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fishoutofwaterlikeabird · 2 years ago

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Last Year First

Well here we are the last day of the first month of 2023. This year sure started off very different from 2022. Ringing in 2022 we had friends over, we (again) lit off our wedding sparklers and Elise was 6 months away from giving birth to our first son Noah. We also did our traditional New Year's Day walk and even mixed in some Frisbee golf.

2022 was a year full of firsts for the Hansen family. As we were preparing for the birth and life change of becoming parents we started looking for a place to call our own. We really liked where we were in our duplex. We had nice neighbours, it was a nice area, it was also close to a river we regularly swam in. It was also close to work and things we need. However, it wasn't close to where we spent most of our time or our friends. In April a house came up that we really liked and we put in an offer and it became our very own home.

I believe we got keys the 6th of April 2022 and were moved in that weekend with the help of our friend family. We moved in just in time as it snowed the day after.

After we had a little party to find out whether we were having a boy or a girl...

...we started doing some house projects to make the place ours and get it set up for when family would come to visit for Elise's baby shower.

So far I have put in a brand-new fence on one side of the house (it didn't have a fence at all) and taken down the broken one on the other side and made it to match. Done some outside work for an in ground garden. We've done some painting. Most importantly we fixed up the room for the little guy.

Our next first came in June with the birth of our wee little human. 12 days early! We were so excited!! Noah Jamison Hansen came on 17th June 2022. What a treat! What a joy! Born on the same day as my aunt Darcy and my best friend from school days mister Dan the man Sagaser! Being a parent has never been sweeter. Noah is now just over 7 months (at the time of this writing) and life has never been so beautiful.

The next first for the Hansen household came in October 2022 when I ran a marathon with my good mate Tag in Medford Oregon. I wrote about the experience here (https://www.tumblr.com/fishoutofwaterlikeabird/700127168240435200/we-ran-a-marathon?source=share). I also made a video of the adventure here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aEw5Sj_ndw). What an experience it was. One, I wasn't sure I would want to do again, but have actually decided to do in April of this year (2023) in Eugene, Oregon and with my mate Tag and a couple others. This time I am not just doing it for myself. I am actually running for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. You can read more about it here if you like (https://charity.pledgeit.org/f/ZIfuySVkcF).

The rest of the year has brought on many new things with our little human. Elise went back to work three months after Noah was born. I went back a month after. Being working parents has been challenging, but very manageable. It is also so fun to see Noah light up when one of us walks in the door and he sees us.

Not long after I went back to work, I switched jobs. Elise working four days a week nearly 8-5 and me working five days a week 8-5 was not working well for us with a little one. I went back to working in a school and also started school to finish up getting my bachelors degree in teaching. Adding back our volunteer commitments, work, school (for me) and a toddler has made life quite full on.

As the year came to a close we celebrated holidays with him for the first time (with friends and family), he began to notice us and things around him more, he is laughing and smiling way more, eating real food for the first time and going from being stationary to "power crawling" all over the house. Life is so great!! I couldn't imagine anything better.

As 2022 has finished and the first month of 2023 is almost over it has been fun seeing Noah learn and do new things. It has been great to see when he wants something he crawls over to it. It has been exciting to see him pull himself from sitting to a stand. He is sure to be standing and walking soon which will mean more new and exciting things coming in life. Life is so busy, but it is a great busy. Something we wouldn't change for anything.

As we look forward to so many new fun and exciting changes in life, we are so grateful for the blessings we have been given. This year we will get to see family that Elise and Noah haven't met yet. We will celebrate having a one-year-old in the house and I am sure there will be many new adventures with our little family, more house projects, fun and laughs along the way.

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milkovichy · 3 years ago

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Debs!!! It's how did the husbands annoy eachother Wednesday and Im procrastinating going home (why??? I don't know) so I present: Ian and Mickey's least favorite "annoy my husband" bits!!!

Mickey gets himself very teary eyed and says "I didn't want to believe it, but I can't deny it any longer. You really don't have a soul" whenever Ian says no to anything he wants like. "No we don't have time for coffee" "no we can't afford a sex swing" "no, we are not buying ANOTHER game for the switch" and Ian can't stand it. (He also NEVER makes this joke in front of Debbie and Franny, he knows better(

Mickey also says "FUCK THIS IM GOING BACK TO MEXICO" whenever mildly inconvenienced and Ian always rolls his eyes and hates it

In return, Ian threatens to ship Mickey back to Mexico whenever Mickey is being particularly stubborn about something

Whenever Mickey refuses to go grocery shopping with him, Ian will text Mickey pictures of things on the bottom shelf and say "miss u ❤️❤️❤️or "could've used your help reaching this one!" and it infuriates Mickey to the point where sometimes he'll honestly just go to whole foods with him just so Ian doesn't do it

Mickey still points at random old men and says "don't leave me for him" in complete monotone and then he has to run to dodge Ian punching his arm

Ian found out some people call McDonald's Mickey D's and now he only ever calls the place "your d" to Mickey. "Can I eat your D for dinner" "well certainl- WAIT DO YOU MEAN FUCKING MCDONALDS"

Mickey always responds to this bit by calling Ian Ronald

Whenever Mickey has to go somewhere by himself, especially for an extended period of time, he looks Ian in the eye and very seriously says "do NOT start another cult" and Ian would lie and say it makes him miss Mickey less but it doesn't

Whenever Mickey is being prissy or picky, Ian will start calling him by various Disney princess names and not stop until Mickey tells him to quit it, and then Ian gets all wide eyed and says "but your my Mickey mouse!" And laughs himself silly. The longest Mickey has dealt with this without letting Ian get to the punch line is three full days

And two ones they can't even pretend they don't love love:

Since he knows Ian gets insecure about his meds constantly changing how much weight he holds, Mickey will randomly roll over while they're cuddling and poke Ian's side and whisper "belly" no matter what Ian's body looks like. (He did it the first time when Ian was having one of his first lows in season five and it felt so normal that Ian actually started crying) and Ian tries to pretend he hates it but he loves it so much

Whenever Mickey is having a high anxiety day, Ian has a million and one things that he does to make Mickey feel as safe as possible, but the stupidest one is dragging out this stupidly big gallon water bottle they got, (because when Mickey's mental health is bad water is the first thing he forgets) filling it to the brim with water, and then taking the first sip himself with his lips on the straw, then handing it to Mickey with a cheesy grin and saying "I kissed it for protection, now whenever you need a kiss you can drink some water AND get protected" And it's stupid and cheesy and probably a little gross (although they swap spit and other bodily fluids on the regular so sharing bottles is far from the grossest they get) but it always makes Mickey feel a little bit better

Alicia, I don't deserve you! What a nice way to start my day, reading about husbands annoying each other and annoyingly in love. Yes to all of this! It's about knowing each other so well and feeling so comfortable with each other that you can joke around and tease and laugh together, knowing full-heartedly that, at the end of the day, you will have their love and support and comfort, no matter what 🥲❤️

#you made me emotional and then i made this extra emotional too #fave #IAN SAYING IF MICKEY WANTS A KISS HE'S GONNA HAVE TO DRINK WATER THEY'RE SO GROSS I LOVE THEM #answered

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spicysoftsweet · 4 years ago

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HisoIllu at the Amusement Park

Or the one where they put Bungee World out of business.

For @lonelyinvisibly‘s ask A/N: Hastily written, probably would have been better as a set of headcanons.

“Sure, I’ll go.”

Hisoka looked at the raven-haired beauty seated beside him on his living room cough in a mixture of confusion and shock. Why was it this easy? What trick did Illumi have up his sleeve?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Illumi responded now, matching Hisoka’s widened amber eyes.

“I didn’t expect you to actually agree to coming to the amusement park,” he responded in a smaller voice, turning his attention back to watching Noutube videos of roller coaster rides on his laptop. He leaned back into the couch, raising his arms above his head as if practicing being on the actual ride, a grin on his face.

Illumi went back to picking at his nails.

“It’s excellent training.”

“For what?!”

“Suppressing emotional release. Suspension of fear. Patience. Blending into a crowd. Finding your way with poor directions. Traveling in suboptimal conditions. Money management..,” the list went on and on, and Hisoka regretted having even asked. When Illumi started talking, sometimes it was like a switch that couldn’t be turned off. He flipped to another video, reviewing the food and desserts at the amusement park. This was going to be simply marvelous, he thought, mouth-watering already as he envisioned the mountains of funnel cake, cotton candy and candied apples he would be able to gorge on the entire day.

---

After a long drive in Illumi’s Mercedes-Benz minivan, they finally made it to the immense park attraction known as Bungee World. Renowned the world over for its colorful mascots, addictive bubblegum pink confectionery (not just gum!), and catchy tunes, Bungee World was the ultimate attraction for children of all ages, the most excited of all being Hisoka.

Hisoka let out a high-pitched cry that pierced through Illumi’s very soul, if he had one, as he ran towards the gates. Illumi, intentionally taking an excruciatingly long time to catch up to him, rummaged through his Rouis Buitton fanny pack for their tickets… and their Fast Passes, their Unlimited Drinks and Dinner passes, Show Passes, Backstage Passes - every pass available, Illumi had bought for the two of them. This was going to be the best day of Hisoka’s life, whether he liked it or not.

Hisoka made it on the very park attraction he had coveted from the internet the day before, cutting in front of a group of likely middle schoolers in order to get to the front of the line.

“You stupid clown bitch! Didn’t you see we were standing here?” One particularly bold kid yelled from the small crowd.

“Ronald McDonald looking ass, get to the back of the line, old man!!!”

Old man. That struck a nerve. Before Hisoka could react and clear the park - which meant no one would be running the machines - Illumi ran up and presented the fast pass both to the kids and the ride operator. He didn’t realize the dead, voidless look in his eyes was probably enough already to defuse the situation.

Strapped in, Hisoka was on cloud nine, until the ride started… and then ended.

“That’s it?!”

“Yes.” Illumi responded, flatly.

“Lame.” Hisoka went off to drown his sorrows in enough cotton candy to wear as an outfit. Then again, that was an excellent idea. He would incorporate that into his next look.

Illumi went off to test his throwing skills at the carnival games and to the dismay of every worker there, was entirely too good at it.

“Take your pick, Hisoka,” Illumi said, with a small swell of pride. As Hisoka left with the entire set of prizes, the teenagers manning the kiosks prepared for their eventual dismissal. No one would believe this story.

A few rides and a picture with the Bungee Gum mascot himself, with whom Hisoka forced a picture with Illumi sandwiched in between, Hisoka and Illumi were ready to leave. It was an overall satisfying day.

It was a good thing they both decided they had outgrown the attraction. A Do Not Admit sign was posted with their faces, the second they decided to leave.

