The Risks of Our Vote....

I was visiting with a couple of friends the other day and as usual politics came up. They know I suffer from electionitis and am political junky...have no idea where they got that idea!
Senator Obama came up, of course, one is a supporter and one is not...
The supporter stated to me "..if he doesn't win we live in a country of racists!" and before I could respond the non-supporter says "oh I sure hope he loses, we don't need a radical muslim running our country"
I sat there a moment shaking my head, wondering if this is what it felt like when Alice went down the hole with the rabbit, was this real? Over 20 months have passed and people actually still believe this crap?
After I regained my thoughts I immediately set out to well...set them BOTH straight.
It was easy, I only needed to point at the latter to show the first why Obama's being black was the least of his worries. I told him this is the ONLY reason Obama would lose, people NOT educating themselves on the FACTS.
I then tried to go on and inform them that the senator is NOT a muslim etc etc...
then what I heard shocked me even more....
The non-supporter says to me "ya well I just can't take the chance. You know Al-Qaeida stated they would get us from the inside"
WOW!! the blinders some people wear still totally shock me!
Does anyone really believe that 45 years ago Bin Laden called up Senator Obama's parents and told them this boy will grow up to be President of the USA and then we will take it over!?
Seriously?
and if for a minute you really think they did, and that Obama is their Manchurian Candidate then explain to me PLEASE....why would anyone go through the trouble of waiting all these years, waiting for a boy named Barack to grow up, go to college, then successfully get into politics....all of this to put a man in a position to take over America....if they did this...then tell me please why would they risk their beloved 'secret weapon' by attacking the U.S on 9/11/2001??
Why would they risk his chance at the presidency by sending a surge of fear into the spines of all American's making them fear Islamic Muslims??
Does that really make any sense to anyone?? Seriously!!??
Senator Obama was already in the legislature, a successful politician in Illinois when the attacks happened. Does anyone really believe Bin Laden to be that stupid?? The man successfully attacked Americans ON American soil....there is NOTHING stupid about this radical dictator!
It is the stupidity of those that would 'rather not take a risk' that will prevent this Senator Obama from moving our country forward. Was a Republican President not in office when the attacks happened? Was it not a Republican President that ignored the warnings?
Senator McCain claims he can find Bin Laden, he knows how!!! but he just isn't going to do it unless he's president??? uhh what part of American Hero does that? ohhh I bet its the same one that ran below deck after his aircraft caught fire and chose to watch his comrades lose their lives fighting that fire on a closed circuit television than actually be up above helping to save their lives! The same 'hero' that ignored the warning signals on his aircraft because he wanted to be a 'hero' and got himself shot down. The same hero that wants to tax our health care benefits? The same hero that boasts about being a Maverick yet voted over 90% of the time with President Bush?
Well I am willing to TAKE A CHANCE so that my child may have the right to a CURE, that she will keep her right to CHOOSE and that she will keep her right to live in her OWN community.
Americans use to vote on the issues that were important to them and their families, our votes should never be based on fear,lies, twisted facts or hatred.
Our VOTE is our ONLY true VOICE in this country, the one that speaks LOUDER than anything we ever do.
I encourage each of you, regardless of whom you support, to STAND UP, to SPEAK, to send your VOICE across the miles and VOTE!
VOTE on the issues that matter to you, but do so with FACTS, show the world we are NOT sheep and that we don't follow anyone's bandwagon, we search the FACTS, we are EDUCATED, and no matter the outcome we are the UNITED States of America!
The road is sometimes bumpy but it is always winding.....

The Scenic Route....

There seems to be a strange and eerie calm over the political front and I am not sure if this is the 'calm before the storm' or if McCain/Palin finally ran out of filth to spew...but either way I am grateful for the reprieve.
Last nite I actually saw a McCain ad that did NOT once mention Obama, his supposed allies or anything negative about his opponent! **I know I know...I almost fell off my sofa!** Then a few minutes later I saw an Obama ad that not once attacked McCain either! **this didn't surprise me as much...but I was equally thankful**

Could we actually see peace this final stretch of the race?...hmmmm...NAH!! lol* but while Senator Obama is busy with a family crisis I find the cease fire cause for celebration :)
**** update**** a mere 24 hours later my television is overrun with new negative mudslinging ads*sigh***** hey it was nice ....for a moment****


The crew and I send many positive thoughts and healing vibrations out to Obama's grandmother and wish only that her time with Barack is spent in love and laughter, creating those warm memories that will surely carry him through whatever grief awaits.
I send my own personal well wishes to 'grandma' as well, I think Obama's grandmother stands as a symbol of great compassion and strength. This woman embraced her bi-racial grandson in an era where the rest of the world no doubt condemned him. She not only embraced him, she loved him in the truest of fashion, she took him in and raised him up like the blood that he is. It took great courage for his grandparents to do all that they have and I honor them!

