Narcissists R Us

It is interesting that this article would be published when I’ve been noticing a rash of narcissism in my personal sphere. My new roommate has narcissistic tendencies especially when she’s been drinking (she also has alcoholic tendencies but that’s for another discussion), my ex-husband thinks my world should revolve around him and the United States seems to have been run by a handful of these types for the last 8 years.

I know with certainty parents gives their kids too much these days. They let their kids watch rated R movies when they are 9 years old, buy mature video games before they can spell their name and allow the “gimme’s” to run the household. (My response to the gimme’s is, “Gimme got his neck broke.” It’s what my dad used to tell me every time.)

Boundaries need to be set in place and this generation needs to know the world does not revolve around them. They are only one cog in the wheel of life and need to treat others accordingly.

Peanut hangs out with a few kids who are given just about everything they could ever want. His classmate has a PS3, a PSP, had braces put on then taken off his lower teeth (he’s only 9!), has the latest in fashions and 2 parents who work themselves to exhaustion to provide all this.

Wanna know what we have? 2 TV’s, 1 Nintendo DS, 1 Nintendo DS Lite, a DVR, an iPod Nano and a laptop computer that can play WoW. Peanut is currently restricted from playing video games because he got a C in Social Studies when he’s had A’s since Kindergarten. We plan to get a Wii, but only if Peanut proves to me he can handle it and school work; so far he hasn’t.

I believe a person should earn their benefits and rewards fairly and believe kids should even more. They need to be taught how to deal with the things they will be denied later in life and how to deal with people in general. When they start with an overwhelming sense of self-worth that hasn’t been earned, they are in for a life of disappointment without the ability to deal.

Like the article said, this could very well lead to a higher rate of, “failed marriages, abusive working environments and billion-dollar Ponzi schemes.”

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Workin' Workin' Workin', Keep Everybody Workin'

(Sadly, the title of this post was done to the tune of "Rawhide" for whatever reason. My mind is a human jukebox.)

So I'm on page 9.5 of a 12 page minimum paper. Tomorrow and Saturday it will be finished then I need to begin on the other one, which I am currently on page 6 of. The first is harder because it is also going to be presented so I have to construct both in my head almost simultaneously.

The good thing is I've titled the paper "Disability Conceptualized". It's something I know a lot about and it is a great excuse to get on my soapbox for a mostly uninterrupted 20min.

April 22nd and 23rd are my last 2 classes for this semester; May 18th to June 18th I'll be in my "summer" class for 2.5 hours 3 nights a week. This will all be worth it when I get that 2 months in between. I hope.

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Is this regret?

When I pulled up yahoo’s website this morning, I saw this tagline: Racist makes public apology. I clicked on the link mainly because I was curious, wondering what sort of apology a racist man could make. I will admit I am skeptical when someone begins repenting their sins, especially when you find out they’re dying. One has to wonder if they are truly sorry or do they think the only way they can get into heaven is to apologize. After reading the article, I’m convinced it is the latter for Mr. Elwin Hope Wilson.

Now 72 and ailing, his body swollen by diabetes, his eyes degenerating, Wilson is spending as many hours pondering his past as he is his mortality.

Sure most of the bad deeds he did were when he was younger, but they were filled with such venomous hate, how does one turn that off? He beat a young 21-year old black man because he got off the Freedom Rider’s bus and attempted to step foot in the White’s Only waiting room. Mr. Wilson was not provoked verbally or physically, yet he chose to allow his fist to meet with that young man’s face 45 years ago.

The former Ku Klux Klan supporter says he wants to atone for the cross burnings on Hollis Lake Road. He wants to apologize for hanging a black doll in a noose at the end of his drive, for flinging cantaloupes at black men walking down Main Street, for hurling a jack handle at the black kid jiggling the soda machine in his father's service station, for brutally beating a 21-year-old seminary student at the bus station in 1961.

I just don’t buy it. Not when you read things like the above paragraph and the one that follows:

"All I can say is that it has bothered me for years, all the bad stuff I've done," Wilson says, speaking slowly and deliberately. "And I found out there is no way I could be saved and get to heaven and still not like blacks."

