Suspended Teacher Speaks at Public Hearing on her Students Get-well Letters to Convicted Cop Killer

Marilyn Zuniga, a third-grade teacher, has been suspended with pay for sending Mumia Abul-Jamal get well letters written by her students.  The board is deciding on what, if any, further action will be taken.  

 

During the meeting that was being held, Ms. Zuniga made a public statement.  In this statement she said:

“Growing up in a predominantly white suburb, attending a majority white school district, my teachers and peers marginalized me as a first generation immigrant, Peruvian-American. The cultural gap between my educators and me caused me to feel disconnected from my school work and learning altogether. It wasn’t until my experience in the classroom my senior year of high school that I realized I could be the teacher I never had.”

 Ok, fair enough.  I hope that every teacher in the country has a passion to help all students learn and to think for themselves.  That is what a teacher should be doing.  The problem is that she is going beyond that mission.  She is putting her viewpoints into the classroom and to the heads of very innocent 8-year-olds.  

Now the problem with the supporters of Mumia is that they never answer the question about why he has never told who the murderer of Officer Faulkner is.  There is no dispute that he was there and witnesses it.  There is no dispute that he had a gun.  There is no dispute that his brother assaulted Officer Faulkner.  There is no dispute that the police arrived on the scene within minutes of the shooting.  There is no dispute that Mumia was shot by the police officer.  He was a very short distance away with a gun shot wound and a weapon when the police arrived.  

Most people want to say he was arrested due to his political beliefs.  The problem is that he was arrested within minutes of the police arriving on the scene.  They didn’t have time to find out about his political beliefs and writings.  Writing that includes talk about “killing pigs”.  For those that may be unclear what that means, it is police officers.  

Anyone that has read my writing over the years knows that I am against the death penalty.  I have no problem with him be taken off death row.  But I certainly don’t think he is some innocent lamb that is being led to slaughter.  

She is entitled to her beliefs, but she isn’t entitled to bring those beliefs into the classroom.  No teacher is.  What really kills me is the people who were at this meeting supporting her.  

“It is teaching children at a tender age one of the most valuable lessons that they need to absorb in order to mature into adults who sympathize with the plight of their fellow human beings,”

It goes on:

“The lesson that was taught through this project is that in order for society to be peaceful and just, we must care about or reach out to those members of society who are most vulnerable, including children, the frail, elderly, the sick and disabled, the poor and, yes, even prisoners.”

What about the family of the dead officer?  Don’t they deserve someone to reach out to them as well?  What about the compassion for the young woman who had to go the hospital in very early hours of the morning to see her husband with a gunshot wound to his face?  A wound that was done at very close range and literally blew most of his head off.  Where is the compassion for a woman who didn’t have her happily ever after simply because her husband was doing his job?  A car was driving down the wrong way on a one-way street so he pulled it over.  He didn’t pull that car over because the driver was black.  He pulled it over because is was posing a safety hazard and violated the law.  She has lived her life without the man she loved enough to marry and pledge the rest of her life to.  

“We are here tonight because Marylin Zuniga is our hero,” Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress, said to the board members. “We ask that you restore her to her job and let her continue to teach the compassion that our children need to learn.”

Sorry to tell you Mr. Hamm, that isn’t her job.  Teaching compassion is the job of the parent.  Her job is to teach children how to think for themselves, not what to think.  Did she go over the evidence of the case?  Did she tell these students that this man has had two trials and numerous hearings and the best the defense can come up with is that it was a racist police force that sent an innocent man to jail because he was black and a political activist?  If not, that isn’t compassion, that is indoctrination.  There are two sides to this story.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I think this way beyond what a third-grader should be taught in a classroom.  But the point is still the same.  

Yes Ms. Zuniga should lose her job.  She wasn’t doing her job.  She was making political points in a classroom.  That is a job of an activist, not an educator.  She should lose her job the same way the teacher who went an anti-Obama rant should lose hers.  You are not there to push your point of view.  You are there to help them develop their own point of view.  

If you have any doubts that she is an activist her tweet that caused this uproar says it all:

Just dropped off these letters to comrade Johanna Fernandez. My 3rd graders wrote to Mumia to lift up his spirits as he is ill. #freemumia

Comrade?  Oh yeah, she doesn’t have an agenda.   

The part I think I like best about this whole thing is this:

“In April, I mentioned to my students that Mumia was very ill and they told me they would like to write ‘get well’ letters to Mumia,”

That’s right, lets throw the eight-year-olds under the bus.  

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President Obama is Disappointed in the World Says Biographer

A biographer has told the world that he feels that President Obama is disappointed in the world.  Really?  Well my most obvious response is that many in the world are very disappointed in him as well.  But there is more to this.  He is disappointed in the world because he views with rose-colored glasses on how the world should be instead of what it actually is.

He truly believes that if we just make the minimum wage a little higher people will get lifted out poverty.  Although we have raised the minimum wage throughout the years and we still have poverty.  So the latest is a “living wage”.  Which is just another myth that will never work on a national level.

If the government just gets involved we can make the world more “fair”.  He doesn’t seem to understand that life isn’t fair, nor will it ever be.

If the rich just give more of their money, the poor will get more.  Again, this is just another myth.  President Obama is a perfect example of that.  He has made less money in 2013 than he did in 2014, I didn’t get more because he has less.  Nor has anyone else.

