Patriotism...and what it isn't.

I have been trying to be good and not make any postings about the current Presidential/Vice Presidential Campaigns. I have been trying REALLY hard to behave myself and not point out any of the issues that any of the candidates have uttered that have left me shaking my head in disgust, disbelief, or just plain disillusionment, but today's rallying cry by Sarah Palin in North Carolina leaves me with no choice but to speak up.

EXCUSE ME!!! ONLY NORTH CAROLINA IS FILLED WITH 100% PATRIOTS? What the H-E-"double hockey sticks" does that say for the traitors that voted Ms. Palin in first as Mayor and then Governor of Alaska? What does that say for the traitors in Arizona that elected John McCain to the Senate all these years, and all the traitors who voted for him throughout the other 46 States during the Primaries that gave him the nomination for the Republican Party?

If I were an Alaskan right now, I'd be feeling REALLY, REALLY ticked right now...and although I am NOT an Alaskan, and am not a North Carolinian, I am REALLY, REALLY ticked that the candidate chosen by John McCain to run as his Vice President...the person who will become President if he dies in office, would have the nerve to dismiss me as being UN-patriotic because I do NOT live in North Carolina. What is WRONG with this woman?

And since she gave me no choice but to respond to HER foolishness...what the H-E-"double hockey sticks" is wrong with her running mate?

He accuses his opponent of being too inexperienced for the job of President so he takes someone LESS experienced as HIS running mate? Has McCain been checked for Alzheimer's Disease?

And while we're on the subject of McCain's mental synaptic capabilities...as someone with a MASTERS DEGREE in Special Education, I was FURIOUS with him during the last debate every time he threw Sarah Palin's experience and understanding of Autism because she has a Special Needs child. Does NO ONE bother to educate these people before they decide to introduce information during these debates. (Judging from the repeated stress McCain made concerning Joe the Plumber buying the plumbing business that he could not legally buy since he's not a LICENSED...as in LEGAL plumber...I guess verifying facts before spewing them is not a high priority.)...But let me clarify the Autism vs, Sarah Palin's Special Needs expertise issue.

Sarah Palin's last child...the baby...HER baby...not the one still cooking inside her 17 year old unwed daughter...was born with Down Syndrome. She, Ms. Palin, was made aware of this PRIOR to the child's birth because Down Syndrome is detectable during amniocentesis because it is a CHROMOSOMAL DISORDER caused by the presence of all or part of an EXTRA 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British doctor who described the condition back in 1866. The condition is characterized by a combination of major and minor differences in the basic structure of the human form. Often it is associated with some impairment of COGNITIVE ability and PHYSICAL GROWTH as well as FACIAL APPEARANCE...and can be identified, as I stated earlier, during the pregnancy, or immediately upon birth.

Children born with Down Syndrome tend to have lower cognitive ability, often range from mild to moderate DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES, although a small number have sever to profound mental disabilities. It is estimated 1 in 800 to 1,000 births will present as Down Syndrome afflicted, although these numbers are greatly influenced by the age of the mother.

Some of the physical features are a single instead of a double crease across one or both palms, an almond shape to the eyes, shorter limbs, a larger than normal space between big and second toes, a protruding tongues. Health concerns for children born with Down Syndrome include a high risk for CONGENITAL HEART DEFECTS, GASTROSOPHOGEAL REFLUX DISEASE, recurrent EAR INFECTIONS, OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA and THYROID DYSFUNCTIONS.

Allow me to repeat myself here DOWN SYNDROME IS CAUSED BY THE PRESENCE OF ALL OR PART OF THE EXTRA 21ST CHROMOSOME. It is a condition that presents itself with more and more challenges as the child develops. Less than a year, does NOT an expert make.

AUTISM....Autism is a BRAIN DEVELOPMENT DISORDER that is characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior...all starting before the child is THREE YEARS OLD.

Autism has a strong genetic base although the genetics of autism are complex. Unlike Down Syndrome many of its proposed causes, such as childhood vaccines are controversial; the vaccine hypotheses lack convincing scientific evidence. Most recent reviews estimate a prevalence of 1 to 2 cases per 1,000 people. The number of people known to have autism has increased dramatically since the 1980's as a result of changes in diagnostic practice.

Autism affects many parts of the brain; how this occurs is not understood. Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child's life. Early behavioral and/or cognitive intervention can help children gain self-care, social, and communication skills. There is no known cure. Few children with autism live independently after reaching adulthood, but some become successful, and an autistic culture has developed with some seeking a cure and others believing that autism is a condition rather than a disorder.

