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Rants & Raves 1.31

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Written by Kristin Chapman

January 31, 7:15 AM

Here it is, Rants! & Raves!, your weekly chance to sound off about the week past. Remember the rules:

1. A Rave! is something that happened during the past week that you’re pleased about and is signified by the word “Rave!” and/or an appropriately peppy emoticon.

2 A Rant! is something that happened during the past week that you’re ticked about and is signified by the word “Rant!” and/or an appropriately grumpy emoticon.

3. You may Rant! about something a person said, did or wrote, but you may not Rant! about generally disliking a person.

Have fun!

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back to top42 Comments to “Rants & Raves 1.31”

BY kBells 01.31.09 AT 8:04 AM

The kid had a his theatrical debut last night portraying the spider that sat down beside Miss Muffet. Everything went well, two curtain calls. The critics (Grandma and MeMaw) declared the performance brilliant and adorable.

I caught Hubby’s cold and he took the DayQuil with him to work.
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BY Chas 01.31.09 AT 8:11 AM

I remember the sports page headline at Super Bowl II.
“Coaches Hope For Normalcy this year”.
The headline this morning:
Super Bowl XLIII Coaches Hope for Normalcy.

I’m looking for a headline that says FEMA sending Ice Storm Relief. It didn’t make it in today’s paper. Of course, Obama will not be blamed for the 42 deaths so far. How many million deaths did Bush cause in Katrina?
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BY kBells 01.31.09 AT 8:29 AM

Chas, I’m pretty sure Bush did something to cause the ice storm before he left office.
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BY TJ 01.31.09 AT 9:11 AM

Got hit will about 8 inches of snow and ice this week.
It still hasn’t melted yet.
Didn’t lose power this time, so that’s a good thing.
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BY KI 01.31.09 AT 9:41 AM

KBells, How fun for you all! We so enjoyed watching our children’s many plays and performances. Of course, they all had brilliant and adorable performances too.

My parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this week!

We are heading to the zoo with the grandsons and our daughter.

My grandson already beat me in Dutch Blitz this morning.

It made him VERY happy.
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BY SteveG 01.31.09 AT 9:48 AM

Chas and KBells cyncism. I did a quick Google search and found that (1) FEMA is on the scene, but not in great numbers yet and (2) there’s no shortage of criticism for the response.

Add to that that everybody knew Katrina was coming for days before she hit, and that many of the deaths that some people blame Bush’s FEMA for happened in the days and weeks after the storm when it’s not unreasonable to expect a coordinated response to be in place, and the politicization is obvious.

The bitterness is really disheartening.
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BY hantheroo 01.31.09 AT 9:55 AM

After my whinging last week, I didn’t comment on anything this week.

But I did get a nice welcome. Thanks, y’all.

Pontification ad Nauseam had a good week.

The children I babysit begged me to read them the Chronicles of Narnia. I was happy to oblige.
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BY michelle 01.31.09 AT 10:59 AM

WHere in northern California, we go into mandatory water rationing in the next couple weeks–we need to use 30-50% below last year’s levels.

Last year’s rationing required us to cut our water usage by 15% below the previous year.

We have six people living in our house right now, I’m concerned our water limit will be for three.

The birds are back. Two month early. What does that mean? Why did they leave the south so soon?

The weather is glorious.

The trees are blooming

The trees are blooming two months early.

We’re going to a crab feed tonight.
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BY michelle 01.31.09 AT 11:01 AM

I apparently can’t edit on the screen today . . .
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BY RPN 01.31.09 AT 11:48 AM

RANT ODS: Obama Derangement Syndrome has been all over World making this a dystopia.

RAVE Fresh pow-pow in the mountains means I’ll have great skiing today!
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 12:44 PM

We finally got our entire newsroom packed up and (presumably) moved to our new location as of this morning. A nice, new office space to junk up now. (Reporters are notorious for this.)

Furloughs. We all have to take 5 days off without pay between now and March 30. My first one is this Monday, at least they’re allowing us to break them up into different pay periods. But the short pay it still creates problems for many of us. And that’s not the end of it, we very likely will see more furloughs, layoffs and/or a substantial pay cut by spring. There’s simply no good news coming out of the newspaper biz these days, we feel like we’re in a free-fall with the ground fast approaching.

