Racists.
Apparently that's what those of us who still don't like the government's health care proposal are now. We are racists.
Why?
Because our president is half black and half white and because. . . because . . . because critics of the critics can't find anything else to hurl at us so they hurl the most inflammatory accusation they can find.
If you are opposed to anything President Obama says or does you must be a racist. Period. Now that should shut down all further discussion and dissent.
Enter the pesky Constitution.
This crusty old rag of a document is still in force and it guarantees the people our right to criticize our government at any time for any reason. It doesn't say we get to criticize only white politicians or black politicians or Greek or Latino politicians. It just says we have the freedom of speech and the right to petition the government for redress of our grievances.
When George Bush goofed up, I complained and no one labeled me as anything but a disgruntled taxpayer.
SoI wish Obama supporters would go on and get over the fact that President Obama is partly black and let me gripe about him, too. He's not black first and THEN he's the president. He's the PRESIDENT and as such he must not be put upon a pedestal and criticism of his performance deferred.
Wordly discourse on everything from the sad state of public education, politics and world peace to vegetarianism, breast vs. bottle, religious persecution, bad media, and all manner of life's vagaries.
October 15, 2009
The blessing of an ordinary day
A Colorado family found itself in a big panic this morning when they thought their six-year-old son had found his way into the gondola of an experimental balloon, managed to untether it, and then floated 10,000 feet above the earth.
For several hours the cable news channels followed the story, their cameras trained on the silvery, lopsided object that looked more like an inflated chefs hat than the hot-air balloons of old.
When the balloon finally came to rest, rescuers found no boy inside.
Turns out he'd been hiding in his family's attic the whole time.
I watched this saga play out on a TV mounted high up in the corner of a local deli where I went with my mom and my children for lunch before running some errands. My heart was heavy as I thought about the mother of this boy and how worried she must have been. When my own four-year-old son came around the table to give me a hug, I hugged him just a little bit tighter than usual.
There we were, I thought to myself, sitting solidly on terra firma, our stomachs content from a lunch of soup and fruit and sandwiches, with a beautiful day outside and the possibility of stopping by a local church's pumpkin patch to pick up some live autumn decor.
A perfectly ordinary day. Perfect in its ordinariness. Extraordinary in its perfection.
We ran those errands and we did visit that pumpkin patch. As I watched my kids cavorting among the pumpkins, picking them up, turning them over, hollering to each other about this one or that, I couldn't help feeling blessed and sorrowful at the same time.
Blessed, because my children were all there and well and happy and fed and I was with them to witness it. Sorrowful, because I knew that just like that mother in Colorado there were many other mothers who, for one reason or another, were separated from their children and that there was nothing I could do about it.
For all the mothers who read this 'blog entry -- but especially those who homeschool their children and who sometimes feel like they haven't done enough, their kids aren't brilliant enough and their houses aren't tidy enough -- I hope it will encourage you to think of the most mundane of days as the greatest gift you've ever received.
If you got to be with your children today and everyone was alive and well, you were richly blessed.
Praise God for ordinary days!
For several hours the cable news channels followed the story, their cameras trained on the silvery, lopsided object that looked more like an inflated chefs hat than the hot-air balloons of old.
When the balloon finally came to rest, rescuers found no boy inside.
Turns out he'd been hiding in his family's attic the whole time.
I watched this saga play out on a TV mounted high up in the corner of a local deli where I went with my mom and my children for lunch before running some errands. My heart was heavy as I thought about the mother of this boy and how worried she must have been. When my own four-year-old son came around the table to give me a hug, I hugged him just a little bit tighter than usual.
There we were, I thought to myself, sitting solidly on terra firma, our stomachs content from a lunch of soup and fruit and sandwiches, with a beautiful day outside and the possibility of stopping by a local church's pumpkin patch to pick up some live autumn decor.
A perfectly ordinary day. Perfect in its ordinariness. Extraordinary in its perfection.
We ran those errands and we did visit that pumpkin patch. As I watched my kids cavorting among the pumpkins, picking them up, turning them over, hollering to each other about this one or that, I couldn't help feeling blessed and sorrowful at the same time.
Blessed, because my children were all there and well and happy and fed and I was with them to witness it. Sorrowful, because I knew that just like that mother in Colorado there were many other mothers who, for one reason or another, were separated from their children and that there was nothing I could do about it.
