green

Because I have never been a maternal person - it is for this reason that I have never had children of my own - what I look at in those who do choose to have children is whether they can take care of them both physically and emotionally. It is clear from the review that I have made of the material available of the Duggar family that these kids are doing well. They are healthy and they are as happy as anyone has the right to be. The remaining issue is the desire that these children not be raised as bigots. This is a big concern. What is not a big concern as far as I am concerned is something that a number of you have mentioned and this is this issue of play time. Play time is a very recent concept. Until the mid-20th century and even then this was only prevalent in the most affluent countries children were expected to take part in family life, to learn, and to be as productive as was possible. This current concept of the sanctity of childhood and of playtime is very much a recent and arguably artificial construct. I would further argue that the reason that so many teenagers now run into sexual trouble is that they were, historically speaking, already wed and breeding at this time. We may wish to carefully examine our middle class style values and style of living and then contrast this with the biological imperitives of our species. It strikes me that the issue that we are so often fighting is that of our own biological time table. The trick is not to give in to this but to acknowledge its existence and to figure out some way to work around it.

Oh, that Green! She is doing a lot of posting, eh? Well, re the Duggars, I have reviewed the website and I really can't see anything wrong with this family so far. It is true that they are a little square but so what? They seem to be happy, healthy and loving. As long as they are also brought up to accept and respect those who are different from them - Jews, Muslims, atheists, people of colour, and other foreigners - I really do not have any problem with this family.

Sunta, I love this piece which you have posted. Thanks for doing so. You might be interested to know that up here in Canada there has been a belief for sometime now that the States will eventually run into a fresh water crisis and that your country will end up by looking north at our splendid fresh water resources. Indeed there are those Canadians, ones who might be considered to be a little paranoid, who foresee a time when Canada might be taken over (*read invaded*) for this reason. You might also be interested to know that although there is a sizeable chunk of underpopulated property to the north of America this land is underpopulated for a reason. Even with the already noticeable effects of global warming taking place up here in Canada the fact does not change that much of this chunk of real estate is rock and not lush and fertile farm land. Man cannot live on minerals alone. As for our coastal waters which were once a source of food, well, they have been pretty well fished out. And even though our own government has placed a moratorium on fishing - thus tossing lots of locals onto eternal welfare - these protections only extend three miles past the Canadian coastline. European and Asian fishermen who choose to fish outside these limits can do so and are continuing to do so. The issue of population is both interesting and frightening. Mammals were designed to breed fairly prolifically in order to handle times of famine, disease, and predators and this balanced out before mankind began to develop his superior intellectual resources and was thus able to tinker with the natural birth to death ratio. (We can see an echo of our own extravagant growth in population in that of our house pets. Animal shelters complain bitterly about animal owners who refuse to neuter their pets. An on-line visit to any animal shelter is always heart-breaking.) At the same time, while some creatures, notably humans, are flourishing, others are disappearing at an increasingly rapid rate as their home turf is torn down to make space for us. Biologists and Environmentalists tell us that biodiversity is important for the stability and the health of the planet. This kinda makes sense to me and as we are part of the planet it strikes me that we must wake up and pay attention to this message. Sunta has chosen to open this thread by discussing the issue of attitudes towards population. Though most of the industrialized nations have low birth rates it is true that America is an anomally. Your birthrate is 2, and that is replacement level, and many of the other affluent nations are quite envious. Mousecrazy has raised what I personally consider to be a more powerful point and that is the issue of the western lifestyle. She's saying something very interesting here, in my opinion, for the truth is that we now all leave much bigger footprints in the environment due to our current lifestyle expectations than our grandparents or great-grandparents did. We do this regardless of the number of kids we have chosen to have.

It seems to me that the above statement was carefully crafted. Creator was left unspecific, undoubtedly deliberately so. America was designed to be a pluralistic country by its founding fathers.

Benny Hinn is currently raising money for his new personal jet, to be called the Dove. He claims he needs it for his missionary duties. Hahahahaha!:heh:

LOL! Good thing that I still have excellent bladder control, grrl. That last crack would have had me peeing my ginchies otherwise.

