Can We Just Report News Please?

While sitting in the Doctor's office this morning (poor husband is under the weather), my attempts at reading my next assignment for school repeatedly were interrupted by the morning news.  I don't often pay attention to morning news shows, to be honest when I am up early, I usually occupy myself with school work and read my news in print (well online at least) from a few different sources.  So, I found myself distracted by how ODD the news was...

1. It seemed to be a loop of the same stuff and here were the topics....

1. Obama and Romney camps are being nice to each other before the debates.

2. A woman grew her own ear replacement on her arm.

3. Diapers might be in shortage soon.

4. Milk might go up because congress wont pass a farm bill.

and

5. Lindsey Lohan got in a fight with some guy in her hotel room....


Is this really the scope of news today???

Because this doesn't seem like news.... Here are some news headlines...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/30/us-death-toll-afghanistan-2000

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/world/unga-final-day/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/world/meast/syria-hama-neighborhood/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Rage Against the Machine...

This issue with the closing of the Georgia Archives is a really big deal to me and so while I may appear to be beating a dead horse, I really want to stress how horrible this is, how the Governor straight up lied and said they would remain open when they wont... and how people will lose their jobs, the area will lose commerce, and Georgians will lose access to our public records!!!


UGA's Newspaper Article on the Situation

Saving our archives is a big deal, lets not be the ONLY state in the United States without open access to our records!!!!

Ups and Downs and Sleepy

How Lizzie looks (adorable really) in this photo is how I feel today.  As I adjust to the ups and downs of pregnancy, I realize that there is only so much I can do in a day and as of late, I feel just a bit overdone.  Work has been extremely hard and the fatigue I feel by the time I get home kind of reached a tipping point last night when I was up at 3 AM just sore, anxious, and exhausted.  So, a few things are going to change... I am going to attempt to take it easy and relieve some of this stress and we shall see.  With School, family, and baby...there isn't much time in the day to do other things, but I need to relax some because I am so wound at times I just feel overdone.
So....
Ive been playing a video game on and off in break periods to help..

This is my World of Warcraft Panda, she is cute...and fun to play, so something to rest my brain when it begins to turn to mush...
Also we've been getting ready for the baby...

Baby bed, mattress and mattress pad is purchased and on the way, cannot wait to paint (or watch Adam paint) and get everything situated... excited!
The baby shower is coming up and I have an awesome hat in mind (wooo)

That is about it, not much substance I know...not my menagerie of political opinions or anything else...
The book I read on early Virginia and slavery was interesting and now I am reading my British Empire tome for an assignment due on Saturday....But im not stressing over it.

Day in the Life

So with Grad School, work, and baby on the way, my time is pretty strict.  I usually get up around 7 AM on off days (or days I work in the afternoon) and attempt to tackle as much work as possible before bed or work.  Sometimes its productive and sometimes I find myself having to stop every few moments to attend to the whining rhythm of This...

This is Lizzie, the 1 1/2 year old giant baby of a boxer who is my constant companion.  Most of the day, she either sits on the side of the sofa facing me while I work or she is harrassing our schnauzer with bites on the ear or sneak attacks to entertain herself...

She is a good dog, but at times her need for attention outweighs my need to finish work lol...and thus I am forced to stop what I am doing and play a bit or talk to her or hug her or do something to make sure she understands that I do have a few minutes (if not she runs into the back and finds something of mine and quickly brings it to my attention by holding it in front of me with her mouth).

But today, she has been pretty good...though the pic with the shoe is awesome and I stopped for like 10 minutes and played.

The Reality of the Founders

Over the past few weeks, I've read a few books on the Founders for one of my classes that did not demonize them or make them out to be these icon level inhuman creatures who magically created our government... the books instead demonstrated the humanity of these men, the normality of their lives in extreme circumstances... their wisdom and their failings and instead of making them untouchable...made them understandable.  Were many of them highly intelligent and skilled leaders during an unprecidented time?  Yes, but they were also petty and angry and backstabbing....just like any other politician.  I liked the books, and if you would like to gain a better understanding of the time when our country came together... I suggest reading them both.

