Carrie O’Connell writes in American Thinker “I am not supposed to exist” read the entire article here.

A 26 year pro life Catholic woman, Carrie writes how her profile is totally absent from the collection of media stereotypes either in the news or in the entertainment sector, which  has become more difficult to distinguish.  She basically described herself as intelligent, educated, thoughtful and conservative- yet young and female.

The reason her article struck me is that it explained why one side is so surprised at the election outcomes.  When a voter profile that did not exist, or is deemed to be an extreme minority, sweeps an election, the other side is stunned.  They then dream up conspiracy theories and elitist stereotypes to explain the totally illogical outcome. They write involved analysis such “What’s the Matter with Kansas” to explain why Americans vote conservative even when it is against their best interests to do so (in the writer’s judgment).

This becomes even more true as the left and right isolates themselves further in their own media bubble, shutting out reasonable voices from the other side.   Without some cross pollination from the different camps there is no middle.

Whether you agree with Ms. O’Connell’s opinion is less relevant than the fact that many do not realize that her opinion exists, at least not in her demographic sector.

Some excerpts from her article:

“If I based my identity on how I see women my age represented on television and in the movies, my only conclusion is that I am not supposed to exist.”

“I don’t have cable television or an iPhone and I do not feel entitled to either. I do not feel that the government should have to provide me with necessities while I refuse to give up luxuries.”

“If I was voting on popularity and glamour, I would phone American Idol, not visit the ballot box.”

“Educated, well-read women who are pro-life are never written into character plots. I am told time and time again that art imitates life. When will they stop thinning the paint?”

Facebook has added a whole new dimension to social networking, in fact reinventing it. Like any new media certain protocols develop; like learning not to capitalize all the letters in an e-mail message for fear of appearing loud or angry.

There are those who engage continuously through their iPhone or Blackberries and seem interested in sharing what seems to be the most trivial activities of their day. There are those that share links to entertaining videos or interesting articles.

There are those that engage through questions and lists about yourself.

I find that it is a fascinating place to add some depth to otherwise casual relationships, to rekindle old relations, and to get to know authors and readers with similar interests.

I follow my daughter and some of her friends but I am cautious to avoid ‘conversations’ with them less I appear to be intruding on her social network. I am cautious of appearing predatory towards women that I do not know and avoid ‘friending’ strangers unless we share at least 12 common friends.

While I share articles that I find offers some insight I try to avoid blatantly political and partisan attacks since I pride my ‘friend’ pool on its political diversity.

Facebook clearly is used by many to promote business interests and that is largely why I got involved. Combining business and social networks can have some real potential as long as it does not get overwhelmingly and blatantly commercial. People do like to do business with people they know and like.

To me Facebook is like a living Rolodex where you can get constantly updated information on your ‘friends’ and contacts. The new media has developed so fast that its uses are just being discovered, and every user gets to set his or her own rules.

I was happy to see Slumdog Millionaire win at the Oscars.

Besides just being an original and wonderful film, it showed that creativity is not restrained by the lack of big names and big budgets.

Ideas and talent can still prevail over wealth and power.

Luck doesn’t hurt either.

from New York Times

December 21, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Bleeding Heart Tightwads
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Excerpts

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Something similar is true internationally. European countries seem to show more compassion than America in providing safety nets for the poor, and they give far more humanitarian foreign aid per capita than the United States does. But as individuals, Europeans are far less charitable than Americans.

Americans give sums to charity equivalent to 1.67 percent of G.N.P., according to a terrific new book, “Philanthrocapitalism,” by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green. The British are second, with 0.73 percent, while the stingiest people on the list are the French, at 0.14 percent.

It’s true that religion is the essential reason conservatives give more, and religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives. Among the stingiest of the stingy are secular conservatives.
According to Google’s figures, if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.

In any case, if conservative donations often end up building extravagant churches, liberal donations frequently sustain art museums, symphonies, schools and universities that cater to the well-off. (It’s great to support the arts and education, but they’re not the same as charity for the needy. And some research suggests that donations to education actually increase inequality because they go mostly to elite institutions attended by the wealthy.)

Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.

Yet the financial ability to contribute to charity, and the willingness to do so, are strikingly unrelated. Amazingly, the working poor, who have the least resources, somehow manage to be more generous as a percentage of income than the middle class.

read the entire article here

Mary Grabar writes in Pajamas Media about the place for foreign languages in the United States. There is a difference in being required to learn a foreign language and the choice to learn a language to expand your learning experience and depth.

Obama’s Language Mandate: Why It Feels Like Hungarian to Me

August 3, 2008 - by Mary Grabar

excerpts

“Obama’s call to teach children Spanish, therefore, reveals not an enlightened appreciation of another culture, but a quotidian concern with basic communication, furthermore communication with immigrants who today are most often illiterate or semiliterate. Obama is not imploring us to learn Spanish in order to read and discuss the works of Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Cervantes, but to be able to fill out welfare forms, give orders to construction workers, and to unionize chicken pluckers.”