Got my replacement iPhone this week. Bittersweet, to say the least. And I’m almost paranoid now that I’ll either lose or damage this one. I still have to get it synched up to my computer, will do that today.

Got rear-ended (on the same day I got the iphone & learned about the furloughs). Arrrg.

No one was hurt and the car damage was not too bad. My insurance company, State Farm, has been great. And the other insurance company (Mercury) quickly accepted full responsibility and has even agreed to advance me my $500 deductible so I won’t have to pay that. My Jeep Liberty should be ready to be picked up from the body shop late Wednesday, it needed a new tailgate door, there was also some bumper damage & damage to the wheel on the spare tire on the back.

My rental is a little Nissan Sentra, very satisfactory (if low to the ground from what I’m used to), again all covered by insurance. All in all, a fairly minor calamity, although it pretty much capped off that particular day for me. Still, it could have been so much worse. God is good.
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BY fisherman 01.31.09 AT 12:52 PM

RANT I’m anxious to see our new foreign policy diplomacy work wonders with the hoodlums around the world. When they get those things fixed they can come back and carry on their diplomacy with the hoodlums in Chicago and other places in the US. Or maybe they should demonstrate here how their diplomacy works to bring peace to our cities then we could have more confidence that it will work in the world. Just think of all the lives that could have been saved if only someone would have negotiated with Hitler.
Yes, God does negotiate (and with great Grace), but He also carries a very big stick. And a big stick is the only thing that some of us understand.

RAVE What an amazing privilege to live in this time and place. I certainly have not earned the easy life I have had. I can only trust (with certainty) that He knows just what He is doing.
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 12:55 PM

The CBS program 48 Hours (10 p.m. tonight) will feature our police reporter in an hourlong segment about a local murder our paper covered extensively. When a preview came on yesterday on the newsroom TV, all of us erupted in applause when Larry came on.
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BY llama 01.31.09 AT 1:16 PM

Lucy Doxie Dog and I have walked over 100 miles together the last 30 days.

Over that time poor Lucy and I have been attacked 3 times by dogs off the leash even though there are leash laws that specifically forbid a dog owner to take their dog off the leash. We were attacked by two bulldogs working together as a hunting pack. In this incident, I was knocked to the ground and nearly of the side of a Superstition Mountain since we were on the Lost Dutchman’s trail at the time. The third time a pit bull attacked and poor Lucy tried to get away by pulling herself out of her collar and leash only to dart in front a car and nearly get hit. In both cases the owners said their dogs were very friendly, except for their want to eat me and my dog of course. These owners were under the age of 30 and tattooed heavily for some reason – one man and one woman adn she had a few piercings here and there. The third time a Rotty had gotten loose, since there was no owner in sight but I managed to get my dog in arms and kicked the Rotty in the face a couple of times until it got the point and ran off. I asked both owners who they voted for and they said Obama and I said that made complete sense since they too were criminals and insane. I’m sure the Rotty voted for Obama at leaast a couple of times too.

So I now will walk my dog with two signs, one over each of her flanks that read. ‘I was bred to be criminally stupid ‘ (since Doxies truly are bred to be stupid adn that should be a crime) on one side and ‘I voted for Obama on the other since Obama supporters are obviously bred to be criminally stupid as well’
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BY arcadia 01.31.09 AT 1:38 PM

Senator Daschle, long one of my favorite Dems, was very careless about his taxes. He also got paid lot of money by corps I don’t respect. He should withdraw his name as Secretary of HHS.
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BY llama 01.31.09 AT 1:52 PM

ARCADIA,

Sadly, It seems the few Dems that are supposed to pay taxes – don’t for some reason. Maybe it is only the ones socialists elect or appoint to office that feel they don’t have to pay taxes.
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BY michelle 01.31.09 AT 2:23 PM

Thank you for saying that, Arcadia.
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 2:40 PM

RPN, regarding “ODS”:

Ah, so now the tables have turned, have they? Hang on tight, pal. Four more years (minus 1+ weeks) to go. Or maybe 8 more years, Providence will tell.

