How "Moranic" Can We Get?

I love living here in Alexandria and never thought that there would have been anything to compel me to move out of this area. That was until last year, and even more so recently. As I have been tracking the congressional race in my district, VA-8, I have become increasingly incensed by what I have discovered about the incumbent, Jim Moran.

Let me start by saying, that in a fit of MAJOR ignorance, I did vote for Moran once, simply because I absolutely did not know any better. What a difference a day makes. Living in this area, Northern Virginia, it can be very easy to lose sight of things when you're surrounded by so many wonderful things, at least compared to where I grew up. It's easy to think that things are really going great until you begin to dig beneath the surface to see how we actually got there.

On the surface, it looked like Moran was doing an OK job for the area, but the more I began to pay attention to him, the less impressed I became. It's easy to come off as good when there is no adversity. But in the past few years, Moran has really shown how unworthy he is to continue representing this district.

I am only just reading the latest issue of Alexandria Times, wherein almost the entire periodical is packed with articles regarding the congressional race, as well as op-eds from (heaven help me) clueless constituents. I was beside myself when I read an opinion from one woman who claimed that Moran was ideal for the district because he was endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States. Really, lady? The economy is crumbling and all you care about is that some shops put out doggie treats and water for your pet while you shop? She's probably one of those who carts her pet around in a stroller while her child straggles behind her (yes, you will see that here). Another leftist who most probably cares more about animals than the lives of other humans. I say, it's so much more dignified to chase behind a domesticated animal and clean up their poop than to wipe the bottom of a child could change the world one day, right?

Such contempt has Moran for those who are not part of the political elite, that it was said Republican candidate Patrick Murray was "not a good fit for this district". Really? Not a good fit? How on earth do you mean? Apparently this district is so "enlightened", yet in my observances, most of the sophists that live here can't walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. They are actually too smart for their own good. Many of them have advanced degrees yet are utterly oblivious and lacking in common sense.

To show how poor a sport Moran is, we have seen him go from at least somewhat smiling to having almost a perpetual scowl of indignation. He does not take kindly to being opposed, questioned or challenged. I know from personal experience as I, a constituent, tried for approximately three months to have an audience with him but was constantly rebuffed. Everytime I called, I was asked "what organization are you with?" After the few contentious town halls that were conducted over the health care debate, his appearances dried up. His House website provided almost no up to date information informing us on any upcoming meetings, until there was a women's forum, which I viewed as a superficial way of pretending he cared about women's issues, and simply a means of how to "deal" with the injured economy and unemployment rather than rail against it.

To add insult to injury, he recently made comments dismissing candidate Murray's 24-year military service as not being any "kind of public service". Tough words coming from someone who has voted with Nancy Pelosi approximately 97% of the time. As a military veteran, I found it hard to contain myself after hearing such haughty remarks, and quite honestly I couldn't imagine any self-respecting service member or veteran, of which there are many in this area, being able to dismiss such disrespectful remarks from a career politician.

So used to being unquestioned and unopposed, Moran becomes pugnacious when challenged by Jason Mattera on the matter of stimulus money going to phantom districts. He has been known to be quite standoffish when he feels threatened. I'm not sure I care to have someone with such a hair trigger.

Jim Moran believes:

1. It's not government overspending that landed us in this economic mess.
2. Earmarks are powerful and he has no qualms about using them.
3. The Joint Forces Command should be reduced in size.
4. That another stimulus plan would be favorable even if the previous ones didn't work.
5. Defense spending should be reduced.

Actually, if you take a look at this list compiled at Right Wing News, Jim Moran appears to be a repeat offender.

As of today, a poll conducted by Alexandria Times reflected that 64.3% would vote for Moran, 21.4% would vote for Murray, and 14.3% would vote for Independent Green candidate Ron Fisher. As they say, a fool and his money are soon parted, and people in this area earn a lot of it. I'm not so sure that I want to be one of them anymore.

Ashton and Demi Strike Again!

Yet another testament to the poor judgment and half-witted actions of Hollywood power couple, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, it has come out that they may have violated NCAA rules by meeting with two University of Iowa basketball recruits.

This gaffe is coming from the very same couple who during the 2008 presidential campaign worked up audiences at colleges like Grinnell in favor of Obama. Quite frankly I don't think I want to hear about money matters from someone who gets paid millions to act like a complete jackass and play pranks on unsuspecting people. And let us not forget that creepy creepy pledge to serve a man about which they knew absolutely nothing. The pledge almost sounds like an unsettling rant about Scientology from Tom Cruise.

I feel like America has been punk'd long enough. Do these people care anything about learning the rules before they act? Are they completely clueless without a script? Or is it simply that deep down they're part of the Hollywood elite that believes they transcend all the rules that bind common folk?

