My experience with ours is not much. Most of the ones I have dealt with are pretty quick to anger and have huge chips on their shoulders. This is just my experience with the ones on our campus but I don't understand why they are needed. Why not let the city they are located in police the campus?

I know there have been many posts about this issue but after having breakfast with a few friends between the ages of 50 and 65 this morning I wanted to see what the DU community thinks.

All of these friends are female, one is a nurse, one a retired school teacher, two of them work as staff at the university here in town, and two are retired staff from a hospital, one on disability and then me a 60 year old who took early retirement due to illness.

Every single one, even the ones who are married, are barely making it financially and feel what one of them described as "the squeeze". We all agreed that our government doesn't care about the working people in this country any longer. We are disposable, especially after we reach "an age", get busy and die already one of my friends said this morning.

Most of us took a beating with the financial meltdown prior to President Obama. My retirement portfolio did not have time to recover by the time I was forced into retirement by a bad back. My portfolio lost almost 40 percent during that time, one of my friends took an even worse beating because her husband had been taking chances to increase their retirement.

What is normally a fun Tuesday morning breakfast turned into a pity party that made me depressed. All of us are educated, all of us have worked since our teens and for that we still have mortgages, old cars and a Wednesday breakfast is considered the highlight of our month.

One thing I noticed is how angry everyone has become over all of this. They brought up something I think is important, is there any candidate that has declared who truly cares about us? What would we have to do to take back our country? All of us vote, we all work for our party to try and change what is happening but nothing happens except the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It is really apparent here in Oklahoma, go to the upscale mall in OKC and you see the oil money live and in color. People dripping in money, high school kids driving luxury cars parking next to a school teacher driving a 14 year old car.

I truly believe we are going to see some kind of uprising in this country if this doesn't stop. I may not live to see it, I need to die quickly to satisfy the 1 percenters , but I do believe the masses are getting very angry.

Am I alone in this thinking?

Republicans and Democrats spend the same amount of money, it is what they vote to spend it on that makes the difference. Republicans spend and vote on corporations and "things", Democrats spend on people. BIG DIFFERENCE! I thought about this after reading Ted "Joe McCarthy" Cruz talking about Net Neutrality.

BTW Grand Daddy died in 1976. The more things change the more they stay the same.

You see all of these polls that show people are in favor of gay marriage by a large margin, do not want their education dictated by religious institutions, believe in separation of church and state but yet when it comes to electing the morons who vote against what the majority wants, they vote for them!!!!

So much angst down here in Oklahoma over the AP History curriculum bill put forward by a Baptist minister who got elected to the legislature and runs around dressed like a Patriot from the 1700's, but somebody voted for this nut! I have even talked to Republicans here who can't believe what they are seeing out of him and Sally Kern, but when push comes to shove they vote straight ticket Republican. It is almost like they are unable to ever vote for another party or become informed about what the candidate and the party stand for.

There have been Democrats here I have not been able to vote for because I could not handle their views on issues I care about. I left it blank because the alternative candidate was worse. I have voted for Republicans, back in Illinois where there were some moderates that I could handle. Those do not exist any longer.

People voting against their own interests and ideals.

I DON'T GET IT!!!!

This morning I saw two people in their 50's almost get into a fist fight at breakfast in a small mom and pop restaurant. The topic, the death of 3 Muslim students in North Carolina. I did not hear all of it, but what I heard was Fox talking points, some from Rush and the other man trying to speak about how not all Muslim's are violent crazy people, any more than thinking all Christians burn abortion clinics and kill doctors. It did not take long for dishes to hit the floor and a couple of other men close by came in to calm the situation down.

It seems like all of us are on the edge all the time. Financial pressure, the way the world is at this moment when fueled by tv and radio nuts on both sides keep this country and others a spark away from explosion.

We have a violent past as a nation, the way African Americans were lynched and burned leading up to the civil rights movement, and since. The way Native Americans were treated and are treated. Violent reaction to things we don't like is not limited to Muslim countries.

These two men, looked like my Dad at that age, just normal guys out for breakfast. What a mess.

As nasty and confrontational as this place can be, it is full of people who deeply care about America and the world. I hope all of of you have a wonderful holiday no matter which one you are celebrating, even if you are celebrating none of them, I wish you Peace and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Peace to the world, now and in the future.

