Is it friday yet?

I am at the moment enjoying a much needed mental vacation. My mom offered to watch the kids (bless her) and I'm at a local coffee shop taking a break from reality.

I'm in that emotional slump where I've lost the ability to enjoy being a parent temporarily. It's probably because J & I have been running non-stop lately; neither one of us has gotten our alone time in two weeks or so, I think. Anyway, I sit here at a coffee shop... some weirdo in the corner just answered his phone and is talking to "Pastor Nick" and asking "so did he pray about it?" You know, I've been having a real crisis of faith lately - I do think there is something, some creator type thing or somesuch, but to be honest Christianity isn't really appealing to me right now. Maybe I'm just turned off by the followers rather than the religion.

Our landlord called this afternoon - they're selling the house we're renting from them. They're giving us first dibs on it (which is really nice of them) and will take five grand off either the closing costs or the appraisal value, whichever we prefer, and they'll be credit references for us - but they'd like to have it done in the next 60-90 days max, and while our lease is up in February and we're allowed to stay until then, if we're not the ones who buy the house, there's no guarantee the next owner will rent it to us. So we get to either buy a house or move in February - neither of which I was prepared for. I wonder how much it will appraise for?

Gotta run... reality beckons insistently. I think I'll use my gift card to buy myself a new book. I blew through the new Harry Potter already (who the heck is MAB? ARGH! I hate having to wait to find out what happens! It's the only downside to reading so quickly - the books are over so fast!) and I could use an entertaining read. Maybe I'll go re-read Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

I know I go overboard.

I don't know if it's the borderline personality disorder, or if it's my desire for the romantic, elegant, victorian, etc. side of life... nine times out of ten, I could care less if my shoes match my purse; I dress for comfort and utility, not for style... I don't wear makeup.... I do something with my hair maybe once every 4 months or so... and the only jewelry I've worn in the last year or more (with a couple of special occasion exceptions) has been my wedding ring. I hate being hot, but when it's not this time of year I like to be outdoors, getting my hands into things... I miss being in good enough shape to climb trees (gotta work on that), and I miss having a garden.

That being said - there's the frilly, girl side of me that rears its head every now and then. The part that looks at costumes in period movies and wistfully thinks of silks and brocades and elaborate embroidery and gold and jewels and occasions to dress up for... the side that likes to make edible works of art (I miss decorating cakes, and I love watching those pastry competitions on Food Network).... the side that wants to throw elaborate parties with champagne fountains and twenty different kinds of hors d'oeuvres, seven courses, and for dessert chocolate fountains with myriad things for the guests to dip in them.

So what's my point in all this, you ask?

We're throwing a party tomorrow. Only 20 people are coming (and that includes all the kids) and it's only friends and family. It's my son's first birthday party. The theme? Miniatures. (He's tiny and adorable. So it's girly; sue me.) Here's the menu:
mini corndogs
mini tacos
mini pizzas
mini cupcakes (I'm planning on decorating them with letters that spell out a birthday message; one letter per cupcake)
mini waffles with J's homemade chicken salad (you have not LIVED until you've had his chicken salad)
mini quiches
mini vegetables to dip (baby carrots, broccoli & cauliflower heads cut into small florets)
teddy grahams
mini pineapple upside down cakes (Uncle Mike is making these, and I cannot WAIT, it's been so long since I've had pineapple upside down cake!)
mini eclairs
mini ice cream bites (vanilla dipped in chocolate, chocolate dipped in chocolate, and vanilla dipped in Drumstick coating)
mini oreos
mini nutter butters
mini brussels & mini milanos (Pepperidge Farm, *drool*)
I found coke & sprite bottles that are almost half the size of the regular plastic bottles (so cute!)
I'm also doing something with jello, but I've not decided what.


Am I silly, or what? We have almost 100 mini cupcakes.
I was going to do mini hamburgers - like Krystal or White Castle - and slice up cherry tomatoes and pearl onions and quarter american cheese slices to put on plates next to them. That would have been so cute! But I'm trying to not go overboard. I'm really trying. I managed to talk myself out of making mini flowerpot cupcakes (make regular size cupcakes, put enough icing on top to make it sticky, cover sticky icing with blended up oreos, stick a lollypop in it, cut petals & leaves out of sticks of gum or fruit roll-ups and stick to lollypop & stick, and stick the head of a gummy worm out of the 'dirt' - and voila, mini edible flowerpots) because I just knew that was nuts. (Maybe for one of Moira's parties when she's older.) I kept hoping we'd find those champagne grapes (they are DELICIOUS, and so cute!) but I don't believe they're in season yet.

