green

Or having a celeb look-alike who looks like Dick Cheney and you happen to be a woman....:faint:

Say whut??? That is to say that some elaboration is required before we are able to understand the above-cited post. Whose kiddies?

You are so right! It was sad! I am still getting therapy thanx to my uncomfortable childhood and I always get real weird and curmudgeonly around Christmas time.

When I was liquids I ended up taking a pass on getting my protein for that period of time. This is because I don't have much of a sweet tooth and I find those protein drinks quite gross as a result. I did drink apple juice and ate a lot of soup, Gardenay soup. When I moved on to the mushie phase I ate a lot of tzatziki which is basically yogurt with garlic. I also ate raita - yogurt with cucumber and spices - and eggs, avocado and things like that. I also became a big fan of chewable vitamins and chewable calcium. It seems that I need the calcium. I went through menopause when I was 41 and I am not on HRT. I also take a lot of vita D.

That look is fabulous!!!!!

Romano-pecorino cheese imported from Italy, grated, makes most food including salads taste better.

In my family we were raised on gift cheques - these pre-dated the gift card but also posed no problems vis-a-vis wrapping 'em. Yup, picture the tiny Greens waking up on Xmas AM and stealing quietly downstairs to the the artificial Christmas tree to find what?? Only a small neat pile of envelopes.... Thank gawd fer the stockings!!!:phanvan

:D Funny post, grrl. :clap2:

What I like about government linked assistance programmes as contrasted with private charities is that these are not as likely to be agenda-based. It strikes me that religious charities may exact a toll; a grrl might just have to spend some of her time going to faith meetings or whatever in order to get food and delousing shampoo for her family.:tired

Carlene, I was talking about an article in a Canadian newspaper written by a Canuck about our charitable practices as contrasted with the US. As you know, Canadian society is much more socialist and left-wing than American society but it seems that when it comes to charitable activities we far under-perform our neighbours to the south. Please don't take this personally, kiddo. I am very aware that folks like you and TOM walk the walk.

There is a fundamental difference between the way Americans and Canadians view the role of their government. We are, I suspect, generally less suspicious and less antagonistic towards our governments - federal, provincial, and municipal. This may be because we are a smaller, younger and much less populous country and thus we do still feel that we can be engaged/have a say in the activities of our government on an individual level. That grassroots business still does work north of the border and our elected governments, regardless of political stripe, still do pay attention to the concerns of the mob, that is to say, us. It also strikes me that there seems to be for some reason greater transparency up here. Though there is greed, slovenliness and corruption, especially in a party which has been in power for too long, this will be exposed and we, the voters, will chuck 'em out. In Canada we do have an Auditor-General and the function of this non-partisan office is to review all governmental financial practices for incompetency and corruption and to make such findings public. We also have like offices on the provincial (state) and municipal levels. The relationship between big business and government also appears to be somewhat more transparent and thus less malign than it does south of the border. This may be because Canada has more many rules and regulations in place regarding business practices, a result of our left-leaning policies. At the same time the Canadian government is anxious to promote economic development inside this country and so does make available interest-free loans and tax breaks to big businesses who are interested in setting up shop here, including American companies. The difference is that these deals are public knowledge. It has also been said that our relationship to government has been brought about by the differences in the way we came to nationhood. You were oppressed by a mad King and a terrible burden of taxes at a point when you were mature enough to become your own country. You had to fight for your nationhood and then you had to conquer the west. You also engaged in a terrible civil war. Our settlement came about much later - due to the lousy weather - and our biggest problem as a nation was the war over Quebec, a problem which still exists. Other than that, the settlement of Canada was orderly and peaceful. The explorers were there first, the government second, the settlers third, after the government had made it safe for them.... All of this is to say that, unlike you, we do feel that the government is likely to be on our side and that it is made up of people like ourselves. As for the abortion issue, as you are now aware many of us do not feel that it is murder and we figure that our beliefs are as valuable as yours. This is why abortion must remain legal. People who don't want them don't have to have them. It is not up to you to force your Christian-based life view as to when life begins on me.

Al, your post would be more reader-friendly if you only capitalise the first word of every sentence. The way you have your post currently set up makes it hard for the rest of us to read it.

