Moms Share Breast Milk on Facebook

I had to read this article. I mean, c’mon, women sharing breast milk? Is that not a possible NSFW site? But alas, it was an informative article on women who network on facebook to connect those in need with those who are bountiful. Go figure…

Moms Share Breast Milk on Facebook – Eats on Feets connects those who have with those who need.

Doonesbury@Slate – Daily Dose

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?…You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”

– Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell, in a debate at the Widener University Law School

via Doonesbury@Slate – Daily Dose.

It’s Too Hard To Think For Yourself

Right? I mean, really. We live in a world of instant gratification. Everything is right at our fingertips. 200 channels to flip through from the comfort of our living room couch, each channel spoonfeeding you info, shaping your decisions. Someone with the gift of gab gets into your mind and you say “Yeah, that makes sense and fits with what i want to believe, so this guy is telling the truth!” It doesn’t matter that everyone on tv happens to be professional sales people, whether selling themselves for the fame, selling a product they want you to buy, or selling an idea they want you to buy into to further their agenda. The shows exist in the first place for one reason. To sell advertising and make money. Truth be damned. A show isn’t put on the air because someone thinks it will be interesting. It’s put on because someone thinks it it will sell advertising. So now we have channels that espouse only one viewpoint, because the powers that be know that everyone who shares that viewpoint will watch that channel. You can’t be a news channel and report both sides. You have to pick a side and stick with it and bash the other side to smithereens. This makes it easier for us to set our brains aside and let them do our thinking.

According to an article in Reuters that was quoting a Neilson fact sheet:

• We, as average Americans, watch an average of nearly 35 hours of TV each week. That’s almost equal to a full-time job. Add to that this frightening tidbit: In the average home, there are more television sets than people.

• About 35 percent of homes now have DVRs. Still, even within those homes, 85 percent of the prime-time viewing is done live.

• Television is still the biggest medium for advertisers, according for 57 percent of the $117 billion spent on advertising last year.

• And finally, here’s one for those of you who get fed up with the product/brand placement in The Biggest Loser or The Apprentice. According to Nielsen, “Television commercials which are paired with in-program product placement deliver higher brand recall (+18 pct), higher message recall (+21 pct) and higher likability (+17 pct).”

Radio is no different. That’s probably why I like listening to Howard Stern. At least he tells you it’s all bullshit and not to listen to him, do the research and make up your own mind. Plus every now and then a stripper rides the sybian machine, but that’s beside the point.

The internet is the same, except you have to work just slightly harder at getting the info. You work up a sweat to type, point and click so that Google can have answers to you in seconds. Then you have to filter out the millions of answers to get the one you want. After all of that you need a nap. The point is that we want our decisions made for us and be entertained so that we don’t have to be slapped in the face with the reality of how much the world sucks and how hard it will be to set it straight. Let other people do it. That’s why we pay athletes and actors more than we pay teachers. Teachers are no fun, they make us do homework and think.

My Political Rant of the Evening

Let’s talk about politics. I heard an interesting point of view the other day from none other than Jesse “The Body” Ventura. It’s something that I can’t help but agree with. It boils down to this: do away with the two party system. Actually do away with all parties. His reasoning, and I agree with this, is that Democrats vote for Democrats and Republicans vote for Republicans regardless if actually knowing anything about the candidate. If we abolish the parties, over time I believe people will really have to look into who it is for which they are casting there vote. I myself have been guilty of party bashing. Republicans, especially Tea Party Republicans, seem to have made it very easy to ridicule the candidates they have up for election in November. But let’s look at the overall picture. Our Democratic President and the Democratic controlled Congress made their first priority to be revamping health care. As an unemployed American I find it appalling that the first thing they did not look at was our failing economy and our high unemployment. I think health care needs reform but let’s look at it this way. If our president had forced everyone to go balls out on efforts to jumpstart the economy and getting people back to work, and the economic numbers were supporting those efforts, then people would’ve been more amenable to sitting down at the table and discussing healthcare. I don’t believe you can turn around eight years or more

Wish you were here!

