Tea Party: Just a Catchy Name for a Dangerous Organization

In 1773 when the original Tea Party occurred, the population of the thirteen original colonies was around 2.2 million souls, and that's not counting slaves (if they were being counted, it was only as 3/5 of a whole human being) or native Americans.  I'm not even sure if women were included in that head count, but let's say that they were just for grins.  Slaves were still being imported even though headway was being made to stop that odious offense to humanity.  Women were the chattel of their husbands and children had a tough row to hoe.  Life expectancy  in 1793 was 36.9 years.  If improvements are not made to our health care system, we could well see that lifespan average again.

And the original Tea Party was formed in protest because the colonies were not represented in the British Parliament.  There are no similaries between that Tea Party and the people who are part of the Tea Party movement now.  They simply hijacked the name and appear to be intent on electing  people to our government to slowly dismantle the progress that has been made in these United States over the past 200 years. 

The current Tea Party battles everything that helps our society as a whole: SSI, food stamps, and Medicare/Medicaid.  They say they want a balanced budget.  We HAD a balanced budget when President Clinton was in office.  To balance our budget, we should withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and wherever else we are.  We cannot police the world.  And if we use our troops in other parts of the world, let's use them to bring aid to people rather than killing innocents and, yes, most are innocents, but we refer to them as "collateral damage."  Much tidier, don't you think?

The current Tea Party backs proposals that hurt the disenfranchised, the working poor, children, elderly, those who haven't gotten a break in life.  The only people that aren't being hurt are the rich and corporations.  It truly is all about money.  And, good grief, the number of times Tea Party members bring up Christianity or wear a cross on their lapels.  Really??  Is this what we, as a nation, have come to?

I'm reminded of that song by the Temptations, the first few lines of which goes:

"Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
The truth is in the eyes
Cause the eyes don't lie"

Think of those leaders in the Tea Party movement -- those media saavy, photogenic talking heads.  Smiling faces.

LEAVE PLANNED PARENTHOOD ALONE!

Let me  preface the following with this:  my husband and I have two adult children.  They are both married and have given us five grandchildren.  There will be another grandchild in the fall and I'm already excited imagining about how the new baby will be like our other grandchildren, yet different in his or her own way.  What will this new grandchild be like?  We love our children and their spouses and our grandchildren very much and cannot imagine life without any one of them. They are much loved imporant people to us.  Having said that . . .

As I was eating breakfast this morning and listening to NPR, there was a report about how Republicans will continue to push for cutting Federal funding to Planned Parenthood.  They keep emphasizing that Planned Parenthood is all about abortions.  It's not!

Leave Planned Parenthood alone!   We need Planned Parenthood.  We need to educate more -- yes, as a taxpaying society.  Abstinence education means nothing unless a young person's hormones can be controlled too -- and we certainly don't want that, do we?  Both males and females alike need sex education to prevent diseases and unwanted pregnancies.  

There wouldn't be any abortions if our sex education in this country was better.  Women don't decide willy-nilly to go have abortions.  They have abortions because their lives aren't ready, for a myriad of reasons, for the responsibilities of a new life.  That is totally the woman's personal decision.  It's her body that carries the baby, and fathers might protest this next thought but child rearing is still squarely on a woman's shoulders.

Planned Parenthood is about education.  After we had the number of children that we had planned for, my husband went to Planned Parenthood and got a vasectomy.  A vasectomy meant peace of mind for both of us.  We had our family.

Republicans trumpet that Planned Parenthood is all about abortions and how the unborn child must be protected.  I ask all of you: what about the child after he or she is born?  How much, as a society, do we care about that child? 

Watch one of those afternoon judge shows.  Keep track of how many cases come up that have to do with unmarried couples who have had a child.  They have no love for one another and they have no desire to form a family. In fact, many times, the child is simply a result of a one night stand.

Again, it's not about being  right or wrong, it's about being smart or stupid. 

EDUCATION, people.  Watch the first 15 minutes of the movie, "Idiocracy."  That is where we are headed as a society.

A substitute for Swiffer

When we built our house, we had all vinyl flooring installed on the downstairs level -- living room, kitchen and dining, bathrooms and bedroom.  We are so happy we did.  We live out in the country and have sheep, chickens, a dog, and kitty cats.  Vinyl is a lot easier to keep clean than carpet.  For years I used a broom and mop and bucket to clean the vinyl flooring then Swiffer appeared.

