yesican32's Blog

how crazy is it that the news interupts information about the president for breaking news about paris hilton?

...and sadly, it won't surprise me

Excerpt --

 Where Have All the Leaders Gone? By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

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Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points—not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.

Leadership is all about managing change—whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION—a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know—Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-l
eft-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here."

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the BLEEP out of you, I don't know what will.

A Hell of a Mess

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Actually, it's more so for mothers who have given birth via c-section and have had a vbac with other children after that.

My first child was difficult to deliver, as I had high blood pressure, my heart was racing, and she just did NOT want to come out at all.  I finally had a c-section.  I am now in the process of trying to become pregnant again, and I'm getting more and more nervous.

I've been reading lately about having a vaginal birth after a c-section, and nothing seems to be on my side.  My incision is a high vertical cut, and that's technically one of the deal breakers to having a vaginal delivery with another child.  However, I have recently read that just because the outside incision is vertical, doesn't mean the inside is the same..it could be horizontal.  So, I will have to call for my surgical records to know this for certain.

My question is for the ladies who have had c-sections and have more than one child.  Did you continue to have c-sections, or did you risk it with vaginal delivery?  I honestly don't want to have another c-section, but I don't think I'd want to take the risk otherwise.

Thanks for your time!

...but they do show how far we've come as women

"The Catholic Encyclopedia declares, 'The female sex is in some respects inferior to the male sex, both as regards body and soul.'  This is a somewhat modified version of the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas, who insisted that every woman is birth-defective, an imperfect male begotten because her father happened to be ill, weakened, or in a state  of sin at the time of her conception."

"Christianity was the first religion to announce that it was sinful just to be alive, on account of having been sexually conceived and born of a woman."

"Martin Luther claimed the physical differences between me and women demonstrated God's plan for sexism.  'Men have broad and large chests and small, narrow hips and more understanding than women who have but small, narrow chests and broad hips, to the end that they should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear and bring up children.  If women get tired and die of bearing, there is no harm in that; let them die as long as they bear; they were made for that."

"A self-perpetuating belief in woman's inferior intellect was fostered by the almost universal custom of keeping women out of schools, all but a few aristocratic ladies who could receive an expensive private education.  Queen Elizabeth I of England was unsexed by several historians who thought she was too clever to be female.  They claimed she died in infancy, and a boy was secretly raised in her place.  The small minority of educated women were seldom accepted as such.  On one occasion a learned lady was presented as a curiousity to King James I, and he was told she was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.  He only inquired, 'but can she spin?'"

"St. Columkille made a rule that no woman could even be buried in the vicinity of a Christian church, alleging that this was the custom from Chrisianity's beginnings."

"IN 1855, a Mrs. Caroline Norton left her husband after he repeatedly subjected her to beatings, mental abuse, and infidelity.  He kept his mistress in the same house with her.  A court ruled that the wife need not return to the house, but the husband was given their three children because the wife had 'condoned his actions' by staying with him through the cruelties.  In 1839, the Infants' Custody Act introduced a slight modification.  At his own discretion, a judge in equity could allow separated mothers to keep children under seven years of age, or to have visiting rights to older children, provided the mother was not guilty of adultery.  Fathers suffered no such restriction, of course."

"In the Christian view, woman brought death into the world and sex perpetuated it.  It was claimed that Adam was made to be immortal, but he lost both his innocence and his immortality when Even taught him about sex.  All women were copies of Eve, her very existence bringing destruction to God's image, man.  Women were dangerous even when dead.  An early church edict ordered that a male corpse must not be buried next to a female corpse until the latter was safely decomposed."

"The 20th century was not much more enlightened than the 19th.  Stall's marriage manual, the ultimate authority at the turn of the century, blamed women themselves for the seuxal ignorance society imposed on them.  If a wife failed to understand her husband's sexual needs, she was to blame 'for her lack of knowledge and consideration.'  But men's lack of knowledge and consideration was part of the culture."

"Male 'delicacy' even dictated that books of male and female authors must be kept on separate bookshelves unless the authors 'happen to be married.'"