He never seems to understand that many of the people who are stuck in cycles of poverty are so because they make bad choices.  Now, I have this crappy part-time job.  Many of the people I work with are on some type of public assistance.  Yet they have smart phones.  I don’t have a smart phone.  I can’t spend over a hundred month on the bill.  I don’t live in the projects because I spend my money differently than they do.  I make different choices.  I am not trying to disparage the poor, but studies have shown over and over again that they very successful people makes choices in their lives that allow them to become that way, while the poor make very different choices that also allow them to stay in their circumstances.  It may not be the way it should work, but it how it works.  This is reality.  You want to change the cycle of poverty, teach them how to make better choices.  Giving them enough money to survive does nothing except allow that cycle to continue.

Obama thinks if the U.S. is just nicer the problem of radical Islam will magically disappear.  No it won’t Mr. President.  These are people who are true believers in the ideology.  Most of them are willing, no eager, to die for what they believe in.  They look at becoming a martyr as the very best thing that Allah has to offer.  Until that is marginalized within the Islamic community it won’t change.  You cannot “Co-exist” with someone who wants you dead.  This is reality.

President Obama doesn’t seem to think that real evil exists in the world.  Putin may not be evil, but he certainly does believe that Mother Russia should rise again.  He and buddies on the left scoffed at Gov. Romney when this came up at the debate.  The running joke was the 80’s wants their foreign policy back.  It was Romney who saw the reality and those on the left that see the world as they think it should be instead of how it is.

Yes the world disappoints President Obama.  Maybe, just maybe, if he stopped seeing those rosy hues, he can begin to understand that life isn’t fair.  Evil does exist and those evils have to be confronted with strong leadership, not the moving red lines that those in Syria are laughing about all the while killing their own people completely unabated.

Quote of the Day – Andrew Sullivan Edition

When people’s lives and careers are subject to litmus tests, and fired if they do not publicly renounce what may well be their sincere conviction, we have crossed a line. This is McCarthyism applied by civil actors. This is the definition of intolerance. If a socially conservative private entity fired someone because they discovered he had donated against Prop 8, how would you feel? It’s staggering to me that a minority long persecuted for holding unpopular views can now turn around and persecute others for the exact same reason. If we cannot live and work alongside people with whom we deeply disagree, we are finished as a liberal society

On the forced resignation of the CEO of Mozilla.

 

This is a response to the emails he has received for daring to question why the forced resignation was a good thing.  RTR here, the “tolerance” of the left is on full display.

 

Liberal Meme Fail of the Day – Paul Ryan Edition

This is floating around social media.  I guess they have problems with reading comprehension.  They are correct that a congressman named Ryan voted yea on the minimum wage hike in 2007.  The problem is that Ryan is Tim Ryan of Ohio, a democrat. Paul Ryan voted no.  Read the Roll Call on the vote here.

Asshats.

Yep, The Democrats are Proud of Fewer Jobs in Our Future Due to Obamacare

Truly sad.  This is something that the Daily Kos is circulating through social media.

Feminist Blogger Now In Fear – Men May Have Discovered That We Are On To Them

A “radical feminist” blogger wrote a post a while back on how all “Penis in Vagina” or PIV intercourse is rape.  Of course myself and others who read this dribble rebutted and or made fun of the post.  Well, that caused more traffic at her blog.  Most bloggers are happy to get additional traffic.  Isn’t the entire point of writing these posts is getting others to read them?  Not in her case.

When men view our blogs in such large numbers, it’s a threat. They’re not just looking at it, they view it with the intent of harming radical feminists and women in general. They do it to collect information so they know what next to do to prevent women from going there. They batter radfem work in public for all women to see and show the result of their verbal and written battering as an example of what will await women if they do, think or say the same. They write nasty and threatening comments, that in order to trash, I have to read at least a few words of. Even though it doesn’t hurt my feelings, they are still harmful and inevitably affect my thoughts.

How exactly does she know the gender of the those making the hits?  I need to update my analytics, I don’t these type of break-downs immediately.  Anyhoo, at least some are men.  Those men are hateful beasts that only want to destroy.

85,000, that’s the maximum number of views I had in one day a couple of weeks ago when the liberals and MRAs circulated my PIV blogpost for punishment. Unlike a normal blogger, attracting 85,000 hits isn’t something I want to celebrate. It’s threatening: you know they’re after you, it only means you’ve hit men’s radar and you have no idea what they plan to do. Will they attempt to hack into my blog? Will they try to find info about me? The kinds of thought this leads me to is 85,000 men going after me in real life. Probably a bit less if you discount the women. If that happened, how on earth could I hide from tens of thousands of men?

There is no denying there is a whole lot of crazy out there, but hey isn’t this type of talk adding to it?  I mean does she really believe that men are worried about her getting the word out that having intercourse is rape that they want to silence her?  We. Must. Not. Let. This. Out.  She must be stopped at all costs.  She is letting out their little secret.  They only want intercourse to subjugate us.  We are nothing without them and they must be allowed to continue to rule the world.  Oh my.

All this is gaslighting and bullying, men’s lies are meant to sound convincing. They convince with the use of force, ordering me to comply to their view by using an authoritarian, terrorising tone. ‘How dare you see otherwise. You’re crazy. You’re a bully. Etc.’ Which is why it works so well to instil self-doubt because it’s a mindfuck, it’s thought-blocking, it’s also an assault and it creates fear and willingness to appease to avoid further assaults. Brainwashing works through a mix of mind assaults, terror and constant repetition of a same message until it’s hammered into our brain, which is psychological violence. 85,000 views and hundreds of trolling comments is in effect a blitzkrieg brainwashing attack by men and male-colonised women. Hundreds of men and their pawns attempting to reprogram the minds of deviant female bloggers, women who don’t comply and who break through men’s myths and lies.

