Friday, July 10, 2009

Proclamation # 2

Proclamation # 2:


"I will get a new tattoo in time for my 50th birthday. I will pick some words that will be meaningful, and will place them where I can actually see them."

My first tattoo, which Erika gave me as a gift, says "Love" in Korean. It's on my right shoulder. I like it, but I can't see it. I've been thinking about what words to put on my ankle for some time now, and was inspired by the Ellen DeGeneres' "Laugh, Dance, Vote" t-shirt that Karen gave me last October. I wanted to keep "Laugh" because humor is so important in life. I also wanted to keep "Vote", because I think it's a right worth fighting for, and one we should never take for granted. My grandmothers and other women of their generation fought hard for this basic right--they knew a time when the right to vote was denied them, and probably felt so very powerless.
Which brings me to "Dance". I like to dance (and there is a video to prove it!), but I can't say it's as important to me as it is to Ellen and others. But "Live" is an important word to me--we all need to live life to the utmost. After all, our family motto (which hangs over our front door) is, "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming, "WOO HOO, what a ride!"
So, there it is--a tattoo, "Live Laugh Vote". Karen gave it to me as an early birthday present, and Linda (plus 3 other friends she invited along!) came to witness the event.




Thanks to the guys at Revolution Tattoo for putting up with us!










It must have been hard to concentrate with all those women talking, but he did a great job.






My "Moral Support Posse"--Tanny, Karen S., and Ann. Linda recruited them from a meeting she had attended with them. I'm glad they were there.







I was very brave in front of my friends--honestly, it doesn't hurt more than a sunburn does. What was weird though was that, at certain times as he was poking me with the ink needle, my toes would twitch!




And the finished product--Thanks Karen--I'm very pleased with my birthday gift!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Good gracious, what will it take??

What does it take to be asked to resign as governor of South Carolina? OK, they give him a pass on that "breaking the marriage vows" thing. But he stole money from the state--he used state money to fly to Argentina to visit his mistress, and hoped nobody would notice. They did. He left the state, lied about where he was going, and left nobody in charge. That's not impeachable? Geez, even if the local high school principal did that, he/she would be fired, let alone the governor of the state!!


I guess it's time for the citizens of the state to show up with their torches and pitchforks and demand some accountability, because the state officials are sure as heck not going to do it.

The state GOP of South Carolina, in a display of absolutely no backbone, voted to reprimand Gov. Mark Sanford, instead of asking him to resign.

You know, Sanford would be the first to ask for his resignation....um....if he wasn't him:

"While serving as a U.S. congressman, Sanford was incredibly critical of his colleagues’ marital misdeeds, including the affairs of former congressman Bob Livingston and President Bill Clinton:

“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.” [Sanford on Livingston, CNN, 12/18/98]
"We ought to ask questions…rather than circle the wagons for one of our tribe.”
[Sanford on how the GOP reacts to affairs, New York Post, 12/20/98]
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.”
[Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98]
"The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”
[Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99]"

Does this man know that when he's quoted, those quotes are actually written down, and will come back to bite him??

I really do get it--there has been a long tradition in the Republican Party of looking the other way when the "moral values" they hold so dearly are violated by a member of their own party. When are they going to learn that, if they remove their conservative religious beliefs from the POLITICAL arena, they will be far less hypocritical than they are now. AND, maybe, just maybe, it won't be so embarrassing when one of theirs, running on a "Family Values" platform, "strays from the fold".

I feel so sorry for the citizens of South Carolina--I'm tempted to take them some matches.