An incident at my dry cleaners.

[saracat]

I was dropping off stuff at the dry cleaners today and the TV was on to CNN. Hillary was speaking and then they shifted to Obama. A woman ahead of me in line was also watching. She listened to Obama for a second and then turned to me and said."He sacresz the cdrap out of me. I hate McCain but i guess I'm going to have to vote for him. I told her i didn't like him either and was an Edwards supporter. She said she really liked Edwards and she would have voted for him instead of these "crap choices" they give us.I gather she was a Republican or Indie, but it really sadenned me to be reminded once agin of what we have thrown away.

[MissDeeds]

1. The full extent of what we've lost

won't be realized for years, and by then it will be too late, the damage will have been done. I am so sick and tired of feeling that we live in a country of ill-informed dolts who don't care one whit about standing up for this country. Being informed takes initiative and some modicum of intellectual curiosity. Clap-clap, change-change, and fired-up may inspire some, but it is a pitiful platform on which to build a nation.

[vireo]

3. Your post reminds me of a report on Morning Edition today

It concerned the lack of improvised play among children today and it's effects on behavior and cognition. I, of course, immediately thought of the Obamabots. :evilgrin:

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at the National Institute for Early Education Research says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

[waiting for hope]

2. I was talking to my Mom last night -

She used to be a heavy Bush supporter until the Kool Aid buzz wore off - She's big into the candidates spouses (hated Teresa Kerry) and was telling me that she couldn't stand Michelle Obama or McCain's wife, and she finally agreed with me that Edwards would have been the best choice, everyone loves Elizabeth. Go figure.