Politics, Motherhood, and Politics

Mirriam-Webster’s dictionary defines "kneel" as the following: Kneel-Verb “To move your body so that one or both of your knees are on the floor: to be in a position in which both of your knees are on the floor.” When I think of people in being in a position of kneeling, I think of someone being in a state of humbleness, surrender, submission or pleading.  Very commonly, humans kneel to pray before their gods or entities of faith (submission). I kneel beside my children as a gesture of sameness, not authoritarian, when playing with them or helping with homework (humbleness).  Sometimes lovers kneel, usually when asking the other’s hand in marriage or if they have wronged the other and beg for forgiveness (pleading).  And sometimes, we must get on our knees when we can no longer take the wrongness being done to us, to beg for someone to do the right thing or to bring justice (surrender). Kneeling embodies the most non-threatening stance a human b...

No Words of Comfort: An Illogical Rant If you trying to find words of comfort in this reading about the tragedy of what happened Sunday night in Las Vegas at the Highway 91 concert, you will not find them here. I ask for forgiveness of any reader wanting that right now.  It is a horror that I really have a loss for words.  I have no words of comfort.  No comfort for myself, my sons or anyone that I love.  It is a tragedy that has become all too common throughout the years.  All the words have been said time and time again.  There is nothing left to say.  The only action that I can take is to discuss the wars, gun control and our society in general, these are the issues that come up time and time again. I am not sure we will find an answer but we should try, because for me, I take comfort in examining issues to ease my hurt for those families who lost loved ones that terrible night. There is nothing to say about your own countrymen committing...

"To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement." Thomas Jefferson

1.  Tonight, Trump is making an announcement on the strategy on Afghanistan.  Questions we should ask ourselves: Is an increase in our troop level still necessary after 15 years?  Do we really need to be there?  Are we going to end this?  Or are we there another 15, still losing troops and our tax dollars? Also, rumor has it that the Trump Administration's plan may include "privatizing" the war in Afghanistan by allowing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' brother, Eric Prince's private security company takeover. He is the former head of Blackwater.  Here is an article from the Atlantic : https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/afghanistan-camp-david/537324/ President Harry S. Truman said felt that those who profit from war are committing "treason".  What do you think?  Contact your US Congressional Reps. and Senators tell them how you feel about this. 2. Speaking of Betsy DeVos, she is rolling back protections on Student ...

Being leader of the free world is not easy.  A lesson that Donald Trump is learning quickly.  I am not sure if many of his supporters seem to realize this fact, where the United States is in place on the global stage at this moment in history. I know it is difficult for many Americans (supporters and opponents alike) to imagine or grasp this concept as many of us struggle to make ends meet.  The last question most Americans are asking is, “Why are we the hegemonic state in the world?” Some of us are too busy asking ourselves, “How do I pay my rent/mortgage?”, and that is if we are one of the lucky ones.  However, those of us are not running for President of the United States, it is not important to ask such global questions.  The ones who do run (and eventually win) should have at least asked those type of questions and more before even making his/her first campaign speech. Since World War II, the United States has been the modern day Roman Empire.  We...

The largest angst of being a parent seems to be the tortuous decisions you have to make. A parent will question every decision made on behalf of their child. You never know if it’s the right decision until later, sometimes, you won’t know until they’re adults. The tremendous responsibility of deciding what is best for another human being, particularly one that, by choice, a person decides to nurture. One decision made by parents, particularly here in the United States, is what sports, if any, a child should play. Since a young age, I have registered my sons for hockey, karate, swimming, soccer, wrestling, ice skating, and now baseball.  I figured that as long as they end up well-rounded individuals, activities that feed the body, mind and spirit, then I am doing ok. However, to my surprise, it appears that my husband and I should have chosen a sport for them at 3, 4 or 5, if I wanted them to have a high school, collegiate or professional career in baseball or any other team ...

The war drums continue to beat louder once again, though they have been beating for a long time now, just a little quieter.  The question now is will it be Iran, North Korea or even China?  Or it is a Middle Eastern country with oil reserves and a government who is “defiant” against the US?  War is sown in the fabric of our conscience since our nation’s birth.  We were born from war, we expanded by slaughtering our indigenous, enslaving generation after generation, then fought a civil war to end the enslavement of human beings.  Since World War II, we have considered ourselves to be justified for every bomb we drop.  One of my undergraduate Political Science professors asked one time, “Why is everything a war?  A war of poverty, a war on drugs, always a war?”  After the September 2001 attacks, predictably it was a “war on terror”.   At that time, I thought maybe it was one of those “war” phrases, but this time the George W. Bush administ...

For transgender Americans, the idea that their specific causes have been brought to the American mainstream discussion is probably surprising to them.  As many issues discussed among Americans, the specific issue that has been brought to the forefront is their bathroom usage.  The questions that ran through my head were: Why does anyone care about which bathroom a human being uses?  For me, if you “look” like my gender, I usually don’t question why you are in my bathroom.  So what’s the issue if a transgender woman uses my bathroom, am I or other biological women looking to make sure? I am not.  Are other women doing the same?  Of course once I turned on the TV and social media, it was unavoidable that this actually was being discussed on controlling what bathroom Americans were using.  So much for smaller government. What was more shocking was the arguments being made by the opposition.   Discussion of Opposition The oppositional ar...