For all the mothers who read this 'blog entry -- but especially those who homeschool their children and who sometimes feel like they haven't done enough, their kids aren't brilliant enough and their houses aren't tidy enough -- I hope it will encourage you to think of the most mundane of days as the greatest gift you've ever received.
If you got to be with your children today and everyone was alive and well, you were richly blessed.
Praise God for ordinary days!
September 5, 2009
First we were terrorists, now we're just silly
Name calling. It's usually the stuff of playgrounds and of badly behaved children whose parents haven't taught them the Golden Rule.
For any athiests or those from non-Christian backgrounds who may be reading this post, the Golden Rule was spoken by Jesus and says, in effect, don't do something to someone else if you don't want it done to you.
It's so simple even a child can understand it, and around here my children are not only expected to understand it but to demonstrate it in their daily lives.
I guess our Speaker of the House must have slept through this part of her Catholic elementary school class since she saw fit to call folks protesting the proposed healthcare legislation, "terrorists."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, also a Catholic, apparently slept through his Christian religious instruction, too. He's quoted on the Drudge Report as saying he thinks we've "reached a bit of the silly season" in reference to parental protests nationwide over the plan to air a speech by President Obama to students during the regular school day next Tuesday.
Silly? Really?
I'm working overtime to understand how thousands of American parents, many of whom are raising their children on one income or no income but who still trust in the government schools to do the right thing deserve to be indirectly referred to as "silly."
It's "silly" of parents to NOT want their kids' precious instructional time taken up by some asinine worksheets that ask questions such as "What do you think President Obama is trying to tell you?" or that queries kids about ways in which they can help the president and then submit their answers for later review and discussion with their teachers?
It's "silly" to think that teachers have a million better things to do than probe the minds of children light years away from being able to vote much less use their still-developing thinking skills to contemplate ways they can help the president?
And what sort of "help" does the president really need from school-aged children? See, that's the part that creeps me out. Anyone with half a working brain can find the stories online about the various youth groups nurtured by leaders in such sunny places as Maoist China or 1940s Berlin.
I'm still waiting for the White House to tell us what it took OUT of the speech and the accompanying lesson plans after the s@$# hit the fan last week. Betcha we'll never know.
For any athiests or those from non-Christian backgrounds who may be reading this post, the Golden Rule was spoken by Jesus and says, in effect, don't do something to someone else if you don't want it done to you.
It's so simple even a child can understand it, and around here my children are not only expected to understand it but to demonstrate it in their daily lives.
I guess our Speaker of the House must have slept through this part of her Catholic elementary school class since she saw fit to call folks protesting the proposed healthcare legislation, "terrorists."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, also a Catholic, apparently slept through his Christian religious instruction, too. He's quoted on the Drudge Report as saying he thinks we've "reached a bit of the silly season" in reference to parental protests nationwide over the plan to air a speech by President Obama to students during the regular school day next Tuesday.
Silly? Really?
I'm working overtime to understand how thousands of American parents, many of whom are raising their children on one income or no income but who still trust in the government schools to do the right thing deserve to be indirectly referred to as "silly."
It's "silly" of parents to NOT want their kids' precious instructional time taken up by some asinine worksheets that ask questions such as "What do you think President Obama is trying to tell you?" or that queries kids about ways in which they can help the president and then submit their answers for later review and discussion with their teachers?
It's "silly" to think that teachers have a million better things to do than probe the minds of children light years away from being able to vote much less use their still-developing thinking skills to contemplate ways they can help the president?
And what sort of "help" does the president really need from school-aged children? See, that's the part that creeps me out. Anyone with half a working brain can find the stories online about the various youth groups nurtured by leaders in such sunny places as Maoist China or 1940s Berlin.
I'm still waiting for the White House to tell us what it took OUT of the speech and the accompanying lesson plans after the s@$# hit the fan last week. Betcha we'll never know.
August 6, 2009
I am going to EXPLODE!!!!!!
For years children in America have been exposed to dolls and other toys made of crappy materials from China, dolls and toys that look like everything from the monster in your worst nightmare to prostitutes giving it all away.
Now comes a doll from Spain that -- gasp -- promotes BREASTFEEDING.
Contain your horror, please.
I know, I know, there's nothing more subversive, more reckless, more abhorrent than a woman using her breasts for the one thing they were intended. The thought of encouraging little girls to think about someday nursing their babies instead of giving them the more civilized (not) bottle of artificial flavors, chemicals, and soy protein is just beyond the pale.
What were the Spanish dollmakers thinking?
