Tag: opinion

Posted in In my humble opinion...

SoCS- 6/3/23 Kids will be Kids

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “left alone.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Today I’m posting early because I won’t have access to a computer tomorrow.
I was reliving a day care moment this morning and decided to work it into my Stream of Consciousness post.
Years ago, I had a little guy with Down’s Syndrome in my care along with his older sister. He sat blocking my backdoor one day and I was anxious to move him away because he would have been knocked over and possibly injured if one of my BIG KIDS came barging through the door. For some reason my hands were either full or all sticky (I can’t remember which.), and when he wouldn’t respond to my request to move away from the door, I slid him away on my glossy wooden floor using the side of my foot. Ha! It worked so well, and he thought it was funny.
BUT, his sister, who often seemed to be on a covert spy mission, asked me out loud, “Why did you kick my brother?”
I said, “What?”
She added, “I saw you kicking my brother.”
I told her not to be silly and that he liked it.
But I worried about a following report to her mother (who incidentally is an extended family member).
That same child made a few other outlandish claims through the years. (She learned early on the more interesting her reports were, the more her mother intently listened to her.)
The impetus for such stuff seems to come from kids having a parent who lives on the edge of victimhood and outrage. That girl’s mother constantly complained about other people so there’s no doubt that I was a topic at their house too. I didn’t care about the mother. But I was afraid the kid (Who I love and care about.) was going to have a difficult life with that attitude.
So, I’m asking that everyone leave the kids alone. Keep them out of hearing range of adult conversations. They are sponges.
When I was a kid, it was a big “no, no” to be present while adults were talking. We had the option to be sent outside then. Lucky us!
Still, IMHO a refresher course for young parents needs to include keeping their kids “left alone” and away from adult topics. I see parents these days bringing up complex topics around their kids too often to count. Their children’s innocence is far more precious than they seem to realize.

Happy Saturday, friends! Talk nicely to the kids or send them outside this weekend. You’ll be glad you did!

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS June 3, 2023
Posted in In my humble opinion...

Share Your World 5/29/23 Holiday Our Own Way

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Here are this week’s questions:

If money was no object, what would be your ideal holiday?

We don’t vacation in the ‘normal’ sense. It isn’t about money, it’s about time.
We bought 30 acres of land about 35 minutes from home when our kids were little.
The way we had vacationed before that wasn’t for us. Packing, planning, and leaving pets behind made our getaways stressful and costly when investing in our little ‘spot’ in the woods gave us a year-round option.
Setting up our place, making gardens, and having trails for riding 4-wheelers made us happier than going somewhere we didn’t know.
So, now we spend ‘happy time’ at our own somewhat remote spot including family and extremely happy dogs who roam freely as dogs were meant to do. The taxes and upkeep aren’t any more than a cruise or flight somewhere (probably cheaper these days) and we’re close enough to home for unforeseen needs, yet we can take ourselves out of the madness of daily living any time we wish.

 Do you save for a holiday or put it on plastic to pay off later?

Our ‘camping’ is budgeted into our lives. It’s as necessary to us as groceries, healthcare, or hobbies.


Have you ever been on a cruise?

Have not the slightest interest in packing into a contained space with a bunch of strangers.

Do you send postcards or buy mementos?

Our mementos are family memories of games, wonderful food cooked outdoors, campfires, conversations and privacy, rest, and a few fossil rocks or wild fruits.

Gratitude: Connecting with our granddaughters often enough to really know them while we get a chance to share our values as a family. I couldn’t wish for more.

https://pensitivity101.wordpress.com/2023/05/29/share-your-world-29th-may/

Posted in In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions

Unanswered Question: Why do we keep lying to ourselves?

