I really don't understand why people do this stuff.

Radio Frauds Get Their Due For ‘Completely Fabricated’ Homophobic Birthday Party Mom

by DAVID BADASH on FEBRUARY 17, 2014

Two Long Island, NY radio hosts who posted to Facebook a note purportedly by a virulently homophobic mother refusing to allow her son to attend a young girl’s birthday party have gotten their due. The WKJY Morning Show team of Steve and Leeana have been suspended after the station was alerted that the entire story had been made up.

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/radio-frauds-get-their-due-for-completely-fabricated-homophobic-birthday-party-mom/news/2014/02/17/83308?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNewCivilRightsMovement+%28The+New+Civil+Rights+Movement%29#.UwJ2ufldVF8

Is that too much to ask?

Hi Friends;
  I am doing a bit of catch up today... comments, housework, and hold on tight --  a blog post!!  But, I wanted to send you all off to one of my favorite stops:  http://northdakotaman.tumblr.com/   I've sort of lurked about his blog for some time now, enjoying most of his postings.  Today I took the extra step of posting a comment.. so maybe not such a lurker now?? Anyway, stop by and see what you can find to fill your soul.

  In the process of doing some "housework" on the blog, I re-read that quote by John Lennon that I have highlighted on the sidebar, and it caught me again... then I thought about this little cartoon type thing:
  It's no secret I'm no fan of Faux news.  They report not news but conjecture and fear mongering.  They rant and rave about small things while ignoring real violations of what should be essential to a free America all in the effort of creating sheep - frightened people looking for a savior while being bent on making the rich richer, the poor irrelevent, and anything acceptable as long as it's for money.
  Now, relate back to the quote by Lennon:  fear makes us pull in and not experience life.
  I don't want to be afraid.  I don't want to be just a paycheck from starvation.  I don't want to be a hospital visit from losing everything.  I don't want to be concerned that my drinking water is contaminated, that my boss could fire me for being gay, or that my neighbor - a moron that can't even spell republican but he "are" one because they protect a man's right to protect himself (oddly enough, it's the rest of us that need protection from him!).  I don't want to live in fear!  I want to experience life, live knowing that it's the man in front of them that people see and not some prejudicial judgement.  I want to break down the walls I've felt necessary to build up and I want to feel love.  Is that too much to ask Faux news?

A few pics and vids

Hello Everyone;

  I thought I would take my camera today when I went to the neighbor's for the dogs to play.  We then took them for a short walk.  It's only about 15 degrees right now, so we didn't keep them out too long.
  Of course, my Gracie is the one in black and grey, and her best friend Cinnamon is, well, cinnamon colored.  We keep the leashes on them because it's easier to grab if a car comes by or something, and that thing you can just see attached to Gracie's leash is a glow light that I use when I walk her at night.

Gracie waiting for me to take a pic.  She's very patient with me....

Gracie getting impatient with my slow walking.

Well, this car isn't moving for a while....

The Old Man in the Mirror

Hello My Friends;

  I would like to start this post with a thank you to Pete Seeger.  I don't know that his influence on America and the world can be so easily felt now as it had in earlier years, but I shudder to contemplate a world that didn't have a Pete Seeger in it.

    With the winter being so cold, and ever more and more time spent outside doing driveways, I've allowed my beard to grow.  I keep it well trimmed, #2 on the trimmer, even just a bit of fuzz there keeps the face a bit warmer.  But, it's a hard thing to see the grey taking over more and more real estate.
  I'll be 45 this year, a good 15 years more than I expected out of life, and, the body often feels much older.  The knees and back don't like it when I ask them to work anymore - as if any of us have the choice.  And, then I come to the troubling realization that I am looking forward to old age so that I can stop working.
  I've struggled a bit this year.  I've mentioned before that I am staying level on my finances, not going in to debt but surely not climbing the financial ladder.  Realistically, all I want to do is be constructive and work at a job that pays my needs and gives me enough extra that I could afford to do those things called living rather than just work.  Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for the jobs I do have, I'd just like to not live with the threat of poverty.
  And, so perhaps as I listen to this old man who has been everywhere and done so very much sing at the end of his life to stay forever young, that I am just a bit more encouraged.  This world seems to be geared towards making old men of us, those lucky enough to make it so far.  The young man charges the windmills of injustice, prejudice, poverty and hopelessness.  The old man is caught in fear of bills and consequences of failure to meet those obligations.  And, lately, it seems that is all I can think about - but somewhere past those grey hairs perhaps yet resides a bit of the young man who worries not about caring for his elderly parents, his mortgage, his heat and his taxes that just seem to keep going up for no apparent reason.  Maybe.
  May you be forever young.   Thank you, Pete.
 

Life is Better...

  I believe there is great wisdom in this!

Hello all:

  Yesterday I finally felt that depression slip off my shoulders, like the lead apron they put on you at the dentist's office, and it was such a relief!

  I've had problems with depression my whole life.  Sometimes, it is a light depression that feels more like a weight on my shoulders, like this one, and then other times it is so much that I have a hard time seeing past the doldrums for hope of a better day to come.  Thankfully, I don't get those too often, and even more thankfully I am past this one.

  I've kept my depression hidden for years.  I always figured that it was just me being a wimp.  That's what I could imagine my father telling me; "quit being a wimp, boy!"  The funny thing is, I have a fair education, I know it's actually a chemical imbalance - our bodies are just big chemical factories, and the darn thing is hooked on its own product.  So, I guess I want to tell you out there, the proverbial you that may know someone or be someone that has a similar problem, that it's ok.  Deal with it as you need to deal with it, but know that it's OK.  It doesn't make you less a person, just like a person with a more obvious medical problem isn't less a person because, say, they have a bad leg or something.  

  My way of dealing with it today is to make cookies!  And, by the way, what a shitty world when a man has to bake his own cookies! :)

  But, back to who a person is.... A man isn't a great man because he has a big penis.  He isn't a great man because he has lots of money.  He isn't a great man because he drives a fast car or a luxury car.  A man is a man because he finds ways to fight past those things that block him in time.  A man is a man because he takes responsibility for his wrongs and tries to find ways to make them right, to learn from them, to care for people and animals and himself.  A man is a man  not because what others say of him, not because he wears a fine suit or has a great job that puts him up on a pedestal; a man is a man because he chooses to be.  

  So, believe it or not, the birds are singing, the sun is shining.... ok, not here, but somewhere, right?!... and I'm going to go out and clean some driveways and then make me some cookies.  Might even watch the ball game.  

 Hugs everyone!