It’s interesting that Cathy Brennan’s response to the whole thing led a commenter, Tracy, to comment about what it meant on reformism: I hadn’t framed it in that way (see discussion here, here and here). I’ve been thinking about it for a while but haven’t had the time to comment on it properly so I’ll continue my thoughts in this post. Tracy defined CB’s post as reformist to the extent that CB doesn’t name the agent, that is why men isolating us from one another is so dangerous, why it’s so important to huddle together in this circumstance [because men are waiting in line to rape and kill us]. CB asks us to take safety measures against a threat -men- that she won’t name, and at the same time treats men as an audience to appease, as if they would take note and change their behaviour accordingly. Tracy named that gaslighting because it’s acting as if two opposites (truth vs. omission/lie; threat vs. safety) were the same. Of course it’s not CB’s fault because she herself is victim of it.

Men are waiting in line to rape and kill us?  Really?  I have never seen nor heard of such a line.  May I make a suggestion, if such a line exists outside of your home, move.  My neighborhood is quite safe.  No men actively trying to rape you on a daily basis around.

I get that most women that call themselves a “feminist” call this thinking silly.  The problem is that this is the logical conclusion to that thinking.  Men are bad.  Women are victims.  Women are treated so unfairly that the government must step in to  protect them.  If the entire belief system is based on that women are tough enough and smart enough to be like just like men why in the world would you need the government to step in?

Life will never be fair nor will women and men ever be totally equal.  There are differences between men and women that just are.  Most men are stronger.  Our upper body strength isn’t what there is.  Of course there are women who are stronger than men, but generally speaking that isn’t the case.  There was just a scientific study released that our brains are hardwired differently.  It shows up in the scans. We are built this way.  It is biological.

What really gets my goat about feminism is the fact that the majority of the work for women and “fairness” is done in the industrialized west.  If they spend the majority of their time talking about how in some cultures the physical abuse of women is not only commonplace, but perfectly acceptable it would be different.  In some countries, such as Afghanistan, women were beaten in public for having one strand of hair showing.  The same still happens in Iran.  Some women are not allowed to work.  To heck with the fact that their husband or main provider has been killed or is missing for any reason, she still is not allowed to get a job to support herself.  At least not without the threat of jail, physical abuse, up to and including the threat of death.  I don’t hear these topics being discussed much in the world of feminism.

Feminism also makes great assumptions about men that I take issue with.  Why do these women think that men don’t feel bad about working long hours and being away from their children?  Do they think that they don’t care that they miss the school plays?  Do they honestly believe that men don’t get wanky when the house needs work?  It is assumed that they don’t feel overwhelmed by a weekend of yard work, soccer games, shopping, and whatever else their particular chores end up being.  I am sorry but I find that very hard to believe.

I know plenty of men who feel just as overwhelmed as women do when it comes to using their time most efficiently to get everything they want done accomplished.  I also know men who are stay at home dads, so it is their job to clean, to cook, to do laundry, and whatever else needs to be done around the house all the while taking care of the kids.  It is simply a silly assertion that men don’t feel the same type of things that women do.  We all feel a certain amount of guilt in our lives.  We all question our choices from time to time.  I don’t think I have ever met a parent, male or female, that doesn’t wonder if they could have done certain things differently.  That don’t dwell, even temporarily, on the mistakes that we all make when raising children.  They don’t come with a handbook, it is trial by fire.  That is especially true with the first one.

 Just because we make different choices in many instances it doesn’t mean that men don’t have the same type of emotions that women do.  One of the main differences is that men tend to keep these things to themselves.  They don’t dwell on them in the same way that some women tend to do.   Many men look at this as part of life and complaining about it makes them “less manly”.   Men deal with them differently, that doesn’t mean that they don’t feel it.  That is what feminism today says.  That somehow men are emotionless and guilt free.  They live lives that they actively believe makes them superior to women.  A very silly and uncaring assertion.

 

Being Your Own Worst Enemy – Black “Community Organizers” Drive Out Trader Joe’s

In Portland, Oregon a small organization called Portland African-American Leadership Forum decided to rally against a proposal from Trader Joe’s to build a store in a building that has been empty for decades.  This construction would have been done by a minority owned company and would have provided more jobs once the store opened.

But no, we can’t have that can we?  The organization (whose leadership don’t actually live in the neighborhood that is in question) felt the construction project wasn’t doing enough to help the “oppressed”.  They want racially based jobs and small business loans as well as affordable housing.  Well, had you put up a new grocery store that gives people more options maybe you would get more foot traffic that creates more jobs.

What is really sad is that is this organization could care less for the people in this neighborhood, which largely wanted the store to open.  They wanted an empty lot to be filled with a new business.  The neighbors were hoping that would help keep the neighborhood safer and cleaner.

“All of my neighbors were excited to have Trader Joe’s come here and replace a lot that has always been empty,” said Nghi Tran. “It’s good quality for poor men.” Like many residents, Tran pins the blame on PAALF. “They don’t come to the neighborhood cleanups,” he said. “They don’t live here anymore.”

I fully understand arguments about gentrification.  It happens to many neighborhoods, especially in larger cities.  I have friend who lives in Brooklyn and it is happening in her neighborhood.  But the upside to it is that her neighborhood has gotten safer and it has prompted her to purchase their apartment instead of continuing to pay high rents that line someone else’s pocket.

This is why poor neighborhoods stay poor, this is why so many people say that the poor blacks are their own worst enemy.  Because they do bone-headed things like this.  Yes working at Trader Joe’s isn’t going to make one a millionaire, but it will pay your bills.  It will give you benefits.  It will give your resume a boost.  It could potentially lead to management positions.  The good far outweighs the bad in this case scenario.