There is are a couple of interesting debates on the ethics of birth going on British Columbia, Canada at this time. One of them concerns a girl who is the daughter of a welfarist family who gave birth to her first child when she was 16. She had her second child two years later and two years after that she was pregnant again. All her children were by the same father, a kid who is 2 years older than her and who, until the birth of her latest kids, did not actually live with her. (For those of you who might care, let it be known that these individuals are white.) During her 3rd pregnancy it was discovered that she was carrying twins and that they were, moreover, conjoined at the head. Yep, Siamese twins. She did have the option to abort but chose to carry them to term even though the odds of these two girls a) surviving in utero and surviving an operation to split 'em up should they make it that far were grim. The girl is now 21, the twins are 6 months old, and she is by all accounts a very competent mother of small children. She and her extended family live on social assistance and they are a very close and supportive family. She also personally receives additional hand-outs from church groups and other well-meaning people who are touched by the story of her and her twins. She receives a lot of hate mail, too. It seems to me after reading these news reports that she loves these children deeply and is undeniably a good mum. It also seems to me that she herself is emotionally immature and intellectually unsophisticated and thus has no idea what will await these children once they leave infanthood and begin to grow up. Was her choice to keep these kids frivolous, thoughtless and self-centred, or not? The second case, also in British Columbia, concerns a young Mormon couple who gave birth to a set of sextuplets. Though there is a particial news ban on the case, implicit in the news reports is that they did go out of the country for fertility assistance. The babies were born - as is so often the case with multiples - extremely prematurely. Two of them died before the government stepped in and ordered that the remaining infants be treated with blood transfusions. This is absolutely against Mormon religious belief and yet the government of British Columbia felt that the choice lay between honouring the civil liberties of this couple and saving the lives of the remaining infants. The government is now being sued by the parents. From all that I have read, although we now have the technology in place to save the lives of foetuses who find themselves outside the womb while still in an extremely early stage of development, these acts of intervention cost millions of dollars and the sad but unspoken truth is that many of these saved babies will grow up to lag behind their peers both physically and mentally and so will continue to be a charge on their families, the medical and the social systems for the rest of their lives. Balance out these costs against the costs of, oh, lets say, upgrading the infrastructure - access to fresh water, food, medical care and supplies, agricultural technology, etc - in a continent such as Africa and you must admit that the North American tendency to worship its own - often lily white flesh - while discounting the value of all other flesh is kinda creepy and certainly soaked in hypocrisy.

Marjon, when I was framing my response to FunnyD it was purely in connection with her comments on personal charitable commitment vs a demand for universal government-run programmes of the nature which we have here in what Pat Robertson called Soviet Canuckistan. I did find the comments contained in the article which I cited, an article written by a Canadian journalist and published in a Canadian newspaper, to be of interest and pertinent to the discussion in which we were engaging. I am, however, still an atheist, a skeptic, and I continue to dress to the left as far as the core issues are concerned: religious beliefs play no part in determining civil rights; health care and access to a decent education must be made available to all citizens in order for a country to thrive; evironmental issues are a major concern, too big to be handled without governmental intervention; global warming, whatever the cause or causes, is the big issue of this century and will require international co-operation; and the war in Iraq was engineered for reasons which were both specious and corrupt and had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with al-Qaeda. I am also quite suspicious of patriotism for I view it as only another form of saying that we are better than you are; it is another form of shutting both people and ideas out. Nevertheless, it strikes me that people who do volunteer their time and hearts and energies to charitable work will expose themselves, much as those who live in large multi-cultural cities and those who travel, to many individuals who are different from their own sweet selves; coming into contact with humanity can be very embiggening as Homer Simpson would say.

FunnyD, I found your reply both interesting and wise. In fact sometime ago up here in Soviet Canuckistan there was a longish article in one of the weekend newspapers contrasting the Canadian and American attitudes towards charity. It seems that on the whole we Canucks are not very good at contributing our time or money to charities; we figure that our government organisations will take up the slack. By contrast, you Americans do much, much better. The writer of the article posited that there were a number of factors at play but amongst these were 1) the lack of governmental assistance programmes in place and 2) the fact that there are many, many more actively religious folk in the States. The performance of charitable acts is part of daily life for an active Christian - or, for that matter, Muslim or Jew. As for those of us who are inactive, wishy-washy Christians or agnostics or atheists, well, we, too, like the concept of charitable activities, but we don't meet together and thus are unorganised and so usually never get around to it - especially if we live in Canada....:tired And we happen to be liberals, to boot! And so you may well be right; it seems like one of the differences between the liberals and the conservatives is that the liberals figure that most programmes of assistance, be they domestic or international, should be developed and run at an official level. This means that everyone, even the cheapskates, will, by virtue of taxation, have to contribute to common good of their society. Nevertheless, I can clearly see your point. The liberal does not want to get his hands dirty by chosing to actively engage in volunteering, in engaging on a personal level to assist his fellow humans, and by choosing to rid himself of some of his wealth - it is much easier when the government simply robs you of it in the form of taxes. An individual such as yourself is certainly walking the walk! And I do feel complete admiration (and some degree of envy!) for your current lifestyle (apart from our philosophical/ethical differences on the choice question). There is very little that is more satisfying than to do a mitzvah (do a kindness) for a fellow human being. And I can also see the concern that the conservative may have that government run programmes will encourage a welfarist underclass. But if the prime focus of these programmes is to insure universal access to health care and first rate education and adequate food to those who need it and only that - then both the poor and the middle class will profit. Educate people and they will become upwardly mobile. Get profits-oriented big business out of health care and you will release the middle class from mortgage-sized payments. In many respects the conservative and liberal share a common ground. We are both anxious to help our fellow man and yet we do not want to infantalise him, either. We both become irritated when we see our fellow human beings refusing to stand up and take charge of their own lives. We just have different ideas as to how to help him get to that point. There are virtues and flaws in both of our approaches it often seems to me.

