The Wildcat's Den

 Trying to wind down after a stinking long week (which is why I haven't been on LJ for two weeks).  I've been packing as many hours as I can for my internship so I can be done by the time fall semester is due to start.  I have 17 hours left to go, which doesn't seem like much, but I have to pack those hours around work, which makes my work days seem a lot longer.  But I think I can get the rest done by next Wednesday and then I'm done and everyone is happy.

I had an interesting experience yesterday - one of the places I can go sub is the county jail library.  Obviously, working at the jail library is vastly different from working at the public library.  I had a pretty good time - for being at the jail.  Basically, all I'm doing is Reader's Advisory.  The prisoners fill out a form asking for certain books and we pull them from out shelves.  But if we don't have something they ask for, we have to find something similar.  I didn't get to deliver the books so I didn't see any of the inmates, but some of the notes they wrote on their request forms touched my heart.  Some of them asked for self-help or feel-good books - many asked for religious books.  They can only request books once every two weeks, so I guess they really want to make their requests count.  Some of them did ask for some questionable items (one request form asked for a book about growing marijuana.  Needless to say, I did not fill that request.  I think I substituted a graphic novel), but for the most part, I got the feeling that most of these prisoners are trying to do good and be better people.

I also saw Thor and Captain America this week and I have to say that I am really excited about The Avengers movie next year.   Honestly, I'm really impressed with how Marvel has put this whole thing together.  It didn't seem like a full-on series when the first Iron Man came out, but now they've  I've never really been into comic books - not out of distaste, but because I never could find them - but now I actually want to read some now (oh, and I'm really excited about the new Sherlock Holmes movie - I'm becoming quite the Robert Downey, Jr. fangirl ^_^)

What else - oh, I'm going to start writing for HillBuzz.  Not as a regular writer - just as a Ground Report submitter/correspondent/column-writer-person.  I sent a few in (this is the most recent one) and Kevin liked it and he asked me to send in stuff more regularly.  This will be interesting - I tried to write political columns for the paper back in college, but I was always too chicken to try.  But I think I've gotten better at it - and I give even less of a crap about the hate mail I'm certain to get.  Besides, the commenters at HillBuzz are pretty mature (at least, most of them know how to spell).

Also, one of the librarians where I'm doing my internship has me convinced to do NaNoWriMo.  She does a writer's circle once a month and she's going to sponsor a Write-In event.  Since I've had this idea for a novel for a long time and just haven't sat down to do it, I'm think I'm going to buckle down this November and just get it out.

Well, that's it for me - mostly to let my LJ friends know I'm not dead.

With all due respect, "Victory" almost doesn't do it justice ^_^

Okay, so I mentioned in my last post that I had a big surprise in store.  Well, last night Sean Hannity was in Salt Lake City on the "Conservative Victory" book tour.  And yours truly got to go and meet the #1 Great American.

(Pardon the SQUEE-fest - I'm still in giddy fangirl-glee mode! ^_^)

I have pictures and even a video to share and plenty of details, so this will be long.  But it's soooo worth it.

( A little background... )

( I'm on national TV! )

( Proof that I cannot fangirl in complete sentences )

( "Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda" - Book Review )

( And a video! )

I've been on edge all day with this health care voting nonsense that's been going on in the House.  I'm not going to say too much about it here (if I'd come here directly from watching it, there would have been much foul language and venom spewing.  As it is, I spent some time at therightfangirl  and that calmed my nerves a bit.  I'm glad there are places in this universe that still make sense).

I have thought long and hard why I oppose this bill on substance.  And here are a few my reasons:

1. I don't want the government telling me and my family what to do.  My parents are self-employed and we have purchased our own health insurance my entire life.  Only recently have we had to drop it because times are tough, but it was a risk we chose to take.  We're all pretty healthy anyway and we'd rather take the chance on getting hit by a bus (or whatever craptastic sob-story the creatures in Washington are peddled to get this BS through) than go without food and clothing.  But now that Princess Pelosi got her way, you could get fined for not having health insurance.  What the crap?  Since when does not having health insurance hurt somebody else?  It's my damn money - let me do with it as I please!

