Tag Archives: society

Gay Marriage

Voters in at least three states were faced with propositions related to Gay marriage. In California, it was Proposition 8, put on the ballot and funded by Mormons that stated that marriage should only be considered valid between a man and a woman. It passed. And in so doing, it took away the rights and validity of Gay marriage granted by California statutes.

The people being blamed are Blacks who voted overwhelmingly for it. Apparently Blacks thought that civil rights should only apply to them. Everyone else who voted for it apparently has never heard of the concepts of separation of church and state or that all are created equal.

Everyone jumped on the religious bandwagon, believing every outrageous thing said by a bunch of religious zealots. Whatever happened to love thy neighbor; treat everyone as you would have them treat you? It’s 100% religious bigotry and it’s obscene.

And what’s all this defense of heterosexual marriage about anyway? Fifty percent (or is it more by now) heterosexual marriages end in divorce. The kids are no better off bouncing between one parent or the other, assuming that both parents are even still around. What about the trauma to them of being stuck in the middle of a vicious divorce battle? It happens all the time. And what kind of trauma do they suffer when one or the other heterosexual parent engages in adultery and the rest of the family finds out about it?

Gays are bad people and therefore bad influences simply because they’re gay? Whether gay or straight, good people, are good influences. Sexuality has nothing to do with it. And straight kids aren’t going to magically turn gay just because they have gay parents. Their sexual orientation is pretty much set at birth and studies show this to be true.

If there’s any sanctity left to marriage, it is not in its institution, it’s in the people who elect to be married – people who both love and respect each other and if they choose to have a children – it’s in the love and respect shown to them. — filed 11/10/08

World Population: 6 Billion

This past summer, the world’s population reached a staggering 6 billion, a figure projected by the U.S. Census Bureau. What’s even scarier than that is the fact that the world’s population has doubled in less than 40 years.

Even though there has been a gradual slowing of the overall rate, the world’s population is still increasing by about 78 million people each year. Whatever happened to zero population growth?

Amy Coen of Population Action International puts things in perspective: “It took all of human history for the world’s population to reach 1 billion in 1804 but little more than 150 years to reach 3 billion in 1960. Now, not quite 40 years later, we are twice that number. Every 20 minutes the world adds another 3,500 human lives but loses one or more entire species of animal or plant life, at least 27,000 species per year.” And the group’s latest projections say the population could double again by the year 2050.

The United States is the third most populous nation after China and India, even though 71-percent of its women use some form of family planning. And it still has the highest fertility rate among industrialized nations. The United States is expected to double its 270 million people in the next 60 years according to Peter Kostmayer of Zero Population Growth. The United States is also the “melting pot” for every other ethnic group on the face of the earth that supports huge families.

The biggest problems are in poor countries where it is expected that 95-percent of future population will occur. These are the same countries that already can’t provide proper housing, education, medical facilities, food and water sources. And about 1 billion teenagers are just now entering their reproductive years – considered a major reason for the continued population growth.

Other scary projections: by 2025, one billion people will be over age 60, although few efforts are being made to care for them medically or socially.

Some thoughts and questions: We don’t need anymore people on earth; there are way too many now. In fact, there were way too many back in 1960. Does the human animal have the right to obliterate every other species to make more room for his own? Should poor nations that have already proved incapable of supporting their massive populations continue to be subsidized by other nations so that the poor nations can continue their rampant procreation? Should nations whose religion or tradition calls for large families be tolerated by the rest of humanity? Should teenagers be allowed to procreate? How do you stop people who care nothing about the environment from procreating? Should we just procreate until every last resource on the face of the planet is used up and then worry about it later? That does seem to be the way things are going now.

When people get worried about the population, what do they do? Well, in Southern California they build more homes and mini-malls for the expected onslaught and wonder if the Colorado River’s water supply will be enough. I gather that’s how the rest of the planet’s authorities think too. In Southern California, it’s the Mexicans who supply the largest in population growth; in New York, it’s the Puerto Ricans. What’s in common? How about their Latin tradition and the stupid Catholic Church, an entity that thinks it’s better to bring hordes of babies into the world and then let them die in agony from starvation and disease rather than eliminate them through a more kindly birth control pill or even abortion.

