An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Be Grateful!
Training could be deadly for Iraq’s woman sprinter
They warned her not to train in shorts.
This is preposterous, of course. She is a sprinter. In Iraq. Where militants warn people not to train in shorts.
Two years ago, they warned people in Baghdad. They distributed pamphlets throughout the city.
A couple days after the pamphlets, three Iraqi tennis players wore shorts to drop off their laundry.
They were all shot in the head.
But Dana Abdulrazak wears shorts.
She wears shorts, and she trains in Baghdad, and now she is standing in the Olympic Village as a member of the Iraqi Olympic team.
She is talking on a gold-spangled cell phone. She has blonde streaks in her hair and five earrings in her left ear, and she might be the very best reason to believe in these Games.
Did anyone else risk what she risked to get here? Did anyone else keep training when it could have meant death?
As I read this column, it hit me once again. We have NO idea just how lucky we are in this country!
We whine, and complain, over the most moronic things, yet never stop to think just how absurd we look to those in countries such as Iraq, who battle daily, just to survive. Have we ever considered the folks in Israel, who deal with homicide bombers, and rockets falling into their children’s schools?
We’ve got folks on the left who seem to think we should have “universal health care”, yet they never stop to consider people who, in other parts of the world, have never even seen a doctor, much less have insurance. But they want YOU to pay for some child who was born out of wedlock to a mother who isn’t old enough to know how to change a diaper, instead of teaching that young girl it doesn’t make you ‘cool’ to be a slut.
We’ve got people on the far right, who march through the streets with signs saying “God hates fags”, standing outside of funerals honoring soldiers who protect their right to be assholes. Yet they never consider perhaps their use of the 1st Amendment is contrary to what the Bible actually says. In other countries, they’d be shot, or hung, for speaking out against…..well, anything.
We have people who want to open the borders to anyone and everyone, who never stop to think they may also be letting in people who wouldn’t hesitate to murder them, or blow up buses, or put tons of drugs on the streets that would further enslave people. Nor do they consider the feckless businesses who are basically using slave labor from those who have crossed our borders illegally.
We consider poverty level somewhere around the $21,000 area. Yet those who have such an income get health care, food stamps, etc. There are people who will not earn that much money in a lifetime, and dodge bullets and bombs as well.
Our poor are very well fed, and a good chunk are overweight. The world’s poor have distended bellies from extreme hunger.
All of our children have the opportunity to get an education, and dreams big dreams, with the knowledge that, with hard work, they can actually achieve those dreams. There are those who will never learn to read because of their gender.
We hear there’s not enough money to support the schools, ‘gimme more’! Stop shoving money into the pockets of the teacher’s unions, and start buying the books and supplies that are missing! Think of all those kids who have never seen a book, or a teacher, and be grateful you have a job, and can help shape the future of America.
In some countries, a woman will be shot for showing her ankles, or wrists. We have young women walking around who barely have enough clothing on to cover pertinent parts.
Yes, we fail to see the wonders of our country, the great experiment of democracy.
The point of my rant? SHUT THE HELL UP! The next time you see someone with a bigger car, or a fancier cell phone, just think how lucky you are to even have the cell phone already in your pocket. The next time I hear someone whine about mommy not buying them those $200 sneakers, I’ll remember this young lady, and all she’s had to overcome to get where she is, and I just might smack the crap out of someone!
So,
Remember how extremely LUCKY you are!
I have lived in a few countries, none of them were perfect and neither is ours. But… compared to any other, in spite of everything that needs fixing or discarding, no other country affords any one as many rights, as much freedom as the US!
Whereas most countries would jail a person spewing as many lies as some of the ungrateful idiots who despise our republic (in spite of living and prospering here!) and what it stands for, this country guarantees and defends their rights to spew their venom and thrive. Perhaps, rather than working for the destruction of the United States they should heed the lessons of history. They should learn history as it happened and not as some revisionist “philosopher/historian/academics” choose to rewrite it.
