I’m getting tired comment spam. I admit I get a little warm fuzzy feeling knowing that the spammers think they are getting a link from posting a comment when in fact I have to approve any comments. The email notifications are a waste of bandwidth and I should really turn them off. Meanwhile, if these spammers had decent products they wouldn’t have to resort to such underhanded methods.
The New York Times has an interesting article today about the increase in sports related injuries among kids. Kids are training so hard these days and focusing all their efforts on one sport that many have injusries or surgeries that were previously seen only among older people and pro athletes. At work, I’ve read quite a bit about the competitiveness of college admissions and I bet the sports focus has relation to that situation. So many kids only play one sport and play it year round in different leagues plus summer training camps. It’s a new trend, where previously kids played a different sport each season or played non-organized pick up games — maybe football one day and basketball the next. Playing different sports helps kids avoid wear and tear on one particualr area, like shoulders or knees. There is an up side, though. There’s a whole new market for “injury prevention” specialists to help with training and conditioning kids to “reduce overuse injuries” and “correct muscle imbalances brought on by overtraining in a single sport.”
She ran up the path through the trees, her running shoes slipping on the poor footing. The sound her feet made on the dirt sounded like “los-er, los-er, los-er.” Her throat hurt from tears that came not from her eyes, but streamed in sweat from her forehead, back, and chest. With her eyes shut tight, she forced her body to go faster up the hill. Lungs burning. Legs numb. Head spinning.
Crumbling under a tree at the top, she pounded her fists on the ground. When she was done, she leaned back and let the tree support her. She took a deep breath. The smell of eucalyptus infused her and released tight red bands of tension into the blue sky. Another deep breath and she could detect the salty undertones of the ocean in her nose and on her tongue.
She stood up. She had no one to blame but herself. But she was also the only one who could make a change. Facing west, she straightened her back and looked up the path. There was only one way to go, and that was forward.
written for the this week’s Writing Parent creative challenge, “Attitude.”
I love Spamusement.
It’s very funny.
Why do people steal? I have had possession and money stolen several times. Sure, you could say that it’s my own fault for not protecting my belongings. But is it? Should I have to live in a constant state of defensive living, watching over everything I own obsessively? Or should I expect people to have some sort of respect for each other and the society we live in?
Recently, when I was in bed sick, I was flipping through the channels. I came across one of those oh-so-trendy design shows. I don’t remember the name, and it doesn’t really matter. What pissed me off (so much so that I am actually using that word) was that the “hip” designer made it seem like a cool thing to do to buy things off the back of a truck in NYC. Are you kidding me? Now it’s cool to buy someone’s stolen stuff… and the bonus is that it encourages the theives by giving them a market.
The same situation has completely turned me off of eBay, as well. I can’t help but wonder where all these sellers get their “new in box” merchandise. I’m sure some come upon it legitimately — I’m certainly not saying that all eBay sellers are criminals — but some sellers have way too many brand new pottery barn rugs from the current catalog that they are willing to sell at a fraction of the price.
It all just makes me wonder who bought my stolen stuff off the back of a truck somewhere, thinking “hey what a great deal” instead of thinking that it was stuff that meant something to someone. Hey people who buy stolen crap — next time it could be your crap that’s being stolen and sold. Stop supporting the criminals.
Lifetime Television is sponsoring a petition urging Congress to ban “drive-through mastectomies” — the practice in which women are forced out of the hospital sometimes only hours after breast cancer surgery. So far they have collected over 10 million signatures!
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will re-introduce bi-partisan legislation to end this practice. According the the Lifetime Television web site, the legislation would “require insurance companies to cover a 48-hour minimum stay for mastectomy patients and a 24-hour stay for a woman undergoing a lymph node dissection. The legislation ensures that a doctor and a patient will make a decision together about staying at a hospital after a mastectomy.”
Currently, women must leave the hospital while still in pain, groggy with anesthesia and with drainage tubes still in place - -and against the advice of their doctors.
To sign the petition, visit the Lifetime Television web site.
According the the ASPCA web site:
[T]he Burns Amendment to the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act opened the door to the slaughter of thousands of our wild horses. The Burns Amendment was inserted in a must-pass appropriations bill last year, and forced the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service to allow individuals and corporations to buy these animals with the clear intention of slaughtering them for profit.
For 33 years they were protected. Now they can be killed and their meat sent to France, Belgium and Japan for human consuption. Do we really need this export?
A new bill, called the Rahall-Whitfield legislation, would restore the bans on commercial sale and slaughter of these beautiful and “historically significant” animals. Find out more and send a letter to your representative by visiting the ASPCA web site.