Does that sound racist? It’s not. It’s common sense. But God forbid anyone should speak the truth! Mexico has exported all of its problems into the United States for many years now, including a non-stop population that the country itself cannot control. Other nations are just as guilty in their own environments.

In the animal kingdom, if the environment cannot support the population, it dies out. In the human kingdom, it’s medicated, educated and told to have a good life and make more children.

Human beings have no more rights than any other species. They only think they do and one day in the not too distant future, that fact will become abundantly clear … when there is no more space, when there is no more water, when our garbage is miles high, when our pollution is so thick no one can breathe, when our industrial waste has so poisoned the earth that nothing more can grow, when we have killed every last species of animal and plant. Of course by then, we will have figured a way to travel the universe and take our sick mentality elsewhere. (original post August, 1999)

America’s Slave Trade

There’s a new kind of slave trade going on in the United States today. Few people know about it. Others don’t care. It’s legal. The government is even in on it. It’s not confined to one race; it’s across the board. Every American is a potential victim of the slave trade and those who have somehow been lucky enough to avoid it until now, will very soon be confirmed victims themselves.

People are being sold down the river by their state governments and corporations whose activities are condoned by the state. Right now, the governments of Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas are actively involved. And California residents are on the threshold of becoming victims. And there may be many more. So, what’s it all about?

Last year, a law was silently passed in California, giving the state government, specifically the state’s Employment Development Department, the right to sell residents’ private income data to a bunch of outsiders, namely: private information companies, mortgage lenders, car dealers and other creditors. It has been suggested that since the income information was originally collected by the state to calculate unemployment taxes and benefits, it would be highly improper to start using it for an entirely different purpose. Fourteen million Californians will be affected unless Governor Gray Davis puts a halt to this obscene invasion of privacy.

The information will be sold to Verification of Income and Employment, a joint venture between Santa Ana, California based First American Financial Corp. and Norwest Mortgage which already has the other states noted above in its pocket.

Banks and lending institutions say the information will allow them to process loan applications faster. Advocates of the new law insist that the disclosure of the income information will be given only after individuals give their written permission. But, astoundingly, since the company’s users don’t have to show proof that they obtained any written permission by the victim, they can pretty much do as they please. Some fear that once the information is available electronically, it could fall into the wrong hands or be misused.

Iowa was the first state in 1995 to sell its residents down the river. The government there is as happy as pigs in a mud puddle even though it has acknowledged closing down some business access to its files after there were security breaches. Pity the poor individuals who suffered the consequences. I wonder if they even know it happened.

In California, the government has such information on 85% of all residents. Interestingly, Federal employees aren’t covered. Neither are the self-employed. Good for the self-employed. Shame on the government for excluding itself from having its own privacy hanged on the wash line for all to see.

The California law was so hush-hush that privacy experts and some professional information collectors were unaware of it until the Los Angeles Times revealed the monster hiding in the bowels of Sacramento’s legislature. It was only then that Governor Gray Davis ordered a halt to the release of the data. “I believe a state agency entrusted with confidential personal information on millions of its citizens … has a responsibility to protect the privacy of those citizens. The wholesale distribution of such information on the open market, in my view, would violate that trust and the privacy of those individuals.” Grand words! Then Davis said he would reconsider the issue after the department seeking to do the dastardly deed conducts a full review of the proposal’s merits and risks. It seems as if this should have been done before it became a law and secondly, why reconsider what was just indicated as being morally reprehensible? And if it’s so reprehensible then why are companies such as TRW, Equifax, etc. allowed to operate with such a free hand. Unscrupulous people can access those credit files with the drop of a hat, although the companies themselves won’t let on.

Minnesota’s attorney general just sued U.S. Bancorp for selling customer information to a telemarketer accused of deceptive practices. That’s just one incident. How many times did it happen before? How many other banks do the same thing all along?

