I was away that day --yeah, that's it!

Barack Obama apparently went to the same church for 20 years. He was married there and his children were born there. In his book, he credits his Pastor with being his mentor in life.

Now, videos have appeared of his Pastor stating that the U.S. created Aids to kill off black men, that the U.S. deserved to be attacked by terrorists, that the hymn should not be God Bless America but instead God Damn America. There are videotaped sermons in which he rails against white people including Hillary Clinton, a woman who has for her whole adult life fought against discrimination against blacks. as well as all those rich white men who run the country. Only Obama, according to him is qualified to know what it is to be an American. Incredibly vicious rants are now coming to light from the man who is Barack Obama's mentor.

Obama's defense about being so closely aligned to such a racist? Why, he had no idea - he was away that day and all the others and didn't hear what his Pastor had to say. Strange considering that his wife, after taking advantage of all that American has to offer, says that she is now, for the first time in her life, proud of her country.

He was away that day? I bet the dog ate his homework too.

The China Syndrome?

Can anyone watch what is going on in Tibet, the killing of protesters, foreigners being ordered to leave the country so that the world cannot see their atrocities, a brutal and violent suppression of a people wanting control of their own country, can you watch this and tell me why it is that we are so eager to have relations with China?

Can you tell me how it ever happened that a country where the people are killed by the state, jailed for any sort of dissension, kept from knowing what is happening in the rest of the world by state control of news, including the internet, was selected to hold the Olympics - a country that takes children from their homes to train them for whatever sport that they show an aptitude for so that China can win medals?

Can you tell me why we want to make China a preferred trading partner, a country that pays its workers meager wages and which has no hesitation is using poisonous ingredients in food exported around the world to end up on our tables and in our pets' dishes?

Can you tell me why we are even importing food from a country where farmers sleep with their animals and chickens, causing them and their families to contract diseases that will eventually be spread around the world causing countless deaths? Why our food manufacturers are not required to tell us when their products contain ingredients from this backward, conscienceless country?

I realize that it is probably impossible to completely boycott Chinese products, but I, for one, am going to give it a try. Although I respect our Canadian athletes and wish them the best in the Olympics, I will not be watching any of it on our state-run television station. I hope that some of you will join me in my own personal boycott.

Prisons - so many questions!

I recently received a mailing from my MP which included a survey form that asked if I approved of serious offenders spending their time under house arrest or whether they should spend their time in jail. This is such a simplistic and self-serving question that it is an insult to the intelligence of his constituency. Of course, serious or dangerous offenders should spend their time in jail.

Perhaps the bigger question is why so many people are in jail for charges like trying to contact their children after a divorce or why so many wives are able to deny visitation with children or why so many women lay false charges against their husbands, many of which are dropped after the man spends time in jail and spends huge amounts of money defending himself and why these women are never charged with laying false charges or contempt of court.

Maybe he should look into actual conditions in jails and think about whether they actually do help real offenders come back into society as productive citizens. Some of the questions he should look into are:
- why up to 50% of the men in provincial jails are there on domestic charges and whether this fact suggests that the family courts are out of control and dedicated to breaking up families rather than protecting women and children.
- why we are so political correct that we have female guards in these prisons who actually run from any violence and put inmates into danger by their absence.
- why most of the drugs in jails are brought in by guards themselves and that often female guards bring them in their vagina.
- why medications are funded for only 5 days regardless of need.
- why a jail that has completely separate sections has a problem in only one section and then locks down the entire jail for 60 days and why the prison would offer cabbage during that time apparently thinking that it would be a huge joke on people who are confined in small spaces.
- why homosexual guards often molest prisoners.
- why guards actually open cell doors when the toughest prisoners (servers) demand it in order to wreak their vengeance on someone they feel is their enemy.
- why many female guards have sex with prisoners on a regular basis.
- why most people in jails actually shouldn't be there and there is no societal gain in having them there.

Perhaps if my MP and his colleagues spent more time asking these questions and actually visiting jails and talking to prisoners without their overseers present, they might have a better idea of what is actually happening in our prisons and a better idea of how to improve our prison systems.

Poor Michelle Obama??

Although I am Canadian, I find American politics fascinating and am an avid news hound. I am finding the current run for the Democratic party leadership particularly interesting. The politics surrounding a female candidate with a wayward husband and a semi-black young man with a terrifically opinionated wife is a study in political correctness and an illustration of how completely stupid it can be.

For example, I keep hearing of how Michelle Obama grew up in poverty. Now, she did live with her brother and parents in a one-bedroom apartment but other than that I am having trouble with the poverty part. Her father worked for the city and she is quoted as saying "The only amazing thing about my life is that a man like my father could raise a family of four on a single city worker's salary."

I am older than Mrs. Obama but, unlike her, I never thought of myself as growing up poor. My father spent five years overseas in the army, never even once getting home for a visit. When he returned in 1945, I was five years old, having been born after he left. We were fortunate to be able to have a "wartime house" since my father was a veteran - not fancy and very small but we liked it. My father brought back from the war a very serious and painful ulcer which would now be considered a disability but that was not even considered after that war. For many years he was only able to work sporadically and spent a lot of time in the hospital recovering from hemorrhaging. During this time, we lived on my mother's salary as a secretary, a very low paying position then compared to administrative assistants now. From her meager salary, it was necessary to pay the medical bills incurred by my father's illness as well as all the other household financial requirements yet strangely, I didn't consider myself particularly poor. We had good quality food, not fancy but good. We had clothes to wear and we had fun. When we were in our early teens we all had part time jobs out of which we were required to pay board.

I know many people who grew up in similar circumstances but I don't believe I have ever heard even one talk about growing up poor and I don't know anyone who was amazed that their parents could manage on one salary.

I guess it reads well in a political bio to say that she grew up poor and I guess if you are someone like Anderson Cooper her background sounds poor but to millions of Americans and lots of Canadians, her upbringing and education is something to be envious of and the "poor" label is really something of an insult.

Male/Female Inequality

Can you imagine a sitcom in which the star, a man, would throw something in anger at a woman? It would never happen. It seems to be ok, and maybe even funny though, if a woman throws something at a man.

Case in point - in the trailer for the new Canadian sitcom, the star is furious and she throws something sharp at her boyfriend. He ducks and it pierces the wall behind his head. This is supposed to be funny. Would it be considered funny if a man did it? I think not.

The physical abuse of men is so common in the media that nobody even notices it. Woman punch, slap and push men with regularity on TV and in movies all the time.

Why is that ok?

The only time you see a man hit a woman in the media is shortly before he is arrested.