Memories and current events

This magnet is from Cindy’s Brownie Morrison shop. I think it’s actually a re-creation of my life when Teri and Cindy were little. It was icky and wrong one day when I was shopping in Luther’s grocery store and we met a little, old, wrinkled black lady. Cindy, in the basket, became so excited she bounced around in her seat and screeched, “A monkey, a monkey!!!” The lady heard her and came over, and I apologized all over the place, trying to explain that we don’t say things like that. I told her Cindy looks at National Geographic magazines and that’s where she got it. But the lady said, “They just say what the white folks say. You’re lucky I wasn’t someone who had a knife!” I was so embarrassed I almost felt sick. I dragged the girls out of the store as fast as I could and never took Cindy back there. Unfortunately, she did it again in another store, so I think that was the end of her going shopping with mom for a while.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the health care bill and efforts to pass it. I’ve seen John Boehner, House Minority leader, on TV saying how republicans wouldn’t pass it until they made sure there would be no funding for abortions. John and the right-wingers seem to have forgotten about the passage of Roe v. Wade. It makes me furious to think that women may be held hostage by a group of idiots. When I see people marching against abortions, they look to me like un-educated hillbillies. They keep working away until soon they’ll overturn Roe v. Wade. At least they intend to do that. And John Boehner – he’s not a noble congressman. He’s a chain smoker who took money from tobacco lobbyists and helped save their subsidy, and he did it right on the House floor. I don’t think any woman should be told what to do and what not to do with her body. That whole idea infuriates me!

I see in the paper that Texas will be setting the standard for new textbooks. “The Texas Board of Education approved a social studies curriculum Friday that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.” That quote was taken from “The Oregonian” who was quoting the “New York Times News Service.” Finally, the Republican right-wingers can now instruct our children any way they see fit. Why would Texas affect the other states? Because Texas is one of the largest buyers of textbooks.There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings. They were just a bunch of ordinary (?) people who want to do away with Darwinism and the separation of church and state. One of the board members, Mary Helen Berlanga, stormed out of the meeting, saying, “They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians. They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.” I have an idea – why doesn’t Texas secede from the United States? Oh, I forgot. They tried it in 1861 and it didn’t work out too well. Maybe one more time.

The other day I was thinking how boring my life was, when the phone rang. It was Teri calling from Abu Dhabi – yes, there is a place with that name. She was there on business. Then I got a call from Cindy who was eagerly awaiting someone who would come into her shop and spend $300. She was very pissed off when she heard what Teri had been doing. So then I hung up and went out to check on the contractor who was working on my condo. He was up on the scaffolding and I told him I was getting ants inside from the dry rot outside. So he says, “The next batch of ants coming in will be full of Viagra!!” So I guess we three live pretty interesting lives and I should never be bored.