Really Good Quotes

Greetings, Quotaholics:

On several occasions I’ve mentioned how strange I find it that within the last couple of generations we’ve gone from a society where women were frequently married by the time they were 15 to a society that makes criminals out of any male having sex with a female under the age of 18.

The latest case of this comes from Texas where a Mormon polygamist sect has been raided by the state and all children removed from their homes.

OK, as a society we frown on polygamy. As a general rule it seems we frown on Mormonism, but we only talk about that when one wants to run for president! So a Mormon polygamist must be dealt with, and the sooner the better.

The government, under the guise of protecting children, goes in and removes the children from their homes and places them in foster homes with strangers. There have been no reports of abuse against the children that I have seen. They all lived in their parents homes. Yet now they have been placed in the foster home system. A system where we hear of abuse almost daily.

The mothers of these children appear to have done nothing wrong. The children appear to have done nothing wrong. If the state felt they needed protecting, why didn’t they take the men out of the homes? The men are the ones accused of marrying underage girls and having sex with them.

Compare this with another article I read concerning two parents from the Denver, Colorado area.

This couple wasn’t married. They had a son when they were both 15. Recently the father, Joseph Manzanares, went to the video store where his ex-girlfriend, the babies mother, worked. They began to argue, he threatened to kill her, and knocked over several displays and a computer.

The cause of all this ruckus? “The mother of the child told police that she and the boy’s father have been involved in ongoing domestic disputes regarding their son.”

“The woman said she is a ‘Crip’ gang member and that Manzanares is a ‘Baller’ gang member, and ‘they have different ideas on how the baby should be raised,’ said Commerce City Police Sgt. Joe Sandoval.”

“‘Basically she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would claim,’ Sandoval said.”

Now pardon me if I seem stupid here, but if you are already planning your child’s life of crime, shouldn’t you have the child taken away? And what about the fact that the mother of this child was only 15 when the child was born?

On the one hand we have a group of people who are raised in a society that believes that polygamy is OK and marriage at 15 is OK so we attack them and take their children away. On the other hand we have a couple that doesn’t give a damn about marriage, children, or crime and we only arrest one of them when he goes in and busts up someone’s business!

Does this seem as screwed up to you as it does to me? Do you think the Mormon girls are being abused by following the tradition of the society they were raised in? Do you think the Colorado child is being abused by having parents who fight over which gang he will be in rather than what school he should attend to escape the life his parents have apparently had?

Is the polygamist case discrimination against a religious belief we don’t agree with? Would the Colorado child be helped if he weren’t Hispanic?

Riled up,



P.S. I recently wrote about a new law in New Hampshire that appeared to make it illegal to look at a child in public. After the internet went crazy talking about it, it was revealed that the problem was not so much the law as it was the failure of The Portsmouth Herald Newspaper to fully explain the law. Here is a link to an article that attempts to explain it a little better.


P.P.S. Now that RGQ is available online it gives me a chance to do some things that are not possible in the email version. Starting tomorrow I’m going to have a Saturday Video Special edition. I’ll share funny, entertaining, enlightening, or just downright stupid Youtube videos that you send me. To contribute, email me the link to the video you would like to share.

Isn’t it worth $1 a month to you to keep RGQ going?  Please click the link and direct your contribution to reallygoodquotes@yahoo.com.

"If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?" – Anonymous

"A chrysanthemum by any other name would be much easier to spell." – Anonymous

E-Mail the Imp

There’s a new restaurant that opened in Nuremburg, Germany that is booked up for weeks. The draw is that it’s an automated restaurant.

Customers sit at a table with a touch screen computer that sends their orders back to the kitchen. When ready, the orders are delivered to the table by a rail system. The owner, Michael Mack says, “People get more service, better food and more comfort for less money - thanks to the efficiency.”

This reminds me of the Automats in New York when I was growing up. The new restaurant Mack opened and the Automat share one feature, no waiters or waitresses. In the Automat you served yourself. There were windows built into the walls that worked like a vending machine. You inserted coins, turned a knob, and a window opened to let you pick up your sandwich, pie, or bowl of cereal. There were also hot entrées and side dishes available, and some Automats had steam tables like a buffet line, but the food was served to you.

I loved going to the Automat and we always went to Horn and Hardat’s. The novelty of it never got boring, although I only went there about once a month or less. Every time I went I had the same side dish either with a hamburger steak, or pot roast, or pork chops. That side dish was the Baked Macaroni and Cheese. To this day I make that side dish as often as my wife will let me and always include it as a covered dish item at get togethers. I don’t remember where my sister got her version of the recipe, but I found a very, very close version on the net.

