Okay. It's been a long week around the world, it's Saturday, I have a migraine, and now I'm irked.
If (general) you tweet me something while I am sleeping or away from the internet, and you don't get a reply, it could be due to the fact that I am sleeping or away from the internet. If I RT something, it doesn't necessarily mean that I've ignored your post, or am ignoring you. It means I haven't formulated a reply.
Now. I am a middle-aged (when did THAT happen??? ack) many-generation American, which means I really don't self-identify as a, Irish-American, a Swedish-American, a German-American, an English-American, a French-American, etc, even though I could self-identify as all of the above. I'm an American. I'm also a white American, and Protestant, and Democrat. Tree-hugger? Maybe. Pro-choice? Yes. Pro-capital punishment? Yes. Independent thinker? Yes.
I retweeted an article I read online yesterday that had to do with the fact that it appears that it may not be 'political suicide' now to disagree with issues going on in the Middle East: "Why Opposing the Israel Lobby Is No Longer Political Suicide" via The Nation, which has been in publication since 1865 and is an admittedly liberal magazine. One of my (now former) followers lives in Israel, and complained that, in retweeting an article she says is 'one-sided', I was not seeing 'their' side of the conflict.
She sent me the series of tweets between 4AM and 5AM my time, and said she unfollowed me because of the article and then refollowed me to 'discuss' it. On Twitter, where the maximum post is 140 characters long.
Today is Saturday. I slept in, and when I woke up, I read her posts. Not something I wanted to process a minute after waking up. I retweeted a few other posts (Go Cards!) and then was offline to get 'auburn' again and to run errands. You know, Saturday things.
In the middle of my hair appointment, I got another post that essentially said that I was apparently ignoring her earlier posts, and that I didn't want to hear "what they were going through here". When I replied that I have been away from the computer most of the day she pointed out that I had been on 5 hours previously (my RTs) and that I obviously believe that Israel doesn't have a "right to defend itself against constant rockets" (that is a direct quote). She has unfollowed me again, so I'm sure she probably won't see this long-winded reply to her posts.
I am rather pissed, and I don't mean drunk.
The following is my opinion. If you don't like my opinion, that is entirely your prerogative.
I think the Israelis need to stop settling in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. I think that the are using overt force against a mostly unarmed people. I think they need to use their fêted Iron Dome (which they do!) and work to talk to the people who are firing them off to get them to stop. I think they need to retreat their ground forces. If the Israelis are so worried about the tunnels they claim the Palestinians are using to get into Israel, they should find them on the Israeli side and block them. I think they are using the 'hunt for tunnels' as an excuse to destroy hospitals, schools, shelters, homes, and businesses. And lives.
Great! Israel uses the 'knock on the roof' to let people know that they're going to drop a bomb. What about after that bomb is dropped? What happens to the people who homes were just destroyed? Oh, that doesn't matter, they're just Palestinians. What about the children killed on the beach? "Oops."? As of this afternoon, there has been 5 Israeli deaths (3 soldiers, 2 civilians), and at least 336 Palestinian. Mostly women and children - at least 70 children. (Source: Yahoo! News) Disproportional much?
I'm not saying that Israel cannot defend itself against rockets. I'm saying that the "offensive incursion" is not "defensive". It's offensive, and not just in a military way. It's offensive to human rights, to people who want the fighting to stop, and to countries around the world who are starting to look askance at the blind support that countries like the United States have given Israel in the past.
I think it's great that people are starting to really look at this issue, and talk about how maybe all this blind support isn't a good idea, and talk about it politically. We haven't had that freedom (in the land of the free!) to even hint to oppose the support, because it wasn't popular - it was 'political suicide'. Kinda like Akin and his 'legitimate rape' crap that he's now saying is 'true' (due to his retraction of his apology) and that he was 'a victim'. (Of his own stupidity. Moron.)
I just ran across this Huffington Post article while I was looking for information on Akin, and I'm sure it'll also be considered 'one-sided': May We Talk About This Yet? Jewish Millennials and the Future of Israel-Palestine
It's now 8PM, and I have been irritated about this topic since I woke up this morning. Did I ignore the posts? No. Has it taken me over 9 hours to put my thoughts together enough to post it? Yes. Am I still pissed at the response I got in the middle of the afternoon? You bet.