The One-Night-Stand that Wasn't

In usual Johnny-come-lately fashion, I'm only just reading the Gawker hit piece on Christine O'Donnell. To me it starts off as a "Dear Penthouse" letter but ends up falling completely flat, literally and figuratively. In an efforts to hurt or insult O'Donnell, this man (can we even call him a man?), decides to describe a one-night-stand that actually didn't happen. Can you say LAME? My goodness, where do I even begin?

1. If you didn't have sex, it's NOT a one-night-stand.
2. You're trying to smear O'Donnell but it really makes you look bad. Very bad. You constantly commented on how much she had ahd to drink yet you also say that you had around the same amount. Who's to say that you were performing well under par yourself?
3. You have LESS respect for her for being a "born again virgin". Is that saying that you would have kept your mouth shut had she actually put out, or would you have put out just as salacious a piece if she had? And if nothing sexual happened, then how would there be any "nitty gritty" to get down to?
4. She's not a "cougar" if she didn't mess with you on the basis of how much younger you were than her. She probably wasn't even fully aware of the age difference. Get over yourself.
5. You make it a point to call attention to the fact that she hadn't "landscaped". I'm sorry, buddy, but not every woman feels compelled to have her nether regions resemble that of an adolescent girl. Again, that calls attention to what kind of mindset you most probably have.
6. You appear to be so disgusted with her that she didn't give in to your advances while under the influence that you decide not to call her after. Quite immature and caddish, don't you think?
7. Is it really any of your business whether or not O'Donnell and your roommate had sex when they were dating? Let me answer this for you, NO.
8. Are you so ridiculously immature that somewhere in your mind you would think that because she did not put out for you and because you care little to nothing for her that she should not deserve to win the primary?

I could honestly lose my breath picking apart this joke but I think this about sums it up.

Is there a such thing as an "Honest Crook"?

This is the email I received from political director John Youngdahl from SEIU today:

Hello,

Congressman Tom Perriello is a hero who needs your help.

He was a strong advocate for health care reform, even when others wavered. He tirelessly fights for working people, supporting measures to save jobs.

And that's why corporate front groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who advocate outsourcing of American jobs and refuse to disclose where their money comes from, are targeting him and spending huge amounts on television for his opponent, Robert Hurt.

We can't allow these corporate front groups to buy this election.

Tom Perriello needs small voluntary contributions of $10, $20, or $50 to combat the influx of anonymous corporate cash flooding the airwaves: http://action.seiu.org/defendtom

The same corporate sham organizations that supports the outsourcing of American jobs also support candidates like Hurt who oppose unemployment benefits for Virginians looking for work.

As Thomasine Wilson, a a home care worker with SEIU in this district, said: "Times are tough. Dollars aren't stretching as far as they used to. I know so many in my hometown who are unemployed. Robert Hurt voted against helping those who are trying to find work."

Right now Tom Perriello is crisscrossing the state, meeting every voter he can. Every moment he spends fundraising to match these corporate groups is a moment he's not talking to the people who will decide this election.

Making a voluntary contribution not only allows him to spread his message across the state, it also frees up his time to talk to more voters in-person. Contribute now: http://action.seiu.org/defendtom

Thanks,
Jon Youngdahl, SEIU Political Director

Mr. Youndahl is kindly asking for SEIU supporters to donate to Tom Perriello's campaign. When I saw this, I was reminded of something I saw of Tom Perriello's a while back. Something like this:

Now, would anyone in their right mind donate to him? Or should we just give him credit for being an "honest crook"?

A Piece of the Pie

On the drive home today I had a conversation with my husband on the Domino's Pizza we had eaten last night. We were talking about how the quality of Domino's had improved by leaps and bounds. I admit that I have become a convert myself after years of being emphatically opposed to eating Domino's because the pizza had been so horrid. I'd harbored the belief that Domino's was pizza only good for high school fundraisers, because that's about the only time I'd seen it around. My pizza of choice when I was younger was Pizza Hut and more recently Papa John's and Vocelli's.

My husband and I also discussed how Domino's not only improved the taste of their pizza but had lowered the prices, offered better deals, and had committed themselves to quality to the point where you could actually photograph your pizza and send it in with either positive or negative comments. This led on to a conversation about the free market system.

We heard from the likes of Pelosi about "choice and competition", which was a downright joke coming from her mouth. To get a good idea about how simple the benefits of a free market system are, it doesn't take a 2,500 page bill to be passed in order to "see what's in it". The free market can be summed up in something as simple as showing how a pizza brand that was producing a less than desirable product was getting raked over the coals by other competitors and how in an effort to stay viable decided to make a better product. Domino's managed to do this while increasing their sales AND lowering their prices WITHOUT adversely affecting the majority of consumers. They, like so many other business know, that providing a better product that consumers actually wanted was key. And despite lowering their prices, the exponential increase in sales more than makes up for it. Domino's did all this without having to force anyone to buy their product. How simple is that?

Cuba coming to rely on PRIVATE sector to fuel its economy.