Basically what this “community organization” ended up doing is costing the people who could have gotten that job more unemployment.  The construction company likely lost thousands of dollars in profit, it may even have to lay people off for lack of work.  The neighborhood won’t get a make over.  The people won’t have an additional shopping option.  Trader Joe’s can be quite economical on many items.  You can buy bananas for .19 each at the one near my house.  The cost didn’t change when I moved hundreds of miles away either.  So I would assume this is a national price for them.  I don’t know of another store that has better prices on nuts than Trader Joe’s.

You just have to shake your head at these people.  What did they accomplish in the end?  Nothing.  They go back to their own neighborhoods that likely don’t have buildings that have been empty for decades, having shopping options, and to heck with the people who actually have to live there.

The neighborhood is 25% black.  What about the other 75%?  They don’t count?  This is what happens when you look at everything based on color.  Every bad thing that happens to you is because you are “oppressed”.  The big scary man is out to get you.  The evil white man is keeping you down.

One can hope that people of this neighborhood see for themselves that far to many “black activists” are more worried about raising money for themselves, lining their own pockets and could care less about the people who actually live in these neighborhoods.   Trader Joe’s will be just fine.  They will just open their store in a neighborhood that wants them there.  The people who live near the abandoned lot, well they have been living with that for decades now.  What is another ten years?

Quote of the Day – Mark Lamont Hill

You can have a penis & still be a woman.

Yet, I am called anti-science.

Gender is not a state of mind.  It is biological.

Another Crazy Feminist on Twitter – Tampons are a form of Rape

Quote of the Day – Andrea Mitchell Edition

alienated our “ally” in Iran and paved the way for rocky relations even to this day.

MSNBC reporter/political pundit Andrea Mitchell on the most impactful State of the Union addresses when President Bush identified Iran as part of the axis of evil.

I could be wrong here, but I think there a whole bunch of hostages that would disagree with this statement.

To think that people actually listen to this crap, more horrifying is that she actually gets paid to say this crap.

The Proclamation Given Two Weeks After the Passage of the First Amendment – Still Want to Talk About the Separation of Church and State?

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

It seems pretty clear to me that he never envisioned the “wall” between church and state that liberals hold so dear today.  This was requested of him by the House of Representatives less than 24 hours after the ratification of the 1st amendment.

Congressman Jim Moran to Retire

May I just say this makes me very happy.  Congressman Jim Moron Moran is set to retire at the end of this term.  I really don’t like name calling, I feel we should beyond that in our society, but there are no redeeming qualities to the man, and I mean none.  

Of course the same should be said for the idiots that kept electing this scum of a human being.  His ex-wife called the police to report that she had been assaulted.  Yes, we have elected a wife beater to congress.  Which may very well not be the only time in history that it has happened, but the problem is that everyone knew about it and pulled the lever for him anyway.   I lived in or around this district for close to twenty years.  I personally know many, not just a few, but many, democrats that can’t stand the man.  They are perfectly aware of his history and voted for him anyway.  Why?  Because they would cut off a body part before they would vote for a republican.  Even in the last election a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, libertarian ran and he still ran away with it.  

Not only is he a wife beater, he is a racist, an anti-Semite, and he once thought a 8 year old (yes you read that correctly) was trying to steal his car and grabbed the poor child.  He was black, so I guess thinking him a car jacker was perfectly reasonable to this man.  (Yes that is sarcasm on my part).  

He also had to resign his post in the government of the City of Alexandria because of corruption.  Of course no charges were ever pressed and he went onto to inflict his damage to the rest of the country.  He is scum pure and simple.  

This from a Jezebel:

I am voting based on the positions and not whether they, for instance, get blow jobs in the Union Station’s men’s rooms. There is one exception to this rule for me, and that exception is my Congressman, Jim Moran.Jim Moran votes exactly the way I would want my Congressperson to vote — he’s pro-choice, he votes the right way on women’s issues, he’s decent on economic issues (from my perspective — he’s fairly conservative), he’s anti-war. But, today, for the 4th time, I cast my ballot for Jim Moran’s Republican opponent (who, for once, isn’t a rabid anti-abortion freak, thanks NoVa Republicans). Why? Because of his personal life. In June 1999, Mary Moran (née Craig) called Alexandria Police claiming that her husband had hit her. Her husband was, of course, Congressman and former mayor of Alexandria (1985-1990) Jim Moran. Notably, Moran ran for mayor after 2 years as Vice Mayor — a position he was forced to resign as part of a plea deal on bribery charges which, due to his many friends and relationships in the Democratic party, had no effect on his political aspirations or friendships. Mary Moran later refused to testify and divorce papers were filed the next morning instead. Three weeks later, he filed a cross-complaint in their divorce claiming that the marriage broke up over financial problems for which she was supposedly responsible. Yes, when his former wife filed divorce papers because he smacked her around one night, he turned around and blamed the dissolution of the marriage (and, by extension, the argument that precipitated the domestic abuse) on her. It’s not the first or the only time Jim Moran’s laid his hands on someone in anger. In 1995, he shoved Randy Cunningham in the House cloakroom (granted, Cunningham is an asshole, but still) and in 2000, he manhandled an 8-year-old African-American boy that was looking at his car. And let’s not talk about the time he got caught with a $25,000 interest-free loan from a pharmaceutical company lobbyist, or said “the Jews” were the reason we went into Iraq. He is, quite frankly, an embarrassment to the Democrat establishment, which nonetheless clutches him to their bosom because he’s their guy, a member of their party and, thus, not subject to the standards to which we, as Democrats, would certainly hold a Republican challenger. Jim Moran is a wife-smacking, bribe-taking, black child-shaking anti-Semite that has earned the protection of the local Democratic party as well as many prominent, national Democratic women like Donna Brazile and Patricia Ireland in exchange for voting the “right” way. He gets to be the antithesis of a feminist and to live his personal life in opposition to every supposed ideal of the Democratic party because he’d never vote for a ban on partial-birth abortion or a Constitutional amendment on same sex marriage. Well, great. This “my guy because he’s my party” bullshit that I decried yesterday when it came wrapped in the form of National Review Online editor Katherine Jean Lopez is equally abhorrent when practiced by people that I agree with politically and even admire. And if this year, with the Democrats poised to strengthen their majority in the House isn’t the year that the feminists — let alone the women — of the Democratic Party are going to be willing to dump this guy (and the other guys like him) or support a primary opponent, then when will it be the year? Why does he get a pass for wife beating — because of Roe v. Wade? Fuck that. Roe isn’t getting overturned by a House member, and I’m not voting for a guy that gets away with domestic violence just because he votes for laws to send other men to prison for it.

