One Sentence for Each Year of My Life

Life

I will admit that this one stinks because I already wrote about my life year by year on my blog at WordPress.com. If anyone is interested, please feel free to browse at your leisure at laurieanichols.wordpress.com.

Generation X Simply Doesn’t Get It

Very good points and an excellent question and answer.How did we get here? Greed is the answer partly, fear is another part of the answer. Those two answers are very poor reasons to base public policy on, yet that is what has happened. Why has the finance industry dominated the job market, the so called opportunit­y to make increasing­ly crazy boat loads of money, why be a brilliant engineer or scientist for no money and be in debt for years when you can apply your intelligen­ce to gaming the markets? The fear factor has led us to political policies that demonized us in the Middle East and also led our government to adopt policies curtailing our civil liberties while fostering a suspicious stance onto the “other”, sending further divisivene­ss onto our society. These issues will need a lot of courage, strength and conviction to be reversed and for as long as it took to become entrenched in society, it will take as long to be undone. Which is why the dialogue must continue and the questions continued to be asked and asked again, if the answer doesn’t seem right. It will be a challenge but that is what this country was forged by challenges being met and better things coming from that.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama’s Nominee For Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Ensnared In Political Fight

The GOP is being ridiculous at this point, the agency is essential for our citizens and the only ones who need protecting are not the banks but the citizens for whom the agency is designed for, as is evidenced in all the lawsuits against the banks going on right now because of their wrongful doing. If we had had an agency in place previously­, many mortgage customers perhaps wouldn’t have been taken in by the banks practicall­y giving away loans. The banks wouldn’t be trembling in their portfolio’­s right now because the damages being sought against them if they lose will bring them down. Not that I’m worried for them, it serves them right. They behaved with criminal indifferen­ce in trying to manipulate the housing, mortgage and insurance industries for their own ill-gotten gains.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tonight’s Republican Debate: The 19th Century or the Stone Age?

I understand how many progressiv­es and liberals are disenchant­ed with president Obama. That he doesn’t speak with enough anger and that he seeks to spread the blame across the board instead of placing it on the right side, which funny enough, happens to be to the extreme right. In his defense we do forget 2 especially infuriatin­g turn coats, Ben Nelson and Lieberman and a few others as well. However, how do we come to terms with the fact that despite 8 long years of bad economic and political policies, a good portion of our voting populace votes the republican­s in? Also, let us not forget those who instead of doing their job, stay at home and then complain that the country is not moving in the right direction. It’s not just the President that we vote in, it’s also the congress and the senate, if we vote in a crazy group, then what can we expect? Add into the mix, the right wing activist Supreme Court, who let in every rich person on a let’s buy a campaign shopping spree, with their horrible Citizen’s United ruling, and we have a recipe for a long and drawn out battle for 2012. I am still trusting in President Obama do try to do what he can to get us back to a stronger place.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tim Pawlenty: Mitt Romney Currently Appears To Be Strongest Candidate To Run Against Obama (VIDEO)

I saw him on Colbert last night and he hinted that he realized that he wasn’t what people wanted. I would have liked him to elaborate further and say that honestly, he couldn’t fake it for the tea party crowd. He was funny and witty and you could tell that when he was running, he wasn’t being “authentic­” (to quote from Oprah) and people got that. Bachmann and Perry seem to be pretty authentic which makes me want to run for the hills and Romney doesn’t have what it takes to be President. He didn’t do well in MA with jobs but he did see the need for universal health coverage so thank you Mitt. I just wish, it would have had a public option, but who knows, if Vermont’s foray into the public option is successful maybe MA will be able to follow suit?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Write your bucket list.

Tags

postaday2011

My mother and aunt are going on a great trip to visit the Grand Canyon and the surrounding sights. I would like that to be on my bucket list.
I hope that I have the determination and fortitude to write a book, that is the most important item of my bucket list.
I would like to be a grandmother.
I would like to see an opera.
I would like to visit Thailand.
I would like to go back to school for a M.A.and perhaps a PH.D in political science.
I would love to buy a fixer-upper in Le Canon in France and make it my dream house.
I would love to go snow skiing out west either in Colorado or Utah.
I would love to take a voyage on the Orient Express all the way to the very end.
I would love to go down the Amazon.
I think that I’ll stop for now because this list is pretty ambitious enough, I don’t want to make my bucket list out of reach and then it is no longer about the adventures but about checking off the list itself.

If I Could Say Anything without Consequence

The Kentucky Crying Turtle, Mitch McConnell

I would sit down with Mitch McConnell and tell him that he and his ilk are destroying the American dream for the majority of us because of all the wrong headed economic policies that only benefit the ultra rich, big banks, big business and oil companies. The increasing income gap is making it impossible for the middle class to live beyond paycheck to paycheck. I want him to understand my anger with him and to let him know that this isn't just his country but mine too and I will be heard!