Malika Risley

First, what is socialism?  Socialism is an economic system in which the basic means of production are primarily owned and controlled collectively, usually by government under some system of central planning.  So, the socialist is a member of a party or political group that advocates socialism; of, belonging to, or constituting a party or political group that advocates socialism.

So far Obama stands behind following statements, which concur that he is a socialist:

1. Government should have more control over the financial trade markets;

2. Government should get involved in stopping foreclosures on the first residencies;

3.  Higher taxes for rich and lower taxes for poor; otherwise income redistribution;

4. Government controlled universal healthcare plan;

5. Equal pay for the same job.

To me, it’s like the Soviet Union all over again.  Why, oh why do we want to be more socialist?  Because of ol’ capitalism, we have a living standard that beats the crap out of all of the socialist contries.  Imposing government regulations on the free trade market will slow down the economy even more.  (Even though Dems are saying that the economy is already bad).  If the government will get involved in stopping foreclosures, then either more banks will collapse or I will have to pay the mortgages of people who can’t (As if I don’t have on my own).  Income redistribution will make me want to work less, so I can avoid high taxes.  And I wonder how much will be taken out of my paycheck to support the universal health care plan?  It is supposed to cover everyone, whether they have a job or not.  But unfortunately, the people with the job will have to flip the bill.  England, France, Russia are the examples of universal healthcare.  Ha-ha, you’d pray not to get sick there.   And finally, where is the motivation to work hard if everyone in the company makes the same??

As a side note, Obama talks about a $50 billion plan to make the change.  That comes  to a little over $167 per person.  This would not even cover one doctor’s visit.  I am bracing myself for what’s next to come…

I hope we keep our hands off Russia-Georgia confrontation. If we participate, it will turn into a new cold war. US against Russia. I can’t believe that bastard Putin, Russia isn’t enough for him, he wants Ossetia and Abhasia? Russians are twisting it such that it’s Georgia’s fault. Georgia invaded Russia… Give me a break, that is so ridiculous. Putin does not want US in his back yard, that’s what it comes down to. He’s good with Bush, as long as he stays on another continent. Now that US befriended Georgia, he sees it as a potential threat.

I hope Russia backs out, if not, I see US’ involvement. And then we’ll have to dig deeper into our pockets. War costs, increasing gas prices.  With that come higher prices on everything. With higher prices comes lower demand, therefore higher unemployment, etc…  Hmmm, should I reinstate my Russian citizenship?!  (Just kiddin, my husband would never move, and I can’t see Russia doing better than US in my lifetime.)

We had a family get-together for Dave’s and grandma Margerie’s birthdays at my mother-in-law’s. She recently got two beautiful lab puppies, Baily (after liquor Baily’s) and Kelly (short for Kalua). It was our first time seeing Kelly. Even though she’s still pretty tiny, she plays rough. I tried to pet her, but she kept trying to bite me, I guess that’s her way of playing. Hopefully they will be Ely’s pet friends when she gets older.

The baby is getting to be comfortable with the family members, whom she doesn’t see on regular basis. Earlier she had hissy fits, if anyone else were holding her besides me or Dave. She always had special affection for my sister-in-law, Joanna. Joanna was born to be a mommy, she a natural. Can’t wait for them to have kids already!! The grandparents are always so over-joyous to see the baby! She is their only great-grandkid, they actually get to see in person. Watching the interaction between them, I can’t help myself, but think of the endlessness of the cycle of life. Our parents give us life, their knowledge and wisdom. Then we get to give life to our kids, and the cycle starts over… By watching the interaction between ‘the great-grands’, I got to realize, that we have only so much time on this earth, and it’s flying so incredibly fast. Once I became a mom, I think I get it so much more now–possibly the true meaning of life, and I get to witness just how fast the time is really flying. Just over a year a go, Elyana was just a thought for us, the concept of becoming parents. Now, she is her own individual, she expresses her likes and dislikes, she gets so excited about the simplest things that come into her eyesight. She is an individual, a person whom we made, and now we have the responsibility to guide her towards becoming someone, who’s going to appreciate her life, and hopefully make it meaningful for herself and the others. I can picture myself holding my great-granddaughter or great-grandson later down the road, and having a feeling of great satisfaction, that my life really meant something. Look at what I created… That is the magic of circle of life!

I had a wonderful first Mother’s Day! First we went out for breakfast, so it was nice not having to cook and clean up. For our outing, we decided to check out Tampa Aquarium. Neither my husband or I ever been to the Aquarium, even though we lived here forever. The deciding factor was their Mother’s Day special, mothers get a free admission on Mother’s Day!! It was really fun! Even though the place was packed with strollers and crying babies, there was enough room for everyone. Tampa Aquarium is a collection of Florida wild life, that you can check out up close and personal. They show off fish, amphibians, turtles, frogs, plants, et. At certain times, they bring out couple of live African penguins and take them around the room for people to see and take pictures of . Some of my favorites were the Goliath Grouper fish (they apparently get as large as 800 pounds) and the seahorses that look like a plant. They just float in the water, so peacefully and gracefully, it’s so easy to confuse them with a seaweed. Once you get closer, you realize, it’s actually a real seahorse! Here our pictures.

