UU Mom

I was in a car accident on Tues morning on the way to work. It was a "fender-bender" but with a modern fender that doesn't bend. I was shaken. They asked if I was fine. I said, "I'm shaken and nervous, but otherwise I seemed OK - it's hard to tell." I proceded to go to school and have a bit of a stressful day. I work with a deaf assistant and my sign language skills are not high. We were unexpectedly monitored at the end of the day, which added to our stress, but we seemed to pass with flying colors.

The stress of the car accident and possible injury to the brain (found later in a Cat Scan) were finally felt when I went home. Doctors say some of what I've been dealing with (tmjd & acute tinnitus) may stem back to a car accident two years ago. So I went to the hospital Tues. night. They said the condition I had could keep me hospitalized for a month, but I was out in 3 days.

I have a strong will. I'm sorry I was so difficult to my husband, because I didn't want to go to the hospital. As they say, a hospital is no place for the sick. Well, I guess I was wrong about that because they did help me and I'm so much better than I was on Tues. By doctor's orders I can't drive until they OK it. First to get the results from the MRI. I had a vision while in the hospital and plan to write a book... in due time.

More later to certain LJ friends only, reply here if you'd like to be one of those friends.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY EVERYONE - ALL YOU NURTURERS AND MOTHER TYPES, WHETHER OR NOT YOU'RE A "REAL" MOTHER.

I posted here prince_georges (click the Read More link to see the entire post about "I believe a change is coming!") for the Blog Carnival of Maryland, but then I found that the Blog Carnival site's down & has been down for at least the past hour. Also, I posted my first poll on this site: pg_race_matters - PLEASE TAKE THE POLL & spread the word - if it's not at the top of that community any longer, it is here. I don't know if there's a time-limit on polls, but hopefully it can stay active as long as I'd like it to be. If you happen to know about the length of LJ polls, please let me know.

I have some friends who are Hillary supporters, but I couldn't resist this:

Justin's "Wedding" album is here for family members who haven't already seen it. He's not married yet, just recently engaged.

Cindy asked me to link (or at least, that's what I thought) and here's my explanation to why I'm linking here for now: Lap top hard drive crashed which had all my memorized username and passwords on it for all my web sites. Foolish me! They're not all in one place, but they're around here somewhere. I don't have time to search for them right now, because we haven't finished our taxes yet & need the historic tax credit, too, so we've a lot of form-filing and numbers-gathering work to do. I'm also substitute teaching full-time until the end of the school year.

So for now, the link is here, and in the future will be on my photo page of my personal site if they indeed do want a link, though may have been mistaken.

In response to Hillary Clinton's concerns about Barack Obama:

I think it's a shame that politicians need to speak about religion, but that is the state of our country. I was happy to hear the liberal religious side for a change. If you didn't see the Compassion Forum, here's a quick run down (I'm putting daring statements in bold):

Clinton went first & was asked about her criticism about Barack's statement about people being bitter. She said Barack should speak for himself & he does an excellent job of that, but then she said religious people shouldn't be criticized. They asked her again & she said it raises concerns because it sounds elitist & patronizing.

Watch part 1 of Hillary's interview here.

Obama answered questions about his "people are bitter" statement saying that he has been told from many people on the campaign trail that they are bitter. They don't think the government is listening to them. He didn't criticize Clinton, but he made fun of himself being clumsy with words on the campaign trail & that people tend to criticize each other during campaigns. Obama answered about abortion & said they can come to a common ground by acknowledging that it is a moral dilemma & that abortions need to be reduced & people should know that adoption is an option.

Both Hillary & Barack spoke of being good Christians. Hillary said she has felt the support & love of God & Barack said he tries to live by his faith & the core values of every great religion, being his brother's keeper.

Watch part 1 of Barack's interview here.
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McCain was invited to this forum, but he declined to attend. Today the news is reporting that the Federal Election Commission is failing to function.

The Interfaith Alliance's response to this forum was:

The Compassion Forum was essentially a public interview for the job of President of the United States. And if it had been an interview for any other job in America, a good number of the questions asked would have been downright illegal.

Article VI of the Constitution promises that, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” So why did the Compassion Forum’s moderators ask about Senator Clinton’s belief in the Trinity, and what Senator Obama would tell his children about creationism?

