Randomness

Some days I feel like Andy Rooney; I have a lot of different thoughts in my head, but no two are similar enough for even a segue-way. I guess they all could fall under the category of "I Saw" or "I Heard"...

• A few days ago, I was standing in line at the Post Office, and I noticed the young woman at the counter. Actually, I noticed the back of her head. I've never had the experience of looking at someones' hair, and feeling very sad, but it happened at that moment. This woman had beautiful, wavy hair, but it was pulled back and hastily shoved into a barrette. The barrette was slightly askew, and hair was poking out of it in every direction. It's almost as if the woman had said, "I can't take any more stress in my life! I've got this...and this...and this...to do today, and I really can't handle having to deal with my hair!!". I just felt so sorry for what must be going on in that head; I wanted to pat her on the back and tell her that she was going to be OK--her hair looked like it needed for her to have that kind of pep talk. I did look at the rest of the back of the woman, and she appeared to be a painfully thin professional woman--matching the hair, and making me feel even more sad for her. It was a very odd moment indeed.
• I was recently listening to NPR, and heard an interview with Steve Schneck of Catholic University of America. He was part of a discussion about proposed health care reform. I was not surprised to hear he was against any funding of abortions in the new health care plan, but I was a bit taken aback when he said he was against funding birth control as well. I know his opinion was in keeping with the teachings of the Catholic Church, but really? Don't fund birth control of any kind? Does the Catholic Church care so very little for women? Has he truly considered what happens when women are not allowed to use birth control? He and the Catholic Church may be pro-life, but what happens when human life is no longer sustainable on this planet because there are just too many of us?
  
• I watched a clip of a recent Glenn Beck show, where he started to cry when speaking about "simpler times" in America; he was certain his audience would "go back there in a second". You remember those times, don't you? As Beck described it, it was a time in America when "We used to be united on some basic things." He's a little younger than me, so he can't be talking about the 1950's. My guess is his earliest memories would be 1966 or 1967. The March on Selma was in 1965, Stonewall was in 1969, the Women's Liberation Movement really got going in the early 1970's, Roe v Wade didn't happen until 1973, and Harvard didn't admit women until 1977, so he must have been nostalgically recalling his early years, when Negroes still knew their place, Homosexuals were not spoken of, and all those "uppity women" were kept busy having baby after baby, not thinking that they too could be vital members of the workforce. Oh yes, those glorious "old days", when 99.7% of our leaders were white men, all the "talking heads" on television were white men, when we could still watch commercials for cigarettes on television, when seat belts were a new invention, when we didn't feel sorry about what we did to the "Indians" in this country because all we saw were television shows where cowboys were the real heroes, and when women could be sexually harassed in the workplace because why on earth would they be there anyway? Of course--that America--the one that existed before those damn hippies came along and ruined it for everyone. I could go on and on, but clearly I didn't live in the same "simpler times" that Glenn Beck did.