My father's family came from Wales and so it was that my daughters decided they wanted to study the little country for a couple of different homeschool international festivals. It was no small thing for us to research and acquire some semblance of authentic Welsh costumes, learn words and phrases in a language that is considered endangered, and then to decide how best to present more than 1,000 years of history on a display board that measured no wider than 48" across.
Somewhere in all of this, I wanted my daughters to learn about my father's family and to gain some appreciation for their heritage and their place in line.
So it was with great joy that I listened to them tell a panel of judges today about their Welsh ancestry, the meaning of my maiden name, and how their great-great-great-great grandfather wrote books of autobiographical poetry about his boyhood on a farm along the southern Welsh coast.
As part of our study of famous people from Wales, I introduced my girls to Dylan Thomas, the renowned poet who died much too soon at the age of 39 after many hard years of brawling with his equally bellicose wife, drinking to excess and living on the edge of poverty at most points.
I remembered reading Thomas' most famous poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" when I was in college, but I never bothered to research either the man himself or any of his other works. Alas, I attribute this laziness, this willingness to be spoonfed only half the meal, to my public school education where the teachers had neither the time nor the inclination to compel a deeper study of interesting things.
Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, the same town out from which my ancestor lived on his farm. Today it is the third largest city in Wales. In Dylan Thomas' day, it was an industrial town, dreary and without much to encourage him to return once he left home for good.
In reading for the first time Thomas's most famous prose piece, "A Child's Christmas in Wales," I was taken aback by his use of beautiful and unusual words. Even more, I found myself chuckling at the stories of mischief that only young boys can make.
Why hadn't I read this story before now? Why, at 43, is it just now coming to the fore of my literary life?
We have a common denominator, Dylan Thomas and I, and I am only sorry I didn't appreciate this fact sooner.
It's never too late, though, and so I leave you with one of my favorite excerpts from "A Child's Christmas In Wales." Do yourself a favor and Google the whole story. It's not long but it is deliciously wicked, sentimental, colorful, descriptive, and inclusive of words you won't commonly find anywhere else.
"It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. The wise cats never appeared.
Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, it snowed and it snowed.
But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I
made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."
"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it
came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow
grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and
settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."
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.
February 28, 2009
February 27, 2009
They loved the praise of men . . .
Thumbing through my trusty Good Book this morning in search of inspiration, encouragement, and a commonsense approach to life as we know it, my eyes fell upon one simple but awesomely powerful sentence out of the Book of John.
In discussing those who had witnessed the works of Jesus firsthand but who could not bring themselves to align with him because they didn't want to be kicked out of the synagogue, i.e. their comfort zone, John writes, "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."
Eureka! That's it! That's the crux of the problem we all face now -- that what other people think is a bigger driver than what an entity we cannot easily see with our eyes or hear with our ears thinks. The invisibility of God as a distinct being is what I think confounds a lot of disbelievers. If they cannot see, hear, feel with their very limited human senses, then whatever it is they're trying to discover must not be real.
That makes it so much easier, then, to seek out and even crave the praise of other people. This is what peer pressure is, what cliques are, what going along to get along is all about.
This is what caused folks like Bernie Madoff to defraud folks of millions of dollars, what compels people who have no business in public office to run for the position, what drives the Hollywood crowd to say and do literally anything to be noticed, lauded, lambasted or otherwise mentioned.
All of them, ALL of them, care or cared more about the praises of men than about being accountable to God. Their egos clouded their judgment and the results were either immediately or eventually devastating.
Gosh. Does anyone else see a pattern here?
Could it be, could it REALLY be, that abject rejection of a higher power actually brings about crappy lives?
Now, that's not to say that even the best people don't walk through their share of valleys. They do, but the difference is that they have an impetus to get out of those valleys as quickly as possible, all the while drawing closer to God in an effort to learn more of His goodness, more of His way.
I'm not trying to be preachy, here, but I do think John's observation is as applicable today as it was nearly 2000 years ago.
Acting because you want the acceptance of others rather than acting because of a higher sense of integrity and a desire to be accountable to the Source of that sense, will inevitably bring you to ruin. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but somewhere in some way you will reap the whirlwind.
Shut out the praises of men and instead listen closely to the God Who is there.
Like radio waves that fill the air 24/7, God is always speaking to us. We just need to tune in and figure out what He's saying.