And if it rains tomorrow, then the whole play outside thing is shot - the inflatable jump-in thing Megan lent me, the kiddie pool, the tigger sprinkler and the slip 'n slide - but you know, come to think of it, if the kids are going to be playing in the water anyway, if it's raining it doesn't really matter... but if it's anything like the storm we had today, the lightning makes it a no-go.

Okay, time to get off my butt and go clean the kitchen (now that we've wrecked it with dinner and party food prep)

ARGH

Drives

Me

Crazy


I've gotta start locking my door.

So dad calls; we're napping so we don't answer the phone. We get up, and I call dad back. No answer. No answer on cell. No answer at home. I hope he's not trying to work outside in this heat! So I head for the utility room, where my bras are hanging up drying after doing laundry - and there he is, sitting on the love seat. I'm glad I saw him before I got too far into the room, as I was naked. *sigh*

Getting dressed now. Just had to vent. Thanks for listening.

where there's a will, there's a way...

I missed both Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Says You this past weekend... the first I can listen to online, but the second I can only listen to at audible.com if I pay for it.

However, I discovered a california radio station that plays it Tuesday nights (tonight!) that has an online simulcast! WOOHOO!

I'm SO glad J is coming home tonight. It's actually not been as hard as I thought it might be - of course, I've had company and help.

Stick me with a fork, I'm done.

Hopefully I just sweated off a pound or so - a couple of biiiiiiig pine branches laden with muscadine vines came down on my parents' doorstep during the hurricane, and I've just spent several hours cutting stuff up and stacking it at the curb. It was kinda nice to do some physical labour. I just wish the insect world weren't out to get me today. Between the weird ant-bee thing that bit me on the way to my counselor's appt. to whatever the heck it was that stung me on the finger at my parents' house to the ants that covered the pine branches and mosquitos...

I wish I could figure out what the heck that thing was that bit/stung me. It was freaky looking.

Dang! I gotta go print & mail the invites!!!

WOW

I knew my daughter was gorgeous, but... wow.





I've ALWAYS wanted one of these dresses. I should have bought one back in the day when I was skinny enough to wear it.

Well, I'm not dead yet!

Note to self:

do not put just-boiled-in-the-microwave water and Better Than Bullion goop into a plastic container, put the lid on, and then shake vigorously.

Especially while unclothed.

The resulting explosion coated my front with boiling chicken broth.

I'm fine now. Please continue to laugh amongst yourselves. Yes, I learned the "don't fry bacon naked" rule the hard way too.


In other news... mom-in-law is back from China (yay!), my sweetie left this morning for San Diego (wah!) and I'm a single mother for a few days. Hurricane Dennis looks like it's going to miss us to the left; we'll see how much wind we end up getting this far out. Unless it slows down dramatically, it looks like it won't interfere with J's flight home on Tuesday.

I have to say, I was relieved to hear from him when he landed in Houston - the recent fun in London made me worry a lot more than I usually do. I'm waiting for the phone to ring again to tell me he's in California safely.

As soon as Moira wakes up completely (Christian is messing with her right now) I'm hoping we can go play with cousins et al. Logan & Mike are selling their house and buying another one... I can't wait to see it. More room!

Okay, going to hit the shower. Hey, any of you want to come visit & keep me company in the next few days, PLEASE feel free. I've got cards & games galore, and would love to see you.

I'm a what?

stolen from ClicheMonster who stole it himself.

A cywydd llosgyrnog; I'm one. "A what?" Well, quite. There'd be no fun In being understood; I Thrive upon obliquity. Don't comprehend or follow me, For mystery's my ally. What Poetry Form Are You? (If I were not a Cywydd Llosgyrnog I would be a Haiku.)

