Terra Sears - Addicted to Research

So what am I researching lately? Nothing, nada… I am taking a break, still trying to get my head around some of the stuff I learned this last semester. Only two more semesters (providing they have what I need next Sept.), and then graduation…

If there was a shocker it was taking “Women Studies.” You know when you take an entry level class, and are pretty sure it isn’t going to tax your mind but then it turns out you learn more from it than any other? That was this class, there are quite a few things I have taken for granted (and I am still not happy about a lot of the things I learned), that I shouldn’t take for granted and neither should you.

OK, I lied I took a look at conservapedia (think I spelled that right – wiki for conservatives). Take a look at what they say feminist means, the propaganda there is maddening. I can hear it now “we don’t have to worry about it, we just have to make it sound like a horrible thing that no one wants to be a part of, and make them ashamed for standing up against the status quo.” *shakes head Plus they are insulting the “conservatives” that aren’t so empty headed… (Yes, really…)

Anyway, just sitting back relaxing and digesting information right now… OH and I get to take serial killers next semester!!! I am so exited!!! (If you can’t tell with the major punctation.)

Just got out of classes (yes it is 10:00 PM), and I was doing my nightly stuff. I haven’t mentioned it on here yet, but I quit smoking again… I am now doing my nightly stuff. So here is what I do before I go to bed.

I go to MyPyramid and log what I ate today (menu planner). It lets me know what I need to eat more of and less of. Now, let me tell you I have been doing doing really good and loosing weight (more than with any diet that I have done), until this quit smoking thing. Guess I need to buy carrots or something.  The good part? Dust quit too! He has gained ten pounds! (He is underweight to that is GOOD.)

Then I run over and make sure that Nina has been doing her spelling games. (Last year with everything we tried she still didn’t do well. Using these games she has been getting at least a 80%) WEIRD

Then I go to Heaven’s schooland log her hours and make sure that there isn’t anything I need to print for “tomorrow” as well as to check my kmail to be sure that none of the teachers need anything from me.

Then I go to my school and check my email, and depending on how tired I am, I check what is going on in my classes. (More often I do it in the morning.) Then I check my NORMAL email. (I reply sometimes, and sometimes I don’t… Depends on how tired I am

Depending on if anyone had anything to do with a doctor, dentist or whatever I then go enter that information in my family’s health manager. I then decide if I am gonna go play my silly games or not.

Last I decide what I am gonna read before I go to sleep. (Tonight? Forensics Under Fire by Fisher.)

What did I do today? Laundry, dishes, bathed all 6 dogs, bathed both cats (they made friends with a skunk the other night), watched my lectures, read some of my work for classes, helped Katrina with her math homework, ran to town, and on on on…

Good Night

I watched my senator (Barrasso) today on a little “town hall” type thing, and the other guy that does this “against the public option” thing today. They were doing this thing with doctors, and essentially the doctors were complaining about the reduced amount of money they get from medicare. (BTW, can’t remember the guy that does this stuff with my senator, but he made a lot of valid points even though he is against what I want. Barrasso didn’t have anything to say that I thought was good.) However, because of the other guys inability to understand life, I still don’t like him.

So it makes me wonder, what is that cost (reimbursement)? I did a tiny research to find something, and plan on doing more later. I was not able to find the answers yet. However, it just so happens that I got an “explanation of benefits” for Katrina’s kidcare today. I am thinking the difference is most likely there, but perhaps medicare is a bit more? *Unsure… So you tell me what do you think?

Katrina had a mole removed from her head. The doctor did a good job. It took about 20 minutes to talk to us, remove it, and send us out the door. They gave her a bit of whatever they use so that you don’t feel it, and used this little thing with a hole cut in it, and it looked like they “razor” cut it off. In addition they sent it in to be sure it wasn’t cancerous. (It wasn’t.)

Here is the cost:

Office Lab - Charges, 195.00; Discount, 4.00; Blue Cross Blue Shield 191.00
Office Visit – Charges, 73.00; Discount, 17.00; /BCBS 51.00
Office Medical Care – Charges, 209.00; Discount, 35.00; BCBS 174.00

TOTAL – Charges, 477.00; Discount, 56.00; BCBS, 416.00; Copay, 5.00

I have to say if that is even close to what medicare pays for services (although, many of the copays are higher) the doctors aren’t being reasonable, in my opinion. Of course I don’t know what they pay, as I can’t seem to find that information…

One of the things that I will give credit for from the dude that does the little talk show with Barrasso: The standard of care for some things are to high (example used: bump on the head almost always equals an MRI, when it isn’t really something that should always be done). He really does make some excellent points. However, I would use the same points FOR the public option rather than against them…