Here is a story that should set the lefty Communist Cuba lovers on edge. Cuba has decided that in order to generate revenue to help the struggling nation that they will in fact, you ready?, TAX business owners in the PRIVATE sector! That's right, people who will be working and earning money for personal gain will be the very ones who will keep the island afloat. Read here.

The Cuban government can call it whatever they like, but by doing this, they have completely acknowledged the fact that their system as it has been for the past 50 years HAS NOT worked. You CANNOT stifle entrepreneurship and have the majority of your workers working for the government. So, the remedy to this will be to tax the private business owners, most of whom I'm sure have been terminated from the public sector between 25 and 50% of their income to keep the country going. I can only imagine what that's going to turn into! Give enough people the ability to make it on their own and they WON'T suffer this for long! Once they have the taste of freedom that comes with being able to work and accrue their own personal wealth, they won't be so willing to hand it over. Let's just see how this all pans out!

Independent Women

Radical feminism has served just as much to poison our society’s thinking as anything else. It sickens and saddens me to no end to see young girls who boast about how they can’t or won’t cook and clean and who are basically good at nothing but trying to look cute and spreading their legs. They bear this misconceived notion that in order to be “independent” women they must eschew all convention and free themselves from the so-called chains of domestication. That seems to include proper child rearing too. Yet, these are the very same women and girls that religiously consult magazines like Cosmopolitan for tips on how to please a man or keep one. These kinds of articles are right next to articles about how to starve themselves, how to party all night, then how to apply makeup in the right way to hide how much they partied the night before.

If these magazines ever do mention or acknowledge women who are actually married with families, it’s usually in a negative light, about how much the woman wants to go back to being single or how it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and that it’s a life sentence that must be served wherein she’s hoping to be paroled or let off for good behavior. Or, it’s the other side, where the married women with the children is so incredibly fabulous and manages to jet here and there, yet you never quite hear what she does with her kids while she’s busy running all over the place or where her husband is for that matter. If he matters, that is. There never seems to be any happy medium. A regular, REAL woman, who is married with children, and is quite content with the life path she’s chosen, who actually works in CONCERT with her husband to raise their children and handle their household. No, marriage is never all it is cracked up to be. It is never what you imagined it would be, even if you’re highly analytical and maybe even anal retentive enough to crunch numbers to come up with statistics on what marital life will hold. And I feel I must add, married celebrities and the like who have been married maybe like all of nine months or have just popped out a baby and feel some sort of societal obligation to dispense any kind of domestic advice DO NOT count.

I have had many a conversation with my mother and brothers about the state of womankind these days. My brothers openly lament that they are having an extremely difficult time finding a “quality” woman out there. It seems that so many are so damaged, and to make matters worse, have so few qualities to redeem them. They shake their heads at the girls who swear in their minds that they are too cute yet whose hygiene is questionable, who can’t even boil water for an egg, or don’t keep their homes clean. These are not gross exaggerations, these are actual things we discussed. My brothers and I are Southern. They, as well as I, know how to cook, clean, and take care of things in and around the home. I highly doubt my brothers would ever really be happy with a girl who couldn’t do at least what they are able to do if not more.

Another thing about which they lamented was about how uneducated so many young women are. Despite being college students or graduates, they come away knowing next to nothing and are still incapable of having intelligent and in-depth conversations, something we had grown up having with my mother. My brothers, especially my younger, come off as womanizers, but they admit that it’s becoming exhausting and at times depressing to go through so many women yet not find the right one for them. My brothers want good women, they really do, but they are very frustrated that so many out there complain that they get no respect all the while not respecting themselves. What do they expect?

Don’t get me wrong, my brothers are not saying that they want women as pure as the driven snow or completely free of baggage. In my opinion, baggage is actually a sign that you have lived and experienced life and met obstacles that you’ve overcome which helped form you as a person. I’ve always said, it matters not that you have baggage, but it’s all in how you carry it. Now, would you rather have it all in ripping plastic bags carried sloppily on your back, only to ask others to hold some of it for you? Or would you rather work it out to where it fits neatly in a personalized Louis Vuitton or Samsonite with swivel wheels and a handle so you can pick up and keep going?

Ladies, young women, I really hope you alter your way of thinking. Not bothering to learn how to properly cook, clean, and tend to other various domesticities does NOT make you more independent or any more woman. If anything, you are denying a part of yourself that makes you genuinely woman, that makes you more attractive to men. Do you not realize the POWER you have by being able to cook, clean, keep a good home, AND having a good job? There is POWER is being able to be intelligent, creative, loving and being able to make things beautiful and comfortable.

Being independent does not mean giving up traditional roles and assuming the roles of a man thus eliminating the need for one at all save for physical companionship. Being independent is more about being able to do everything for yourself yet also having the ability to let others in your life to share in your gifts and for you to partake of theirs. Like it or not, ladies, we do in fact need men in our lives, and for more than just sex. The sooner we accept and embrace that, the better off we’ll all be.