Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday - the chicken, turkey and is anyone really surprised edition

I tried, really I did. I tried not to rant too much during November. I tried to do whatever it took to avoid writing my TTPMOT pieces during this month.

Last week, I was super duper distracted by the piece I was writing about diabetes and my mother, so I wasn't really in the place to rant anyway...which was good.

This week?

Oh, it's on.

If Your Kid Is Wearing A Dead Chicken....
I really try hard not to judge other people. Like, I bend over backwards to do it, give them the benefit of the doubt for probably a lot longer than I should, try to assume the best about people. Honest. I do.

There is a line though.

And when you've seen some of the things I have seen - good parents hauled into CPS investigations for misunderstandings and a system of mandated reporting for even the most happenstance occurrences, where good parents are afraid to discipline their kids at all because of the legal system....then on the other hand you see cases of blatant abuse and neglect ignored by the system, courts turning kids back over to horrible parents, kids in foster care being abused by the very people who are supposed to be shielding them from abuse in the first place, it gets harder and harder not to judge.

Then when there is an epidemic of stories in the news about parents intentionally abusing their children in the name of discipline, claiming that they are just following the advice of a book written by people who advocate beatings, it becomes impossible not to judge.

When all you have to do is search the title of this book and most of the items returned are of cases of children taken from parents because of abuse, where children have died at the hands of their parents, where the few raving about how great the book is admit publicly that they've beat their children into submission, there is something very wrong. 

I won't name the book. I won't even name the writers. I won't. I won't talk about the specifics of the cases coming out in the last week, and I won't tell you about all the situations in the past where kids have been beaten in the name of discipline at the behest of this so-called parenting advice. It makes me physically ill.

Parenting is hard. Parenting a child with anger and rage issues is hard. Parenting an unstable child, a rebellious one, a violent one...is hard. I know how hard it is because I am living it right now. I would never, ever, ever think to raise my hand at my child though. Never.

Thanksgiving Rantsgiving
I am shockingly not bothered by the early Christmas decorations this year, by the annoying commercials, by the music even. I'm not quite sure what the reason is.

I made this last year. I thought you might enjoy it.


What does bother me is the whole online debate about when shopping should start.

I've written before about the fact that I worked in retail in the past. I've shopped Black Friday in the past. I've stood in line for hours in the freezing cold to try and grab a good deal. I won't do it anymore.

I won't do it because the retailers are pushing and pushing and pushing the shopping to start earlier and earlier. Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day off for everyone to spend with their families. If you work in retail, you don't get to ask for days off this time of year. You work, or you get fired. There is no stay home with your family option. I've lived it.

If you honestly think the shoppers are the ones who are pushing for the times to be moved up, you're wrong. It's the companies who want another shopping day before Christmas. Their bottom line means more to them than anything else, because that is how corporations work. They want a captive audience of people who need the cheap gifts to make Christmas happen, so they edge it up by a few hours every year, and they know it will work because they know that the only way you are buying that expensive gift is if you can get it for cheaper. They lure you in with cheap electronics, with $5 toasters, with exceptionally limited quantities of everything else in the ads.

Most major retailers are opening at 8pm on Thanksgiving night this year. Which means that the employees are being forced to be there even earlier.

There are some who argue that the employees don't mind because they want/need the overtime pay that working on a holiday brings...which may be true for many people, but the fact that it is true is even more indicative of a problem. People shouldn't depend on one day's pay to make a holiday happen, they should be paid enough that they don't need to work on holidays just to make ends meet.

Speaking of these giant companies not paying their employees enough, then forcing them to work....guess who is actually hosting a food drive for their own employees this year????

Yep. You guessed it. Walmart.

If that isn't possibly the single biggest argument that they do not pay a living wage to their employees, I don't know what else it would take for people to get it.

If You're Surprised....
Florida's favorite gun toting son is back in the news again. George Zimmerman was arrested again yesterday, this time for pointing a shotgun at his pregnant girlfriend.

Is anyone really surprised?

Good guy George....I wonder what his reason was this time.

I'm sure it's a good one. Wink, wink.