#hisoillu #hisoka #illumi #amusement park shenanigans

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savory-n-sweet · 6 years ago

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newsies as things joannah and i have said to each other

les: i could talk jimmy fallon into committing treason, i think

spot: are you picking up what i’m putting down?

race: i’m lifting with my knees

katherine: you say water like a fucking JACKASS

les: i got a new shirt with this reflective stuff on it so ILL NEVER GET HIT BY A CAR NOW QUEEN

albert: don’t complain to me about your stomach problems later because i will ignore you

elmer: no you won’t

albert: what’s that? can’t hear you over the sound of me ignoring you

race: but anyways that doesn’t matter he has scabies and i don’t so he can choke

jack: god you’re no fun

davey: i think i’m actually a lot of fun but i’d also like you to stay alive

race: mr king

race right after his text was disliked: will you please listen to my ideas

spot: [sends a picture that reads ‘i’m going to throw you out the goddamn window’]

jack: DO IT I DARE YOU. LIFT WITH YOUR KNEES FUCKER

specs: i’m too broke to get scabies. i need to be careful

albert, talking about patrick williams: yknow, captain america chin guy

race: please call me mc, donald was my father

jack: i wanna go to walmart, lay in one of the aisles and cry

crutchie: let’s do it together!

davey: this is how i die. singing about pretzels with a lisp

race: you’re easy to maneuver

spot: don’t make me sound like a fucking car

davey: if you do that i’m never talking to you ever again

sarah: alright damn bitch

davey: why did you believe me i have no backbone whatsoever

specs: okay, you can talk now

albert: corey cott has such a hairy chest

specs: okay, don’t talk to me ever again

race: [shouting a mix of ‘a thousand miles’ and beethoven]

literally everyone else: ... okay

elmer: that sounds like you’re fapping

albert, sighing: it’s just my popsocket

jack: you LOVE me

katherine: i guess

jack, very high pitched: you agreed!

rac: do you think ronald mcdonald is a dom or a sub

jack, after genuinely thinking about it: i think he’s more of a switch

race: yeah, he probably gets pegged by wendy

jack: he probably has threesomes with wendy and the burger king

finch: is that david dobrik? no, that’s bindi irwin

mush: why isn’t the water boiling?

blink: did you put the noodles in already?

mush: no!

blink: are you sure?

mush, with a handful of noodles: yes! they’re in my hand!

jack: [gives up on reading a quote to race because he keeps stuttering] y��know what? you know what you said

#if you have any questions as to who says what #just ask #racetrack higgins #jack kelly #specs newsies #albert dasilva #davey jacobs #sarah jacobs #katherine pulitzer #les jacobs #spot conlon #elmer kasprzak #mush meyers #crutchie morris #newsies #newsies live #incorrect newsies quotes #BARS

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ladybirdgerhl · 4 years ago

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I...I am curious about the jeans. It’s so weird when McDonalds has their brand on something unusual.

One of my brothers (both worked there at some both in their teens) came home from work at McDonalds one day while I was getting reading to play a video game, trying to choose which one. He says kind of flatly, “hey, uh, I’ve got a video game for you.”

“ReALLY?!” I was SO excited. He got a video game?! For ME?! Well 8 year old me was just over the MOON!

“Don’t get too excited, I got it from work.”

“That’s okay!” Now I’m thinking he got it from a friend at work, or maybe someone was selling their old games in the parking lot or something, I don’t know, because I was NOT prepared when he tossed THIS across the room and it landed next to me.

I picked it up, looking it over, confused.

“...A McDONALD’S VIDEO GAME?!”

My brother sighed in a laughing way.

“I know, they were like, ‘hey, here’s a video game,’ and I was like, ‘sweet! Oh. Thanks.’ So I thought I see if you wanted it, I’m never gonna play it.”

“I didn’t even know something like this EXISTED! That’s HILARIOUS!” I laughed, accepted the game, and thanked him, even though I kind of just tossed it aside and though, “pfft, I’m never gonna play it either.”

Fast forward a few months and I’ve played through the few games we had for Sega (or gotten as far as I could, anyway lol) and I was like, “there’s nothing new to play,” then my eyes shift to the McDonalds game, “...except THAT.”

As I’m putting the cartridge in the system I’m thinking, “I can’t believe I’m actually going to try playing this game.”

I sat back, with a

face, not expecting ANYTHING good, and then the title screen pops up, the music plays, and I start the game.

And within five minutes I’m having SO MUCH FUN. OH MY GOSH, YOU GUYS, I couldn’t believe it! I raved about it to anyone who liked video games! This was the FIRST GAME for me where the bad guys weren’t what they seemed and actually wanted to join forces with Ronald McDonald after their boss fights, not realizing they were after the same thing! This game was the first time I heard the Swan Lake song and I was so beautiful and enchanting I had to call my Mom in the room and ask her if she knew what it was called! And part two of the first level when day turns to night? BEAUTIFUL.

Over the years, everyone I’ve told and let play the game went in with the same expectations as I did and came out feeling similar. It’s ridiculous how fun a freaking McDonalds VIDEO GAME is and I hope those who made it were not only paid well but are still making games! Honestly, my Sega power plug is kind of messed up so I really wish McDonalds would allow the game to be ported to the Nintendo Switch. I’d buy it in a heartbeat. :)

If you read this whole freaking post, thank you. Lol And thanks for the little trip down memory lane, guys, that was really nice. Wish I could play the game right now for nostalgia! It was so darn cute and neat!

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exxar1 · 4 years ago

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Episode 4: Waking Up

11/14/2020

Good morning, folks. As I write this, I’m sitting in my living room, listening to an Apple music channel of classic Christmas carols, while late morning sunshine streams through my front window. I have just finished putting laundry in the dryer and washing the few dishes in the sink that piled up during the week. My McDonald’s iced coffee is almost gone, and I’m feeling ready to face the day.

I have a couple hours before I have to start getting ready for work, so there’s not a lot of time to hammer out this blog entry. I don’t have a lot to say for this episode, but I have been feeling somewhat strange for the last couple weeks. Not ‘strange’ in the physical sense, but ‘strange’ as in ‘there’s something happening with me that I can’t quite explain’.

And now I’m going to try to explain what I’m talking about.

Per my usual work routine, I spend 5 ½ hours every morning, Monday through Friday, in the lobby of Walmart, greeting customers and making sure everyone is wearing their face mask. And, as usual, I have nothing but my own thoughts and the occasional conversation with co-workers to keep me company. But mostly just my own thoughts. And boy, my brain lately will just not shut down – or even go into standby mode. It seems that all I can do lately is just think, think, think. Here’s a sample of what tumbles through my head from morning until night every day:

· Is the ballot recounts for the national election close to being done? Will Trump retain his presidency (I hope), or will America finally get its first female president? (Yes, you read that correctly.)

· Spencer Klavan of the “Young Heretics” podcast so damn good looking, and the fact that he’s also a “Super Mario Bros” fan in addition to being ivy league educated and possessing near-savant level human intelligence has forced me to finally admit that I have had a massive crush on him for almost four months now. (I just wish he wasn’t such an avid gym rat. That’s such a turnoff. Well, that, and the fact he already has a boyfriend.)

· I need to start working on the story ideas that came to me a few weeks ago. There’s two really good ones that I know would make excellent short stories, or, at the very least, novellas. One’s about a superhero called The Red Mask, and the other is about cats and dogs that are created with a sophisticated AI that allows them to look, feel and behave exactly like real animals but without all the maintenance and mess that pet owners have to put up with (such as feeding them, combing them, bathing them, walking them, training them, cleaning up their poop, etc.).

· Oh! A circuit court judge in Georgia just ordered a bunch of ballots to be thrown out in that state’s recount!

· Spencer Klavan liked one of my tweets about Young Heretics!!!!

· Should I have McDonald’s for lunch or the apple I brought with me? The apple. Definitely the apple. Need to stay healthy.

· I can’t believe all the idiots on social media that not only voted for Biden/Harris but actually think that he will make a good president. What the hell is wrong with them???? Anyone with half a brain can easily recognize what Trump has done for this country, and it scares the shit out of me that the radical left (capital ‘R’, capital ‘L’) just might get their foot in the door of the White House. What the fuck is wrong with half of America right now??? It’s all that “white fragility”, “systemic racism”, “white privilege”, “black lives matter” bullshit!!! How the fuck did that horseshit gain such powerful traction in this country????Robin Deanglo and Ibram X Kendi and all their pathetic followers are so full of shit they ought to open their own manure factory!!!!

· Yay! The 2021 “Super Mario Bros” and “Star Trek” wall calendars I ordered on Amazon have shipped! They’ll be here Tuesday!

· And that reminds me, I need to start working on the photo calendars that I give to my family every year for Christmas. Maybe I should do that this Saturday morning before my shift at Check City.

· Oh. Time for my break. Yay! Coffee!

And…repeat. That. All of that. Over and over all day long – creative story thoughts, political thoughts, work thoughts, checking my phone three times an hour to review the latest posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay on top of all the latest news and current events that serve to fuel my new woke self. Texting friends and family about this and that. On and on and on...

Hhmmm. My new woke self.

The other day, as this new thought occurred to me, I mentally reviewed everything that’s happened to me this year, everything that I wrote about in that first blog episode. I also thought about my recent self-examination of my whole life up to this point, the stuff I covered in episodes 2 and 3 of this blog. Then I thought back over the last two weeks: the sudden and unexpected passing of Aaron; his memorial service that I made an emergency trip home to Idaho to attend; and, finally, this new, strange…’wokeness’, for lack of a better term, that I now find myself in.

I honestly don’t know how to precisely describe it. I’ve been trying all this week to come up with apt, specific words and/or phrases, and then, finally, I thought of something. I’m a huge fan of the reboot of “Battlestar: Galactica” that was done by Ronald D Moore on the SyFy channel in 2004. It’s been a few years since I last binged all 4 seasons of that terrific show, but I was thinking about it the other day as my mind wandered, and it suddenly occurred to me what this new ‘woke’ state that I’m in feels like: the Cylon sleeper agents (who looked and acted like real humans) that were suddenly awakened to their true nature.

Yeah, I’m not kidding. Yes, I know how that sounds, but let me explain. I really feel like that, somewhere deep in the core of my brain, a metaphorical ‘switch’ was flipped from ‘off’ to ‘on’ along about late August or early September of this year. The world around me did not change, but my perception of it – as well as my perception of my place in it – did fundamentally change. I realized this week that for pretty much all my life I’ve been coasting through it. Everything that I’ve done and accomplished took no real effort or sacrifice on my part. Everything after high school pretty much just happened naturally. I decided to join the Army on a whim. When that didn’t work out, I came back home and enrolled in college. I spent 4 ½ years doing what I loved – reading, writing, discussing reading and writing – and I came out with a Bachelor’s in English. Again, no real effort. I coasted through on my natural talents. The only real work was in the core classes that I needed for my degree, like math or biology. But those were few. And then, after college, instead of putting my degree to use, I just settled for a day job in retail and then, later, in an elementary school. And then, in 2012, on a whim, I quit my job and moved to Las Vegas. Once again, I found a cushy day job where I make really good money, and…then 2020 happened.

In other words, I’ve never been an active participant in my own life. I just kinda let everything happen and went with the flow. I even had this same attitude in high school and it drove my parents and teachers absolutely mad. I didn’t care about being valedictorian or captain of the sports teams or even being the best damn piano player this side of the Rockies. All that mattered was hanging out with my friends and making sure the VCR was set each week to record the newest episodes of “Star Trek: DS9” and “Star Trek: Voyager”. And, without consciously realizing it, that’s been my attitude for my whole damn life. I’ve never cared about the world beyond my own front door. If it didn’t affect my life directly, I never paid it any attention. That’s especially true for politics. No matter who sat in the White House, my life never changed. So I figured, why bother? I’m perfectly content to live a quiet, solitary existence, and the rest of the world can do its own thing.

Except that now I’m no longer content with my quiet, solitary existence. Something within me fundamentally changed this year, and there’s no going back.

