BJean

gadget: "Knock yourself out." There have been times when you only used part of what I said to make it look like I said it differently. You did it more than once with the same quote. All of the following posts have contained words that were incorrect or designed to characterize my post in a way that suits you and it wasn't fair. 3440 horrible evil bush - as if that is something I said. 3448 you never responded to the question about your professionally presented, comprehensive sex ed classes. 3442 didn't play fair 3435 quoted me out of context, obviously intentionally to make your point 3470 more of the same You do it all the time to anyone who doesn't share your views. You exaggerate to make your points. You characterize people's posts to make them sound much worse than they are. You just don't play very fair most of the time. If you're feeling benevolent, you can be very kind. If the posts are going your way, you are a very nice person. I don't know why you have to drag things down to that level, but after such a long time of sharing this thread with you, and other threads, I guess I just got a little sick of it. Especially when we were talking about trying to come up with positive ideas about sex education in public schools that might really make a difference and you post some gawd-awful crap that has no relevance but that makes sex ed look bad. But I'll get over it. I have before and so have you.

Then I have faith that you will make it happen!

DownIn you're like a breath of fresh air!!! You do my heart good.

I'll bet that more than anything your mom wishes she had her arms around you and you could lay your head on her shoulder and cry together. There's something about a mother and her daughter; mom's empathize and want to protect their daughters when it comes to something this important and this physical. It's frustrating that there's not a darned thing that we can do to change what happened to our daughters. I am glad that you're getting to go be with them soon. Maybe that will be about the right time for you to be ready to talk about it with them. My daughter has gone through so many tests to find out what went wrong. She lost her baby, Jake, when she was nearly ready to go into labor. The next one that she lost was when she was about 3.5 months along. They believe now that she has some kind of deficiency in being able to metabolize folic acid. Even that was not proven without a doubt. It is so freaking frustrating to not know when something like this happens. If we had all the answers (knowledge) it would be easier to understand and then process. You are such a beautiful and loving mother. It would be great if at some point in time you are able to conceive and carry another child. I will tell you though, that my daughter has become very happy with her one little girl and she is satisfied that she has a perfect family, the one that she was meant to have. I wish that kind of peace for you, whatever happens in the future.

you're so funny gadget. ok so no, in that particular instance maybe you didn't. Do I have to go find them all to prove it to you? I'm pretty sure you would rather that I not do that.

Rodriquez, sometimes it is good therapy to post on forums. Do what makes you feel best. It just might be a worthwhile diversion. Especially if you feel that you have understand friends here.

Amen DownIn!!!

Beth, do you really think this is about "robbing Peter to pay Paul"? If that is your assessment, I doubt that you and I have anything to talk about regarding the economy. I must say though that I not so secretly enjoy the fact that I'm entertaining for you. I certainly try. Although I realize that most of the time when I am trying to be humorous, people just think I'm being mean. I obviously don't have your gift. There have been many talk shows and discussion groups televised where prominent economists have backed up the president's plan of action. They have said over and over that the steps he has taken have been necessary. And they have also said, on many shows, that the leading economists all agree on the necessity of taking the action that the president has. If you haven't heard it, it sure isn't my fault that you haven't been listening to the same broadcasts. I have also seen shows where the occasional economist has said that there may have been better ways to bring us out of the recession. None of them has ever come up with a viable plan. Or any alternative, for that matter. Now I know we were talking about taxes in the beginning, but the president's approach and his plans all involve taxes and the recession is a big part of that. I was speaking to the recession when I said what you consider to be wrong about economists having backed the president's plan to get the country back on sound footing. But as far as I am concerned, from everything I have gleaned from news sources, including a couple of newspapers, what I stated is fact. If you have factual data that suggests otherwise, then I think it is incumbent on you to prove me wrong. Wouldn't that be a lot more productive than you whining about what I do?

LOL yeah, and a lousy governor at that luluc. No one in his right mind ever predicted that George W. would be able to win an election of this kind. Not even his mother, or so they say. Of course there has always been a lot of questions about whether he really won the election or if it was stolen.

I don't know what to say. I am so very, very sorry. I have been through similar things twice with my daughter and I know how awful it is. It is hard to console someone who has gone through it, the pain is so raw. I hope that if you want to, you and your husband will be able to work on increasing the size of your family again sometime in the future. My heart goes out to you.

I believe that anytime any kind of sex ed or video on menstruation or male puberty in public school has always been an optional thing that parents are able to decide whether to involve their children or not.

rodriguez, you okay?

I agree that you can show people respect even if you don't agree with everything they do. I also have trouble believing that some people aren't just paying lip service because it sounds politically correct, but that they have pretty deep-seated bigotry at their core.

