Okay ladies, let’s be perfectly honest!  I love my friends and love hearing from them, but how many of us really enjoy getting all those "dear friend," cute little sometimes animated angel love notes from every female friend in our address books? You know the ones I’m talking about. Those with "I love you so I'm sending you an angel" ... and there is always a really crappy poem attched to the angel pictures.  Then as if the cute little angel and the sugary sweet message weren’t enough to pain you, there is the threat of bad luck befalling you if you don't take the time to forward it to a dozen other girlfriends!

So here's my version:  Take some fairy dust and add it to one of those angels......

  AND POOF !!!!

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my shape to keep.

Please no wrinkles, Please no bags

Please lift my butt before it sags.

Please no age spots, Please no gray

As for my belly, Please take it away.

Keep me healthy, Keep me young,

And thank you Lord, For all you've done.

Foot Note: One saggy boob said to the other saggy boob: “If we don't get some support soon, people will think we're nuts.

*I must confess. This is an adaptation of one of those angel emails I received from a friend. But it didn't threaten me with bad luck if I didn't share it. That was refreshing.

Do you think men are happier people than women? Well, I do believe some areas of their lives ARE less complicated in comparison to women's lives. However, this piece does generalize. For example, I was the one who owned OUR garage and finally after many years stopped promising myself that I'd never clean it all by myself again! This little essay explains why men just might be happier:

MEN ARE HAPPIER PEOPLE

What do you expect from such simple creatures? Their last names stay the same. The garage is all theirs. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. They have a better chance of being elected President. They can never be pregnant. They can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. They can wear NO shirt at all to a water park. Car mechanics tell them the truth.. The world is their urinal so they never have to drive to find another gas station restroom because the last one was just too icky. They don't have to stop and think about which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at their chest when talking to them. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle their feet. One mood all the time.

Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. They know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. They can open all their own jars. They get "brownie points" for even the smallest acts of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite them, he or she can still be a friend.

Their underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. They almost never have strap problems in public. They are unable to see wrinkles in their clothes. Everything on their face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. They only have to shave their face and neck.

They can play with toys all their lives. One wallet and one pair of shoes --one color for all seasons. They can wear shorts no matter how their legs look. They can manicure their nails with a pocket knife. They have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

And last but not least, they can do their Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24th in just 25 minutes.

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What are little boys made of? Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails....That's what little boys are made of! What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice....That's what little girls are made of!

And I enjoy being a girl. Remember that song? http://www.veoh.com/group/ienjoybeingagirl

"Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around" ... Remember that song from the film "Cabaret" starring Liza Minnelli?  She and Joel Grey danced and sang that song about money. Here's a link to the video of that scene from the movie:  http://vodpod.com/watch/117094-money

And speaking of money, here's some interesting breaking news from the Associated Press:

MIAMI (AP)-- More than 14,700 U.S. taxpayers came forward to disclose billions in offshore bank accounts in 70 countries under a voluntary Internal Revenue Service program allowing most to avoid criminal prosecution as long as they pay what they owe, IRS officials said Tuesday.

A flood of people came forward in the last days before the amnesty program expired Oct. 15, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. The final total far surpasses the number who disclose offshore accounts in a typical year -- about 100 -- and comes amid a broad U.S. crackdown on international tax evasion at Swiss bank UBS AG and other institutions.

"To put it simply, this is a historic milestone for the nation's hardworking taxpayers," Shulman said in a conference call from Washington.

The total in taxes, interest and penalties collected from those in the voluntary disclosure program will be in the "billions of dollars," Shulman said. The disclosures involved accounts on every continent but Antarctica.

Swiss banks agreed to disclose names of 400 of their American depositors who have broken U.S. tax evasion laws. There was a lot more in this article about that Swiss banking industry's agreement with the U.S. regarding secret accounts of many American citizens. The Swiss don't want to reveal information since it goes against their banking laws or rules about protecting the information of their customers. It will be interesting to see how many Americans will continue to get away with hiding their money in Switzerland to avoid paying taxes on it. At least this is a start. We need to get rid of loop holes and insist everyone play fair and go by the rules....and enforce them too! 

The GOP has been caught with egg on its party's face....lots of egg. For the past eighteen years, the Republican National Committee's own employee health care plan through Cigna has covered elective abortions. The option was included even though the RNC could have chosen to turn this coverage down back in 1991. Another eye opener was the discovery that the health insurance used by employees of right-wing, ultra conservative, anti-choice Focus on the Family organization has  also covered "abortion services!" So the female employees of these organizations have had, if they desired, the choice of an elective abortion covered by their health insurance plans! And the RNC and Focus on the Family didn't know this? The GOP didn't know? Whoa!