I am awake. (But, unlike the Cylons, I’m not about to start murdering humans.) I’m certain that it was God’s hand that reached down to flip that invisible switch in my brain, but now that I have rejected my former sleeper state, I don’t know exactly what to do. For the last couple weeks, I have felt nervous; anxious; excited; jittery; like a live wire that’s been cut and is now flopping on the ground, shooting sparks and energy. I have to constantly resist the urge to grab total strangers off the street and shout at them to “Wake up!” The world around us is changing, and we can’t live as sleeper agents in our own lives. Everything that’s happened in 2020 is going to shape the future of this country and the lives of everyone in it, and no one can afford to not care and just keep living their quiet, solitary lives.

This is why I scream on social media about the stupid mask mandates, and the ‘lamestream’ media, and politics, and everything else that I’ve been ranting and raving about for nine months. And yes, I’m sure some of my friends think I’ve gone crazy, and more than a few have probably unfollowed me. I don’t mean to alienate folks, but I have to put this energy somewhere or I’ll go crazy.

One of biggest changes that I have noted is that I no longer have a desire to park in front of the TV in my time off. I still have a few regular shows that I watch each week, but my passion has turned to reading and podcasts. I renewed my Audible.com membership a few months ago, and I have started stockpiling audiobooks on various subjects: biographies of the Founding Fathers of America, non-fiction books on artificial intelligence and other new forms of technology, books on world history, western literature and Greek philosophy. (I recently began listening to a series of lectures from Boston University on Plato’s “Republic”). And, of course, the highlight of my week is a new episode of “Young Heretics” every Tuesday. (And no, it’s not just because of my crush on Spencer Klavan.) I also have started carving out an hour here and there each day to grab my laptop and write a few paragraphs of new stories or just jot notes for upcoming stories.

I really, honestly feel as if something is coming. I don’t know what, I don’t know when, but God woke me up for a reason. He’s got something planned for me, and I need to be ready for it. I’m pretty certain the world is not coming to an end anytime soon, and I’m sure 2021 will be a better year for our nation than 2020, no matter who’s sitting in the White House. And yes, Lord willing, this stupid “pandemic” will also be over sometime soon. For me, personally, 2020 was the year that changed me and got me ready for whatever is coming. A fire’s been lit under my ass, but I’m not sure where yet where I’m supposed to be jumping up and running to.

I am sure, however, that It’s time to be an active participant in my own life.

Hey mom and dad, I really do care now, and I really, truly want to do my best. I want only top grades and to be the captain of…something. It only took twenty-six? Twenty-seven years? But now I’m going to be that grade-A student that you and Mrs. Tutty and Mrs. Jones and Mr. Walker always knew I could be.

Better late than never, eh?

#life #Christian #gay #politics #truth #woke

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accidental-butt-touch · 7 years ago

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Get To Know Me

Tagged by: @columbusister thank you! ^-^

RULES: you must answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people

THE LAST: 1. drink: water 2. phone call: yesterday morning, it was a 10 second call of my dad just telling me he’s gonna put my stuff in bags 3. text message: My mom asked me if we needed milk earlier today 4. song you listened to: Eyes Wide Open - Gotye 5. time you cried: i have no frickin clue 6. date someone twice: i’ve never even dated someone once............................ 7. kissed someone and regretted it: ^ 8. been cheated on: ^ 9. lost someone special: uhh a close family friend passed about 2 years ago 10. been depressed: idk 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: hehe i actually got drunk for the first time two weeks ago. didn’t throw up tho cause i’m not gross. but i did piss like a racehorse

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14. black, blue and grey

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. made friends: yeah 16. fallen out of love: i don’t think i’ve ever fallen in love 17. laughed until you cried: probably? 18. found out someone was talking about you: no 19. met someone who changed you: no 20. found out who your friends are: I guess 21. kissed someone on your facebook list: don’t have facebook

GENERAL: 22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: ^ 23. do you have any pets: i have a meanie beagle named Brooklyn that i love with all of my heart 24. do you want to change your name: nah 25. what did you do for your last birthday: uhhhhhhh i stayed for 5+ hours in the printmaking studio to finish up my final project 26. what time did you wake up: 11:11 am 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: pretty sure i was watching a Ronald McDonald movie 28. name something you can’t wait for: THESE TILES IN MY HOUSE TO BE FUCKING DONE 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: a few hours ago 30. what is one thing you wish you could change in your life: i would have gone back about 3 years ago and stopped my dumb ass from attending college 31. what are you listening to right now: pandora 32. have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yes 33. something that is getting on your nerves: This graduated senior talking shit about my freshman sister 34. most visited websites: Tumblr, youtube, and Lezhin/kissmanga cause i’m a weeb 35-37. (there were no questions asked here) 38. hair color: dark brown 39. long or short hair: ass-length hair 40. do you have a crush on someone: my heart has been dead for 5 years 41. What do you like about yourself: my eyes? and small nose? 42. piercings: i used to have two in each ear but the second hole closed over. i wanna get it re-pierced 43. blood type: i have no clue 44. nickname: Jos, Jossie 45. relationship status: Forever alone it seems 46. Zodiac: Aries 47. pronouns: she/her 48. favorite tv show: uhhhh currently i’m into Sense8 49. tattoos: None 50. right or left handed: Right handed 51. surgery: Never had surgery 52. piercing: see 42 53. sport: never 54. vacation: is this asking for my favorite or ideal? 55. pair of trainers: wtf does this mean

MORE GENERAL: 56. eating: Nothing 57. drinking: Nothing 58. I’m about to: switch tabs to my manhwa tab 59. waiting for: Someone to love me (hehehe me too) but also for my house to be finished 60. want to: i have no idea what i want 61. get married: maybe 62. career: i’m 21 years old and have never had a job, what does that tell you on my thoughts of a career :)

WHICH IS BETTER: 63. hugs or kisses: i’ve only experienced a hug sooooo 64. lips or eyes: Eyes 65. shorter or taller: I LOVE TALL PEOPLE 66. older or younger: I prefer older but if it’s the right person i might be will to go a year younger 67. nice arms or nice stomach: Stomach..? 68. hook up or relationship: Relationship 69. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

HAVE YOU EVER: 70. kissed a stranger: i’ve never kissed anyone :) 71. drank hard liquor: Nah 72. lost glasses/contact lenses: no but i’ve broken 3 pairs of glasses 73. turned someone down: yes... 74. sex on the first date: super virgin 75. broken someone’s heart: i hope not 76. had your heart broken: I’M A ROCK 77. been arrested: never 78. cried when someone died: yes 79. fallen for a friend: kkgfgjjghhh yes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 80. yourself: pfft 81. miracles: ehhh 82. love at first sight: maybe???? 83. Santa Claus: never did 84. kiss on the first date: 2trad so nah 85. angels: i’m a little conflicted on that subject 86-89. What was here??

OTHER: 90. current best friend’s name: Amber, Leah, Michael, Sarah 91. eye color: Dark Brown 92. favorite movie: Jurassic Park and The Fifth Element

wow that was long

i tag uhhhhh @trashcanbees @sweetest-song @fallarbor-town @dai-does-stuff @dangerousfx

i guess that’s it

#tbh you don't have to do it if you don't want to #except for leah #u better do it bitch #me #tag thingy #thank you for tagging me

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years ago

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Man gets life for killing Missouri woman Dee Dee Blanchard, who made daughter Gypsy fake illness

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A Wisconsin man has been sentenced to life in prison in the stabbing death of a Missouri woman who forced her daughter to use a wheelchair and undergo unnecessary medical tests so she could collect gifts and charitable donations.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the 29-year-old Nicholas Godejohn, of Big Bend, Wisconsin, won’t be eligible for parole under the sentence ordered Friday. The sentence was the only one possible after he was convicted in November of first-degree murder in the June 2015 death of 48-year-old Clauddine “Dee Dee” Blanchard at her home near Springfield.

Defense attorneys argued for a lesser charging, saying that Blanchard’s daughter, Gypsy Blanchard, manipulated Godejohn into killing her mother in order to escape from an abusive home life. She already is serving a 10-year prison sentence.

The murder that rocked Springfield three years ago

A Facebook post out of character for Dee Dee had alerted neighbors something was wrong on June 14, 2015. Neighbors called police because they were concerned about the mother and daughter’s welfare.

When Blanchard’s body was found by police, a missing person’s report was put out for her daughter, Gypsy. The girl was believed to be significantly younger than her real age, that she was bound to a wheelchair, struggling with cancer, and had several other maladies. Dee Dee had told the public for years that Gypsy had the mental capacity of a seven year old due to brain damage from a premature birth. While searching for the missing girl, Springfield Police and Greene County deputies quickly learned not everything was adding up; meanwhile, neighbors were grieved. They put together vigils in hopes of bringing Gypsy home. The Springfield community was concerned the girl wasn’t just missing, but had been abducted and was in grave danger.

Police found Gypsy Rose the next day in Wisconsin. She traveled there with Nicholas Godejohn, a man she met online allegedly through a Christian dating site. They had been exchanging intense text messages for more than a year. They kept their relationship secret because Gypsy feared her mother would punish her for getting romantically involved with someone.

The next morning, after police in Wisconsin had found Gypsy, Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott spoke in a news conference, “things are not always as they appear,” he ominously said. He told the community Gypsy is alive and well, but she wasn’t actually a girl, but an adult and had no physical or mental health issues that her mother had claimed. Gypsy could walk unassisted.

As the investigation continued, officers found more disturbing findings. Doctors across several hospitals had treated Gypsy, even in Kansas City, and as far as the New Orleans area, but the doctors hadn’t found evidence of the diseases Dee Dee claimed her daughter had. One professional suspected the mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It’s a mental disorder where a parent or caregiver finds meaning in life by exaggerating, fabricating, and inducing illness in a person in order to obtain sympathy. In this case, it also helped the pair get free movie tickets, a trip to Disney World, a house from Habitat for Humanity, and help from the Ronald McDonald House, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Along with special meet ups with celebrities, like Elijah Wood.

Gypsy and Dee Dee receive house from Habitat for Humanity.

Clauddine also went by the name Clauddinea, and sometimes added an “e” to the end of Blanchard. The series of manipulation and fraud on the Springfield community goes back as far as 2005, when the pair left New Orleans after being allegedly displaced by Hurricane Katrina and needed a new place to call home.

Dee Dee’s own family had been suspicious of her, calling Clauddine a master manipulator in the HBO documentary, Mommy Dead and Dearest. Family has suspected she killed her own mother, who died in 1997, by denying her food. There were also concerns she poisoned her stepmother with Roundup weed killer. She grew up Clauddine Pitre in Chackbay, Louisiana, near the Gulf Coast. She grew up near Golden Meadow. Her relatives recalled in the documentary that Blanchard occasionally engaged in petty theft, often as retaliation when she didn’t get her way.

Bobby Pitre, Clauddine’s nephew, recalls about three months after Gypsy was born the mother had claimed the girl had sleep apnea. She had continued stays at the hospital, often overnight. Tests found no sign of the condition. Nevertheless, the nephew said, Clauddine was convinced Gypsy had health issues, which she attributed to an unspecified chromosomal disorder. Gypsy stopped going to school after about the second grade, possibly earlier. Her mother homeschooled her. Gypsy independently improved her literacy by reading Harry Potter books.

