It's a sad day for the nation when a large, multi-media corporation decides which candidates for president have access to the public.

MSNBC did just that today when they decided that Representative Kucinich would not be allowed to participate in this evenings Democratic Presidential debate in Nevada.

Do we really need MSNBC to tell us that we now only have three choices for our candidate? Personally, I believe that should be left to the public.

For all of those who claim that Clinton isn't electable or is more divisive than other Democratic contenders:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Republican presidential field appears to face a tough general election fight in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Saturday.

According to the survey, both of the Democratic front-runners, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, hold mostly double-digit -- and statistically identical -- advantages over Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, drawing greater than 50 percent support in each hypothetical matchup.

...

Clinton leads the front-running candidates of both parties -- Obama, McCain, Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney -- in the percentage of voters who say they would definitely vote for her if she won her party's nomination, with 37 percent.

Appeared in the Friday, 1.11.08 edition of the St. Petersburg Times:

Age no handicap for centenarian - At 101, she couldn't qualify for a parking tag.

CLEARWATER - When Dorothy Burt took a fall at home recently, the paramedics asked for her medical history.

No medications. Gall bladder surgery in 1950. That's it.

They paused. Gall bladder? 1950? In disbelief, they checked her date of birth.

Nov. 23, 1900.

* * *

She always swore the greatest invention was electricity.

She should have known. She grew up without it. Without plumbing. Without heat.

For a while, the family lived in Saskatchewan. Mrs. Burt's mother would stay awake all night poking the fire so her nine kids didn't freeze to death. They heated bricks in a wood stove and slept huddled to them.

The family moved to Tarpon Springs in 1910. They rode a horse and carriage to church on Sunday. On weekends, they paddled out to Anclote Key lighthouse.

When she was young, Mrs. Burt knew an Olympic swimmer who practiced in Lake Tarpon, her family said. She would row next to him in a boat to ward off alligators.

She remembered a hurricane in the 1920s - there were no weather alerts, but they could tell things were changing outside. During the storm, the windows in her parlor blew out.

She remembered taking a romantic submarine ride with her husband, Donald Burt, whom she met in the Panama Canal Zone. Mrs. Burt worked as a nurse there. Mr. Burt was in the Navy.

He wrote a letter to her mother, asking for her daughter's hand in marriage. They had two children, Donald Jr. and Edith. Both of Mrs. Burt's children eventually died as adults after battling cancer. Her husband died, too.

But she just kept on going.

* * *

She moved into Clearwater's On Top of the World community in 1969, when the complex was two buildings and cattle grazed across the street.

She never left.

It felt safe. She knew where every light switch was, every nook. Her granddaughters would buy her new furniture, but she preferred the old, familiar items.

When she sat on the porch, people waved. Her neighbors watched her scoot around the back yard, holding onto the side of the house, watering her plants.

At 100, she was walking a regular mile, said her granddaughter Beth O'Malley. At 101, a doctor turned her down for a handicapped parking permit, O'Malley said.

At 103, she gave up her driver's license.

A neighbor would bring over caterpillars in a box. Mrs. Burt would feed them milkweed, and watch, fascinated, as they developed into monarch butterflies.

Every day, she ate green pepper, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, yogurt and cottage cheese. She had low-fat meat three times a week, and she loved ice cream.

In November, she had a birthday party.

"After 107 birthdays, I wonder why I'm still here," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I feel that God will call me when he's made a place for me."

She read the newspaper everyday, without glasses. When she read about a giant sperm whale floating in the waters off Pinellas County, she was transfixed.

"We were just discussing how one might euthanize a whale of that size," said O'Malley, 48. "To have that type of conversation with someone 107 years old, it really is amazing."

Last week, she fell. At the hospital, she turned to her granddaughter and said, "Does my hair look okay?"

The family moved a hospital bed into the condo. Mrs. Burt asked for it to point toward the sunrise.

On Tuesday morning, Mrs. Burt ate some ice cream in her condo. Later that day, she died.

Generally speaking, those of us that work for hospice see a different type of end of life. It's nice to know that not everyone needs us in the end.

We all know people shouldn't go around attempting to fulfill their hopes and dreams of doing something they enjoy. (Well, at least those people that have a little passion and dare to have hopes and dreams, anyway.)

This seems to be especially true in Kentucky.

School Refuses To Let Boy Join Cheerleading Squad

GLENDALE, Ky. -- Bobby Thorn wanted to be the only boy on his school's cheerleading squad, but that didn't happen.

The 13-year-old attends East Hardin Middle School in Glendale, but the controversial decision to cut him from the team expands beyond the district's boundaries.

Bobby's mother filed a discrimination claim with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights two years ago, and now a settlement has been reached.
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Bobby works with coach Jen Brewer at a gym called Becca's Fliptown, something he's been doing since he was about 5. He's been successful, too, winning trophies for gymnastics and cheerleading.

“Bobby's phenomenal,” Brewer said. “You don't have this kind of kid with this kind of potential walk in your gym every day.”

With his award-winning experience, Bobby tried out for the cheerleading team at East Hardin, but there was a twist: He was the only boy trying to make it.

Despite his flips, his tryout was a flop. He didn't make the team.

“I was devastated,” he said.

So was Bobby's mother, Melissa Barner, who said she has sworn statements from other parents stating the coach admitted cutting Bobby because she didn't want a boy on her team.

What especially bothers her is the coach was also the school's human resources counselor.

“I teach my children not to discriminate and when he had it done at a school where he is supposed to be safe and protected, I had to protect my child,” she said.

Barner took the case to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. A settlement has been reached.

In the settlement agreement, the school admits no wrongdoing but the commission has ordered mandatory training for the principal, teachers and coaches at the school.

In addition, school administrators must submit an annual report to the commission for the next three years and include any additional complaints.

The school also agreed to pay $3,000 to Bobby's mother.

“It was a long process, but I knew in my heart I did the right thing for my child to tell him not to back down,” Barner said.

“This settlement was made in the interest of children, to keep our staff teaching children instead of participating in a lengthy trial,” said Hardin County Public Schools representative Dick Thornton.

“It felt great,” Bobby said.

Since his disappointment in sixth grade, Bobby hasn't tried out for the cheerleading squad in seventh or eighth grade, but may do it in high school.

As for the woman who cut him from the team, she is no longer the cheerleading coach.

Boys shouldn't play with dolls. Gay men and women shouldn't be in the military. Girls don't become doctors or scientists. And, of course, women and African-Americans don't win the presidency.

Shame that this kind of ignorance still exists.

MouseInfo.com has closed. Sad. I always enjoyed their Disneyland and Walt Disney World photo updates put together by DLFreak.