After days of doing everything I could around the house because Ron was laid up, after struggling to lift the cat on the counter and hold him, then lifting him again to my desk. I just found out something.
Yes my pain and struggle to move has been bad since we got up at 3 am, but when I got up to put Odie down I couldn’t stand. I had to call Ron to pick Odie up from the desk and put him down, Odie struggled against him because of course he would. Then Ron went to my cane holder and got one of my canes. I can not stand or walk. Ron is thinking I will need my walker at this point. So that is how it is going to be for me for a few days. I will try to take more medications and let them work, but pain medications don’t heal the body or fix the issue, they cover it so you can ignore it. That is the real danger of pain medications for most of us, it is not over dosing, it is using it to ignore smart and safe practices to keep pushing your body past the point it can take. Anyway back to videos and reading, commenting, and blogging. Hugs, Scottie
This is a great video detailing the lies, debunking the myth or the anti-trans line of the mass rush to force kids to transition gender, it goes over the fake studies, provides real information, and shows how several of the detransitioned are still having gender issues, but due to religious pressures from family they try to ignore them. One person claims to still dream three or more times a week of being a man, thinks of it, hates her body, but knows she has to be a good woman and mother. The video shows more of the flaws of the anti-trans movement than its claim to validity. It is longer than some of my viewers like at a bit over an hour. I watched it about 20 minute segments while doing other things. It is delivered in a well spoken deliberate non-sensational manner. Just going over the video and the real facts. I really hope if you have questions about trans people, are an anti-trans hater, are someone who thinks kids are rushed into being trans and that a large number regret it, please watch the video. It shows you the proof these are hate myths pushed to cause a regressive return to gender stereotypes. Most based in a religious foundation of god doesn’t make mistakes, and kids don’t know their gender, they just need to be convinced to be happy with the way the world wants them to be. Like gay kids are not gay, they just need to be convinced they are straight. Like one point, it is easy for 15 and 16-year-old girls to get breast implants, but when it is a trans woman wanting them the anti-trans haters call it abuse and mutilation. That doesn’t make sense. At one point the video shows the same study that Tildeb tried to push where the claim was a huge percentage of kids were having their breasts removed. But like I pointed out the report showed the number was small and the ages of the majority were adults in their countries and those younger were for medical reasons other than trans such as cancer. Such deceptive tactics have to make people wonder what the anti-trans people really are driven by. Watch the video please, at least get past the first part of jabber about the scary music and into the real substance of the issue. Thanks. Scottie
Hi all. I know I have 4 open windows with so many open tabs of comments and stories on blogs to get to. But please remember I woke at 3 and was informed by my love of going on 34 years that he was in pain and worried he couldn’t breathe, and maybe in trouble. Forget coffee, that is an instant wake-up signal. I already told you all about that.
So about 10:30 the pharmacy tells up the penicillin prescription was ready. Yes the other was delayed, but I did not care Ron needed that antibiotic and pain relievers, … well we have those in the house right.
I went to the pharmacy and they were already busy as they always are. I respect these people so much, they are often understaffed and always over worked. As I stood in the line, the lady at the desk wanted the pharmacy clerk to do something impossible for them to do, as he patiently explained to her. Finally she left. I stepped up.
As I asked him how he was doing and said he should just take a few moments to breathe, he recognized me. His facial expression and demander changed. He smiled broadly and took a breath. Then told me he was OK and that it had just been a hard morning. By my dogs that love gravy it was about 10:45 and they only opened at 9. But I have stood in line and seen the abuse heaped on them. I understood.
Side note. I called in one day as it was the day to fill my morphine and the state of Florida on the war of opioid addictions made safe drugs like morphine so hard to get as they made it a top tier drug for restrictions. So for a simply well known drug given out to World War 2 soldiers, they treat it like heroin or other illegal substances. I personally think that is because it is so inexpensive compared to newer medications, and big pharma doesn’t like that.