Yesterday was bizarre. Or was it the day before? I wish I had a housewide computer (like the one on the enterprise) to keep track of days for me. Had dreams the night before about my first husband; we were having a gigantic fight, and he had dumped me and I was suicidal. It's been a long time since I've been suicidal, but the dream brought back the feeling so exactly that when I woke up I was a little discombobulated. When you're that depressed it's almost physical, you can FEEL the despair running along your nerves like a shiver. We're turning thirty this year... J & I were talking last night about how glad we are that we're past a lot of our callow youthful stupidity and immaturity - I was telling him that I don't feel like I'm 30; I don't know that I'm all THAT much more responsible and less immature than I was say, 5 years ago or more. He pointed out lots of things, saying he thought I was much more mature than I had been, and wasn't I glad I wasn't in the same place I was back then, mentally and emotionally? In spades. I think we complement each other pretty well.

Uncle Patrick came over for a bit last night - I'm so glad we're living in town again. As much as I liked the place in Monticello, moving here was worth the extra rent if he'll drop by more often. He didn't stay long enough for us to break out the cards, unfortunately, but we had fun just chatting. I worry about him sometimes; I keep thinking I'm going to get an SOS in a bottle from his liver asking for rescue.

M's speech therapist came this morning - I really like Renee. After the evaluation today, it looks like Moira is only behind in a few of her sounds; not bad at all. It's nice that she's getting this one-on-one work; I wish we could afford to hire teachers like in the old days.... I think I'll try to work that into the budget.

Hrm. Power outage. I love having a laptop. However, the ups will only work for so long, so my net connection will drop any minute now. *sigh* And just when I'd gotten the kids down for a nap, too.

That's okay; god knows I have enough stuff to do OFF line - like clean my house, or finish sorting through my fifty million digital pictures in iPhoto, or working on my website, or doing laundry...

Any excuse for a get together!

Saturday, July 16th we're throwing a party. Christian turns one on the 18th, so it's sort-of a birthday party, but it's more just an excuse to get everybody together to eat and let the kids play in the backyard. I got a slip & slide! Adults aren't supposed to use it, and if I tried I'd probably burst a breast, but it'll be fun to watch the kids do it. I remember loving slip & slides as a kid. Kiddie pool, sprinkler, Aunt Megan is bringing one of those inflatable bouncy things... and I think I'm going with a miniature theme! I love miniature things. And my son is pretty petite, so it fits. *grin* So, if you wanna come hang out with us and our crazy family, let me know! I'll send you an invite with directions.

Random conversation

I rarely have less than at least five things on my mind. If you were hanging out with me right now (and why aren't you?) here are some of the things we might be chatting about.

I recently decided to stop shopping at Wal-Mart. For a great explanation as to why, read this. I've decided that the convenience isn't worth the long-term costs. I'm going to try to read Always Low Prices on a regular basis, as it seems pretty fair - includes news both flattering and not so.

I heard on the news today that Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring from the Supreme Court. *sigh* Rhenquist was given 6 months to live, 9 months ago... so I'm assuming President Bush is going to be able to put two Supreme Court Justices into place. I wish I had faith that the people he picks would be good justices, but I really just don't.

I've been sick for a week now... sore throat that comes & goes, chest congestion, some sinus congestion, and a low-grade fever I just can't shake. I'm at 99.something right now. I would just suck it up and go to the doctor so he could make sure it's not bronchitis, but until the COBRA people finish processing our paperwork, according to the system we don't have insurance and will have to pay out of pocket, and then wait for a reimbursment. I swear, if I'm ever wealthy, I'm going to have a separate investment account/savings account for medical expenses, and I'm not ever going to give another insurance company a dime. I'll pay the doctors in cash.

Moira has a split uvula, which is evidently in the same diagnostic category as cleft palate - of course, not nearly as serious. The speech therapist (who has managed to see Moira once so far) thinks that this might be interfering with Moira's soft-palate, which is supposed to close off her nasal passages when she says K, amongst other things - which might be part of why Moira doesn't say K. The ENT says that short of sticking a scope down her nose (which would be pretty traumatic) there's no way to be sure; to go ahead with the speech therapist's diagnosis - because even if that is the problem, they'd not be able to do anything about it until she was 4 or 5, and then she'd have to go to Shands or somesuch - nobody here in town handles naso-pharengeal insufficiency (at least I think that's what he called it). But it looks like due to her evaluation, Moira will be able to attend Nana's school for free! That'll be amazingly cool. She'll have peers to play with daily, daddy can take her to school in the morning, I'll have time alone with Christian (and to myself when he's napping), and Nana is there!