I am a white mid western girl transplanted to Oklahoma. I have been a diversity trainer, on the side, for almost 20 years. I openly admit that from time to time even I make what might be called cultural mistakes, but they are not made with anger, they are made due to ignorance of the feelings and life experience of others.

We were raised to respect all people, Mom would not tolerate injustice, always expected us to treat people as we would want to be treated.

The past 6 years since President Obama was elected, the serious racists have come out from under their rocks to attack all Black people. Disrespect abounds, no Black person is safe from their hatred and intolerance. What has been interesting to me is that I have found that Black friends of mine, many who I have had for years, some since undergrad, have become so angry with the system that they are looking at every white person with the same hatred, no exceptions.

I find I am afraid to talk with them about anything of substance for fear of offending them and have them accuse me of being intolerant. It really hurts me to lose some friends I have loved for so long. We have sat in my living and argued about tons of things, including race relations over the years, but still came away friends. I don't sense that is possible any longer and it makes me sad.

I taught a diversity class last week that came close to blows. It was a group who all work together and have for some time. According to their boss, the racial dynamics have been getting worse by the day for the past 6 years. I can tell you I have never led a group like that one. The minute I brought up white privilege the place was up for grabs, screaming and hollering at each other, talking, no screaming about Ferguson and Wilson being set up and treated unfairly. One young Black woman in the back of the room held her own in the "discussion" but it escalated to the point that one older Black lady asked if she could be excused because she was "fearful".

Once I got control again, we went on to other exercises but the room was full of tension. I suggested to the owner of the business that he may want to bring in a professional mediator to try and help the situation.

The divisions are worse than I have ever seen, I said a few years ago I felt a civil war was very possible and was pretty much shut down here on DU, how do you feel now? Have any of your opinions regarding race changed?

We aren't buying much this year and you can blame the Republicans for it. Since the anti science contingent won the Senate we are terrified my husband's NIH grant will not be renewed and his biomedical research will come to a screeching halt. It has been said that only research that is applicable to homeland security or the military will get funded, we hope that is a rumor, but it makes sense with the neocons in control. Without it, we do not have any summer salary, it will cost us a quarter of our income. We have heard all kinds of rumors, his NIH and NSF both are up for renewal in 2015.

The graduate students who work in his lab will not have a salary either. Not enough summer teaching next summer to make up for it. We are terrified, only spending what we have to. He is looking at some corporate and private support just in case, but it is like living on thin ice. He has written 4 grants in the last 6 months to various agencies, he works so hard, he worries about his students as much as worrying about us, I've never been so frightened.

I don't know why anyone would be an academic in a hard science these days. He loves teaching and he loves his research, he does lots of outreach to high schools but it is a challenge to pay the student loans and keep moving.

I had a fairly good outcome from my fusion of L5 S1 about 4 years ago. Yes I still have some pain, but I manage it with PT and meds. Going in I needed two canes to walk, now I don't need a cane most of the time, I know I am blessed.

Lately, I have been having more pain above the fusion, I was warned that this was possible at some point. I have spondilolithesis (sp) so I know the drill. But I am terrified of another fusion, even with the good outcome it did me in, forced me to quit a job I really liked and I don't want to go through it again.

Have any of you, had a second fusion? How long after the first one did you have the second? My husband flips out anytime I have a bad day saying "here we go, another fusion"....

Any experience you could share would be appreciated.

I live in a VERY red state, Oklahoma, in a VERY red precinct. This morning while I was waiting to vote I overheard an elderly man ask an election judge how you "split the ticket". He went on to tell her he had always voted a straight republican ticket and had no idea how to vote otherwise. She explained to him how to go down the ballot and vote for each race individually. He smiled, took his ballot and was behind the little boxed in area for quite a while. He then came out with his walker and deposited his ballot in the machine.

I was done voting and followed him out. I asked him if I could ask a question and he said yes, I asked him why he was changing the way he voted and he told me he had "had enough", whatever that means. I can only hope he voted against Mary Fallin for governor and against the nut we have for a state representative, but I'll never know.

With all of my canvassing this year and now this, I have at least a glimmer of hope that things may change. If it can change in this area it can change anywhere.