In discussing those who had witnessed the works of Jesus firsthand but who could not bring themselves to align with him because they didn't want to be kicked out of the synagogue, i.e. their comfort zone, John writes, "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."
Eureka! That's it! That's the crux of the problem we all face now -- that what other people think is a bigger driver than what an entity we cannot easily see with our eyes or hear with our ears thinks. The invisibility of God as a distinct being is what I think confounds a lot of disbelievers. If they cannot see, hear, feel with their very limited human senses, then whatever it is they're trying to discover must not be real.
That makes it so much easier, then, to seek out and even crave the praise of other people. This is what peer pressure is, what cliques are, what going along to get along is all about.
This is what caused folks like Bernie Madoff to defraud folks of millions of dollars, what compels people who have no business in public office to run for the position, what drives the Hollywood crowd to say and do literally anything to be noticed, lauded, lambasted or otherwise mentioned.
All of them, ALL of them, care or cared more about the praises of men than about being accountable to God. Their egos clouded their judgment and the results were either immediately or eventually devastating.
Gosh. Does anyone else see a pattern here?
Could it be, could it REALLY be, that abject rejection of a higher power actually brings about crappy lives?
Now, that's not to say that even the best people don't walk through their share of valleys. They do, but the difference is that they have an impetus to get out of those valleys as quickly as possible, all the while drawing closer to God in an effort to learn more of His goodness, more of His way.
I'm not trying to be preachy, here, but I do think John's observation is as applicable today as it was nearly 2000 years ago.
Acting because you want the acceptance of others rather than acting because of a higher sense of integrity and a desire to be accountable to the Source of that sense, will inevitably bring you to ruin. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but somewhere in some way you will reap the whirlwind.
Shut out the praises of men and instead listen closely to the God Who is there.
Like radio waves that fill the air 24/7, God is always speaking to us. We just need to tune in and figure out what He's saying.
February 23, 2009
The Oscars -- it's not about movies anymore
No, friends, it's all about politics and social agendas.
Last night's Oscars were all about making sure the American people are shamed or at the very least browbeaten into supporting gay marriage.
The guy who wrote the screenplay for "Milk" about San Francisco gay rights activist Harvey Milk who was killed in the 1970s used his winning moment to chastise the churches, the feds and pretty much everyone else for failing to embrace behaviors and lifestyles that aren't worth embracing.
Sean Penn -- always one of my least favorite actors simply because his personal politics and snide remarks rankle me to no end -- was voted Best Actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk. He used his winning moment to lambaste the passage of Proposition 8 that makes marriage in California legal only between a man and a woman and to argue that everyone deserves equal rights.
A nice sentiment if you don't dig too deeply. And right now I'm so tired and so annoyed I'm not going to take up my shovel.
I didn't watch the Oscars live. I read about them online so as to skip the commercials, the stupid jokes and the rebukes from the likes of Sean Penn.
Hollywood is irrelevant anymore. It doesn't represent me or most of the folks I know. It's not interested in attracting our business or our money. It berates, badgers and blasts us for not embracing things our religion teaches are wrong. It bemoans the fact that we won't give up our religion or at least the parts of it that don't agree with Hollywood. And it churns out enough mental and visual pollution to make Al Gore's call for carbon credits seem almost legit.
My children have never been to a movie and I've told them why. I've told them that the day the local cinema features something that doesn't involve killing people, killing animals, foul language, anti-religious remarks, potty humor, tacky clothes, smoking, drinking alcohol, and the blatant disrespect of parents, then MAYBE I'll consider taking them to see a show.
Otherwise, they'll have to tackle Hollywood on their own dime and on their own time.
My only hope is that by then their father and I will have equipped them well enough to handle whatever they might hear or see.
Last night's Oscars were all about making sure the American people are shamed or at the very least browbeaten into supporting gay marriage.
The guy who wrote the screenplay for "Milk" about San Francisco gay rights activist Harvey Milk who was killed in the 1970s used his winning moment to chastise the churches, the feds and pretty much everyone else for failing to embrace behaviors and lifestyles that aren't worth embracing.
Sean Penn -- always one of my least favorite actors simply because his personal politics and snide remarks rankle me to no end -- was voted Best Actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk. He used his winning moment to lambaste the passage of Proposition 8 that makes marriage in California legal only between a man and a woman and to argue that everyone deserves equal rights.
A nice sentiment if you don't dig too deeply. And right now I'm so tired and so annoyed I'm not going to take up my shovel.