I awoke this morning with the now usual aches and pains to find the cold, wind and rain outside my window. A whopping 38 degrees cradles NorthWest Iowa this morning and yet I find myself standing in gratitude.
I certainly dislike the cold; especially when mixed with rain and wind, but how wonderful to be presented with this day, a day where I am still FREE.
Still free to log onto the internet and bitch about anything I want!

so here is the bitch....(oh you knew it was coming)...

Now I am all for competitive play; we do have 2 very different candidates for president
I am all for strategic moves; McCain did pull Palin out of his ass..oh I mean Hat.
I am a 100% supporter of FREE SPEECH; both sides have spewing the typical 'pick me' BS.
However...
I am NOT in support of BLATANT LIES AND FALSE CHARACTER ASSASINATIONS!!

When the McCain campaign began slamming community organizers as peons, when they began overly repeating the claim to 'executive experience', or when Palin misquoted Margaret Albright in an attempt to force women to vote for her, or exploited her new baby trying to create a connection or bond with special needs parents that just doesn't exist and even when they began clinging to the Bill Ayers aquaintance association, or polluted the airwaves with robo calls of false allegations intended to frighten voters I was annoyed, but chalked it up to desperation.
However....
When the Republican National Committee began distributing VILE, HATE-FILLED mailers to voters I have NOW HAD ENOUGH!
The mailers in question can be viewed at https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/mailing1?source=20081023_DP_D1
When your only hope of winning an election is to create FEAR, TERROR AND INTIMIDATION OF THE VERY VOTERS you seek to win its time to throw in the towel!!!
John McCain should be ASHAMED!!!!!
What kind of American Hero turns on a fellow American? What kind of 'hero' plays politics like a 3rd grader on the playground?
I can only imagine the fear he has now instilled across our great country with these lies and bullshit, how many voters has he now convince to NOT vote at all? How many fellow AMERICANS has he now removed from the process?
There are laws against what he is doing, its called DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER and he should be thanking Obama for being a better man and NOT suing his stupid ass, or better yet, for not pounding his damn head in!!!!
If you get one of these mailers I do hope you check the FACTS yourself, throw it away and remember if this is the only way McCain can win then it doesn't say much about his policies does it!!!!!

ahhhhhh this winding road.....now where did I put my steamroller.......

To Walk in My Shoes...