So I was talking to Daniel and explained I was there to pick up Ron’s new antibiotic penicillin prescription because at 4 am I was in the ER with him. The Pharmacist heard that and stopped what he was doing and came over to ask me if Ron was ok and what happened. I explained it. Then Daniel showed the pharmacist that the doctor had also ordered a pin medication that had yet to be filled, it had been pushed back in their Que to much later. I jumped to say that was OK, I would come back but Ron really need the other medications, at which point the pharmacist told me he would fill it right then. I said I did not want him to go to extra trouble, at which point he looked me right in the eyes and said “Scottie for you it is no trouble, give me a minute and I will get it ready”. Wow, treating people nice really works out. I moved over and sat in one of the waiting area seats but in about one minute the pharmacist came back with both prescriptions.
We chatted, I told them how I appreciated them and said I wished I could do more for them, and they all were happy. But as I turned around to leave, the older woman next inline did something unexpected. I had thought she would have been upset about my taking their time to talk. But instead she said to me as she stepped up to the window. “Your kindness to them means far more than you can know. I do, as I was once on the other side of that counter and you gave them a great gift.”
Wow, what to say. I am just an old poor crippled man trying to navigate life. I nodded to her, not sure if I even said anything as she passed me to the counter. On my way out at the front check out was a tall large woman. She had a unique and rather colorful tattoo from her chin down to her chest, which the bottom showed a beautiful butterfly. No one was in her line, and I couldn’t resist complementing her on it. It is my way.
I stopped and we got talking. I told her I loved the butterfly at the bottom and how beautiful it was. As we talked, I suddenly realized she went from a bored hello thank you for shopping to an open happy explanation to the complicated tattoo. I said I could see the wonderful butterfly, but I did not understand the rest of the large tattoo. She explained the symbolism and all the aspects. I asked if it was painful, to which she said yes. I told her she was braver than me. Then I noticed her finger nails. They were long bright white with tassels and other objects embedded in them and hanging off of her fingers. Each one was a different spiritual symbol. I was delighted and we talked for another five minutes about them, with me being very appreciative of the work and her ability to use them in daily life.
As I was walking out, I turned and looked back. That lady that seemed so bored and down cast when I first started near her now shined, her head was up and … how do I describe it … well she radiated a light and happiness around her. I am not a person to believe in woo and the supernatural like my spouse does. But I sure do believe in emotions and in people. You treat them bad in public, that changes them and it affects the rest of their day. You treat someone meanly and they will react that way for a while to others, it is simply how humans are built, when we are unhappy we pass it on. But by the same measure if we are happy we also pass that on.
I really loved that woman’s tattoo and her finger nails. I can not imagine the pain and discipline to let someone around your throat that way with my background. And the work and patience it must have taken for those fingernails is incredible. And all so people like me could enjoy them. Seriously, she wouldn’t have gone through all that if she did not want people to see them. Anyway, those that can not see the beauty in those things I have little time for.
Which leads me to the reason I am writing this long post on a normal part of my day. Something I am sure others do all the time. It is because I have 4 open windows with so many open tabs of posts, comments, and other things I really want to get to. But after watching four videos of the Israeli bombing of a captive public in Gaza, I really feel for my own health I need to leave the computers / internet news and instead move my TV out and play Halo. Really sorry but today my mental health won’t let me work on the open tabs, the comments, the stories, the other things. And the fear of needing to take my aging 68-year-old lover of 34 years to the ER is still resonating in side me. I just need a break, something to get away from it all. It took me so long to do the dishes because he kept offering to help, but he can hardly stand.
If this is the last post I do today, loves and hugs, and lots of respect and best wishes for all. I am off to pretend land where I am the Master Chief fighting the forces of evil that want to kill all humans and make the universe bad. In that universe I can stop them and make things better. Hugs, best wishes. Scottie
Reread the title. How can shooting captives in a prison be justified. If the police / prison guards herded all the prisoners in to a small places and started to mow them down with gun fire, it is about what Israel is doing to Gaza. Hugs. Scottie
Israeli air strikes devastated parts of the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza this week, flattening buildings in a densely populated area where, Palestinian authorities say, at least 195 civilians were killed and scores more are still missing.
