Candy can change behavior, but condoms will not…

If you are aware of the news, you may have heard about the Proviencetown, Massachutes town that has a new policy of passing out condoms to Elementary Students. That’s right… children from the ages of 5 to 10. To read the New York Daily News article click here… That right… condoms will be passed out to children ages 5 to 10… I had to say it twice because it is hard to conceive!

This is a quote from the article:

According to the Provincetown Banner, the program requires that students speak to a school nurse or trained counselor before receiving condoms.
The committee also directed school leaders not to honor demands from parents who object to their kids receiving protection.
Some members on the committee were wary because the program requires that students speak to school officials first.

So to make this plain… only requirement needed to get a condom for a 6 year old: speak to a school nurse or trained counselor; The Committee (sounds so Kremlinish) is not to listen to the objections of the parents; and the wariness of The Kremlinish Committee is that the children have to speak to someone first. I’ll break this down on two points:

First, complaints are made continually of Parents not being involved in their children’s school lives, but according to The Kremlinish Committee, their input isn’t wanted.

Secondly, the children shouldn’t even have to speak to someone, according to The Kremlinish Committee, but a bowl of available condoms should just be sitting there. At 6 years old, Johnny and Susie can’t really read, but we want to encourage behaviors which should first be given in marriage, and importantly only to adults.

Contrarily,

On June 24th, Candy Cigarettes were banned by the FDA (Click here for the full article)… The article states:

The ban is a part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act. Officials have been arguing for years to eliminate candycigarettes because of the likelihood that children would eventually move on to the real thing.

A recent poll revealed that 22 percent of current or one-time smokers ate candy cigarettes during their childhood. On the contrary, just 14 percent of non-smokers used the fake cigarettes.

National concern has erupted to prevent the sale and distribution of (for the love of pete!!!) CANDY CIGARETTES, because this behavior could cause them to, let’s repeat again, “move on to the real thing”! WOW!

So in America, as of June 24th, for a 6 YEAR OLD (specifically in Providencetown)…

IT’S ILLEGAL TO EAT CANDY CIGARETTES; BUT HAVE ALL THE CONDOMS YOU WANT!

Candy cigarettes are so subtle and devious to the undermining of the values of a child. Actually what undermines their values is erroneous values that even a 6 year old can see through.

I’ve very thankful that as a child I never had access to condoms… but we did have candy cigarettes!

Why women shouldn’t drive… but that doesn’t count for Mama…

My last post about texting and driving brought up some good discussions, tweets, and comments from friends. The one perspective from points three and four was that possibly women shouldn’t drive.

There has been much discussion for many years about whether or not, women are safer drivers than men. I with all my consciousness believe they are.

I remember as a child, my Mother driving, smoking, drinking orange juice, all the while feeding my brother (the natural method, not a bottle), correcting my sister and I, and carrying on conversations with invisible people. I’d always ask, “who are you talking to?” To which she replied… “I’m just thinking out loud.” That wan’t entirely true either, since she wasn’t making sounds. Also if you think out loud, and are yelling it out, are your thoughts that loud in your head? If they are, that would hurt! These are the thoughts that I wondered about many times while riding in the car at age seven, of course I was without a seat belt.

At that time, we didn’t have seat belts, in cars. Well we actually did, but no one used them, especially in the back seats. We always pushed them into the seat and had discussions as to what contraption they were when we were looking for lost food or money. Being seven my hands and arms were small enough to fit down there. When we would ask what they were, Mama would tell us to put them back so they wouldn’t hurt us. She was always looking out for us! A great Mother.

She also did all this in a 1964 Plymouth Valiant! No that was a car too. It had an engine called a “Slant 6“ which was a golden motor that always ran. I can still remember that big car. Occassionally, we would take long trips, and at night I would sleep on the back dash, above the back seat, looking out the back window at the stars, and listening to whatever was on the radio. I distinctly remember Ray Stevens song, “The Streak”, and at seven not having a clue what Ethel should’t be looking at. I found out later, and the song just didn’t have the same meaning.

I miss those days of long trips to South Georgia and South Carolina in that Plymouth when women could easily multi-task while driving. Then again men could too, but there wasn’t as much amazement to it. When you are five you believe your parents can do anything… come to think of it, I still do believe that for the most part.

If I was five today, I’d know that my Mom would be comfortable in an SUV driving, breast feeding my brother, smoking, drinking orange juice, adjusting the radio, and TEXTING… NO QUESTION!

If she could do all that when I was five without power steering… she could text today too!?

Picture of what Freedom looks like…

Korean Peninsula

Donald Rumsfeld’s words, at the unveiling of painting of him at the Pentagon,  were captured :

“Some might ask how our country has endured?  Well, it should be no mystery.  It is because we are a free people, blessed with a free political and a free economic system – Where we are: free to think and act; to believe and protest; to vote and petition; and, yes free to succeed, to fail, and to start again.

“The night satellite image of the Korean Peninsula, my favorite as many of you know well, captured many miles above the earth, tells the whole story.  Below the 38th parallel, South Korea is bathed in the light of dozens of cities, monuments to that nation’s freedom.  In one of the most successful economies in the world, millions of South Koreans go about their work, creating opportunity and prosperity for themselves and their families. North of the DMZ is darkness.  There live exactly the same people, with the same natural resources.  But those millions of Koreans labor not for themselves or their families, but for a regime that enslaves them.

“The stark difference between the free and the unfree is illuminated in that picture.  The boundless energy of human beings is most assuredly not unleashed by governments of boundless power.  That energy is unleashed only by free political institutions and free economic systems.”