Sorry about your head rodriguez. You're young. Maybe when you're my age, you'll get like me and flat out enjoy this kind of discussion instead of finding it painful. I used to hate debate of this kind. I've seen too many injustices and witnessed too much intolerance. And I've seen ignorance cause so much trouble in the world. So, like you, I'm a big proponent of education and knowledge. Fear of the unknown causes a lot of grief for people. If a person is smart and well-educated, they can read a book and put it in the proper context. If people are uninformed and ignorant, they may not be able to figure it out and might take the book at face value only. That's why people at one time, hopefully in the past, had book burnings. And why some people can't look at a painting and understand why the artist may have chosen to paint something that they find objectionable. An in your one sentence you said it better, knowledge is power.

Very good point rodriguez! In fact, it wasn't until I was preggers with my dd that I read up on and became informed about all the things that could go wrong. Both environmentally and genetically. Also, I never learned until after I was married that women have all the eggs that they're ever going to have and that a lot of our own behavior can cause problems with producing a healthy egg. Like using drugs and alcohol. I never knew what all the side effects could be from birth control pills or those heavy duty patches or IUDs. These are all things that would help women when they consider whether to have sex and whether to have children. And some of those decisions come when girls are teenagers. Another aside, just to clarify: not using a condom is not the same risk factor as not using a condom properly. And not using a condom is not figured into the stats for the percentage of condom failure. If a condom didn't enter the picture, how could it fail?

gadget: "My objection is to subjects and/or methods that encourage sexual activity. "That being said, presumably there are a lot of topics that are educational but many would say are either out-of-line or not the appropriate venue for schools. "Would you agree that schools should be required to give gun training courses? After all, it's educational, and suppose they don't learn this information at home? Where are they going to get the correct information? "What about requiring schools to give information about hair coloring? Or torture methods? Or embalming processes? Or plumbing repair? "Yes, I am deliberately being random with the above examples. The point is, there is potentially an educational aspect to everything we discuss in life. Yet there are also both proper and improper venues for which these topics should be discussed and for which they should be required." BJean: Sorry gadget if I thought you might be a little disengenous about your claim of supporting comprehensive sex education classes in public schools. I probably was reading way too much between the lines in your posts. It was not my intention to make you look any different than you really are. Referring to a different post, gadget said: " No idea at all what that means. " BJean: Oh sorry, I'll explain. You consistently put your own characterization on my posts. You even go so far as to claim that I said something that in fact, I did not say. And that has been true in several instances during this line of discussion. So, frankly it made me think of someone who is, well, showing their ass to people. (As opposed to their good side.) If I did the same thing to you, then I guess I've bared mine ass well.

Btw Beth, not that you deserve a reponse from me, but for the record, when I post things here they are my opinion. They are what I believe to be factual, although I do not print a disclaimer at the bottom of each post saying that if something I've said is not factual, you can shoot me. Um kay? :crying:

Come on Beth. You're the queen of tossing out your own personal opinions. And you do it loud and with an exclamation mark. Don't hold your breath Terri, waiting for me to run off and find links to "back up" my statements. If I run across anything that is relevant to this discussion, I will do as you have asked and I will bring them to you. But the information highway is constantly changing and new and different information is constantly being made available to us. Looking back is a waste of time if you are going to keep up with what is going on everyday. And I will tell you again, what I have said many times before: I do not care one whit if I have credibility or a strong "stand" on the issues with you all. You do not care one whit if I share your beliefs either. You say what you want and I may argue with you, just as you may argue with me. But you have every right to say what you believe and think what you will and I know that you have come by your beliefs in lots of different ways. I don't expect you to treat this as if you are writing a thesis. Some people, like Jack, enjoy pulling out stuff that he believes provokes discussion and even argument. That is his right and his style here at LBT. It has never been my style and I just don't have time for it. Life moves too fast. I post and then I move on. Please do not think that you must be moved by anything that I have to say. If you disagree with me, tell me, I can take it. I will probably argue with you though. This forum is therapy for me. I have a lot going on in my life and jumping on here and spouting off from time to time is just plain fun. So if this causes people like Beth to say bad things about me and make lame accusations about my motives, it just comes with the territory. With certain people, it is easy to consider the source and dismiss it (and them.) You're perfectly free to dismiss me and what I say without a second thought. On the other hand, if you find something I say that peaks your interest and you want to know more, try watching Rachel Maddow or listening to your president, or visiting his website, or watching some of the other news broadcasts besides the Rupert Murdock channel. Trust me, the information is readily available without any assist from me.

