First there was this story about a bunch of grownups bent on ruining Thanksgiving for a bunch of kindergarteners. 

For decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on Tuesday, when the youngsters meet for their turkey and songs, they won’t be wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.

Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child’s depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?

Now, thankfulness is what the holiday is all about. The act of thanksgiving was a hopeful start for the English settlers and the Native Americans - a start which unfortunately didn’t continue for long.
(As an aside, the book “Mayflower” by Nathaniel Philbrick is the best history of those times that I’ve ever read. )

Today at the grocery store, I was wished not Happy Thanksgiving, but something like Have a nice Holiday.  Then at Starbucks (a PC meter if ever there was one) I noticed various references to Holidays and even “giving thanks.” But no Thanksgiving or any traditional icons of this holiday, such as turkeys, pilgrims, etc.  I am used to the banning of “Merry Christmas” and have come to accept the insipid “Happy Holidays”, but is Thanksgiving poliitcally incorrect now too?  And if so, why?  Because it was at the beginning of stealing the continent from the Native Americans?  Because the Puritans were Christians?  Theocrats?  Because Thanksgiving implies there is Someone to thank?  I’m just asking.  I like to stay abreast of these things.

Ever since the day it came out, I’ve been wanting a Wii.  Two birthdays and two Christmases have come and gone, with another birthday in a few days and another Christmas looming on the horizon.  And still no Wii.  I’ve been dropping hints to my husband every few months, to no avail.  Oh, I know I could just go out and buy one on my own (assuming I can find one for sale), but I know that unless he agrees to the purchase he’ll never play it.

And I want him to. I really do. Because I want to prove that I can beat him at bowling.

Not that I’d tell him that, mind you. No, I’m working the angle of, “Gee, honey, there are lots of great games for the Wii.  Ones that you would really enjoy — like bowling.”  Which, because he knows me well, he translates to: “Gee, honey, c’mon. I really want to beat you at bowling.”

Which, come to think of it, might explain why we still don’t have a Wii…

I confess I am one of those people who like the illusion that the meat I buy at the Golden Steer Meat Market comes automatically neatly packaged, but I know it is an illusion and I do not express faux outrage at the idea that it doesn’t.  Tim Blair has a good roundup of (and laugh at) the hysterical shrieking coming from the Left over Sarah Palin’s visit to a turkey slaughterhouse.

Seriously, how do they think turkey arrives on their Thanksgiving dinner plates?  Aborting healthy babies is no trouble to them but killing a turkey is like Wow!

You can own a piece of history, folks. 

Now you can own a piece of history! Celebrate the victorious election of our 44th President of the United States, America’s first African American Commander, with the commemorative plate from the American Historic Society™.  The Historic Victory Plate™ is a priceless work of art featuring the triumphant President-Elect surrounded by the American flag and spectacular fireworks celebration.  This first collectors issue plate celebrates with the inscription “Change Has Come” scripted in 22K Gold text.

Given how often we see Mr. Obama on TV, I feel that the ”As seen on TV” in the upper right hand corner is totally appropriate.

Of course, there is a positive side to this. Using a plate like this would likely work wonders for my weight problem. It will certainly make me think twice before cleaning my plate, knowing what lay beneath my spagetti.

And as a bonus, you will get a US Mint Commemorative George Washington Dollar Coin, which is really cool because, although he has already been likened to FDR, JFK, RFK, MLK and Lincoln without actually having done anything even remotely comparable to what they achieved, nobody has compared Obama to George Washington yet.

I have very little respect for Congress (and with an approval rating of around 11%, neither does the rest of the country).  Political cronyism, power brokering, greed, and ineptitude are the primary distinctions for most of the congresscritters.  (As an aside, Obama is no different.  Forget about his associations with the bottom feeders that are Wright and Ayers… Obama is simply an old-time Chicago politician, and if you don’t get that, you need to be wearing a bib and eating apple sauce. )

And then there are the CRIMINAL congresscritters.  See here for a list of indicted congresscritters.

The latest example of congressional arrogance?  Neil Cavuto interviewed Joe Knollenberg (R-MI).  Mr. Knollenberg, of course, was pushing for a bailout of the auto industry.  Mr. Cavuto pointed out that we can’t continue to use tax dollars to bail out various industries because there’s no end in sight.  Mr. Knollenberg’s response:

Cavuto:  “Where do we draw the line with our money?”

Knollenberg:  “It is not your money.”

Here’s the video.

 A rather perfect example of the arrogance of politicians.  Makes you wonder what we’ve learned in 2,000 years.

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”   — Cicero, 55 BC

Evidently nothing.

CNN reports on a survey done by Physicians Foundation that found nearly half of the nation’s primary care physicians would “seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years.”  They are overworked, overwhelmed and underpaid, and responsible for so much paperwork that more time is spent filling out forms than spent with patients. There are far more specialists than primary care doctors, and the shortage is getting worse.

In a survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in September, only 2 percent of current medical students plan to take up primary care. That’s because these students are wary of the same complaints that are causing existing doctors to flee primary care: hectic clinics, burdensome paperwork and systems that do a poor job of managing patients with chronic illness.

Hey, here’s a thought.  Maybe people become doctors to help people and because they love medicine not to become paper pushers.

