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Blogging 101 Task #1 — (re) Introduce Myself

June 11, 2015 by carol anne Leave a Comment

do something that scares you every day …  (really? do i have to? do the 7 surgeries and 32 radiation treatments count for a lifetime of doing something that scares me every day?)

a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step … (and about a thousand bucks, i don’t have a thousand bucks, my single step leads out to the mailbox or to the couch to watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix.)

go big, or go home … (define big. can’t i go home and sit on the couch without having first gone big? my big is finally washing those four loads of laundry i’ve ignored all week.)

Have you ever noticed that the big bloggers have big personalities and big lives?

Yeah, I’m not that woman, and I’m definitely not that blogger. Nope. Not me. I’m an average woman leading a thoroughly average life. I’m a wife to a very understanding hubby, I’m a mom to two beautiful, albeit very uncooperative, cats; I’m a former resources editor, and I’m a (so far) three-year cancer survivor.

I’ve been working on a non-bucket list bucket list alternately titled, “Shit I Ain’t Never Gonna Do.” On it are things like skydiving, wrestling crocodiles, walking on hot coals, and/or snake handling. I’m afraid of fire, heights, spiders, elevators, and drowning, so if you’re looking for danger girl she definitely doesn’t live here.

I’m sarcastic, snarky, curious, wordy, and occasionally articulate and insightful. So if you’re looking for a really clumsy sarcastic blogger with strong opinions on just about everything, and who finds herself wondering what became of everyone’s common sense then I’m probably your new blog reader addition.

Here at Soapboxville 2.0 you’ll find lots of photo posts, lots of disjointed rambling posts about the world going to hell in a hand basket, and the occasional well-thought-out essay on topics near and dear to my heart like politics and the new fall season on TV.

Posted in: Blogging Tagged: #Blogging 101, life, opinion, Photography, Politics, pop culture, television, Writing

Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned (we assess the PR problem)

September 13, 2012 by carol anne 2 Comments

I’ve spent a good deal of the last 2 years in a sort of self-imposed news blackout. I really haven’t even been the kind of political junkie I normally am during presidential elections. I blame the cancer; I blame the 5 surgeries and 32 radiation treatments. I blame the lessons I’ve learned over the past almost 2 years; family and friends, love thy neighbor, feed the people, and care for the animals… These are the important things in life, not journalism that gleefully reports gaffes and foams at the mouth with happiness when the gaffes happen, not politicians who go out of their way to obfuscate their positions all the while telling you why their opponent is not your guy, and most certainly not hateful people who demand that you do not love your neighbor.

I’m back in the swing of things and I’m back to writing about politics and the news. God willing, one day I’ll graduate college and become a political columnist. But the news out of Cairo and Libya today leaves me with a loathing of all things political again. I’ve spent all day following the events of the past few days in Egypt and Libya and the political hay that is being made out of the deaths of American citizens. I’m not sure how many people died, because the news has spent all day telling me about a supposed PR gaffe. How sad is that?

The news today has focused on when a statement from the American Embassy in Egypt was actually released. Were they or were they not under attack? Were they sympathizing with the Egyptians? Were they or were they not apologizing for asshole Americans who use their freedom of speech to make inflammatory movies about a religion? Was the wolf at the door when they released the statement? Were there protestors storming the embassy when it was released?

I can’t wrap my mind around the unconscionable idiocy of the political events of the past 24 hours. Holy fucking hell are they kidding me? You’re debating whether or not it was an apology when the remaining embassy employees lives may still be in danger? Honestly. Who the hell cares what was said? I’m sitting here typing this safe and sound in my living room. The people -dems & repubs- raising hell about this alleged PR gaffe are safe and sound in the U.S. surrounded by secret service agents. Someone please ask these people what they would do if they were in a foreign country surrounded by pissed off protestors? I know what I would do. I would do everything in my power to calm the situation and protect the lives of my fellow embassy employees. I think some people have seen one too many Die Hard and Dirty Harry movies.