"A standard Christian work on sex dedicated to Cardinal d'Este, Sinibaldi's 17th-century Geneanthropeia, said no woman could conceive if she enjoyed sex.  Before the turn of the last century, it was expected that 'good' women would know nothing of sexual pleasure.  If they showed an inclination to learn, they might be cruelly teased.  Thomas Branagan's advice to young men  was to test the virtue of a fiancee by trying to seduce her, to make sure she would react with 'becoming abhorrence.' If she seemed too compliant, she must be jilted."

"Syrian churches ruled that no person could become Christian except celibate men, and no man who had ever been married could be baptized.  Saturninus said God made only two kinds of people, good men and evil women.  Marriage perpetuated the deviltry of women, who dominated men through the magic of sex.  Centuries later, St. Bernard still proclaimed that it was easier for a man to bring the dead back to life than to live with a woman without endangering his soul."

"There was no Christina sacrament of marraige until the 16th century.  Catholic scholars say the wedding ceremony was 'imposed on' a reluctant church, and 'nothing is more remarkable than the tardiness with which liturgical forms for the marriage ceremony were evolved.'  It is perhaps not remarkable to find that htese liturgical forms were not evolved by the church at all, but borrowed from pagans' common law."

"Aristotle taught that a husband should be more than twice his bride's age -he 37, she 18 - so he could dominate her."

"Medieval folk tales convey a distinct impression that the Christian God opposed marrage.  One story said a pure youth and maiden agreed never to marry, 'for the love of God.'  But their heathen parents forced them into a wedding.  By God's grace, the ground opened under their feet and swallowed them before they could spoil their virginity.  A priest who dared officate at the wedding was found dead the next day.  Another young couple eloped, being forced to defy God, who 'did not sanction earthly marriages.' Gebhard, archbishop of Cologne, was said to have blessed married couples illegally, adn even took a wife himself.  He was exommunicated, besieged by Catholic forces in Godesberg Castle, caught, and killed.  The ruins of hsi castle are still shown today."

"When Christian authorities revised pagan marriage laws, they were primarily concerned with placing a wife's property in her husband's control and keeping it there.  Women owned the land under the pagan system, and their husbands could acquire an interest in it only through matrimony.  This system was reversed in husbands' favor.  Common-law  and Morganatic marriages were provisionally accepted by christian churches only after many restrictions had been imposed on the wife's rights of ownership and inheritance.  Christian marital morality amounted to taking the means of independenc from women and turning it over to men."

"Wife-beating was a by-product fo the Christian view of woman as man's property.  Napoleon remarked, 'Woman is given to us to bear children.  She is our property....She is our possession, as the fruit tree is that of the gardener.'  St. Thomas Aquinas said a wife is lower than a slave, because a slave may be freed, but 'Woman is in subjection according to the law of nature, but a slave is not.'"

---all passages taken out of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, written by Barbara Walker

*this is not my attempt at defending rosie, because i'm a huge fan. this is just me defending another person's right to give an opinion without making it a personal attack to him/her as a human being. that's ignorant. *

Bill O'Reilly has made it a point to devote much of his program for the last few days to whatever Rosie O'Donnell says on The View that his different from his own thinking.

He had Geraldo Rivera on the other night and preceded to drown him out with "You're losing this one buddy!"  The problem with that observation is Bill didn't seem to understand exactly what Geraldo was saying.

Sure, I'll admit, sometimes Rosie says some off-the-wall things, but so do most conservatives in my opinion.  The difference between me and people like Bill O'Reilly, is I don't accuse others of being unamerican or siding with the terrorists.  The thing that pisses me off about this whole deal is Bill O'Reilly and everone on that network (with the exception of one man on Hannity and Colmes, who defended what Rosie actually said, to what people interpeted her saying, which is my point all along), has made it a point to twist, cut and paste without letting viewers who do not watch The View, know what was said before and after the thought.

