Monday, July 11, 2011

The Panda Bear on Vacation, eReaders, Congress, Milatary Speding, Bullying

The Panda Bear has just returned from her vacation.    At her daytime job, she is doing what many office workers do after returning from vacation which is catch up on her e-mail.  She will probably spend the next couple of days mostly reviewing her e-mail.   However, the Panda Bear is fortunate in that she does not have to check her e-mail while she is on vacation.

Yesterday, she spent the day discussing with other US citizens the larger amounts of vacation time most Europeans have over Americans.   Someone said how in Europe, mostt workers take the entire month of August off.  The Panda Bear does not think in her entireworking life that she will get to take a month of from work.  However, the Panda Bear pointed out that Americans pay more for defense and military than Europe does-perhaps that is a major reason US citizens work harder and have less social services than their European counterparts.   The Panda Bear believes that with the end of the cold war the US should reexamine its defense commitments to Europe since the US and Western Europe no longer have the common enemy of the USSR.   She thinks Western Europe should take more responsibility for its own defense.

During her vacation, the Panda Bear watched the US congress discuss, debate and vote on US military actions on C-SPAN which is a cable television station that covers government hearings. (The Panda Bear and her husband do not have cable at home so cable television is a treat when they go on vacation).   The Panda Bear was surprised that votes regarding US military policy did not follow party lines as much as she would have expected.   She was impressed that the voting was not as partisan as she would have thought it was from the news.

The Panda Bear is in eReader heaven. As readers may know the Panda Bear bought an Kobo eReader during her vacation.  (Economists and Retailers-please note, that vacations are when the Panda Bear spends the most money-the Panda Bear believes vacations should be seen as a highly economically productive and valueable activity).   She finds her eReader is very easy on her eyes and she can adjust the font size to make it easier to read.   She can download books from the library and no longer has to worry about returning them(on eReaders, you can't read the book on the eReader after 14 days-no more library fines for nonreturned books).   The Panda Bear no longer has to strain herself by carrying lots of books around.   She can carry around 1000 books in her eReader.   Through Google eBooks there are lots of books Panda Bear can get for free.  Alot of books whose copyright has expired become free eBooks and the Panda Bear LOVES old books.   Through http://www.kobobooks.com/ she also found a lot of eBooks for ninety-nine cents.  No more going to the bookstore or library for the Panda Bear!!!

The Panda Bear plans in the future to return to her discussions of childhood bullying.  She has reviewed some information on the web regarding childhood bullying.   She finds it interesting that many sites states that girls aren't violent when they bully.  The Panda Bear and her bullied friends know this is not true-girls can be physically brutal when they bully.

The Panda Bear also believes that some of the information on the web does not deal with how mean children can be to each other.   The Panda Bear believes that children are meaner than adults.  Adults when they are mean try to justify and rationalize their behavior while when children are cruel it can be just for the sake of being cruel.

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