 This cartoon says it well:

In response to the Stupak amendment in the recently passed House health care bill, I think the women should offer another amendment to the health care bill which would deny the use of any government money for insurance coverage for any and all medications, procedures or surgeries related to male sexual issues including: vasectomies, erectile dysfunction instruments or medications (Viagra, Cialis, etc.) or procedures or surgeries to restore previous actions done to limit sperm production. Why should MY tax dollars go toward giving men the choice and/or the ability to make or NOT make babies!!!  Now isn't that fair?

Lately I've been cooking more. That's not easy considering I live alone and usually don't spend much time cooking for just myself, and husband lived on high protein milkshakes for the last several years of his life, so I'd gotten out of the habit of cooking.  However, instead of taking daughter Val and her husband out for meals when they visited a couple of weeks ago, I fixed barbecued country style ribs on Friday night and roasted a lovely large chicken and made dressing, etc. the next day. I really enjoyed doing it....everything tasted good indeed. I remember our Belgium exchange student saying he'd heard Americans weren't very good at cooking, but that I was "a good cooker." Maybe I haven't loss the ability afterall.

I think my NY City-Hudson Valley Tour in September inspired me to spend more time in the kitchen. We spent one afternoon and evening at the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America, and saw how the master chefs of our nation are engaged in the training of the next generation of master chefs. The students prepared and served a wonderful meal for us that evening after the tour....and I fell in love....with their winter squash soup....and I don't even like squash! I found the CIA's recipes online when I got back home and had to try duplicating that soup. I was very successful....my squash soup was simply delicious! I ended up making two batches of it the past month...hope I don't OD on it! I froze two quart containers plus lots of smaller amounts of it and am having some again for dinner tonight.

This Thursday I made "Gourmet Potato Soup." I'm not fond of potato soup but had all the ingredients for it and told my friend Stella I'd bring her some soup this weekend. She has "Meals on Wheels" during the week but has to fend for herself on weekends. She's on oxygen and has difficulty getting around. Perhaps the reason I never cared much for potato soup is that I got tired of it even before I was born. My mother once told me that she was so very sick all the time during her pregnancy with me and that the only thing she could keep down was potato soup so ate it almost every day for months and months until I was born. I guess she also got tired of it, for I don't remember her ever making it while I was growing up!

   I went to see my doctor for my yearly physical exam. The nurse started of course with the usual questions:

 "How much do you weigh?" she asked. 

"135," I replied.

The nurse put me on the scale. It turns out my weight is 180.

The nurse asked: "Your height?" 

"5 feet, 6 inches," I answered.

The nurse checked and saw that I only measure 5 feet, 3 inches.

She then took my blood pressure and told me that it's very high.

"Of course it's high!" I screamed.

"When I came in here I was tall and slender! Now I'm short and fat!"

They put me on Prozac.

My doctor recently gave me my six month check-up.When one reaches age 77 it's done twice yearly for some reason....guess it's just because we have more years behind us than ahead of us. Anyway, everything seems ok. The mammogram also was normal. I got my regular flu vaccine shot plus one for pneumonia too which, since I didn't rub my arm good afterward procuced a huge blue-black-purple arm width bruise! Tomorrow I'll find out about the bone density test results. A friend of mine emailed me the above account which is not at all biographical but was a whole lot funnier than my own exam experience!

Here's an interesting statistic from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Forbes magazine as reported by Holly Sklar:

The 400 richest American families in 2006 had as much wealth as the entire bottom half of the nation.

In other words, those 400 families had as much wealth as 57 million American households. That is 400 compared to 57,000,000! Wow! That is the inequality and great economic disparity issues I wrote about a couple of days ago but hadn't realized the numbers or the magnitude of the difference.

I have a Christian acquaintance whose husband was a university professor and apostle of Milt Friedman, the laissez-faire against government regulations economist. I'll call my church friend "Jill."  Anyway, we've been in the same ladies' study group at church for many years. Jill reflects her husband's views and opposes and vehemently argues against universal healthcare saying she doesn't want and shouldn't have to pay for anybody else's health insurance, and besides everyone already has access to healthcare via hospital emergency rooms. This stunned me, and I pointed out that we all indirectly DO pay for those using the more costly emergency room instead of a family physician when they become ill. We pay with higher hospital and insurance rates.

After Hurricane Katrina, Jill voiced her opinion that the people themselves were responsible for their misery because they should have left New Orleans before their homes were flooded. I told her many were so very poor they had no transportation available ..... but she wasn't swayed and went on to point out how destructive those people behaved with their looting of businesses, etc. 