Sadly, she was in the minority and he was allowed to stay until his heart was contented and did damage to our country as a whole.  

Good Riddance Mr. Moran.  May you rot.   

The Myth of a “Living Wage”

This is the new war that the democrats are fighting to retain political power.  The others, such as the “War on Women”, will be trotted out as needed, but this is the one that they are concentrating on this election season.  The mid-terms are now just 10 months away.

The President and his ilk are talking about a raise in the minimum wage and income equality with vigor.  There is also a push for the workers at McDonald’s to get a rate of $15 per hour, so they can live on it.  Wonderful.  But what does a “living wage” really mean?  I relocated a year ago to just outside of New York City from just outside of Washington, DC.  While I was growing up in Fairfield County, CT it was then the most expensive county in the country to live in.   Now that county is the one I just left,  Fairfax County, VA.  Another words I have spent almost my entire life living in very high cost of living areas.  My cost of living is much higher than someone who lives in say rural Nebraska or Wyoming.

In Virginia, I could have gone say thirty miles south and my cost of living would have dropped, considerably in fact.  The rents in Fredericksburg, VA are substantially lower.  But I wouldn’t have made nearly the same amount of money.  The same holds true in Connecticut.  I could go live in the “valley” and the housing is much cheaper.  A smaller percentage of my income would go to housing.   But the better paying jobs are closer to New York City.  I could commute that distance I suppose, but then I would then be spending my money on transportation instead of housing.  I would also have fewer hours to live a life outside of work.

Making a national minimum wage that is a “livable wage” may sound good on the surface, but it won’t work.  You can’t compare the cost of living of very rural areas of the country to large cities.  They are just not the same.  Buzzfeed did a comparison between two twenty-somethings who made virtually the same salaries, but live in very different areas of the country.  The way they live is very different.

Twenty-two-year-old Madeleine Harrington of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, makes slightly less than Brooklyn’s average median income of $32,135, racking in $31,000 a year working two part-time jobs. Harrington also pays less in rent than Brooklyn’s average: Her home costs only $2,000 a month. Still out of her price range, the two-bedroom apartment has been converted into a three-bedroom, although the additional room is “questionable.” There are no walls, and you have to walk through it to reach the bathroom.

While this might be standard for a NYC lifestyle, it is an anomaly in other parts of the country: In Waco, Texas, for example, the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment is just $683. Mia Francis, 22, of Waco, makes well over her city’s average of $26,264, pulling in $33,000 a year, and is able to live in a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, equipped with a backyard, patio, washing machine, and a driveway for her car. The monthly rent is $900, and she splits it evenly with her fiancé.

Madeleine will have to make a really good bank to live in New York the way Mia lives in Waco.  Many people who live in New York aren’t really all that interested in owning a large single family home with a backyard, when it  doesn’t have a great deal to offer in terms of entertainment and cultural activities.  Many people who live in Waco  want no part of the all the noise and congestion that comes with living in a large city.  Different people have different needs and that dictates how they live.  I personally would never want to live on a farm or in the middle of nowhere.  I have friends who recently relocated to a small town in New Hampshire.  While I like going to visit them on occasion, the desolate nature of that town is not for me.  I am a ‘burbs girl.  I live living close to large city, but not actually living in one.  I want access to a 24 hour store, but one single CVS works just fine for me.

How can we possibly pass legislation on the federal level that addresses all of these issues?  The short answer is that we can’t.  The country is far too diverse to say that this is a “livable wage” for the entire country.  Small rural areas of the country couldn’t possibly support paying the wages it costs to live in a large city.

If this is to be done, which I am not advocating at all, it would have to be done on a state level.  Even then it wouldn’t work, because the costs from one part of the state to another can differ just as widely.  Another issue that is not being really being addressed is how do we define “livable wage”?

Does this wage mean that you can live with four roommates in a tiny cramped apartment or does it mean that you can afford a single family home?  Does everyone have to able to afford a car?  If so, a Hyundai or BMW?  What foods does this wage need to cover?  Does everyone have to eat rice and beans or do they get surf and turf?  I personally am a big fan of Salmon.  Should I be able to afford to buy it daily, weekly, or monthly?  Does my television have to have WiFi, as many of the brand new models now have?  A laptop, desktop, or I-Pad?  After all, we had disgraced, and currently jailed, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr, talking about how I-Pads are a right.  So that must fit into the equation of “livable” does it not?  We have had other progressive elected officials saying that homeownership is a constitutional right.  In my neck of the woods a single family home can, and normally does,  cost over a million dollars.

