Comments Posted By Carol
Displaying 0 To 0 Of 0 Comments
John, I do not believe racism is involved in any shape form or fashion as a motivating factor in the formulation of an opinion on going to war with Iraq. I am surprised at you taking such a cheap shot. You are usually one of the first and the loudest critics to denounce the race card and yet here you have stooped to using it and in a manner that quite frankly doesn’t make sense. Shame on you. Another thing you might want to take a look at, is the fact that many Republicans, particularly from the heartland, are opposed to our continued presence in Iraq and want us to leave as soon as the elections are over. Whereas, those on the left are inclined to believe we now have a duty to complete (or fix -Pottery Barn rule) the job.
» Posted By Carol On 18/January/2005 @ 5:04 pm
Odds are, I am less odd than you!
Gee John, if only 7% of the people taking that quiz are weirder than you then it is just you or rather you certainly “out there” in the extreme weird range!
» Posted By Carol On 18/January/2005 @ 7:41 am
No you missed my point even though I specifically spelled it out. As a man, who will never be pregnant, the decision will never be yours to make. It will never be your health, physical or emotional, that is in jeapordy. You will never have to make this decision wieghing the pros and cons of your ability to have children in the future or what is best for the children you already have. You tend to use the most extreme rhetoric in your blogs. It is a real turn off and practically guarantees no honest discussion of the issues can take place. You actualy think you occupy the moral high ground. What a joke. You are just regurgitating hyperbole and tripe while standing in judgement of those with a different opinion than yours. You mock, you taunt and now that you gotten past the hard times of your life, you would deny others the right to make their own decisions. What is American about that? I think you have truely lost touch with what is great about this country. Of course if people like you have your way we will be reduced to little more than a police state and we won’t be so great anymore. You are truely the enemy within.
» Posted By Carol On 17/January/2005 @ 1:00 pm
So you think that people who call partial birth abortion infanticide have a legitimate point of view, meaning that the call to outlaw the procedure is reasonable and should be upheld. Interesting. The term “partial birth abortion” is wildly misleading and designed quite purposefully to inflame emotions. No birth is involved and neither is an infant. A fetus is involved, and yes there is a difference between a fetus and an infant. An infant can survive outside the womb but a fetus cannot. The fetus is partially extracted from the womb, as opposed to the birth process, and the overly enlarged head punctured to collapse the head so the remainder of the fetus can be extracted. The alternative is to dismember the fetus in the womb and extract it in pieces. The danger therein is that the womb may be perforated thus negating the purpose in performing the partial extraction procedure in the first place-to either save the mother’s life or to preserve her ability to have children later by not damaging her reproductive organs. Only a small-minded person would believe that the mother’s life is less important than the fetus she carries. Women are not mere breeding factories. They are people. It always amazes me that a person or people can love their daughters, their wives, their sisters and their mothers but when it comes to some unrelated woman they can deny her the right to have a medical procedure that is based on what is best for her. Remember, this is an uncommon procedure. The Supreme Court in Roe v Wade gave women the right to have an abortion in the first trimester or first three months or first twelve weeks. After that a woman can have an abortion in the second trimester only if her health is endangered. It is utterly heartless for people, especially fathers, to paint such a painful decision is such an ugly manner. Banning the procedure is really about chipping away at a woman’s right to have any abortions ever. Abortion is not an invention of the twentieth century. It has been around as long as women have been having babies. If all life is sacred doesn’t that include the life of a woman or does the life of a women stop being sacred once she conceives? My suggestion is that those women who believe the extraction procedure is infanticide should not have the procedure. Those women, who believe any abortion is wrong, should not have one. Notice I did not include men in the decision making process. Well I don’t think men should have a voice in the matter. When men get pregnant they can join the discussion. Meanwhile, men who really dislike the idea of abortion should not have premarital sex and if they do, they should marry the woman they impregnate, willingly pay child support if the marriage ends and make themselves available to help raise the children whether still married or not. If men do not want children they should get a vasectomy and if the woman they marry happens to lose her ability to have children they should not use that as grounds to divorce her or if she has a child that is handicapped, they should stick around and provide 50% of the support, not just money, that the child will need. They (men) should support adoption programs, including adoption by gay couples, so children do not have to be raised in a series of foster homes and they should lobby just as hard as women for insurance companies to cover the cost of birth control (many do not even though they will cover prescriptions for Viagra) and for the morning after pill to be dispensed over the counter. Beyond that I am afraid I do not believe men should have any say so in the matter. The concept that life is sacred upon conception and should be preserved at all cost, even to the detriment of the mother, is grounded in religion. Let the churches preach it, let those who believe it practice it and let those with a different value system abide my Roe v Wade and the advice of their doctors.
