliens are over-running our country into the millions of people and a new baby every year, yet they don’t even bother to learn English or even TRY to become citizens. I am in Gulf Shores, AL, now yet for the winter (it’s great down here!), and, some days in WalMart, I think I’m in Mexico. There are Mexicans all over the place and all speaking their native gobbledegook Spanish. very cute, very nice, but also VERY illegal. Also, THEY get the jobs that my boyfriend would otherwise be doing, and don’t be fooled by what you hear! They charge just as much for the work as any CITIZEN would charge; they do NOT work cheaper. Yet, they pay NO taxes, get free medical, everything cow-tows to their language, e.g. “press 1 for English”, etc. Exactly WHEN did the operator ever say to our LEGAL ancestors: “Press 2 for Polish, press 3 for German, Press 4 for Italian, etc.” AND, our school budgets have to include BI-LINGUAL teachers to teach these illegals!! We need English declared as the primary language of our country, and we need to press our congress people to send them back to their own countries unless they PROVE they are actively pursuing legalization and residency. MOST of their current papers and documents are FORGED!
This is where you check out Snopes and how useless these signature things are
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/petition.asp
Thanks for reading my bitch of the day!
Former singles group member~~still single , (with a 10 year boyfriend)
(Signed with her full name and email address)
The first paragraph was fine. Good advice in fact. The second paragraph made my ass twitch. I didn’t know this person and I thought that she was a friend of my friend who had hit ‘reply-all’, so without going into detail about what I found offensive or which parts of her rant were pure bullshit. I responded with:
Before you hit “reply all” on your emails maybe you should check to see if you know all the people on the list. I’m the daughter of a Mexican and I find your rant offensive and brimming with ignorance.
Beaner Hater’s reply back to me (*note in the areas where I quote her all text emphasis is hers.):
I didn’t hit: Reply all. I copied and pasted EXACTLY and sent it back to all the people who had received the first one. And I really don’t give a damn how “offended” you are. IF you are a citizen and IF you have any decency, you should be ASHAMED of the way the Mexicans and have invaded our country!! I have a brother-in-law and nieces and nephews who are Mexican, and only the children are legal, by accident of birth. The fact remains that illegal Mexicans and every other illegal foreigner who is living off OUR money is stealing the food, education, jobs, and housing from people who ARE citizens and who DID learn to speak English. So, wake up and smell the roses, Erica, because the tax-paying citizens of this country are NOT going to put up with FREE-LOADERS any more. We will be having OUR revolution long before your illegals get organized enough to try their revolution. OUR ancestors HAD to become legal, and yours damn well better too!! Stealing is a sin!! And you are probably SUPPOSED to be Catholic, whether you practice it or not! The illegals are STEALING what belong to our citizens! Other Presidents have sent illegal back where they came from, and that just now became my goal~to have Congress and the President get rid of these leeches who refuse to learn English and become citizens. You are NOT any better than our ancestors! THEY did it LEGALLY!! They did not cheat and steal from the citizens and use forged documents!!
*signed her name*
(100% legal American citizen!)
The way she worded the bit about her copying and pasting the email exactly and sending it to all the people that received the first one made me think she took the long route to basically hitting ‘reply all’ so in my reply to her I said it was the same thing. I later learned that I had misunderstood her. One of the people that was forwarded this email by my friend then went on to forward it themselves only this person didn’t remove the list of names and email addresses from the top of the email thus passing my name and email on to be snatched up by a bitter beaner hater. The beaner hater passed on a rant to my friend and all the people to whom she sent the email along with all the people to whom the beaner hater’s friend sent it.
In response to her stating she didn’t care how offended I am I said, “Fair enough”. It let me know that I could take the kid gloves off. She meant what she wrote and was standing behind it all. It also made me think that she sent her rant to people she didn’t know possibly because she saw my email address in which I state my ethnicity in what is regarded as a derogatory manner by some.