After basic privacy issues came to light, Bank of America decided it would stop sharing customer information with telemarketers and third-party companies wanting to sell products or services. Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp pretty much said they’d continue as they’ve always done – provide people’s social security numbers, telephone numbers, bank account numbers and other personal information to outside companies. Social Security numbers? You mean the numbers that we hold most sacred, the numbers that we are told to protect at all costs. The numbers that absolutely everyone insists we have to give up at every request? What the hell is going on in this country anyway?

Let’s face it, privacy rights are being thrown out the window because the government is on it. The California Department wanting to sell residents’ data to a private company would earn at least $15-million over ten years. It’s greed! And we, stupid little victims that we are, sit back and let it happen.

The slave trade did not die out after the Civil War. It’s alive and well and being carried out on some level in every state of the ‘new’ union. (original post June 14, 1999)

Some California Cops Shoot First

California’s police officers are at it again. This time they’re from Los Angeles and this time they killed a homeless woman after stopping her to find out if the shopping cart she was pushing was stolen. A high crime in a city where drive-by shootings are the order of the day.

So this homeless, mentally ill, 54 year old, 5-foot-1-inch tall woman weighing 102-pounds is walking along a street when two 20-something year old bicycle cops come along and stop her. Anyone knowing anything about homeless people would know that many are mentally ill and if that’s the case, they are usually highly mistrustful of anybody. The cops claim that Margaret Mitchell immediately became hostile and brandished a 13-screwdriver at them saying she would kill them. (Rumor on the streets is now that Los Angeles officials will seek to ban screwdrivers.)

Mitchell then ran; the cops pursued; she lunged at one of the cops, who in trying to avoid being injured, stumbled and fell to his knee. He then felt so threatened by this crazy little woman that he shoots her in the chest.

Margaret Mitchell’s son had been trying to get her help for years. A college-educated woman, she slipped deeper and deeper into a state of paranoid-schizophrenia, hearing voices and so forth. She was most comfortable on the streets. Her son contacted police in Los Angeles and Pasadena for help in getting her committed so that she could be medicated. He was told that the police could do nothing until his mother had either hurt herself or someone else.

The shooting incident is now under investigation. Among some of the questions: why a gun and not a baton or pepper spray? I’d like to know what the second bicycle cop was doing. And I’d still like to know what the police department is going to do to train our “protectors” and when. They need social skills as much as practical shooting training because in the Riverside County case that has that community up in arms, four police officers there felt the need to direct 26 rounds at a woman who they eventually killed with 16. In that case, the woman was unconscious in a locked car with a pistol in her lap. The cops crashed the window startling the woman who then reached for the gun.

I keep thinking about the shopping cart. If we’re not going to solve the homeless situation one way or the other, then surely we can allow them free access to shopping carts for their varied belongings. These bicycle cops went out of their way to pursue a woman with a possibly misappropriated shopping cart and then killed her as a result of it. It would be funny if it weren’t so horribly tragic. (original post June 14, 1999)

California View: When Cops Kill

One unconscious woman in a locked car. One gun on her lap. Four police officers called to help her. They break the window to get to her. Startled by the sound, she awakens and reaches for the gun. Twenty-six gunshots later, the black woman is dead. The black community rises up in massive protest. “Racism”, is declared. The police officers are investigated, then cleared of any wrong-doing. More protests – black and white. Al Sharpton, Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King III and the usual suspects join the fray – at least 1,000 in all. Now come the arrests – 46 in all. We are one step away from another riot, just like what happened after the Rodney King beating by L.A.’s finest.

I say forget racism. The greater problem is gross incompetence. Incompetence by the police department. Los Angeles and New York. Similar scenarios, same tragic results. In this case, four police officers, at close range couldn’t safely subdue one woman without blasting her to smithereens. That’s a disgrace.

Twelve bullets actually hit her. Think about it. She’s in the car – unconscious, no less. How much did they assess the situation and their options before blundering in by smashing the window and setting the ball rolling to this horrible ending? Can’t have been very much.

