I'll Be Praying For You...

I got this email from a good friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, entitled, "Confusion". It basically slams the door on all of the idiotic things Republicans have been saying about Obama from the get-go. For example, "If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig, and Track, your a Maverick". My personal favorite comparison is this one, "If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a REAL Christian. But, if you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian."There are quite a few other good ones, but I won't go into anymore detail about that. 

This Blog is about what happened when I forwarded the email to some folks this morning. The majority of the people to receive the email are close friends who share the same political beliefs as I do. BUT... I also included a couple of family members (my husband included) who lean way too far to the right for my liking. Among them are my sister and my step-sister who have sent me ridiculous emails for the past few months about how Obama is going to cause the Apocalypse, how he's going to swear on the Koran if elected, etc... Now grant it... they are from the south, the deep south I might add, where the "N" word is still used to describe those of a different color, and to which I believe ignorance abounds, so I shouldn't be too surprised to the response my step-sister had to my email. It went something like this: 

Stupid Step-Sister - "Are you for Barak Obama? I hear many in your state are. I'm curious."

Me - "Yes, I'm a big supporter of his."

Stupid Step-Sister - "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I'll be praying for you."

Praying for me??? WTF... do I have cancer??? Am I going to die soon??? I couldn't believe her response. Who does she think she is? 

Well to her I say, "Really, don't waste your piddley little prayers on the fact that I can't fathom 4 more years of corruption, lies, and a never ending war." It's really quite simple to me. All you have to do is ask yourself one question, "How much better off today are we, than 8 years ago?" Well let's see: 

1. Osama Bin Ladin has yet to be captured. In fact, as we all know the Taliban has quickly been rebuilding their terrorist forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while we look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Yes, remember, that's why we started this whole thing initially. And how many WMDs did find? Oh yeah, I know, Sadam Hussein was a an evil dictator, and caused lots of harm to many people in his country, but a close friend of ours who just returned from his tour in Iraq, said basically the only type of government that can sustain in that country for about the next 100 years, is one with a dictator, much like Sadam. He was the only type of person who could maintain some sort of order between the 4 major tribes who exist there. 

2. Our economy...We all know how that is doing. Well, at least those of us who have the guts to take an honest look, and speak honestly about where things truly are. And if the past week is any indicator of things to come, it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time sooner. 

3. Healthcare... funny, my mom is always complaining about the cost of her prescriptions, and how difficult it is to get good care at the doctor's office anymore... HELLO... so when did this begin... Oh about 5-6 years ago... Ummmm coincidence??? I don't think so!!!

4. Education... That's a whole other Blog topic... I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is... Since No Child Left Behind came into play, I've had less resources and more demands placed on me as an educator, and are the children any more smarter, or getting any better jobs??? NO... they are little robots, spitting out useless knowledge to pass some test, designed to make sure a certain percentage of them fail.

5. The Environment - Now this is something to pray for... As an educator I have seen more and more students with severe Asthma and allergies enter my classroom than ever before. I don't believe it is a coincidence either. The air we breather, the food we eat, some thing has got to change. 

These are just a few of the things I was thinking about when I made my decision for which candidate I was going to support. I didn't know, nor do I care that it has caused my family to put me on the prayer list at church...

Why I Don't Have Children...

I didn't go to college 1500 miles away, but the day after I graduated from college I moved 1500 miles away from my family. Growing up in the south, this is unheard of. You just don't stray too far. When I left, my mom told everyone I'd be back in 6 months. I've been gone for 15 years. 

Today, I was on the phone with my mom talking about my half-sister. She's 17 years older than me, and a few months ago, she decided she was going to leave her husband of 30 years. I was a bit shocked by this, but the more I've been thinking about it, the more it makes sense. We've always thought my brother-in-law was nuts for staying with her. She's incredibly mean and self-centered. Everything bad that has happened in her life has always been someone else's fault. She's extremely competitive over material things. Recently, she inherited $250, 000 from her grandparents (unfortunately, not my grandparents), and decided she didn't want her husband to get any of the money, so she left him. 

This may sound pretty crazy, but in my family, this makes perfect sense. I believe there is some whacked out gene floating in the females in my family. My grandmother was one of the craziest people I knew. She was always doing things that shocked the crap out of us. My grandma passed the crazy gene on to my mom... When I was getting married (the first go around), my mom told me a story about how she ran off to NC with some guy one weekend and got married because she saw her boyfriend out with another girl one Friday night. (The girl ended up being the boyfriend's cousin who was in town for a visit, and now my mom is married to that old HS boyfriend, but that's for a different blog)... When she returned to Atlanta on Sunday, they got the marriage annulled. My mom has definitely passed that crazy gene on to me and my two sisters, and my two sisters have passed the gene on to their daughters, who unfortunately have daughters as well, who will probably end up with the craziness themselves. 

So thankfully I have stopped the craziness from my end, by not having any children, and hopefully my great-nieces won't perpetuate it either. There are too many people who get hurt by the crazy things we do.