CALLAHANTICS

For the last few years, my husband and I had a holiday tradition. We delayed shopping as long as we can and then we bite the bullet and run (literally) through a mall the week before Christmas. The primary gift recipients are the nephews and the niece. The 30 second GameStop® to get two Mario games for the boys went well, and then….. We braved American Girl®.  We walked past the cheerleader, the grocery cashier, and the housewife before finally looking at one-another flabbergasted and my husband commenting, “Man what a scam!” I’m not sure how to describe the look on both my husband’s and my faces while we did the quick hunt around the store for the “phonograph” requested by my niece. Let’s just say that while I think American Girl® has a fantastic layout and brilliant marketing operation, it is literally terrifying to see the images that future women are experiencing. They are truly beginning to resemble a depiction from pre-19 th Amendment ideals, through the 1950s myths and e...

Why is it so complicated to define the rights of “pursuit of happiness” or “liberty”? I found most aspects of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) downright wrong, primarily because of the wide-ranging disparity of definitions given for both what a State is and what it has a right to regulate. While searching far and wide for any serious phrase defining “State”; the closest I came to was a mixture of definitions provided by The Associated Press, Collins English Dictionary and Webster: “Any territory that became a member of the union called the United States of America”.   Becoming part of any of the 50 states and six major US territories, (as members of that union), certain decisions and definitions will apply to all.   As a nation, we’ve been fighting over different issues and whether each State should have final say or our federal government should.   These distinctions have been debated, fought and fluctuated for over 236 years now.   By pressing to make D...