{"id":217122,"date":"2010-01-15T08:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T13:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7655103.post-7527432676224691615"},"modified":"2010-01-15T08:57:12","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T13:57:12","slug":"things-that-are-getting-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/217122","title":{"rendered":"Things That Are Getting Better"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_OR8dKL3XDN8\/S1BzfjhWRkI\/AAAAAAAAE9E\/f7MPDfXzcsM\/s1600-h\/Obama-Oprah.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 296px; height: 320px;\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_OR8dKL3XDN8\/S1BzfjhWRkI\/AAAAAAAAE9E\/f7MPDfXzcsM\/s320\/Obama-Oprah.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426964536929699394\" \/><\/a>The new issue of &#8220;O Magazine&#8221; has a cover article entitled &#8220;100 Things That Are (Actually) Getting Better.&#8221; I was thinking &#8216;getting better&#8217; as in despite a rotten economy, etc. But now that I&#8217;ve read it, I&#8217;m thinking it means getting better since the other O! took office&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This was the first one that caught my eye:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">&#8220;The CDC&#8217;s National Center for Health says that American divorce has dropped every year since 2006, bringing it down to the lowest point since 1970.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p>That is good and I was hoping the rest of the list would be as uplifting. There were silly additions like M&#038;Ms in more colors and better girdles, but there were also these three gems buried in the list:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">#29 &#8220;Our reputation around the world. Looks like the Ugly American has gotten a makeover. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation&#8217;s standings on the rise in Latin America, Africa, much of Asia and Western Europe (a certain Norwegian prize committee comes to mind&#8230;).&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The there was #67 -which I thought was just a bit strange:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">&#8220;Beirut. With chic hotels popping up, a thriving gay scene taking hold, the thrumming bars and clubs of the trendy Gemmayzeh district becoming international hot spots Beirut is rebuilding itself in high style.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And, of course, #89:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:bold;\">&#8220;The EPA. A shot of much-needed vitality and resolve has come to the Environmental protection Agency courtesy of Lisa Jackson, its first ever African American chief and in her cross hairs: greenhouse gasses, hazardous waste sites, climate change, tailpipe emissions, protection of our waterways and clean air standards.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Source for all bolded quotes: O Magazine, February 2010, Volume 11, Number 2)<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I&#8217;m just jealous. Oprah has this huge platform and I&#8217;d be lying to say that if I had it, I wouldn&#8217;t use it the same way. I guess it just really bothers me that her political views don&#8217;t reflect her life struggle. She came from nothing -she is the American dream. Proof that Capitalism and the free market system is alive and well&#8230; Proof that anyone (poor, female, minority, etc.) CAN make it with hard work, a strong work ethic and perseverance.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7655103-7527432676224691615?l=mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new issue of &#8220;O Magazine&#8221; has a cover article entitled &#8220;100 Things That Are (Actually) Getting Better.&#8221; I was thinking &#8216;getting better&#8217; as in despite a rotten economy, etc. But now that I&#8217;ve read it, I&#8217;m thinking it means getting better since the other O! took office&#8230; This was the first one that caught [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}