Americans would be much better served by hearing Senators Clinton and Obama talk about how they will respect their constituents’ religious diversity and how they plan to balance their private faith with their public oath to uphold the Constitution and the separation of religion and government.

Many important issues were discussed Sunday night. I only wish the moderators had pushed the candidates to elaborate on issues like teaching intelligent design in our public schools and government-funded religion paid for by your tax dollars, rather than asking questions that do little to move the national conversation on faith in public life forward.

Find out what questions The Interfaith Alliance would have asked the candidates.

Also their interviews of the candidates can be viewed from this link.

Top 10 Moments in the Race for "Pastor-in-Chief"



In response The Interfaith Alliance asks:

On his campaign literature, Senator Obama identifies himself as a “Committed Christian.”

Is that a reason that anyone should vote for him? And is he implying such a characterization cannot be assigned to Senator Clinton?

Senator Clinton has called for injecting faith into policy.

We must ask, “How?” take the conflict in the Middle East for example, Does she view it from the perspective of a literalistic interpretation of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible?

Senator McCain has said that the U.S. Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation.

Do either or both of the other two candidates agree with that conclusion of revisionist historians? Will the candidates rescind the executive orders that created and funded the so-called Faith-Based Initiative and thus return the nation’s leadership to compliance with the Constitution?

How will they relate their respective moral and religious views to pressing problems such as:
the war in Iraq
the economy
health care, and
public education?

Watch the Compassion Forum on CNN Sunday at 8 PM to find out!

I wouldn't have been aware of this if I wasn't teaching - the kids in the class across the hall are studying endangered species & I was a bit surprised about butterflies so decided to look it up. I found this recent article in the Washington Post. OK, I wasn't surprised that listings have declined due to the Bush administration.

My father was a conservative & he thought it was crazy to put Florida alligators on the list, because they could walk up into people's backyards and threaten them. I think there was more hype about this than fact, though, as they're slow on the land & you have to be pretty close to them & usually bothering them in some way in order for them to hurt you. What do you think their biggest threat is? Man, of course! It was successful, though, as they were taken off the list since they're now thriving.

I have to look at this page later about endangered species in Maryland.

...in a cappella here: http://influks.com/post1562.html

I joined Stumbleupon: http://joyced.stumbleupon.com/ but most of what I've found are videos & YouTube is down for maintenance.

If you didn't see The Daily Show on March 18 after Obama's race speech and have a high-speed connection, you might be interested in seeing a couple of the skits from that night. The one I particularly like is Open Discussion where Jon has a discussion about race with Larry Wilmore, his "black senior correspondent". It doesn't sound too unlike the race dialogs we've had at my church (in a humorous way). Barack's Wright Response preceded the dialog & there are several other videos there if you want to look for some laughs or interviews.

Great quote! It's at the end of this article, There's Nothing Wrong with Rev. Wright.

My minister's sermon today was nothing like most Easter sermons. The title of his sermon was "YOU WERE MADE TO BE REBORN" about Mithraism, a religion which is considered pagan that was in practice in the first century BCE. He also fit in the controversy about Barack Obama's minister. If you're interested, his sermons will be podcasted at: http://dmuuc.libsyn.com/

I was going to blog against theocracy, but it's kind of late now. Ignore the 2007 welcome message - the latest links are to 2008 posts - most today. It's to promote separation of church and state. I support Americans United. Maybe I'll blog about it next year.

In two weeks, I'll be doing the Maryland Blog Carnival. If you're blogging about something related in a publicly open post, you can submit it to the carnival here: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1134.html

I wrote about it while I was watching CNN. There are links, quotes and some comments there, but I don't comment much: pg_race_matters

"The autonomic reaction to tinnitus often results in... inability to pay attention to issues other than tinnitus." ( Read more... )

"Only you have the power to make no difference." - Li'l Bush (I haven't watched it, but I like that quote.)

This is new to me! If you know about these things personally, I'd be interested in knowing your opinion of them and how they apply. I certainly believe in a diversity of thought and that people with differences in abilities have worth and should be treated fairly (though it's not always clear what "fair" is). So I find this interesting: Neurodiversity and Autism Rights Movement.

I learned about it at thedailyshow at "Stewart to host autism benefit" (posted March 10).