» Posted By Carol On 17/January/2005 @ 1:31 am
It only takes one lapse in integrity to destroy a reputation. This may seem harsh in light of the fact that some people seem to walk away scot free from similar lapses. However, we expect more from some than others. Dan Rather represented an institution. The profession of journalism is under attack for a perceived bias by ultra conservatives, who see the world in a different way from most of mainstream America. Bloggers have hitched a ride because some, perhaps many, truely believe all news should be editorialized (their spin of course) and they see themselves as crusaders in the cause. I prefer to think for myself so just give me the facts. I’ll come to my own conclusions, thank-you. The problem is Rather’s actions (and those of the entire 60 minutes crew involved)lend credence to these groups’ complaints. For this reason I am glad to see that CBS is dealing with those involved in a such a no nonsense type manner. Sometimes you cannot be empathetic. This is one of those occasions. If you wish to preserve the institution of journalism, and I for one do, it is imperative that integrity be maintained. I am not ready to get my news from blogging. Blogging is fun. Its entertainment, but it isn’t news. It doesn’t really matter if Rather served with distinction for 40 years. He did the institution a disservice and should consider himself lucky that he is being allowed to retire. Got to go with JOhn on this one.
» Posted By Carol On 10/January/2005 @ 8:41 pm
Living in an alternate reality
The poster does not make a statement one way or another with regard to one’s view of the war nor of whether or not the person displaying it supports soldiers. It makes a statement about volunteering and an even bigger statement about the Army’s recriting slogan. It doesn’t make the statment that if you volunteer you are a moron, although it certainly makes a statement about the risks involved. I think those that volunteer understand the risks and certainly those that volunteered after 9/11 knew, but decided to put their country’s interest ahead of their own. That’s bravery. In normal times the poster would have been funny. These aren’t normal times so it simply comes across as insensitive. Really, it should underscore for all of us just what our soldiers are risking for us and make us appreciate them all the more.
» Posted By Carol On 10/January/2005 @ 8:54 pm
I would have to be out of town!
» Posted By Carol On 09/January/2005 @ 10:19 pm
Intelligence as a factor in mate selection
When I was young (showing my age here) there was “book smart” and then there was “street smart.” The latter was used to describe a person with a lot of common sense. My boyfriend liked to tell me I was book smart. I made much better grades than he did in school. This was his way of leveling the field between us and I admit I was somewhat naive. He came from a military family that had traveled extensively. I too came from a military family but my father believed children should have stability. He traveled extensively and we stayed put in a very rural southern town. I had to go to confession before I could go out on Saturday night,no kidding, and God forbid that I should engage in any activity afterwards which would render me unable to take the sacrement the following Sunday morning. Fear of God and mother kept me pretty much on the straight and narrow. You get the picture. Years later when I actually took a test to determine my emotional intelligence I scored as a very well balanced person both social and disciplined. Time and experience eventually gave me the “exposure” my boyfriend had. Of course by then he was a footnote in the history of my life. Maybe for a man it is different, but as a woman I can tell you I would not want to be a lot smarter than my husband, not even if he were the most emotionally well balanced man ever born. This probably explains why I am married to a very intelligent man, with loads of arrogance and plenty of ego, but somewhat lacking in the sensitivity department.
