Some of what I have been reading

These are depressing times. I am not sure why. Certainly worldwide disasters play a role in the upsets, but it's not just that. It's not just the politics either although that's enough to depress anyone. Some of it is one awful thing after another which one hears about happening to friends and acquaintances. What is going on?

Summer is approaching and it should be a time of happiness as the flowers bloom everywhere-- that is unless a tornado hits down near you or that promised earthquake shakes as they all have other places in the world to remind us it could happen anywhere.

I should be burying myself in a book and forgetting the real world, but I haven't been. I have been reading the papers online and thinking what in the heck is going on!

Peggy Noonan said well what I am thinking about Hillary Clinton. I am sick of Clinton's whining over misogyny as I am of having to constantly spell check that word. She is not losing (if she ever admits she is) because she is a woman. It's her character and her husband's. Here are two good pieces on this-- by women:

Sex and the Sissy by Peggy Noonan.
Camile Paglia on She won't go easy.

It's not just her that won't go easy. It's her supporters who are angry at all of us who dared not support her and now claim they would vote for John McCain, who will carry on George Bush's legacies of disaster (and who knows what he'll add), rather than vote for Barack Obama. It's a woman for some of them or nothing. Talk about sexist.

I listened to one of them go on about how much Hillary has been pilloried and of course she cited the incident of the young man saying iron my shirt. Ignore the fact that the man might have been a plant; that's the worst thing that could be said to someone as a threat? Give me a break.

Then there is McCain now claiming that Obama has no right to speak about military matters at all because he didn't join the military. And yet McCain has supported Cheney and Bush. Cheney avoided military service during a war. Cheney has led us into a war that McCain supports. How come that was okay? Or is it only Republicans who have a right to comment on military benefits and not have served in the active military? If McCain's new flip-flop is that nobody, who didn't serve in the military, has a right to say anything about the military, it'll be interesting to see who he picks for a veep.

I am trying to relax a little and not read so much of this stuff because I am not sure what good it really does but there is more out there. I am sure everybody reads about the natural disasters hitting the world, about Ted Kennedy's deadly cancer battle, but little pieces often miss our attention.

How about this for something to consider while we are thinking about for whom to vote, where to donate money. It was on the Daily Kos awhile back: Leading America into the Wilderness.

Or this for how we might be changing our world and not for the better: Modern Technology and our brains, something to think about if you have young children more than maybe for those of us already grown up and supposedly brain developed... I said supposedly. I have never been into computer games but realize there are all kinds and some can be positive for developing the ability to use logic; some are just about destruction. The key thing could be what age is the person using them.

Then there is the Texas polygamy group and their children. Does the government have the right to interfere with a parent's custodial rights if the parent is training (brainwashing) their children to be expected and then used for sex? Is a child being in physical danger the only reason a parent should lose custody?

This is riling up the religious right who often believe in home schooling and limiting their children's access to world information. It also though makes any parent uneasy who sees wrong in what that group was doing but does not want government dictating the values they must teach their own children. What'd you think about this whole story as it unfolded?

It turns out that when Bush was criticizing Obama (he says Carter) about appeasement, he was also actually hitting on Israel for negotiating right now with Syria to try and arrange a peaceful future. While Bush sits in a secured environment, he wants to dictate how those, living in a less safe world, can work out their own problems-- Talking with the Enemy. For me, Bush is such a scary person to have so much power. I hope that never happens again but I am not hopeful.

So what can we do about it? Be informed so we won't be fooled, but while we are doing that, plant our own gardens, go for a walk, speak out, read a good book, watch some positive movies, love, live in the moment. That's what I intend to do.