Pawprints From Space

Another Saturday night after a long week that included a seminar today on the Fair Labor Standards Act, which actually went better than expected. In my silly world another Saturday night means not doing much of anything. In tonight's case it meant (gasp!) cleaning the aquarium, catching up on show TV shows that I had taped during the week and eating various junk food. Ah yes, the single life is full of such riotous joy! Trust me, after "une certain age" it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Although even at an early-twenty-something I'm not sure it was all it was cracked up to be. But that is another tale, for another time. I do have one rant to rave on about. I have been seeing many an aspersion cast at the song Kumbaya of late. Now I went to Girl Scout camp as a child. I loved it. Being out in the woods, the campfires, the s'mores and YES! DAMN IT! singing Kumbaya - complete with assorted hand gestures around said campfire. It was great. It is a fond memor...

As you know, one of my favorite commentators/editorialists is Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald. Once again, he has a good point. For the full text of his thoughts check out: http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/story/914575.html Today he is talking about how we really don't talk about race. Not in any meaningful way. We dance around it, we don't listen to each other (not really at any rate)... we simply don't "get it" when folks of one race are trying to talk to folks of another race... neither side gets it by the way. Pitts doesn't shy away from pointing out that there is fault on all sides. He doesn't have to do that. After all, he is African-American, he could jump on the Sharpton bandwagon and see racism everywhere and blame the non-African-Americans alone for this silliness but he doesn't. So it got me thinking. When was the last time I had a meaningful conversation about race with a person of another race? Sad to say it...

I have a nasty sinus something. My doctor is treating it as an infection since it has been hanging around since December. I finally got fed up on Friday last and went to see about it. The problem at present is that the first antibiotic he prescribed was too strong and made me quite ill. So today he gave me something else which is so far working well. The problem? I have a bottle of pills that I have only taken one from. I attempted to return it to the pharmacy for disposal, since according to the state's information "most" pharmacies will do that. Apparently not Walgreens. In Ohio we also have a drug repository program for unused meds, but no collection site in this county. This program was signed into state law in 2006. Three years later and it isn't state-wide. Shouldn't the county health departments be collection points? So I ask how to responsibly dispose of these meds since I don't want more antibiotics to end up in the landfill and eventually the ground ...

Enough about the stimulus already... I've been wondering about something else and wondering why I'm not hearing anything about it... could it be folks are AFRAID of being un-PC?? No! Gasp! Never! Oh please, in a frickin' heartbeat they run screaming away from a topic that mg ht brand them as having played "the race card". I'm not playing it, I'm just wondering... Michael Steele seems like a really decently successful Republican. He has just the right amount of conservatism to fit into that crowd without being too over the top (nice change). He gave from all accounts a decent speech at the 2004 Republican Convention as counter point to Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention that same year. And yet, the media went ga-ga over the man who is now Prez. Hmmm... Now, of course there are African American Republicans. Some successful ones I am sure but for some reason you just don't hear that much about them which makes a person wonder.... is the Repub...

I've been watching the assorted brouhaha over the stimulus package with some amusement and no small amount of desire to slap somebody. The latest urge to slap a member of Congress came when I started hearing that there was a proposal in the Senate to reduce the proposed funding to the states because that money wouldn't create new jobs. On the surface this seems perfectly logical and "penny-wise". Until you look deeper and realize that by not sending that money to the states those same states will then have to lay off people currently in jobs thus adding to the unemployment numbers and putting a greater strain on the support programs. So by being "penny-wise" in this case, Congress is being "pound-foolish" and actually making the overall problem worse at the state level. And ladies and gentlemen a good many of the states have higher unemployment rates than the general national number. Heck, the county I live in has a higher number than our state lev...