» Posted By Carol On 09/January/2005 @ 10:47 pm
I can’t disagree with Ann’s assessment or John’s. However, I would point out that individuals of noticably unequal intellignece are unlikely to be compatible.
» Posted By Carol On 08/January/2005 @ 9:31 am
Okay, so Mr. Price disagrees with Mr. Penn’s assessment of President Bush and Mr. Penn’s belief that corruption in government has grown worse since the days of Nixon. If you took a poll of Americans I think you would find that a majority beleives that corruption in government has grown since the days of Nixon so Mr. Penn is not to far a field from mainstream America in that opinion. As for his assessment of President Bush, well 49% of America agrees with him on that point as well, which, while placing Mr. Penn in the minority, hardly places him on the fringe.
Mr. Price on the other hand ommitted part of Mr. Penn’s response to he second question. He also mischaracterizes Mr. Penn’s comments. Specifically, he writes Mr. Penn was making a comparison between Watergate and 9/11. Mr. Penn did not even mention 9/11. In response to a question, Mr. Penn stated that the feelings of “dismay …over revelations of government deceit” were relevant today amid allegations that Bush misled America by fanning fears of future terrorism to gain support for the Iraq war. Bush did mislead America at least that is what soem Americans think and some of them no doubt feel dismayed by this. Personally, I thought Bush was full of baloney all along so I did not feel betrayed. But I digress. This is the same feeling as that experienced by the character in the movie, thus providing the relevance. Mr. Price chooses to overlook the obvious though and chases off on a tangent of his own making invoking 9/11 of course. 9/11 has become the mantra for anyone wanting to justify an unjustifiable position. He actually attempts to mislead his readers by linking 9/11 to Iraq even though all ties between them have been thoroughly refuted!
Honestly I don’t understand why some people get so excited because a movie star expresses an opinion. Actually I don’t understand why in many instances reporters feel the need to ask for their opinion in the first place but I guess they figure it sells the story. Sean Penn is a great actor; however, I am unlikely to vote for him to run for govenor or president or any other elected office. But I guess Republicans have a problem distinguishing between movie stars and the personas projected by the characters they play, as evidenced by their propensity to elect movie stars!
» Posted By Carol On 04/January/2005 @ 3:52 pm
It is good that we are restoring order to Iraq, as measured by schools reopening in that city referenced in the story. I have no doubt that our soldiers take heart in their mission when confronted with such evidence. However, children going to school is a rather ordinary normal fact of life. It is no more viewed as a “hot” story than say children in America going to school. Children went to school when Hussein was in power. Schooling for some children was, and still is, disrupted for some children because of the war. I can only assume that our government considered that the disruption of school was an acceptable side effect for our prescription of war to cure the greater ills of that country.
There have been references in various stories in the Post about schools reopening but no story has focused simply on that fact. Furthermore, the Post has not made it a point to publish letters from officers written home to the families of the troops in their command. I venture to say that this is not done for the sake of depriving us Washingtonians of these officer’s unique perspective but rather because space would not allow all to be published and any attempt to publish a select few would meet with charges of bias. The Tennesean.com apparently has access to this particular officer’s letters and can operate without the strictures of balanced reporting. (I do not mean that in terms of good news vs. bad news but rather in one officer’s opinion versus another’s.)
Folks in the blogging world are real quick to throw around allegations of the liberal media, primarily I am guessing because main stream media, MSM, is not reporting enough good news about Iraq. However, everytime I see this charge it is accompanied by a “good news” story, as if everything in Iraq is rosy as hell. If this were so then what in the world are we still there for?Why do you suppose MSM carries stories aoubt suicide bombers blowing up cars, mess tents, police stations, etc., insurgents fighting in this city and that one, election workers quitting for fear of their lives? Could it be that everything is not rosy? Could it be that our soldiers aren’t picnicking but actually are fighting for their lives and, even when not engaged in actual combat, still in harm’s way because the country is a dangerous place? Could it be that reporting on the battles our troops fight, the hardships they endure, the obstacles they face is a means of letting our country know how much we owe our soldiers? What they need to persevere? To bring to light mistakes that have been made so that they can be corrected and not repeated? Could it be that in doing so we actually help our troops by ensuring that they have sufficient numbers, equipment and even decent food? Can you fail to appreciate their sacrifice when you read about how dangerous Iraq continues to be? Knowing our troops are doing everything within their power to stabilize the country so the Iraqi people can have a say so in their government can you deny them recognition for what they are attemtping to accomplish? Can you deny the obstacles they face?
