Why are we so scared about absolutely everything here in the US?
It's like we have to find something that scares the crap out of us all the time.
This morning it's baby cribs.
All news stations report a huge recall on all fold down cribs because there has been 4 deaths reported. The side has somehow detached and babies have fallen in between the bed and the rails and suffocated.
The experts are on the news tell all parents with very concerned voices not put their babies in the cribs no more. Toss the crib out and buy a new one.
How many babies are born in the US every year? more than 4 million. And lets say a baby stay in it's crib on average about 2 and a half years. That means that on any given day 10 million babies and toddlers sleep in a crib. Among them I think at least half sleep in cribs with fold down sides so out of 5 million babies 4 have died?
I'm not saying the 4 deaths are not each and and every one of them a tragedy, but in comparison are they worth a total uproar and tumult to upset the oh, so easy to scare population? Isn't it enough with the swine flu, terror threats and diarrhea causing tomatoes, spinach or broccoli ?
Car Crash Stats: There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes.
Health Care Insurance Stats: Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care.
With that in mind, can you understand why the sofas in the newsrooms are lined up with experts telling you not to eat broccoli, or to toss the crib you've had your baby in for the last year?
And then, understand why you've never heard experts warning you to take your baby on a car ride? Or warn you to never ever put your teenager in a car (after all they make up half the deaths in traffic every day -- one every 26 minute --)? Why don't you hear a outcry from the experts to ASAP get health insurance for every American?
I wonder why?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunshine On My Christmas Aching Heart
I don't know if I have really got settled in here in Colorado yet.
I have the itch and feel kind of uprooted most of the time.
I spend time on realtor.com searching for homes here and there all over our country, focusing on upper mid west.
The mountains are beautiful, the weather is great, and the house is OK, but there's something missing, and all I can think of is the grass.
But, now the last couple of days the sun has been shining on me, the snow on the ground makes that squeaking sound when you walk on it, the smell in the air has that very familiar, friendly smell that brings me back to my childhood.
While Syssa is in school I abandon the messy kitchen, the piles of newly washed clothes that begs to be folded and put up, and just leave the house. Dressed like a Eskimo I take off and just walk for hours, letting my thoughts wander to where ever they want to go.
It's a wonderful feeling! You have to remember, I have been in the south for the last 10 years and haven't had a winter since I left Sweden.
It's a split feeling though, and it's hard to describe.
I love my life with my family and don't wish for anything else, and at the same time I miss my roots, my upbringing, my HOME back in Sweden.
The fact that Christmas is approaching doesn't help of course.
I grew up with the most predictable Christmases you can imagine. I mean, you could set your watch after what we did and when. And shame on you if you for a second thought you could change any of that. And who would want to change it?
It was perfect...
We were together cousins, aunts and uncles, moms and dads and our grandparents when they were still alive. We ate and ate and ate, we sang all the Christmas songs in pretty harmonies, some song that we knew the first two lines of and filed in with raj, raj raj after we ran out of the other words, and some African anti Apartheid songs.... that's too long of a story to explain why, but let me just say that my grandma loved it so we first sang it to her and after she died we sang it because she would have loved to hear it... ( told you we had a wacko Christmas) , and read the Gospel Luke chapter 2. My grandpa said a prayer and blessed the whole family and then finally was there time for presents!!! We gave them all out but nobody could open any until it was their turn. We usually did it in order youngest to oldest even though my grandma always cheated. Well with 15 people taking turns to open presents it took a good two hours or more to open everything and after all that we had to have some more food, rice porridge and coffee with tons of cookies. Christmas eve lasted almost to Christmas morning every year.
So that's what I left, and that's what I carry within me. My family trying to easy the feeling of abandoned and being left out, by calling me right after opening the presents and right before the porridge, and bless their heart for doing that.
I have the itch and feel kind of uprooted most of the time.
I spend time on realtor.com searching for homes here and there all over our country, focusing on upper mid west.
The mountains are beautiful, the weather is great, and the house is OK, but there's something missing, and all I can think of is the grass.
