Health care has become one of the hot potatoes of the political season and there is nothing like turning a life and death gamble for millions into a philosophical spitball contest that will fit on bumper stickers.
An old ad for Pep cereal says that “the harder a wife works, the cuter she looks.”
That ad shows the 1950s shirt-and-tie businessman doting on his apron-clad housewife, who holds a duster in her helpless little hand. She thrives on cooking, cleaning and dusting because “I always get my vitamins” from the cereal.
I made it back to the Southcenter Mall again this past weekend (movie theater), and good news; no reported shootings this time. The situation was probably helped by the very visible presence of no fewer than eight Seattle Police Gang Unit officers, who wandered the mall with an eye on deterrence. Instead, the only nearby shooting this week was very close my house.
Defying the conventional wisdom that they can’t accomplish anything significant during the last few weeks of an even-numbered year, lawmakers in our nation’s capital recently concluded a remarkable period of post-election activity, which culminated with the approval of several important legislative priorities that had previously been stalled.
For many of us, holidays look better when they’re ahead of us, and not quite as appealing in retrospect. If you’ve managed to get through December with your budget intact and your children, spouses, significant others, relatives and other associates happy and feeling duly acknowledged, kudos and felicitations!
The week after Christmas is usually one of my favorite weeks of the year. First, it means that Christmas is over, with all of its sometimes-mean, procrastinating customers (I’m a retailer) and meeting the perfect-Christmas expectations of friends and family. Bah humbug is right.
I make about 30 pounds of almond roca every Christmas. It’s weighed and packaged in eight ounce treat bags and we give them as gifts for family, friends and teachers. I have learned to give families their own bags, as there has frequently been fighting among spouses over who is eating the most candy.
In a previous column published in the Dec. 3 edition I pointed out the hopeless quest of finding the perfect Christmas gift for a wife or girlfriend.
Apparently I hit some secret chord only women can hear because shortly after the column was published a flood of women began telling me how their very own special dummies bought the worst gifts the world has ever seen.
This Christmas Eve, hundreds of people in our towns will put on their Sunday best outfits for one of their twice-a-year visits to church. The other annual visit is for Easter, which led some churchies to invent the slightly derisive term “Chreaster people” to describe these semi-annual migrators.
Imagine figuring out your check book balance and suddenly realizing you are a little short, like about a billion bucks. So much for buying beer and pizza Friday night.
Now imagine what to chop out of your life to balance your budget. The gym is first because everyone really hates exercise, and pizza tastes the same with good beer or cheap swill. After that it starts getting really hard.
Get ready for a few more years of uncertainty.
As you probably already know, a federal judge in Virginia was the first to rule that the big health care overhaul bill was overreaching in its authority. U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson said that the federal government can’t force individuals to buy a private insurance product, which was one of the main complaints by conservatives and libertarians.
For every one of us fortunate enough to have the security of employment and good medical insurance, there are too many who do not. It’s a sad fact that the most vulnerable, the sickest and the poorest, are hit hardest at times like these.
Throughout these last few weeks of autumn, a debate has been raging over taxes at both the state and federal level.
State voters have rejected proposals to raise taxes to protect public services, and approved proposals to defund services.
Fleas are more than just a nuisance. They are a serious problem.
We’re all enjoying the holidays but for this article, I’m leaving threats to animals from the “stuff” people bring into their homes for purposes of holiday celebrations, because every other pet organization is focusing on these holiday threats.
When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, my husband and I would joke about how we were going to have twin boys. We were going to name them Gearatio (gear ratio) and Gearoil (gear oil) in reverence to my husband’s passion for street rods. Obviously, we didn’t have boys. We have two girls, two and a half years apart in age.
When I heard the latest on the extension of the 2001 income tax cuts, all I could do was shake my head. Despite the alleged voter mandate on lower spending and cutting the deficit, Congress didn’t get the message. Both parties are fighting over how much to add to the deficit, with a bizarre back-and-forth exchange in public over how to do it.
I have to tell you, I’m a little conflicted over this latest batch of WikiLeaks documents.
As a journalist, I believe we should have access to, well, just about everything. The only way to get a real sense of exactly what my government is doing is to be able to read the actual documents.
The first snow of the season has fallen and all the fun Christmas tunes are filling the air, which means one happy thing – a whole pile of helpless husbands will be out desperately hunting for that special gift for their wives.
I’ve heard that necessity is the mother of invention, but I’ve always believed that laziness is the mother of efficiency. When things are running smoothly and efficiently, there’s more time to lie around and do nothing. As a result, I am a huge fan of efficiency.
Apparently it took God until the 21st Century to release a 2.0 version of the Seventh Commandment. According to one pastor, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” should now read, “Thou shalt not Facebook.”
After counseling roughly 20 couples with Facebook-related marriage issues, Reverend Cedric Miller has had enough.