Affairs of Honor  and Revolutionary Characters  

Check them both out, Great reads, not boring and pretty interesting.  I dare you not to laugh out loud when you read about the fight with the hickory stick and the fire tongs on the Senate Floor.

Why are the Facts so Scary for People?

I noticed this for the first time some days back on Facebook.  One of my facebook friends posted a meme that discussed the fact that Republicans voted against the Veterans Jobs Bill in the senate (a bill that a few of them helped write by the way) and how that worsened the fact that Veterans were already having a hard time finding employment after their time in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

Forbes Magazine cites: "In May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the national unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%, but the unemployment rate for young veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan spiked to 12.7% — more than 4 percentage points higher than the national average." 

In response, another poster basically denied the source's validity, so my friend posted another...and another... to no avail, it did not matter how many sources cited... the person just refused to accept fact or even showed any willingness to have a normal conversation involving the issue, which was a group of men blocked a bill because they didn't like where it came from in further efforts to stall any progress out of partisan promises to do so over the past two years.

I sighed... I moved on, it is not like this behavior is new... I have friends, family... people I talk to every day who do this and yes, on both sides I understand...but lately seemingly overwhelming vehement denial of facts from the Right has made the behavior somewhat of a joke, an expectation.

Now, I know Bill Maher is not everyone's favorite pundit.  His bellicose reaction to anyone who believes in any sort of religion is somewhat off putting, even to me... but Since last year on his HBO show Real Time, he has a segment called Dispatches from the Bubble where Maher basically points out the rise in Republicans denial of the truth.  At first it was funny, now its just annoying.... Last night while watching the show, a Conservative Talk Show Host Roger Hedgecock continually refuted basic fact after fact saying things that I was like....really...I  mean really...did he say that???  

In the end it just bothers me, I've had conversations with people, giving them legitimate statistics that are not refuted...and they just run over them, ignoring them and go back to the same old same old...crap that insists on denying anything that is true if it gets in the way of what they want to believe....

Then they say its not because they hate Obama, but because he hasnt done anything.... I won't even go into that.... we don't need to talk about giving health care to millions, ending wars, stopping Bin Laden, saving the Auto Industry.... he's done nothing...yea ok.
In the back of my mind... I see the scary signs that litter our trip to Florida every few months calling him a Socialist Marxist Communist Muslim and cringing at the fact that my husband says there is a new trend of hanging empty chairs from trees by a noose littering the yards of acidic and hateful conservatives....   I see people in Kansas STILL trying to assert that Obama is not an American citizen and someone on my facebook writing a post about  how she is scared that a Muslim is president.....

Truth is what we make it I suppose...and facts don't matter...its upsetting and its frustrating.

What Happens When We Lose Sight of Education?

Let me preface this rant...and I am afraid it will indeed be a rant... with an explanation of this picture. Last week, the Governor of Georgia Nathan Deal (R), and his secretary of state Kemp, announced that the Georgia State Archives would be closing and thus archive employees would be laid off due to budget cuts in upwards of 700,000 dollars.  This announcement caused a wave of protests from all over the state, country, and world where on the day of this photo op, a petition with 10,000 signatures was presented to the Governor asking him to keep the archives open...  What is even more disgusting is the fact that on this day, he pronounced that September would be called Georgia Archives Month (I am not kidding).  

Now, after all of the protests, news reports, and constant persistence of thousands of Georgians to write and call their local representatives, Nathan Deal backed off of the archives closure and promised that the Georgia Archives would remain open, though maintaining the firing of 7 archives employees at the end of October 2012, right in time for them to be unemployed during the Holidays.  In addition, it is important to mention that Georgia has some of the most rigid Unemployment rules in the country, and that they have voted to cut unemployment benefits...so not only is the State releasing these people into one of the most difficult economic climates in years, but in a state where they are not exactly supportive of those struggling to find work.