To her assertion that I should be, “ASHAMED of the way the Mexicans and have invaded our country” I told her that her ancestors had no more right to the area they occupied anyone seeking a new country to call home now. I also wrote that an illegal foreigner buying food is no more stealing than her buying food, sending kids to public school, or working a job that files papers to the IRS. Just because they don’t speak English doesn’t mean they are illegal. There are plenty of foreigners from other countries that stick within their own group and don’t learn English. And if they’re competing for the same job as her or her boyfriend then it’s probably work ‘under the table’ and she isn’t paying her fair share. Otherwise, papers are being filed and taxes are being paid.
About her revolution comment, I wrote, “I’m shaking in my boots”. About ancestors becoming legal, I wrote that the US has added and changed laws since the influx of European immigrants back in the 1800′s.
I gave her the category which my philosophy falls under, but that I didn’t see the relevance between that and stealing, which is against the law. All religions aside stealing would probably still be against the law.
A lack of citizenship is not always a refusal to become a citizen. The rules have changed. Besides many have work permits or green cards. Those would be the ones that might actually compete for the same jobs, but if they have that they’re considered legal.
Her exclaiming that I’m not any better than ‘our’ ancestors made me think I might be arguing with someone off their meds, but I continued, “Please show me where I stated that I was better than anyone.” In reply to her exclaiming that her ancestors came in legally I said, “They came over on a boat hoping to be let in.”
Though she may have been speaking about her ancestors specifically in saying that they didn’t cheat, steal or use forged documents I opened it up to all immigrants and replied, “Bullshit. Forged documents are not unique to Mexican immigrants nor is it a new concept.”
Beaner Hater then sent me another forwarded email with this to say:
This is an e-mail I received AFTER your recent ignorant response! It should help you realize how universal the disgust is for the freeloaders on our society. This comes from my cousin in California, a state that has also been overtaken by the leeches. So, please feel free to be offended again! Your “feeling offended” simply shows your ignorance of the disgust over our being invaded by people who can’t bother to correct the ills in their own countries, so they bring them all into ours!
*signed her name*
FIFTY YEARS OF MATH:
2009 (in the USA )
Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $ 2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters , but she hailed the manager for help. While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.
Why do I tell you this? Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:
1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit ?2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?3. Teaching Math In 1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as 20 the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it’s ok. )6. Teaching Math In 2009
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuanto dinero ha hecho?
I wish I had responded to her ignorance in thinking that Mexican’s are the only ones that immigrated instead of bothering to correct the ills in their own countries, but I didn’t. Instead I wrote, “I’m ignorant? I should think that the email you forwarded speaks more to the decline in the US educational system over the last forty years than to immigration. If you knew more than one language, you’d realize that at least in the Spanish version, it returns to math.”
She became very agitated presumably about my assertion that illegal documents are not unique to Mexicans and wrote, “You are obviously too ignorant to waste my time on. My ancestors did it LEGALLY!! Yours are too cheap and ignorant!! LEGAL is the word!!”
She also wrote a paragraph about my choice of life philosophy calling anyone with my same inclination a loser and then telling me again, how ignorant I am. Then she signed off with, “You are too ignorant for me to correspond with any further. I will pray for you though I think you are beyond help!”
I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it though. I emailed her with:
I know you say I’m not worth your time but you still hit reply (or copy and paste then send). Your specific ancestors may have come over legally but others didn’t. And yet we still have Irish, German, Polish and other ethnic groups of people all over the US. Your focus is on Mexicans because they’re the latest influx of foreigners, and our closest neighbor. You see many Mexicans around you and seem to assume that because they’re speaking Spanish that they’re illegal. Did it never occur to you that they’re speaking the language most comfortable to them? If I moved to Spain, Germany, or other non-English speaking country, I would probably speak English to my family and to English-speaking friends, and even to people in public who knew English well enough that we could communicate more effectively in the language with which I’m more comfortable.
I also responded to some of her religious comments but I’m leaving most of it out because I still don’t find them relevant to the original topic. I will say that I ended my email with bait by telling her, “Your belief that I’m beyond help demonstrates a lack of faith” and “frankly, your whole tone isn’t very Christian”. It was a cheap shot but I knew it would keep my new debate playmate in the game.