Anyway, I can’t wait for whatever is going to happen to finally happen. The soaps that call themselves politics are hurting my head. I have taken several classes, and read so many books about politics (and interest groups) that I am starting to fall into the idea that we need major reform in these areas. People and VOTES are what our system is supposed to be about, not CORPORATIONS and MONEY… I hope I live to see the day when that reform is made. No I don’t want mob rule, but I certainly want our politicians doing that which they are elected to do, or at least put every effort into it…

I am borrowing a post from Logical Complex Infinitive, I want to note that I don’t agree with everything that is said in the argument by any means. However, I found the argument to be good enough that I wanted more people to see it. I would ask that if you want to talk about the subject matter go ahead and do so here. However, if you want to talk about the finer points please do so on the original blog. Thanks

Christian Hypocricy In Light Of Obama’s Notre Dame Commencement Address

By now, we all know about President Obama’s visit to Notre Dame. It was filled with controversy for Christians and especially for Catholics. Please! Get real! I have 2 quick observations:

First, I find it fascinating that the Republican party – the party that prides itself on less regulation and more personal responsibility – is so determined to pursue Constitutional Amendments against gay marriage and abortion. Whatever happened to leaving regulations to the States? Whatever happened to leaving personal matters to individuals’ decisions? Clearly, all that big talk apply only if they agree with your religious views and political agendas.

Second, let’s assume abortion is killing a living baby. I can truly accept and, in a way, believe that. Now, some one tell me how abortion can be viewed as a much worse act than killing a living person. Remember the 10 Commandments? Remember the sixth one: thou shalt not murder? No where does it say thou shalt not murder only the unborn.

I find it absolutely hypocritical that most Christians who are so against abortion are precisely the same individuals whose core ideology is the same as that of Rush Limbaugh’s and Dick Cheney’s. The same ideology that merits we (the U.S.) are the king of the world, we should govern the world and protect ourselves at any cost, and if some innocent lives are lost in the process, so be it. Every time we drop bombs and rockets to kill terrorists, we inevitably kill some innocent by-standards in the process. Some of those innocent souls are children, newborns and even unborn. Therefore, we are violating the sixth commandment. Where’s the outrage? Where are the protests?

In no way am I suggesting that we should not fiercely protect ourselves or avoid pre-emptive strikes. And I’m not so naive to think that we can do all that with no non-military casualties. But then I don’t have an existential crisis, and I’m not hypocritically against abortion while practically supporting the deaths of unborn and pregnant women in war. That is not for me to resolve. Those of you Christians who are against abortion and thought Obama’s visit to Notre Dame was an abomination must work this out between yourselves and your God. And be careful what conclusion you reach. If you believe that God agrees with your views and supports your plan, you have reached the wrong conclusion. It should be exactly the opposite!

Eternal damnation is not just for those who support or perform abortion. It is also for those who violate the sixth commandment. That could be you. Think about it.

There I am in my political violence class, that is focused on terrorism this week. I was so disappointed in some of the thoughts, and the book we read “The 9/11 Commission Report”. The book ignored fact, so did my class. Did you know that we are in this war because the world views us (America) as the best in the world? It has nothing to do with the injustices that they have suffered, and so on. Now, to be clear I am not a terrorist sympathizer. The people who would kill innocent people to accomplish their means, aren’t my idea of a “good” guy, but if that is really what people think the truth is they don’t care what the reasons are.

I think the worst thing I said was meant to be just a small correction, but I think it came out a bit harsher than I meant it to. Someone suggested that the North decided to abolish slavery, and this started our civil war. Which ignores the fact that that decision was made after the war started, not before. *Sigh Illusions of grander anyone?

Have you ever seen a 30 (something) year old mother throw a temper tantrum? Here is my temper tantrum… Yes, I am aware I don’t make as much sense when something angers me, but dang these things are so misleading. I don’t like it when people purposely try to mislead you!

The reading clearly points out the biggest problem with the word psychopath; it doesn’t have a clear and universal meaning. If we break apart the definitions we can see that clearly each behavior is a matter of degree, and while we would assume that for this particular word that would be a severe degree we cannot measure the degree by those words. Therefore, if someone was assessed based upon these definitions, it would depend just as much on the assessor as to the assessed as to if the person was deemed to be a psychopath. Also a clear problem with the definition is that the word assesses a problem, but the person doesn’t have the problem without the actions that create the problem.