Enjoy that ride.
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BY Cheryl D. 01.31.09 AT 3:35 PM

Llama got to hike the Superstition Mountains and I didn’t. (One of my favorite memories of my dad is hiking there together. Well, my mom and brother and sister went with us too, btu they all wimped out and Dad and I kept going!)
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BY Chas 01.31.09 AT 5:41 PM

The Gamecocks beat the Wildcats 78-77 in Rupp Arena!
Not history making, they did that once before. But beating Kentucky at home is a big deal. It was a good game, even if they had lost, it was a good game.
Purdue won too, but it wasn’t a big deal.
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BY Xion 01.31.09 AT 9:21 PM

Obama is considering Judd Gregg (R-NH) for commerce secretary.

It’s a trick. Governor John Lynch will then immediately appoint a Democrat giving them 60% of the vote. One party shall have complete and total power.

Barak’s empty bipartisanship mantra is simply a ploy for one party to grab even more power.
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BY contented-joy 01.31.09 AT 10:14 PM

Sorry about the dogs Llama. We hike alot as a family, and that’s the worst part of it. We asked the mailman what he uses to protect against vicious dogs, and he gave us some. I don’t guess it’d go over so well with the owners being there though.

We are surrounded by glittering icicles everywhere. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. The powerlines look like diamond necklaces.
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BY kBells 01.31.09 AT 10:25 PM

Llama, I need to ask the big stupid dog next door who he voted for. Since Drill says dogs and dead people usually vote Democrat I’m betting he voted for Obama too.
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 11:19 PM

My dogs are Democrats?
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BY Pauline 01.31.09 AT 11:31 PM

My 9-year-old son tripped and fell down the basement stairs

We just had new vinyl flooring put on the floor at the bottom of the stairs (a week ago it was bare concrete) – we bought a nice spongy kind that would be more comfortable to walk on, and I’m sure it was more comfortable to fall on also

He still broke a tooth (and left tooth marks in the vinyl floor), and bit through the bottom of his top lip

My 16-year-old son handled the situation very well. He says he was close to panic inside, but he called me on my cell phone, cleaned up the blood (he says there was quite a bit), got his brother a paper towel to hold against his lip to try to stop the bleeding, and had both of them ready to go when I got home.

Our dentist was home and offered to go in to the office to take a look at my son.

The lip required three stitches. I’ve never watched stitches being put in before, and it’s not pleasant to watch (after the first one I looked away mostly).

Both front teeth are slightly loose. The broken one will almost certainly require a root canal, he said, and possibly the other one also. We’ll have to go back in a couple days to get xrays taken.

My son dealt very well with the pain. He cried out a few times when the needle went in to give him the anesthetic, but the dentist said a lot of kids would not take it nearly as well. He let the dentist poke and prod and do what he needed to do. (He did throw up once, when the dentist tried to put something under the lip to numb it before sticking the needle in. But the dentist and I just cleaned him up and went on with things.)

Now he can only eat soft food for a couple days. I made mashed potatoes tonight, and bought yogurt and pudding for tomorrow. I’m not sure what we’ll due about lunch on Monday. Maybe he’ll have to take a lunch of yogurt and pudding and milk to school.
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 11:40 PM

Oh. oweee! Poor kid. He sounds like a real trooper, good thing you got that linoleum put in.

Tell him to hand in there!
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BY donna j 01.31.09 AT 11:56 PM

Uh, ‘hang’ in there, that shoulda read.
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BY KI 02.01.09 AT 10:13 AM

So sad to hear about your son’s accident, Pauline.

It’s nice the oldest is responsible and caring.

Thanks for good dentists and doctors. Our dentist is wonderful.
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BY Chas 02.01.09 AT 1:05 PM

Donna, I saw the program. Nobody is sorry that woman is dead, are they?

Today, George Beverly Shea is 100 years old.
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BY Chas 02.01.09 AT 1:08 PM

Pauline, sorry about your son. The bad thing about it happening at this age is that they have their adult teeth. My son fell off a bicycle at about that age and had to have temporary cap. At about 18, he had a permanent cap.
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BY Harris 02.01.09 AT 2:29 PM

Saw an old friend at church (in town, visiting his folks).

Some of the snow is melting.

Tight budget means I’m here instead of skiing.

Had some great teaching this a.m. on Zacheus.
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BY Victoria 02.01.09 AT 4:24 PM

Pauline, I so sorry about your sons lip and teeth – praying he won’t need a root canal.
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BY donna j 02.01.09 AT 5:32 PM

Chas: Seemingly not. She was something else, I remember when our reporter began getting menacing anonymous phone calls at home as he was writing about the case. He was a bit spooked, and probably for good cause.