Israel says the attacks successfully targeted Hamas military leaders, their fighters and the tunnel network they dug beneath civilian areas and used for operations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to destroy Hamas – the Palestinian Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip – in retaliation for its Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The strikes at the Jabalia camp – the largest of several refugee settlements in Gaza – have fuelled international concern at the mounting humanitarian toll of Israel’s offensive.
In the wake of the first airstrike on Oct. 31, which left deep craters filled with broken concrete and twisted metal in the midst of Jabalia’s tightly packed buildings, the Office of the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk said in a tweeted statement that the scale of the destruction and the high number of civilian casualties aroused “serious concerns that these are disproportionate attacks that could amount to war crimes.”
Turk had previously said on Oct. 7 that he was “shocked and appalled” at the killings of civilians, hostage-taking, and rocket attacks on Israel by Palestinian armed groups.
Hamas gunmen rampaged through Israeli border areas on Oct. 7, in the deadliest day of the nation’s 75-year history. Israel says around 240 people were taken as hostages into Gaza, where they are believed to be held in Hamas’ extensive tunnel network.
*** There is a drawing of the area and the places of strikes and other stuff talked about. I am unable to copy and paste it here. Please go to the link above to see the information. Hugs. Scottie ***
Erez crossing
Jabalia
camp
Refugee
camps
Evacuation
zone border
GAZA
STRIP
ISRAEL
Airstrike
Rafah
crossing
Jabalia camp
Satellite map of the Gaza Strip, showing the eight refugee camps. The Jabalia refugee camp is highlighted and the site of an airstrike within the camp shown.
Israel’s ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed more than 9,000 people, according to health authorities in Gaza. Food and water are scarce, and medical services are collapsing.
At least five other refugee camps in the coastal enclave have been hit during Israel’s ongoing offensive, according to satellite images analysed by Masae Analytics. An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the images.
The United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians said that schools used as shelters by thousands of people have been damaged in the Jabalia, Beach and Al Bureij camps, and nearly 50 of its buildings and assets have been affected across the 360 sq km Gaza Strip. The U.N. agency said that more than 70 of its staff have been killed.
Israel has held Hamas accountable for the civilian death toll in Gaza, saying that it is using Gazans as human shields. Israeli officials note they have repeatedly warned residents to evacuate northern Gaza in recent days.
Reuters has used satellite images, pictures and videos shot by its journalists in Gaza to piece together an account of this week’s attacks in Jabalia.
GAZA STRIP
3
4
2
6
1
5
Evacuation zone
Beach camp
2
Rafah camp
Jabalia camp
3
1
90,713
2023 Population: 133,326
116,011
Buildings damaged
in refugee camps
as of Oct. 29
0.5 km
N
Maghazi camp
Bureij camp
Khan Younis camp
6
5
4
88,854
46,629
33,255
Maps of six refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, the Rafah, Jabalia, Beach, Khan Younis, Bureij and Maghazi camps. Estimated damage to buildings within each camp is shown. All have significant numbers of damaged buildings.
At 1.4-square kilometres, Jabalia is the largest of eight refugee camps in Gaza and is home to some 116,000 registered refugees, many of whom are dependent on food, medicine and other aid provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
The densely packed camp was set up in 1948 to shelter the wave of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes amid the fighting that accompanied the creation of the modern state of Israel. Palestinians lament this as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Israel contests that it drove Palestinians away, saying it was attacked by neighbouring Arab states.
The Jabalia camp decades ago evolved from its original temporary tents and huts into a maze of concrete and breeze-block buildings separated by shoulder-width alleyways.
