Tag: meisaj

Its about me.

Veteran’s Day

meisajDaily Life

I have respect for anyone that has ever served in the military.  Its built in.  My father served in Vietnam and my brother is in the Army right now in Iraq.

When I am listening to NPR and a father says that he is proud of his son who served in Iraq, that part I can get.  HOWEVER, when the same father then goes on to say that all he knew when his son enlisted was that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because ‘that’s what they told us,’ I lose a little respect for that man.  Not his son.  His son didn’t utter those words, but for anyone to have swallowed what George Bush was selling when led the United States to war with Iraq is unbelievable.

I was 22 when 9/11 happened.  I was an adult for the lead up to the war in Iraq.  I read the news, researched information on the internet and listened to whatever information I could absorb.  I didn’t for a second believe it.  It was a sad premise for going to war with no evidence of WMD but to still have that reason trumpeted around as a reason for going to war.  It is almost as ridiculous as the Bush administration trying to push an Iraqi-Al Qaeda link post 9/11.

Maybe its a side effect of the generation I am part of, but I don’t take much of what the government says at a face value.  From either side of the political party.  I consider myself pretty liberal in my political leanings, but even I find some of the stuff from the left ridiculous.  I used to listen to both Air America (when it existed) and Rush Limbaugh (of course I could only get through so much Limbaugh crap before having to turn it off out of disgust).  Both sides are self-aggrandizing.  So I read as much as I can.

I also am not naive enough to believe statements like “I will shut down Guantanemo when I am president,” and figure he’ll do it right away.  Nor did I think that as soon as George Bush was out of office we would pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan right away.  That’s ridiculous as well.  I like to listen and make up my own mind.  I wish more people did as well.

Dear East Cleveland

meisajDaily Life

Dear East Cleveland,

Wow. Just wow.

I’m stunned that you actually voted in favor of red light cameras. That makes you the first community in the nation to do so.

You weren’t swayed by the safety. Which by the way isn’t approved by red light cameras. Do a little digging and not only do you find that theres little effect on safety but you find that rear end collisions actually increase at intersections with red light cameras.

Never mind that as owner of the vehicle you are now liable when someone driving your car runs red lights. Or that it’s a privately held company handing out tickets, not the police. Or even that it’s been struck down as unconstitutional in Wisconsin.

No. You were apparently swayed by the mayors argument that he would lay off 54 police officers if you didn’t pass it. In other words it’s a money grab and the mayor is using scare tactics to ensure the cameras keep the cash rolling.

Good job East Cleveland. You fucking rock.

Go To Hell Facebook

meisajDaily Life

So apparently I won’t be able to automatically have my blog entries reposted on Facebook.  This was done through their Notes app RSS feed importer.  They will be doing away with it as of November 22nd.

To be honest, it’s just another piece of the I hate Facebook motto I’ve had going.  Other than importing my blog posts I haven’t updated my Facebook in over a year.  I have one or two comments a week on other peoples Facebook statuses, but even that I could do away with.

Facebook is probably trying to get everyone to just post in there on their profiles.  Keep everything encircled in the “Facebook Community.”  Trying to get you more ensnared and dependent on Facebook for communication. But that’s crap.  A) Facebook is rife with idiocy  B) Facebook is full of privacy holes C) Facebook has little space for personalization.  and D) I actually have a decent number of friends who aren’t on and don’t use Facebook at all.

I don’t use Facebook as my log in for anything.  I wouldn’t.  That in itself freaks me out.  I don’t need Facebook to be my key for every application out there.  It leaves me feeling like someone is looking over my shoulder.

So after November 22nd, don’t look for me to be on Facebook much at all.  Its lost a lot appeal for me and I’m getting that much closer to just deleting my profile all together.  I know, this sounds like a lot of whining and bitching about Facebook.  It is.  Facebook is huge.  A lot of people use it.  There are tons of college friends and some high school friends that I otherwise wouldn’t talk to that are on Facebook.  I’m sure more people read my entries on Facebook than on my website itself.

But Facebook also is going against what I’d like to see.  Instead of inviting in more content they are doing away with content.  If they are doing away with RSS feeds, Twitter imports will be next (I don’t import twitter, but many people do). I’m not going to manually link every Blog entry into Facebook.  That’s nuts.  That’s making life harder instead of easier.

Way to go Zuckerberg

Tight

meisajDaily Life

I always joke that I never want a massage because my neck and shoulder muscles are so tight all the time that a massage would just make me realize its not normal.

To a large degree that’s true. I’ve had girlfriends give me massages to various degrees of success in the past, but to a large degree its not worth my time. It’s a short term and doesn’t usually work well. I like my massages to be ridiculously hard and deep. A small light massage doesn’t do anything for me.

So on days when I feel particularly sore like today I’m at a loss. I crack my neck a lot on days like this and thanks to the small of my back I’m sitting with near perfect posture. I’m going to take a bath and pull out the rice warming pad and hope that takes away the ache.

Phrases

meisajDaily Life

Phrases I uttered today:

– “James says my office smells worse since you moved in.”

– “Herman Cain is an idiot.”

– “I’ve got the key to the vending machine. Let Ron know if he opens it and its empty I didn’t do it.”

– “I’m pretty sure Jody wouldn’t accept my death as reason for not showing up to work tomorrow.”

– “Jesus made me do it.”

– “HEY, I make pretty good cat noises!!!”

– “So you’re going to lie to me then.”

More Thoughts on Mississippi

meisajDaily Life

I don’t go church.  I grew up in the Roman Catholic faith, going to church every Sunday, but I don’t go anymore, haven’t since I went to college.  Faith is a personal choice, and while I still have an inkling that there is something more to life than just what I can see and feel with my senses, I refuse to belong to any organization that needs a leader who is somehow closer to whatever is out there than me.  Take that Pope.

One of my favorite conversations I have ever had with my father happened the first year I moved to Cleveland.  My father had driven out for the night and we were at the bar talking during dinner.  He told me that people sometimes asked him if he felt bad that his children didn’t go to church (we were one of the larger more recognizable families in the church).  My dad responded with “All of my children are good people.  They have all made their own decisions and gone their own ways, but they are good people.  What more could I want.  If going to church has helped then to be good people then I can be happy about that.  But they’re good people.”

It made me happy.  And I’ve always like that my family went to church and still had its own ideas separate from ‘church doctrine.’

It scares me when bills go are put up to be voted on that people only support because of their faith.  It scares me, because it reminds me of Iran, or other middle east countries where politics and faith are crazy intertwined.  Why do your opinions and beliefs based on faith need to be forced upon others.

Anyways, I’m glad that the ‘Personhood’ initiative failed.  I’m pretty scared that the group that backed the initiative is saying they will try again, and that they are comparing the issue to slavery.

This quote on Huffington Post frames it amazingly.

“Maybe a pregnant women should get two votes, or maybe she should lose her vote and the fetus should vote, since she’s losing all her other civil rights,” she said. “Maybe we should do a mandatory sonogram of the fetus to determine if it’s Democrat or Republican? It’s all ridiculous.” ~Loretta Ross

Read the whole article here.