She sent two replies. The first was mostly her chomping on the bait. She told me how powerful her god is and that he created everything from nothing. She had mentioned this previously and I had replied snarkily that I had co-created a baby. So she now asked how I made the egg and sperm and then ended with, “And yes, my boyfriend works side by side with illegals doing very legal cement-finishing jobs. The illegals are coming out of the woodwork down here! I know the whole game. Like I said, my sister is married to an illegal, and he’s still sneaking around under her name for over 10 years already. So, she is equally ignorant to be an enabler!”
I wrote, “I’m tempted to write a very condescending paragraph about how sperm and eggs are made and how they meet to make a baby, but I’ll refrain.” and I responded to the last bit with:
If your boyfriend is working with illegals I’m assuming that you mean they have the same employer, which leads me to wonder why either of you aren’t turning the company in to the authorities? Isn’t allowing the company to hire illegals enabling? If these illegals have false documents then they aren’t freeloaders because taxes are being taken out of their paychecks though I’m not sure how you would be privy to knowing that their documents aren’t legitimate. Otherwise they must have work permits or green cards either through work or family sponsorship that allow them to legally work in the US and are therefore paying into the system legally just like your boyfriend. That instance is not a case of an ‘illegal’ taking jobs away from citizens. That is an immigrant seeking a better life for his or her family just as your ancestors did.
If your sister is married to someone that crossed legally or illegally he can still get a work permit or green card if she sponsors him, which makes him LEGAL! It doesn’t matter if he takes her name, the other way around, or neither change names. I’m guessing if he’s been married to her for ten years that he has already gone through the green card process, and is therefore NOT ILLEGAL.
In her second response to the previous email she again chomped on the bait but because it mingles with the actual topic somewhat and it’ll explain my last response her, which I’m leaving whole, I will include parts of her tirade. The *snip* is me leaving parts out. I didn’t do any editing aside from removing parts.
My God, the Supreme Being, gave EACH PERSON a conscience and a free will. I have no control over your conscience and free will~~only YOU do! *snip* I have very deep Faith in God *snip* YOUR choices are NOT MY FAULT, much as you would like it to be. Very typical of a cop-out, loser type!
As far as my tone being Christian or not, you wouldn’t know *snip* My God made 10 commandments, and cheating and stealing things that legally belong to the people who EARNED them because they paid taxes, is called a sin, as you know because you were raised Catholic! Christ ALWAYS punished people who were breaking His laws!! My thinking is VERY Christian, even though you have the type of thinking that leeches who live off other people always have!
You are simply too ignorant and have chosen to be a loser! You don’t even think beyond your God-given nose! My prayers are for all losers like you to begin to use the brain God gave them!
I wrote that I don’t blame or credit her with any of my choices. I don’t know her, so I’m sure she didn’t influence any of them. I also don’t blame or credit a supreme being for my choices. I also wrote that I would know a Christian tone because I can look up the Christian teachings and see that they’re supposed to follow a loving god, and they are to treat others as they wish to be treated leaving their god to pass judgment. Then I threw ‘free will’ back in her face and attempted to show that supreme beings don’t have a place in an argument about illegal foreigners. I wrote, “No god drew a line at the US and Mexican border. That was done by people acting on their own free will. Any laws broken by people crossing the arbitrary line created by the two governments answer to the respective governments.”
She only replied to my email about her boyfriend being an enabler. Her first paragraph read:
Sorry, but you could never write ANY article about how a sperm is created and meets and egg, condescending or otherwise, because you would need to start with a creature or substance made by God. You could not make any sperm or egg from zero, NOTHING! No person, no test tube, no sand no dirt, no seed, etc. , ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! You could not create the sperm OR the egg or ANYTHING out of NOTHING!
After another paragraph which includes her stating, “God does not need any “Bible” to prove anything! He simply IS!! Like the air you breathe, IF HE LETS YOU!!” She finally wrote:
Obviously there are many more illegals in this country than you know about. Cement-finishing is an independent job, like housecleaning or babysitting, and not one that has an “employer” or “company” to report. You might want a sidewalk poured, so you call the number on the ad in the paper. Most illegals work in jobs like this, simply BECAUSE there is no “company” to report! They know that the government isn’t going to monkey with such small potatoes! They WANT the companies, but most of the companies DO hire only people with green cards, so the illegals are harder to track down in a bunch. The difference with the undocumented aliens, from ANY country, but especially Mexico, is that the majority have NO INTENTION of EVER learning English or becoming citizens! THIS is where they differ from MY ancestors! That was their primary goal when they got here! They wanted to be citizens and worked hard to get their LEGAL papers. The Mexicans don’t! They are a different breed and don’t WANT to fit in!