All of this opens up all kinds of questions about who gets to decide what “livable” means.  Does some politician I have never met, that lives off a tax payer salary, get to decide what foods I need to be able to afford to call my way of living “livable”?   What if I prefer to eat beans & rice and pasta every night instead of filet mignon and arugula.

This is the problem with politicians making broad statements about “inequality”.  They never define what it really means nor does anyone explain how we get there.  Yes, we can have the federal government force businesses to pay a higher wage all across the country.  But that doesn’t mean that people will live “better”.  Those increase costs in labor will show up in costs to the consumer.  That is simple economics.  President Obama doesn’t tell us how a much a bar of soap will cost in this utopia he is trying to create.  Yes, people will make more, but they also will be spending more on goods and services.  We also find that certain businesses will have fewer people doing more, as that is what they can afford to pay out in labor costs.  So we will find fewer available jobs and fewer hours.  That will not help people live better.

Many of the goals of progressives can be described as laudable.  That doesn’t mean that in the real world they will work.  While I am not making light of the people who live with limited means.  It is a difficult life to be sure.  The reality is that today in America, what we define as poverty is still rich in comparison to the poverty that we see around the world.  With few exceptions in America, we have electricity, we have indoor plumbing, we have potable water, and access to basic needs of life.  If we are truly looking to address poverty in the world, America really isn’t the place to be doing so.  We should be looking at the huts that people live in South Africa and India.  Most of Africa lives in poverty that very few in this country can understand.  We can even move much closer to home to Mexico and South American countries and see what real poverty is.  We hear that people in the richest country in the world shouldn’t be living in poverty.  When you go and look at the rest of the world, we aren’t.  A “livable wage” is a myth and won’t address the real issues of why people in this country live in “poverty”.  But government never really addresses the real issues, do they?

Any Inkling I May Become a Feminist is Now Gone

While it is true that wasn’t likely to happen in any event, this certainly cured me.  A friend of mine pointed out this blog post to me, and oh my.  I honestly don’t know what to say about this except there sure is a great deal of crazy out there.

PIV is always rape, Ok?

It took me a little while, but I finally figured out that PIV is Penis in Vagina.  Not allowed in the feminist world apparently.  Which I am very confused by.  I was always led to believe that a main tenet of feminism is that you get to “have sex like a man”.  Apparently we were wrong for thinking that.  Intercourse, bad.  Always.  Just bad.

First, well intercourse is NEVER sex for women. Only men experience rape as sexual and define it as such. Sex for men is the unilateral penetration of their penis into a woman (or anything else replacing and symbolising the female orifice) whether she thinks she wants it or not – which is the definition of rape: that he will to do it anyway and that he uses her and treats her as a receptacle, in all circumstances – it makes no difference to him experiencing it as sexual. That is, at the very least, men use women as useful objects and instruments for penetration, and women are dehumanised by this act. It is an act of violence.

I am surprised the word empowered doesn’t appear in this paragraph.  After all that is what feminism is supposed to be, right?  Empowering women.  So ladies if you like to have a little somethin’ somethin’ from time to time, you are anti-woman.  Hear that.  No more penetration for you.  Apparently if you want to have a baby:

 Penetration of the penis into the vagina is completely unnecessary for conception.

Well yes that is true.  One doesn’t have to have intercourse to become pregnant.  That can happen if a couple uses the “pull out” method of birth control or if a man doesn’t quite make it to the “promiseland” before finishing the deed.  You can absolutely get pregnant without intercourse.  But, speaking of pregnancy:

As FCM pointed out some time ago, intercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so, because it causes pregnancy in women. The purpose of men enforcing intercourse regularly (as in, more than once a month) onto women is because it’s the surest way to cause pregnancy and force childbearing against our will, and thereby gain control over our reproductive powers. There is no way to eliminate the pregnancy risk entirely off PIV and the mitigating and harm-reduction practices such as contraception and abortion are inherently harmful, too. Reproductive harms of PIV range from pregnancy to abortion, having to take invasive, or toxic contraception, giving birth, forced child bearing and rearing and all the complications that go with them which may lead up to severe physical and emotional damage, disability, destitution, illness, or death.

Oh my, when you put it like that I wouldn’t want to have a baby either.  Bad, horrible, little creatures aren’t they?   While I suppose that some women have complications during childbirth, most don’t.  It is a relatively natural process that keeps the human race going.  Maybe that is a bad thing too.  Who knows?

But I am impressed to hear a feminist say that abortion is inherently harmful to women.  After all you don’t hear that coming from that side of the aisle too often.  Normally it is their “right”.  I recently saw a photo of young boy, maybe six or seven holding a sign telling me to stay out of his mommy’s vagina.  Apparently the next nominee for Mother of the Year didn’t get the memo of how bad intercourse, birth control, and abortion are for women.  They must be a bad feminist, or at least very misguided.

I am not going to go into detail here, but I would venture to say that most women find consensual sex to be pleasurable.  But alas, we have been programmed to believe that is true.

There’s a reason men need to groom us into it, and why this grooming takes so long- because it’s so grossly violating and traumatising that we would otherwise never submit to intercourse. The only reason we may now not feelraped or have the impression we desired or initiated PIV, is because men broke down our barriers very skillfully and progressively from birth, breaking down our natural defences to pain and invasion, our confidence in our own perceptions and sensations of fear and disgust that tell us male sexual invasion is painful, harmful and traumatic.

