When is Pregnancy Crankiness Too Much???

No, I'm not talking about myself. I work in an office with a pregnant woman, and she has been really cranky the last couple of days--really demanding of everyone, making snide comments, and making faces at things she doesn't agree with or have patience for. Now, I know she's pregnant, and hormones can affect a person's mood, but how far is too far, especially in an office setting? Are we, the lowly receivers of the crankiness, able to say something to her? Or feel justified by stewing over it when we know full well that it's the little baby inside making her into a monster?

Ugh. A pregnant woman in an office full of women doesn't make for a happy office.

Feather Hats

Today our student worker is wearing a little feather hat perched on top of her head. It's the kind that forms to your head and only covers the very top, like one of those hats from the first half of the 20th century and sometimes had a little veil on it. The funniest part is that she's also wearing normal college clothes with it--normal pants and a normal shirt. At first I thought she had colored her hair again, but then I noticed what I thought was hair was actually colored feathers.

Weird.

Europe

Hey, I forgot to post this a long time back. It's a map of all the countries in Europe I've been to. I added Poland this summer.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I've been sorely missing writing on my blog lately, but I've been just too darn busy. I even check my own blog once in a while to make sure it's still there! School just started again, and that means that we're overrun by students, which means no more blogging time at work until the furor dies down. I'm hoping to be able to blog at least a couple of times a week from now on (and more if possible). Don't give up hope!

Oh, and also, I'm starting my second year of German. I just wrote my first German essay--it was 2 paragraphs long.

Why Is "Politician" a Bad Word?

This morning I was watching Good Morning, America's townhall discussion about the whole Katrina fiasco. They had people (mostly refugees) from all over the country asking politicians questions. One was the governor of Louisiana and another was a congressman or something. For exact info, go to GMA's transcripts.

The first question was a no-holds-barred attack on the levee system: Why didn't the government take care of the levee so that it wouldn't break? Now, I, as a non-politician, thought of a million answers to this one: the tax payers didn't vote in a new tax to pay for it, we thought it was fine (in fact, one of the ones that broke was one of the newer ones), the federal government is cutting funds for things like that to support the war in Iraq, my dog ate the mandate...you get the idea. But the governor of Louisiana evaded the question and said this exchange occured instead:

Blanco: Betty, that has us all worried. We have to worry about these levees. We need more resources to be able to make sure this never happens again and I think that's going to happen for us this time.

Diane Sawyer: I think the question was why weren't they done before? What can you tell us about that?

Blanco: A lot of money, time and attention is given to the levee system. But there's always been a concern and in more recent years, we have had less and less resources. The Army Corps of Engineers' budget has been cut often times and warned over an over again. Our folks at the federal level need the money to maintain the levees. You know, they have more of the answers than I do. We have always been concerned, but, you know, our concerns proved to be right this time.

Now, why couldn't the governor just have bitten the bullet and told us what really happened. "Our folks at the federal level need the money to maintain the levees"? What does that mean? And they have more answers than she does? She's the governor of the state! My concern would be not that the levees broke, but that she doesn't know what's going on in her own state.

And later this exchange occured between the governor and a little girl:

Blanchard: When can I go home?

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco: Hope, we have a lot of work to do. We want you to come home. I know you are safe there, and the people in Houston are taking good care of you. Just as soon as we can make things better, we want you home.

Earlier, GMA reported that it was going to be at least 3-6 months before these people could start to return home, and it could take up to a year to get everyone back. Why didn't the governor just say that? What's all this crap about "just as soon as we can make things better"? These people want answers, not bandaids.

Anyways, all of this got me thinking about politicians (which I don't do very often), and it made me wonder, do we really want the truth from our elected officials? If the governor had said, well, yes, this sucks, we're not going home for another year, and it's my fault the levee broke (I don't know if that's the case--we're talking hypothetical here), would we have appreciated her candor or lynched her? Politicians are so scared of telling us the truth because we expect perfection and because we want to hear about the good things, whether it's the truth or not. So they lie to us, we get angry, we elect another liar, and we get nowhere. When someone actually tells us the truth, we get angry, we elect someone who lies to us, and we get nowhere.

So, the question of the day is: Do we really want politicians who tell us the truth? Have we created the modern-day "politician" ourselves?