Re: Way OT: I feel bad for Michael Phelps

On Feb 8, 1:01�pm, elle <e...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But Phelps is not an elected official, certainly not president of the
US, and is still just a kid. �Clinton really should have known better,
whereas Phelps has been on the party circuit, celebrating his victories,
ever since they happened. �Before that, he'd been in training forever--
when has he even had the chance to BE a kid?

IMO this is far too much ado about a kid being a kid, but then again, we
toss them in jail for this, too. �Kids. �In jail. �And their parents
(who did the same things when they are kids) condone it with their
votes. �We agree to waste huge volumes of taxpayer money placing and
keeping kids in jail for victimless crimes. �We learned no lesson at all
from prohibition.

Our prisons are overflowing, while Abe Madoff sits with an ankle
bracelet in his luxury digs.

Weird culture we live in.

Hugs,

elle



Sue wrote:
On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:03:11 -0600, "jacks" <jacks.c...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Phelps can swin better than anyone else. He worked hard
for it and deserved all his medals. Why should he get
anything else? Other people worked harder and didn't
win. They will not be known and will have to get real
jobs that actually benefit society.
I think of all the people in the working force that contribute
their efforts, talents, education, dedication, sacrafices, etc.
And they are ekeing by to provide for their familes and are
under constant fear of losing their job.
A cop, nurse, truck driver, e.g., can go on a rare vacation
thousands of miles away and smoke pot, come back days
later and get a random drug test. They lose their jobs, and
their licenses are forever tainted if not lost.
Those are the poeple I feel bad for.

For me the whole thing is reminiscent of the Bill Clinton/Monica
Lewinski deal. � It wasn't *what* Clinton did but that he could be so
incredibly stupid as to do it at all.
Sue

jacks

"Gracenote" < wrote in message ...
He is getting screwed, you'll pardon the expression. One picture of
him 'apparently' doing something that, yes was illegal, but about as
harmful as a glass of Scotch, on his personal time. And pot is not
performance enhancing. Now he is being villified, losing sponsors, no
longer on the box of Wheaties, having to apologize all over the place..
His Mom is mad at him. And it wasn't very nice of whoever snapped the
picture and sold it to the tabloids. Flesh peddling.

Our society can be awfully self righteous at times, and we pick and
choose who gets the punishment in the oddest ways. I guess we like to
set up heroes then kick them around when they prove to be less than
perfect.

Sorry, I just saw it on the news again and it set me off.

And don't even get me started on the peanut butter. They knowingly
sold contaminated peanuts for a year? And who eats peanut butter the
most? Children. And us vegetarians. They have shot one of my sacred
cows with that one. You will take my jar of peanut butter when you can
pry it from my cold dead hand, that's what I say.

Thank God the Girl Scout cookies are safe.

I think I need to cut back on my sodium; I seem to be a bit bitchy
tonight. I'll be quiet now.

Annette
Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!!!!!- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree with you, Annette. It happened once to my older son. He was
in a friend's car driving north through somewhere in the outback of
New York State when they were pulled over by a cop car. Cop said they
had a broken tail light. Turns out that wasn't all they had. Maybe,
maybe they had 10 ounces of pot, and the cops said they had a police
nightstick in the trunk. I think their crime was that they were kind
of scruffy looking teen-agers, so they threw them into a podunk jail.
Happened to be the same jail that some Weather people were in. So
that shows you how long ago it was. He didn't want me to know, but he
managed to call our lawyer. This lawyer was strictly wills and income
tax and real estate, but he called me and gave me the name of a
criminal lawyer.

He was out of jail in a couple of days and I was out $5000. I like to
think he learned something from the experience, but it took me a long
time to make up that $5000. Those were the days of the extremely
draconian Rockefeller drug laws, which I think are still on the
books. I have not mentioned that escapade to him in years. I don't
see any reason to bring it up. He has matured quite well. He does
like to drink beer at Yankee baseball games, but that's about the
extent of it. He's 40-something now, and I hate to think about what
that makes me. But he's a good guy and so is his brother, 2 1/2 years
younger. Both of them are professional men. Both tall, one has put
on a bit of weight but the other one is skinny.

I think that's about the worst thing either one of them has done.

But I do believe that drugs, hard drugs are one of the things that
ruin young lives. I wish that NY would get rid of those old drug laws
that never seemed to do any good, and try to figure out something that
would help to prevent kids from getting addicted.

And speaking of addiction, I have always regarded cigarette smoking as
an addiction. Having successfully quit smoking, I know how incredibly
hard it was. I can only guess at how difficult it must be to break a
drug addiction.

And BTW, I once bought a couple of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and
soon found my grocery cupboard swarming with some kind of weevils.
Had to throw away all the open boxes of cereal and a lot of other
things. Never again.

Joyce
11 years+

.

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