American lives have been lost and others may still be in danger. Do these politicians and journalists really think the best use of their time is to rant and rave and make political hay over a statement? Perhaps they should get off their asses and do something productive. I think all the nonsense today over whether or not a statement was an apology and what the circumstances were when it was made make us look poor in spirit and woefully misguided in terms of priorities.

Maybe I should go back to my news blackout, it doesn’t seem as though there’s much of substance that I’ve missed.

Posted in: Political Ramblings Tagged: Cairo, embassy, Libya, Politics

Paul Ryan’s America (people pooping & peeing in the streets)

August 19, 2012 by carol anne 3 Comments

So I’m skimming my Twitter feed this morning when I see @CatholicDems share this Wall Street Journal link.  Shortly thereafter my head exploded. Warning: profanity ahead.

Paul Ryan’s Catholicism and the Poor

Go ahead, read it. I’ll wait.

Paul Ryan has a better grasp of Catholic social thought than many of the American Catholic bishops? Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me? Okay can we stop the nation? I want to get off. No, no I NEED to get off.

Can I just say something here? Oh look. I can. Turns out it’s my blog and I’m all fired up this afternoon.

I’m nothing if not blunt so let’s all be adults here, let’s all call a spade a spade here. You know what? Some people just don’t like poor people and that’s that. I’d rather they just come out and say it rather than couch it in political/religious mumbo jumbo. Just come out and say, I don’t want my tax dollars to go to that crack whore up in North Philly.

You know what else? I get it, I do. I get bitter about middle class families receiving no help at all. I get bitter because there’s no help for my little family even though we are drowning in medical bills. I get bitter when I hear that a friend was told her little family makes too much money for help with their medical bills even though they had no insurance at the time. It’s hard, but we’re plugging along. And my friend’s family? They too are plugging along.

So what of the people who can’t plug along? What about that crack whore up in North Philly with 3 kids? So what of those who don’t have jobs for any number of reasons? What about the drug addicted and mentally ill? Should we just let them lie in gutters and die of starvation and exposure and disease then pick them up like road kill? I mean what is the answer? Do we really want to live in a nation the Paul Ryans and Mitt Romneys and any number of other conservatives who don’t want their money to go to the poor propose we do? I remember a great many people complaining about the Occupy Wall Street camps and the dirt and disease they were going to bring upon society. I heard a lot of people complaining about the OWS people pooping and peeing in the streets. Where exactly do they think the thousands of homeless that cutting social services will create will poop and pee? I find myself wondering if they think the poor and the sick will just magically disappear when we stop feeding, educating, and providing medical care for them.

I wonder if they have really thought about what a nation without social services provided by the government would look like? Smell like? I wonder do they understand there would be beggars in the street, a skyrocketing mortality rate for and a skyrocketing infant mortality rate to go along with it and a plummeting literacy to boot. I invite them to go on a fact-finding mission to third world countries then come back and tell me if they want New York City, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Los Angles to look like that.

I want to ask the Paul Ryans of the world what exactly they would like for us to do with the poor and sick, who cannot help themselves? I wonder do they have a grand plan that does not leave small children begging in the streets and dying of diseases long since cured? If they don’t want the government to give money to the poor via social services what exactly do they want to happen to the poor, the sick, and the unemployed. Are they okay with stepping over the sick and homeless and the mentally ill as they make their way to Capitol Hill or -God Forbid- the White House? If they cut off social services that is exactly what will happen.

And okay, now that the pro-business, pro-rich-people politicians have freed up all the tax dollars the poor put-upon rich people previously spent on social services (why yes, that is sarcasm) are they going to use those spare millions to improve this country’s failing infrastructure? Are they going to give the armed forces raises? Will the politicians insist that the now unencumbered business owners bring all the jobs back from overseas or give the working poor, who work for them, raises to make their lives a little easier? I really don’t see them having the spine to do that. And at what point will these companies fail because the working poor can’t afford to smoke cigarettes or buy new cars, new guns, new houses, or new school clothes?

