It's later. Here's more.

There's been a lot of discussion in the last several months about the place of religion in public life - i.e., politicians. When Leiberman was nominated for VP, there was talk that religious liberals were more 'acceptable' than religious conservatives. The media didn't seem to address the man's views too much, or wonder about how he'd approach certain social problems because of his personal belief system. Contrast that with the way the Repubs routinely get harassed because of their religious beliefs. Why the difference? Is it simply because Leiberman is Jewish (and therefore assumed to be liberal) and the Repubs overwhelmingly conservative Christians? I wonder...

Ashcroft's personal beliefs, statements he's made in the past, positions he's taken publicly in the past - those bother me. It's not his religion I object to - it's how he uses it to create policy. Just because he thinks it's morally wrong for a woman to have an abortion under any circumstances doesn't mean he should make all of America adhere to that strict rule. A person in power needs to have a broader sense of what is fair and what will work for everyone.

Hm. Maybe we should make it illegal for people in public positions to discuss their religious beliefs? Oh, gosh. Can you imagine the chaos? The pols wouldn't know what rhetoric to use when stumping for votes. Nevermind.
posted by SPowers at 6:31 PM | Remember It!

It's interesting... I could swear I'm the only politically liberal person on the boards, yet Karen writes she feels the conservatives are in the minority! I think that's funny - and an interesting realization. Often we find ourselves in situations where we think we stand alone on issues that are truly important to us... yet if we would just share our ideas, we'd find we have a lot in common with those people around us. And we'd find that people who disagree with us on social-poltical issues aren't all ogres as we might imagine. I see the vast number of posts that seem to support a truly conservative outlook on life... and miss the ones or the posters who don't. And there are (obviously) people who can do the exact opposite. Is this one of those 'forest for the trees' thing? Hm. Probably.

As for religion in schools. It don't belong in the public school system. Sure - teach religion in a classroom setting, but teach ALL religions: Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Hindi. What bugs me is the prevalent belief that teaching religion in schools automatically means teaching about Jesus. It shouldn't. There are more people in this world who do not believe in him than do. That fact should be addressed. As for prayer. Hell, I prayed before every math test. Sometimes it worked. Most times it didn't. But if there had been a prayer circle in my school? Yuck!

Have any of you ever been to a religious service where you were not one of the faithful? It can be intimidating. Everyone in the room seems to know when to stand, when to kneel, when to pray and what prayer to say, what song to sing, when to remain quiet and when it's all over... but you. Hey - for three years I was a member of the church folk group (because I liked to sing) at St. Bartholomew's in Miramar. As a teenager, I found it incredibly difficult some times to be the only one in the place who did not receive Communion, who did not say the prayers, who did not kneel or genuflect or whatever. Had this been the norm in my high school to have daily or morning prayers; had there been a prayer broadcast over the loudspeaker before a football game; had there been any of these overtly religious phenomena in my life, I don't think I would have remained as Deistic as I have, and I think I would have suffered for it.

Yes. I said suffer. I am not part of a religious family. I was not raised to believe in any particular doctrine. I am still a moral person with a strong and healthy interest in my community and the public good and all that kind of stuff. I am not a murderer, I don't do drugs, I don't beat my husband and I don't lie, steal, rob or cheat, either. What's more - I still have an overwhelmingly positive view of humankind, this planet, the universe and my place in it. It bothers me immensely when it's assumed that I, as a non-religious person, would make a horrible parent (anyone ever listen carefully to the lyrics of 'The Little Girl'?), believe it or not.

More later.
posted by SPowers at 4:24 PM | Remember It!

What's up with Afghan men? They stand by blithely while the Taliban stones women for being 'immodest' enough to drive a car or appear outside their homes w/o a male escort or for having the bad luck to be raped (and thus possess carnal knowledge without benefit of clergy) yet once the Taliban outlaws the Leo DiCaprio hairstyle, that's when they take a stand? Because their hair is threatened? Their sisters, mothers, daughters are being stoned to death, murdered, shunned for the crime of being born female, and they couldn't care less. The Taliban decides to take an interest in their hairstyle and that's the outside of enough.

On a happier note, I hope all of you will be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. So will I. But not the game. I don't care about the game. I adore the commercials to pieces. That's what I'll be doing - hunting down cool commercials. I've been reading the Wall Street Journal lately. They've had several articles this week about the Super Bowl ads. You know, how much, what to expect, what to watch out for, etc. This one seems key. The must-see commercial of the year...