I also had a little bit of a problem with the idea expressed that it was a moral problem, as morals are created by a society and breaking the rules of society (no matter how horrible we see them to be) is not a clear method of something being wrong with an individual, as morals are something that we are not born with but taught to observe. A good teacher will teach us the why’s and we will feel guilty if we do not follow the rules of society, but in of themselves the morals are nothing but what we decide they are. An example would be having sex with children, at a point in our own history it was normal to marry and begin having children as soon as possible, by the standards of the day it wasn’t against the rules it was rather normal. However, if a ten year old girl was to marry and have children by the standards of today the people involved would be criminals.

The sections with numbers (i.e. persistent aggression after third grade is predictive of continued aggressiveness & 40% of 8 year olds with conduct disorder are repeatedly convicted) had me searching for my old psychology book. I am not sure where these studies came from, but there are a few leaps that are taken for such conclusive statements to be made. (I didn’t find my psychology book by the way, but I will keep looking.) There is no way to know this information in such definitive numbers, not all aggressiveness in children will be seen, not all will be reported, some will be reported wrongly, and so forth. Then with adults we are assuming the same types of things, which the criminal in fact did the crime (we can say they were convicted, but that isn’t a true indication that they in fact did the behavior), that the person was caught and so forth. In addition to these short comings we once again have labels that are a matter of opinion, not of fact. I am just not comfortable with the way the data is presented. (What was the amount of people that were looked at to come up with these numbers? What was the specific criterion for deciding if someone was “aggressive?” Is it aggressive to get mad and kick a dog? If so how many times must the action be repeated for it to be persistent?)

I did find the brain scans interesting, but once again without knowing the situations I don’t feel they really show anything. If the stimulus was different it would be natural for the “lighted” regions to be different. How many were done to make sure that this was an indication of a biological difference? It is also interesting to know that when brains have trauma a personality can change. However, I wonder what this means for others, after all since we “train” our brains in different ways through the way we learn things and the connections where we learn things does this indicate that we all work this way, or just this man? (Not for the personality change itself, but this type of change to the negative behaviors.)

Cleckley’s characteristics seem to have the same problems mentioned before, they are not specific enough. As you read the list you can see some you have done at some point in your life, at what level does it take you out of a normal range to one that is classified as a psychopath. All in all the reading was interesting, but I just can’t have that much faith in the processes that have been brought up. There are too many holes, and some I am sure could be fixed knowing more about the processes used, but some are quite large problems that make you wonder if they can be fixed at all.

Yup, I am starting to wonder if my blog is going to become a to do list place too. *Sigh, hopefully  just until I get the routine down…

M.E.

Post presentation and project
Post survey of central themes
Post 5 points from each reading CH
post summary of chapter from reading
Write 5 questions from reading (and post)
2 simple identifications
1 “thought” or essay question
1 interpretation or assessment question
1 concept question
Answer at least 3 questions from classmates
Read 107-167

P.V.

Watch Powerpoints (and take notes) 1,2,3,4
Discuss powerpoints with groups
reflective journal
thought piece #1

Statistics

Unit 4, 5

D.B.

Lecture 3,4
Read Ch 1,2

Today Dust wasn’t able to go to work as the fanbelt thing broke in the work truck. A new one was brought, and some part that is attached to that is broke, so it is now ordered. The part is supposed to be in by noon tomorrow. Then we got the call from Heaven’s ortho, she has an appointment tomorrow. (I forgot to put it on the calendar.) I am done with all but one class for the week. Thats it…

I went ahead and spent a good half an hour on the blog. I haven’t used this background before, it is pretty, but I had to add some HTML to this one. I think other than making stuff bold and italicized I have forgotten it all. (I had to look up how to make a link, I have been SO lazy on using any html for like the last year.) So I think I have it all up right, if you happen to find any links that don’t work let me know. One more week of school, then I am out for a while. Hopefully I will be able to make some blog posts with some substance while I am out of school.

Well I do have a ton of housework to catch up on too. (Not the all the time stuff, the take down the curtains and wash them, clean out the heater ducts, and stuff like that.) I really need to teach my kids to help out a little more. Not that they don’t help at all, but they do the minimum amount they can and not get in trouble (i.e. dad doesn’t notice and work their butts off.) So I did that, some laundry, and looked up some more stuff for my report. Did I mention that ten page report isn’t started yet (well the planning outline is done, but not any writing has started.) So that is what I will work on tomorrow, and hopefully have a little time to study the first test on Tuesday. (I have a B without taking the final in my Criminal Legal Procedure class – so I am totally skipping the final. That will give me a little extra time to study in my other classes and to get that report out of the way.)