A police officer I spoke with said of the shots fired by his group, only 15% hit their target. And that’s the national average. This tells me that these guys need to go back to school and the practice range. They need to learn how to cope with different situations humanely and they need to learn how to use their weapons effectively. One wonders what kind of training they’re getting these days.

Right now we have inexperienced people performing a critical job without the proper psychological and practical training. They react out of fear most of the time in high adrenaline output situations. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. I’m sure there’s some racism involved. But if our police were better trained, practically and socially, we’d all be a lot safer and more confident that racism is not a factor in such shooting incidents.

The woman, Tyisha Miller, 19, was shot to death by Riverside County police officers on December 28, 1998 when they responded to a 911 call. The protests and arrests occurred Monday, May 11, 1999. (original post May 13, 1999)

Guns: Human Psychology and More

I was surprised to read an editorial by Jann S. Wenner, the founding editor and publisher of Rolling Stone Magazine that was printed in the Los Angeles Times last week. It was a Perspective on Gun Control that essentially blamed guns for everything and adamantly denied that music, video games, or films served as a trigger for violence. Said Wenner: “It is patent insanity to think that art causes violence.”

Of course “art: – although I would hardly call those absurdly violent video games “art” – does not cause violence. But is Mr. Wenner trying to suggest that human beings are merely robots who are affected by nothing?

Music, videos, TV, video games, films, books, newspapers, TV news shows, entertainment shows and the people we meet and talk with all have an impact on how we view the world and ourselves. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. If a piece of music or a scene from a movie can bring a tear to the eye – then surely it can elicit other emotions as well.

Absolutely everything we see, hear, taste, smell and touch affects us.

How we process that information and react to it is what makes us individuals. A person with a violent disposition processes his input in an entirely different way from someone of a different nature. A child pornographer, for example, sees a school yard full of innocent children playing differently from a schoolteacher or a parent. And the child pornographer would be gratified by a video of child porn whereas the parent would be appalled. Violence, lewdness or any other vice comes from people who are prone to such acts.

Magazines such as Rolling Stone and newspapers use headlines and pictures to elicit an effect on the reader. Film makers design ad campaigns including video box covers to grab attention. If they didn’t think they were affecting the readers or viewers, then why not just put the title on a black box or the name of the newspaper or magazine over rows and rows of unheadlined text.

The Democrats are standing around congratulating themselves for pulling off another coup – more anti-gun statutes. I find it hard to abide anything that moral cripple Bill Clinton has to say about anything. And the Republicans are hanging their heads knowing they’ve been pushed to the brink by having to support a cause they believe is inherently wrong. Meanwhile, California’s own legislative hypocrites Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein vote for any anti-gun bill they can get their hands on, secure in the knowledge that they have their own guns and carry permits tucked neatly in their Gucci purses.

Actress Sharon Stone last week felt the need to “make a statement” by giving up her guns to the police. Parents and Democrats everywhere can now rest assured that Stone won’t be gunning down large numbers of high school students any time soon. But I sure hope she isn’t one of those Hollywood liberal hypocrites who speak out against gun ownership as they hide behind the security of their armed bodyguards.

Even TV Evangelist and author Reverend Robert Schuller of California’s Crystal Cathedral understands the concept of good and evil as it relates to human choice. People do evil things if it is in their makeup to do those things and people react to the world about them in numerous different ways.

You certainly cannot censor the world in trying to corral the bad apples. But by the same token, you cannot act as if people live in some kind of void unaffected by the data they receive. (original post approx 1999)

Littleton: People Not Guns!

It’s not Guns ….It’s People. Get it? Just like cars don’t magically run over people and kill them – It takes a lame-brain or drunk driver to do that – guns don’t magically go off and blow people away. People do that. It’s a very simple concept. But this is an age where the concept of moral responsibility for individual actions is lost because it’s easier to shed blame elsewhere. And sadly, it’s been lost for some time.

When the justice system fails and criminals don’t get punished for their actions or victims can’t get satisfaction (retribution?) where do they turn? Against the gun, of course. Gotta have someone/something to blame. If you can’t understand that, then let me make it even simpler. Ban sex. Rapists injure and kill and they use their own personal ‘tools’ in the process. The ‘tool’ is now against the law and anyone found using it will be imprisoned for life. Now do you get it?