...The Running of the Squirrels...

It's an ad for EDS. You know them! They did the catherder commercial last year. (Cowboys on horses trying to wrangle housecats, talking about the scratches from the feistier ones, going to brand them (giggle!) and all that.) Now they're doing the 'running of the squirrels' as a spoof of the 'running of the bulls' in Spain. (giggle!) You know that I, a devoted squirrel-fancier, will be watching and I trust DQ, resident squirrel-channeller, will be too. I almost can't wait!
posted by SPowers at 12:55 PM | Remember It!

Such excitement this morning! I'm here at work... all set to have a nice, leisurely day and hopefully go home early (this weekend is both the Super Bowl and the Gasparilla Invasion) and what happens? I sweeten my tea and before I can open up my 'plain bagel with butter' the fire alarm goes off. I peek outside the office into the hall... other office workers are peeking also, but not leaving. Then there's an announcement telling people to evacuate the building, don't use the elevators, etc. I'm on the ninth floor! So I get my things and go down nine flights of stairs. On the way, I strike up a conversation with a very nice lady who works in the office across the hall from me. They are not the office-people who scream & curse at each other, that's the office at the end of the hall between us (my office is the last one on the south side of the hallway, the lady is from the last office on the north side and there's a huge office at the very, eastern-most end of the hall where lots of times we hear people screaming obscenities at each other and smoking) (well, we smell the smoke and there's a LOT of it). Get downstairs and discover that all of the 'fire doors' have been shut, etc. Keep talking to the other lady. I discover that this other office, which has a passkey/ security system w/camera outside the door, does insurance investigations! So we chatted a long time about insurance fraud and detective work and cases she'd been involved with. She doesn't actually go out and do on-site investigations, she's the one who compiles info and forwards tapes & evidence to the insurance company itself. It was an enjoyable hour.

Yes. An HOUR.

Then the 'all clear' sounded and the firefighters had to get the elevators working again.. which took another 20-30 minutes. I think they were stuck on 'fire' status, because no matter what they did for awhile, the doors weren't closing. Then they got one to work and so up we went. I would have taken the stairs but... I'm on the ninth floor and that just seemed excessive. Particularly because today I'm wearing my fave faux-leather sorta boot-like shoes with the 1½ inch heels.

So here I am. Apparently, my boss called the office and got transferred up to our main Chicago office, neither of which I called to say what was happening or where I was going. Oh, well.

One last thing... if you're going to call an office and refuse to give a verbal message to the extremely dependable secretary and instead demand to be put through to a voice mail system that takes 2 minutes to connect up, then do me a favor and DON'T HANG UP THE PHONE JUST WHEN I GET THE DAMNED SYSTEM TO WORK YOU FUCKING MORON!!

See, the voice mail system is housed in Chicago, not here, so I have to call Chicago, get the right voice mail box, conference the two lines and then remove myself from the conference and hope that doesn't disconnect everyone. Which has happened. A lot. I'd much rather take an actual message. You know, most people don't leave incredibly private messages on people's voice mails anyway. It's usually "hey, this is so&so, here's my number, I have some ideas on that email you sent me, call me & we'll discuss it" like that's some big mystery or privileged info or something. I've got news for you people. Not only am I trustworthy (or else why would the people you're calling permit me to handle their incoming calls?) but I have a college degree. I can take a fucking phone message!

Okay. I think I'm feeling better now. It doesn't help that I didn't get to sleep on time last night. What does help is that I had an out-of-state friend call for a nice long chat. Thanks, friend!!
posted by SPowers at 10:37 AM | Remember It!

Almost forgot to bitch about this. I finally get the Super Bowl tickets (last row), call Sweet Husband who calls his mother who calls her brother who calls back to say he's waiting on a call back about the chartered jet who then calls back to say the chartered jet fell through - apparently the MetLife building restoration he's overseeing garnered him an invite on the MetLife corporate jet - so I got the call at 10:10 pm to say 'thanks but no thanks.'

You know... I am so NOT into sports. Only one in my entire family (all sides) who isn't. Ain't it ironic that I'm the one who had the sports connection? See, my boss Erin's down-the-street neighbor's father works for the NFL and the tickets were through him. nyaah!

heh heh heh heh heh heh...
posted by SPowers at 10:18 AM | Remember It!

