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26 August 2004 I've been bad. I haven't updated this in quite a while. To be perfectly honest, I've been incredibly busy at work lately, and just haven't had the time. I have, however, been keeping up with the news. Of course, the only thing in the news lately is the Kerry-Swift Boat-Vietnam crap. Can I say that I don't care? It doesn't really matter to me, and not just because I have no intention of voting for either of these two freaks. Mike King of the AJC had a wonderful little editorial earlier this week about the election and campaigning, specifically discussing the media's role in a national election. It was a great piece, primarily because it points out the problems that I have with current campaigning and the media attention. I don't care about Vietnam. I care about the economy, about education, about things that actually matter in my life. I don't think I'm the only one. And I blame both major parties for falling into the media sensationalism trap. Yes, it's a trap. Regular citizens are partially to blame, though, because we want to read about scandal. It's in our nature. But desire for scandal doesn't make us educated voters going into the polls. And let's be honest with ourselves. Does anyone actually believe that anyone's mind is going to be changed by all this Vietnam stuff? I don't. But that's just me. In other news, I need to plug the candidate and party I'll actually be voting for in the upcoming November election. This is a cool little bit. Name recognition is a start, and I would have liked to have seen this early on. Libertarians don't have a shot in hell at getting elected if they don't have name recognition first, and an established platform on important issues second. They have that established platform, but they need to get the word out. Libertarians are not pot-smoking Republicans, and they really need to get rid of that image. So, for my two readers who aren't already libertarians, go here. Read around. Oh, and if I hear one more libertarian say they're voting for Bush or Kerry because they don't want to "throw away their vote," I'm going to beat them with a stick. Badnarik might have a snowball's chance at snagging some electoral votes if all the folks who claim to be libertarians actually voted libertarian. 2 August 2004 Every now and again, I'm asked why I don't want children. This usually stems from them discovering that I don't already have any and then asking me when I plan to have any. The resounding answer is never. You'd be amazed at how shocked people are to find out that a woman of child-bearing age doesn't even want to be a mother. I usually tell them firmly that I'm not very fond of children, and besides, I have four cats to care for -- they are my children. (Anyone who's ever visited our house can appreciate how toddler-like our cats are.) That, of course, starts us down yet another rocky road about how wonderful a mother I would be based off of how I treat my cats. I call bullshit on that, but that's beside the point. The point of this is a call to parents (even though I only have one reader who is a parent and his daughter is no longer a child): make your children behave in public. I recently wrote about the kids across the street, and the other kids down the street who play in the street. These things come close to making my blood boil. Last week I was in the grocery store for about 15 minutes right after work. In that time, the front door was essentially blocked by two SUV shopping carts (one piloted by kids), some other child was having a screaming fit at the register, another child was busy putting things into his mother's cart as they walked down an aisle, and the list goes on. Not one single parent seemed to be doing anything about his or her unruly child. I would be surprised if I didn't encounter this each and every time I'm grocery shopping. And so I bring you this article. Parents, it is your responsibility to make your children behave. Please have some consideration for others, especially those of us who choose not to surround ourselves by your little darlings. |