You cannot have it both ways. You can’t claim the war in Iraq is going just great without also implying that a tour of duty there is a cakewalk. Maybe it is easier for some people to believe that it is a cakewalk. Maybe that is why some Americans can justify our failure as a nation to make appropriate sacrifices for our troops in the form of higher taxes to pay for more troops on the ground, and better equipment.
Just as a matter of course newspapers rarely write stories about the kinds of things you take for granted, the kinds of things that are “good” news. For instances, papers do not report on days when the weather is balmy an perfect but they do report when the weather is so bad that it causes damage. Papers do not report about company saftey records but let an industrial accident occur such as a fire in a chicken rendering plant in a backwater town in NC and that’s a story that will make national news. It is not that papers have an aversion to good news. Ther are several reasons for bad news to predominate the papers. One there is generally enough bad news to fill up a good size paper. Sometimes the paper has judged the public to be interested in reading. People like bad news- it sells papers. If papers do not print what their readers wnat to read then their ciruclaiton goes down and the for profit business venture goes out of business. It isn’t all about our natural predilection for “bad news” either. Some bad news really needs to be reported. It brings to light injustice, mistakes or simply shines the light on the plight of others for which we should be aware because they need our help, or our understanding or maybe just our righteous anger.
To read nothing but “good news” , whether or not its about Iraq or some other topic, might well give a person the impression that everything is proceeding as it should. And before some one says that the bad news should be balanced with the good news from Iraq, the reality is that the two aren’t balanced. The MSM does report good news but generally this news is contained within a story that also protrays the bad. That is balanced reporting. Maybe some people don’t have the stomach for the truth. No that is not fair. Maybe some people don’t have the stomach for sacrifice so they have to trivialize the dangers, the hardships, the death and the fear.
Jounalism is defined as “A style of writing used in newspapers and magazines characterized by the direct presentation of facts or occurences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation. The story in the Tennesean certainly does not fit this definition. I have not read one blog that fits this definition. If newspapers are about facts then blogs are about emotion. Sure, some emotion/personal opinion does occasionally color a newstory and occasionally some facts are presented in a blog. However, make no mistake the two outlets serve different purposes. Blogs give us room to vent The MSM reports the news.
» Posted By Carol On 03/January/2005 @ 1:41 pm
Tried linking to the Captain’s Quarter but was unable to do so. That is too bad because I would have liked to read some good news regarding the upcoming elections. What I should like to read is a report about an increased number of volunteers willing to help out with the election process, vigilantes rooting out troublemakers who whould interfere or attempt to interfere with the election process, or particulars about the candidates indicating they support a secular state and women’s rights. While it is encouraging that the people in Iraq (or at least some of them) are excited about obtaining the right to elect their government, this is insufficient for America to hearald as cause for good tidings. Zealots, with a proIslamic bent may be happy to have the opportunity to elect a hardline Islamic government that would not be good news for those of us who wish to see a change in the Middle East.
» Posted By Carol On 03/January/2005 @ 10:10 am
So what shall we call her, Gracyn, Grace, Gracie or Rose? Or are we going to continue the family practice whereby half of us call her by her first name and the other half calls her by the second name?
» Posted By Carol On 30/December/2004 @ 6:12 pm
«« Back To Stats PageWell I must give credit to that soldier on two counts, first on his verse, which is not half bad and secondly for his dedication to his duty. However, I am saddened that he has fallen victim to the perception that a challenge to the war in Iraq is equivalent to a repudiation of our soldiers. I am the daughter, sister and mother of soldiers-Army, Navy and Air Force. My love for each is fierce and my pride and gratitude immeasurable. They answered the call of duty despite their personal opinions because it is their jobs and in my family no one approaches a job half-assed but gives no less than a 100%.
