Two days ago, the news kept saying Mariupol was hours away from falling to the Russian. That tiny pocket of the last of the Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol has manage to hang on two days. I think every one knows they will fall. There is no other logical outcome at this point. As an American, I can’t help but thinking of the Alamo. I couldn’t listen to the news yesterday because I keep tearing up and being on the verge of crying and depression. Given Putin’s ultimate goals, we should have taken a greater stand in stopping him. This IS a world wide issue and we should have gone in and really committed to STOPPING PUTIN and not just trying to support Ukraine in their fight. We really should have made it our fight. Putin is holding the world hostage with his threats of using nuclear weapons. Because of this, he is basically doing what he wants an everyone is afraid to try to stop him and is leaving the Ukrainians to fight what should be everyone’s battle. We will give them weapons but nothing to definitively stop Putin. I think the world is being cowards.
Archive for the Politics Category
Putin is Holding the World Hostage with Nuclear Threat.
Posted in Politics, War with tags Nuclear threat, Politics, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, War on April 20, 2022 by urbannightA lesson on women’s choices from the tales of King Arthur and his knights.
Posted in Books, Education, Entertainment, Life, Politics, Story time, Writing with tags Dame Ragnell, King Arthur, Knights, Knights of the Round Table, Lady Ragnell, Self-determination, Sir Gawain, Sir Gawain and the Loathy Lady, The Loathy Lady, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, Women's Bodies, Women's Choices, Women's Rights on May 25, 2017 by urbannightThere is a story about one of Arthur’s knights who is on a mission and he meets a witch who will help him if only he will marry her. He agrees. She resolves his mission and now he must keep his promise. Other versions are where the knight becomes obligated to someone of a higher status who forces him to marry an ugly woman under this other man’s authority.
He is depressed because she is very ugly. She lets him in on a secret. He has to make a choice. She can be beautiful but he must decide when. Does he want her to be beautiful at night, when they are alone together? Then everyone with think he has an ugly wife and feel sorry for him. Or she can be beautiful during the day and everyone will think he is lucky to have such a beautiful wife but she will be ugly at night.
Feeling rather sorry for himself, he decided that it doesn’t really matter to him and tells her to choose which way will make her happier. Her response is, “Oh well, in that case, I would rather be beautiful all the time.” And so she was.
The moral is that men shouldn’t make decisions for women. When you let women make their own decisions, you may end come coming out of it better than if you tried to force her to follow your choices.
The other moral, as it is sometimes done, is based on a riddle the knight failed to answer. What is it that women really want? After failing to answer correctly and having to wed the ugly woman, by letting her choose, he learns the real answer. What women really want is self-determination. The right to make their own choices about their own lives and their own bodies.
Both variations of the moral are nearly identical. The one that says women want and deserve self-determination focuses more on women and letting them make their own decisions. The other saying that men shouldn’t make decisions for women focuses on men and what they shouldn’t do. Either way, I think the story is really appropriate for today’s political climate.
A State of Shock
Posted in Economics, Economy, Education, History, Just Strange, Life, Politics, Religion, Technology, Writing with tags Breaking Washington., Change at any Cost, Devastated, Donald Trump, Election, Election 2016, Electoral College, Fear, Hate, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Loses, Hillary won the Popular Vote, One Percent, Popular Vote, Presidential Election, Presidential Election 2016, Racism, Razor Thin Edge., Sexism, Shock, Silver Spoon, Tax Returns, Trump Win, Un-ethical, Violence on November 10, 2016 by urbannightThis morning I feel numb and horrified at the same time. There were almost no people walking in to work this morning. Did people take the day off? Are there as many people in this country who feel as if they are walking through some post-apocalyptic world despite the fact that the sun is shining, the world looks the same, and half the country is actually happy?
I will probably scream if people start talking about a mandate. I didn’t like it when Obama said it. No election as close as these represent a mandate. I would only accept that word in a landslide vote. This was not a landslide. My radio was on when I turned on my car. I had to turn it off. People were calling in and saying America has spoken. As if it was a huge percentage. It was a razor thin edge. The worst sorts of people came out of the woodwork. People who wanted change at ANY cost and don’t care if it hurt this country. They just want to ‘break’ Washington.