Even sadder were the comments of parents interviewed for the story (I originally saw it on Foxnews.com), the ones who said they wouldn't buy such a toy for their daughters because it might traumatize them psychologically or, worse, promote an early interest in sex.
ARE THEY SERIOUS??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
That's like saying my daughters who are 9 and 7 are going to hook up with guys before they're of legal age JUST BECAUSE they've seen me breastfeed their younger siblings.
Prove it.
Children accustomed to being around nursing mothers don't think that's any weirder than, say, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating a sandwich, driving, breathing or sleeping.
If critics of the doll are going to trot out the psychological damage argument, they'll need to include children from the wilds of South America, China, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Africa, and India who routinely breastfeed and witness their mothers and neighbors breastfeeding, too.
African kids are traumatized alright, but by war and poverty and AIDS. I challenge anyone to prove their sleepless nights are the result of witnessing babies feeding at the breast.
In an age when dolls like Barbie and the horrid Bratz collection feature impossibly proportioned bodies or slutty clothes and makeup, I can't get too worked up about a baby doll that makes sucking noises when a child clutches it to her bosom.
What a shame, though, that some folks can.
Now comes a doll from Spain that -- gasp -- promotes BREASTFEEDING.
Contain your horror, please.
I know, I know, there's nothing more subversive, more reckless, more abhorrent than a woman using her breasts for the one thing they were intended. The thought of encouraging little girls to think about someday nursing their babies instead of giving them the more civilized (not) bottle of artificial flavors, chemicals, and soy protein is just beyond the pale.
What were the Spanish dollmakers thinking?
Even sadder were the comments of parents interviewed for the story (I originally saw it on Foxnews.com), the ones who said they wouldn't buy such a toy for their daughters because it might traumatize them psychologically or, worse, promote an early interest in sex.
ARE THEY SERIOUS??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
That's like saying my daughters who are 9 and 7 are going to hook up with guys before they're of legal age JUST BECAUSE they've seen me breastfeed their younger siblings.
Prove it.
Children accustomed to being around nursing mothers don't think that's any weirder than, say, bathing, going to the bathroom, eating a sandwich, driving, breathing or sleeping.
If critics of the doll are going to trot out the psychological damage argument, they'll need to include children from the wilds of South America, China, Japan, Russia, Sweden, Africa, and India who routinely breastfeed and witness their mothers and neighbors breastfeeding, too.
African kids are traumatized alright, but by war and poverty and AIDS. I challenge anyone to prove their sleepless nights are the result of witnessing babies feeding at the breast.
In an age when dolls like Barbie and the horrid Bratz collection feature impossibly proportioned bodies or slutty clothes and makeup, I can't get too worked up about a baby doll that makes sucking noises when a child clutches it to her bosom.
What a shame, though, that some folks can.
July 18, 2009
Dad and the Moon
Today is July 20, 2009 and in just about 20 minutes CST we will remember the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's moonwalk.
I'm proud of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history is assured by the fact that there can be only one first man to take the first step on to the moon.
But on a more personal if less glamorous level I'm proud of my father, Dallas Evans. My dad was one of the thousands of Team Moon people who made Armstrong's walk and all the moonwalks that followed possible. His contribution to the space program was to design experiments to divulge the Moon's many closely guarded secrets.
Dad passed away in October 2003 just before his then-greatest love -- the unmanned mission to Mars with its Martian rover -- saw success. I like to think that wherever he was on THAT momentous day he was feeling a sense of euphoria all over again, just like that day so long ago in late July.
My father was a physicist whose interests in astronomy, meteorology, marine biology, and aviation landed him a job with the newly created NASA. Before the Johnson Space Center complex was built out on the rice fields south of Houston, my dad was already starting to gather data -- what little there was in the early 1960s -- about the atmospheres on the various planets. President Kennedy had given his instruction that America should go to the moon. My dad's first job was to help figure out what astronauts might encounter when they got there.
The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) consisted of various experiments bundled to fly on each of the lunar trips. My dad was the principal investigator or co-investigator on several of them:
LACE, the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, flew aboard Apollo 17;
CCG, the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (measured the lunar atmosphere), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, and 15;
SIDE, the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (measured effects of solar winds on the moon), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, 15.
My dad never seemed to mind the unrelenting work schedule during those heady Apollo days. Everyone was caught up in the dramatic drive to beat the Russians and to live out President Kennedy's dream. Around our house, spaceflight was always the topic on the table. A war was still raging in Vietnam but aside from the nightly news in black and white, it wasn't up for debate. My dad had no time to follow social trends or the latest Hollywood gossip. He was preparing to help put men on the moon, and nothing was more important.