Afterwards we went to Channelside to have some ice cream from Coldstone Creamery while watching Carnival cruise ship leave the dock. Oh, the ice cream was so good; there is always a line, but it’s worth waiting! My favorite is coffee ice cream with Heath Crunch bar!

What a wonderful day with my dear family! I’m already looking forward to my next Mother’s Day!

I’m glad McCain is getting on the ball about the health care. Now the battle on the issue is not only between Democrats but the Republican as well. When I worked for a large company, I could care less what kind of health care system we have. I had great insurance and my premium was only $70 a month (given that my company payed the rest of the premium). Now I am staying home with my four-month old, and my husband is self-employed. I quickly discovered that the insurance for $70 a month simply doesn’t exist. The next cheapest insurance has a huge deductable to meet, even though we are relatively healthy and have no pre-existing conditions. And another bummer, when I got pregnant, my insurance told me that they won’t cover any baby related expenses because I should have bought a separate maternity insurance.

Health care is definitely a major issue for the US. A lot of people can’t afford health insurance, but most people can’t afford paying the medical bills by themselves if they didn’t have the insurance. So how do we go about it? The choices are universal health care, where we don’t have much of a choice but to contribute, or a competitive market health care, where the medical community would have to compete to earn our business.

Check it out. Massachussets is experiencing the universal health care firsthand. There is already shortage of primary care physicians, and the wait to go see a doctor now is 4 months. What if this were to be implemented throughout US. Can we tell medical schools to hurry up, give us some more of them doctors? How long will it be for the system to balance itself out?
And now they’re talking about forcing businesses to buy health insurance for their employees or suffer a penalty of $300 per employee per month? It’s just a beginning, I’m anxious to find out what happens next over there.

McCain is proposing competitive health care and tax breaks. It definitely appeals more to us, since my husband is self-employed. Moving away from expensive insurance premiums so people can actually afford to buy insurance themselves without relying on the big corporations to cover the rest of it fits our lifestyle. There are a lot of people in US who stick with a job just because they can have good insurance. Older folks that are retired are forced to keep working because they can’t afford to pay their own insurance. Once the medical community becomes more affordable, the insurance premiums have nowhere to go, but down. Frankly I don’t understand, why anasthesiologist charged me $3400 for less than 10 minutes of her time when I was in labor. I don’t care how high your overhead is, it’s ridiculous. But the ‘funny’ thing is that, when I called and told them that I don’t have insurance and I’m paying from my own pocket, they dropped the bill down to $700. Now how does that work? Why does the medical community charge so much for their services? Is it because they have to treat so many uninsured who can’t flip the bill, so the ones that can, pay for them too? Is it because of malpractice insurance? I don’t know this system, but I surely want to find out because I live with this system.

In the mean time we will have a choice in November, I hope I make the right one!

So, does the contemporary home maker have a genuine interest in politics or does she just go along with her hubby’s opinion? Do married American women care about what’s going on in the world as much as their counterparts? Maybe it’s just my observation, but whenever I am in a company of other couples, men seem to be a lot more passionate and opinionated about the politics than the women. Why is that? Is it because we don’t care for discussing the subject or we trust our partner to make the right decision without us being involved, or possibly we’re too busy being submerged in our own family world of cooking, cleaning and taking care of kids or maybe we just plain don’t care? In our family, my husband is a better politician than me. Thanks to him though I do seem to keep up with the major headlines by catching a glimpse of the national Fox News channel in the morning. How ironic, back when I was single, I seemed to have a higher interest for politics, bbc.com was actually one of my bookmarks and I checked it almost daily. Now I believe I can rely on my husband to make the right decision when it comes to the elections, but I am genuinely curious about them as well.  I like to check out Washington Post online, it’s pretty decent when it comes to news coverage.

2007 was a busy year for me. I got married, got pregnant and had a baby; all in one year, wow! Hard to believe, the year flew by so fast. We got married in March of last year. It finally happened, at thirty years old I was finally a married woman! My family was equally happy as I would be considered an old maid back where I grew up.

We decided not to wait around to start trying for a baby and about a month and a half after the wedding I found out I was pregnant. Based on the due date estimation we’re thinking the conception happened within a week after the wedding. It was hard to believe that it happened so fast, but we got what we wanted. And it’s all that matters.

Here we are, it’s March 2008, our baby is almost 3 months old already. I feel very lucky to have my family. They’re perfect, my dear husband who works so hard in order to solely support all three of us and my gorgeous baby girl. She’s so precious, it’s my bias opinion, but she really is precious, no kidding.

I decided to take this time off school since it’s my first time being a mom and I’m glad I did. Taking care of an infant is a full time task on its own. I don’t know when I will go back to school, possibly in the summer or might be even later than that. So far I’m pretty content with what I have, so we’ll see as the time passes.