Thanx for the good wishes and yep, Wheezy, you are right! I actually have been thinking about most of those very things that you listed. I have already been painting for some years now and I used to be serious about photography even longer ago. I even had a darkroom when I was in my 20s! I am dying to get back to the all grrls' gym that I belong to but I am still having physio for the F...ed Up shoulder. :cry Today I went to the movies with a couple of older retired friends. Afterwards we ended up in an Indigo book store. I bought 5 books for less than 17 bucks. The kid at cash said that he gets even better deals as an employee. Then I thought that I could get a part-time job in a book store. Yep, I figure that once my mother's estate - I am the executrix - is finally cleaned up and my shoulder is good then I can start taking care of Green biz.

I don't think that Sunta has been as rude or as abrasive as Bill O'Reilly or that pill poppin' guy - I forget his name - who made such fun of Michael J. Fox recently. Some of you like to listen to these clowns because you are on the same political page whereas you are not on the same page as Sunta. This will inevitably colour your responses to her posts. It is certain that she chose to introduce a controversial and challenging topic on this thread. I believe that there is much to be gained by debates such as this one. This is where we are forced to scrutinize our own beliefs and put them in good order before putting them out there for everyone, including the opposition, to examine. By doing this we learn more about ourselves and our beliefs. And by examining the opposition's arguments we also learn more than we would be by choosing to remain unchallenged and safely embedded in our same old ruts. In my opinion Rants and Raves is the most intellectually challenging neighbourhood on the site. Now, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of blood letting from time to time, is there?

Thanx. Now that I am retired I've got to figure out what to do with the rest of my life! Now that is going to be complicated! :help:

No, He is only 48 years old. He has lots of life left in him! LOL He was in favour me taking early retirement. He seems to like to have someone to come home to. Weird, eh?

Sounds like you came from a fine family. I am a little bit envious, you know.

I am not an American but I must say that I do find this version of the statue to be deeply offensive and I can understand anyone's outrage. Let us speak frankly here. This statue has been representative of the spirit of America, a country which has welcomed generations of immigrants without regard to religion or to social standing. Those hopeful immigrants who funnelled through Ellis Island saw the Statue of Liberty before they were able to place foot on American soil. I don't know how Americans interpret this symbol anymore but for many of us the Statue of Liberty still signifies that the country she symbolically guards is a place of freedom, brotherhood and equality. This was the spirit in which the French nation presented her to you. It was an entirely humanistic and secular passion that lay behind this gift and this spirit must be respected for the Statue of Liberty must be accessible to all Americans. Surely you can understand, when you think about it, that to trick out this powerful symbol of what America stands for with a symbol that belongs to a specific group is deeply offensive and should not be allowed. Why, for a non believer it is as offensive as seeing the Lady chugging down a bottle of coke! I am surprised that your country has allowed this kind of thing. It is disrespectful.

Thanks for the compliment, Carlene, and I will accept it as another atheist. What bothers many of us is that we see that many Christians, in particular the Fundamentalist and Charismatic Christians, have opted for a narrow and particular version of Christianity without troubling to examine either the framework of their beliefs, or the Bible itself. It is clear that these are Christians who have never taken the trouble to examine this document carefully and so have not noted its internal inconsistancies nor that it is an often somber, an often brutal document. The careful atheist becomes concerned because the careless Christian always cherrypicks. And it is these Christians who then propose to hijack the constitution and the working agenda of the single most powerful country in the industrialised world at this time for their own ends. Make no mistake, no other modern and sucessfully functioning country in the international arena is a theocracy. We are thinking folk who are concerned about the current state of affairs, as we should be, and it is this, I believe, that makes folks like Sunta, etc. charge into these discussions with passion. This is always a good thing. This is a reminder that democracy still exists.

