Michael1942's Blog

There is an elitist group of men and women who believe the sport of boxing, weight lifting and other so called male sports should remain all male. As a species humans are the only ones that apparently do not recognize the strength and ability of the females of the species.This viewpoint is as ludicrous as the more popular racial stereotypes. In contrast while being the so called weaker sex, there are animals whose entire society is matriarchal with adult males being allowed in when mating is required.  Of course there are activities that are more masculine but there are activities that are unisexual and defy any specific gender identity. Human beings have the advantage of superior intellect but fall short in the area of  broad thinking on gender roles. We tend to fall short in judgment of other people, religions, ethnicities and skin tone.. This is apparent in marriages, dating behavior,  friendships and in families.  Think about the women in the so called “mens sports”, they have to prove themselves as able to perform  as women  instead of being seen as just athletes who are and could be the best in their sport. Do we allow this thinking to deprive us of some our best and brightest while  losing their skills and ability?

As I was looking at a movie on the Telly, I heard people use the phrase S.O.B. several times.  I thought about this and concluded that phrase  is more often used as an insult or expletive. Looking at the possible origins of the word B***h.    bitchn. A female canine animal, especially a dog. Offensive . A woman considered to be spiteful or overbearing or The word “bitch“, literally meaning a female dog, is a common slang term in the English language, especially used as a denigrating term applied to a person. So in anthropological terms or cold scientific ones a woman can be a bitch with no other connotation than being a female and sometimes a female parent. Using these terms and explanations we all could be S.O.Bs or D.O.Bs, though usually S.O.B. is used as male and female insults. There are several other modern day definitions that need no  coverage here  but do exist in several dictionaries. When the phrase wells up in you or in conversation it would be wise to reconsider your usage as you could be insulting someones parent.

Democracy has come to Head Start! The employees of the Head Start program have issued a resounding yes to having union representation. The Springfield Urban League (grant administrator) “terminated” 200 plus employees in June in order to save the money that would have been paid towards the COBRA of normally “laid off” workers. The US Health care bill mandated that employers who lay workers off will have pay a portion of their COBRA, the Urban league skirted that issue by terminating the employees then saying that this was normal practice. The normal practice has always been been a “layoff” of 9 month employees. The League then began a campaign of ridding themselves of vocal employees and dissidents. Once management was notified that the employees had petitioned to have union representation, the war began. They (management) not so systematically eliminated as many job titles as possible to dilute the voting pool. The next step was the campaign of words, which for the most part were untrue and threatening. This barrage of words and actions served to consolidate the workers into a solid block for unionization. This past week the election results showed that democracy lives in Springfield, at least at Head Start.