Pauline: So how’s the patient today?

Wonderful sabbath day worship today, after several years we’ve finally finished our sermon series on the book of Matthew. Today’s preaching focused on believers’ charge to “GO” — make disciples. More than a command, the word denotes almost a passive sense — where ever you go, wherever you are, “go,” preach the gospel.

Our different personalities & opportunities will vary in the way this plays out, and it must be done with wisdom, sensitivity and compassion. But we should never think this isn’t something we ought to be doing, in season and out. It is for all Christians.

God’s mercies are new every morning.
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BY Cameron 02.01.09 AT 5:34 PM

Pauline,
Praying for your son.

Donna,
Was the show pretty accurate? Like Chas said, she was less than well-liked.
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BY donna j 02.01.09 AT 5:46 PM

Yes, I’d say it was pretty accurate, though dramatized of course. But I’ll be interested to hear Larry’s take on it when I return to work Wednesday. The camera crew spent quite a bit of time interviewing and filming him in the newsroom & at his house. (We were laughing on facebook last night, though, because the one scene showing what was supposedly Larry’s newsroom telephone ringing was SO not one of our seen-better-days scruffy phones.)
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BY kBells 02.01.09 AT 7:49 PM

Hubby and the kid gave me the day off and my cold is so much better. I took a nap. I haven’t had a nap since the kid stopped taking them.
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BY Make it Man 02.01.09 AT 9:45 PM

The title of Bernard Goldberg’s new book:

A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media

http://tinyurl.com/c89snk
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BY Pauline 02.01.09 AT 10:22 PM

Thanks for the prayers for my son. I let him sleep in today since I didn’t know how much pain he’d be in, so instead of going to church we watched a DVD and played together. He doesn’t seem at all concerned about what people will think of how he looks or sounds (his upper lip sticks out so far he can’t bring his lips together, so he can’t make certain sounds like b and p properly). He just doesn’t like not being able to eat foods that require biting.

We went to a Super Bowl party with friends from church, and there was lots of food – most of which he couldn’t eat. Actually he wouldn’t have liked most of it anyway, but he was disappointed not to be able to eat pizza. We finally let him eat some venison bologna (our host is an avid hunter) and some crackers – they just had to be cut or broken up first so he could put them in his mouth to chew without having to bite them first. And I have to keep wiping his lips when food gets stuck on the ends of the stitches sticking out from his lips.
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BY Karen O 02.02.09 AT 8:11 AM

Pauline – My lips don’t come together because of my partial facial paralysis. I learned to make approximations of those letters (like m, b, p) by using my upper teeth on my lower lip. The only problem is that my “b” sounds a lot like “v”. I was so afraid my daughters would pick up my strange pronunciations.

Sure enough, younger daughter said “cavinet” & “vench” for cabinet & bench. Otherwise, no problem. (And she corrected those words as she grew.)

Root canals have a bad reputation, but these days they’re not bad. As I mentioned in a recent e-mail to you, I’ve had 3 of them over the past few years. The worst part is probably the novacaine shot, but even that’s not bad for the top teeth. (For bottom teeth, the shot has to be in the back, in the muscle, whereas for top teeth it goes into the gum & doesn’t hurt as much.
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BY NJLawyer 02.02.09 AT 7:19 PM

Don’t feel bad, Karen O. My aunt had no such problem as facial paralysis, but she did have a German accent. You’ve heard the words “vacuum cleaner.” Cleaner came out okay, but she used to say something “waa-come” for vacuum.

And yes, we got cracked on if we made fun of her.
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BY Karen O 02.02.09 AT 8:55 PM

NJL – My daughters have sometimes teased me about my face (or crooked 1/2 smile), but they do so playfully, with love, not to hurt. However, they know not to do that around my mom, who still gets angry if someone picks on her little girl, even in jest.
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BY Teenage_Tinkerbell 02.06.09 AT 3:30 PM

Pauline- so sorry, hope the little trooper will be okay.Though kid. I know my cousin had a root canal and she said it wasn’t too bad. I’ve knocked out teeth before on linoleum, and trust me its not that soft,but I never bit through my lip. My mom says she’ll never forget the sound my teeth made.
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