Why should the 95% of law-abiding gun owners be punished for the actions of a small number of sick individuals? These are aberrations in society. And they would be precisely that even if this were still the wild, wild west when everyone had access to a gun.

So the Europeans think gun ownership in the United States is nuts. So what. I think ax and machete ownership in Sierra Leone and Rwanda (where crazies and political activists chop people into bits and pieces) is obscene; sword ownership in Japan (where loonies go on Samurai binges) is hideous; dagger ownership in Middle Eastern countries (the weapon of choice) is simply vile. It’s people!

There have always been aberrations in society since the beginning of time. And until we have a society of mentally stable/physically perfect clones we can expect things like this to happen again and again.

I keep reading reports about all these school shooting incidents that say the “signs were there”. these kids “were ticking time bombs”, if only someone had “taken the time to listen”. It all comes back to social responsibility, guys; where were the parents, where were the schools, the first line of defense? It’s people.

What happened in Littleton and at schools elsewhere is truly sad. But these were extreme actions perpetrated by some very particularly troubled boys. Place the blame where it is due, on the doers of the deeds. And then, if you must look elsewhere, look for the disease, physical or mental, that instigated this mode of behavior in these kids.

As doctors and psychologists look for explanations as to their behavior, has anyone thought to look a little closer to home: nutrition, pesticides, electrical waves, etc.? If pesticides and such can deform animal and plant life, could it not just as easily deform the human brain cell? We have more and varied types of cancers, don’t we? Why this seemingly sudden rash of aberrant behavior in modern society? Technology may move forward but at what expense?

As I advocate moral responsibility, I wonder if kids today even have a concept of what morality is. It seems the very parents who might complain incessantly about guns, wouldn’t spend the same amount of time discussing morality with their children.

Guns are not the source of all our evils. There are other forces at work and it’s time we recognized this.

The L.A. Times printed an editorial – the primary point of which can be summed up with this single sentence: “A knife, a rock, a speeding vehicle cannot produce the kind of wide-spread devastation one angry 16-year old can with a loaded semiautomatic weapon.”

Here was my response: I notice that Karen Grigsby Bates (Fri. April 23 Re Littleton) did not propose a ban against propane – imagine the number dead had the tanks gone off. Also, may I suggest that if sheer numbers of dead are her main concern in calling for the ban of guns, she’s got more to worry about elsewhere if she would just take the blinders off.

Let’s ban school buses. If one of those crashes by accident or from the actions of some crazed bus driver, 30-50 students could be gone in a blink of an eye. Let’s ban airplanes in general – 200-400 gone in crashes caused by accident or terrorism (you know what kind of people terrorists are: angry, unstable, with an ax to grind ­ just like the two teens in Littleton) Let’s ban Amtrak ­ those things seem to crash once a week and they’re not a pretty sight ‘ bodies galore there too.

And now, let’s get really real. Ban smoking altogether. It kills far more people than all of those incidents put together. That is, if you’re still talking numbers, Karen.

Ms. Bates and her ilk still want to place the blame for such events everywhere but where it belongs and that is on the doers of the deeds.

Actually, I think she might have made a stronger case if she had blamed the media for its incessant portrayal of violence in everything from films to video games. But if she did go that route, I’d have to tell her to make sure she blamed the right people in media – the marketing geniuses – who insist that violence is what “sells”; it’s “what the people want” and that the largest market for such films/videos, etc. is males 14-30. Gee, aren’t they the ones doing all the shooting?

The NRA didn’t kill those kids; Charlton Heston didn’t do it; legal, responsible gun owners didn’t do it; the gun manufacturers and retailers didn’t do it.

You can portray those two murderers in Littleton as just swell guys, a little confused perhaps or the sick, mentally unstable, vicious little cowardly terrorists that they were. Normal people do not do these things. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of gun owners do not do these things. Put the blame where it is due and when you can figure out the problems of the human mind, fix them because that is what truly needs fixing.