If anything, my admiration is increased for those who fight a war on behalf of their country knowing that the reasoning behind the war is shakey at best. For me, the loss of life is even harder to accept, because I am not convinced that the war in Iraq was necessary and I am quite convinced that the policy wonks in DC have pretty much made a hash out of the situation. I will never understand why the military is not allowed to run their operations but must take their marching orders from a pencil jock. You would think that a little more respect would be accorded to the opinion of the professional soldier instead of a so called “expert” who spent zero years fighting or studying military strategy and whose expertise is derived from academic studies, i.e., no real experience.
Although I did not support the decision to go to war in Iraq, I recognized that we have a responsibility to stablize the country before we leave-at least back to point it was at before we invaded.
I take umbrage at any attempt to lump together under the heading of “liberal” those that did not support the decision to go to war. There were and are many different reasons for not supporting the war that have nothing whatsoever to do with the notion that all war is bad. The United States of America does not “own” the men and women who comprise our armed forces. We should not willy-nilly send them into harm’s way. They should not be dispatched into combat on a whim, for unsupported idealogy or as a knee jerk reaction. They deserve more than that. Part of according them respect, should be an accounting of the worth of their lives and require a comensurate sacrifice of those that remain at home. This did not, and will not happen with respect to the war in Iraq. In the minds of corporate America this is a little war with great opportunities for making money.
I am no less a patriot than my hawkish husband simply because I see shades of gray where he sees only black and white. If Saddam/Iraq was such a problem then why didn’t Bush come into office proposing war. Why wait until after 9/11 that had no connection to Saddam/Iraq what so ever? I know. America would not have supported a war in Iraq before 9/11. I for one see absolutely no reason to change that opinion in light of 9/11. We had no more justification for war with Iraq after 9/11 that before 9/11. Some folks were so driven by fear though that they made ties where none existed. The fact that I am not so cowed by the destruction of 9/11 does not make me less of a patriot. It just makes me less afraid, less quick to jump to conclusions, less paranoid, less fearful. It does not make me any less committed to combating terrorism, or revenging the deaths of those who perished on 9/11.
Again I recognized our responsibility to stay the course in Iraq until we restablize the country (like it or not the country was stabile before we started the war), but this is in no way the same as saying I think we should have started the war to begin with. Those who supported going to war with Iraq like to paint a picture that everyone who did not support the war is an appeaser who now wants to withdraw our troops and turn tail and run. Nope. As a reasonably intelligent person I realize that whether or not you support a decision once the decision has been made, you work to make the best of it. Anyone who has ever worked for a living has experienced this.
I am a better patriot, a truer American, than many who now claim that I am no patriot at all for my failure to support the decision to go to war with Iraq. I didn’t suddenly discover my patrotism on 9/11. I had it all along. As I pointed out to my husband the other day, one need only look at our house to guess my true measure. While not overt, our home is full of picutures and what nots that clearly indicate a love of America. Of course once I pointed this out to my husband he promptly declared he would be taking some of these objects with him. I had to tell him no. Those objects are pieces of me, they reflect me and my feelings. I didn’t become religious on 9/11. I had my faith all along. I didn’t become a neocon or a conservative on 9/11. I have a conservative streak when it comes to financial policies; I was a registered Repblican until fundamentalists made it the party of choice and I still believe Nixon was a great president. The point is I experienced no radical change as the result of 9/11 and I mistrust to a certain extent those who claim to have experienced an epiphany as a result of 9/11.
Should any soldiers read this, let me say I support you. I am grateful that you are willing to make sacrifices, not just of life or limb but separation from family, loss of income; hey, just your lives in general ’cause Lord knows your lives are not your own right now. I wish to God that you did not have to be in Iraq. Though I pray that you will all come home soon, in the event that this is not to be, may you all return home safe.
» Posted By Carol On 27/December/2004 @ 11:15 am