Well, it was a claws in my contract to reveal my dark nature from time to time. Fang you for getting me back on track.

You said it! I couldn't agree more!

I knew there was a reason I visit your site so often... ;)

Amen! I totally agree with ya! I get so frustrated when people ask me - "Where can I find xxxx?" And I simply go into Google, and type in EXACTLY what they asked me, and wow! It's 95% of the time the first thing on the results!! Now why the hell couldn't they do that?!? Fuck if I know - as you say, 'Mental Lazyness'.

It all comes back to education. And lack thereof. Faulty parenting. Bad manners. Ignorance of health concerns and at-risk behavior. Bad politicians. Bad social/welfare programs and those that abuse them. And ignorance of them. Finally, war. They all boil down to a lack of education and/or lack of KNOWLEDGE.
When people can see/read/hear both sides of a story and then be able to form their own rational, educated, well-thought opinions, the world will be a much better place.
If you can read, then you can learn. And with that, if you can read, then teach at least one person who can't, and help them teach themselves.

But wouldn't it be crap if it all went to the other extreme, and people started foregoing human contact in favour of "finding it out on the Internet"

It would probably be the death of conversation as we know it.

Hang on. That's an over-reaction. Well, anyway. Someone may agree with me, whether I do or not.

Thomas grew claws and fangs. Get back to the pun-ny place. Please?

THANK YOU! For a long time now I've been wondering if it was just me getting older and crankier. So I'm glad to find that other people share my frustration about this.

See, I could ask you "what is a graphics tablet?" but instead I'm going to do what everyone should do - a simple Google search...

I don't want to add to the ranting up there *tsk tsk* but sometimes I suspect that people's disinterest in finding things out for themselves is directly related to the death of common sense. Maybe it's different in the US, but over here (Sweden) common sense is rare these days.

Or maybe I AM cranky... :-)

Jodi, Jodi, Jodi! Thanks for the great post. Pointed yet uplifting, direct yet inspirational at the same time. I want to go learn something now. That's great writing.

Also thanks for this space. After all these weeks of research, I come here and realize that I don't want a comments section on my site, after all.

geez...ask a simple question....

All right. I see this is escalating into a comment exchange that is not only veering too far off-topic for this venue but is showing signs of potentially careening out of control. It needs another forum. Not this one.

So ... take it outside, boys.

Thanks.

Aaron...Thomas...find a preacher...get a room...this sounds like true love! Say, are you two registered anywhere?

Aaron, here's some interesting facts about your glorified socialist Child Protection Services system;

Children died as a result of abuse in foster care 5.25 times more often than children in the general population. 2.1 percent of all child fatalities took place in foster care. While this may seem like a relatively low number, we must consider the contrast in population between children in the general population versus children in foster care. In 1997, there were nearly 71 million children in the general population (99.6%), but only 302 thousand in state care (.4%) in state care. As state care is supposed to be a 'safe haven', the number of fatalities should be less or at least equal to what it is in the general population of children. By this standard, there should have been less than .4% of child fatalities occurring in foster care, however, there was 5.25 times that amount. (31 states reporting)

Children who received "services" from CPS died as a result of abuse 16 times more often than children in the general population. 16.3 percent of all fatalities were children who had received services or were 'known to the system'. 716 thousand children received "services" (28 states reporting) or 1% of the general population. If CPS intervention had no effect, one percent of this group would have suffered a fatality; if CPS intervention had made an improvement, the percentage would be less than one percent. However, it is 16.3 times that amount. (18 states reporting)

Children were abused and neglected 3 times more often by state caregivers than by Parents. Fifteen children out of every thousand were abused or neglected in state care, while only 5 children out of every thousand were abuse or neglected by their parents. (31 states reporting)

Eleven percent of all children placed in foster care were NOT victims of abuse or neglect.

Before you start saying how much you fucking care about kids, perhaps you should fix your current fucking system and maybe even HAVE a family in the first fucking place.

Aaron, I was refering to the current opinion that parents are too ignorant to care for their own children. I agree that the law that will attempt to curb second hand smoke, even in the privacy of the family home, is based on real caring. But you're dancing on a slippery slope. Once that victory is achieved, what's to prevent a new law passed against sharp edged furniture? Kids can trip and cut themselves, you know. Or how about the dangers of knives in the home? Knives cut people too, you know. Eventually, the family home will be considered a hazardous place. Children will be taken care of in a sterile, safe environment far away from uneducated "breeders".

If you're comfortable with that, and the rest of the whole fucking country is too, then I will "get the fuck out".

"DAMN... CAPITALIST BASTARDS... DEMANDING... RIGHTS... DEMANDING FREEDOMS... Dont they realize only I... er... CORRECT people should be allowed to talk or make rules..."

I hate to intrude, but I'm mighty curious as to how one would draw a correlation between child safety laws and a "frothing, blind Marxist delirium."

At the risk of sounding like one of those moronic "compassionate liberal panty-waists," I think that if something like...oh...say, a law against smoking near your children...prevents even ONE child from getting lung cancer from the second-hand smoke of their white trash parents, then it will have been worth it. After all, what purpose do ANY laws serve, if not to protect the innocent from the idiotic?

