Halloween countdown, part 2

What I'm Reading: The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen

What I'm Working On: Getting to the second turning point. This 2nd quarter of the book is always hardest for me.

I decided to do a Tuesday Ten for the second day of Halloween countdown. What kind of Tuesday Ten?

Ten Scary Things......

1) The fact that my teenager is driving. OMG. She's been driving for awhile. It's still scary.

2) The Universal Studio's (theme park) Halloween Horror Nights billboards scattered around town. Click here. I would think those would really scare young children who can see these billboards from their carseats in their parents' minivans.

3) The current stock market. I'm so scared that I've been just tossing my unopened 401k statements in a folder and filing them away.

4) War. A parent at my favorite high school recently complained that part of the movie The Patriot was shown in her son's class. (It wasn't. She was misinformed.) Regardless, she complained about the graphic war scenes. However, I was still proud of the school official who addressed this concern. He said, "War is violence unrestrained, and a movie could never accurately depict war without portraying randomness and senselessness and unimaginable suffering. Perhaps the worse we depict war, the fewer old men will vote for war and the fewer young men will be eager to see the elephant, as the expression went during the War Between the States."

5) Florida's rising unemployment rate.

6) That some people think health care and insurance in the United States is a privilege rather than right. They've obviously never tried to get insurance with a pre-existing condition or been set back (or financially ruined) by huge copayments because their employer went with the cheapest, worst coverage imaginable. These are also people who've never worked two jobs -- neither full time (so the employer didn't have to pay benefits) -- in order to feed and cloth their kids, and then been faced with a life-threatening illness for one of their children. (Sarcasm coming up...... Right, absolutely, that innocent child should just die because health care is a privilege and he/she isn't among that elite privileged group.)

7) That there are Americans who won't vote. People died to give us that right. People die for it now in other countries. Stop taking it for granted.

8) That people actually believe Obama might be a socialist. Please.... Socialism is an economic policy, not a style of government. Many people think the U.S. is straight capitalism. It's not. We're more capitalist than socialist, but what we really have is a mixed economy. But I digress; the point is that Obama is not a socialist. If you're confused, I suggest you revisit your high school World and American history classes and your economics class. Pay special attention to the lectures on economic systems, Marxism, socialism, communism, and capitalism. Get educated.

9) That for one person I spoke to the deciding factor in who they vote for is the abortion issue. Really? Of all the things our country is facing, abortion is THE ONE for you?

10) That, when asked, my fairly well-off friend who is a die hard McCain supporter could give no better reason to vote for him than, "I only have one and it's completely selfish. I'm voting to keep more money in my pocket. I work hard. I don't want to give it (my money) to the people who don't work."