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

I saw a post and only read two lines of the poem.
The image of George Floyd was clearly displayed at the top of the page.
The poem spoke of “slave ships”.
That was enough for me.
The death of George Floyd was tragic on so many levels but the stubborn adherence to the idea that it had anything to with race is absurd. What that mindset does is perpetuate a myth, a political flashpoint, and a lie.
Derrick Shovan was a terrible, barbaric, man and cop.
George Floyd was a drug addict, repeat criminal, and misguided soul.
We could investigate all day long the ‘whats and whys’ that made them each that way, but that’s not the point.
Something terribly tragic happened and we’re not placing the blame on ‘what happened next’ where it belongs.
Both men had culpability in the route they took to that place and time of Floyd’s death, yet their race wasn’t deemed, even in court, as having an influence.
So, why do we keep lying to ourselves?
Why is George Floyd a folk hero?
How does his life and death have anything to do with slave ships?
Derrick and George were already known to each other.
No ‘hate crime’ allegation was pursued in Derrick’s trial. Because race was NOT a factor. (He was a real ‘rotten egg’ and got what he deserved.)
Race hustlers came rushing out of the woodwork, though. Some for financial gain (BLM organizers) and others for political leverage (BLM self-proclaimed Marxists, among others). Both types should have been recognized as and declared opportunists immediately.
That’s why the riots, marches, and continued mythology over George Floyd are so baffling and IMHO are symptomatic of even darker ills than a would-be individual act of racism.
Those most desperate ubiquitous illnesses are victimhood, ignorance, and-bias inspired- gullibility.
The clear perpetrators of those crippling diseases are the media, our educational system, and political activists. If you want something ‘real‘ to be outraged about, their accountability isn’t even going to be EVER considered. The avoidable death and destruction in the aftermath will go on being falsely labeled a noble crusade. Instead, the misnomer of “systematic racism” (in this specific case) will continue to destroy our harmony, unity, and sense of justice. We will therefore go on being victimized and consumed by ‘lies’, half-truths, and narrative manipulations, until the nefarious goal of dehumanizing and dividing our country for the purpose of totalitarian control, is achieved.
Don’t play a role in it by not getting your facts straight.


Posted in In my humble opinion...

Sunday Poser #133- Discernment

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Sadje has asked us a complicated question today:

I very much like to hang on to old ways. Hand-written letters are one of them. No text can replace the sincere personal interest contained in a letter.
BUT… technology has opened up many exciting and good things.
I was that kid running to our set of encyclopedias often. It was time consuming to get information ‘back in the day’. The access to information is delightfully easy now. With the access to information, I had to sharpen a new skill. It’s an exceptionally useful one! It’s called discernment. The encyclopedias were accepted as “the whole truth” but since the internet and “out in the open” modern day misleading and propagandized information, being critical in thought has become an important skill. Total trust can create complacency. I think we’re in a big societal mess today primarily from former complacency.
Divining the truth has never been more available though (unless deliberately censored). Knowing that we need to put a bit of energy into our inquiries isn’t, at all, bad. Those encyclopedias were actually naively relied upon and never questioned. But the intellectually lazy will always lag behind. [Too bad they have the loudest voices and biggest platforms these days. 😢]
Even the revelation that censorship and biases exist, has been a useful tool. Nothing increases my curiosity more than information that seems ‘hidden’ or has been suddenly removed. That’s a big red target on where “the truth'” may be lurking. Quite an effective shortcut for the curious.

I feel as though I owe someone a fruit basket for the obvious misdirection during “The Pandemic”. It created my path to dealing extremely well with Covid-19 and certainly eased my mind once I realized that FEAR, in the form of ‘lies’ and doctored statistics, was a clearly manufactured effort to control our population. 🤔👍😂




https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2023/05/21/sunday-poser-133-embracing-new-ways/

Posted in In my humble opinion...

SoCS 5/20/23 -“Stick it in your ear!”

Posted on by Susan St.Pierre

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “stick.” Use it as a noun or a verb; use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

It’s not the lies. People lie. It’s about the repeating of lies… the outright promotion of lies.
There are an awfully lot of people who run their mouths without filtering their words through the ‘grey matter’ they were given, and others are manipulators for their own gain. The prompt of “stick” made me immediately think of the retort “Stick it in your ear!”.
Sometimes, ‘being nice’ isn’t easy nor is it appropriate.
Silence has always felt like compliance to me. I choose to laugh at people more often than confront them because the message of “Don’t be ridiculous.” comes through loud and clear.
“Oh my! That’s not “nice.”, you may be thinking. No, it isn’t but “nice” isn’t my default setting. “Nice” is a coward’s cover for inaction in most cases IMHO. It’s a self-comforting excuse. Heaven forbid you’d have to defend your words or explain. LOL
Is it actually “nice” for people to insult your intelligence or present themselves as “truth tellers” that you aren’t allowed to confront or ignore?
I don’t want the ambiguous game of ‘nice’ anywhere near me. I don’t think it’s nice at all to lie to each other. To say you don’t know what you’re repeating is a lie doesn’t work either. There’s a thing called “personal responsibility” which also applies to knowing what you’re talking about. Facts don’t care about feelings. If you believe something is factual and it is revealed to be false, no worries. There’s also something known as an “apology” or a retraction. Nobody’s perfect and we’ve each been fooled. Isn’t it ‘nice’ to find out?

We all have good reasons to be cynical these days. It’s sad but unavoidable. Being gullible in the name of “Nice” is dangerous. No one ever died from being insulted but many, many, lives have fallen victim to “lies”. Speak up!

Happy Saturday Friends. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” We’re all in this together!


https://lindaghill.com/2023/05/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-20-2023/