I might have supported and even applauded Trump if he hadn’t approached this on a platform of hate, fear, distrust, and violence. I have actually thought something did need to break the Washington Machine for it to ever change. But this was the worst way it could have happened. There was a tiny, secret part of me that actually thought that maybe he should win and people will get what they deserved and I hoped they would then regret what they did. But I refused to ever say it. I didn’t want to do anything to put any of that energy out into the world. I didn’t really think he would win.
Congratulations to half of this country. Your man won. It just goes to show the country hasn’t progressed as far as we thought. People who want to keep black people, Hispanics, Jewish people, Muslims, and women down so that they can continue to feel better about themselves have won. People who feel that with the rise of all the people listed above that they have lost their power and that they need to take it back have won. People who represent the lowest and worst of this country have won. People with hate in their hearts have won. People who think women are lower themselves and that women should have no control over their own bodies have won. People who think men don’t need to control their own reactions and that women should be controlled in order to ‘protect them’ from the things they have been given the ‘go-ahead’ to do because ‘boys will be boys’ have won.
How is it that people who complain that Hilary is one of the ‘one percent’ have bought into the idea that Trump is not? Trump came from money, always had money, borrowed a huge amount from his daddy to get his business started, and yet people think he knows what it is like to have to work his way up. He never did. He is a silver spoon baby and never knew what it was like to need money. We don’t really know what he is worth because he wouldn’t provide his tax returns. He did admit to finding enough loop holes to not pay any taxes for 13 years or something like that. But he says he is worth a LOT but at the same time cheats his contractors and vendors by telling them thinks like, “we don’t have the money to pay you, we can only pay you 70 cents on the dollar. You better take it because if you take it to court, you will probably win, but we can make it take so long that you will lose everything and go broke before you ever win.”
How is it that people will believe that a man who likes having portions of his companies overseas because he can pay the workers FAR less than he can in the United State will ever do anything to bring jobs back to the U.S. He seems to think that he is some type of Roosevelt character who just has to build enough roads and bridges to put people back to work. Roadwork goes on all year round here. The roads are constantly being repaired. Roadwork never stops. Sure, many bridges are in a state where they need to be repaired. But that was discovered years ago and most of those are in the process of being fixed all around this country. He also implied that the problem with education is that we need more schools and he promised to build more schools and more hospitals. We have enough schools and if you count Emergicare offices, we have facilities. Building more isn’t going to solve the problems. Repealing Obamacare isn’t going to help lower medical costs. These issues are far deeper. We need to pay teachers better; we need to make sure existing schools are supplied with the tools needed to teach kids. We need to value students more as well. Parents need to take more responsibility over their children’s behavior and student’s need to take more ownership of their own learning process. The health industry has to stop gouging patients and more reasonable pricing needs to be put into place and enforced. Building more schools and hospitals isn’t the solution.
One earbud fell out of my ear and I heard a girl near me say that her one vote wouldn’t make a difference. The point is that if you put ever person saying that together, you have a block of votes that WOULD make a difference. So I REALLY hate that saying. Which leads me to how angry I feel towards people who didn’t vote for that reason, didn’t vote because they couldn’t be bothered, voted for third party candidates and threw away their vote or voted for a write-in and also threw away their vote. Anyone voting for a write-in or a third party is actually voting for the person they LEAST want to win. In nearly every case, that would have actually caused Trump to have lost those states rather than have won.
On the whole, I’m still in shock. I could go on and on, but this is getting long enough as it is. I’ve also lost my direction as I was working on this between tasks and at lunch. I didn’t have the advantage of taking today off work. There are so many things to talk about where this went wrong and will continue to go wrong that maybe I should save those for another time.
Aftermath: Meh
Posted in Politics, Writing with tags Avoiding issues, Debates, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Issues, Meh, More Substance., Nothing New, Political Debates, Politics, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Slightly Boring on October 20, 2016 by urbannightI anticipated having more to say after the third debate. It is odd that I do not. After all, the debate was actually far more viscous than the second one. But both candidates remained much more calm than last time. They did say a bit more about the issues and their stances. They both tried to avoid certain things and they both used the opportunities to strike at each other. It wasn’t terribly memorable. It wasn’t anything that was going to change anyone’s minds. It made people who hate Trump just hate him more and people who hate Hillary just hate her more. I’m somewhat disappointed in it. I thought it would be more interesting.