Yes, Deb. I know our politics don't match. S'okay. Neither do mine & DQ's. (She's the Libertarian Lady, dontcha know.) In fact, I'm full aware that my politics are much more liberal than the vast majority of Trixie-philes and you know what? That's okay. I don't mind people who disagree with me. I mind it when I'm forced to live my life as if I don't disagree. It makes all the difference.

Someday, I'll have to share the incredibly true tale of intimidation and threat of physical violence at the Key West Boat Race.
posted by SPowers at 10:12 AM | Remember It!

Let's see.. last night's chat was fun. I enjoyed the sex chat and look forward to discovering exactly how DQ's going to put this newfound knowledge into her story(ies). Should be interesting!

But what the hell's wrong with some people? If you're in a chat room, you should chat! Jump in - answer a question. Don't just sit there and laugh. That's so rude. 99.9% of the chat people were having a blast and one person decided we were all idiots. Oh wait... maybe he is a virgin and therefore didn't have anything to add? That could be it and it's something I'd believe.

I know. Bitch bitch bitch.

Other than that... DAMNED SCREEN FLASH!! I'd just be to the point where I was going to log out & log back in when the screen would flash and I'd see that the size of the room doubled and everyone was onto a fourth topic removed from what I had a comment about. GRRRR!!! That happened 5 or 6 times easily. But I can get used to it. Chat doesn't kick me offline anymore (I love you RoadRunner!) but it can still hang up every now & then (damn you, Red Queen!) so I guess I can deal with it.

Oh - and will someone let me know when the Resistance starts? I volunteer to hold meetings at my house...
posted by SPowers at 12:53 PM | Remember It!

Ugh. I read the news today. Oh, boy. Bush plans to restrict a woman's right to choose. And those this news is rather sad... I just have to la-augh. I've seen his photogra-aph...

Yup. This news upsets me. Once abortion is outlawed again (which it was NOT when the Declaration was written) we'll be back to where we were 40 years ago. Rich (black & white) women get to fly to Europe and get a safe, medically approved, chemically induced abortion. Poor (black and white) women get to take their chances with rusty knives and 'accidental' trips down staircases. This is the world Bush wants. No birth control. No abortion under any circumstances (Attorney-General Achcroft's preference) even, including and especially rape or incest. Women reduced to breeding machines just as soon as some man decides that's what he wants.

I'm sure there's a great many people (women included) out there who see nothing wrong with that, who think that's the way "god" wants it. There's a reason I don't follow any organized religion. A 'god' that cruel doesn't deserve my adoration.
posted by SPowers at 4:13 PM | Remember It!

Deb asked a good question: what's the cost of living where you live? I don't order burgers when I go to Bennigan's, so I don't know what the price is on the menu (sorry!) but let's see if I can pull together some other stats...

A 4-bedroom, 3½ bath house (with living, dining, family rooms, 2-car garage, no pool) would cost about $150,000 here in Tampa. In Weston (near Ft. Lauderdale), such a house would cost $225,000 - even w/o the pool! Groceries for 2 people runs me about $40-50 every week (or so). A movie costs $7.50 at night, $5 'twilight matinee'. Gas is running about $1.40/gallon for regular unleaded. Electric bills can be as cheap as $45 in the cooler months to $95 in summer (or more - it can go higher!) The cost of living in Tampa is much cheaper than in south Florida - or even Orlando. Florida gets a lot of its tax dollars from tourism (hotels, restaurants, theme park attractions, etc.) so other things aren't as expensive. Plus, a lot of (really) older homes don't have A/C or heat, so there's money saved there. Clothes aren't as expensive because we don't have to buy a 'winter wardrobe'. Basically, people wear shorts & t-shirts a lot when they go out (and most work places are 'casual dress'). Cars get better gas mileage because the roads are straight & flat, they don't get any winter-type damage (snow & ice or the salt from the roads), and just rinsing off your car is enough to clear away any salt water (if you happen to get any splashed on you, like when crossing a low bridge during a wind storm) or love bugs that you've smashed.

That's all I can think of right now. I'll be interested to see what all y'all put down for similar costs. It's a good way for your girls to start to realize that not everything in the world is just like it is at home - which is a good lesson to learn at any age! Who knows? Maybe our decision to remain here in Tampa will be reinforced. *grin*
posted by SPowers at 10:55 AM | Remember It!