Except me.
I am his only child, and despite his commitment to making history my dad still managed to make time for me. His excitement and awe at the incredible majesty and complexity of outer space was contagious and 40 years later I find myself grasping for the right words to infuse my own children with this same sense of wonderment.
I remember Neil Armstrong's grainy image on our black and white television that glorious day in July. I remember complete silence in the living room as my parents sat transfixed before the screen.
I remember knowing that this had something to do with Daddy's job, but being only three years old I wasn't sure what. Didn't men walk on the moon all the time, I wondered. I'd been hearing talk of spaceflight for as long as I could remember, and this seemed like just another episode of that dialogue.
It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the real significance of the first moon landing hit me, and in the strangest of ways.
I was sitting in a Luby's cafeteria located not too far from the Johnson Space Center waiting on a girlfriend to come through the food line and pay her bill. I'd found us a table and had sat down to start eating when for reasons unknown my eyes were drawn upward to a series of large photos on the wall in front of me.
There was the famous photograph of Earth -- you know the one that makes our planet look like a beautiful multicolored marble. As I casually studied it, trying to figure out which of the continents I was seeing beneath the cloud cover, I had a revelation.
Suddenly my father's accomplishments and the accomplishments of so many others came sharply into focus.
IF MEN HAD NEVER LEFT THE EARTH, WE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE.
The photo of our amazing planet is today ubiquitous, found on everything from flags and tee-shirts to bumper stickers and school notebooks.
But does anyone ever stop to think about HOW we came to have that picture?
Lives were put on hold as scientists like my father devoted countless hours to research, design, development, re-design, troubleshooting and more re-design of everything from experiments to astronaut suits and communication systems. I won't even try to fathom the science behind the rocketry that propelled our men into space.
Lives were lost and risked and risked again. Apollo 1 with its three astronauts incinerated by an oxygen leak during a test run in1967. Apollo 13 with its crew that nearly became lost in space in 1970. Apollo 11 and subsequent flights, all of them accompanied by a long list of "what-ifs" -- what if the men landed but couldn't take off again, what if they took off from the lunar surface but missed their one chance at a rendezvous with the orbiter, what if they made the connection only to have the return capsule burn up on reentry through the Earth's viciously hot atmosphere.
There were only so many contingencies NASA could prepare for. At some point, it was up to fate or luck or God.
Four decades later, we have learned much about spaceflight, the moon, Mars, and other planets and the knowledge is taken for granted. What should we as a people, a nation be doing with all of this. Spaceflight has become commonplace in just a little over 40 years. Have we lost our collective sense of awe? And what do we need to do to get it back? These and similar questions weren't even on the radar in 1969. No one would have believed that only four years later, the Apollo program would be scrubbed.
My dad never took the rocket ride into space like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins or any of the brave men and, later, women who would follow them, though I suspect he made that trip more than a few times in his mind.
No, on the whole he seemed content to share what he knew as an earthbound man, braving mosquitoes and smothering hot Houston nights to perch atop the trunk of our car in the driveway with binoculars or telescope for a mini-lecture on the worlds beyond our own.
I always loved my dad for who he was. But now, as an adult with children of my own, I can also love him for what he did to further our understanding of the handiwork of God. It's a legacy I'm proud to pass along to the grandchildren Dad never got to know, and I hope that some day, when they have children of their own, they will want to do the same.
The heavens declare the glory of Him Who made all things . . .
I'm proud of Mr. Armstrong. His place in history is assured by the fact that there can be only one first man to take the first step on to the moon.
But on a more personal if less glamorous level I'm proud of my father, Dallas Evans. My dad was one of the thousands of Team Moon people who made Armstrong's walk and all the moonwalks that followed possible. His contribution to the space program was to design experiments to divulge the Moon's many closely guarded secrets.
Dad passed away in October 2003 just before his then-greatest love -- the unmanned mission to Mars with its Martian rover -- saw success. I like to think that wherever he was on THAT momentous day he was feeling a sense of euphoria all over again, just like that day so long ago in late July.
My father was a physicist whose interests in astronomy, meteorology, marine biology, and aviation landed him a job with the newly created NASA. Before the Johnson Space Center complex was built out on the rice fields south of Houston, my dad was already starting to gather data -- what little there was in the early 1960s -- about the atmospheres on the various planets. President Kennedy had given his instruction that America should go to the moon. My dad's first job was to help figure out what astronauts might encounter when they got there.