Your mileage may vary.
Cheers.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
baseball, life, and @meteoritemen
Well, it’s the baseball off season. What to do? The Rams have one win on the season so far (yes, we are on what, Week 8?) and the Blues are off to a rocky start. Albert Pujols goes on the full free agent market at 11:01 PM tonight, we’ve lost our 16-season manager to retirement, Yadier Molina won the Gold Glove for the fourth year in a row, and David Freese seems to be following Justin Bieber from one talk show to another. And oh, by the way, the guys won the World Series. Yeah, just a little thing.
Isn't that video great?? It aired on Channel 5 on Sunday night and the guy who produced it (Larry) posted it on Twitter last night, He's @ksdk_sports on Twitter.
Monday night was Halloween, and was mostly a recovery night from the weekend. Last night, however, some more of my Twitter timeline was available (outside my #stlcards tweeps, that is) and I saw that Geoff Notkin was posting about the upcoming Meteorite Men Season 3 premiere following a Season 2 marathon of the show on Science.
Their seasons are 8 episodes, but they are enjoyable. The premise of the show is the space-rock pursuing adventures of Geoff and his fellow hunter Steve Arnold, who uncovered the world’s largest oriented pallisite. I love the description of that find – equipment was listed as ‘sophisticated modern metal detecting equipment (…) and a backhoe.’ I’m so used to people digging things out of the ground with hand tools and brushes that the backhoe reminded me of the line from Indiana Jones: “You would use a bulldozer to find a....china cup...” Geoff is very particular (my impression) and Steve is very much a ‘jump up and let’s go get-em!’ guy. The thinker and the do-er, paired up to hunt for bits of space stuff. They are a LOT of fun to watch. It's like David Bowie vs Led Zepplin. heee
Geoff posted several messages on Twitter last night, and one of them was that he was also a blogger on a website in Tucson, where he lives. All of my exposure to Geoff has been via the TV, and so I was curious about the blog. What else to do in the off-season?!?
I’m glad I clicked.
Geoff had a good friend who passed away a few days ago, and so he put up a couple of blog posts about this friend. I read the second one first, as it was the most recent entry, and was really struck with not only the tone of the post but the insight into Geoff.
First, I have to agree that there comes a point when a person with a terminal illness just has to say ‘stop, enough is enough.’ Most of you who read this blog know that my stepfather passed away earlier this year after fighting his stage 4 cancer for over 3 years. He decided in November that he’d had enough of the treatments and that he was done. Some of you may know that I lost another friend in December of 1995 due to aggressive bone cancer. In his case, the cause of his illness was not found until it was far too late to fix the problem, and anything that could be done would have just been for quality of life. One of my last memories of Tom was watching a Rams football game with him on a Thursday night. Isn’t it odd what we remember?
Second, anyone who thinks that choosing to stop treatment is tantamount to committing suicide needs to have their own head examined. There is a point when the non-terminal person or people involved need to think of the terminal individual and not themselves. Yes, I know that is the most difficult thing to say and do, and no-one wants to just give up, but I would hope that if I was incapacitated, and someone else had to make that decision, they would think of me and how I would live from that point on and not of themselves. It irked me that Geoff had to address the individuals who considered the act of choosing to stop treatment as a sin – deal with it in your own life and then get back to me about it being a ‘sin’. Grrr.
I haven’t been to the intentional suicide point, thankfully, but I’m saddened and somewhat amazed by those who take that route. I’ve been dogged by depression several times, but not to that level.
I have to say, however, that I am envious of those who have the courage to drop everything and take a leap of faith that Geoff did. I am very glad that he had a friend who had the ability to help him detour from the path that would have lead to nowhere. If she hadn’t been there for him, how would all of us (who are still going about our mundane existences) have been entertained by two guys looking for rocks from space? Thank you, Anne Husick; you don’t know me from Eve, but thanks. I wish I had the courage to be that bold.
Gee, I think I’ve written more in this ramble than I have about anything else for a while.
I would recommend Geoff’s blog on the Tucson Citizen site. It’s an interesting read, and has things that sometimes will make you go Hmmm. I really liked the post from Sept 13 and the one from Sept 11 made me cry. Again.