The article is here. The video being referred to is here: Obama vs Clinton Hollywood Democratic Debate 3.

It's one of those "internet phenomena stories". The article says:

The Ghanaian-born musician never imagined his video-recorded response would end up on Youtube....“You won’t believe how many messages I’ve gotten…in particular, from high school kids,” said Ashong, 32. “They believe in the political process in a way that I don’t think members of my generation have in my lifetime.” He’s become something of a rock star overnight with phone calls from the press and emails requesting him to speak at various functions....

Check it out.

Pennsylvania, Guam, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Oregon, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, Montana, South Dakota are the states that are left for the Democratic primaries. I have a friend who's going to PA for the Obama campaign; I wish I could, but with the TMJD, & some high blood pressure lately, I need to watch my stress levels.

Any way, here's a good music video worth sharing. This one from Mighty Sparrow (if you can hear & understand the words) includes information about Obamas policies & even explains some of the arguments against him (& if you can't understand the lyrics, here's a link to the lyrics and if you want to share it via email, use this: http://tinyurl.com/2dlr7y ):

When I was reading the Maryland Blog Carnival, I found the below logo which links to the original blog about it


My minister was in the paper again in support of BGLT rights - he's going to talk to other county ministers about it. Sounds interesting!

Also, I wanted to keep a record here of my Comcast problems. This time (early last week) they REALLY did something to fix it - they tightened loose connections on the line and put up weatherproofing (can you imagine - all this time it wasn't weather-proofed!). No problems this weekend with all the rain and wind.

I took time off in the fall and part of the winter for my TMJ which the doctors and I both thought was an ear infection, so I needed to catch up on web site and other volunteer work (haven't been subbing), but my son had the recorded series of Lost. We've now finished the first 3 seasons (in about 3 weeks) & caught up to the 5th show of the 4th season. Good show - I would have struggled getting through the first 3 seasons week-by-week, but I'm OK with it now.

I got my mouth piece 2 weeks ago for TMJ and feel a little bit better (maybe, sometimes) - pain is so subjective. I thought about measuring it somehow, but the doctor said it's too subjective. Race, who has tinnitus from noise as a teen and young adult (probably mostly music), tested his ear-ringing to the white noise of radio static and got -49 db, whereas from the same place just after him, I tested at -20 db (a heck of a lot louder). Still it's not considered subjective and it's best to try to ignore it. Since tinnitus is in the small nerves, I have to clear up the larger nerves first which, I guess will take a while. I'm not totally used to the mouthpiece even though I wear it during the day sometimes, too. My right shoulder is less tight and the pressure in my ear is less noticeable when I wear it. I got it adjusted today, so maybe it will be even better so it doesn't press against a molar or eye tooth. The dentist, who created the device because he has TMJ, says his neck still cracks and jaw pops sometimes when he doesn't wear it (he can't wear it while he works and probably only wears it at night).

This was supposed to be quick. I have a meeting tonight - a lot going on in the county & state with new bills - I post about those here: prince_georges and will post more when I have time. I've been watching the national politics, too, and wondering about the Super Delegates, so I had a good read here, thanks to cheetahmaster.

I try to keep singing; keeps the stress down, though it also exercises the jaw, so I haven't been doing it quite as much as usual. I will be singing at the event post here: pg_race_matters (open mic coffee house)

Well, I heard that the weather report said we wouldn't get much snow accumulation, but it's coming down pretty steady here & accumulating. If it wasn't for driving around on slippery roads where people don't know how to drive well, it wouldn't be a problem. The public schools closed for afterschool activities, so the civic association is not meeting tonight. I wasn't planning to attend any way because I had a class to teach on "Building the World We Dream About" at church; luckily, my co-teacher said she could teach it alone IF anyone does show up.

BTW, here's a photo I found as I was checking the weather report (taken Dec. 11, 2007):


So I won't be able to look at the moon eclipse either, but I do have a lot of work to do. I have a couple of paying clients that need some attention, I'm in the middle of setting up a message board for the new volunteer IT team at my church, and I have to move sites off the old server which is going down - luckily, I've found I have until the END of March to do it - whew!

And, just for the record, Comcast was out again to fix the cable TV. This time it was suspected that it was a metal connector that didn't belong. It seems unlikely that that was the problem, but it's working again (On Demand was primarily the problem & intermittent).