But, now the last couple of days the sun has been shining on me, the snow on the ground makes that squeaking sound when you walk on it, the smell in the air has that very familiar, friendly smell that brings me back to my childhood.
While Syssa is in school I abandon the messy kitchen, the piles of newly washed clothes that begs to be folded and put up, and just leave the house. Dressed like a Eskimo I take off and just walk for hours, letting my thoughts wander to where ever they want to go.
It's a wonderful feeling! You have to remember, I have been in the south for the last 10 years and haven't had a winter since I left Sweden.
It's a split feeling though, and it's hard to describe.
I love my life with my family and don't wish for anything else, and at the same time I miss my roots, my upbringing, my HOME back in Sweden.
The fact that Christmas is approaching doesn't help of course.
I grew up with the most predictable Christmases you can imagine. I mean, you could set your watch after what we did and when. And shame on you if you for a second thought you could change any of that. And who would want to change it?
It was perfect...
We were together cousins, aunts and uncles, moms and dads and our grandparents when they were still alive. We ate and ate and ate, we sang all the Christmas songs in pretty harmonies, some song that we knew the first two lines of and filed in with raj, raj raj after we ran out of the other words, and some African anti Apartheid songs.... that's too long of a story to explain why, but let me just say that my grandma loved it so we first sang it to her and after she died we sang it because she would have loved to hear it... ( told you we had a wacko Christmas) , and read the Gospel Luke chapter 2. My grandpa said a prayer and blessed the whole family and then finally was there time for presents!!! We gave them all out but nobody could open any until it was their turn. We usually did it in order youngest to oldest even though my grandma always cheated. Well with 15 people taking turns to open presents it took a good two hours or more to open everything and after all that we had to have some more food, rice porridge and coffee with tons of cookies. Christmas eve lasted almost to Christmas morning every year.
So that's what I left, and that's what I carry within me. My family trying to easy the feeling of abandoned and being left out, by calling me right after opening the presents and right before the porridge, and bless their heart for doing that.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
An Other Sad Day For Love.
Yesterday as the 31 state in the union, Maine voted NO to allow gays the same right as every one else, to love and commit to an other person, in sickness and health, in rich or poor.
It's some what surprising to me, I thought Maine as a NE more open minded state would reject the conservative narrow minded view, but I was wrong.
My take on the issue is to scrap the marriage word and go for civil unions all across the board. It will give the gays and lesbians the same rights under the law and that's the most important step. What it's called is up to what ever you want to call it.
I don't for a second think that the Christian right (who is neither Christians or right, if you ask me) will let that pass either, because to them, you have to live the way they preach, they just can't deal with anything less than that.
If we don't want to live in a theocracy much like what we see in the middle east, now is the time to stand up against these people. You know they will not step back until they have a country based on what they think is biblical grounds.
A vast majority of them have no idea what biblical grounds are, since they have never read the bible and understood the trouble they are asking for, but that's an other subject.
Ask yourself, do I want the government telling me who I can love? Is my marriage really that fragile that it's threatened by a couple of the same gender down the street living a quiet suburb life just like I do? If so, maybe your marriage needs counseling?
It's some what surprising to me, I thought Maine as a NE more open minded state would reject the conservative narrow minded view, but I was wrong.
My take on the issue is to scrap the marriage word and go for civil unions all across the board. It will give the gays and lesbians the same rights under the law and that's the most important step. What it's called is up to what ever you want to call it.
I don't for a second think that the Christian right (who is neither Christians or right, if you ask me) will let that pass either, because to them, you have to live the way they preach, they just can't deal with anything less than that.
If we don't want to live in a theocracy much like what we see in the middle east, now is the time to stand up against these people. You know they will not step back until they have a country based on what they think is biblical grounds.
A vast majority of them have no idea what biblical grounds are, since they have never read the bible and understood the trouble they are asking for, but that's an other subject.
Ask yourself, do I want the government telling me who I can love? Is my marriage really that fragile that it's threatened by a couple of the same gender down the street living a quiet suburb life just like I do? If so, maybe your marriage needs counseling?
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