Here is some further information to support the theme of this editorial that it is people and not guns causing the problem:

Australia & Guns: A dramatic increase in criminal activity has been experienced just one year after Australian gun-owners were forced to surrender 640,881 personal firearms, including semi-automatic .22 rifles and shotguns. This surrender-program cost the Australian government over $600-million.

Australia-wide, homicides up 3.2%
Australia-wide, assaults up 8.6%
Australia-wide, armed-robberies up 44%Figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in homicides with firearms and armed robberies. In the past year, there has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly.

At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said “self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm.” The ban has destroyed Australia’s standings in international sport shooting competitions. Australian politicians have no explanation as to the increase in crime after ridding their society of guns. Source: Keith Tidwell of Australia’s Sporting Shooters Association and Australia Government.

Emergency Room visits (U.S.): Here are the most common activities that lead to emergency room visits each year. Take note that there is is no mention of guns or shooting activities. Source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Baseball/softball – 404,000
Dog bites – 334,000
Playground – 267,000
ATVs/mopeds – 125,000
Volleyball – 98,000
Inline skating – 76,000
Horseback riding – 71,000
Baby Walkers – 28,000
Skateboards – 25,000

Morals, Kids & The Real World

Since the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado earlier this Spring, here’s been lots of talk about kids, morality, parental responsibility, school responsibility and the significance of video games, TV and films on child behavior.

Let’s talk about everyday life for a moment. One wonders how kids growing up today can possibly have any morals whatsoever, when they see people like President Clinton, who’s supposed to represent the highest grade of character, misuse his political office, lie to his friends, family, the nation and a grand jury, cheat, and engage in adultery. He has suffered no ill effects of his horrendous behavior and remains happily in office. A good percentage of the country thought it didn’t matter that he misused his office; that he lied repeatedly or that he engaged in adultery … all because it concerned his personal life. Which of course then translates to our kids that it’s okay to behave this way in general. Well, it’s not.

Politicians lie routinely to help get themselves elected. Promise after promise is made then quickly they are all forgotten by the politician who insists that he was merely mistaken. The truth is, the politician knows very well that what he’s promising will never come to pass. Yet, he/she continues to lead people astray for the sake of greater glory. No accountability. If there were, then the first time a promise was broken, the politician would be booted out of office.

Remember Mike Tyson? He’s a convicted criminal. He raped a woman and on another occasion, brutally attacked people and that was outside the boxing ring. He’s rewarded with millions of dollars and rather than stick by their guns in condemning his brutal, unsportsman-like behavior in the ring with Evander Holyfield, the boxing commission lets the brute back in the ring to cause more damage and earn more millions. Tyson is little more than a thug and a bum. But he’s a successful bum and I guess that’s all that matters. How many kids from the inner city (especially) have looked to this man as a hero?

Now let’s look at rap music ‘artist’ Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs who had been arrested on felony assault charges for beating up a record executive in New York. Combs effectively plea-bargained a deal that allowed him to escape a 7-year prison sentence. He will not pay any fines and will do no community service. This 29-year old multimillionaire will continue making new albums for his Bad Boy Entertainment record label. Oh yeah, I forgot, he does get to spend one day in an anger management class. That should help the creep out. Just another example of not having to take responsibility for your actions. Rap (I refuse to call it music) is listened to by scores of youth. The lyrics are filled with every obscenity and disrespect imaginable, yet the lingo “dissing” someone – meaning showing disrespect – comes flying out of the mouths of so many kids today. Respect? They wouldn’t know the meaning of it if it dropped on them like a ton of rap C.D.s.

So what’s it all mean? It means that proper behavior is a thing of the past. There is no accountability, no requirements in this modern society of ours. Do what you want and you can get away with murder, theft, battery, assault, and lying.

Why waste time wondering why kids lack morals and responsibility? Every day the real world tells them they don’t need any. (original post approx 1999)

The “Animal Collector”

There’s a woman I know who professes to be a diehard animal lover. She has a multitude of birds, 3 dogs, and endless cats. And at one time she even had two rabbits.