This sounds a lot like someone trying to buy their way into heaven, doesn’t it? When you read further, his wife talks about how he became scared of the black ghost in the rocking chair, a result from a bad dream Mr. Wilson had. His son describes his dad as a hard man to live with as he would use the n-word in front of his friends, sneer at black people (families included) in public, and heckle them in restaurants. And this is when he was old enough to know better.
I just don’t buy it and this is why:

In the 1980s, when the local cemetery began burying blacks alongside whites, Wilson became so incensed he threatened to disinter the bodies of his parents. When a black family bought a house in the neighborhood around the same time, Wilson accosted the real estate agent and demanded that the sale be rescinded.
He yelled racial insults whenever his grandson, Christopher, whom he raised, talked on the phone to his black wrestling buddy. When a garden ornament — a stone statue of a black boy in straw hat — was vandalized in Wilson's front yard, he strung up a black doll with a noose around its neck, and threatened to use an AK-47 against a neighbor who complained.
As late as 1999, when his Baptist pastor began encouraging more black participation, Wilson got so upset he left the church.

You might think different, but someone who can hold onto so much hate even after he knows better, doesn’t seem to be all that sincere to me. It sounds like Mr. Wilson wants to make sure he gets into heaven and in order to, he’s doing what the church has been preaching all his life: repent, be saved and you shall be welcome in God’s land.

I do not want to go to the same heaven where people like him might be. Who knows what they carry with them, if all this hate follows them even in death?
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Come on Charlie, Move your bloomin' arse!

Maybe if we beg him enough, he'll post the awesomeness that he emailed me the other night on the AIG debacle and the fact Geithner is playing with his friends. Who wants to start?

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Every Day is Straight Day

Last Friday night, Peanut and my One Conservative Friend were eating dinner at River City Diner and overheard this conversation between a waiter and his customers (who he apparently knew). Keep in mind he was wearing a rainbow belt and seemed happy to be a young gay adult male:

Waiter: I just found out Kings Dominion has a Gay Day. I didn't even know they could do that, isn't it discrimination. Can they do that? I wonder if they have a Straight Day...

Customers: Huh, interesting. (pause) Every day is Straight Day.

Waiter: Silence as he most likely contemplates this news which shouldn't be a shock to him. Then agrees.

Then in my head I say, "Thank god they (customers) said that because I surely would have."

Which brings up an interesting point. This evening, a classmate gave a presentation on gay adolescents and depression. We learned that many internalize homophobia so it might take them a while to figure out they are gay and/or to act on those impulses. Sometimes this internalization follows them into early adulthood before they are able to "free" themselves from societies heterosexual constraints, especially when children are involved.

Naturally while discussing the topic tonight I thought of the young man and his ignorance to every day being straight day. After all, we live in a society where heterosexuality is affirmed via the right to get married and homosexuality is denied that same affirmation with the many bans that have arisen in recent years.

Gay couples were not seen in primetime television until Will & Grace came along. "Grey's Anatomy" and "Brothers & Sisters", both portraying lesbian and gay relationships respectively, have been passed the torch. These 2 shows portray homosexual relationships as being equal with those of their heterosexual counterparts, something I admire and am excited to watch for.

But it's still interesting how a young homosexual male didn't yet understand that every day is Straight Day. Seriously.

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Banished Words of 2008

This doesn’t have to do with anything currently in the news such as Governor J’s appointment of IL Attorney General Burris to fill Obama’s vacant Senate seat despite being warned not to do so. Or how Israel is getting pummeled again. Or that they had to close the food/weapons road (sue me, I can’t remember what it’s called) into Afghanistan because it’s been pirated so much and is now considered extremely unsafe.

I can’t say that I’m surprised with some of the 15 words that made the list:

“going green” - in reference to corporations declaring themselves environmentalists; I guess if you can buy clean air so technically you are not polluting it, you are "going" quite the opposite.

“maverick” – if you paid any sort of attention to the RNC’s poorly run campaign, you’ll know why this made the list.

“monkey” – because supposedly people think it makes anything sound cooler if they put this word in front of it. Really?

Here are my suggestions:

“like” – it’s not supposed to be used after every other word when speaking out loud. It is not meant to signify a pause. It needs to leave a person’s vocabulary unless they intend it as a real metaphor.