I expect tonight’s showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show with be much better.
The Right to Protest
Posted in History, Politics, Writing with tags Accountability, American Revolution, Colin Kaepernick, Communist China, Fascism, Fascist, Football, Forced Patriotism, Government, Kaepernick, National Anthem, Nazi Germany, Norht Korea, Patriotism, Peaceful Protest, Police accountablility, Police Brutality, Police State, Political Protest, Protest, Protesting, Public Display of Patriotism, Radical Nationalism, Seattle Seahawks on September 10, 2016 by urbannightI’m getting a little tired of all the people saying that the football player who will not stand during the anthem is disrespectful and he should stand up for the anthem no matter what.
I totally disagree. Requiring anyone to stand and display support and favor for anything political is something I would expect of Nazi Germany, Communist China, or North Korea. Where people can see and take note of anyone who is not displaying the appropriate behavior so the government can come after them.
It makes me think they really don’t understand everything about the America Revolution. One of the key items was the right to be able to say that you disagree with the government stance on something or some government action. You couldn’t do that in public in England without running the risk of getting arrested for sedition or attempt to incite a riot. Even if there was no riot and no intent to start one. Because there had been riots, the government was passing stricter and more oppressive laws thinking that would prevent riots.
To say people have to conform to public displays of patriotism is completely un-American. In fact, the right to protest in order to effect change is perhaps the MOST American action one can take. Peacefully refusing to stand for the national anthem because local and federal government is doing nothing to hold the police accountable for their actions and for doing nothing to stem the tide of increasing acts of police brutality against civilians of all races is a valid form of political protest that does not harm anyone but still makes a point.
I rather hope the Seattle Seahawks remain seated, en mass, is support of this other player and in support of all the people, both innocent and guilty, who have been killed, brutalized, raped, permanently injured by excessive use of force.
Reading people’s comments on various articles on-line, you see a growing situation where people are saying it is okay for policy to kill people for simply asking WHY. Why was I stopped? What did I do? Or for people to think it is okay for police to kill people who were guilty of a crime even thought the person was NOT resisting, or was already subdued and under police control BEFORE the police brutality began. People are supporting officer, police or correctional, who refuse to provide treatment to people already in custody because they think the suspect/inmate is faking and then that person dies in the next couple of hours.
This nation is turning into a fascist police state because people are not demanding accountability from the police force. People who investigate these events almost always side with the police. Even in cases where there is clear video evidence that should indicate otherwise. Until people demand an unbiased investigation into these events and demand accountability and demand a police force that is trained in de-escalation tactics rather than shot first and don’t worry about getting in trouble then things will actually continue to get worse and worse.
I was taught to go to the police when in trouble, but the police are so often attacking and injuring people who ask for help that I’m as afraid of the police as I am of criminals and don’t see any sign of improvement anywhere in the near future.
People might argue with my use of “fascist” in this contect because they usually associate it with dictatorships. But it is a form of radical nationalism. And when I listen to people who say that ALL people should publically support the President’s actions, even if they disagree, in order to provide a united front against the rest of the world makes me feel that ‘fascist’ and ‘fascism’ are completely appropriate. Of course, I find it interesting that as soon as we ended up with a black president most of the people demanding that level of patriotism were the ones who suddenly decided that they would do anything in their power to prevent anything he wanted to accomplish from happening.
But now a lot of people are applying this attitude toward the police. Oh, the police are in a dangerous job so they should be forgive if they shoot as soon as they give instructions, not letting the person have time to comply, then blaiming it on the person for noncompliance. Those in authority over the police are constantly deciding these acts of police brutality and murder were within the scope of their authority under the situation. Fear for their safety has become an escape clause, a get out of jail free card, and is being considered appropriate even if the person was already in compliance or even already in custody and hasn’t done anything.
Body cams are catching officers threatening to shoot people before anything else and threatening to shoot people after they are in custody and saying entirely unapproratiate and unprofessional things. While they are on the job, and when they have people in custody, they should be trained to maintain a certain level of professionalism and be expected to behave appropriately. But they are not. This feeds into their mentality that they can do anything, say anything, and be as brutal as they want to.
Something has to stop. We as the public have got to start demanding better behavior and accountablity from the police force.