Actual surgical procedures were performed on Gypsy, including the insertion of a feeding tube — despite nothing being wrong with her. Dee Dee, who’s home was for the most part in a disarray, had a closet full of medicines, which were meticulously organized. She had taken advantage of the medical world, pushing doctors around to make her demands happen — even when Gypsy didn’t actually have these conditions. Dee Dee would blame a lack of medical records for Gypsy’s younger years on Hurricane Katrina destroying those documents. The mother would also routinely switch doctors when things didn’t go her way.

Around 2012, Gypsy would use the Internet after her mother went to bed. She was afraid her mother would lash out at her for computer usage. The late night Internet sessions eventually led her to Nicholas Godejohn. He had some issues of his own: a criminal record for indecent exposure at a McDonald’s, a history of mental illness, stated at times to be either dissociative identity disorder or autism.

Gypsy and Godejohn developed an intense romance through the Internet, somewhat based on their shared afflictions. At times the interactions dipped into BDSM. The pair somehow managed to meet under Dee Dee’s watchful eye at a Springfield movie theater during a showing of Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella. Gypsy had hoped for him to bump into them as if he were a stranger and her mother to approve of him. Godejohn said Gypsy and him somehow left the movie without the mother noticing — and the two had sex in a theater bathroom. Gypsy had arranged and paid for Godejohn’s trip to Springfield.

After the trip, the two continued their interactions online, and they began developing a plan to kill Dee Dee.

Romance intensifies, murder plot thickens

Records and witnesses have proven Gypsy tried to escape her mother multiple times before the murder plot. The attempts would anger her mother who would punish her severely, at one point smashing her computer with a hammer and threatening to do the same to her fingers if she tried to escape again. Gypsy has also claimed Dee Dee handcuffed her to her bed. Gypsy was concerned if she attempted to go to police for help, they wouldn’t believe her.

In 2014, Gypsy confided some of her secrets to Aleah Woodmansee, a 23-year-old neighbor who was unaware that Gypsy was about her age. Gypsy considered Aleah as a “big sister.” Gypsy told her she planned to elope with Godejohn and had even chosen names for potential children.

Woodmansee was concerned Gypsy was being taken advantage of by an online sexual predator and tried to talk her out of the relationship. She thought Gypsy’s ideas were just fantasies and dreams that would never take place.

Godejohn returned to Springfield in June 2015. While Dee Dee was asleep, Gypsy allowed him in and according to her testimony on Thursday, she gave him duct tape, gloves, and a knife with the intent to murder her mother. Gypsy has claimed she didn’t expect him to really do it.

When Godejohn went into Dee Dee’s bedroom, Gypsy was hiding in a bathroom. She has said in interviews she covered her ears, so that she would not have to hear what was happening. Godejohn stabbed Dee Dee multiple times while in her sleep. Gypsy testified in court Thursday that when Godejohn said he wanted to rape her mother, she talked him out of it, offering up herself instead. Right after the murder, the couple had sex in Gypsy’s room, then they took $4,000 in cash that Dee Dee had saved, and they made their way to a motel outside Springfield.

The couple lingered in Springfield before heading to Wisconsin. They were seen on security cameras at several locations. They mailed the murder weapon back to Godejohn’s home in Wisconsin to avoid being caught with it. Several witnesses saw the pair, a taxi driver was confused by Gypsy’s childlike voice but commanding adult presence. The pair made their way to a Greyhound station, Gypsy wore a blonde wig and walked unassisted.

Police arrived at the Blanchard house after the community was concerned by the Facebook posts Gypsy made on Dee Dee’s account. Police had to wait for a search warrant to be issued before they could enter, but they allowed a neighbor to climb through a window, where he saw the house was largely undisturbed, and all of Gypsy’s wheelchairs were present.

When the warrant was issued, police entered and immediately found Dee Dee’s body. A GoFundMe account was setup for funeral expenses, and possibly’s Gypsy’s. The Springfield community didn’t know yet that Gypsy didn’t need her wheelchair, medications, oxygen tanks, or feeding tube.

Woodmansee told police what she knew about Gypsy and her secret online boyfriend. Based on her information, police asked Facebook to trace the IP address from where Dee Dee’s status updates had been made — it turned out to be in Wisconsin.

Police agencies the next day in Waukesha County raided the Godejohns’ Big Bend home. Both Godejohn and Gypsy surrendered and were charged on murder and felony armed criminal action.

Following the charges, Greene County prosecutor Dan Patterson soon announced he would not seek the death penalty for either Gypsy or Godejohn. After Gypsy’s attorney obtained her medical records from Louisiana, Patterson secured a plea bargain to second-degree murder for Gypsy. The woman was excessively malnourished from her mother’s treatment, and during her first year in county jail, she actually gained 14 pounds. Gypsy has told reporters she has been happier in jail and feels like she can actually be a woman.

In July 2016, Gypsy accepted a plea bargain agreement and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Blanchard will be eligible for parole before her 33rd birthday.

Godejohn faced more severe charges. Prosecutors said he initiated the murder plot, and he was the one who actually did the stabbing. His lawyers contended he has an I.Q. of 82 and is on the autism spectrum — the attorneys wanted to suggest he had diminished capacity. In December 2017, the judge set Godejohn’s trial for November 2018.

Nicholas Godejohn at trial. November 2018

Nicholas Godejohn’s trial

At opening arguments, prosecutors said Godejohn had deliberated for more than a year before the crime. His lawyers pointed to his autism and said Gypsy had formulated the crime. The next day, prosecutors showed jurors the text messages, sometimes sexually charged, that Gypsy and Godejohn shared in the weeks before the murder. In some of the texts, Godejohn asked Gypsy for details about Dee Dee’s room and sleeping habits.

These were supplemented by video of his interview with police after his arrest, where he admitted to having killed her. Gypsy testified Thursday there was a Plan B; instead of murder, Gypsy would get pregnant by Godejohn. She believed this would have forced Dee Dee to accept him. Gypsy had been concerned that Dee Dee wasn’t impressed with Godejohn when she briefly saw him during the Cinderella movie showing.

Gypsy testified Godejohn wanted to get her pregnant, but his mother wouldn’t allow him, so they moved onto their other plan.

To make the murder happen, Gypsy stole several hundred dollars in cash from her mother and mailed the money to Godejohn. The money was used to get him to Springfield. Gypsy testified she stole the knife she gave Godejohn from Walmart. Baby clothes for the pregnancy option were also stolen from Walmart. Gypsy said Godejohn wanted a machete, but she didn’t think she could steal one.

Thursday Gypsy admitted killing her mother was her idea. She said she persuaded Godejohn to travel to Missouri to kill Dee Dee. When asked why she wasn’t the one to kill her, Gypsy said she was too squeamish.

“I don’t like blood. I don’t like the sight of blood,” Gypsy said. “I didn’t believe I could do it on my own.”

After four days, the case was sent to the jury. Godejohn was convicted of first-degree murder. He will be sentenced in February 2019.

Gypsy is serving her sentence in Missouri’s Chillicothe Correctional Center. She said in a BuzzFeed report with Michelle Dean that she did believe Dee Dee’s claim that she had cancer, even if she knew she could walk and eat solid food.

Munchausen expert Marc Feldman said a formal diagnosis for Dee Dee’s actions is technically impossible since she is dead. Feldman told the Springfield News-Leader after Gypsy’s guilty plea that he could confidently say Dee Dee had it based on what he knew about the case. “Gypsy was infantilized and kept away from her peers,” he said. “She was little more than a tool for Dee Dee to navigate through the world.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/02/22/man-gets-life-for-killing-missouri-woman-dee-dee-blanchard-who-made-daughter-gypsy-fake-illness/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/man-gets-life-for-killing-missouri-woman-dee-dee-blanchard-who-made-daughter-gypsy-fake-illness/

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some-beans · 2 years ago

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hey do you think ronald mcdonald is a sub or dom?

I personally think he's a switch bc I think it depends on who he's with

#☕ beans talks #ronald mcdonald #switch ronald mcdonald believer

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seniorbrief · 6 years ago

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75 Mind-Blowing McDonald’s Facts

istock/ermingut

The Inception and the Legacy

1. Seventy-five years ago, in 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened up the first McDonald’s restaurant—a BBQ joint—in San Bernardino, California (at left; it’s now a museum). Eight years later, they switched to burgers, shakes, potato chips, and pie. The McDonalds purchased several Multi-mixers for use in their establishment, and when Multi-mixer salesman Ray Kroc visited, he was impressed by their success and efficiency. Kroc purchased franchise rights from the brothers. In 1955, he opened his first franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. Looking for more McDonald’s facts? This is the first McDonald’s menu ever.

2. McDonald’s first drive-thru opened in 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona. What inspired the then-revolutionary concept? The restaurant was located near a military base, and soldiers were not allowed to leave their cars while wearing fatigues. Check out how the McDonald’s menu has changed throughout the years.

3. There are almost more than one-and-half times more McDonald’s locations than hospitals in the United States: 14,350 versus 10,660. Find out the only U.S. state capital without a McDonald’s.

4. All those dimes and pennies do add up: In 2013, Ronald McDonald House Charities—the nonprofit organization that is McDonald’s charity of choice—raised around $450 million. It used those funds to help nearly 9 million children and their families worldwide. Today, RMHC has nearly 300 local chapters in 58 countries and regions.

5. McDonald’s invested in Chipotle in 1998, back when the fast-Mexican chain consisted of 16 restaurants. By 2006, McDonald’s owned 90 percent of Chipotle—which had grown to 500 locations—but it sold its stake in order to focus on McDonald’s.

6. The average McDonald’s drive-thru transaction took roughly three minutes, or 189.49 seconds, according to one recent study; the fast-food leader was Wendy’s with a 133.63-second turnaround time.

istock/patty_c

McDonald’s Facts: All About the Arches

7. The Golden Arches are said to be the most recognized symbol in the world, even ahead of the cross. By the way, this is the drink you should never order at a McDonald’s, according to an employee.

8. Founder Richard McDonald first sketched the Golden Arches as an architectural feature to attract customers in cars looking from the roadside, but it took five more years for the arches to be linked into an M (shown at right, at a present-day restaurant in Downey, California, the oldest one still in operation). Did you know there might be a hidden sexual meaning behind McDonald’s gold arches?

9. At its Paris Champs-Elysees restaurant, McDonald’s typically yellow Golden Arches are neon white to blend in with the lighting of that location. This is the real reason the logo is yellow and red.

10. The McDonald’s in Sedona, Arizona, has the world’s only turquoise arches—the owners of that franchise were told that they needed to make the location more in keeping with the distinct desert environment. The blue was chosen to echo the sky, and the building is more orange and red to resemble the surrounding terrain. Read more about it here.

McDonald’s Facts from Around the World

11. While many international McDonald’s look the same as their American counterparts, their menus contain unique items that reflect local tastes. Some examples: nurnburger, or three bratwursts on a bun (Germany); creamy stars, or deep-fried star-shaped pieces of cheese (Italy); McFalafel and McKebab (Israel); McSpaghetti, or pasta served with Chicken McNuggets on the side (Philippines); McRice burger, or a burger in which rice patties are used instead of a bun (Singapore); quiche de quejo, or cheese quiche (Brazil); red bean pie (Hong Kong); McAloo Tikki burger, or a spiced-potato burger (India). Pssst: There’s a reason why Coke tastes so much better at McDonald’s.

12. Samuel Jackson’s character came pretty close in Pulp Fiction: a Quarter Pounder in France is called a Royal Cheese, not a Royale with Cheese. This is the McDonald’s with the best menu in the world.