I didn't watch the Oscars live. I read about them online so as to skip the commercials, the stupid jokes and the rebukes from the likes of Sean Penn.
Hollywood is irrelevant anymore. It doesn't represent me or most of the folks I know. It's not interested in attracting our business or our money. It berates, badgers and blasts us for not embracing things our religion teaches are wrong. It bemoans the fact that we won't give up our religion or at least the parts of it that don't agree with Hollywood. And it churns out enough mental and visual pollution to make Al Gore's call for carbon credits seem almost legit.
My children have never been to a movie and I've told them why. I've told them that the day the local cinema features something that doesn't involve killing people, killing animals, foul language, anti-religious remarks, potty humor, tacky clothes, smoking, drinking alcohol, and the blatant disrespect of parents, then MAYBE I'll consider taking them to see a show.
Otherwise, they'll have to tackle Hollywood on their own dime and on their own time.
My only hope is that by then their father and I will have equipped them well enough to handle whatever they might hear or see.
The ACLU is equivalent to a stinging fly
If you've ever been assailed by a large stinging fly like a deerfly, then you can fully comprehend my analogy.
The ACLU used to be about civil liberties for EVERYONE.
Anymore, it's about civil liberties for everyone but Christians.
Want more proof than my previous posting about the monument in front of Louisiana's notorious maximum security prison at Angola?
Check out World Net Daily for a photo set that ought to disturb every single person of conscience in this country, regardless of religious preference.
In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) owned a spot of land in the Mojave Desert on which they erected a very simple cross to commemorate the deaths of American soldiers and the sacrifices made by their families.
The cross looks like it's fashioned out of galvanized pipe -- in other words, nothing fancy, flashy or gaudy.
That's the first picture you see.
The second picture looks like a solar panel on a pole and I had to study it hard before bothering to read the caption underneath. What I was seeing was, in fact, that same cross only now its upper portion is ENCASED IN A PLYWOOD BOX pending the outcome of a court case brought by -- you guessed it -- the ACLU.
They want the cross removed.
After 75 years, they want it removed because, they say, it's unconstitutional.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and has ordered it destroyed.
Never mind that the VFW asked to have it back and even offered to give other land in exchange for the monument.
The U.S Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this fall.
O for a fly swatter big enough to smash the ACLU!
The ACLU used to be about civil liberties for EVERYONE.
Anymore, it's about civil liberties for everyone but Christians.
Want more proof than my previous posting about the monument in front of Louisiana's notorious maximum security prison at Angola?
Check out World Net Daily for a photo set that ought to disturb every single person of conscience in this country, regardless of religious preference.
In 1934, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) owned a spot of land in the Mojave Desert on which they erected a very simple cross to commemorate the deaths of American soldiers and the sacrifices made by their families.
The cross looks like it's fashioned out of galvanized pipe -- in other words, nothing fancy, flashy or gaudy.
That's the first picture you see.
The second picture looks like a solar panel on a pole and I had to study it hard before bothering to read the caption underneath. What I was seeing was, in fact, that same cross only now its upper portion is ENCASED IN A PLYWOOD BOX pending the outcome of a court case brought by -- you guessed it -- the ACLU.
They want the cross removed.
After 75 years, they want it removed because, they say, it's unconstitutional.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed and has ordered it destroyed.
Never mind that the VFW asked to have it back and even offered to give other land in exchange for the monument.
The U.S Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments this fall.
O for a fly swatter big enough to smash the ACLU!
February 13, 2009
Prison -- isn't it the one place God oughta be?
The ACLU ranks right up there in my mind with the UN. The two organizations have a lot in common. They talk a lot without saying much of anything, they spend a lot of money without doing much of anything, and somehow in the process they both manage to screw up the lives of nearly everyone they touch.
Angola State Prison in Louisiana is a hardcore maximum security facility that takes prisoners in and seldom spits one back out. The majority of the men who enter will die there but not before living grim lives, not so much different than that portrayed by Sean Penn's character in the let's-not-kill-killers film "Dead Man Walking" which was set at Angola.
In the real world, one of the goals at Angola is to keep things as peaceful and even-keeled as possible. Fewer riots that way, you know.
Someone thought a Bible verse -- imagine that -- would be fitting and so a statue at the prison entrance has for many years featured Philippians 3:13 on one side and a well-known prayer on the other.
The ACLU sued to have them removed because, well, we can't go around saying positive things that might actually help people begin with some measure of grace the toughest journey of their lives.
