Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Habari Gani!

As we celebrate the season, let's try real hard to not give a strange, fat, dressed in red white guy credit for all the fabulous gifts we worked hard to buy our children. Let them understand that it takes mom and dad's commitment to their jobs, love and understanding to get those gifts under that tree. Then ask yourself why you would even want some strange person to come in your home in the middle of the night for any reason while your children were nestled in their beds.


Official Kwanzaa Website

Tiger Revisited

Before I let this go, I have one more thought on the Tiger's wood debacle. I kept running into articles mentioning how Black women were upset because Tiger was with only white women. I of course wondered why any Black woman would think this. Tiger stated many times that he was not Black and distanced himself from the Black community. Well thank God he did!! Why would anyone want to claim this mess?

I was happy to see that his 'women' were all white 'semi-professionals'...if you get my drift. I would have been embarrassed if a Black woman was caught up in this mess. His is a world of high-pay-expecting 'dates' and who wants to be seen as that kind of classless whore all over the world? You never see Black women caught up in such a thing thank heavens because these clueless men run to cheap whore-ish white women with fake boobs, buns and silicone lips instead. We lose out on the dinners, limo rides, clothes and cash here and there (very little as I have read) but we keep our dignity. Thanks Tiger for being very discriminating on your taste in women. I appreciate you keeping Black women on a much higher pedestal than the white bimbos with which you surround yourself.

Good looking out, player!!

...I am wondering though...how long will it be after all the white people have dropped him before he starts claiming he is Black, accepting gigs in Black venues and being seen with Black people. I tell ya, we Black folks have to start discriminating a bit...if he tries...maybe we should run the other way...because next time the headlines will read 'Top Black Golfer Caught with His Pants Down'!!

Child Star Lessons

Tiger is going through later in life what all child stars do...act out and get in trouble. His life was dictated to him and he gained wealth and notoriety from it. But ultimately, he missed a lot of maturing and growing up time practicing on the golf course. Now he feels like he needs to go through his teen years and go buck wild. The only problem is that he is an adult and married with children and a huge public figure. Most child stars do this at some point in their lives. The list is very long...most children who were stars at a young age, spent most of their time practicing a sport the parents thought they 'showed talent in' endure some sort of crisis in their adult years. They often have drug problems, alcohol addiction, or get arrested for some crazy reason. It amazes me that people actually thought this man was perfection personified and he could do no wrong. They forgot he was human and male!

His parents have insisted that he had a normal childhood with plenty of video game playing and eating junk food. The problem is that I never hear about the teen years, dating, hanging with friends, doing what a 'normal' teen does. They say he liked playing golf and was happy to practice. Unfortunately kids don't always let a parent know how they really feel. They know the parents are happy seeing the practicing, the TV appearances, so the child continues without complaining. The child may not even know that being driven at such an early age is a problem. But in our society it is. This may not be an issue in another country with different values and commitments to discipline, but in the US, children need time to act out and do silly things.

Someone said Tiger perpetrated a fraud through the image we see of him in the media. I don't think so...fans created the image of Tiger...Don't ever remember him saying he is perfect without any faults...He was just making money from whomever offered and by winning his game. Being faithful to the wife was never part of the package. So he has made millions and that may end but he is still rich beyond most of our imaginations. He may be hurting because he looks bad in the media but his wallet is still stuffed. Wrong as it may have been, the image they all talk about was a media image created for the money machine called Tiger Woods.

This is another lesson to all parents who live through their kids. Tiger and his parents reaped the financial benefits but the emotional issues remain unresolved. I am not saying that I condone what he has done or even feel sorry for him, but there is an explanation worth thinking about.

Life Lessons

As the years go by I am increasingly thankful for that little thing called life. It doesn't have to be the best life. It doesn't have to be the richest life. My life does not have to be 'better' than the Jones' down the street. It just has to be the life I am living. So many of us use our entire lives to worry about what we don't have and what we should have been doing. I have spent many years of my adult life thinking of these things, but as the years go by I have begun to think that my life is just fine and I really am happy just the way things are and have been.

I spent 11 years home with the children being a mother and wife and manager of the household. When the children started school I decided it was time for me to get out there and start making a 'real contribution' to family so I got a job. I first started part-time then got greedy liking the money I could take to the mall and waste on meaningless items I did not need. I was always a very competitive and ambitious person, so when the thought of my useless B.S. degree in HR Management came to mind it made me think that I had to go out there and get some return on my education investment. A second thought was my mother who always wanted her children to do great things in life. She did not even finish high school although you would never know because she is one of the most insightful and intelligent women I know. So you can very well understand her aspirations for me as the daughter of an immigrant who struggled as a single parent, sending a few dollars home to her children left behind while she created a better life for us all. I have trudged along now for 10 years employed. Each day I wake up and drive up the road to work I am thinking 'why am I doing this?'. My husband makes a good living and certainly makes enough for us to have a comfortable home and lifestyle. He has always indicated that my need to work is unnecessary and may even be silly because my job will not make us rich; it just makes us spend more. True enough although my jobs have also allowed me to build up our savings quite well.

This brings me to the recent economic downturn and all the research on the economy that my dear spouse has been engulfed in for quite some time. He was able to tell me what was going to happen and when enabling me to move things around to minimize loss. I could go on but that's a subject best left for him. I watched all these jobs disappear. I watched all these people become unemployed. I saw so many homes fall under foreclosure and poor families living in tents. It made me think again about my job dilemma. All these people thought their extra income gave them that little step into a new income bracket so therefore they needed the car, house and clothes to go with it. Here go the Jones' again. And I had fallen into the same trap although I thought I was above all that nonsense. That extra income seems to have done more harm than good for many families as they tried to attain a certain stature, a certain place in the economic ladder. That silly little word called greed. So I began to wonder...am I working to fulfill my mother's dreams? Am I working to fulfill my dream of having an important position I can flaunt? Am I working to better my family's finances? But more importantly...does my working add anything to my overall happiness or the satisfaction of my family? This much I now know--being a mother and a wife was the best job I ever had and I truly loved it. So why did I so willingly push it to second place?