2. It grows government.  I'm not one of those anarchist nuts that says we should totally abolish the national government, but I am in favor of states' rights and, more importantly, individual rights.  All I want the government to do is keep us safe from evil people who want to kill us.  I don't want them to provide a blasted thing for me.  They are not my parents (shoot, I'm old enough, I should be providing for myself).  I just want them to stay the hell out of my life.  Up until a few years ago, I had a very live-and-let-live attitude toward government.  But when I started noticing all these creepy little things they've been doing, I'd had it and I got mad.  Oh boy - you have not seen anything yet.  With this health care beast passing - they are soooo in for it!

3. The few that would be insured under this is not worth the many that are going to lose their already-excellent health care plans.  There are other better avenues to health insurance reform than the government regulating everything under the sun - starting with taking the trial lawyers to task for their ambulance-chasing and other shenanigans.  It's called Tort Reform.  Love it.  Embrace it.  And let insurance companies compete between states.  The bad insurance companies will fail (as they should) and the good ones will flourish and provide amazing-yet-affordable health care plans.  That's how capitalism REALLY works (and I know that those of you educated in public schools have been taught differently, but don't believe everything you learn in school).

4. Health care is not a right.  Home ownership is not a right.  Employment is not a right.  Formal education is not a right (hell, Abraham Lincoln was basically homeschooled).  Communist Russia tried all that.  It was great at first (well, "great" - depending on who you ask), but by the end of the Soviet Union, they were pretty much holding guns to people's heads to get them to fall in line.  Yep - that communism - sounds great.  Where do I sign up? *end sarcasm*  The rights afforded us by the Constitution are merely avenues for us to pursue happiness - they are not the ends to happiness themselves.  And really, the Constitution itself doesn't actually afford us anything - those rights in the Constitution are God-given rights.  But the Founders had enough foresight (or they themselves had just come out from under a bastard dictator scumbag - take your pick) to know that some dipwad would come along and try to take over unless there was something set down in stone (parchment - whatever) to stop them.  And - wow - look what's happened?  The government has come to the point where it assumes that it is God.

That's what it boils down to - government wants we the people to bow down to it as our deity.  The politicians don't give a flaming turtle butt over health care or if people have insurance - it's all about power (there are some good congresspeople in Washington, but they are becoming increasingly rare).  That's what it's been about through history - who has the power and who is going to exploit it?  Until America came along and said - "No, the power goes to the little guy," it's how Rome and the Middle East and all of Europe and China ran themselves - they set up one all powerful leader and erased any kind of Higher Power - and look how that's going for them now (and how it will be going for us soon if we aren't careful).

Guess what?  I have a God - and it ain't the United States Congress and it sure as hell ain't the President.  And my God's power isn't going to run out at the end of a 4-year or a 6-year term.  In fact, God gave these leaders their power and He's looking to see how they're going to handle it.  And He gave me my power and He's looking to see how I'm handling it.  Honestly, I have no control over how those individual politicians conduct themselves or the choices they make.  I do have control over what I do (contrary to what Dr. Utopia, Princess Pelosi and Dingy Harry want to accomplish) and I hope I do my Heavenly Father proud (or "well-pleased," if you prefer).

I have little faith in government and, after today, I feel justified in that respect.  The American people yelled out loud and clear that we don't want this mess, but they went ahead and did it anyway.  In case you missed it in your 1st Grade Civics class, that's not how this works.  The elected officials represent the people - not talk down to us like we're a bunch of two-year-olds.  Would you talk to your boss that way?  We voters are these politicians' boss - and they'd better remember that this November.