By the way, the season premiere for Meteorite Men is on November 28.
Go think happy thoughts. Baseball pitchers and catchers report in 108 days!
Cheers!
Isn't that video great?? It aired on Channel 5 on Sunday night and the guy who produced it (Larry) posted it on Twitter last night, He's @ksdk_sports on Twitter.
Monday night was Halloween, and was mostly a recovery night from the weekend. Last night, however, some more of my Twitter timeline was available (outside my #stlcards tweeps, that is) and I saw that Geoff Notkin was posting about the upcoming Meteorite Men Season 3 premiere following a Season 2 marathon of the show on Science.
Their seasons are 8 episodes, but they are enjoyable. The premise of the show is the space-rock pursuing adventures of Geoff and his fellow hunter Steve Arnold, who uncovered the world’s largest oriented pallisite. I love the description of that find – equipment was listed as ‘sophisticated modern metal detecting equipment (…) and a backhoe.’ I’m so used to people digging things out of the ground with hand tools and brushes that the backhoe reminded me of the line from Indiana Jones: “You would use a bulldozer to find a....china cup...” Geoff is very particular (my impression) and Steve is very much a ‘jump up and let’s go get-em!’ guy. The thinker and the do-er, paired up to hunt for bits of space stuff. They are a LOT of fun to watch. It's like David Bowie vs Led Zepplin. heee
Geoff posted several messages on Twitter last night, and one of them was that he was also a blogger on a website in Tucson, where he lives. All of my exposure to Geoff has been via the TV, and so I was curious about the blog. What else to do in the off-season?!?
I’m glad I clicked.
Geoff had a good friend who passed away a few days ago, and so he put up a couple of blog posts about this friend. I read the second one first, as it was the most recent entry, and was really struck with not only the tone of the post but the insight into Geoff.
First, I have to agree that there comes a point when a person with a terminal illness just has to say ‘stop, enough is enough.’ Most of you who read this blog know that my stepfather passed away earlier this year after fighting his stage 4 cancer for over 3 years. He decided in November that he’d had enough of the treatments and that he was done. Some of you may know that I lost another friend in December of 1995 due to aggressive bone cancer. In his case, the cause of his illness was not found until it was far too late to fix the problem, and anything that could be done would have just been for quality of life. One of my last memories of Tom was watching a Rams football game with him on a Thursday night. Isn’t it odd what we remember?
Second, anyone who thinks that choosing to stop treatment is tantamount to committing suicide needs to have their own head examined. There is a point when the non-terminal person or people involved need to think of the terminal individual and not themselves. Yes, I know that is the most difficult thing to say and do, and no-one wants to just give up, but I would hope that if I was incapacitated, and someone else had to make that decision, they would think of me and how I would live from that point on and not of themselves. It irked me that Geoff had to address the individuals who considered the act of choosing to stop treatment as a sin – deal with it in your own life and then get back to me about it being a ‘sin’. Grrr.
I haven’t been to the intentional suicide point, thankfully, but I’m saddened and somewhat amazed by those who take that route. I’ve been dogged by depression several times, but not to that level.
I have to say, however, that I am envious of those who have the courage to drop everything and take a leap of faith that Geoff did. I am very glad that he had a friend who had the ability to help him detour from the path that would have lead to nowhere. If she hadn’t been there for him, how would all of us (who are still going about our mundane existences) have been entertained by two guys looking for rocks from space? Thank you, Anne Husick; you don’t know me from Eve, but thanks. I wish I had the courage to be that bold.
Gee, I think I’ve written more in this ramble than I have about anything else for a while.
I would recommend Geoff’s blog on the Tucson Citizen site. It’s an interesting read, and has things that sometimes will make you go Hmmm. I really liked the post from Sept 13 and the one from Sept 11 made me cry. Again.
By the way, the season premiere for Meteorite Men is on November 28.
Go think happy thoughts. Baseball pitchers and catchers report in 108 days!
Cheers!
Monday, March 8, 2010
pooches, ravelympics and basically touching base
Hi! Thought I abandoned you? Naw. Just my usual boring life going on, so I haven't posted.