The dogs and cats eat somewhat regularly. They get watered occasionally, when the thought manages to enter her brain. The birds are fed and watered sometimes but most often they drop dead from their perches from starvation, disease or trauma. They get their wings torn off from the snatching claws of the feral cats that are allowed to breed at will because this animal lover cannot be bothered to have the cats fixed.

The elderly dog managed to impregnate the female because the animal lover never bothered to check if the male was in fact neutered. Twelve puppies were begotten from that accident and the cats have endless litters of kittens who either die under the house somewhere or grow up and get eaten by coyotes who reside in the field behind the house.

The rabbits were starved and unwatered even during a 116-degree heatwave. It seems she bought the rabbits for her teenager daughter who apparently has not one iota of responsibility in her entire body (and, of course, she’s not required to have any) and well, the kid couldn’t be bothered and the animal lover herself was allergic, so one day she just dumped them very near to the curb of her house and forgot about them. I fed them and watered them as I made my way past the animal lover’s house until I couldn’t stand it any longer. I finally rescued them from their torment.

And I took it upon myself to spend my time and money to take new kitten after new kitten to the vet for fixing. Did this animal lover ever get the message – even when I fed and watered her animals right in front of her own eyes? Of course not. The animals continue to go for days without food, water or consideration.

This woman still professes to be an animal lover. She’s not. She’s just a collector – a woman who collects objects of desire, objects of affection, much as if they were buttons or bows.

It’s not the kind of abuse that the Humane Association could ever really stop because, you see, the animals do get fed, just not with any regularity and of course feral cats eventually learn to hunt mice to save their own skins. And even if I did report the so-called animal lover, she’d just go out and buy some more animals which is precisely what she did after the birds died.

I wonder how many of her animals will die before she finally does! I only know that if this animal lover treated her own daughter the way she does the animals, she’d be arrested and jailed for child abuse.

Bad Parents = Bad Kids

Here I am innocently wandering the aisles of my local supermarket Here I am innocently passing the salad bar. Here I am spotting a boy around 12 years of age (an age at which he should have known better) dipping his filthy little hand into the crock of cucumbers, yanking some out and placing them into his mother’s tray.

Now, I’m telling the little idiot that he shouldn’t be doing that. And what does his idiot mother do? Well, rather than scolding the idiot kid for displaying gross manners, she tells me to mind my own business. I tell her it is my business because I may very well be the next person eating the food from that same crock.

If I had done such a thing when I was a kid my mother would have backhanded me clear to the seafood section. On second thought, I wouldn’t have been backhanded anywhere since I never would have done such a disgusting thing in the first place.

Then this idiot mother defends her idiot son’s actions by saying “he’s just a kid”. Well that excuse may have worked for a four year old, but not a 12 year old. And instead of defending the little idiot, she should be teaching him some manners. But that would presume that the mother herself weren’t an idiot.

I know, it’s all my fault. I didn’t at first realise that I was dealing with a family of idiots. Now I know. How could I possibly expect the kid to understand that his behavior was incorrect when his own parent fluffs it off as something to be ignored.

About a month ago, a kid, this one around five-years old was playing by a curb. My husband and I were driving along when suddenly this kid stands up and hurls a rock directly at my windshield. We quickly pulled over. Well, you should have seen this little bugger scream bloody murder as my husband ran after him right to the front door of his house. My husband rang and knocked and told the kid’s father what the bugger had done. The father apologized for the bugger and I’d like to believe that he also had some words with the little bugger after we were gone, but who knows.

Two completely different reactions from two different kinds of parents regarding their child’s behavior: one is defensive and downright rude while the other apologetic.

The idiot mother should have her parenting license revoked. Oh, I forgot there is no such thing. What a shame.

The upshot is, parents shouldn’t make excuses for their kids’ bad behavior. They should be changing it.

There’s been a lot of talk about parental responsibility following the Colorado school shootings. But I’m wondering how you can expect parents to control their child’s anti-social or destructive behaviors when they don’t even have the presence of mind to control the little things like common manners. (originally posted approx 1999)