The First Time Rock Spoke to Me | Rockin’ Blog of Fame

Hey gang! Here is my contribution to Joe Pedraza’s rockin’ new blog.

The First Time Rock Spoke to Me | Rockin’ Blog of Fame.

 

FactCheck.org

A lot of mis-information and flat out lies out there now, mostly from the Republicans, but a little on the Dems side as well…this site seems to have a handle on it all… FactCheck.org

Waiting

They should have more things to do at a hospital for those that have to wait while loved ones get procedures completed. I’ve been at the Cleveland Clinic all day with my wife (she’s having minor surgery), and I packed a backpack with two books (the new Spenser mystery by Robert Parker may he rest in peace, and a James Lee Burke novel), two newspapers (USA Today and the Cleveland Plain Dealer), my laptop, and 2 portable external hard drives, one with about 500 movies on it, the other with the complete seasons of about 10 different TV shows. I’m all set, as they say in New Hampshire, but looking around me, the same people have been sitting for hours with a blank look on their faces, staring into space. If they are with someone, or a group of someones, they will engage in conversation for a few minutes until they realize they have already spoken at length about that topic, then lapse back into the thousand yard stare. I know, it’s not about the family and friends of the patient, it’s about the patient, but it doesn’t seem as if some of these people function very well by themselves…no Zen happy place to go to and meditate. Most likely when at home they have a TV to comfort them with at least background noise, or a cat, or they can go to bed and pull the covers over their head, but right now they look lost and or uncomfortable. Got a lot on their minds worrying, I guess. Me, too, but worrying on the inside and keeping myself occupied with the goodies I brought. I see one exception. There is one guy a few feet away from me that looks like he’s set, like me. Food spread around him, popping peanuts into his mouth, watching the preset news channel on the TV in front of him like he’s at home on the couch, practically laying down. Just needs a hand down his pants like Al Bundy. Has shopping bags at his feet, where the ell did he go shopping? He’s at home, kinda like me. I can make myself comfortable anywhere, even without everything that I have brought with me, either by simply observing the life around me or taking the time to practice Zen breathing and meditation (thought I was joking about that earlier, huh?). Wonder if he’ll share his peanuts with me…

indian

This Huge Indian is on the south side of Parkersburg, WV…great stereotype, no to mention the nightmares it probably gives small children. This has been there as long as I have lived here, over 20 years, and I don’t know how long it was here before that.

I DO!

I’m sitting here in a waiting room. For some reason I got to looking at all of the couples that were waiting, and seeing the somber look on each couples faces, I started imagining how their marraige proposals went down. There are two couples that look to be in their seventies…I wonder how long they have been married. Both couples look supportive of each other, and you have to watch carefully to see who is actually there to see the doctor. Do you think the men got down on one knee and asked the women to marry them, presenting the rings as if they were presenting eternal happiness? I do. There is another couple in here that looks like they came off of the Sons of Anarchy TV show…the guy with fully sleeved arms, denim, patched jacket, bald head, goatee, piercings, wearing shades inside…could be wrong, maybe if I follow them they will get into a Volvo hatchback. Think he did the “get down on one knee” thing? Hard to imagine without grinning. My mind play a scene where he rolls off of her one night and says “Hey babe, how would you like to be doing this every night?”, she says “I guess” and he says “Cool, hey grab me a beer, willya?”. There is one couple who is sitting across from me that is much younger, early twenties…looks like they have been ere all day, like us. The wife is here for tests, she’s the one they keep calling, the one who walks up by herself when they call her name, the one who walks back with the nurse by herself. She came back and sat down after the last time they called her name, tired, almost in tears. The husband, not looking up from his cell phone, says “are you done yet?”. She tells him no, they want to send her to another area for another test. He’s disgusted…”Great! My whole day has been down the tubes, now!”…nice guy…maybe that was a quickie, drunk weekend in Las Vegas, not even aware of what they were doing, barely remembering each other’s names. Or maybe they were High School Sweethearts, and he’s now resenting the fact that he never “lived it up” before he got married right after graduating. Who knows…hard to imagine him asking for her hand in marriage, harder to imagine her saying yes…asshole…