So, Senator McCain, Sarah Palin's child was born with DOWN SYNDROME. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with AUTISM and even with the birth of her child, she is NOT an expert of the challenges of Special Needs because her JOURNEY has only JUST begun. Her child has not begun to walk. He has not begun the challenges as his internal organs continue to develop according to the map that extra chromosome has placed within his DNA.

Her JOURNEY is still very much before her. AND even with that journey, she is not doing it alone as so many others must do. Her husband remained with her. She has help...nannies, maids, cooks, etc. The challenges she has to face in the coming years as her child grows are not going to force her to her knees...so even when she is well along the highway of her Journey, her path will be much easier...Expert? No!!!!

Senator John McCain, you should never praise someone about conditions that you have such little knowledge of...it only makes you look stupid...And given the state of the Country's fiances, this War...your voting record during the tenure of the Bush years, you really don't need to keep looking stupid!!!!

Guest Blogging Part Two

I promised I'd be back...it just took me a couple days to follow through. However, in that time I really thought about the scariest things and have come up with some more...Did you doubt that I would?

First on my list is:



...fat guys in Speedos. But I'm not sure if they're better than or worse than...



...fat guys in diapers. (Anyone remember the Law and Order Criminal Intent segment with the fat guy in diapers who had his own secret nursery...and all the yuck, accouterments of his perversion? Can I just say this now...yech, yuck, ewww, blah!)

I did find, staying on the fat guy theme, this pic which really begs one to question the sanity of some fat guys...I mean why would he want to do this?



And no matter how mature I get, I still do not want to be upwind, down-wind, side wind, or anywhere up-close-and-personal with these guys!


Of course we have the TYPICAL things we are all wired to be afraid of...



...ugly vampires...although not ALL vampires are ugly...like the guy on MOONLIGHT...



...who reminds me a LOT of the vampires in Christine Feehan's books.

BUT THE SCARIEST OF ALL SCARIES IS:



...Tom Cruise trying to be hunky...




...Tom Cruise basking in the limelight...



...Tom Cruise as a bobble-head...

But the absolutely scariest of all is Tom Cruise as....



...a HUSBAND!!!!!!!

Well there you have some of the scariest things that popped into my mind as I contemplated Guest Blogging on my daughter's Blog. I'm sure you can think of more. Let me know what you come with...and check out my daughter's blog. Her link is http://katluvr130.blogspot.com

The FINAL McQuack Award goes to....

There are so many medicals to bestow this honor on, but since this is to be the last, I want to make it the most important one. In this choice it isn't a few Quacks that litter this area of expertise, but many.

It began as an extension of speciality to help burn victims and cancer survivors. I am of course speaking of Plastic Surgery. It began with noble intentions, but has become something unrecognizable...much the way many of its victims have become unrecognizable.

I would never have believed all those years ago when I was growing up in the tranquil serenity of Bucks County, PA that there would come a day when there would be mass butchery in the guise of medical care. I just don't get it. Joan Rivers swears by plastic surgery and has certainly had more than her fair share of it, but hasn't she or any of the people around her noticed that she is starting to look like that most famous of Plastic Surgery debacles The Bride of Wildenstein?

Why do we have to encourage women to mutilate themselves so they can fill out DD bras because we have some warped sense of what is "perfection"?

This is the only field where you can go to your cosmetician and have botox poison injected into your body...poison...in the name of beauty. This is the only field that is engorged with so-called doctors who have nothing remotely close to medical training performing invasive procedures upon our persons.

Who determines what it "perfect"? The very doctors who want to get rich off of the vanity and insecurity of the masses. There is a reason why insurance won't pay for these procedures...they are UNNECESSARY.

I get the need for plastic surgery. Burn victims, women who have had breast cancer, and yes, even women who have to have breast reduction surgery...but these operations ARE covered by medical insurance. That should explain the difference. THEY are needed for viable medical reasons. Having your face chemically peeled is just disgustingly painful, gross, and against the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors are supposed to function under.

We have all heard about the mistakes...too many mistakes...too many damaged people who went to the plastic surgeons perfect as their Creator made them...only to come out of it deformed by the incompetence of a medical field that has become nothing but glorified butchery.

Before we are born into the body we live in we chose that body with all its so-called imperfections because that IS the body our souls need to live in to complete the lessons we are here to learn. THAT body with THOSE imperfections...not some sculpted body by a doctor who needs to pay off his home in the Hamptons, his yacht, his vacation home in the Caribbean, and the fleet of Porches and Lamborghinis that fill his garages.