The thing is, Rosie's opinion on anything she says is proteced under free speech.  Many people, including Bill O'Reilly during his interview with Geraldo, kept spinning the situation to ask if "Ann Coulter had said what Rosie had said, every media network would be all over it."  But since it wasn't her, O'Reilly claims, and just Rosie, the media stood clear of it, which further proves the "liberal media bias."

That's not exactly true.  The reason Ann Coulter got so much publicity (which she loves, and that's why she said it) is because she used a derogatory slur to John Edwards.  Whether she meant it or it was "taking out of context," she still said it, and that is not protected by free speech.  There are just some things you do not do, and apparently Ann Coulter just wanted some attention for the day, because it was getting quiet on her side of the world.

If Rosie had used a derogatory name to Bush or anyone in the adminstration, of COURSE it would have been noted.  But since she gave an opinion about a situation that has been done many times over, hardly anyone took notice.  It was an opinion, on a show about giving opinions.  So what?

I love to debate with others.  It gives us a different outlook afterwards, and it's great to remain friendly afterwards.  But basic rules in debate will tell you that you do not manipulate what others say, and you do not use derogatory slurs or any such thing that would personally affect the other debator.  It's very simple to do!  Many people (and yes, I'm including liberals in this) do not understand that concept, and can not fathom the idea of not resulting to that.  It only makes me think that the person has limited knowledge on the idea at hand, and can only go so far.  It's sad to me...

Let's clarify right quick: 

Rosie never said terrorists are good people or that we should befriend them instead of fearing them.  She said we shouldn't fear terrorists (meaning, we shouldn't live in fear that "everyone over there" is a terrorist, or the enemy..which is smart, because many people ONLY see terrorists over there, and nothing else).

She did say it was planned for those British soldiers to be captured so that we could go into Iran.  I don't necessarly agree with this, but I'm apparently in the minority, since many others have this same, or similar thought.

She never said that the government planned to destroy the twin towers.  She did say steel can't melt by fire, to which she clarified later by saying she was refering to a steel building never being destoryed by fire.  Which is true.  She was NOT refering to the twin towers, as so many people like to say, and forget about the other places that were hit.  She was refering to Tower 7, and that theory has been around for a while, only to be brought back to surface by a particular video.  No one has been able to prove one way or another how Building 7 was destroyed, and the ones who "cleaned up the mess quicker than they did for anything else" do not have much to say on the matter.  Which is suspicious.  Do I believe we were responsible for that one?  Not sure, but I know the building wasn't destroyed the way the rest of them were, and I know jet fuel was not the answer (since there was no record of that at all)

I guess I wrote this because, if people want to disagree with Rosie, that's fine, and I encourage that.  I want to debate her on many things, since we don't always see eye to eye.  However, once you twist her words around, and call her names, you've gone to far.  If you cannot have a serious debate without going back to that, you shouldn't even try to debate.  That sorta thing is best left for people who know how to behave like adults

Another thing?  Do not have the balls to say to another American citizen that because they do not agree with the same things you do, or they haven't served in the military, or they have a liberal point of view, or they're more into arts than politics, that you are more American than they are.  We are all citizens of this great country, and for someone to be arrogant enough to think that just because they hold a more conservative outlook on life that they suddenly have a higher ground with which to stand pisses me off more than anything else.  Grow the BLEEP up.

I usually do not get into religious topics about my own beliefs because a lot of people do not know the difference between debating and mocking, but I thought I would go ahead anyways.

My beliefs rather merge on their type.  I am part Native America (though you can't tell it by looking at me).  My mother's side of the family is either Cherokee or Sioux (meaning, a combination of both), and one of my ancestors is the the great Sioux "chief" (as he technically wasn't), Sitting Bull.  Yes, I do like to brag about that.

In any case, though I was raised in a family that believed in the traditional baptist upbringing, my interests in our family history peaked, and I often would educate myself on what those Native Americans believed.