We leave in a country where some cave dwelling neanderthals masquerading as intellectuals, seek easy fame while espousing arguments coiffed in beautiful words totally devoid of any truth or logic. They’ve become the unchallenged heroes of a thought challenged society that grew up with TV and video games as their version of reality.
Dictatorship is evil, freedom – where people are sheep and incapable of independent thought and pure logic – has also dangerous as it will be replaced a dictatorship closely resembling what they claim to hate. Pity!
@Chaim:
Dang Chaim! I wish I had your eloquence to say such. You put in a much more logical, and unemotional way, what I was trying to get across. I was angry, to say the least.
I think my journey from idiot hippie to extreme conservative began after living in Thailand for 8 months when I was 19. I had never seen such living conditions. I thought it was their fault they lived that way. Obviously, I didn’t understand the ramifications of an oppressive form of government. Not that Thailand was as oppressive as others, but never having been exposed, living my entire life with anything I had ever needed, I was totally clueless. Since that time, anytime we have traveled to foreign lands, I think of how LUCKY I have been, to have been born in a land that allows me the freedom to speak, worship, and live!
Hey Kate…… This is one of your best posts EVER!!!!!
[...] You Need To Read This By silent e Be Grateful! [...]
@silent E:
Well, thank you sir. Maybe I should get ticked off more often, eh?
The girl you wrote about did not risked as much as the other girls. Because she is the daughter of a VP or a high rank guy in there, so of course she is allowed to do anything.
Well said Kate… Unfortunately it falls on deaf ears.
We still have the libtards whining.. Oh whining from a UNIVERSITY about class warfare? Hypocrisy is the mantra of the left and they have the market cornered.
@cristina:
Do you think the bad guys cares who her dad is? Pfft! First, she’s female. Second, she wears shorts. Major no no to the Islamofacists.
@Robert:
My dad use to have this list, stuck in his Bible, that went down the line of how the commies were going to take over the country. Not from the outside, but from the inside. From what I remember (wish I could find it…maybe in my sister’s shed), they’ve pretty much covered it. Registering guns, taking over education to get the kids young, and continue brainwashing, are the two on the list I remember the most.
With rare exceptions, no matter how conservative a ‘professor’ claims to be, he’s not. Can’t be. Wouldn’t have a job!
Awesome post. I spent 20 years in the Navy and traveled all around the world. I was always hit with the same feelings about how lucky we were to be Americans. I have seen people that have sewage dumping right in the street, begging kids that break your heart, homes that look like a small breeze could blow them over!!
We take all our blessings in the country for granted!! We have become soft and lazy.
Again, thanks for that post!!!
She must have some advantages, otherwise she won’t be the only woman competing.
@cristina:
Maybe she’s really fast. Heh. I’m fairly sure there have been some strings pulled, but that wouldn’t stop the bad guys. Like I said, they don’t care about the political connections. It also may speak of the the success of the surge? Lessened violence is a good sign. I dunno. That being said, looking at the bigger picture….the country has been embroiled in a war, civil and otherwise, so the fact that she gets out there in shorts, and hasn’t been shot, in a Muslim country, is a good sign.
Cristina:
I’m going to temper my response because I’ve seen your site and think you’re just a bit misguided here. You seem to believe that some where in militant Islam, they see “status” as a way to avoid the fundamentalism. Other than saying “Benazir Bhutto,” I don’t have time now but there are plenty of instances that show that status buys you nothing against Islamic fundamentalism. Rather than cheering someone who has succeeded against some level of odds, you seem to imply that their success is due to some kind of special advantage or cheating. That works way too close to the “Progressive” mentality of why the US should be brought down to the level of every other country…we’re better, not because we have abilities but because somehow we’ve cheated the rest of the world. The solution is always to tax or regulate everyone and everything that has ever been succesful so that it doesn’t happen again. You might want to pay attention to the non MSM stories of the olympics and see how that’s working out for the Chinese people!
