HelenaHandbasket

The "under God" part wasn't added until the Cold War as one of many inane things that were done to prove we were different from the godless Communists.  I don't say it, I consider myself a traditionalist.  

Anyway, I don't see why people get so fussed over Chistmas.  I think Christmas trees are pretty, and I like the music and the presents, but I haven't been to Mass in many, many years.  On Christmas Day, I go to my relatives' house, where the Jews outnumber the lapsed Catholics, because otherwise I would never see them.  The true meaning of Christmas is marketing and always has been.  The early Christians saw an easy way to incorporate winter solstice celebrations and ease conversions.  Faced with the same challenge today, they probably would have picked, like, Super Bowl Sunday.  Jesus was almost certainly not born in December, but who cares?  There are AWESOME parties!  It's the same reason why Hanukkah rose to such outsize prominence.  BRING ON THE PRESENTS!

More importantly, Christmas is not at all an important Christian holiday from a theological perspective.  The only one that is is Easter.  You believe Christ was the son of God and rose from the dead, or you don't.  Whether Jesus was born in a manger or a five star hotel or 20,000 leagues under the sea is incidental.  But the roiling, evil hordes of atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, and what have you don't worry so much about Easter hams and Jelly Beans, because the LouLams of the world don't get all up in our faces about it.

My favorite political irony is that conservatives have a reputation for being all tough, but they are actually bed wetting babies who fear anything different from them and consequently lash out.  Like my family and I are on their lawns burning Bibles.  Whatever.

I blame the parents not for their economic background, but for being lazy.

What the fvck ever.  Parents aren't everything.  Remember that kid, Steven Stayner?  He was kidnapped and repeatedly molested for a period of years, then escaped nearly ten years later.  He turned out well in spite of all that, though he died young in an accident.  His brother?  Grew up to be a serial killer.  The kid who shot up Virginia Tech?  His sister is a model citizen with an Ivy League education who works for the government.  Anything can happen.

It's interesting though.  There's a lot of an eye for an eye going on in here, but not all killers are sentenced to death, not even in Texas.  If that's a reason to have the death penalty, then why aren't they?

In any case, I voted in favor of removing it (surprise, surprise, right?).  As others stated, it isn't a deterrent, it's ungodly expensive, it's been found faulty many, many times, and the deck is stacked against anyone underprivileged.  I also take exception to the idea that life in prison is super awesome.  I got to visit East Rahway when I was in high school, and it was the scariest fvcking place I've ever been in my life.

The comparison to abortion is also nonsense.  If I were to decide to have an abortion, that's between me and whatever god I may have because there is no definitive proof of when life begins.  The state cannot tell me to, or tell me not to, because they don't get to play god with my life.  The death penalty is exactly that, playing god with someone else's life, and what landed the murderer in trouble in the first place.  To quote my favorite television show ever (because off topic is a silly place, especially the politics forum, so why not?), you go when you're supposed to go, and everything else is homicide.  Even when the state does it.

In my neck of the woods, a group of students is suing TurnItIn for violating their intellectual property rights, since the selling point of the company is their database, but the students are not compensated for their work. Maybe you could find some resources through them?

I agree with Leeds in the political forum for the first time ever. Yikes. Ron Paul is a crazy person. He knows enough to not be talking about the New World Order and the gold standard and the rest on the national stage, but the nuts over at Storm Front love him for a reason, folks.

Anyhow, how many of y'all went out and voted on Tuesday? The whole New Jersey state legislature was up, along with a significant number of county and municipal level seats.

For some of your less nice clothes, I used to know of a women's organization that, among other things, gave clothes to rape victims in emergency rooms to wear home, since they would either have their clothes damaged beyond repair or have to give up them up as evidence.  This was in Chicago, not sure if there would be people doing the same thing near you.

There is also generally a big demand for donations of outerwear, especially this time of year.  I'm sure google would turn up something in your area.  And there's always the Red Cross.  I think they will even come to your house to pick the stuff up.

This is less standard charitable, but do you have anything that isn't right for dress for success that could still be considered dressy?  My mother gave a bunch of her clothes to our local high school's drama club one year, and got a big kick out of seeing her clothes on stage for the next 10 years or so.