13. Since 1996, skiers have been able to schuss into the world’s only ski-thru McDonald’s in the Lindvallen resort area in Sweden.

14. Many people probably wish they could dine on McDonald’s on a flight instead of airline food; for now, they’ll have to settle for dining at a New Zealand McDonald’s, which includes an actual retired aircraft as part of the restaurant.

15. Nations that have placed a ban on McDonald’s include Bermuda, Montenegro, Kazahstan, and Macedonia. Here are more countries that have banned McDonald’s.

16. In all the world, there is one floating McDonald’s. Known as the McBarge, it’s in Vancouver, Canada. It was built for and served food at the 1986 World’s Fair, but it is now abandoned. Perhaps it should open as a sail-thru?

17. The Queen of England owns approximately $11 billion of real estate in the United Kingdom; among her holdings is a McDonald’s near Buckingham Palace. So far, she has yet to dine there—but she may be more of a drive-thru type.

18. Golden wedding arches: McDonald’s in Hong Kong offers a variety of wedding packages. The deluxe package, which costs around $1,200, includes a two-hour rental of a decorated McDonald’s location, 50 invitations, McDonald’s gifts for 50 guests, a pair of McDonald’s balloon wedding rings, a bridal bouquet, apple pie display, and an emcee.

19. In the U.K., McDonald’s has launched a program to recycle its employees’ uniforms. Some of the material will be re-spun into fiber to make new uniforms; the rest will be shredded and used to stuff mattresses.

20. In another innovation, McDonald’s Hungary and the advertising agency DDB Budapest recently unveiled the BagTray: a paper bag that has a reinforced cardboard tray at its bottom. By ripping off a strip of the bag, you can detach a sturdy tray.

istock/junce

McDonald’s Facts: Menu Mania

21. McDonald’s best-selling menu item is … French fries! Check out the 10 most popular items at McDonald’s.

22. But it took nine years for fries to appear on the restaurant menu (they debuted in 1949); before that, only potato chips were available. This is the secret ingredient behind the addictive flavor of McDonald’s fries.

23. You don’t need a passport to try exotic McDonald’s offerings. In some parts of America, McDonald’s restaurants sell their own specialty items. In the summer, you can get a McLobster roll at restaurants in New England. But Hawaii takes the prize: Choices include Saimin, a Hawaiian noodle soup with fish cake, nori, char siu pork, and sliced scrambled eggs; a taro-root pie; and a breakfast platter with Spam or Portuguese sausage as the meat options.

24. A McDonald’s franchise owner in Monfort Heights, Ohio noticed that residents in his highly Catholic town did not eat hamburgers or cheeseburgers during Lent so he created a meat-free alternative, the Filet-o-Fish, which swam onto menus in 1962. Today, 23 percent of all Filet-o-Fish sales are thought to occur during Lent.

25. The fish in the filet was originally halibut; now it’s wild-caught Atlantic pollock.

26. The chain’s worst-selling item may have been the Hula burger. Invented by Ray Kroc as a meatless alternative for Catholics on Lent, it consisted of a grilled piece of pineapple with a slice of cheese in a bun. It lasted a brief while in 1962. Here are the failed McDonald’s menu items you’ve probably never heard of.

27. McDonald’s McGriddle was invented by product developer Tom Ryan because he wanted a handheld breakfast item that was both sweet and savory. He is the Dr. Frankenstein of fast food. In an earlier job at Pizza Hut, he created stuffed-crust pizza and the Meat Lovers, Veggie Lovers, and Cheese Lovers pizzas. He is now the founder and chief concept officer at Smashburger.

28. Franchisee Herb Peterson created the Egg McMuffin, which became available in 1971, by modeling it off his breakfast of choice, eggs benedict. This is the only McDonald’s Breakfast made with fresh eggs.

29. Some discerning diners believe that the Coke served at McDonald’s tastes better than it does at other places. They may be onto something: Only at McDonald’s is the Coke syrup delivered in stainless steel tanks to preserve its freshness; elsewhere, it’s transported in plastic bags.

30. At a grand total of 1,880 calories, the 40-piece Chicken McNuggets are the highest calorie item on the regular menu. That’s more calories than many adults should consume in a single day. Find out the 5 healthiest things you can order at a McDonald’s.

istock/Juanmonino

31. The number of ingredients in Chicken McNuggets? 40, which is low compared to the ingredient list for the McRib, which has 70. By the way, this is why McNuggets always come in one of four shapes.

32. The McRib, which debuted in the chain’s restaurants in 1981, was invented in part because chicken farmers couldn’t keep up with the demand for McNuggets.

33. There are no ribs in McRib; it’s a patty made from pork shoulder meat.

34. The McRib was removed from the McDonald’s menu in 1985 due to its lack of popularity. But thanks to a loyal cult following, it came back in 1989 and was offered until 2005 in the chain’s restaurants in much of the world. From 2006 on, it’s been available for a few months every year. However, all along it has been a menu staple in one country: Germany.

35. According to Reddit users, you can get a Big Mac for half the price if you order a McDouble without mustard or ketchup and add shredded lettuce and special sauce. The only difference will be the lack of a third bun.

36. Those in the know say that McDonald’s has a secret menu. The most popular items include the McLeprechaun shake (a chocolate shake mixed with their seasonal Shamrock Shake), the McKinley Mac (a Big Mac made with quarter-pounder patties), and the Land, Air, and Sea burger (a McChicken patty, beef patty and Filet-o-Fish patty combined). Here are the McDonald’s secret menu items you need to know.

37. In an effort to provide a more customized experience, the “Create Your Taste” initiative allows diners to use tablet-like kiosks to pick different buns, cheeses, toppings, and sauces for their burger. It’s expected to roll out at 2,000 locations in the United States this year, or about one in seven McDonald’s in the United States.

38. Customer Moshe Tamssot posted a YouTube video that showed him creating the biggest burger possible with a “Create Your Taste.” Although he was limited to two quarter-pound beef patties, he was able to add 10 times all the other ingredients. His sandwich was topped by 10 slices of bacon, 30 slices of cheese, and 10 servings of guacamole, tomato, pickles, lettuce, mushrooms, jalapeno peppers, raw onions, and grilled onions (not to mention a variety of sauces). The sandwich weighed 3.8 pounds and cost $24.89. We believe he is still digesting it.

39. In a one-off event in 2013, McDonald’s challenged celebrity chefs to deploy McDonald’s ingredients to create a “McGourmet” meal. Guests at the NYC dinner enjoyed kung pao chicken (made with Chicken McNuggets and sweet-and-sour sauce), a tortilla espanola (hash browns and eggs), slow-cooked beef with blueberry pomegranate sauce (the chain’s blueberry-pomegranate smoothie) and gnocchi (French fries!), and washed it all down with mojitos (mango pineapple smoothie).

istock/PhonlamaiPhoto

Ronald McDonald Facts

40. While there are disputes about who invented the Ronald McDonald character, Willard Scott—who later became famous for being The Today Show weatherman— was the first to portray him in TV ads.

41. Scott was fired from being Ronald McDonald after he was deemed to be “too fat.”

42. In Japan, the character is known as Donald McDonald, due to the lack of a clear “R” sound in Japanese.

43. The original Ronald McDonald wore a yellow-and-red striped suit, which he often accessorized with wearing a tray bearing a hamburger, fries, and milkshake as a hat.

44. Ronald’s newest wardrobe, which debuted last summer, consists of yellow cargo pants and a vest and a red-and-white striped rugby shirt; on special occasions, he tops it all with a red blazer emblazoned with golden arches on the front pocket. His new look was created by theatrical costume designer Ann Hould-Ward, who won a Tony for Broadway’s Beauty and the Beast.

45. In 2005, a man from Manchester, New Hampshire, robbed a Wendy’s. His name? Ronald MacDonald. Learn which McDonald’s is the most expensive McDonald’s in the world.

McDonald’s Facts: Crime, Punishment, and Some Bizarre Lawsuits

46. Shaneka Torres of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is currently serving a three-to-seven-year prison sentence after she was convicted of shooting a bullet in a McDonald’s drive-thru window after she failed to receive bacon on her burger. She has also been banned from the restaurant for life.

47. In 2014, a McDonald’s customer sued the company for $1.5 million after claiming to suffer “undue mental anguish” after he received only one napkin with his order. This is why McDonald’s ice cream machines are always broken.

48. After starring in a McDonald’s-bashing ad for Burger King, the then-4-year-old actress Sarah Michelle Gellar was named in a lawsuit by the fast food giant—and was banned from McDonald’s.

49. While the best-known McDonald’s lawsuit in America is the one involving scalding coffee, the company is known in the U.K. for a different legal matter. In 1994, two members of the London Greenpeace group were sued by McDonald’s for distributing pamphlets that claimed the company was responsible for hunger in the Third World, deforestation, food poisoning, cruel treatment of animals, and paying low wages. The trial—dubbed the McLibel case—still stands as the longest in English history at 300 days, generating 20,000 pages of trial transcripts. The defendants were found guilty of making some libelous statements and ordered to pay a fine. But in 2005, they brought their case to the European Court, which declared that the case was in breach of the right to a fair trial and right to freedom of expression (mainly due to the unavailability of legal aid for the Greenpeace members).

50. Children’s television producers Sid and Marty Kroftt sued McDonald’s in 1973, saying that McDonaldland ripped off the “concept and feel” of their TV show H.R. Pufnstuf. McDonald’s was ordered to pay the brothers one million dollars.

istock/Magone

McDonald’s Facts: Amazing Feats

51. In the Guinness Book of World Records, one record is unlikely to be beaten anytime soon: “Most Big Macs Consumed.” When Don Gorske of Wisconsin set the record in 2008, he’d already consumed 22,477 sandwiches. But since he eats two a day, he’s had over 27,500 of them by now. He had his first at age 18 in 1972 (it cost 49 cents). He liked the sandwich so much that after eating it, he had eight more of them—for a one-day total of nine, a limit he has never exceeded. Both his weight and cholesterol are said to be normal.

52. The world’s largest Big Mac can be found in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, at the Big Mac Museum (which bills itself “the most tasteful museum in the world”). While the mega-Mac is inedible—it’s a 14-foot-tall statue—hungry visitors can eat the real thing at the on-premises McDonald’s restaurant.

53. Mike Fountaine holds the record for owning the most McDonald’s related memorabilia. His 75,000-item collection—which includes buttons, uniforms, cups, and Happy Meal boxes and toys—spills over nine rooms of his Pennsylvania home. In 1968, a then-15-year-old Fountaine began working at the Golden Arches and began his collection one year later. Today he owns two McDonald’s restaurants.

54. The world’s largest McDonald’s PlayPlace is in the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. It includes a 500 gallon aquarium, waterfall, and 100 arcade games.

55. A limited edition—one out of 200 produced in the world—500 ml bottle of McDonald’s Big Mac Special Sauce sold in Australia on eBay this year for $20,600 in Australian dollars, or around $16,144 US. One hundred percent of the profits went to Ronald McDonald House Charities.

56. But the ingredients in the special sauce are no longer secret. According to the company website, it contains soybean oil, pickle relish, distilled vinegar, water (main components); egg yolks, onion powder, mustard seed, salt, garlic powder, vegetable protein, caramel color, paprika and turmeric extracts (for flavor and color); high fructose corn syrup, sugar (for sweetness); sodium benzoate, calcium disodium EDTA (for preservation of color and taste); propylene glycol alginate, mustard bran, soy lecithin (for thickness and creaminess).