Through an all-pervasive and powerful male propaganda, they stuff our minds from infancy with the idea that PIV is normal, desirable and erotic, before we can even conceive of it as something horrifying, and make sure we never see any alternative to their lie – or that if we do, we can no longer take in the information, are punished for thinking and saying otherwise. The fact we may not immediately feel raped doesn’t mean it’s not rape, objectively speaking

I guess we can add bad media, bad hollywood, bad culture.  All of which tells us that intercourse is a normal, healthy thing that both man and women can enjoy.  I personally think it is far better in a committed relationship between two people who love each other as opposed to scratching an itch, but that is neither here nor there in this conversation.  All.Bad.  All of it.

Lastly, from a structural point of view, as a class oppressed by men, we are not in any position of freedom to negotiate what men do to us collectively and individually within the heterocage. Men, by whom we are possessed, colonised and held captive, are the sole agents and organisers of PIV. Men dominate us precisely so we can’t opt out of sexual abuse by them; intercourse is the very means through which men subordinate us, the very purpose of their domination, to control human reproduction.

I guess just saying no doesn’t cut it.

Seriously?  It is very hard to wrap my head around this type of thinking.  I have to assume this author is a lesbian or asexual.  Not to get into too much graphic detail here, but don’t lesbians use sex toys such as a vibrator?  I was always under the impression that they did.  Which is another reason that I have never fully understood being a lesbian.  If you are going to simulate sexual intercourse between a man and woman, why not just be with a man?  But I could be wrong.  Most of my homosexual friends are men, so this has never really come up in conversation for me before.  Nor would I necessarily want it to.  But that has been the impression that I have had for many years, maybe I got it from a movie or book.  I am not quite sure where I got it and I could very easily be wrong about it.

In any event, this is reason 2,394,294 of why I will never a feminist.  You should read the comments.  Again, oh my.  Apparently people agree with her.

A&E and the Dangers of Political Correctness

I will say at the offset I have never seen Duck Dynasty nor do I plan to.   It doesn’t seem like something that I would be all that interested in enough to spend a half hour of my life sitting in front of the television for.  I have heard of the family and seen pictures of him with various people, but I really know very little about the show except it has something to do with duck hunting.

A&E has decided that it goes against their values to employ someone who holds a biblical worldview on sin.  You can disagree with the premise all you like, but it doesn’t change what the bible says.  Homosexuality is a sin according to Christian belief.  I fully understand that there are churches out there that ignore that and have no problem with openly gay clergy and will marry same-sex couples.  That still doesn’t change what the bible says about it.

Phil Robertson gave an interview with GQ Magazine.  During that interview he was asked a question on his view of homosexuality.  He answered the question coming from a biblical point of view.  He is a person who believes that the bible is the living word of God.  Yes his words may have been crude, but they were not bigoted, nor did he liken homosexuality to having sex with a goat.  He simply gave a list of things that are sinful, he also included having heterosexual sex outside of marriage in his list.

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.”

All he said is that sex outside the confines of  traditional marriage is sinful, which according to the bible is.  That shouldn’t be up for debate.  Again, you can feel that the bible is outdated, fake, or anything that you may feel about it, but it doesn’t change what scripture says.  If you are to follow the bible and its teachings you shouldn’t be having sex of any kind outside of traditional marriage.  Once you do that, you are committing a sin.

Another part of his quote gets left out in almost all of the media coverage:

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

Is it any wonder that this gets left out?  How can you say that he is “hating” on homosexuals if he says he is not judging them?  As a Christian it is part of your duty to spread the word of God.  People will do that in different ways and to different degrees.  But a true Christian never makes statements about someone else’s salvation and how God will ultimately judge a person and how they lived their life.  Not only isn’t that our job, it way above our pay grade.

But of course the media coverage is he is a bigot, he is a hater, or he is some crazy right winged nut job.  He isn’t allowed to have a biblical worldview and share that openly.  That is something you must keep in the closet and act like it doesn’t exist.  Of course the same people who are hitting him hard have no problem with talking about homosexuality in sex ed classes geared to 6 year olds.  That is perfectly acceptable.  But don’t tell them the other side of the equation, oh no, you are a hater then.

If activists for the gay community are as open-minded as they claim to be, they will have a debate on this topic.  But that isn’t what happens.  The debate gets shut off by people losing their income or labeled a bigot and a hater.  My gosh even feminist and openly gay Camille Paglia understands what is happening by these fanatics

“utterly fascist & utterly Stalinist”

Having a debate on the legalization of gay marriage is worth having in this country.  But it devolves into name calling and threats.  What does it say about people who say they are only trying to be accepted and have their rights protected by our society when they care none about the rights of those who believe otherwise?

We have gotten to the point where any talk of religion must be closeted and must be whispered in the confines of your own home.  We have even gotten to the point that sometimes you can’t have a bible study in your home without interference, putting up Christmas lights on the outside of your home gets you a letter from your neighbors telling them how offended they are.

That isn’t tolerance folks, that is tyranny.  This is how far we have fallen as a society; a major public university gives classes on the fine art of fellatio and that is deemed a perfectly acceptable use of tax payer funds for “educational” purposes, but a Christian man can’t give the biblical view that he tries to live his life by without losing income.

A&E has every right to end their contract with Mr. Robertson.  They are a private business and they are under no restrictions constitutionally, as this isn’t a free speech or free religion issue.  The government isn’t interfering.  Just because A&E has the right to end his contract doesn’t mean that it should.  So far the sponsors of the show seem to understand what is at stake here and are standing on the right side.  The side that says he has a right to religious liberty and his viewpoints.

A sad day in America.  A very sad day.

President Obama Keeping it Classy at Mandela Funeral

We should all be so proud.  Seriously?  A selfie at a funeral?  That goes for you too,  Mr. Cameron.

