Thursday again

I've been remiss in my blogging duties. I've been in the mood for a rant and just didn't like the idea of putting it in writing. My Computer rule is never post anything online that I might be ashamed of later. Well, maybe some rants are soul cleansing.

Like the moms who sit in cars at the end of their driveway waiting to pick up their precious (and usually obese) cherubs when they get off the school bus. Puleeez! These kids need the exercise of walking the two hundred yards from the bus stop to their front door. The abduction excuse just doesn't fly with me. My kids walked nearly a mile to school everyday, including rainy days, in a group of friends that did not include anyones parent, from the time the youngest was in first grade. I was never afraid. I refuse to be afraid of the boggy man. If you want to do the risk analysis they were in greater danger from a run away car careening out of control than they ever were from some stalker. What the kids whose parents are afraid to let them out of their sight are learning from their parents is how to live in fear. Something Americans are suffuce with now. Fear of terrorists. Fear of the unpatriotic who don't tow the line. Fear of recession. Fear of losing our place as "Mightiest Nation in the World". Pahhh.

How about the idiots who drive five feet off your bumper at sixty-five or greater. I don't know what universe they think they live in but in this one their reaction time is a little farther than five feet. My defense is to slow down, hope they pass safely and not on a double yellow line (which has happened). I leave multiple car lengths between me and any other car in front and try to ignore the tailgaters as much as possible.

Then there is the tailgaters cousin the red-light runner. I'm not talking about the last one in a line kinda guy. It's the see the light turn red now count one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, and maybe he's just entering the intersection 'guy'. I know I've come real close to hitting a few of them. Not always accidentally.

Then there are the cars masquerading as a boom boxes. You can hear them coming two blocks away. They sit next to you at the stop light and with your windows closed and their windows closed you still have to keep your mouth clamped shut to keep your teeth from rattling.

Then there's the new breed of rude creature... the cell phone addicts. They are everywhere. In stores, in their cars, on the streets, standing behind you in line loudly carrying on a highly personal conversation that you are trying desparately not to hear. I refer to cell phones as electronic dog leashes. I forsee a day when these people will have the headsets surgically implanted in their head to save them the trouble of having to raise one arm and hold it there indefinately. I have to admit that I do now own a cell phone. I got it reluctantly three months ago, but I do not carrying it in my purse. It sits in the car in case of an emergency. Taken out periodically to be recharged.

This need for constant talking on cell phones is connected, I'm convinced, to the 'idea' that the American Advertising Industry has foisted on the public that 'convenience' is a must. With a cell phone you have the power to phone anyone from anywhere at anytime. Non-stop conversation is now available while you go about your daily life. No need to ever talk to anyone face to face again. (How convenient!) You can hold one sided conversations in public 24/7. (How rude!) The noise pollution level has gone up dramatically lately.

You know all these 'conveniences' really haven't saved us any time that I can discern. Take convenience food (that includes fast food) for instance. It is so overburdened with salt and fat as to constitute a health risk. More visits to the doctor there. And the increased consumption of calories results in time and money wasted on diets that don't work and excersize equipment that sees a few weeks of use before being relegated to the back of the closet. Not to mention that convenience food packaging which is voluminous often ends up blowing around on the streets, and contributes enormously to the bulking up of the dumps which becomes an extra cost to us in the long run. Even when we pack up our garbage and ship it to some other country to rot.

The minute someone tries to tell me what I want my back goes up. Still it is difficult to maintain a stance of purity while being bombarded from every angle. TV, radio, newspaper, spam, junk mail, magazines, billboards, placards, point of sale tid bits, telemarketers, and the dying breed, door to door salesmen (actually door to door is almost exclusively the domain of protestant religion nowadays). Several years ago I stopped watching network TV because of the advertisments pounding away at my brain. It's not that I think TV will rot your brains or anything. I follow a few TV series on DVD from Netflix watching them without commercials at my leasure. It's all part of the lifestyle I decided to develop to match my convictions. I have a low tolerance of people who swear they care about the environment but can't be bothered to recycle. Just as in my youth I got tired of men who said they were sympathetic with the women's movement, but still expected me to do the cooking, wash the clothes, vacuum the rugs and work a full time job to boot. I can't condemn anyone else if I'm not willing to live up to my convictions. So I recycle everything I can. I compost organic materials. I buy bulk whenever applicable. I cook alot of meals ahead and freeze them. A few hours on one day can yeild six, seven, ten days of nuke and eat meals that are much more healthy than anything you could buy pre-packaged. In addition I buy organic produce despite the price difference. My health and peace of mind is worth the extra money. Just so you know I am not some waif thin vegetarian. I love a good rare steak. I weigh about twenty pounds more than the charts say I should. But I'm comfortable. I exercise regularly at a gym. The fact is I come from a long line of big women so my fate was sealed. I will never be thin. Which makes listening to those razer thin women bitch about how hard it is to keep that extra five pounds off a real rant temptation. Puleeez! 90% of their size is genetic. There probably isn't an obese person in their family. And if they spend as much time thinking about food as they say they do I'd say it's obsession about physical looks not a concern about staying healthy.

I'd say there are at least five essay topics hidden in that diatribe. I'm too lazy this afternoon to tease them out and flesh out the logic behind the arguments. Maybe I'll come back to them later. These are all fav rant topics.

Ciao