We all travel the proverbial road of life, yet none walk the same path.
We each reach out from the moment of birth for a hand to comfort, arms to warm and words to enlighten. Not only do we not know the path that lies before us, but neither does our parent/s.
Our world could be one of riches or one of poverty, it could be one of bedtime stories or one of night terrors. Our lives could be sending us into laughter, tears, love or hate, but one thing for certain is ALL of these things are not predictable nor are they prejudice. They do not care who our parents know, who our god is or our race.
There are many things that cross the lines of LIFE and no matter how we begin our paths are not stone, they wind, they twist and they change. A wealthy man can become poor, a child adored can become a woman of rage, a hungry infant can become the head of an empire, our beginnings do not dictate nor predict the choices we one day make.
Our choices in life certainly can change the direction of the road before us. Getting an education, not misplacing our anger, reaching higher than where we stand.
But other things in this life are equally unpredictable and certainly change the path in which you walk. Yet, we all must remember that even as we walk this life, we do not do so alone. We can at any given moment look around us and find others beside us. Certainly there are those moments in which it is hardest to see, moments when we are certain we are alone. And yet as we walk among many no two people walk the same path.
So why am I giving you all this philosophical explanation of life, our choices and roads we travel?
Sarah Palin!
yep! the moronic VP candidate for the right wing of government!
She has suddenly decided that SHE KNOWS ME. She not only knows what its like to be 'Joe Six-Pack', 'Joe-Plumber' and 'Hockey Mom Extraordinaire' but now she claims she knows what its like to be 'Jo-Momma' too!
Somehow between making more than $175,000 last year, firing those that didn't agree with her, having 5 children and a husband who worked 'sometimes' she decided that simply having a child with special needs has crowned her as the 'all knowing' of 'all things'.
I am sick of turning on my television and hearing the air waves scream with her claims of being the newly found ADVOCATE, the long awaited Prophet for all things SPECIAL NEEDS!!
GIMME A BREAK!
Her child, Trig, is in fact 'special needs'; however he is ONLY 5 months old! Now don't get me wrong, its not that I lack compassion, or knowledge. Many special needs children in fact do have lots of issues, trials & tribulations in a short five months after they enter our world. But Sarah Palin's son has not suffered the heart abnormality, which can be common in Down Syndrome, (which is greatly fortunate and we celebrate with him) nor has he suffered any other unfortunate malady's of his delicate situation.
Trig is a healthy, adorable smiling boy!
Palin has NO clue what the road is like ahead of her or him. She has no idea the hell others have lived or the unpaved roads which have been plowed by the not so 'ordinary' parent.
She does NOT know the fatigue which can plague an entire family when a child doesn't sleep for days and days, nor does she know the path of worn carpet at the local pediatric ward or NICU. She has never touched the fevered brow of a child in Status Epilepticus or touched the cold hands of a child as it struggled to breathe. She has never spent a single day rising with no sleep to drive her child to the pediatrician, to the physical therapist, to the neurologist or to the geneticist all in the same day!
She hasn't spent her days on the phone with teachers, superintendents, parent advocates and the speech language guy just to get an IEP that includes communication. Sarah Palin has never sat in a group of supposed experts and heard her child discussed as though they had no name. She has not found herself searching the realm of her vocabulary to explain to the other child at the playground why her child didn't mean it nor could he help it. She hasn't had to desperately search the eyes of another parent and beg for understanding.
Sarah Palin HAS NO CLUE!
She doesn't begin each day cleaning carpets at 3am because her 9 year old took his diaper off to 'play', she doesn't spend her time in the grocery store reading every label to ensure there are no signs of gluten, dairy, wheat, soy, msg or red dye #40! She doesn't sit at the playground watching other children and choke back the tears as she struggles to accept her child's differences.
Sarah Palin has never sat in a restaurant and watched her child finger feed herself spaghetti at the age of 7 nor has she ever searched the internet relentlessly for a spoon her child could hold. She has never struggled with a wheel chair in a door way not accessible, she has never dealt with the stares while shopping with her 5 year old in the basket or the head shaking from passersby as her 12 year old has a melt down.
Sarah Palin does NOT advocate for me! She does not walk in my shoes nor does she know the scenery of the path that I travel. She is merely just begun to find her way. It will be years before she will be expected to know every acronyms meaning or every therapies purpose.
When Miss Alaska can recite to me the meanings and purposes of the IDEA, IEP, OT, PT, SLP, ABA, AT, AFO, OAP, ISP, DOJ, and the ADA I will listen. When she can explain to me myoclonic, petit mal, aspergers, spectrum, genotype, phenotype, mutation, mosaic, FSH, karyotype, methylation, EEG, MRI, CT, PET, EKG, ECHO, board maker, dynovox, mac button, g tube, j tube, kenogetic, casein and failure to thrive I might lend an ear. When Sarah Palin can stop looking at Russia long enough to share with me the difference between Hatchbacks and court shoes, platemates and dinner plates, switch plates and power buttons, weighted vests and t-shirts, shirt protectors and bibs, chux and sheets, Vails and cribs, melatonex and melatonin, pecs and pictures, signs and gestures, placement and a microboard, legal incompetence and self-determination then I might actually pay attention.
So while Sarah Palin may in fact speak to the masses about how she is now one of them, she doesn't even know what that means!
Now before anyone starts attacking me, there is not a single thing I listed here that I cannot explain, and no I won't have to first google it. I know all of these thing because I am a parent of a child with a disability, and unlike Govenor Palin I am not going to say I WALK IN YOUR SHOES, because I know that I don't.
I only know what its like to have a child with Angelman Syndrome, I know what its like to have a child with a seizure disorder, a sleep disorder and severely developmentally delayed. I don't pretend to know what a parent of an autistic child faces each day, nor do I claim I walk the road of a Down Syndrome parent. But I have been a parent of a child with multiple challenges for 19 years and counting :)
oh there are many roads in this world......they all have potholes, they all have detours ...but no two are the same.....and its time someone told that to Palin!!