57. In 2012, Rebekah Speight of Nebraska auctioned off a truly one-of-a-kind possession on eBay: a chicken McNugget that resembled George Washington. The winning bid was $8,100, which Speight planned to donate to her church’s youth camp. At the time of sale, the nugget was already three years old. In general, eBay bans the sale of expired food products, but the company made an exception.

58. McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys. It gives away around 1.5 billion toys each year with Happy Meals.

59. Jamaican runner Usain Bolt claims to have eaten around 1,000 chicken McNuggets during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where McDonald’s had an outpost in the Olympic Village. It was the lunch (or dinner) of champions: At those games, he won three gold medals and set three world records. This is the secret that makes their apple pies taste so good.

McDonald’s Facts All About the Employees

60. One in eight U.S. workers has been employed by McDonald’s at some point in their careers. These are the secrets McDonald’s employees won’t tell you.

61. Famous former employees of McDonald’s include Rachel McAdams, Pink, Macy Gray, Jay Leno, Carl Lewis, Jeff Bezos, and Andie MacDowell.

62. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “McJob” is “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector.” McDonald’s threatened to sue to change the definition, but ultimately responded with a clever U.K. ad campaign that extolled the company’s employee benefits. It ended with the line: “Not bad for a McJob.” This is how much McDonald’s workers really make.

63. On a corporate level, McDonald’s has some pretty spectacular benefits. Employees get an extra week of paid time off in the years when they reach an anniversary ending with a “5” (5, 15, 25, etc.). They’re eligible for an eight-week paid sabbatical for every 10 years worked.

64. In 1961, the company opened Hamburger University to train its executive employees; today, there are more than 2750,000 graduates. The original campus is in Oak Brook, Illinois, where McDonald’s is headquartered. Other campuses are in Tokyo, London, Sydney, Munich, Sao Paolo and Shanghai. All together around the world, Hamburger U. employs more than 60 full-time college professors.

65. McDonald’s holds its own version of American Idol. Called the Voice of McDonald’s, the competition shines the spotlight on the vocal talent of its 1.8 million employees. In its most recent contest, 58,000 McWorkers from 63 countries entered. Lucy Ospitia of Bucaramanga, Colombia, won the $25,000 grand prize. Rocky Rosabal from the Philippines won second prize ($17,500); third prize ($12,500) went to Ashlae Nelms from Illinois.

A Pop Culture Icon

66. The Economist created the “Big Mac Index” in 1986 as a shorthand way to determine whether a country’s currency is inflated. The index uses the international prices of a Big Mac, a globally available food product, to illustrate the differences in monetary value between nations. It’s still referenced today. In January, the average price for a Big Mac was $4.79 in the America and $7.54 in Switzerland. (All prices are in U.S. dollars.) Russia and Ukraine were among the cheapest places at which to buy a Big Mac, $1.36 and $1.20, respectively.

67. In the 2003 documentary Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock chronicled his 30-day, all-McDonald’s diet. At month’s end, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds, sent his cholesterol sky-rocketing, and caused serious harm to his liver. McDonald’s removed Super Size fries and drinks from its menu six weeks after the film’s release, although it said Super Size Me did not influence its decision.

68. The “I’m Lovin’ It” McDonald’s jingle was written by Pharell and recorded by Justin Timberlake.

69. Ottawa Senators goalie Andrew Hammond is nicknamed Hamburglar. How he earned it: A fan threw a burger on the ice at Hammond after a recent win (in 12 starts, he’d amassed an impressive 10-0-1 record); the goalie graciously accepted it but did not eat it because he said it was too cold. To ensure that he always has access to a hot burger, Hammond received—courtesy of McDonald’s in Canada—a special card that entitles him to a lifetime of free eats.

70. Octogenarians Carl and Barbara Becker of Virginia were regulars at their local McDonald’s, where they liked stopping in for “scrunch”—a snack between lunch and supper. One day, an employee was sweeping up near them, and when asked if it bothered them, the couple answered that it did. A manager then told the Beckers that they’d exceeded their allowed 30 minutes in the restaurant and had to leave. The Beckers wrote a heartfelt letter to their local paper in which Carl explained how the incident had marred their McDonald’s ritual. For the pair, scrunch is “a sweet time of fellowship, which we enjoy, which helps sustain our marriage of 63 years,” wrote Carl. In response, McDonald’s corporate offices sent the couple coupons for two small coffees. The Beckers refused them but said they’d still patronize the chain—just not the Culpeper location.

71. The Beckers were not left burger-less, however. Shawn Moss, who owns Shawn’s Smokehouse BBQ restaurant in Culpeper, was so moved when he heard about the couple’s experience that he offered them one free “scrunch” a week for the rest of their lives.

72. In 2014, 18-year-old Stian Ytterdahl from Norway had a tattoo artist ink a McDonald’s receipt onto his arm after his friends dared him; a week later, he had the same receipt tattooed on his other arm. For the rest of his life, he’ll always know what he ate at 7:36 PM on March 24, 2014: a Coke, three cheeseburgers, a cheeseburger Happy Meal, a McFlurry NonStop with three extra toppings, and an extra Happy Meal toy. This is why you should always ask for your receipt at McDonald’s.

73. At the McDonald’s online shop, customers in the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Australia can purchase Big Mac-patterned pajamas, wallpaper, long underwear, rain boots, dog coat, and (human) bedding.

74. Scientists studying McDonald’s patrons found that female diners ate less when they were eating in mixed-sex groups rather than in same-sex groups, while male diners ate more in mixed-sex groups than in mixed-sex pairs, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Health Psychology.

75. While only McDonald’s is on Twitter (with more than 2.8 million followers), both McDonald’s and Ronald McDonald have Instagram accounts. McDonald’s boasts 565,000 followers to Ronald’s 10,900.

Original Source -> 75 Mind-Blowing McDonald’s Facts

source https://www.seniorbrief.com/75-mind-blowing-mcdonalds-facts/

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xottzot · 7 years ago

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2017-12(DEC)-03rd---Sunday (late night)--my world predictions of AGAINness.

Putting this post alive before my internet fucks up again totally, as it alwasy does all the time, and WILL AGAIN, around Xmas and the new year.........

There will be the yearly annual crisis happening with/in Israel, andor the areas around it. Possibly a handy 'terrorist' attack to gain sympathy and bring in further draconian shit. :

Ditto for London. Probably heavier than before in order to hammer home things and to also bring in more draconian crap whilst simultaneously giving MORE lattitude and complete immunity to others who already have it now. :

All and any of the above on new places around the world. Australia is ripe for being a focus for all of the shit. And handy too is they don't want to disrupt things too much for the chosen ones elsewhere in the world. :

Plague andor new rampant uncontrollable diseases, new strains of, new mutations of, outbreaks in places where it has never been ever before, affecting more people than any of it it has ever done before. :

More entirely people getting killed by crazed people in vehicles, running off roads onto footpaths, into buildings, into homes, into children andor adults like inlcuding the elderly and infirm. :

LOTS of public commemorative events for any of the above outcomes to distract and keep busy peopels minds from enquiring too much. If anyone dares to question anything, then they are simply accused of being insensitive to the memories of the fallen or insensitive to any survivors or family, thus heaping blame on anyone who dares question anything or even hints about doing so. ('little' children and babies are alwasy used as gods that nobody is allowed to upset in any way....and they are 'our' future....even the rampant criminals babies......). :

Planes will go 'missing'.....with the accompanying loss of life becoming yet other 'mysteries'...... :

Wonderous new inventions and innovations will be unveiled.......and everyone will believe it will be their salvation in their own personal ways....only to then be told that it's years away and still only 'in development'......alwasy 'in development'...... :

Commemorations of old wars and miliatry crap. - (It IS going on even now and has been for awhile in Australia.) They're now going back further to older military events and painting it all as 'necessary actions' that absolutely HAD TO BE DONE.....and roll-on still more commemorations to crap nobody cared about and has been long forgotten but is dredged up again and again so ancient wars and crap 100 years ago or more are portrayed as almost having just occured. - Mindless people suddenly switch on to having sympathy to the 'winning' survivors and nothing is worried about the 'losing' side. This helps to foment new antagonism to ancient 'foes' who have long been peaceful particpants in world affairs. - The young are especially targetted to accept all this thinking. Of course there's nobody living from very old wars to wear medals, so kids wear them as a 'mark of respect and rememeberance'......that's all used a ridiculous photo events.....as if the kids themselves had been in those wars..... (haven't yet reached the stage of kids uniforms sizes in pre-school sizes but it'll be 'SO CUTE' to see them babies in uniforms of war...yes?)..... :

Certain toys are declared xtremely dangerous to children and banned. Meanwhile though, the miltary indoctrination aspects of everything is simply accepted more and indulged. - Military is exempt in all things. Forever wars are always handy for profits. :

Maybe identity devices andor implants are introduced for children as an aid to adults to safely keep track of them. Mobile phones are limited in their apects to all this and perhaps an instance or instances of something terrible will be made news to further the introducton of non-removalable, 'safe', bodily internal tracking devices, that (a lie) can be removed later when the child becomes an adult. (maybe make it a tremdy hip 'coming-of-age' ritual event?) - This is done to placate anyone for arguing over the scheme. -- Ditto for the elderly, and infirm andor disabled. -- Criminals will somehow be exempt, as will be the 'chosen rich and powerful people'. :

Food scares. Poisoness, debilitating, carthinogenic, or completely faked andor counterfeit food items. Baby food is always a handy target. As is 'health food'. Ditto for homegrown foods. - All is done to make you only purchase what is planned to make you purchase. :

Meat substitutes makes a huge impact, but at the same time is highly expensive for consumers. The rich, wealthy and powerful are exempt and simply continue on eating ordinary food at their whims. After all, they own vast resources of worlds food farms too. :

Let's not ever forget handy dandy North Korea, the ersatz 'evil Russian communists' for todays age......who are alwasy planning and cunning and always 'just about' to bring death and destruction to any and all...and who always are developing weapons and crap to bring about world war in any way it's possible and death to all. Meanwhile....the pure 'saintly' USA and any and everyone else just continues on as always without any controls or oversights. -- PLEASE nuke where I am and kill me, PLEASE with a NUKE BLAST!! :

The USA will 'suffer' another (annual) military false flag disaster and it's blamed on whomever they have long ago already decided to blame it upon. - Ditto for an attack on any of the USA's bases or installations or personnel walking down the street anywhere in the world. Also handy for their allies or those stooges (like Australia) the USA wants to fight the USA's wars for them. :

Haven't had decent UFO incidents for quite awhile. Surely false flag events involving those should be well into going into execution by now. 'Evil aliens'......and el presidente Mr fake tan Wig will wet himself at the ooportunity to be seen to be acting as a warrior for all the world (aka Americans).......or..... :

el presidente Mr fake tan Wig will get assasinated or close to it, a replacement will come in and be accepted as a saviour and a worthy 'alternative' to the mad deranged vain el presidente...and maybe to help 'diplomatic relations' with extraterrestrial aliens and 'save the world'......but in actual fact it's all been planned and mapped out long, long ago and another planned person is plugged-in to the position...fake tan notwithstanding. :

The British Royals will have a wedding as a grand distraction (that's actually already in the works).....and another royal baby will pop out like a cork for hapless women and fops to goo-goo eye and fawn over worldwide and gush over whilst suporting any and everything that's decided without a second thought...... :