Living conditions are poor: conflict and years of Israeli-led blockade on Hamas-run Gaza have led to high unemployment, poverty, contaminated water and a shortage of building supplies for new homes.
*** Below is a chart / drawing of the area and where the camps are that are being struck. Again it wouldn’t copy over, to see them please go to the link above. Hugs. Scottie ***
Jabalia
camp
Schools and
kindergartens
Hospitals
and clinics
Mosques
Airstrike
250 m
Map of the Jabalia camp with building footprints shown. Buildings which contain schools or kindergartens, hospitals or clinics and mosques are all highlighted. There are many of all categories both within and around the camp. The site of an airstrike within the camp is also shown.
The camp has long been a flashpoint for tensions. Jabalia was where the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation erupted in 1987 after an Israeli truck driver crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers, some of them from the refugee camp.
Ever since it has been a hotspot. In 2008, Israeli ground forces went into Jabalia when Hamas began firing longer range rockets into Israel, killing more than 60 Palestinians during the military operation.
In 2009, an Israeli air strike killed senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan and members of his family in an airstrike on his home in the camp.
Reuters live footage at 1224 GMT on Tuesday Oct. 31 showed the first sign of the air strike on the Jabalia refugee camp: the camera shakes and then captures a plume of black smoke rising over northern Gaza. Details in the camera shot – a water tower, minaret, solar panels – matched satellite images of the area and confirmed the blast was in the Jabalia camp.
First reports of the airstrike appeared online around 1235 GMT, a few minutes after the blast was seen in Reuters footage.
Standing at the edge of one of the craters in the wake of the attack, Abdel Kareem Rayan, a resident of the camp, held a paper listing the names of the 15 family members that he said he lost. “They were innocent, just staying (in the camp). What wrong did they do?” he said.
Smoke billows above a building. People and medics rush to the scene of an Israeli attack that hit the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza on Wednesday, Nov. 1.
*** There is a video of the bombing and people running with injured people / children while others rush to help. But it wont post here, to see it please go to the web site at the link above. Hugs. Scottie ***
Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence and security think tank headquartered in London, said that the Reuters images of the Oct. 31 attack showed “multiple sizeable bomb craters.”
Bronk said that, while it was hard to do an exact weapons identification from photographs, the craters were consistent with the Israeli Air Force’s standard guided air-to-surface Joint-Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) – specifically GBU-31 2000lb or GBU-32 1000lb JDAMs.
“The primary use for the GBU-31 family of 2000lb JDAMs in U.S. service is for striking relatively deeply buried targets or for demolishing large structures,” he said, adding that U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan generally tried to use munitions with significantly smaller warheads such as Hellfire missiles or the GBU-38 family of 500lb JDAMs in densely populated areas. “However, these munitions lack the capacity to reliably penetrate and destroy structures several stories underground.”
Israeli defence officials have said aircraft were involved in the attack. A military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the munitions used. The Pentagon declined to comment on the assessment.
*** Below is a single image of a complex tool on the orginal post that takes the before of the city and as you move the slider shows you the complete under devestation of that same city now. Hugs. Scottie ***
Oct. 31
Nov. 1
Satellite imagery shows that the location of the strike was near the intersection of Al Mouhawel and Al Almey streets.
Israel’s military said the Oct. 31 attack killed a significant military leader of Hamas: Ibrahim Biari, commander of the Jabalia Battalion and a ringleader of the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli towns and kibbutzim.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that Biari was also “the dominant leader” of Hamas fighters operating in northern Gaza from a network of tunnels beneath the camp.
“He was killed while situating himself inside the Jabalia Camp – with dozens of additional terrorists around him in the same area – which contains a headquarters and other operational facilities located in buildings within the civilian camp,” Hagari said on Nov. 1.
Hagari said the strike caused the collapse of the tunnels and underground military infrastructure, which in turn brought down additional surface structures.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied there was any senior commander present in the camp. Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said seven civilian hostages were killed in the strikes on Jabalia, including three foreign passport holders. Reuters was unable to verify that independently.