Gadget: "So in the years from the 1960's or the 1970's to when the horrible, evil Bush was in office (when sex ed in schools still happened, BTW), when students were being taught all about everything they need to know, why have teen pregnancy and STD rates skyrocketed? What wasn't being taught? What more do you want kids to know? I personally was taught everything I needed to know, and if I had questions I went to my school nurse." What public school did you attend that provided a comprehensive sex ed course? You're actually the only person I've ever spoken with who made a claim like that. Bully for your school district. It was not the norm though, sorry to say.

gadget sez: "I agree. What's particularly funny is that I'm being painted as someone who's against sex ed, when all along I've said I believe students should be taught about basic factual information. Anyway, I expect I will continue to be painted as an intolerant narrow-minded religious conservative bigot who believes sex is dirty and no one should do it - so be it. It's to be expected, anyway." BJean sez: Watch it gadget, your ass is showing.

It's your fault that I ranted about torture. You brought it up. :crying: You're saying that you don't have any problem with sex education in public schools. I misunderstood. I thought that you said that parents should be the ones who teach their children about sex. If you are in support of sex ed in schools, don't you believe that there can be a panel or panels of experts, with parental input, and education representatives, that would be able to come up with a realistic and beneficial cirriculum that would be acceptable to you? I believe that President Obama would support such a discussion and would listen to all sides of the issue. That is what president Bush did not do. If Obama decides that teaching abstinence-only in schools is the best route to our seeing a reduction in teen pregnancies and other sex related problems, then I am sure he would reconsider his stance on the issue. And for your information, he has said that he will listen to the abstinence-only proponents.

I disagree with the premise that good sex education necessarily encourges or promotes sexual activity. Pretending that kids are not faced with a sometimes overwhelming drive to be sexually active, is unrealistic at best. The biological drive is present no matter what people are taught, whether it is basic anatomy or that abstinence is the only acceptible behavior. On the other hand, people usually handle things better when they are equipped with knowledge. I wasn't thrilled with the kind of educational exposure my daugher got regarding how chickens and hogs and cows are slaughtered and prepared for the marketplace because it caused her to become a vegan. Becoming a vegan has put her at risk for many things, including difficulty in having children and being able to handle surgery very well and even getting injections. But I am glad that she has the information and can make her own informed and intelligent life decisions about it. As for gun training courses and all the rest, we are in so many ways an impractical society. I would be all for gun training if every child got it. I do not believe that it would increase gun deaths. I believe it would reduce them. We had vocational education courses for years that taught hair coloring, auto repair, drafting, plumbing methods, etc. It was a good thing. Not all children are mentally equipped to become rocket scientists. Besides, we need hairdressers, plumbers, auto repair people and the like. As for torture, you can't be serious. As a country, we do not believe in torture. We have signed a pact saying that we do not torture. Why would we teach children how to water board or place bamboo under the fingernails to make our captives scream? We know that torture doesn't work to get good information any better than less drastic methods. People mostly torture to inflict pain. It makes the torturer feel in control. And sometimes it actually gives them pleasure. It is frightful. (And this is your fault - you unleashed the hounds on that one.)

She showed her tolerance by what she said about gays, in spite of her stance on gay marriage. Some of the negative talk about gay marriage has revealed a deep-seated dislike of gays in general and a lack of respect for them and their lifestyle. That's why I comended trell on her post.

Good for you trell! Tolerance and respect are important components in getting along in this world. I don't have a problem with what Ms. Cali said either. I just don't think anyone should have expected her to win the crown if she didn't play the game of pagent politics. Meaning that she needed to talk the talk of respect and tolerance toward others even if she didn't walk it. When you allow yourself to be used to represent something, you can't go all rogue and do your own thing with no regard for your title.

gadget says: "I don't want my children taught how to put a condom on. If you want yours taught that, then teach it to them. I think when a young man goes out and buys condoms, he's going to look at the box and read the directions. Plus, it's not rocket science." Then why is improper use the primary reason for condom failure? gadget says: "You think the past 40 years of sex ed has been a rip-roaring success? With all of the STDs and teen pregnancies that we have now? There are rampant STDs in our neighborhoods that were all but wiped out 50 years ago! Again, because the last 40 years of "just do it if it feels good" education has been so successful." The point that was being discussed here is that we have NOT had a successful sex ed program. And we certainly did not have any support for that under Mr. Bush because he focused all the money and attention on abstinence-only information being given to our children. So I don't know where you get that any real sex education that includes the things we were discussing here, has been taught to our children over the past 40 years. We have even given our own stories about how limited our sex education was. So I sure don't get where you're coming from on this rant about 40 years of sex education not working. and Gadget added: "I'm not naive enough to believe everyone can approach their parents, but wouldn't it be wonderful if instead of relying on outside sources to teach our children about their bodies, we instead took that task upon ourselves?" I think we all agree that if parents were equipped and willing to educate their children on this topic, there would be absolutely no need for the public schools to get involved. But teen pregnancy and all the rest are a national concern now. We all are affected by what's going on with our children. We must try to figure out a way to help them. Parents were never educated and they have no clue how to teach their children. So President Obama is trying to step up to the bar and find some help. I just hope that extremists who are narrow-minded and locked into their single minded ideas aren't able to shut him down.