Check out the Dixie Chicks' new song lyrics. I think they pretty much sum up how I feel about the past 6 years of government in this country.
Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting
I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it
I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting
I had my cholesterol checked again last week. Most medication has barely made a dent in the stuff - and I've taken all the big name medications for it. I'll admit to not having the best diet, and exercise is just something I don't have time for these days. That's a bad combination.
Last year, my cholesterol went down from 269 to 247. That's lower, but still dangerously high. However, with a new medication, it has dropped from 247 to 191 in just the last four months. Neither my diet, nor my exercise habits have imporved during that time, so its just the medication.
So now I'm in the generally safe zone, although the ratio of lipid is still off. I really need to do something about the HDL level (34), which is low. That means diet, exercise, and weight loss, as well as more medication. Oh, well, what can you do, right?
At least it's on the right track now.
More cholesterol info: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=183
In my copious free time, I still try to get some reading done that is neither work, nor for school. I've been trying to alternate between serious and not-so-serious titles to keep from getting burned out.
Here's what I've finished off recently:
The Coming of the Third Reich, Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, and Deep Six.
Deep Six is a pretty standard Dirk Pitt novel. Written in the early 1980s, it hasn't aged as well as other Pitt books - it gets a bit too involved in the whole Cold War competition, and doesn't do it all that convincingly. It was entertaining, just not up to Clive Cussler's normal standards.
The Coming of the Third Reich and Constantine's Sword go together, but not because they are designed to do so. Both books deal heavily with the issue of anti-Semitim in Europe, both examine the role of the Catholic Church and the role of Europe's political leaders in alternately comdemning and using anti-Semitism. It was a depressing combination to read, as I see some comparisons between the tactics of the Nazis and our moden political environment.
Let me be clear, though, that I am not comparing anyone to Hitler or the Nazis, I just see some problems in how different groups approach the issue of dissent, demogoguery, the passivity of moderate political groups, etc... as very similar.
Constantine's Sword also examines the development of Christianity out of 1st century divisions in Judaism, and (unfortunately) the author's oedipal complex, which also includes the Virgin Mary. This book was not as academic as it should be - the author is a journalist, not a historian.
Finally, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History explores the 1918 flu pandemic, its roots, the growth of medicine as a science in the United States and Europe from the 1860s to 1918, and why the avian flu is such a pressing issue today. This book was hard to read, but I think quite important. Unfortunately, there's no way to use it to illustrate the seriousness of an avian flu pandemic using it without causing a panic.
This geology instructor isn't allowed to use the word "evolution", or discuss the documented age of rocks in his science classes in Arkansas. No wonder the United States is falling behind in Math and Science. we don't even try to teach the subjects to kids.
It's bad enough to be told as a history teacher that you can't present alternative viewpoints about manifest destiny and the conquest of the American West (I haven't, but you only have to revisit the History Wars of the 1990s for examples), but this is insane. Why bother having science classes if you can't teach actual science?
Kevin Levine at Civil War Memories noticed a disturbing trend among his A.P. History students. It seems a significant number of this collection of honors/gifted group of high school joniors and seniors has bought the Administration line that dissent during wartime is inappropriate. In effect, these students are assuming that basic fundamentals of representative democracy don't apply when the President decides we are at war...
I haven't posted here in a month or so, and in that time, we've been blog spammed over 1,700 times. That's bad news.
Part of the problem is that blacklist won't let me add anymore entries, and this installation of Movable Type supports this blog and a couple of others, so I can't exactly just upgrade the thing, though maybe I can talk my sister into it.
That assumes I keep this place. I've sort of lost interest in posting political items, and this really isn't where I want to post History-related items. I will continue posting here for now, but I've purchased a new domain to use for history items - if I ever get a site created.
Maybe my fairy god sister will take care of that?