Some of the most beautiful people I have ever met were born with what the plastic surgeons would call damaged bodies. Children born with Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and other deforming conditions may appear to the jaded eye to be imperfect, and yet they chose before entering those bodies, knowing full well the problems they would face in those bodies, because they saw beyond the temporary illusion to the true beauty that is the perfection of their soul's growth inside those bodies.

Plastic Surgery is no longer about being doctors and helping people...it is about convincing people they need reshaping and charging them a fortune because vanity is alive and well and now it can be had by any fly-by-night who hangs out his sign and claims to actually BE a doctor. It is not about helping the burn patients...it's about convincing our 16 year olds that they need boob enhancement, nasal realignment, liposuction, butt cheek implants, and on and on and on. It's about convincing the masses that you should never be grateful for what you are because they can make you more....more than God, the ONLY acknowledged sculptor of Perfection gave you.

So my final McQuack Award goes to 99% of the Plastic Surgeons out there. You're getting rich on illusions...illusions that cause more harm than they are worth.

Guest Blogging Part One

My daughter has asked me to be a guest poster on her blog tomorrow...

so I am wracking my brain trying to find a topic that will fit in with her theme for this month...

Halloween.



With that theme firmly planted in all my firing synapses, I have begun to list the scariest things to me...







Now where to begin the REAL every day scary things that seem to take on larger than large life proportions as Halloween approaches? How about here...this has to top the list of a LOT of people's scariest things...right?





The DONALD on a BAD HAIR DAY...hey...that's EVERY day...But guess what he's tied with another star whose follicularly challenged. So although THE DONALD will always bring out the number one shrieks of terror for me, his runner up is:



LARRY KING...yuck...does he make your skin feel all creepy and you know...just EWWWW? To the Donald and Larry...wherever you guys are getting the straw you plunk on top of your heads, let me just say...SCARECROWS...and maybe you should try some mineral rich manure lotion...aromatically it won't be an improvement, but it might keep those fly-away-ends from flying.

Alas there are others who send many of us screaming into the street. I know there isn't a single one of you that hasn't had up-close-and-personal contact with this next terrifying vision. Are you ready? You might want to double up on your Valiums before you move your eyes downward. Steady on...OK...ready?...Set?...Here we Go...



Really is there anything more terrifying than the COMB-OVER? You run into this horror EVERYWHERE!!!! I had a professor...a scientist no less, with a bad comb-over. I've had friends who actually had to keep a straight face while planting their feet into those stirrups because their GYN had a bad comb-over...Imagine the fright of having that comb-over so near your most personal privates!!! EWWWW does NOT begin to express the monumental terror that image evokes in us women...for you guys...just so we can share the level of shriekdom, imagine YOUR personal exam, from the rear, he's bent over you to give you THAT exam and his comb-over flops forward upon your vulnerable spine and areas a bit, shall we say, lower? OK Guys gives us a larger shriek than just EWWWW!


Alas, the comb over is bad enough when it is John Q. Public...but...






...Senator John McCain? If he's elected President and he is sitting at a State dinner with...oh Queen Elizabeth, how is he ever going to make sure his comb over doesn't start flying and land in the Monarch's soup? Think maybe he'll invest in some Super Glue? Speaking, solely as a woman here, having hair flopping around on a guy's head really ISN'T sexy...nor does it mask the otherwise sadly balding pate beneath it's stringy style.

Hair DOES seem to play a BIG roll in ewwy things. I'm sure men are not crazy about women with hairy legs and hairy armpits...although that was not always the case....wanting women to do the Chihuahua thing is relatively new in our culture.

However, we cannot QUITE leave our follicular scream fest JUST yet...not before we deal with one more very, VERY scary thing...







...unless he's a werewolf, you really shouldn't have to mow the guy you're with...BIG EWWWW!

We've finally come to the end of "GUEST BLOGGING PART ONE"...I PROMISE I am far from done...even though I STILL haven't figured out what to guest blog on my Daughter's blog yet...but so many creepy things, so little time to give them the EWW attention they all so shriekingly have been begging for.

So join me for the SECOND part of Guest Blogging to find out just what else my devious synapses have stirred from my cauldron of fright.



I WILL return!