Millionaire Plumber's? Now THAT is the American Dream!

Ok...you all knew this was coming!!
Bloggers all over the world have been frantically slamming cyber space with comments, laughs and personal insights on the now infamous Joe the Plumber that rocked last nights debate! Well here is my take...
Simply put... I WANNA BE A PLUMBER!!!!
hell yah!!! I had no idea they made more than a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!! I am soooooooo in the wrong business!
Yep I wanna be Joe, I wanna make tons of money, and YEP I WILL GLADLY pay MORE TAXES....WHY NOT? I will suddenly be able to afford too.
Never have I seen a candidate for Presidency put his chances of winning in the hands of ONE voter! I believe we can now finally say McCain has LOST IT! ahahaah
Seriously though... I agree with one thing from Last Night in this regard, Joe the Plumber DOES COUNT! just as all hard working Americans do.
It just doesn't matter if you are a plumber, a mechanic, a trash collector or a stock broker, ALL OF US count and matter and its high time we had a President that is willing to include us all in the conversation.
Now some of you may think that last night John McCain was that person, but I direct you to go back and watch it again. While McCain very clearly wants to help Joe Plumber, the guy he believes will be making over a quarter of a million dollars, the guy he doesn't want to raise taxes on because he shouldn't have to pay more just because he makes more, is the ONLY blue collar guy McCain sent his love out to, and ONLY because he thinks Joe will make tons of money.
so what happened to you and me in that conversation? Where do we sit on the McCain list of priorities?

While Obama quietly, calmly and clearly included us all in his plans for the future, the majority of his time was spent AGAIN explaining, refuting, endlessly beating the horses that were pronounced DEAD in the primaries. McCain just couldn't help himself..he walked into that debate last nite with defibrillator in hand..he was on a mission of DISTRACTION!
uhmmm wasn't it George W's long list of distractions that has gotten us where we are today?
and yet McCain declared 'I AM NOT GEORGE BUSH'!!!
Well, while I may have hooped and hollered, congratulating the man on finally getting the ball he failed to make the shot! During his stomping of his feet he forgot to explain WHY he is NOT George W. I mean, come on, we know the obvious reasons!! DNA.
But other than genetics, HOW is he NOT the same?

On a lighter note, Joe was not the ONLY interesting 'guy' taking the spotlight in last nights ring. How many of YOU saw the EDin08 signs flashing in the crowds and stumbled over your own feet to find out WHO IS ED?? Oh Don't go lying...I am pretty sure at least 250,000 of you did! How do I know..was I watching from the window outside? Nope..I was there with you, desperately trying to get into the site that was so overloaded with hits, its server hit the dirt!
And I wonder if, like me, you laughed out loud to discover whom ED is :) Well ED has my vote!

So while last nights debate was not the yawn fest of the last two matches, it certainly drew no blood by either candidate.

Joe/ED '08 !!!!!!

sometimes the road winds and the detour takes you to an unexpected place...this was one of those times....

THIS JUST IN........

ok this story was actually documented the 22nd of September, but I wasn't sent the link until today. I just want to again, SCREAM!!
I received this today and am still unable to find the words to describe it.
It astounds me how few steps we have actually taken in a world that has come so far.
Is it me or has the world gone to hell?
This story is NOT about politics, political affiliation or the State anyone lives in, as I am POSITIVE no one would want any of these things to be represented by this story, nor would the Great State of Tennessee want all of America to see them through this story teller's eyes.
I only ask that you each read it, think about it and do the right thing every day, every single day to reach out to your neighbors, regardless of race, gender, disability, political affiliation, religion, orientation, whether they have a yellow house or a pink one....let's stop this hatred in America!
This is NOT the image we wish to project to the rest of the WORLD......is it?
note...that while the following blog post is a true-life account it is graphic and disturbing
http://progressives.blogspot.com/2008/09/sad-night-in-tennessee.html