Of course, that's not MY opinion. I read that somewhere. Me personally? I don't want no gov'ment tellin' me what I can and can't do to my kids. If I wanna smack 'em wit' a 2x4? That's my business. If I wanna blow cancer smoke up their noses? My business. If I wanna smoke crack, and have more children who are born addicted? My business. Next thing you know, damn gov'ment's gonna be tellin' me that I can't drive drunk, or how fast I should drive, even when I'm sober! Or that It's "against the law" to shoot people, at random, for no apparent reason other than the fact that I'm a moron. Hell Thomas, I could go kill someone right now, if the damn gov'ment wasn't gettin' all up-in-mah-face with their "laws" and their "jails"!!!

YOU DAMN SOCIALISTS, AND YOUR...YOUR "LAWS" AND YOUR...YOUR..."CARING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE"

I don't hate this country, I hate the socialist evolution that many would steer it towards in a frothing, blind Marxist delirium.

So for now I'll have to politely decline your offer to "get the fuck out".

Thanks, Jodi. And yes, I did mean the Inquirer. I always get confused because I always think that when I am driving to work inthe morning, and see the Inquirer trucks, that it reads "Enquirer." Maybe I have some stupid form of dyslexia or something.

My childhood was always torn in two directions. Half of the time my teachers were trying to brainwash me and my parents were convincing me to embrace my individuality, imagination and intelligence.

The rest of the time my parents were trying to brainwash me and my teachers were trying to brainwash me.

In a nutshell, if I hadn't decided to forge my own personality, I would probably have been fucked.

(and not in the good way)

Mary Carmen: Thanks for the clarification about your original comment.

I read an article the other day, too, about the IM shorthand. I found it extremely disturbing. (By the way, did you mean the Inquirer, though, and not the Enquirer?)

Aaron's Typist: Tell Aaron that he's not paranoid. Every post I write is directed at him!

Thomas: If you hate this country so much, get the fuck out.

Dan the Goose: I think Heidi will learn most effectively through hands-on experience.

I do hope you know I was being sarcastic. THe only reason I get upset when I hear people say this is because I deal with students, MEDICAL students who try to pass off information that they have found on sdome half-crokced website, as legitmate information.

I read an article the other day in the Enquirer about how high school students are so used to typing in IM shorthand on the computer, that it is creeping into their school assignments. How frightening is that.

Amen, Jodi. This is one of the complaints I've had about Mr. rev.

(This is Aaron's typist again. Jodi, PLEASE send him an e-mail explaining how you did not mean this to be directed at him personally, and how you understand that when he asked for your help locating a fan page for N*Sync, it was not because he was too lazy to find one himself, it was because he has been inflicted with a rare disease that causes him to make chicken noises whenever he sees that little star thing used in place of an apostrophe. It has caused him a great deal of trouble recently, as N*Sync is his favorite band ever, and he can't even watch their videos.

Now though, after his reader read your post to him, he won't shut up about how everyone's out to get him, and he began dictating this incredibly long-winded angry post at you, that I can only hope he thinks I'm typing.

Don't take it personally, I know you didn't mean to attack him like that, but...well, you know how he can get sometimes. Thanks for your help.)

Reading a book, internet article, newspaper, watching an informative show/video/dvd or otherwise learn on your own is so 20th century.

Did you hear, the government is going to determine what we should do, and will educate us as much as we need to perform that task (career aptitude tests already in place in schools.)

And because most of us won't be educated on how to raise our children, the government will take on that task as well (laws already in place including, but not limited to, bicycle helmets, car seats, child seating, and smoking near children.)

We'll be told what habits are bad (smoking and substance laws), what foods are bad (PETA, fast food lawsuits) and what games we can play (mandatory ratings on video games, outlawing Jarts, etc.)

The final step will be eliminating words from our vocabulary (P.C. correctness already running amok, and the recent decision to eliminate the word "niggardly" because although it's origins have nothing to do with the racial epithet, other groups choose to be too ignorant to see past the coincidental similarities and understand it's meaning of "stingy") to make everyone start to "think correctly".

Screw Iraq; Bomb the USA.

I think that mental laziness is one of the greatest diseases of the century!

I wish that myself and everyone else would be, and I quote , Salvatore Dali " In a permanent state of intellectual erection".

Unfortunately, there is no viagra for the brain, just self motivation...

Keep on learning, that's what life is all about!

Okay. But the day Heidi Klum comes to me needing help with sexual gratification, I'm not referring her to a manual.

Jodi, gee, thanks a bunch! I nearly lost an entire mouth full of tea over my keyboard, when I got to a certain paragraph. Luckily, I contained my chuckles just long enough.

I'm sure you'll upset someone, one of these days.

yeah. damn lazy people.
damn people who agree with everything you say.
whee, cathartism.
might as well get my own soapbox.
nah.

sorry for harassing you Jodi.

I do not need to be schooled, Mary Carmen. I know that not everything I read on the internet is reliable. Just like I know that not everything I read anywhere is reliable. The point I was making was that people need to learn things by and for themselves.

Don't make me go all librarian on your ass and start schooling you on why everything you read on the Internet is not reliable information and should not be trusted. Contrary to popular belief, everything is NOT online.

Wooo Hoooo! You are on a real roll, girl!

Right on! And another thing... reading manuals won't kill you! Unless, of course, it's a manual on how to kill yourself...