Oh, and if you want something to pick you up, go watch "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson (I DVR'd it edited).  I was watching it earlier today and watching that depiction of the Revolutionary War motivated me.  The lengths that people went to be out from under tyranny (and the British were tyrants - don't let the watered-down version of history fool you) were astounding and I think it's foolish to presume that we have to give anything less.  Our country is falling apart - but it can be saved if we act in time.  One of my mission companions said "Don't just die for the gospel - live for it."  I want to apply it here - Don't just die for your country - live for it.

And friends, the time to live for it is now.  Here's a place to start.  And there are others.  Write or call your representatives and chew their butts out (in a nice, dignified way, of course).  Educate yourself.  Start with history - try this book out.  If you can't afford it, get it from your library.  If your library doesn't have it, get it through Inter-Library Loan, which all libraries have (I'm a Library Science major - I know these things).  Donate your time and money to worthy campaigns.  Go to rallies.  Ways to help aren't hard to find if you care to look (half the time, you don't even have to try to look).  Get involved.  Now.

I didn't intend this to be a call to action, but it ended up being that.  And it's your choice what you do now.  But I've said my peace and I'll leave it at that.

Political Rant Ahead!  If you're having a good day and want it to continue as such, move along down the flist. You have been warned.

Arggh! Mitt Romney just dropped out of the presidential race! (well, he "suspended" his campaign, but I don't know what difference that makes).  What's the betting the Huckster  (yes, I'm calling him "the Huckster."  Deal with it) drops out tomorrow?  That's the only reason that dupe was still in the race - to bring down Romney for the crazy "moderate" John "Gotta Have My Finger on the Button" McCain.  I hope all you Huckabee voters are happy (I'm lookin' at you, West Virginia).  You let the Chargers (McCain) beat the Colts (Romney) and let the Patriots (Hillary or Obama) into the Super Bowl.  This time, though, there's no New York Giants to pull the upset.

You watch: the Democrats are going to make McCain out to be this crazy idiot.  The states that McCain won are NOT going to go for him in the general election (New York? New Jersey? California? Puh-leeze...)  By the time this is over, the mainstream media is going to have John McCain looking like Bobby Knight (notoriously temper-prone and insane former college basketball coach).

I think it's funny that the conservative crowd were upset when Romney said he was suspending his campaign.  What's even more funny (when I say "funny," I mean "extremely nauseating") is that the Huckster is supposedly "just as" conservative as Romney, and yet, it looks like McCain is a lock.  What does that tell you?

What these establishment Republicans sellouts don't get is that the CONSERVATIVES are the base of the party and they've been kicking us around for years and simply assuming we'd show up for them and vote for them like good little red-staters.


What this really amounts to (and nobody will admit it, except for perceptive people calling into talk radio programs) is that the Evangelicals won't ever vote for a Mormon (one caller even went so far as to call this attitude "bigoted" - and this was a caller from a program in Colorado, not Utah).  Even if that Evangelical is a guy like Huckabee - who actually has made bigoted statements toward the LDS Church in public (and gotten laughs from it, even.  McCain's even worse.  So much for freedom of religion).  I knew that Huckabee wasn't conservative, even before I knew about his vicious attacks on my religion.

So, here's what it amounts to: I can't in good faith vote for someone who either (A) has no respect for me because of my religion or (B) is going to send my country to hell in a handbasket.  Huckabee is A (he and his Evangelical friends have actually come to Salt Lake to protest at General Conference and to tell us Mormons that we're going to hell - the Southern Baptists had a big conference in 1996 just for that purpose and Huckabee was in the mix), McCain and Hillary are A and B, and Obama is B (he actually had the decency to cancel his campaign trip to Utah last Saturday out of respect for President Hinckley's funeral).  My choices are basically zilch.

Well, I do have one choice: mount a write-in campaign for Mickey Mouse.  Yup, that'll work. 

MICKEY MOUSE FOR PRESIDENT!!

(Take heart my right-wing friends and learn from history: Without Jimmy Carter selling the country downriver, the country would not have let Ronald Reagan emerge to clean house).

(I'm glad that I'm going on a mission - as of next week, I don't have to deal with anymore of this political crap).