The second airstrike hit on Wednesday Nov. 1 in the Falouja neighbourhood of Jabalia refugee camp, approximately half a mile from the site of Tuesday’s explosion.
The blast flattened several big apartment buildings. The Interior Ministry in Gaza said the strike had destroyed an entire residential block, which Reuters was unable to confirm.
As the wounded were being carried from the scene on blankets and in the arms of residents and rescue workers, one local man told Reuters he said been praying in a local mosque and had rushed out when he felt the blast. “It is a massacre,” said the man, who did not give his name, as emergency workers tried to free survivors from the rubble by hand.
Israel’s military said the second strike killed Muhammad A’sar, head of Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit.
According to the health ministry and the Hamas government media office, at least 195 people were killed in the two airstrikes on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, which left 120 missing and more than 700 wounded.
A third Israeli airstrike hit the Jabalia refugee camp on Nov. 2, Reuters reported. The bombardment hit the UNRWA-sponsored Abu Hussein school, where many displaced Gazans were residing, according to eyewitnesses and a statement from the U.N. agency. Injured camp residents were rushed to the Indonesian hospital. Reuters was unable to determine the number of casualties.
Palestinians search for casualties a day after Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
Israel said it has so far killed 10 Hamas commanders responsible for planning the Oct. 7 attack. Hamas – designated as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States, among others – called in its 1988 founding charter for the destruction of Israel.
On a visit to Israel on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that Israel has a right to “do everything possible” to ensure that there would be no repetition of the Oct. 7 attack.
But he called called for a humanitarian pause: “It is very important when it comes to protection of civilians who are caught in the crossfire of Hamas’s making, that everything be done to protect them and to bring assistance to those who so desperately need it, who are not in any way responsible for what happened on Oct. 7.”
Speaking shortly after Blinken, Netanyahu said: “We are proceeding with all our might, and Israel refuses any temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our kidnapped hostages.”
Top photo
A man reacts as Palestinians search for casualties a day after Israeli strikes on houses in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Nov. 1, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
Note to analysis
Building damage provided by Masae Analytics change detection analysis based on Copernicus Sentinel-1 data. The analysis uses satellite images to estimate areas within the Gaza Strip affected by bombings since the Israeli campaign began. Analysis is further reviewed for false positives (areas that appear damaged in the analysis, but are not) and false negatives (areas that do not appear damaged, but are) by cross checking with other high resolution satellite imagery, media reports and other sources.
Medical vehicle. More dead people. Is that allowed in war. NO! but Israel is doing it and getting away with it. All they have to say to excuse what they do is Hamas. Say it to all the kids killed, all the women bombed, over 10,000 Palestinians civilians killed, a third of them children. But Hamas, it is OK Hamas attacked us and killed about 1,400 people. Maybe 40 were children. But Hamas … but never show proof it was Hamas where they targeted. Just leave the area Israel says as they bomb the only ways out. This is the deliberate killing of a people to drive them out of a land and to somewhere else, and that is terrorism in the highest level. Hugs. Scottie
November 3, 20238:01 PM EDTUpdated 14 hours ago
GAZA, Nov 3 (Reuters) – An Israeli air strike on an ambulance being used to evacuate the wounded from besieged northern Gaza killed 15 people and injured 60 others on Friday, the Hamas-controlled enclave’s health ministry said.
Israel’s military said it had identified and hit an ambulance “being used by a Hamas terrorist cell”. It said Hamas fighters were killed in the strike, and accused the group of transferring militants and weapons in ambulances.
Hamas official Izzat El Reshiq said allegations its fighters were present were “baseless”. Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesperson for Gaza’s health ministry, said the ambulance was part of a convoy that Israel targeted near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital.
Qidra said Israel had targeted the convoy of ambulances in more than one location, including at al-Shifa Hospital gate and at Ansar Square a kilometer (0.6 miles) away.