Having visited Premier with my friend Diane, I'm looking forward to joining - provided, of course, somebody joins with me. AHEM. I've got about 5 months to lose some weight and tone my arms - it's a sleeveless dress. (top 8087, bottom 8090, color apple) And Erin's dress, btw, is absolutely stunning! She has great taste.

Too tired to keep writing. Besides, I have laundry to do.

WTF????

I'm speechless. Totally speechless. I'll be angry when I've had time to think about it, but right now I'm in that disturbing Eddie Willeresque position of total gobsmackedness.

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

Emigrating keeps getting checks in the "pro" category...

The King and I

I love this movie, but I'd forgotten how sad it is.

I've found a new addiction - Scotland Yard! J played it as a kid, and I ordered it online for him for father's day - I've played it three times, and I kick ass! I can't wait to play it again! The first time, J was going easy on me (and he'd not played in a long time so he was very rusty), the second time Uncle Patrick had never played before, and the third time, I think the travel tokens got screwed up - so I wanna play another game, while the children are asleep, now that everybody knows how to do it!

Btw, I used canoed in a scrabble game today! heehee

I have to say, I got the most wonderful phone call last night. Our friends Matthew and Erin, who are getting married in January, called us up while they were both on speakerphone - Erin's asked me to be a bridesmaid!!!!! TOTALLY blew me away. I even got a little teary; it's so flattering to be asked... I've never been a bridesmaid before! Been a bride 3 times; I figured that was fate's freaky way of making up for it. ;) As Erin put it, "Always a bride, never a bridesmaid, huh?" heeheehee. So now I have a WONDERFUL incentive for losing weight. And a deadline! SO, who's going to come work out with me, huh?

I wish I could talk. I don't know what freaky bug I came down with - the first day J was afraid it was mono, but now it just seems like your normal run-of-the-mill respiratory illness, except it might have gone to my sinuses and chest, which is very unusual for me. I must be getting old & decrepit.

Got the kids down for their nap - I think I'll take advantage of this time to sleep as well. As much as I need to clean, I need to get better faster more, or the house will REALLY fall apart.

Okay, I always knew I was different...

I'm not as different as this woman, but I gotta say, I find her Capricorn


really fucking cool. The winged cat is nifty too.
(I like that she uses leftovers rather than hunting things.)

Wanna make your own? (Online, not real one, aren't you relieved?) And then send me a picture!

Things I do while waiting for my husband to finish working in the middle of the night...
This made me laugh until I cried, and all silently so as not to wake the children.
This is amazing, and I know a few people that could benefit from it, I think.

Stuck at Prom

In the tradition of Highly Recommended Thing Of The Moment

An oldie, but goodie. I never get tired of looking at the designs. I particularly like the guitar one.

**edit**
oooooh, and the Starry Night couple is cool too!

Men, sit up and take notice

I dropped by Cyborgirl's blog (like I do most days) and read her latest post... and it really got me thinking. I've been married three times now. I've dated quite a few men, before I lucked into J. And I have to say, men should take lessons in foreplay. So few of them have even the slightest clue about how to turn a woman on! My first husband - lord, what a nightmare. Only time I've ever fallen asleep during sex.

Here's a hint. If we women think the only reason you're initiating sex is so you can get off, we're usually a whole heck of a lot less likely to be into it. So men, here's some advice. Approach your woman with the intention of making her feel good. Plan not to get off yourself. In fact, TRY not to get off yourself. Make that session all about her. If she tries to return the favor, unless she's just uncontrollably horny & turned on and is jumping you, tell her no, to lie back and relax. If you do this often enough, guys, then I would bet the percentage of times the woman initiates sex would go up. Because then we know that you know that sex isn't all about you - it's a mutual pleasure thing. All you women out there - how many times have you & your man been having sex, and when he orgasms, it's over, whether you've peaked or not? Guys, you've got a tongue and two hands; if your penis is done for the night, that doesn't mean you're done! Do you not realize that that behaviour implies that you don't care if we orgasm or not? Which extrapolates to the whole "one woman is pretty much like another in the dark" idea and can make us feel pretty much like a convenient hole for you to fuck?