It wasn’t ‘Liberal Idiocy’.
Posted in Health, Politics with tags Endangering Children, God, Idiocy, Liberal Idiocy, Measles, Medical Treatment, Medicine, Parenting, Religious Belief, Vaccinating, Vaccinations, Vaccines, vaccines cause autism on June 3, 2014 by urbannightI saw a headline for an article that Liberal Idiocy caused the current measles outbreak. I was not able to read it because I was not able to pull up the actual article. So I can only write about the title with no knowledge of the actual article.
I have to say I was upset about the title. It has nothing to do with ‘Liberal’ anything. This is a result of people not vaccinating. It isn’t a ‘liberal’ thing for some parents to mistakenly think vaccines cause autism or the belief that people should avoiding vaccines because God is the only healer and sickness is a punishment from God.
I will agree that it is an ‘Idiocy’ thing. That misconception about autism has been repeatedly disproven. And avoiding medical treatment and medicine in general because of warped religious belief is beyond idiocy.
As a liberal, I am all for vaccinations. I had mine and I don’t see them as a bad thing. Not getting children vaccinated endangers all children.
Random Thoughts on Random News in No Particular Order
Posted in Advertising, Life, Movies and Theatre, Politics with tags Abortion, Abortion Laws, Advertising, Bad Advertising, Colorado, current-events, Gun Control, Guns, Halle Berry, Houses, Movies, No Advertising, North Dakota, Oz, Random, Random News, Random Thoughts, Reproductive Rights, Sherrif, The Call, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Tiny Houses, Women's Rights on March 19, 2013 by urbannight1. Apparently two movies opened and totally bombed as Oz stayed in first place. These were The Call and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. I have a theory here. Lack of advertising. I’ve not seen a trailer for either at any of the films I’ve seen and I’ve never heard of either title so they can’t have advertised very hard at all. You can’t expect to fill the theaters if you don’t advertise. The article says there was a strong marketing push for Burt Wonderstone. I wonder where that marketing money was spent?
2. North Dakota is passing a strict abortion law that would ban abortions at around 6 weeks into the pregnancy. Some people don’t even know they are pregnant until after that point. It’s just not a human being at that point. I’m just so sick of men controlling women’s reproductive rights and I really think it is wrong that any person has the right to tell another person she must have a baby she can’t afford, or care for, or any reason. But at the same time said people don’t want to do any thing to help the mother’s or the babies once the child is actually born and actually exists as another person.
3. Some Sheriff in Colorado is refusing to enforce two gun control laws. One is requiring the background check when transferring ownership of guns between two people and another limiting the size of gun magazines. He says they will be impossible to enforce so he isn’t going to bother. I didn’t know law enforcement was allowed to pick and chose what they want to enforce or not enforce. How hard would the first one really be to enforce? You have to do something similar when transferring a car. Of course, a car is a lot more obvious if it isn’t plated. People see it going down the road. A gun isn’t so obvious. As for magazine size, if it holds to many rounds, it is illegal. Sounds simple. It’s not like they want to run around and examine every single gun. It’s more a case of getting in trouble if you get caught with one. Sure, he is correct when he says that it won’t stop the criminal from getting guns. But laws against murder are not stopping murderers, so does that mean we should stop arresting people for murder?
4. Tiny homes are adorable. Very cute. I think it triggers that spot in me that really desired a play house as a child. I could probably manage in a 600 sq ft one but the 220 sq ft ones are totally insane. I would probably need three of them. One to live in, one for my books, and one for my stitching and scrapbooking supplies. It’s the 120 sq footers that really get me. The shower is too tiny to turn around in, there is a sink and a stove but no place to cut and prep your meal. The photos were at such weird angles that you could not get any idea of the layout. Where was the bed/sofa in relation to the ‘kitchen’ and exactly where was that miniscule shower located? The single person dwelling had a toy shed behind it. A shed anyway, with several toddlers toys in front. There isn’t room in that box for an adult and a child. Where did the toddler sleep? Maybe the shed. The shed looked like it was bigger than the house. The 612 sq footer was over half a million. 649,000$. A little over a thousand dollars a sq ft. But the photos show that the materials were all high end, with a very fancy shower mosaic, and high end appliances. Very Top Drawer, so to speak.