In a statement on the incident, Israel’s military gave no evidence to support its assertion that the ambulance was linked to Hamas but said it intended to release additional information.
“We emphasize that this area is a battle zone. Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety,” the military said.
Reuters was unable to independently verify either side’s account.
[1/4]Palestinians pull an ambulance after a convoy of ambulances was hit, at the entrance of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, November 3, 2023. REUTERS/Anas al-Shareef
Video shared on social media, which Reuters has verified, showed people lying in blood next to an ambulance with flashing lights on a city street as people rushed to help.
Another video showed three ambulances standing in a line, with about a dozen people lying either motionless or barely moving next to them. Blood was pooled nearby.
World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post he was “utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients”, adding that patients, health workers and medical facilities must be protected.
Earlier on Friday, Qidra said ambulances would send critically injured Palestinians who urgently need to be taken to Egypt to be treated from besieged Gaza City to the south of the enclave.
Israel, which has accused Hamas of concealing command centres and tunnel entrances in al-Shifa hospital, ordered all civilians to leave the north of Gaza last month and its military encircled the area on Thursday.
Despite its order for civilians to leave northern areas of Gaza, Israel’s military has continued to bombard the south of the strip as well.
Hamas and al-Shifa hospital authorities have denied the facility is used as a base by militant fighters.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams, Alistair Bell and by Sandra Maler
Great history lesson on how Israel was created and the people already in Palestine. The person being interviewed, Bassem Youssef, goes back to 1914. Lance gives more information towards the 42 minute mark. This is a great listen if you want to know about this conflict. Hugs. Scottie
While most (myself included) thought this would be another satire filled embarrassment for Piers Morgan, Bassem Youssef uses the platform to educate the world on Palestine.
Tried to write this three times from the ER. My old tablet simply wouldn’t let me log in to my blog. My phone would, but each time I finished typing I would try to set the categories and lost it all three times. So my morning.
I did not get much sleep but that is OK, I did not expect to the day after steroid shots. I woke at 3 am, rolled over to see Ron was laying there awake. I moved to snuggle, and he said he was in trouble. I asked him what was going on, thinking his leg he twisted several weeks ago was acting up from the four hours or more of going shopping at only three stores yesterday morning. Spent over 400 dollars on groceries, but we hit good sales on large packages of meats that Ron could split up and wrap, then put in the large freezer. We will have thick pork chops, pork strips, steaks, ham steaks, different kinds of chicken, ribs, hamburg, and a lot of other meat I can not remember. But Ron couldn’t walk by the time we headed home and I had to help in the house while I carried the bags in with my damaged shoulders I just Thursday had steroid shots in, my back, and my legs. But I had made sure the bags were light enough, except the freezer insulated bags Ron shoved all the meats packages in. Those were single two handed carrying while walking slowly. Couldn’t use my cane with both hands full.
But that was not his main problem. A couple of years before Ron retired and while we had dental insurance Ron’s dentist retired. I was having a lot of dental work done with the idea of having it finished before he retired. But he had to retire a year early. But Ron refused to see my dentist or get another. Recently he broke a tooth and still wouldn’t see a dentist. On and off it has been bothering him, he doesn’t eat hard food much, and used a lot of tooth pain stuff.
This morning at 3 am he told me he couldn’t swallow and his mouth, gums, and teeth were really hurting bad. He was sure he had an infected mouth. First he said he wanted to go to convenient care. We got up, I started the coffee and fed the outside cats, Tupac came in for the morning. Ron called the closest ER, which was the Cape Coral hospital, and asked if convenient care was open and would handle his need. They told him no, he would have to come to the ER. So at 4 am we pulled into the ER parking lot. We were the only people in the waiting room, and Ron got triaged right away. After about 30 minutes, Ron and I were taken to an exam room. After the nurse checked him in for both his infected mouth and his twisted leg we had a short wait until the doctor came in. He looked at Ron’s mouth saying it was very inflamed and infected, and then looked at Ron’s leg. He said he did not think Ron had anything broken but the leg was swollen. He ordered X-rays, and a prescription for antibiotics such as penicillin. We waited for the portable X-ray person. Soon she arrived and took the X-ray, so then we waited for the doctor to read it and come back. The doctor said it was not broken but as he suspected there was soft tissue damage. He recommended a dentist and an orthopedic doctor check. He left and we waited for the nurse. She came in with pills for Ron and his discharge orders, along with a couple pages of dentist places for low income people along with regular dentist offices and the same with orthopedic doctors. We left with Ron hobbling out using one of my canes. We arrived home at 7 am.