The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) consisted of various experiments bundled to fly on each of the lunar trips. My dad was the principal investigator or co-investigator on several of them:
LACE, the Lunar Atmosphere Composition Experiment, flew aboard Apollo 17;
CCG, the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment (measured the lunar atmosphere), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, and 15;
SIDE, the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (measured effects of solar winds on the moon), flew aboard Apollos 12, 14, 15.
My dad never seemed to mind the unrelenting work schedule during those heady Apollo days. Everyone was caught up in the dramatic drive to beat the Russians and to live out President Kennedy's dream. Around our house, spaceflight was always the topic on the table. A war was still raging in Vietnam but aside from the nightly news in black and white, it wasn't up for debate. My dad had no time to follow social trends or the latest Hollywood gossip. He was preparing to help put men on the moon, and nothing was more important.
Except me.
I am his only child, and despite his commitment to making history my dad still managed to make time for me. His excitement and awe at the incredible majesty and complexity of outer space was contagious and 40 years later I find myself grasping for the right words to infuse my own children with this same sense of wonderment.
I remember Neil Armstrong's grainy image on our black and white television that glorious day in July. I remember complete silence in the living room as my parents sat transfixed before the screen.
I remember knowing that this had something to do with Daddy's job, but being only three years old I wasn't sure what. Didn't men walk on the moon all the time, I wondered. I'd been hearing talk of spaceflight for as long as I could remember, and this seemed like just another episode of that dialogue.
It wasn't until nearly 30 years later that the real significance of the first moon landing hit me, and in the strangest of ways.
I was sitting in a Luby's cafeteria located not too far from the Johnson Space Center waiting on a girlfriend to come through the food line and pay her bill. I'd found us a table and had sat down to start eating when for reasons unknown my eyes were drawn upward to a series of large photos on the wall in front of me.
There was the famous photograph of Earth -- you know the one that makes our planet look like a beautiful multicolored marble. As I casually studied it, trying to figure out which of the continents I was seeing beneath the cloud cover, I had a revelation.
Suddenly my father's accomplishments and the accomplishments of so many others came sharply into focus.
IF MEN HAD NEVER LEFT THE EARTH, WE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE.
The photo of our amazing planet is today ubiquitous, found on everything from flags and tee-shirts to bumper stickers and school notebooks.
But does anyone ever stop to think about HOW we came to have that picture?
Lives were put on hold as scientists like my father devoted countless hours to research, design, development, re-design, troubleshooting and more re-design of everything from experiments to astronaut suits and communication systems. I won't even try to fathom the science behind the rocketry that propelled our men into space.
Lives were lost and risked and risked again. Apollo 1 with its three astronauts incinerated by an oxygen leak during a test run in1967. Apollo 13 with its crew that nearly became lost in space in 1970. Apollo 11 and subsequent flights, all of them accompanied by a long list of "what-ifs" -- what if the men landed but couldn't take off again, what if they took off from the lunar surface but missed their one chance at a rendezvous with the orbiter, what if they made the connection only to have the return capsule burn up on reentry through the Earth's viciously hot atmosphere.
There were only so many contingencies NASA could prepare for. At some point, it was up to fate or luck or God.
Four decades later, we have learned much about spaceflight, the moon, Mars, and other planets and the knowledge is taken for granted. What should we as a people, a nation be doing with all of this. Spaceflight has become commonplace in just a little over 40 years. Have we lost our collective sense of awe? And what do we need to do to get it back? These and similar questions weren't even on the radar in 1969. No one would have believed that only four years later, the Apollo program would be scrubbed.
My dad never took the rocket ride into space like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins or any of the brave men and, later, women who would follow them, though I suspect he made that trip more than a few times in his mind.
No, on the whole he seemed content to share what he knew as an earthbound man, braving mosquitoes and smothering hot Houston nights to perch atop the trunk of our car in the driveway with binoculars or telescope for a mini-lecture on the worlds beyond our own.
I always loved my dad for who he was. But now, as an adult with children of my own, I can also love him for what he did to further our understanding of the handiwork of God. It's a legacy I'm proud to pass along to the grandchildren Dad never got to know, and I hope that some day, when they have children of their own, they will want to do the same.
The heavens declare the glory of Him Who made all things . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)