“totally” – this makes you sound like an airhead, especially when coupled with “dude”.

“awesome” – same goes for this one especially since the word means “to be left in awe”; more often than not this word is used incorrectly

“wifebeater” – it’s a tank top and the name makes light of a very serious situation that effects thousands of women and their children every year.

“gay” – as an adjective to describe anything other than people or the fact a individual is very happy (it’s original meaning).

There are others but they get into their overuse more than the fact they need to be banned. Got any others?

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I wanna be snarky about this

but I'm just too tired.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced yesterday that they are temporarily suspending foreclosures and evictions during the holiday season in an effort to keep people from losing their homes.

Okay, so maybe I'll snark a little.

Awwww, isn't that nice of them. They're going to double-check to make sure people aren't spending more then 38% of their pretaxed salary on their mortgage. And they're going to lower the interest rate. And they're going extend the mortgage term to 40 years. And they're going to possibly delay payback of part of the loan.

Awwww, they're finally doing what they should have done from jump. You know, as part of that whole responsibility thing.

Geesh.

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Peanut, the 9 year old who knows all

Yesterday, while brushing our teeth, Peanut looked up at me and said, with great distain, "My school doesn't know anything."

Me: Explain.

Peanut: Isn't Daylight Saving Time over?

Me: Well, sort of.

Peanut: My school set their clocks ahead an hour! (now scowling)

Me: (chuckling) Do they have it straight now?

Peanut: Yeah, but it took them a while.

Me: You didn't say that to anyone who works at your school did you?

Peanut: (laughing) No....

Then I thought to myself: "Wow, he's been hanging around me way too long 'cause I just saw myself only 2 feet shorter." And then I also realized it was very likely his school forgot to turn their clocks back at the appropriate time.

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this is old, but....

appalling nonetheless because I'm sure they aren't the only ones to have done this nor will they be the last.

Afrobella presents, "I Have no Words."

Maybe someone should remind him that black people aren't really black. *sigh*
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Overheard at Work

I'm going to start a new series titled Overheard at Work because some of the stuff heard here would crack you up, leave you appalled or gross you out. Heck, sometimes all 3 might happen.

2 of my co-workers were standing at the copier talking about a referral source who, according to them, isn't very nice. The part I will be repeating is only the section my brain began to listen in on.

CW 1: She isn't very nice! (whiney voice)

CW 2: Be nice to me massah. (southern twang added for emphasis)

CW 3: Seriously, she isn't nice at all.

And I stopped listening because I was too busy texting my co-blogger Charlie to see if he would have the same reaction I did. Yep.

Both co-workers are white and staunch republicans though CW 2 wouldn't be able to tell you why. Being a republican doesn't have much to do with the racist comment, I know, but the whiteness of their skin and lives does.

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The Return of the Peanutism

A group of us, 5 very liberal women to be exact, hung out in my kitchen last night, eating, drinking and being merry while awaiting the results of the election. We had no doubt Obama was going to win, but it was nice seeing the results as they strolled in. It confirms in your mind what you knew all along: America is ready for a real change, one we can actually believe in and stand behind. Obama is who I staunchly believe Jesus would vote for.

The pinnacle of the evening was when Virginia, in a very close call, went blue for the first time since 1964 when Lyndon B. Johnson was elected.

That was when we left the house, after opening the first of the two bottles of champagne we had been saving just for that moment, to shout into the streets. Apparently we attracted attention because a few of our regular cops showed up!

When the election was called for Obama and we shouted even louder.

So where does the Peanutism come in you ask.

I was upstairs checking Facebook because I’m addicted and wanted to know what my other friends were thinking/feeling, when Peanut popped up.

Peanut: Mom.

Me: Yes?

Peanut: Who won?

Me: Who do you think?

Peanut: Obama

Me: Yep! And guess what else?

Peanut: What?

Me: VA went blue.

Peanut: Yes.

Then he went back to sleep.

And I went downstairs to wait for Obama’s acceptance speech, which was gracious and very Presidential if I do say so myself. Those girls have definitely earned their puppy, : ).

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Busy obsessing over the election

So I leave you with these:






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