Omigawd to both questions, Yoda! Re the retirement thing, I was off work on disability for over 3 years before retiring. This was due to my problems with depression, an illness that troubles our family. Two things have happened since I went on disability: my mother and younger brother both unexpectedly died, and I was recently offered a rather large cash settlement if I were to choose early retirement. The company had a number of these retirement packages available, some people refused, and my name came up on their list. At the same time, because my beloved mother and baby brother had both suddenly died within a two month period of each other, I found myself a) really messed up emotionally and about to inherit, along with my surviving brother, enough money that will, as long as it is invested conservatively, provide sufficient income for me to retire. (I'm not a big spender, ya know.) The income from my inheritance would have, had I recovered enough from my depression issues to be considered ready to go back to work, done strange things to my income tax category. This is because my job, that of aircraft assembler, is unionized and pays very well. Now this may sound very strange to many of you, but I am at the point in my life where money is not a big issue unless we are talking about a giant chunk of cash. As things stand we - my husband and I - are able to do whatever we want without having to worry it. This may be because we have never got into the habit of spending a lot of money. As you get older you do find that you have most if not all of those things that a young person who is newly starting out needs. Things like a microwave, toaster oven, pots, pans, dishes, sheets, etc. Well, I am happily rich in all those things and if I were to desire one thing that seems to be outside of my financial framework it would be to have a larger house, one kinda like the one I currently have but bigger, inside the city core and within walking distance to the subway. Such a house will cost well over a million and then there is the issue of property taxes. These are gonna be a bitch! And that, everyone, is green's story and she is sticking to it.:eek: As to how I am going to spend my retirement? Well, grrl, I am still trying to figure this question out. Any and all suggestions will be welcomed by moi, the green one.:eek:

Yep, truth be told, that is what I am assuming. I have been spending a lot of my recent life travelling in third world countries because I figure that there will come a time when my health won't be up to it. Now this is kinda ironic considering the following story: when we pack for travel in a third world country we always take a safety pack of Immodium, Gravol, Aspirin and any other available over the counter remedies even though we find that we often don't need them; however, it was when we went to Halifax for my nephew's wedding this past summer and we had left all this stuff at home that my husband ate a bad oyster and became as sick as I have ever seen anyone be from exposure to local bad news. The poor dude was running from both ends. As it happened, we were staying in a small cottage on the Atlantic coast and I don't drive. Our usual bunch of travelling meds were back home in our bathroom in Toronto. We shoulda brought 'em with us but, heh, this is Canada, eh! Fortunately the wedding was a family affair and folks ran interference for us. We spent a lot of money buying exactly the same stuff that we had left at home but at least we could buy it. My husband didn't see much of the east coast and he missed out on the wedding and this was sad for all of us. What was interesting was that there were a number of doctors at the wedding and they all had their own horror stories about food poisoning to contribute. (Other than that they were useful.) Hah! and LOL! This has turned out to be such a long and rambling post. I guess all I wanted to say is that we never know what surprises we will or will not encounter when we travel, eh.:eek:

I wanted to go and I live 20 minutes away but I forgot to RSVP on time. Since opting for early retirement - I officially retired Dec 1st! - I have become blonder than ever. :eek: There's no bimbo like an old bimbo, I guess....:heh:

That's really nice to hear.:eek: It seems so many people don't.:cry I have lived all but 3 years of my life in the heart of the city and I really like it here. It's an easy place to get around in and there is always lots to see and do and eat.:hungry: What I regret, though, is that I know so little about the rest of Canada. I have never seen northern Ontario nor taken the Polar Express, something I have always wanted to do.

Orillia is a mid-sized town in Ontario. It is kinda on the way to cottage country. I think it might be where Stephen Leacock grew up.

It must have been a relief to know that it was not your band, eh.:eek:

I'm gonna have to pluck up the courage to go into the Gap. Maybe there's an NSV there waiting for moi.

If I was you, I would take some Immodium and call the doctor.

:faint: :eek: and :heh:

An excellent post, BJean. Bravo!

Bitter, we haven't heard how your puppy is doing. Is he okay? I will also venture another comment which may be out of line but here it goes: I do think that taking care of your mother is very, very hard on your emotional health. Is there any chance that you can get a break from this? It sounds as though you could do with a holiday.

Yippee, Yoda!