I posted a while ago that I had some bad news to pass on. On September 10, 2009, my dear pooch Pluto had a heart attack and died in my arms. I'm afraid I was depressed for a few months, and that's mainly why I've failed to post. I didn't knit, blog, or chat much online. It didn't help that it was really quiet here at home, with no furry friend to motivate me to get moving.
On January 15th, that changed.
I'd been casually looking at PetFinders, and wondering if I'd want another dog. And what kind. Well, I came across this one sad looking dog that looked like she needed a home, and went to see her. Three days later, I adopted Lily. She is a very small 5 year old beagle, or possibly a beagle/dachshund mix. She's a tri-color, no 'flag' on her tail, and bays loudly! She's only 9 inches tall at the shoulder, and was an emaciated 8.5 lbs when I got her. She had a LOT of things wrong - whipworms, coccydia, dehydration, and (as I later found out) a double ear infection. Since then, we have managed to kick all of that to the curb, and today she was a whopping 12.7 lbs! Yay! Now we're working on housebreaking - almost there - and how she seems to have to sleep in the MIDDLE of the bed.
Here's a pic from January 31 - she travels VERY well, sleeps 5 minutes after getting on the road - and we were at Fort Kaskaskia Park in southern Illinois:
I have picked my knitting up again, and participated in the 2010 Ravelympics! I medaled in several categories:
I posted a while ago that I had some bad news to pass on. On September 10, 2009, my dear pooch Pluto had a heart attack and died in my arms. I'm afraid I was depressed for a few months, and that's mainly why I've failed to post. I didn't knit, blog, or chat much online. It didn't help that it was really quiet here at home, with no furry friend to motivate me to get moving.
On January 15th, that changed.
I'd been casually looking at PetFinders, and wondering if I'd want another dog. And what kind. Well, I came across this one sad looking dog that looked like she needed a home, and went to see her. Three days later, I adopted Lily. She is a very small 5 year old beagle, or possibly a beagle/dachshund mix. She's a tri-color, no 'flag' on her tail, and bays loudly! She's only 9 inches tall at the shoulder, and was an emaciated 8.5 lbs when I got her. She had a LOT of things wrong - whipworms, coccydia, dehydration, and (as I later found out) a double ear infection. Since then, we have managed to kick all of that to the curb, and today she was a whopping 12.7 lbs! Yay! Now we're working on housebreaking - almost there - and how she seems to have to sleep in the MIDDLE of the bed.
Here's a pic from January 31 - she travels VERY well, sleeps 5 minutes after getting on the road - and we were at Fort Kaskaskia Park in southern Illinois:
I have picked my knitting up again, and participated in the 2010 Ravelympics! I medaled in several categories:
If you click on the picks (except for the Single Skein), you'll be redirected to pictures of the completed projects. I started but didn't complete a Kureopatora's Snake as well, finished that one a few days ago, and started another one for me. The temps right now don't warrant scarves, though. Oddly, I think this happened last year about this time too - right after I finished Lisa's basketweave scarf. Hmmm.
I'm recovering from a series of illnesses that landed on me all at once the first week of February, and am TIRED of taking pills. Bleh. I'm nearing the end of my third (!!) course of antibiotics, and finally (mostly) have my voice back. Had to have a root canal due to the infection moving into a tooth, as well. I'm feeling much better now.
I love Meteorite Men. Want more Eps!!!
Lastly, BASEBALL HAS RETURNED! *happydances* Spring Training games started last week (and Yes, I'm glad they don't count. Ouch!) and Opening Day is 4 weeks away. Four weeks!
Okay, I think I'm wound out. Yarn reviews should return soon (I just bought some! w00t!) after I take pictures and type out the list.
Cheers!
I'm recovering from a series of illnesses that landed on me all at once the first week of February, and am TIRED of taking pills. Bleh. I'm nearing the end of my third (!!) course of antibiotics, and finally (mostly) have my voice back. Had to have a root canal due to the infection moving into a tooth, as well. I'm feeling much better now.
I love Meteorite Men. Want more Eps!!!
Lastly, BASEBALL HAS RETURNED! *happydances* Spring Training games started last week (and Yes, I'm glad they don't count. Ouch!) and Opening Day is 4 weeks away. Four weeks!
Okay, I think I'm wound out. Yarn reviews should return soon (I just bought some! w00t!) after I take pictures and type out the list.
Cheers!
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