So I feel pretty comfortable telling you that he does not live in Richmond Hill. While that may make a difference in the way that I feel, I am not sure it would make it any less true.

If you have been living free of any kind of media and have no idea why I am talking about Tiger, stop reading now. If you don’t know, trust me , you don’t to.

Tiger’s decision to return to the game of golf at the Masters Tournament at Augusta is being hailed as brilliant – and it is. Augusta is exclusive (understatement), sought after (understatement), and particular (big understatement). If Tiger can play anywhere without being heckled and bothered, it is Augusta.

Except Masters Chairman, Billy Payne, decided a soapbox address with some small offers of grace was a good idea. And Arnold Palmer (who I love!) thinks that Tiger should “open up and just let you guys [reporters] shoot at him.”

Since I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee during the SportsCenter run down, I was ornerier than usual. I jumped up and exclaimed to my beloved, “Why is any of this any of their business?”

My hubby agreed and made the comment that Tiger isn’t special, this kind of thing happens all the time.

That doesn’t do it for me. If it had never happened before, it would still be none of my business.

It is the business of his wife, his family, those women and his advertisers – none of those groups do I belong to. Actually, Tiger could choose to cut that last group out, but my knowledge of marketing says that they deserve to be there.

Why should Tiger hold another press conference? Why does a guy in a green jacket get to make public comments on it? Why do the SportCenter mouths get to assert that Tiger has a lot of unanswered questions to address?

Go ahead and tell me because he is a public figure and he put himself in that position. I would almost buy that one – heck I think I have said it before. But that was some years ago when as a society we just hoped one day we would know. Today, we have this sense that we deserve to be inside the freaking counseling room with him and his wife!

As the public, we have to decide if we buy his product, support his brand and champion his cause. This creates the chance that he may invite us into the knowledge of his personal business. It does not make us entitled to it.

Best of luck to all of those in Augusta – Tiger too.

I thought it was a wonderful idea when they installed the Amber Alert signs on the interstates. Unfortunatley, I am not always on the interstate, or in my car, or watching TV. But I almost ALWAYS have my cell phone.

Wireless Amber Alerts allows you to subscribe to a service that sends Amber Alerts directly to your cell phone in the form of a text message. Sign up is quick and easy. It’s dern near a moral obligation – yes, I feel that strongly about it.

One zip code from a city will cover the entire city regardless of the number of zip codes located in it. You can chose up to five. Cell Carriers that have come on board will not charge you text messaging fees for the service. Got any other questions – they have a page for that here.

Now get to clicking – we are all subscribed to less important things.

[youtube ONUCPKdGcrk Nessun Dorma]

But don’t stop here.  Jump on over to Athol’s house and see the amazing duet with James Brown!

Feels like a rant is coming on and you, my dear friends, will have to excuse me while I try to stay on track.  This frustration is not one thing, but many things…this uniform thing is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The school system here is attempting to implement a uniform policy.  We had this when we lived in Chicago and it was fantastic. Mark and I both felt that if we had uniforms in school, we would have hated it, and our lives would have been much easier. However, some parents don’t feel this way and that’s okay. But, OMG (to use the cool, hip, text abbreviation) can we get over it already! Reading the newspaper, you would think Stalin was running the board and Hitler was poised to take over. I don’t get it. My kids have enough to deal with in their young lives with society being the way it is. Any attempt to remove some of those distractions while they are attempting to get an education is fine by me.

They say that the problem would be solved if the administration would just enforce the current dress code.  Are you kidding? Have any of you been shopping for school age girls lately? Now, I can’t speak to the boys, because I don’t have any, but girls I got and it is near impossible. What does my 5 year old or my 10 year old need with halter tops, short shorts, and platform shoes to round out the outfit? Sure, you can get them long pants and then contend with the provocative remarks the manufactures insist on pasting across the butt. That’s much better. You are basically limited to jeans, capris, and t-shirts (funny, sounds like a uniform policy). This is fine with me until I am getting the kids ready for school or shopping in the mall and I have to hear for the eleventy billionth time about what so and so’s mom will let them wear, buy, scout around town in.  No thank you. Get up, get breakfast, brush your teeth, and grab one of the approved uniforms that will be very much the same as anything else anybody else has on. Bypass the drama and get on to the job at hand – getting your education.

Speaking of the job at hand, a lot of jobs require a uniform, or, at the very least, a required manner of dress. Are they oppressive and limiting free expression of their employees?  Are we going to bash the boards of these companies for their abusive practices? No. We are probably working for them, collecting a paycheck, and happy for it.

I could go on. There are lots of things in the media that are absolutely driving me crazy – taxes, immigration, Iraq, and the list goes on.  But, I won’t. I will say this and be done. Don’t be a shallow thinker. Take opinions out to their logical conclusion. Pay attention to the society around you and compare it to what the media says society is. If you hear it on the news, don’t listen to what they say, figure out what they mean – it is all too often two different things.

Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

This single fact has blanketed all others in every Mitt Romney discussion. I could hardly discern what his actual view was for all the discussion concerning his religion. And the question was asked, “Does a person’s religion affect the way they govern?”

Powerful question. Not a real easy answer. Personally, I think it depends on a number of factors. What religion are we talking about? What are the core beliefs of the religion and how rigid does the person hold to these beliefs? Then, like many things, I applied the question to myself. How do my views reflect my belief system?

I believe that right and wrong are not relative. There are certain things that are right for all people and wrong for all people, regardless of what you think, believe or feel. There are certain absolutes. There are certain ideas of behavior that can and should be legislated. Some of these ideas may coincide with religious ideas, but that fact alone does not negate the applicability in common society. Off on the rabbit trail I continued.

I think of the beliefs that I hold that are stereotypically tied to religious argument – abortion, stem cell research, alcohol sales on Sunday, marriage, child discipline, prayer in schools, and the like. As an aside, I didn’t say how I felt about these topics. Do you think you could peg how I feel about them all based on what you know about me?

At any rate, I think on these subjects and I have begun a quest for myself and a challenge to you all. On the issues, can you defend your position without the use of religious arguments and subjective moral platitudes? Should you be expected to? Should presidential hopefuls be expected to? Would you vote for someone of a different religious background than you? Where do you fall out where the issues are concerned? How is that going to affect the way you vote? Does any of this even matter to you?