As an adjunct to the above, the royals will cry how poor they actually are. Anyone who disagrees, is vilified. (poor late Princess Diana never stood a chance in all this shit) -- King Charles could be to the rescue of the royals. Laws are changed, and the guy has been groomed long enough to be a suitable stooge and actor of the-powers-that-be. - Finally another King Charles! - Chosen plants will be happy. :

Australia will once again be involved in useless political crap that doesn't do anything and means nothing to ordinary people, (and in fact causes actual harm to people), but there's a massive lot of distractionabilty in all of that. - Australia has already been going through some of that and politicans have been wetting themselves with glee and self-loving. The usual evil politicians are again...evil. They have been joined by others in the newest world craze created forms of crap and that's the hoopla being a dual-citizenship, being a citizen of another country whilst claiming to be Australian and so being an Australian politician when they had no 'right' to be one. (HEY, I'M ONE TOO I'M A SPY FOR ENGLAND SO DEPORT ME TO ENGLAND!) -- Out of all this NOBODY talks about how wealthy Australian politicians actually are, and how much money they make, including the current head honcho multi-millionare leader of Australia. - But win, lose, or draw...they ALWASY win. -- Scale all this crap down to local elections you are also forced to vote in, as if your vote actually does anything in any election of any type. (that situation has been the case for a LONG LONG time and Australian people keep deluding themselves they have the 'power' of voting. That goes for worldwide too. What a joke.) :

Xmas celebrations become even more bland and mindless and worthless, with only the commercialisation aspects getting more powerful and untouchable and cannot be criticsed. (why not have Ronald McDonald as the REAL Santa? -- Ever notice how there's no black Ronald McDonald?) :

Is a grand plan for the 'revelations' about the deities ready to roll in yet? - That slots neatly into the manufactured UFO crap? - Xmas is the perfect occasion to give the presents to the world they don't love so hurry it up. Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's plane, it's Superman!...uh noooo, it's a drone...it's a UFO....it's the el presidente's wig flying about on it's own again....quick shoot it down befere it kills us all.......or spreads the plague...or craps on us again........ :

A LOT of all this stuff above also is for the 'New Year' period, the 'traditonal' terrorist massacres, the 'worthy' massacres of innocents by those massive powers that doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything, (and it's a great 'showcase' for new weaponry they're trying to sell), new disease fighting methods and inventions (with a handy timely medical disaster to address with it)......and on and on and on..... :

Will Australia be the first country to go completely 'cashless'? - It's a great way to secretly milk away money from countries too when it's all electronic. - The poor don't get poorer, they die off. The rich don't just get more rich, they become untouchable...until it's THEIR turn to be wiped out by those above them and they'll cry diamond encrusted tears of woe...... :

Lets' have yet MORE war movies....semi-fictionals.....they're always handy for patriotistic pants wettings and indoctrinations....can't have factual documentries anymore......it makes people too 'smart'...... :

Australia becomes yet another country unable to feed itself from the masses of food it grows, farms and creates, despite it having surpluses because the surpluses are 'contracted' to go offshore and to other countries and none of it is 'allowed' to be used here in Australia unless premium prices are paid. -- Eating kangaroos and emus (Australia's national emblem critters) are touted as 'sustainable food' for Australian. - Aboriginals get up in arms and lay copyright over kangaroos and emus...and succeed...and become wealthy kangaroro and emu 'farmers'.....with the profits (as alwasy with anything Aboriginal) mystriously disappearing and being unable to be accounted or explained where it all went when anything is ever investigated and is simply smoke that vanishes forever.......'put another roo on the barbie will ya'....... :

Electricity....Australia keeps running out of electrcity (as if it's water)......and despite the grand hooplah of the state of South Australia having their own 'almost free' Tesla power generation, it's just a drop in an vast ocean of need and Australia still can't make enough electricity for itself depsite the 'downturn' of manufacturing and the asbolute past lies that because of losing manufacturing production in Australia, that more electricity woud be about for everyone...and be cheap. -- Electricity is the new 'oil' scam of today and rorted. -- Strange how 'terrorists' never attack and disable such places eh? (except when it's secretly done without 'terrorists' and passed off as 'technical faults'.)

and locally, at this hellhole, the same old, same old shit goes on.....the criminals get worse and worse in ever more inventive ways...the toddlers in diapers still run free range all over the roads as well as the other criminal kids who never ever go to school....the get watched up all the time by departments and indulged and 'helped'....and everyone else is not included at all of course. - One latest spin is having abo men 'escorting' abo toddlers on foot scooters on the roads (to keep them 'safe') but is in fact just teaching toddlers to use roads as personal footpaths...AGAIN....STILL.......AS ALWAYS.......to be run over and killed.....or.......

-------------------------------------------------------

I love you dear Fliss and want to be with you just as you promised us both and where YOU can be the absolute boss of everything and have final say on any and everything. - - It's hot and airless in this hovel despite it having rained. (yes it DID rain a little, however it was only lightly but over a long period) Sam & Max got wet. The mozzies are everywhere. Spiders are everwhere. - In a LOT of pain. -- I love you dear Fliss and want to be with you. SAVE ME DEAR FLISS. The world and this hellhole is fucking up at an increasingly more rapid pace and has increased dramatically since you left me here to die in HELL. -- I love you dear Fliss and want to be with you. SAVE ME DEAR FLISS. SAVE ME. I WANT TO BE WITH YOU JUST AS YOU PROMISED.

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jazminebritney1 · 8 years ago

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The Two-Party System – A Catastrophic Failure

For various years now, revered pundits have lauded the American two-social gathering political system as a superb stability between the dictatorship of a one-celebration system and the instability of a multiparty system. Yet the 2-celebration system has brought about our nation nice hurt. The Republican and Democratic events have divided the American individuals over elementary ethical values, they’ve did not rectify longstanding nationwide issues, and their existence mainly advantages particular curiosity teams, politicians, and mega-company executives. Most sadly of all, nevertheless, the 2-social gathering setup doesn’t symbolize the individuals of the United States.

Many individuals consider that political events are important in a democracy such because the United States. These people declare that since a democracy encourages dissent and disagreement, it is just pure that such variations of opinion will discover expression in organized factions. But this pressure of thought clashes with the judgment of our nation’s founders. In his Observations on History, Benjamin Franklin wrote that events engender confusion. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay warned towards the evils to most of the people that a “spirit of faction” would trigger. And George Washington refused allegiance to any political get together throughout his eight-yr service as first president of the United States.

Despite these early statements towards partisanship, opposing factions emerged on the finish of the 1700s representing two totally different opinions concerning the position of the federal authorities. The Federalists urged a robust central administration that might dominate the states and guarantee nationwide unity, whereas the Republicans believed that the person states ought to have extra energy. In reality, the type of authorities formally established by the Constitution was a federal republic, so these events have been emphasizing the significance of both nationwide or state energy. Alexander Hamilton discovered himself within the Federalist camp, whereas Thomas Jefferson sided with the Republicans–although neither outstanding nationwide founder held the rigidly partisan or doctrinaire outlook typical of many American politicians immediately. Moreover, the chief disagreement of those early events was over the distribution of energy inside the United States authorities; their members agreed on most ethical, financial, social, and overseas coverage points akin to slavery, home commerce, the household, and isolationism.

During the 1800s, the events advanced and grew additional aside, particularly over the difficulty of slavery. Federalists modified their identify to Republicans and opposed slavery and the secession of the South, whereas the heretofore Republicans turned Democratic-Republicans and declared help for slavery and secession. At this stage, one celebration was championing a grave injustice which most Americans instinctively understood was evil. The Democratic-Republicans acquired backing primarily from rich Southern landowners, who insisted on retaining slaves for reasonable labor.

After Republican president Abraham Lincoln waged the Civil War, declared emancipation, and reunited the South, the Democratic Party remained the faction of Southern landlords’ continued riot towards the North and repression of Black political rights. However, within the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Democrats additionally gained help from blue-collar staff in Northern cities because the Industrial Revolution created a brand new underclass. Meanwhile, Republicans attracted backing from the brand new class of rich Northern capitalists and from supporters of Black civil rights nationwide.

Around the flip of the 20 th century, the significance of financial and overseas coverage points elevated. The Republican Party got here to face for Northern farmers, retention of the gold commonplace, fiscally disciplined authorities, and isolationism, whereas the Democratic Party represented Southern landowners and Northern laborers, a versatile cash provide, progress of the federal authorities, and overseas engagement. During the Cold War, the 2 events achieved a big degree of bipartisanship, agreeing on the need of confronting Communism and selling freedom overseas. Another main change occurred within the 1960s, when Democratic president Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. From then onward the Democratic Party took up the “liberal” causes of civil rights and concrete staff, main the “conservative” faction of farmers, restricted authorities and large business–the Republican Party–to dominate the South.

Another aspect was added to the American political panorama with the social upheavals of the 1960s and the Supreme Court’s choice of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in 1973. When various Democrats who had favored the abandonment of conventional social and ethical tips got here to understand the bitter failure of these upheavals, they transformed into social “conservatives” and located a brand new residence within the Republican Party. President Ronald Reagan emerged as the usual-bearer of those new Republicans, who established their celebration on the agency basis of God’s Law and strove to revive our nation’s id as a Christian nation.

The finish of the Cold War signaled the arrival of two extra simultaneous factional modifications. One was President Bill Clinton and his group of “New Democrats”, who championed unrestricted globalization and free market economics alongside social spending. The different change had been planted in the course of the Reagan administration, hibernated underneath the Clinton administration, and blossomed absolutely after the occasions of September 11, 2001: the ascendancy of neoconservatives inside the Republican Party. Led by President Bush, these people likewise championed unrestricted globalization and free market economics, however additionally they demanded an aggressive army response to “Islamic” terrorism with huge will increase in army spending and within the measurement of the federal authorities, in addition to cuts in social spending and overseas financial assist.

We can study necessary classes from this condensed evaluate of American partisan historical past. One of the explanations for the fixed switching forwards and backwards between events seems to be that the nation has totally different wants at totally different occasions. The American individuals selected Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln due to his agency stand towards slavery throughout a important time within the nation’s historical past. They chosen Democratic runner Franklin D. Roosevelt and his elevated authorities spending to mitigate the consequences of the Great Depression. In 1980, they selected Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in response to financial stagnation and ethical decline. And in 1992, American voters picked the Democratic contender Bill Clinton because of financial recession.

But although our nation has totally different wants at totally different occasions, political events are usually not the right instrument to fulfill these wants. According to George Washington, the fixed alternation of two events within the federal authorities can be a “frightful despotism”. The important purpose for this alternation, particularly prior to now few many years, is that neither celebration is satisfactorily fixing the important thing issues America faces.

Two elements clarify this failure. First, every social gathering represents a few of the insurance policies America wants. For instance, the Republican Party historically stands for the fitting to life of every human individual from conception to pure dying; a free market; restricted authorities; a robust (however not bloated) nationwide protection; safe borders; fiscal duty; and strict interpretation of the Constitution. The Democratic Party historically stands for the best of the poor to authorities help; the rights of ethnic and non secular minorities to an equal place in our society; regulation of massive enterprise and commerce; safety of the surroundings; multilateral nuclear disarmament; and elevated overseas financial help to impoverished nations. However, the US actually wants each units of insurance policies. We want professional-life legal guidelines and multilateral nuclear disarmament, tax cuts and deficit discount, a free market and social safety nets, not one or the opposite.