The rise of fast food restaurants and the rising cost of food doomed the Automat, at least in the USA. They’re still operating overseas in Europe and specifically in the Netherlands. Periodically someone will try to open one hoping the nostalgia craze will keep it running, but when the novelty dies, they close.

I don’t know how good those Automat meals really were, with the exception of the Macaroni and Cheese. There are others that I remember fondly which were “comfort foods”, and they tasted great as best I can recall. Salisbury Steak and Mashed Potatoes, Hamburger Steak and Cottage Fries, Pot roast and Boiled potatoes, even Corned Beef and Cabbage. They had a Baked Bean side dish that I’ve never seen anywhere else and try as I might I can’t duplicate the recipe or even come close.

Now I’m hungry…I think I’ll microwave a burrito!

The Bad Sied 

Email Kirsten

Thank you for calling the Weight Loss Hotline. If you’d like to lose a half pound right now, press 1 eighteen thousand times.
~ Randy Glasbergen ~

Some women have perfect bodies throughout their lives. They can eat greasy burgers and chocolate cake every day of their lives, give birth to seven sets of triplets, and never do any exercise. And they will be women that other women love to hate. They will have toned, flat stomachs, thin thighs, perky breasts, and not an ounce of fat anywhere.

I am not one of these women. I am the kind of woman who starts off OK but has to work really hard at her weight; the kind who sees the pounds inching higher and higher after the birth of her children, and who cannot seem to shed it no matter what she does. Like most women, I would not reveal my weight even if someone was ripping out my fingernails one by one, but I will say that I am about forty pounds overweight.

It may therefore come as a surprise to many that I am going to voluntarily don a skimpy black two-piece swimsuit, and have pictures taken of me. Pictures that will be sent to a bunch of complete strangers who will judge them. Of course, these unflattering shots will be accompanied by pictures taken in the same bikini twelve weeks later, when I will have a leaner, sleeker, healthier body.

You see, I have accepted a challenge. It is the twelve-week Body for Life challenge, run in both the United States and Canada. The person in each country who achieves the greatest inner and outer transformation over a period of twelve weeks is deemed to be the winner. Contestants are judged by the pictures they submit, and by an essay they write in which they describe how much better they feel about themselves with their shiny new bodies.

The contest guidelines include nutritional advice, such as what to eat and what to avoid. They recommend adequate fluid intake, and state that "grazing" (eating five or six small meals a day) is healthier than the traditional three big meals a day. The rationale behind this is that eating a big meal tends to make a person go into a temporary slump, whereas grazing keeps energy levels consistent throughout the day. It is also recommended that contestants eat all colours of the rainbow to ensure the intake of a variety of nutrients.

Exercise guidelines are also set out. The contest organizers, a company called EAS, recommend six days of exercise per week. Contestants are advised to alternate 45-minute weights workouts with 20-minute cardio workouts. Two of the weights workouts should focus on the upper body; one on the lower body. The seventh day is for resting. The contest manual recommends stretching, but highlights the dangers of stretching cold muscles. It lists the benefits of drinking fluids while exercising, and the dangers of dehydration.

Of course, being a company that wants to make money, EAS recommends the use of its nutritional supplements dorung the twelve-week program. They have everything from low-fat energy bars to protein shakes and meal replacements. They have products that look and taste like cookies and chocolate bars, and they have a variety of vitamins and minerals geared towards athletes and dieters. Use of EAS products is not a requirement of participation, though in reality, it probably is a factor in determining the winners.

Throughout the challenge, contestants are advised to keep journals. They aren’t journals where you simply list what you ate and what exercise you did. You also state what goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the day, whether you achieved the goals, the best thing that happened to you, how you feel physically and emotionally, whether you are happy or stressed, what you can do in the next twenty four hours to make a positive difference to your life.

Before I signed up for the challenge, I looked at the before and after pictures of challengers in years gone by. The website also shows pictures of several challengers eight or nine years after taking the challenge. Those pictures are the really inspiring ones, because they show that the challengers have maintained their healthy lifestyles and beautiful bodies over a period of several years.

I figure that if they can do it, so can I. Besides, I wouldn’t sneeze at the $10,000 grand prize. So wish me luck!

Kaleidoscopically yours,
Kirsten

When separating eggs, break them into a funnel. The whites will go through leaving the yolk intact in the funnel. - Peggy in Tonawanda, New York

More make-ups from Annie make it a full boat today.


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