My final reply in full:
You’re right; I couldn’t write an answer that you would find condescending because for some reason your answers require a supernatural deity that is benevolent, omnipotent, yet jealous, vengeful and randomly doles out free will. Any scientific explanation I give, which if I began with the dawn of time would include the big bang theory and the theory of evolution, you would probably either refute as misinformation dreamt up silly scholars that don’t spend enough time worshiping your egotistical deity or creations of said deity. I can’t argue with blind faith. It’s yours, you keep it. But I can’t stop questioning because without that I stop learning. How exactly is it possible for something to have always been? How much space does a deity take up? How much does a deity weigh? How is there only one deity? Were the Greek and/or Romans correct in believing in multiple deities containing strengths, weaknesses and human emotions? If the Greek and/or Roman deities are dismissed as fakes why not the Christian one as well?
Based on some of your responses about your “illegal” brother in-law and your nieces and nephews who are only citizens “by accident of birth” you seem to think there are a whole lot more illegal immigrants than in reality. By your word usages, my father is an “enabler” for marrying my mother, my mother is an illegal even though for 30 plus years she was merely a green card carrier, and I’m only a citizen “by accident of birth”. This would mean all of the first generation Americans of your own ancestors were also merely citizens “by accident of birth”. Is my daughter, second generation American, considered legal enough for you? At what generation level is the stain of having Mexican heritage removed for you? By the way, my mother, her sister, and their three nephews that came from Mexico all speak English. All of the Mexican families I grew up around were able to speak English.
I don’t deny the existence of many illegal immigrants in the US. And I’m quite sure the Border States have more illegal immigrants than where I am. I know that for contract work many individual homeowners will round up a group at Home Depot (or other such home improvement store) and pay by the day for a particular project. Yes, those are hard to catch. But unlike the assertion in your original rant, those people aren’t paid as much especially if they don’t speak English and aren’t licensed and bonded as I’m sure your tax-paying boyfriend is. They’re paid what the homeowner (or whom ever) is willing to pay. That’s why people pick illegal immigrants up for projects; they’re willing to work for less. The homeowner in this case is the employer and can still be turned in for hiring an illegal worker. If you know that the workers your boyfriend is surrounded by are illegal, you’re still an enabler by not turning them in. I’m guessing that local law enforcement would be more helpful than going through the federal government. It doesn’t matter how “small potatoes” it is, if you report it they have to make an effort to investigate.
Those illegal workers aren’t getting free health care as also asserted in your original rant. They do get free emergency care because doctors don’t wait for paperwork in order save the life of a fellow human. I agree that illegal immigrants should be processed for a legal work visa or face deportation but I wouldn’t want to live in a country so cold as to let a fellow human die simply because of the manner in which he or she crossed a country border.
The “free-loaders”, as you like to refer to illegal immigrants that work beside your boyfriend, I found actually pay more in taxes than they cost in social services. From the peer reviewed Tax Lawyer journal from the American Bar Association (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=881584):
Undocumented immigrants, like all U.S. citizens and residents, are required to pay taxes. Despite the historic and strong American opposition to taxation without representation, undocumented immigrants (except in rare and unusual cases) have not enjoyed the right to vote on any local, state or federal tax or other matter for almost eighty years. Nevertheless, each year undocumented immigrants add billions of dollars in sales, excise, property, income and payroll taxes, including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes, to federal, state and local coffers. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants go out of their way to file annual federal and state income tax returns.
Yet undocumented immigrants are barred from almost all government benefits, including food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, federal housing programs, Supplemental Security Income, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and the earned income tax credit (EITC). Generally, the only benefits federally required for undocumented immigrants are emergency medical care, subject to financial and category eligibility, and elementary and secondary public education. Many undocumented immigrants will not even access these few critical government services because of their ever-present fear of government officials and deportation.
They aren’t thieves.
It’s been a month and she hasn’t emailed back. What do you think? Did I win the debate? 