Maybe you have one in your home -- a Swiffer.  For a couple of years I was hooked on  purchasing wet Swiffer cloths and dry Swiffer cloths to clean my vinyl flooring.   It was sooooo convenient, but those little cloths are expensive and wasteful. Recently I've been trying to avoid going down the aisles at the store that have laundry detergent and cleaning supplies.  I've been making my own cleaning spray using a solution of one half vinegar and one half water in a spray bottle and I'm making my own laundry detergent.  (The purchase price of items we purchase and consume has advertising, packaging and shipping included in that price.  We pay for all that convenience.)

So in my goal to continue trying to avoid the cleaning aisles, I finally found microfiber cloths.  Now I attach a microfiber cloth to my Swiffer tool and either dry mop or spray some of my vinegar water solution on the microfiber cloth for a little wet pick-up.  And my sponge mop and bucket are back for the deep cleaning.

Once my microfiber cloth is dirty, I put it in a bag.  When the bag is full, I wash the microfiber cloths and hang out to dry, then they are ready for another use. And the microfiber cloths have a myriad of uses -- they just aren't for cleaning floors.

I haven't missed the Swiffer cloths but I've sure enjoyed the savings.

Microfiber cloth attached to a Swiffer tool.

Ready for more uses.

Chickens and Spring Lambs

Our new Suffolk lambs.



Chickens checking out the new lambs.



We are shredding our junk mail to make bedding for the chickens and lambs.
Of course, this can  have funny results: newsprint on freshly laid eggs, sheep walking around with advertising stuck to their wool!

Space: The Final Frontier

Yesterday I posted about how I had rid myself of my decrepit electric clothes dryer.  Now I'd like to show you what I did with the space its departure left.  It isn't anything fancy, but it's nice to have some breathing room.  We'll plug the hole to the outside where the dryer's venting hose had been.

Like I said, nothing fancy but . . .

now I have space to maneuver around in and a  place to make
my homemade laundry detergent.  And, now there is a place
for my brooms, mops and bucket.  Simple pleasures for a simple person!

Goodbye, Electric Clothes Dryer

On a sunny day in June, 2010, my electric clothes dryer died.  It was an old clothes dryer and had had several surgeries to keep it running.  Since it was summertime, I knew I could turn to my outside clothesline to handle the task of drying.  Then I studied the space that that clothes dryer was occupying and also the cost it was taking to operate and I told my husband that if I could last a year without wanting an electric clothes dryer, I wanted to get rid of my clunky one to make room for . . . space!!  Space is a precious commodity.

This morning, though it's not been quite a year, I said goodbye with a happy heart to that rotten electric clothes dryer. I made it through the winter without using a gas or electric clothes dryer. I have pictures!

Unplugged and ready to leave.

Out of the house and on the move.

Continuing its journey to . . .

its last destination before the dump.  You can tell the poor old
thing is tired -- its tongue is hanging out!

So when the sun is shining, you'll find me outside hanging clothes:

And if the weather is poor, you'll find me inside hanging clothes!

Recycling and Emergency Money

You know how we are advised to have emergency cash on hand?  We learned this the hard way when we were out of electricity for 11 days.  For a few days, not even ATM machines in our area were working.  Gasoline pumps weren't working either.  Out of power means out of power.

When we got back on our feet, we started addressing the different areas of our "emergency preparedness" lives that we needed to improve. 

Do you have a jar into which you throw loose change?  Have you taken it to your bank or credit union to have it converted to dollar bills?  That is where we got our first deposit into our emergency cash on hand fund:  loose change.  My husband took it to the credit union and exchanged the coins for $187. 

We live out in the country and often on our walks, we see soda and beer aluminum cans along the roadways.  We collect those.  In addition to these cans, we purchase Friskies wet cat food in cans.  We purchase Friskies because those cans are aluminum and can be recycled.  (9 Lives doesn't use aluminum cans.)

This morning we hauled four giant bags of cans we had picked up and also cat food cans to a recycling center in Lawton.  We took  in 53 pounds and were paid $32.  We added that $32 to our $187 in  our emergency cash on hand fund. 

Saving  loose change and picking up aluminum cans are two things we will continue to do.  Picking up cans is good exercise too.