I helped Ron into bed, made a new pot of coffee and sat to type this. Ron’s stubborn refusal to do what is needed is seriously affecting our money situation. I have tried to address that with him, but as he has aged he has gotten more anxieties and more reluctant to take care of things that need doing. Especially about his healthcare. But now I am going to get something to eat. Hugs. Scottie
A wonderful post. I got the link from https://poodyheads.wordpress.com/2023/11/02/stop-trying-to-hide-s-e-x-from-students-in-school-they-already-know-all-about-it-from-the-internet/ and adult who thinks kids own bodies are not driving their innocent angels to pleasure are beyond stupid. Most of them deny their own preteen / teen years. Heck, can any of us at any number claim to know that we did not know that rubbing and touching ourselves felt good. I remember as a 14 yr old seeing a classmate rub his junk on a counter and I wondered if he knew he was doing it. He knew it felt good, or he wouldn’t have been doing it. But yes kids often younger than age 8 know it feels good to touch themselves. Why do you think adults get so upset and punish toddlers for doing that in public, because the youngest kids know it feels good, and the adults want them to feel shame over it and do it sneakily in private.
Of course as the post hints to abused kids like me knew all those things. I can not remember the first times I was abused sexually I was so young. But I knew about touch, how to touch, what happened at the end that made the abuser happy when the white stuff came out. You know what I did not know? That I could have gotten help! That it could have stopped! The reason I did not know that is because the right to my body was not taught in my schools back in the late 1960s. The idea of consent or where to go if an adult uses you was not taught. No kid knows about that so lets not burden with it, was the idea. Think of the abused kids lives could be saved and changed if the fundamentalist Christians would move aside and let schools educate kids. Then I remember, a lot of the Christian churches have huge sexual abuse of children scandals. Then I remember that every attempt to raise the age young girls can be forced into a legal marriage, which in many red / religious states is 12, and the Christian religious leaders come out strongly to defeat those bills / laws. I wonder why? Would they be just as happy with a 12-year-old boy being required to marry an adult man? Anyway here is the post and it is a great one. Hugs. Scottie
“Mr. Singer, do you know what foot finder is?”
“No,” I said to the 5th grade girl in the class where I was substitute teaching.
Her friends and her giggled through an explanation of the Website where people post pictures of their feet for sexual gratification.
***
Several days later, I tried to play a video on ancient Rome for my students, but before it even began the 8th grade class burst into laughter over the station identification.
The video was produced by the British Broadcasting Company. The BBC.
I looked at them in confusion until I heard some of them muttering about “Big Black Cock” – a class of porn video many of them had seen online identified with the same abbreviation.
***
Yesterday I overheard some of the girls in my 7th grade homeroom talking. One girl was saying how she really liked a certain boy but wasn’t sure if she was ready.
I smiled thinking about my first kiss. Then I heard her ask a friend, “Can you get pregnant from swallowing it?”
This is middle school, people.
Most of the kids here already know about sex. They know way more than I did at their age. But what they know is a jumble of images and details without the big picture.
And here come Republicans with a bunch of copycat laws to make sure public schools do nothing to dispel children’s ignorance.
In my home state of Pennsylvania, GOP lawmakers are taking action once again to hide any mention of S-E-X in schools throughout the Commonwealth.