So now I'm wondering how to teach my son this when he's older... I think that's probably a conversation I should leave to his dad.

Okay, I've not gotten around to sitting down with a notary...

but here's something that should carry some weight.

Having just read the autopsy report of Terry Shiavo, I'd like to make it known that if I am a vegetable, I do not wish to be kept alive on life support of any kind. If the chances of me ever recovering are low, go ahead and take my organs and give them to somebody who needs them, and what's left of me can be cremated (please don't embalm me, ew). My husband knows how I feel about this, and now the rest of you do too.

WOOHOOO!

I've always been a weird mix of introverted and extroverted. This Wednesday night I get to exercise my extroverted side, for the first time in a long time. It's Girls' Game night at my place! J is taking the kids to the grandparents' house, so we're planning on a manless, kidless evening of board games, or card games, or whatever! So, if you wanna come, drop me a line!

An easy post for a late Sunday morning

Snitched from Monster


Ceara is...
Ceara is fom the Old Irish name, Cera, the meaning of which may be "bright red."
Ceara is also Irish for "spear."
Ceará is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast.
Ceará is in the zone of droughts.
ceara is the goddess of the forests and the wild things
ceara is 650 000 tonnes
ceara is now issuing a international call for bids
ceara is forbidden
ceara is affected by the south east trade winds which blow relentlessly towards the equator
ceara is aloof and dignified
ceara is amazing at two and a half
ceara is the daughter of the scottish cheiftan tearlaich and his irish leymen
ceara is a powerful jedi
ceara is quick and agile
ceara is great
ceara is involved with the drama club
ceara is given to luke skywalker and adopted by him
ceara is attractive
ceara is kinda busy and will be for at least another month
ceara is determined and strong


Ceara is tired.

I'm opinionated

Here are a few of mine. Read at your own risk.

I believe that a fertilized egg is a potential human life, and whether it lives or dies is not up to me. I cannot imagine ever having an abortion, and I hope I'm never put in that position. That being said, I firmly believe that abortions should NOT be illegal. Historically, when abortion was illegal, the AMA decided to push for its legalization because it was a health issue - women were dying from infections, complications, etc. due to "back alley" abortions performed by unqualified practicioners. I believe that a woman who has been raped should not be forced to carry a child as a result of that rape - while I doubt a day would go by that she would not remember the rape in the next 9 months, there is no reason to make that memory a physical fact. I believe that if you are against abortion, you should be standing up and screaming for better, more available birth control. If people that don't want to get pregnant don't get pregnant, the number of abortions will go down dramatically, DUH. OH - and for god's sake, EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN. It never ceases to amaze me in today's day and age of information availability what some of the misconceptions about sex are. Yes, you can get pregnant while you are on your period. Yes, you can get pregnant if you have never had a period before. Yes, you can get pregnant if he pulls out. I can't even remember some of the stupider ones; my brain has blocked them out for self-preservation. I'd start getting trigger happy if I were surrounded by that much idiocy. I think I'm going to make a bumpersticker that says "YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE MORALITY"

I believe that 'creationism' and 'evolution' are not incompatible. I think people that interpret the bible literally are doofuses (and that's being polite). I personally don't believe that Genesis says HOW God created the earth - it says he did, and briefly mentions how long it took him. (About that, by the way: the Hebrew word translated as "day" is yom, which can mean "a length of time" as well as a "day".) Anyway, I consider anybody who argues that God did NOT use evolution to create everything is a raging egomaniac. How dare they presume to know the methods of God? They weren't there! And, if you want to get spiritual about it, doesn't the enormous complexity of evolution make the existence of God more believable? And as for what gets taught in schools - oh, give me a break. We don't teach religion in school (unless it's a religious private school, like the one I went to) and creationism is religion. Would Christians like us to also teach that the world was created when the Divine Turtle rose out of the primordial ocean with mud on its back? That too is a creation story. If you argue that evolution is 'just a theory' then you need to understand the meaning of the word 'theory' when used scientifically. There's a whole hell of a lot of data, found independently by many people over many years, that supports the idea of the process of evolution. Scientists are not out to destroy religion. I know a lot of scientists with very strong faith. A lot of them actually consider what they do to be somewhat spiritual, as they look at it as learning about God's creation - and they understand that science has nothing to do with faith, and that the existence of God is not the purview of science. So why can't religious fundamentalists understand that?