In spite of our really huge political differences, we remain civil and even friendly. Jill is truly a very nice lady.  She volunteers at church and regularly donates her time reading to the elderly in a retirement village's nursing home.....albeit one caring for rather affluent residents. I suppose that sounds a little catty, but it is true....no charity patients there.

After Hurricane Katrina, Bill O'Reilly said all kids should be made to watch videos of what happened to the poor people in New Orleans because they couldn't get out of town, and their teachers should then tell them: "If you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta life, you will be poor and powerless just like those in New Orleans."

Anyway, my point is that there are a lot of conservatives who share the same philosophy expressed by O'Reilly and other ultra conservative pundits like WLW Cincinnati radio talk show host and frequent Fox News guest Bill Cunningham who said: "The reason people are poor in America is not because they lack money, it's because poor people in America lack values, character, and the ability to work hard." 

These are the conservatives who believe in Social Darwinism which reasons that poor people deserve to be poor because they are lazy and/or stupid and lack moral values; and wealthy people are rich because they have just the opposite qualities and so deserve to be rich.

I don't know about Jill, but I imagine some Christian conservatives might feel uncomfortable and have to do a lot of rationalization and selective Bible verse reading when their Christian beliefs collide head on with their beliefs in Social Darwinism combined with the "Trickle Down" political economic policy philosophy. [Say that 10 times fast!] The late well known economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, said it very well indeed:

"The modern conervative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishnes."

[The quoted material and statistics are from Jack Clark's "Blast the Right" website and podcast #158]

I learned a new word today....well, maybe it's not a real word yet.

"BANKSTER" isn't in and probably won't be in Webster's dictionary any time soon. However that word on the poster on the left really DOES express the feelings and frustrations most of us feel since hearing about the outrageous CEO wage increases and bonuses and misuse of the bail out money given large banks last year during the Bush Administration. Taxpayers' money which was given to them without any strings attached....given to them in order to save the banking industry. The bankers haven't really changed  and are now engaging once again in the same kind of insane behavior.... repeating the recipe for failure that various banking industries suffered in September 2008. I'm hoping history won't repeat itself in such a short space of time.

Just when you think you've heard it all....here's a snippet from the transcript of Jack Clark's "Blast the Right" podcast about the effects great inequality has on a society......

"Brian Griffiths is a Goldman, Sachs international advisor. He was recently discussing Wall Street salaries and bonuses. You've probably heard that the financial industry is all set to award itself a record $140 billion in total compensation this year. Goldman, Sachs all by its lonesome will pass out $23 billion in bonuses."

"Griffiths said in defense of such numbers: 'We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all...' "

If you are still confused about trickle down economics, I recommend you check out this site and podcast at http://www.therationalradical.com/2009/11/158-we-have-to-tolerate-inequality-to.html; however, if you don't have time to listen to or read the entire transcript of his podcast, here's the part I found most interesting:

A book, already out in the United Kingdom, will be publihed next month here in the United States.  It's called "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger."  http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies-Stronger/dp/1608190366

The authors, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, have a website, http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/.

What they have found, is that economic inequality within a society is the single most powerful determinant of whether that society will have more or less of a host of social ills.  

No one can summarize their research better than they in their own words.  From their website:

Great inequality is the scourge of modern societies. We provide the evidence on each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being. For all eleven of these health and social problems, outcomes are very substantially worse in more unequal societies.

We have checked the relationships wherever possible in two independent test beds: internationally among the rich countries, and then again among the 50 states of the USA. In almost every case we find the same tendency for outcomes to be much worse in more unequal societies.

As the book's publisher put it, in reference to the United States in particular:

Almost every modern social problem—ill-health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness—is more likely to occur in a less-equal society. This is why America, by most measures the richest country on earth, has per capita shorter average lifespan, more cases of mental illness, more obesity, and more of its citizens in prison than any other developed nation.

Recently my daughter, Valerie (aka "murisopsis") posted a poem which triggered a memory of my own little poem on the same subject which I had written in my journal way back in 1981!

A lot of things change over several decades, but those Hoosier cornfields will stay the same forever I hope. So here's my little poem....and by the way, Val had never seen mine or been influenced by it since I never shared my journal with her. In 1981 she had graduated from college and was working and living three hours away.

 But as the sayings go: "Great minds think [or is it work?] alike" and  "Like mother like daughter."  Very groanable, so you have my permission to groan. 

November Soldiers

The November cornstalks stand

Like rows of tattered old soldiers

Their faded battle ribbons waving in the breeze

And too tired to stand at attention much longer.