For kids in kindergarten through 8th grade, this even includes books with depictions of any kind of nudity.
God forbid they saw a wee wee or a va-jay-jay!
Fun fact: did you know that most public school students have genitals?
It’s true.
Many boys have access to a penis anytime they want – in their underwear.
Many girls have access to even naughtier bits.
And don’t even get me started on nipples! Under their shirts, the Devil’s raisins!
Thankfully the GOP legislation only prohibits depictions of these things in books. Kids are still allowed to look at their own bodies.
For now.
The bill passed the Senate in a 29-21 vote nearly along party lines, with only one Democrat supporting the proposal. It faces an uncertain future in the House where Democrats hold a one seat majority and would also require the signature of Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro before becoming law.
A similar measure was passed before Democrats took the House last year but was vetoed by the previous Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.
If the new bill became law, districts would need to go through all books in their libraries and classrooms and list any that contain potentially sexual material. These would be books used in classroom instruction or available in the library that would then require parents to sign an opt-in form to grant permission for their children to access the books.
The bill defines sexually explicit as showing “acts of masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality or physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or, if the person is a female, breast.”
Schools can provide a safe place to discuss issues kids may be uncomfortable talking about with other adults. Books provide a safe way to mentally grapple with concepts and ideas of the adult world.
For example, in my 7th grade classes, we read “Silent to the Bone” by E.L. Konigsburg. The book is about a middle school age boy who has gone mute after a questionable interaction with an adult.
There’s nothing very graphic in the text, but among other issues it does discuss physical attraction, sexual coercion and an erection.
The book was approved by the school board and has helped foster many productive – if uncomfortable – conversations that help kids put their thoughts on these matters into words.
In my daughter’s school, in 9th grade she read “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book is about a high school girl dealing with being raped and the stigma of trying to talk about it.
The text does a marvelous job of getting into the point of view of the girl and the trauma she endures while still being humorous, touching and empowering.
Narratives like these are absolutely vital. They allow kids to relate to issues many of them have not directly experienced (but some have) and find a common language to discuss it. When we censor sex and sexuality and paint all of it as something dirty that can’t be talked about seriously, we do our children a major disservice.
Conservatives complain that talking about these things grooms kids for greater sexual activity, but that’s nonsense. Kids grow into adults many of whom become sexually active. That’s positive and healthy. Meeting that in the safe places of the classroom and books helps kids prepare for adulthood without becoming victimized.
Finally, let’s consider the amount of ridiculous extra work this bill demands of schools and teachers. You really expect every educator with a classroom library to go through every book in it looking for anything that someone might consider sexually explicit!? Some people might think a book about a kid with two daddies is sexually explicit. You want teachers to become your perverted morality police!? Please!
I dearly hope this bill has little chance of passing.
It’s a way of insinuating that public schools are doing things they aren’t.
No school is indoctrinating kids to be sexually active. But kids are coming into contact with sexually explicit material – usually on the Internet – and they have few tools to deal with it.
This is again another video on Anna’s hard right turn on trans people, which I guess is only to get her a better gig else where. She keeps going on that she objects to doctors forms or offices calling pregnant trans males birthing persons. But Anna has fervently claimed she doesn’t want kids and won’t have them. So the term doesn’t apply to her at all. She tries to claim the term is the same as the N word, but that is not used in any medical setting or forms at all. She is tilting at windmills here. She says she wants to be called a woman, and yes that is her right. And if she was ever pregnant her doctor would honor that. So why is she against what other people want to be called. Her stance makes no sense when you look at it. She got her plastic surgery nose out of joint and is making that the hill to die on. Again the question is why? But it is getting her a lot of attention and air time play on right wing podcasts / blogs. So you ask why she has gone so far out on this that no one is calling her and making it her claim to fame? Is she the new Riley Gaines, who made an entire media career over complaining she tied with a trans woman for fourth place! Hugs.
Scottie's Playtime 