I don’t think half of all primary care doctors are about to quit (the response rate for the survey was less than 10%).  But it is indicative of a serious problem.  Primary care in the U.S. is in crisis. And as our population gets older, and requires more primary care services, it’s going to get worse.

When was the last time you went to a doctor and didn’t have to wait for an available appointment, didn’t have to sit and wait at the doctor’s office, and didn’t have the feeling that your visit was too short and too rushed?

My last doctor visit consisted of the usual weight, b.p. and temperature check by a nurse, and then about 4 minutes of face to face time with my doctor.  (I’m not blaming him — he’s been my doctor for better than 12 years now, and he cares about his patients.  Though it took a bit of getting used to seeing a doctor that was several years my junior!)

My father is 88 and has a medical file probably 3 feet thick.  His doctor will no longer be taking Medicare patients after the first of the year.  Which leaves my parents trying to find another doctor reasonably close by who does.

My question to those who are contemplating a nationalized health care system — will national health care make the paperwork and red tape burden better or worse for doctors?  Bonus question — name me an instance when adding a layer of government control has ever resulted in less paperwork.

It’s still illegal to flash someone in Seattle parks, but it’s fine to just run around nude.

Nudists relax.

Seattle Parks and Recreation will drop its pursuit of a proposal that would make public nudity in parks subject to prosecution for criminal trespass.

And, in a nod to tolerance, Seattle’s parks commissioners asked parks officials to explore the possibility of a clothing-optional beach in the city.”

I’m so confused.  A strip club has to be 800 feet from a public park, so why can people strip down and ride bicycles naked in a public park?  And I’d show you pictures, but the newspaper doesn’t post any…apparently the pictures would be offensive, but seeing ‘wobbly bits’ in real life isn’t.  Wonder how that works?

Look, I never thought there would come a time when public nudity would be up for debate. There have been nudist colonies and beaches in existence for years, though not, apparently in Seattle.  (Given our weather in any month other than July and August, that’s no surprise.)

Now ‘naturalists’ (which is probably a code word for ‘pasty-white and flabby’) have decided that the majority of society must succumb to the unique desires of a few.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think that the human body is a beautiful and amazing creation. I do however, find the spectacle of multitudes of flaccid genitalia and other body parts belonging to total strangers being forced upon me offensive.

Even as beautiful as the human body may be, it should remain private and shared with another person or persons only by mutual consent.

You can’t compare a bike ride in a public setting to a nudist colony or clothing optional beach.  Nudist colonies and clothing optional venues are based on the mutual consent of its inhabitants to share in public nudity.

The bottom line is, the majority of society has not mutually consented to public nudity.   So get over yourselves and your adolescent urge to ’make a statement’ and ride nekkid where the rest of us aren’t obliged to see you.

My wife has been working for Healing the Culture for about 4 years. During that time, she has gone through a lot of changes - I left WAMU and been unemployed since, we started our own web design business, her son, (my stepson), got married had one child and is preparing to have another. Her father is 86, and is failing in health at an alarming rate. Yet with all of that, she decided, and was sorta pushed into handling a major national conference for Healing the Culture. With all that is going on, she managed to get 175+ people into the conference, got them fed for three days, got all of the mail out, (almost 10,000 pieces), had several major speakers show up, and numerous other things.

She obviously stressed over it. She was worried about what would go wrong - nothing major did. She did very well, and again, found out she had that inner strength that was needed - and during those 3 days of the conference which ends tonight at 9:00 pm, she never complained and never lost her temper - and trust me, I’ve been married to her for 13 years - she has one.

So yes, I am very proud of her - I knew she could do it and she did. So, yeah, she proved to me again, without trying to, and without having to, that I made the right decision on that day I asked her to marry me.

And I would do it again. Love you young’n - You did Good!!

While it is disheartening to see so many people in this country either outrightly supporting socialism or being easily fooled by slick talk, this beating was both predictable and deserved by the Republicans. Just like after the ‘06 beating, many Republicans and especially Republican politicians are trying to figure out what happened and determine a “new” direction for the Republican Party.

There is nothing “new” that need be discovered or attempted. When the Republicans in Congress and the White House failed to even try to fix the real impending financial crisis of Medicare and Social Security, failed to secure our borders during a time where we are fighting a war where the enemy’s only real offensive threat to this country is to infiltrate it along our porous borders, failed miserably to stop a bloated, corrupt government from continuing to subsidize anything and everything they can (Farm Bill anyone?), miserably failed to shrink the size and scope of the federal government (it actually grew at a record pace), failed to stop the collapse of the credit market by ending the pressure on banks to lend money to people who could not pay it back, failed to implement any sort of educational reform that was actually useful (vouchers, school choice), or any other numerous failures of the Republicans - they sealed their own fate.

The Republicans will continue to lose and lose badly as long as they continue to screw conservatives and libertarians by trying to be moderates.

Barack Obama is possibly four days away from getting elected president, and he decides to get pissy when he can’t take his daughter trick-or-treating without photographers following him? Does he think it’s routine for the most powerful man in the world to go door to door asking for candy, and that such activity won’t attract a little publicity? What office does he think he’s running for? He and Sarah Palin should talk.