I did subject myself to the wonder that is church, and with heavy persuading, I went to church a lot of the time, mainly to please others.  I hated every bit of it, as it was filled with people who showed absolutely no spirit in their beliefs.  They praised in such a meloncholy way, I thought for sure I was mourning this Jesus fellow, instead of just giving thanks.  Even now, when I attend church with my lover, who is Catholic (I only go for holidays such as Easter), I am surrounded by people who aren't paying attention to what is being said.  I think I would pay attention if someone were discussing of something I deemed important enough to surround my life and try to make it better.  I guess most do not see that.

I digress.

In high school, I took that time to dive deep into different religions, and was surprised at how many different paths there were, and how old some of them were compared to christianity.  I was intrigued to say the least.  Then came the time when I visited a psychic.  She made incredibly accurate predictions that came true, but that wasn't what interested me.  She told me I needed to tap back into my native roots, and rediscover or relearn my wiccan ancestors.  I had no idea at the time, but apparently, I have several witches in my family.  When I read of their deep connection to nature, everything clicked.  All snapped into place.  I suddenly became a different person, because I had found my path.

Basically, I believe in Mother Earth.  She is the one who breathes life into me, and she is the one who will take it out if she sees fit.  Father Time (moreso father sky) is not significant so much in the mortal life as he is in the afterlife.  He is the keeper of "heaven"..he is in charge.

Seems simple enough, but there are many other factors that go into it.  Basic rules and morals that are essential in surviving this world, and thriving as a good human being.  You are judged by the Mother as to how you behave on her earth, and the Father will indeed create your punishment or celebration.  There are methods of praying to the Mother that echo praying to the "christian god" but do not include kneeling before your bed.  It is a very intense thing, to ask for anything, and when you do, you must be prepared to give back something in return, or you will have something essential taken away from you (if not the very thing you asked for in the first place).  This does not mean sacrifcing a goat...we do not do that.  A simple task of planting a seed, or picking up trash will often suffice.

In any case, this path has helped me quite a bit in my life, as I can appreciate what I have a lot more, and I'm not lost as I once was.  I know where I am, and where I'm going.

As far as my daughter is concerned, soon enough, in regards to her father's wishes, she will be "saved" by the church (not catholic, because I refuse to say I'm GOING to raise my child catholic just to get her saved), but that in no way means the christian path will be forced upon her.  I want her to experience the joy and enlightenment of finding her own way like I, and several others did.  She will learn more in the long run.

But that doesn't mean I will not teach her basic manners.  She will respect other religions.  When she attends church with her father (on those certain occasions), she will be respectable.  She will show much respect for the world and the people around her.  She will learn not to take life for granted.  That, in itself, is enough to make her at ease in whichever direction she chooses to go in her path.

I am not asking anyone to agree or disagree with me.  I am just stating my own beliefs and how I came to believe them.  We can debate on religion to we're all blue in the face, and personally, I love to!  It really makes us aware of how grounded we are in our faiths.  However, those that mock or poke fun have much to learn about respecting others and their beliefs, and it's terrible when some of them have kids.  They're teaching them the same thing.

You've all heard it before.  One loud mouth in the middle of the room complaining of spanish versions of everything in America.  The biggest outcry is: "If we went to their country, they wouldn't cater to us like we do to them as far as language" (in not so many words, trust me)

While that's all well and good to feel and believe this if you want, it irks me to pieces that a lot of these people can't even speak their OWN english language properly.  Most people can't spell without that handy, but unreliable spell check.  It's everything you learned in your english class, from first grade on up to graduation, college for some.  It's not that hard!

If you still can't speak or spell correctly, fine.  But I would suggest you stay out of the debate of hispanics who can not speak our language.  Most of them that I have come in contact with them, do, in fact, make an effort....while the idiots who can't do their own language correctly justify it with "I'm using slang."

It's such a sad world.

...how emotionally outraged people get on here.  It makes you wonder what they're like in real life.  Seeing as how I actually am a writer, I can bet they're the quiet ones, who refuse to speak up in public, and wait until they get on their nifty blog, where they can pretend to be more bada** than they actually are

It's funny to watch, but also sad, because it doesn't allow a friendly debate.  Online bullying, it is, in the form of bad grammer.

Gotta love it.