And at what point does the world economy collapse? This country, this world, this universe, everything is built from the bottom up. There cannot be castles in the sky that float on air. Everything needs a foundation. So after they’ve broken the rapidly disappearing middle class who is going to pay them to be arrogant assholes with entitlement issues?

I swear to God, it’s nonsense like the above article that makes me want to throw ice cubes at people. Yes, our system isn’t perfect, And yes I get bitter that we just scrape by and that sometimes life isn’t fair. But until these politicians who continuously blame the poor for the rich’s woes actually take their heads out of their collective asses and realize that a society that doesn’t care for the least of its people looks a lot like a third world country I’d thank them to shut up and stop talking like idiots.

Posted in: Political Ramblings Tagged: Paul Ryan, Politics, Wall Street Journal

Common Sense (i beg you. please use it.)

April 15, 2012 by carol anne 1 Comment

Okay, I just heard the Hilary Rosen remark with my own two ears. Could it be? Just maybe, people are just a little too touchy these days? Honestly she was talking about Mitt’s remarks that his wife tells him that women voters are concerned about economics. When she said that Mrs. Romney never worked a day in her life I don’t think she was disparaging stay-at-home moms or discounting the work ALL moms do. I think she was saying that the Romneys are filthy rich and that Ann after having worked 40 hours or more outside the home has never stood in a grocery store wondering if she should buy bread or milk that week or how much of the family budget she should put toward young Mitt’s college fund.

Can we please, for the love of God stop focusing on such petty nonsense and focus on real honest to God concerns? Romney wants to do away with Obamacare despite his Romneycare plan being the model for Obamacare. There are still more politicians who want to force women who want or need an abortion to first have a transvaginal ultrasound. And there are still more who’d very much like to overturn Roe vs. Wade. And let’s not forget that while echoing the battle cry smaller government yet more want a constitutional amendment defining marriage as 1 man and 1 woman.

The more we nitpick and carp and complain about 1 sentence uttered by a political pundit the less we focus on the big picture. Hilary Rosen didn’t sit there on TV disparaging stay-at-home moms. In fact she didn’t say a word about stay-at-home moms. Could she have said Ann Romney never held a job in her life? Sure. But, come on can we really not distinguish between actual disparaging remarks and a misspoken sentence anymore? Really, have we become a nation of easily hurt feelings lacking common sense and unable to understand nuance? I feel like we get stupider and more easily distracted by the minute. Every minute we spend nitpicking over something someone with no power said on TV the politicians spend dreaming up ways to give corporations more rights and us less. Every second we spend worrying about nonsense the politicians are using to figure out ways to help the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.

Really, for the love of God people stop focusing on the nonsense and the noise and turn your attention to who and what really matters. While you crucify someone who said something on CNN and newspaper and blog space are devoted to someone who matters so little the middle class disappears just a little bit more.

*** Really, I promise. I’ll really get my overuse of really under control. Really, I pinky swear promise. Really.


Posted in: Political Ramblings Tagged: ann romney, CNN, hilary rosen, mitt romney, mommy wars, Politics, SAHM, stay-at-home moms

A Mini Rant

February 23, 2012 by carol anne Leave a Comment

From Twitter …

RT @PhillyWeekly DAILY GRINDER: Imagine Rick Santorum as your landlord. No, seriously. http://ow.ly/9ffHv

This is the kind of story that makes my head want to explode. I don’t like Santorum as much as the next person. But please for the love of Mike stop with the ridiculous stories that don’t matter even a little. You’re just taking away from real, like actual important topics that need to be addressed. As landlord he was owed back rent. Any landlord would have demanded the rent be paid. Stop trying to create scandal and drama where none exists.

Write stories about how Santorum doesn’t want prenatal testing to be covered by health insurance because he believes prenatal testing leads to abortions or that he wants to reverse Roe vs. Wade or that he’s opposed to birth control. But please let’s leave the nonsense stories by the wayside. All the nonsense floating around out there clogs up the actual flow of you know actual information.

Posted in: Political Ramblings Tagged: journalism, media, Politics
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