Poll About Monster Families

At the left you'll see the latest poll. It's silly, but I have strong feelings about this. Of all the important issues swirling about in the world, in this time of war and heated national politics I can still hearken back to my childhood in the 70s and feel strongly about TV characters and what they represent now as an adult.

Put yourselves on the line here. Is it the Munsters or the Adams Family?





Which is the definitive monster family?

I know there are strong feelings about this just as there are strong feelings about the best Bond--I'm in the Sean Connery camp and I'm surprised at how many people are in the Roger Moore camp, really.

Any way, is it Munsters or Adams? Please answer the poll and we'll analyze the results in a week.

My Family Right Now at This Moment

As I sit here and type this, my daughter is singing in her loudest voice some of the songs from my son's recent play as she cleans up chess pieces from her pretend session with her brother. They sometimes play chess, but sometimes things are used in novel and creative ways. In this case the chess pieces were children and kings and queens and soldiers and the chess board was the great hall in a huge castle.

My son is holding a rubber chicken at the top of the stairs as my husband, who just got home a few minutes ago, is "pitching" my son a flying monkey with cape and eye mask and rubber arms that you pull to fling the monkey across the room where he emits a howler monkey sound as my son swings. It's almost impossible to hit with the chicken and is unbelievably hilarious to everyone involved.

All of this brings me to my post homeschooling conference report. It was a wonderful conference--everyone had fun and learned new things. My husband discovered that he's right brained just as some others are in this household. Nice to know. Want to know what new things we got? Of everything we saw in the vendor hall, all of the cool science equipment and laminated maps and marbleized paper and used books my son's eyes settled on the rubber chicken and he was hooked by it. He desperately wanted the rubber chicken and hinted at the flying monkey, and so that's what he got. He has thanked us for getting him those two things at least a dozen times in the last day and a half. My daughter saw a sort of goth looking homeschooling teenager who was selling all sorts of chain mail jewelry that she had made and my daughter really wanted a chain mail rainbow bracelet, so we got her that. She loves it and a calligraphy set we got her as a surprise. It has different sized nibs and different pens and several different color ink cartridges.

Now they're getting ready for a bike ride. I will stay here and enjoy the peace.

I love my family very much, but I like a little peace and a stretch of time without howler monkey noises and musicals sung at the top of my daughter's enthusiastic lungs.

Sometimes happiness is very loud.

What Does Conflict of Interest mean to You??

I have a question for you: What does the term, "conflict of Interest" mean to you? Maybe we all have different ideas about that. I'll look it up somewhere...OK. Here you go. Here's a Wikipedia entry:

A conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below—but it still exists.

Hmmmm. THAT seems pretty straight forward, doesn't it? I get it. Personal interests are protected, or promoted at the expense of professional interests or obligations. It really doesn't seem unclear to me. I can easily see where there could be conflicts of interest. It's obvious.

Neo-Agrarian over at The Suburban Agrarian sent me a link to Daily Kos a few days ago, and I just now found time to read it. What do you know?--the post shows a classic example of conflict of interest between the top advisers of Hillary and McCain's campaigns. It seems they are both from the same company...Say what?!! Yes. Really.

Here's a hypothetical (or is it???). If Hillary goes down in flames is it good for both campaigns if she takes Obama down with her? Is Hillary suggesting things like McCain is more qualified than Obama to be President? Why, yes she is. Crazy, right? Because, after all, both she and Obama are Democrats. It would seem that they both have more policy approaches in line with each other than anything with McCain. Yet, here is Hillary saying that both she and McCain have passed the threshold of experience needed to be President and Obama hasn't yet...Sounds good for the McCain campaign--which is intimately tied to her campaign.

Go to Daily Kos and read what they have to say. I just can't believe this contemptible crap. Day after day after day Hillary is showing why she is becoming more and more distrusted and why people are so disenchanted with the whole electoral process. She is showing us all how she runs her campaign and so is Obama. One campaign has huge conflicts of interest and doesn't care who they take down and the other is inspiring and is run effectively and with grace.

Here's another question for you: Which campaign is more presidential?

February Confession

You know how many new things we bought in February? Guess. No, lower. Nope, lower still. Yes, that's right ZERO!!

No new shoe laces, or clothing, or blackberries or books.
No new pots, pans or dishes. No makeup for good looks.

No new jewelry, or purses or boots.
No new tools, or watches or suits.

No new posters, or paintings or plaques or floor plants.
No new furniture and designs all there to entrance.

No new play dough or sailboats or dolls or toys.
No new anything for moms, dads, girls or boys!