I believe that drugs should be legalized. Dammit, people, haven't you ever heard that saying about not learning from history and being doomed to repeat it? Look at Prohibition! It was widely ignored, and its existence helped organize crime take hold in the United States. I need to track it down again, but I once read about a study that said if a percentage of the population wants to do a certain act, then making it illegal is pointless because it will not dissuade people from doing it. Make drugs legal! Then regulate them. That eliminates people having trouble because the coke they bought was cut with rat poison. Tax drug sales. Think of the revenue! And then use some of that revenue to fund rehabilitation programs and education programs. Legalization eliminates the black-market demand, thus lowering the price of drugs, and eliminating the need for violence in the distribution system. This also eliminates the incredible amount of money this country is wasting on the "War on Drugs" both at home and abroad. This would allow other poor countries that currently produce a lot of the current drugs (Afghanistan, Columbia) to develop in a more free-market way, and would hopefully end the rule of armed despots in those countries as well. After all - nicotine and alcohol are chemical substances that affect the body, just like cocaine, meth, etc - why should those two be legal, and all others not? Because we grow tobacco & grain here in the US? I wonder if drug dealers paid as much money into our Congress as the Tobacco lobbyists do, if legalization would be heard more often.

Our policy on Cuba is stupid. Look at the USSR: we refused to interact with them - they endured. We open up our markets, culture, etc. - and bam! They open up. Think of Cuba as a battered wife to Fidel, the abusive husband. We're basically trying to keep her isolated from everybody else, providing only the most basic of necessities (and sometimes not even that) and yelling at her to leave her awful husband. Well, hell, it's not like you've shown her a better alternative! Take her out, show her how caring people interact with her, show her what she's missing - give her the means to leave, and don't you think it's much more likely that she will?

Illegal immigrants - the phrase should be retired. I think we should open our borders completely. You wanna come work in the US? Fine! Great! We'll pay you and take Social Security & all other taxes out of your pay. If you're willing to do for $8/hr what another worker is unwilling to do for less than $30, then I don't blame the employer for wanting to hire you. Let's just make sure the employer does it above the table, rather than under the table, as is common now. Come on in and work! And unions - consider this a huge influx of potential members. Decent working conditions, fair wages, etc. should be universal. Companies that remain in the US can even get tax breaks, or something. (Let's just please close all the damn tax loopholes that so many of them are currently jumping through, okay?) Looking around the world today, I'm anticipating a huge crash when things start to equalize - a person in Detroit making automobiles is paid a whopping amount compared to what a person in, say, Korea is. We are all interconnected, and at some point our pay and standard of living is going to have to come closer to other countries' pay and standard of living - and wouldn't you rather attempt to bring their levels closer up to ours, rather than ours crashing down to theirs? Make it a requirement that American countries have to pay a decent minimum wage to employees regardless of where those employees are (Alabama or Thailand) and that companies on foreign soil that an american company buys from must pay a decent minimum wage and provide a safe working environment.

As I've drifted into economy, here's a pet peeve: People, learn to boycott. If you don't like what a company is doing, DON'T BUY FROM THEM. They pay attention to you when you cease handing them money. I know it may make your life a little inconvenient or complicated, but that extra time you take shopping could be saving a little foriegn child from slave labor.

I think our dependence on fossil fuels is awful. I think the government should be encouraging conservation in all areas - giving tax breaks to companies that build 'green' buildings, or energy/water efficient fixtures... Build your houses with solar panels! Use grey water reclamation systems! Got a big factory? Plant stuff on the roof! Use recycled materials! Give tax breaks to people who use biodiesel cars! Give tax breaks to car companies that design more fuel efficient vehicles! As a government, the only way to encourage behaviour is by the reward system.

Education - my god, don't get me started. It's 2:30 am. I'll finish this another time.

stolen from meta

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 88% Existentialist 88% Idealist 75% Romanticist 56% Modernist 44% Postmodernist 44% Materialist 25% Fundamentalist 25% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com