I flip back to my daily trek down the road to work. I dread it. I almost hate it. It does not make me happy, satisfied or content. I cannot stop thinking that there is something else...that there is more to life and it is passing me by. What am I missing? What am I giving up? I am home right now recuperating from a hospital stay and it is really hard for me to think about going back to work. Can I walk away and choose the happier route? Time will tell as I continue to ponder my future.

Obama....AAAHHGGGGHHHH!!!

I am just about tired of hearing about all the horrible Communist and Nazi programs our president is trying to push on us helpless citizens. I am tired of the media giving so much voice and credence to cries of Nazism and the like. I am tired of hearing the ignorant religious bigoted prejudiced displays of hatred. They went too far with the education speech. When are we going to stand up and vocally support the president? The only people who are being heard right now are those against him and it makes me worry. It makes me worry because it seems like a scene from True Blood when Mary Ann vibrates wildly and all the townspeople break into a crazed frenzy. That's what's going on now.

This is what the main problem is:

They are afraid the face of intelligence is no longer White Anglo Saxon. They don't want their kids learning anything from a Black man even if he is president. They worry we peoples of color are taking over. That's what it's all about. They also want to make sure they pounce on everything Obama so he has no chance of winning in 4 years. I also believe some are thinking that if 'Maryann' vibrates enough with all that negative crap and all the misinformation and lies, someone will be so entranced that they will try to hurt the president. This was evident in the fall during the campaign and it is even more evident now. They don't care what happens to our country, just how they can keep their foot on Obama's neck pressed to the floor.

Let's work hard to make sure they don't get their wish. Let's work on getting our voices out there.

Way to Go George Stephanopoulos! (errr...well...sort of...this time...)

I watched George Stephanopoulos this morning and wanted to jump through the TV and give George a high five!! I loved how he called Newt Gingrich out on the fear mongering lies being touted by so-called media experts such as himself, Sarah Palin (gag) and the far right orchestrated demonstrators !! I wish the media would do this more often rather than let those spewing lies speak as if their point of view is expertise, wanted or even relevant. Thank you, George, for standing up for truth at least once in your life!! I also watched a similar conversation with David Gregory on NBC and he made no attempts at pointing out the lies and twists of facts. (I miss Tim Russert. He was so much more objective.)



I have not read many specifics about the proposed health care reforms so I don't have a lot of facts to throw at you but I do have an opinion. I do know crap when I see and hear it and I see and hear a lot of it being shoveled into the mouths of, I am sorry to say, so-called conservative white people who are still mad that a Black man is president. It seems to me that ideas are pushed aside and jumped on just because it's Obama. Why was it so easy for Americans to go along with everything Bush did and proposed to do? All the while, people were touting him as the worst president, a total idiot, a fool and a liar. But when it was time to vote, make important decisions, this 'idiot of a president' always came out on top. I am sorry to say that it was because he was white and the fear mongers had no worries, because all was white, after all. Now the leader of the free world is a half Black man and suddenly it's OK to call the president a Nazi, a racist, a Communist, and any other ugly word they can find as a supposed way to protest something with which they don't agree.

According to The Commonwealth Fund, "With the exception of federal–state partnerships, all of the proposals (including G. W. Bush's) would transform the traditional role of employers by eventually scaling back or eliminating the extent to which they contract directly with health plans for coverage. The president's and Senator Wyden's proposals would achieve this in part by eliminating the tax exemption for employer-provided benefits and replacing it with an income tax deduction." So in essence, everyone is proposing some sort of eventual state run plan that could cover everyone. The problem is how certain people are presenting their proposals. Some hide this fact, others attempt to be more translucent.

A couple things that are missing in all of these debates was touched on slightly this morning by Howard Dean. He indicated that as a medical practitioner her received no refusal of treatments from the Medicare system but always received them from private insurers. As a military spouse, I can say that the healthcare provided is not the health care that Bill Gates would get, but it is adequate, and best of all, I don't have to pay directly out of pocket because taxes take care of the expenses. Doctors who are private practitioners can opt into the military health care system either agreeing to accept what the government deems is appropriate payment for a procedure or have the military member pay an additional amount. The nice thing is that we can choose the free care or we have a choice to pay a little extra for the nice frilly offices. I do have to admit that I seem to be paying more out of pocket these days, but I am still satisfied with the care I get.

The second important fact mentioned this morning was that some countries with government run health care programs have higher life expectancies. This point can be contested. However, our life expectancy is affected directly by a lifestyle of overeating and over driving. Just think of the reductions in total cost we would have if we would just eat less and eat healthier. My individual costs alone from my sickle cell issues have severely decreased from repeated hospital stays per year to none simply because I eat healthier. I haven't even mentioned smoking, drinking and the lack of exercise yet. I would just like to hear everyone talking about all the changes we could make in our own personal lives making parts of this whole health care mess irrelevant. I suspect that this will never happen because insurance companies need us to be dependent upon them so that they can continue to rake in the cash. And perhaps, even more importantly, politicians need us to be dependent upon insurers because they need the contributions to support their political ambitions. The problem is that the average American is once again always on the losing end.