I understand where everybody is coming from and I want nothing more than the women in those countries to have the same freedom as we are enjoying here. That said, I am always careful not to asume that relatives of high ranking people don’t take advantage of their position. What was illegal for people in Romania, Ceausescu’s kids were always allowed to do. That’s the part I’m coming from.
@cristina:
Hmm…. I really think you missed the whole point of my post. Not that some high ranking bureaucrat’s kid got away with wearing shorts in an Islamic country. The point is sacrifice. We don’t. We whine when our cable is on the fritz, and blame the cable company, even though lightening hit the tower, or whatever. Our kids behave horribly, at home and out in public, and we do nothing to correct it. Some do gooder decided you can’t spank your kid, so your kid is now a major pain in the ass. (not your’s, literally) Just because little Johnny’s mother was stupid enough to buy him a brand new car for his sixteenth birthday, doesn’t mean he’s mature enough to be behind the wheel. But your kid (hypothetically) is all kinds of bent out of shape cuz you won’t get him one too. Then when little Johnny gets drunk, or stoned with his buds after a game on Friday night, and kills people, you’ll hear, “but I won’t do that”, even though you know he was almost in that car too, until you put your foot down, but then, you’re the bad parent, right? sigh… We have a generation of kids growing up who believe the world starts and ends with them, and never have really had to sacrifice ANYTHING. I mean nothing real! And it started with MY generation, who was the major spoil brats of the 20th century. OUR parents knew what it was like to sacrifice, to do without, they wanted to make sure we didn’t. And that was pretty much where the trouble started. Joe McCarthy was right, we were being infiltrated, we were just too stupid to figure it out.
We need to return to the time when our kids weren’t trophies, for someone else to raise, while the elitists tell everyone how it’s done. We’re watching movies coming from a city made up of America haters, and hand on their every word on how it should be done. “I’m not really a political expert, but I played one in a movie, so listen up, this is how is should be!”
We’ve got union members whose leaders get them great benefit packages, so that they think they have ‘free’ health care. Not realizing their vote might close the business or the prices past on to the consumers will be so high, the need will drop, jobs will be lost, and they’ll stand there scratching their heads wondering what happened.
Teachers can no longer discipline students, so they have to be drugged. Ever wonder how many kids, now that they don’t get recess, or gym glasses are diagnosed with ADD, or ADHD these days? The numbers have increased with the cutting of their avenues of exercise. They sure don’t get any when they get home. If the parent will insist on homework first, assuming the parent isn’t trying to put food on the table when the kid gets home, then there’s the hours and hours in front of the tube, or gamebox, or PC. Ya got folks whining about how fat our kids are, just look where it started. NO P.E.
NO, we don’t have a clue what it’s like in other countries. You focused on the girl, which is ok, but she was meant as a symbol, more or less. There are many girls, in many countries who would love to have the opportunity she had, even with the fear of getting shot. And we take it all for granted.
We are an ungrateful country, and expect the gubmint to solve all our problems because we are too damn lazy to sacrifice. Code Pink likes their freedom to be bitches, but never once consider just who gives them that right. It sure as hell isn’t the gubmint! It’s the very people they are bitching about. They don’t care about the soldiers. They’ve got an agenda, so they got themselves a target.
We’ve got a Congress who is so elitist, they forgot who put there sorry asses there in the first place. And the country is going to hell in a hand basket because we have forgotten the fear of God!
Ok, rant over…again.
I do go on, don’t I. Honestly, if we don’t get our collective heads out of our collective hinders, we’re going to become one of those nations that has to beg for bread. And we won’t be equipped for REAL sacrifice.
I agree with you with everything you said. I understood that you wanted to use this girl as an example/symbol for the sacrifice many make. In my never to be humble opinion the example was chosen half right. I’m sure she made some sacrifice, but I think if she was just a regular girl who got to go to the Olympics, the sacrifice was greater as she didn’t have her high rank father to protect her.