Here’s an Idea, Don’t Want to Shop on Thanksgiving? Don’t Go to the Stores

This is another thing that just sits in my craw.  All this hullabaloo about stores opening on Thanksgiving.  For the record, I have zero intention of going to the stores this weekend, let alone on Thanksgiving day.  But I don’t make a big deal over the ones that do.  I have a friend who lives in Texas and I remember last year on Thanksgiving she was posting pictures of her and her kids standing in line to get into the stores.  She labeled a few of them as creating memories.  She was doing this not so much to get a big bargain, but for her kids to remember those moments spent with mom and dad on Thanksgiving.  Again, I wouldn’t do it.  But who am I to tell her she can’t or that she is somehow a bad person because she chooses to?

Another thing that really gets me is the total lack of concern for those that work at restaurants that happen to be open on Thanksgiving.  There are plenty of people who can’t be bothered to cook a large meal and go out for dinner.  Do you think that the dishwashers in that restaurant are getting big tips?  Not likely.  They too are away from their families.  So are the chefs/cooks.  What about the cater waiters who go to people homes to help serve meals?  Yes that does happen.  Do you think that those people don’t have families like the poor abused Wal-Mart worker?

Look, I have long ago thought that the holiday season has become so commercialized that “the reason for the season” has gotten lost.  That is the society we live in.  That is the society that we have chosen for ourselves.  This isn’t be pushed upon us by Wal-Mart.  I remember when I was a kid I was in the family station wagon driving to our destination on Thanksgiving morning and my parents being worried about having enough gas to get back home.  There were no open gas stations back then.  There were no open grocery stores for those items that you didn’t remember to buy on your trip for your family meal.  You had to make due.  But today virtually every major grocery store chain is open for at least part of the day.  Oh yeah, they are primarily unionized so the cries for them aren’t quite as loud.

Yes, Thanksgiving should be about family.  But the fact is that people have been working on holidays for generations now.  Do you think those football stadiums aren’t staffed?   I have a Christmastime birthday and I am a long-suffering life-long Knicks fan.   I was trying to decide what to do for my birthday this year and was thinking about going to a Knicks game since I am now back in the New York area.  They are playing on Christmas Day.  Do you have any idea how badly I want to go to that game?  I found about it far too late and it is all sold out and I am way too cheap to pay the exorbitant prices that tickets are going for at this stage, but let me tell you, I would love to be sitting in the stands on that day.  Does that make me a bad person?  How exactly is that different from Wal-Mart being open?  People will be working won’t they?

People decide for themselves what is family tradition and how that time is spent with said family.  There are people who have very tight budgets for Christmas gifts and the deals that are sometimes available during these big events are more than they can resist.  I have another friend who when her children were young, didn’t have a great deal of money and her daughter wanted a doll.  That doll was on sale for three hours on the middle of the night.  She got her butt out of bed and went and got it.  Why?  Because she couldn’t have afforded it otherwise and that was the one thing her little girl really wanted.  That was important to her.  You may view it a different way, but for her and her daughter it was something special.

This is yet one more example of people trying to use something for a political goal.  This isn’t about people missing time with their families.   This is about unionizing Wal-Mart.  If this were simply about people working during “family time” they would be complaining about all the  other businesses that will be open on Thanksgiving Day.  When you start worrying about the servers, the dishwashers, the unionized grocery store workers, then we will talk.

Colorado Planned Parenthood Were Against New Obamacare Ads Before They Were For Them

Yes, they are this hypocritical.  Apparently when they thought the ads were “fake” and done by some republican group, they were no good.  Once they found out they were actual ads they are not only fine with them, they are praising the idea of “discussing birth control”.  

 Oh my.  

There is no way to describe these ads as anything other than demeaning to young adults in this country.  All they care about are keg parties, sex without consequences or emotion, and birth control.  That is what this administration thinks of you.  It isn’t me saying it, it is what they think.  You are only worried about partying, having fun, and sleeping around.  I guess that is why so little has been done to address the very serious issue of jobs for recent college grads and young people.   Who needs those things when they get “free” birth control and do headstands with keg stands?  

 

H/T. Amy.  

The Consequences of Feminism

Heaven help this country.   A real life ad about Obamacare.

More Nanny State, PC Nonsense Costing Tax Payers Millions

Aren’t these pretty?  Forever Stamps,   Not so fast.  They are going to be destroyed, yep the entire run.  Why you ask?  Well it should be obvious and an outrage to you.  After all, take a look at the skateboarder.  Where are the knee pads?  The wrist braces?  No helmet?  How can that be?  It is dangerous.  Dangerous I say.  It cannot stand.  A cannonball?  How can that be allowed?  Apparently nowadays you need a helmet to do a head stand.  No helmet you might get hurt.  Oh no.  We can’t let that happen now can we?

Seriously, I didn’t ride a bike with a helmet when I was little.  I loved, and I mean loved, gymnastics.  To this day, even at my old age, I am one of the most flexible people I know.  I can put both my feet behind my head.  I don’t wear any protective gear.  So far I have never injured myself so badly that I needed medical attention.  We skateboarded without helmets and knee pads.  We survived.  It wasn’t the end of the world.   We even had cars without (gasp) airbags and child safety seats.  How did we survive?  IT’S A MIRACLE!!!!  We should all be dead by today’s standards.

Honestly, an entire run of stamps will be destroyed because someone on the Presidential Council has decided this may give kids the wrong impression about being active.  Huh?  Do kids even use stamps anymore?  What is it exactly that they are mailing out?  I mean would you have noticed the lack of knee pads had I not pointed it out?

Well at least the post office is not running in the red.  Oh wait!!!