“Obama, the Harvard-educated lawyer, betrays his own leftist objectives and profound lack of intellectualism. Like his radical friend, education professor and leader of the former Weathermen Bill Ayers, he does not value learning for its own sake, but sees it as a political tool, another way to use education to advance social goals. Obama’s view of foreign language acquisition is the opposite of the one of conservative parents and professors who have advocated foreign language study for the benefit of the student’s intellectual advancement. Obama, the dour schoolmaster, tells us we “must” learn the language of the border-hoppers who have invaded our country. I think I know what it felt like when my aunt was forced to learn Hungarian.”

Random ideas to decrease life’s annoyances.

1. At the doctor- do not make me fill out the same data I filled out the last time I was there. Print a copy of my file and ask me to correct it. There are computers out there that can do this. or give me the option of completing this information on line.

2. Vending machines that sell movie tickets are a good idea, but have enough of them and make sure they work. Even better let me buy them on line at home and print them for admittance.

3. If your customer service line says that “my call is important” be sure a real human being is saying it and not a computer recording. Otherwise you are a ****ing liar.

4. If you pay so crappy that you can not hire a real human being then at least give me the option of leaving a message instead of making me wait on a phone for 12 minutes. Always give me the option of getting a real human being if the auto attendant gets confusing.

5. Kill the cell phone signals at the movies.

6. If you are a waitress do not make me wait for the bill. Why is it that the same waitress that refills my drink after every sip is no where to be found when I need to leave and I am ready to pay?

7. Make seats available on the plane based on the height and weight of the passenger. Have special seats for anyone over 250 lbs or over 6′4″ tall. Do not charge extra. For the price of a ticket a comfortable seat is not too much to ask.

8. Stop inserting ads at the bottom over the TV show I am watching. You get to run your freaking ads every ten minutes; do you have to wreck my viewing experience by overlaying them on the main show as well?

Do you have any other suggestions?

Like ‘The Truth About Chuck Norris’, ‘Stuff White People Like’ started out as a whimsical to nonsensical collection that became so popular on line that publishers sought to bring the content to the printed page and pursued the creators to bring out a book.

A sample entry:

Comparing People to Hitler
By: Isaac “Absent” Amirian

Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation- especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.

Comparing people to Hitler is an easy way for white people to get a strong point across to the less enlightened, or the insufficiently white. Everyone knows who Adolf Hitler was. And everyone knows that Hitler was very, very bad. Therefore, if a white person really, REALLY, doesn’t like something or someone, he or she may angrily say something to the effect of, “This is exactly the same kind of thing that Hitler used to do!” accompanied by varying levels of profanity based on blood-alcohol content. No matter what your gut reaction may be at that point, do not disagree with that white person. Otherwise, well, you love Hitler.

IS it just me or is the July 4th news just getting too weird.

Dogs Used in Pornography Films to Be Spared Death

from Fox News

Excerpt

“The undersheriff has rethought his position on the dogs involved in the pornography,” said sheriff’s Capt. John Bowman. “Because of their status as being victims in this whole thing, he decided they will not be euthanized.

“His intent is to maintain them until they can be rehabilitated and then to get them adopted by people or organizations who are aware of their background and get a good home for all of them.”
The sheriff’s office received evidence the dogs had been filmed dozens of times performing sex acts with a woman.”

Grandma, 70, Gives Birth to Twins

from Foxnews

Excerpt

Panwar, who has two adult daughters and five grandchildren, underwent in-vitro fertility treatment so she could produce a male heir.
Her husband, Charan Singh Panwar, 77, mortgaged his land, sold his buffalos, spent his life savings and took out a credit card loan to finance the treatment.
“At last we have a son and heir,” he said. “We prayed to God, went to saints and visited religious places to pray for an heir.”

HKO comments:

Besides having a son younger than her granddaughter, this may have made sense if the first of the twins was a obstetrician who could have helped with the delivery of his sibling. This could be fodder for Jay Leno for the rest of his career.

It is also noteworthy that he had to sell his buffalo AND use his credit cards. These are two transactions that do not usually go together. It would have been cheaper to just put her in a nursing home.

Compound in Red Wine Fights Ravages of Age

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
Thursday, July 3, 2008; 12:00 AM

the entire article

Excerpt

“But red wine is a good source of resveratrol,” he added. “And, in this mouse study, we have shown that this particular compound has very strong positive effects on preventing cardiovascular disease, reducing heart inflammation, keeping bone health in terms of structure and function, and maintaining loco-motor and balance activity. So, if these effects translate into humans, it will have a very good impact on the standard of human health.”

HKO Comments- I hope they also do research into the hopeful benefits of scotch and a couple of cigars. If they also have a similar benefit, then I may become immortal.