To ADD to the damage... the Atlanta Journal Constitution today announced this...
4.5 Million dollars to build a resort with state money....

To me...this sort of thing, when the State is cutting funds from education left and right kind of gets under my skin...

How hard is it to understand that if you do not properly fund education then you run a high risk of damaging the state's ability to compete in a global job market in the future?  How hard is it to understand that the lack of knowledge and opportunity is not a good thing?  How hard is it to understand that when times get tough, you can't pull all of your cuts out of an area that maybe you don't value because you are not educated enough to understand the importance....

I am frustrated and becoming more and more angry at the fact that once a lot of these guys make enough money to be comfortable, get everything they can out of the government, they immediately cut things for the rest of the population, don't care, and when people start to suffer...they call them lazy and victims and wipe their hands of them because they believe they don't want to be helped.


With Education, a lot of these people would have the opportunity to better themselves, cutting their chances may line a politician's pocket, but in the end it destroys the state.

Please Help Me With a Good Cause

The Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal has decided to save money in the state budget, to close the Georgia Archives to the public.  This is a horrible blow to researchers of all kinds and to people who wish to study their family's past.  These public records serve education, business, and personal interests and they provide vital information to a variety of people.  If the archives are closed, Georgia will be the only state in the US to not have an open to the public state archives.

https://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-ga-leave-our-state-archives-open-to-the-public

This is the web address to the online petition asking the Governor to reconsider!!!  Please sign it and share it if you can!


Thanks

Homework

Normal day for me as of late includes getting up before 8 and doing homework.  I had a dr. appointment today, so my book on religious toleration during and after the Reformation has been neglected slightly...so I need to catch up, maybe I should have woken up at 7 and read some before my appointment... oh well, at least I'm awake before noon.

What's Going On?

My lack of posts has nothing to do with a disinterest in talking about my opinions, whats going on, or a general area of things which I usually spill about on this site... but more on the sheer volume of things going on in my life.


So.. I will update you.


1. I am finishing up my first semester of Graduate School at Sam Houston State University as a History major longing to be an official historian.  The workload is a bit more than I imagined on a Summer Scale, meaning that free time is sparse at best and usually I spend my days laboring over books about the Reformation and Greece in hopes to make good grades and impress my professors.  I am enjoying the class but between the reading load, assignments, and real life...including working... my brain becomes mush rather quickly and thus I do not have as much free time and my writing and my photography have both drastically suffered.


2. Adam and I are having a baby, so on top of the school load, I am pregnant, moody, and cannot eat hardly anything I usually like....leading to Stress and excitement at the same time.




I will try to do better, I have a lot of opinions right now... alot of things knocking about in my head...


1.  I am one of the many who have chosen not to spend my money at chick-fil-a.  Now, let me preface this with the fact that I stopped eating at Chick-fil-a a while back due to the fact that I found out the company donates money to organizations that work towards the discrimination of gays and lesbians.  I cannot abide by that sort of behavior.  I totally understand the company's stance on their idea of what they think marriage is, but I do not believe any company with responsibility towards humanity in a moral sense would donate to organizations who support groups like One Million Moms (which is a hate group in my opinion and spread their hate actively).  So, personally I chose not to give money to a place where I fear my money will go towards something so reprehensible as the conscious act of trying to make people feel unequal or wrong...especially teens.  (Gay teens have the highest suicide rate of any other group)  I will tolerate someone else's beliefs and I will not look down at them for having them...and thus if you eat at Chick-fil-a, I really don't care...but I choose not to eat there because I object to where the money goes.


2.  When a large percentage of the country still believes that Obama is a Muslim, I worry about the level of intelligence in the country and what we need to do to better educate people on how to tell truth from rumor.