The second issue explaining the failure of the 2-get together system is corruption. When a brand new president is elected, individuals anticipate that he’ll get issues carried out. When he fails to satisfy even affordable expectations and his administration turns into stricken by scandal (as has occurred all too typically in current many years), individuals flip with hope to the opposite get together, which usually doesn’t enhance issues a lot. This is as a result of most members of each events have been corrupted by particular pursuits. Our final three presidents have been mega-company moguls whose possession of main industries introduced flagrant conflicts of curiosity. In addition, rich and vocal foyer teams have bullied our senators, representatives and president into enacting insurance policies that profit a number of giant corporations on the expense of the typical American citizen.

For instance, President Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 on a platform that featured tax cuts, financial progress for everybody, and an formidable social welfare program. Although the financial system did develop, Clinton broke different guarantees by instituting the most important tax increase in American historical past, preserving social spending to a minimal, and allowing firms resembling Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and McDonalds to reap the lion’s share of features. Then in 2000 President George W. Bush was elected on a platform that featured the suitable to life, tax cuts, free-market economics, safe borders, and monetary self-discipline. Although Bush has usually held to his professional-life pledge and did signal into law some token tax cuts, in September of 2006 he declared help for the Plan B contraceptive tablets for minors. Furthermore, President Bush has allowed massive companies resembling Wal-Mart, Microsoft, McDonalds, Halliburton, Boeing, Verizon Wireless, and News Corporation to choke the “free” market; has pandered to unlawful aliens; and ran up the most important federal price range deficits and nationwide debt in American historical past. Both presidents ended up serving the pursuits of mega-firms at the start.

The two-celebration political system doesn’t precisely symbolize opposing viewpoints of the position of the federal authorities because it did within the younger United States. Though it was a nasty concept to start with, because the latter a part of the final century the system has grow to be decrepit with corruption and has fallen sadly out of contact with the typical American. Most of the Republican and Democratic candidates allege sure rules and make engaging guarantees throughout their campaigns, however upon getting into workplace compromise overtakes precept like a weed and guarantees are thrown to the wind. Unfortunately, the present corrupt political local weather is hostile to trustworthy, historically-minded candidates with unwavering rules from Middle America corresponding to “Average Joe” Schriner, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback. In basic, solely these people who habitually cater to–or are prone to manipulation by–hawkish strain teams have an opportunity at federal public workplace.

Despite the manifest failure of the fashionable Republican and Democratic events to ship, nevertheless, properly-outlined teams of American voters throughout the map of the United States proceed to decide on congressional and presidential candidates alongside celebration strains as a result of no viable options are in sight. These devoted factional adherents are caught within the rut of the 2-get together system. Economics has lengthy vied with elementary ethical convictions as a significant factor figuring out political affiliation. In the US as we speak, richer people (who usually dominate rural areas) are likely to vote Republican, whereas poorer people (who usually dominate the cities) are likely to vote Democratic. These decisions are based mostly largely on the financial and ethical insurance policies that the events stand for and on the hope that new candidates will do a greater job than their predecessors. It is true that some Republicans and Democrats in Congress maintain their marketing campaign guarantees and truly work onerous to ship vital professional-life victories or higher socioeconomic equality, and it’s these few exceptions that maintain hope alive.

On the opposite hand, contented center-class people (who usually dominate suburbs and small cities and comprise a big minority of the American individuals) have a tendency to carry a extra unbiased, historically-minded outlook and usually tend to unfold their votes round based mostly on elementary ethical convictions in addition to their widespread-sense notion of native and nationwide wants. These are the “swing voters” to which enterprising candidates of each events direct a lot of their campaigning power.

The diploma of distinction between the 2 events is a matter of controversy. To determine this out, it’s useful to differentiate between concept and follow. In concept, the Republican and Democratic factions are ideological opposites, with Republicans specializing in conventional values and duty whereas Democrats are grounded in progressive values and alternative. But in apply, because of the endemic corruption of the system, there’s little distinction between events. Republicans grow to be not likely Republican, and Democrats develop into not likely Democrats: each units of politicians function collectively in a hazy and confused center floor outlined by particular curiosity teams. This has been clearly demonstrated on a lot of events, such because the overwhelming Congressional approval for struggle in Iraq in 2002, the Republicans’ passage of a invoice that might have offered federal funds for embryonic stem-cell analysis involving abortions in 2006, and the refusal of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to think about impeaching President Bush. All of those selections have been pushed by mega-firms, which stood to revenue immensely from them. Even although President Bush vetoed the embryonic stem-cell act, quickly afterward he accepted restricted entry to contraceptive drugs for minors as a way to mollify the large enterprise executives.

Some may level to those events of crossing celebration strains as examples of bipartisanship. However, promoting one’s elementary rules to cash-hungry American companies doesn’t make for true bipartisanship. Real bipartisanship includes constant settlement on elementary, non-negotiable ethical values resembling the fitting to life and frequent compromise on the wide selection of negotiable points corresponding to nationwide safety, financial coverage, environmental safety, home poverty aid, and overseas help. But as an alternative of the best way issues ought to be, the strain of the unrestricted free-market ideology has inverted values. Republicans and Democrats deal with the negotiable points as probably the most essential of all and usually are completely unbending on them, whereas the elemental ethical values elicit disgraceful compromises and protracted disagreement. After all, massive enterprise tycoons don’t wish to have their monumental income curtailed by the Ten Commandments, they usually demand a completely unregulated market as a way to reap these income.

The two-celebration setup within the United States has severely divided our nation. Having names and labels for various political persuasions could be useful, however they’ve too typically led to pigeonholing and identify-calling which hampers a free trade of concepts. “Republican” and “Democrat”, “conservative” and “liberal”, “right” and “left” have degenerated into phrases used to ostracize and vilify the opposition and to stifle dialogue of subjects deemed politically incorrect. A personal citizen or political candidate who opposes the conflict in Iraq shouldn’t be dubbed a “radical leftist” any greater than a personal citizen or political candidate who advocates illegalizing abortion ought to be denounced as a “right-winger”.

Moreover, the true meanings of the phrases “conservative” and “liberal” have been obscured. In trendy parlance, a “conservative” is somebody who defends elementary ethical values and needs to protect conventional nationwide beliefs, and a “liberal” is somebody who disputes elementary ethical values and needs to transform our nation round. But these meanings are insufficient. The phrases initially referred to political approaches, to not an individual’s ethical values or lack thereof. “Conservative” principally means somebody who applauds the established order, whereas “liberal” means somebody who needs to impact change. Neither conservatism not liberalism is sweet or evil per se; it is dependent upon what particular coverage you want to keep or to change. Continuing a nasty coverage comparable to torture of terrorist suspects is simply as detrimental to our nationwide properly-being as altering a great coverage such because the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell analysis involving abortion can be. Beneficial insurance policies must be maintained and dangerous insurance policies have to be modified. Thus within the unique sense of the phrases, few if any human beings might be described as utterly conservative or utterly liberal.

Political factions are typically pushed by ideologies that, of their members’ pursuit of specific objectives, obscure somewhat than make clear the reality. Indeed, fact itself has been politicized. Inconvenient truths (comparable to the lack of embryonic stem-cells to remedy illnesses) are derided as falsehood, whereas falsehoods that make a couple of individuals wealthy (such because the impossibility of conducting a dialogue with terrorists) are glorified as absolute fact. Nowhere are these damaging parts of partisan politics extra evident than within the meteoric rise of the neoconservative ideology following the terrorist assaults of September 11. This illiberal, extremist, and totalitarian perception system appears to have turn out to be a faith for many individuals, but it’s a deception that worships the false gods of nationwide safety and an unfettered free market. It was cunningly crafted by a handful of wealthy American tycoons to justify an aggressive overseas coverage that permits them to interact within the age-previous follow of struggle profiteering, to broaden their globalized enterprise operations the world over, and to take advantage of increasingly human beings with out hindrance. In contravention of historical past, it insists that terrorism is an act of conflict slightly than a felony tactic employed to attract a authorities’s consideration to actual grievances, and that solely all-out armed pressure can “defeat” terrorism. Its view of the terrorist menace is predicated on mistaken assumptions, quite a few fallacies, and blanket denials of many essential information that contradict their view.

Although it masquerades as patriotic, the neoconservative ideology and its loyal adherents have achieved super hurt to the American political panorama. Neoconservatives have viciously attacked their opponents, twisted ethical values, and used false guilt to silence opposition. They are using the traditional technique of divide and conquer to destroy American public debate and finally to dominate the world. Their means to seek out widespread floor with Americans of different opinions on negotiable points is nil. In the pursuit of greed and energy, they’re prepared to exacerbate partisan divisions among the many American individuals and make them overlook their nonpartisan heritage.

According to our nation’s founders, it will be higher to haven’t any political events in any respect. Individuals ought to type their opinion on every particular person negotiable matter by way of a cautious assessment of all of the related information and with out strain from a company-managed media, snug politicians, rich pundits, celebrities, or mega-company leaders. If that have been to occur, if Americans have been to discard ideologies and agree on the elemental ethical values, they might discover a lot widespread floor on the negotiable points. Instead of fixed bickering and division, we might start to expertise true reconciliation and unity.

With every Congressional partisan victory and every new presidential administration, the newly elected have vowed to make a recent begin exactly as a result of the earlier faction led America to a lifeless finish. The Democratic Party is now profiting from the myriad failures of the Bush administration and of Congressional Republicans to shore up their picture because the faction that America desperately wants, the get together that may rescue Americans from the clutches of proper-wing madness and ship than a brighter future in 2009. For Americans weary of Republican errors and desirous of considerable modifications in lots of political areas, the carrot held out by Democratic candidates seems tempting. It can be straightforward to simply accept this carrot and elect Democrats to Congress and the presidency alike. But if Americans select this straightforward route subsequent yr, they may discover that it results in a lifeless finish. A Democratic triumph subsequent yr will merely turn into a repetition of current political historical past. How lengthy will Americans dance to the tune of this dishonest and corrupt two-social gathering scheme? Choosing the straightforward route won’t get us anyplace. Instead, we should always make recognized loudly and clearly our intense want for candidates whose integrity is unsullied by an internet of political connections and whose data are unsullied by corruption (similar to “Average Joe” Schriner, Mick Huckabee or Sam Brownback for president), after which write the identify of a type of candidates on the poll in state main elections and once more within the November 2008 election. Otherwise, Americans eight years from now will once more be whining concerning the dishonesty, corruption and ineffectiveness of Washington, D.C.

The “frightful dictatorship” and corrupt farce that’s our two-social gathering system must be dismantled. Parties give us temptations to assault opponents, turn out to be demagogues, and garner followers, distracting us from looking for the true good of the nation. If we however want to belong to a specific group of Americans with a transparent id, allow us to unite with all Americans of excellent will. Instead of claiming, “I am a Republican” or “I am a Democrat”, allow us to rediscover the heritage bequeathed to us by our clever and farsighted nationwide founders and attempt to grasp what it actually means to say, “I am an American.” The United States was established by our founders as a nation that’s too nice to be outlined by simply two colours. Interestingly, the American flag accommodates some purple and a few blue, however the colour most evenly unfold all through the flag is white. White may be regarded as a mix of all political shades, and thus as a logo of unity. Unity on the idea of the elemental, common ethical truths enshrined within the hearts of all Americans and willingness to compromise on negotiable points is what America wants now greater than ever.

Source by Justin Soutar

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