A Fin, A Crown, A Gown, Some Gold, And Silver, and Loads of Pride

I am taking a break from my usual entry to instead show one and all some of the creative dolls my daughter and I made together en massé that we then gave to a lot of women living in Nursing Homes and Hospices in our area last Christmas. My daughter, who suffers from Grand Mal Seizures needed a hobby that would keep her sitting down. We'd seen on eBay how artists were taking Barbie Dolls, removing factory paint, hair, and in some cases limbs, and redesigning them into
One-of-a-Kind dolls that they would turn around and sell. Kathy and I decided not to sell them...we were just amateurs after all, but give them to people who don't get Christmas presents because either their families are long gone, or are too far away, or just too busy. I can tell you all quite honestly, the delighted surprise, the joyful smiles made it all worthwhile.

So sit back and let me share the beauty I shared with my daughter for over a year as we took old Barbies and created fantasies.




No two dolls were alike. The ones like the one above, have bodies sculpted from clay from the waist down. All jewelry was hand fashioned, and of course her bodice was done with several layers of assorted paints. She is one of many mermaids...(our most popular requests)...we made...as you will see.

This next one is one of my favorites because except for a few minor things, this mermaid was created 100% by my Kathy. (It'll take me at least two, maybe three pics to truly show you what an incredible job she did on this doll.)









I was right wasn't I? Isn't Kathy's Bride Mermaid stunning? She worked really hard to make this the perfect mer-bride. The woman she went to absolutely loves her. (With each doll we also gave them a display stand...this doll and a few others required special stands...this one received a wood doll stand with a wider base and a wider support ring.)

We tried many things all in the effort to make certain each doll was uniquely different and uniquely special. Here's one such doll that through some out-of-the-box thinking turned into what I think is a really beautiful doll. Again, my daughter's help, her critiqué allowed us both to expand our horizons and create not just OUTSIDE the box, but BEYOND the box.




CeaFrost is a doll my daughter made without ANY help from me. Every detail...from the lovely pastel lavender hair, to the tail of intricately fused faux sea-grass, and the way she allowed the sensual irridescent white foundation to jump by swirling just hints of pink, purple, blue, and silver throughout the sculpted body and hand painted bodice took my breath away. She truly amazes me.



Cleopatra did not just live in Egypt...no...in our imaginations a version of her lives beneath the mer-populated seas somewhere out there. We captured her this my daughter's creation that we named Nefir Aqua. She truly is the Cleopatra of the Sea and a collector of all treasures lost to the seas by wayward seamen of old...as you can see by the anchor shield she proudly has fitted at her waist. This shield was hand sculpted from clay, cast, baked, painted and fitted to Nefir's sloping mer-body. (Like I said earlier, we experimented a lot...what one of us didn't think of the other did.)



This next doll has sultry long golden blonde hair that we mixed with strands of silver blonde. Her lips are painted a dusky rose, her eyes are bright and dramatic, and the crown on her head is gold filigree. The woman who received her cried. She said she'd never in her life received anything so beautiful. Both Kathy and I felt as if SHE had given us the rare gift.




Another unique mer because of her silver and blue flowing hair, this doll's crown is accented with beaded jewels and her tail looks like peacock seagrass as it flows from her sculpted body.



Some came about because of a posed question...such as what would a mermaid tattoo look like?




Another came about because I was curious about what would happen if we made the crown from sculpted clay that would match the body of the mer.




We did some research and knew that we wanted to include mers that weren't only blonde, blue-eyed and perky...beacause let's face it, the oceans are everywhere.





And by now you are probably SICK of seeing mermaids and are wondering if that was ALL we could wrap our imaginations around to create...oh yea have little faith...

One of our ladies was a "Hog Mama in her younger days, so for her we designed a doll wearing a hand made dress designed with motorcycles and gave her long hair a riotous perm...(oh yes, by the way, I DO sew too...and I want to go on record as saying sewing little sleeves and attaching little hooks and eyes truly challenged my arthritis and my diminished eyesight, but we got the job done.) Many of the dolls we fashioned became Medievil Princesses...Brides!!! Did LOTS of brides...even made a bride for the Sky God. We also made a Woodland Nymph and her daughter, Sprite. Wanna see some of them? OK...here goes.

We'll start with the brides, including the Sky God's bride...I think you'll be able to pick her out from the others.










The Woods are filled with spirits and we made sure that two of them found their way into our ladies hands:




And finally...some of the dolls where it's the outfits that turned the dolls into fantasy creations...including the first one that was made for our Hog Mama.




That's it for now...I mean you can't have me placing over 200 dolls pictures on here can you...besides these give you quite a few so you can see what my daughter did in working on changing the doll that comes from the factory, into the One-of-a-Kind gift for our ladies.

And Kathy...thank you Sweetie for all your work, your ideas, and for believing we really COULD do it.