Oh, Ms Dad, that is such a bummer!!!:cry My heart goes out to you. Would the old office give you your records so that you can hand deliver these over to your current doc's office? Then his office could fax the records to WLC.... And it does sound that you and your doc must launch an appeal of this ruling ASAP emphasizing the severity of your co-morbidities. If all of this doesn't work and you find that you must pay, please do shop around before deciding on who will do your surgery. There is a huge difference in price right there in the USA from what I have read on this website - anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000! I have also read that the Mexican clinics do great work and are around $8,000. The downside is arranging for aftercare - the fills - in the U.S. Come to think of it, there are even threads on this site devoted to problems encountered with insurance companies and WLS. I think that it is time for you to start studying up. All my best hopes and wishes are for you.

That's odd. I look exactly like Julia Roberts in just the same way!

I am built much like you, Laurend, and those were the reasons why I had an abortion when I discovered that my birth control had failed. Though there are a few children which I really do like, I also quickly begin to find them rather boring and can't be around them for more than a few hours at a time. I lack the necessary patience. And frankly babies give me the creeps. Americans who like guns like to claim they need 'em in order to be able to kill home invaders; well, this division of cells was threatening to invade my body and my way of life, wasn't it? I believe that the difference between the anti Iraq war, gun-shy, pro-choice liberal and the pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war right-winger is that we feel awfully squeamish about killing people after they are born. Our oponents prefer to concern themselves solely with pre-birth existence. Once the creatures pop their little heads out of the maternal womb, well then, they are out of luck for health care, education, and more...it all becomes a crap shoot!

Because, even though I am not maternal and I didn't want to follow it through, I knew that this material was unique biological material. I would have been happier not to have been placed in this position. Please understand where I am coming from. I am expressing this point of view as an atheist. I do not believe in a God, and certainly not in the Christian version.

Yah, we are all missing you, grrl!!!!!!

Ooh, whenever I think of batteries I think of Samantha in Sex and the City. She was quite the fan of bunnies.:rolleyes

I know that you know that. I have a lot of respect for you. I was elaborating on my thoughts for others who might be reading this thread. And I might have been working out my ideas for my ownself, too. You know,...thinking out loud.

I was unhappy about the failure of my birth control and unhappy about having an abortion as a result of this. I did not want to have an abortion but I had even less desire to carry a pregnancy to term. I have never had a maternal drive and I saw no reason to commit my physical, emotional and financial energies for a nine-month period to what was still merely a division of cells at the point when I had my abortion. Though my reasoning may sound cold-blooded I can also tell you that the day of my abortion was not one of the high-lights of my life. Nobody except a fool wants an abortion.

We had that storm yesterday afternoon. The damn thing suddenly blew up, lotsa rain and wind, and then it went away again leaving downed electrical poles, upended trees, and other damage in its wake. Fortunately here in the big city we were left with power but some of the suburbs were hit pretty hard. (Green loves her electricity, oh yes, she does.:heh: Electricity means toys, oh yes, it does.:heh: )

I recently read that one child's food intake over one year more than equals the lifetime footprint of a SUV but I do believe that this issue is complicated by a number of other factors. One of these is that of the rights of woman over her uterus, that is to say a woman's right to choose. We cannot have it both ways; we cannot claim the right to opt out of having children and then demand that other women be denied the right to have children. Another one of these factors is this: once the educational and economic status of societies is raised couples tend to opt out of having lots of children. The population replacement birthrate - we are not talking a growth birthrate - is now of grave concern in all western European countries as well as in Canada. The United States happens to be the only affluent industrialized country which is still maintaining a replacement birthrate. That is to say, you understand, that your birth rate equals your death rate. In Canada we deal with our declining population by actively recruiting new Canadians from other parts of the world. We have gone multinational and we are very immigrant friendly. This is easy for us for we are a very, very young country and our roots and traditions are shallow and few. Europe is in the way of anticipating a crisis, however. The countries which make up Europe are old countries with deep roots and a profound sense of what makes up countrymen. A declining population cannot easily be supplemented by importing a bunch of foreigners. And yet for a country to remain economically and culturally vibrant there must be more than a collection of senior citizens living within its borders. All of the above is a longish way of saying that if some women want to mother a gang of kids and they have the emotional and financial resources, well, what's the big deal? There is room here for them. The concern that I have with the official Quiverful policy on families is that it seems to be embedded in narrow racist and political values, not just in a simple desire to have an old-fashioned big family.