The text of the scripture will remain: "Forgetting is what behind and straining toward what is ahead."
It's the citation itself, the word "Philippians," that will be removed because it's from the Bible.
Oh, and the prayer, because it invokes the name of G-O-D, will also have to be blasted off.
Christian Post reporter Lawrence Jones writes:
Angola Warden Burl Cain made the decision to remove the attribution to the New Testament book Philippians after the Louisiana arm of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint last year, alleging that the Bible reference endorses one religion over others.
In a letter responding to the complaint, Cain denied any religious purpose behind the monument. He said the monument is for "moral rehabilitation," advising arriving inmates that "we are not going to look at the past – to let it go and begin change for the better."
"It is an encouragement as they begin to serve their long sentence at Angola," said Cain, noting that ninety percent of inmates who enter the prison die there.
Prison officials have also agreed to remove the "Prayer of Protection," inscribed on the opposite side of the Bible verse, to satisfy the ACLU complaint that also pinpointed the prayer.
The prayer reads: "The light of God surrounds you. The love of God enfolds you. The power of God protects you. And the presence of God watches over you; Wherever you are, God is."
No, now it seems that wherever you are the ACLU is, and they're going to make damn sure you know it.
Angola State Prison in Louisiana is a hardcore maximum security facility that takes prisoners in and seldom spits one back out. The majority of the men who enter will die there but not before living grim lives, not so much different than that portrayed by Sean Penn's character in the let's-not-kill-killers film "Dead Man Walking" which was set at Angola.
In the real world, one of the goals at Angola is to keep things as peaceful and even-keeled as possible. Fewer riots that way, you know.
Someone thought a Bible verse -- imagine that -- would be fitting and so a statue at the prison entrance has for many years featured Philippians 3:13 on one side and a well-known prayer on the other.
The ACLU sued to have them removed because, well, we can't go around saying positive things that might actually help people begin with some measure of grace the toughest journey of their lives.
The text of the scripture will remain: "Forgetting is what behind and straining toward what is ahead."
It's the citation itself, the word "Philippians," that will be removed because it's from the Bible.
Oh, and the prayer, because it invokes the name of G-O-D, will also have to be blasted off.
Christian Post reporter Lawrence Jones writes:
Angola Warden Burl Cain made the decision to remove the attribution to the New Testament book Philippians after the Louisiana arm of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint last year, alleging that the Bible reference endorses one religion over others.
In a letter responding to the complaint, Cain denied any religious purpose behind the monument. He said the monument is for "moral rehabilitation," advising arriving inmates that "we are not going to look at the past – to let it go and begin change for the better."
"It is an encouragement as they begin to serve their long sentence at Angola," said Cain, noting that ninety percent of inmates who enter the prison die there.
Prison officials have also agreed to remove the "Prayer of Protection," inscribed on the opposite side of the Bible verse, to satisfy the ACLU complaint that also pinpointed the prayer.
The prayer reads: "The light of God surrounds you. The love of God enfolds you. The power of God protects you. And the presence of God watches over you; Wherever you are, God is."
No, now it seems that wherever you are the ACLU is, and they're going to make damn sure you know it.
February 12, 2009
If I threw up would I feel better about all of this?
Folks, I've been debating with myself for several days whether to comment on what you're about to read. Those of you who know me well know I'm not inclined to hold my tongue on most things, so you may be wondering why the hesitation.
Some background and then I'll forge ahead:
When I was a newspaper journalist a lifetime ago, I was always relieved to get the easy stories, the ones that dealt with the flotsam of everyday small town life -- school board brouhahas, city council flaps, the occasional dustup at the VFD or among members of the parks and rec. department.
Until one day the small town I covered was jolted by a murder, the first in those parts in more than 20 years by some recollections. As the lead reporter it was my job to cover it, blood and all. A woman who came home from work surprised her teenage neighbor as he was burglarizing her house, so he pulled a knife from a kitchen counter block and chased her throughout the house, stabbing her repeatedly until she died.
FYI, the guy, then 19, was finally executed for his crime not too many years ago.
Anyway, that was the first time I had to sit down and write about the misery of other people, the most private of hells that only those who have experienced similar could truly understand. I knew this, and knew I was neither worthy or really able to do the story justice.
My second opportunity to walk a mile in the shoes of someone who'd lost loved ones to crime came shortly later when a man in this same town angry over an impending divorce shot and killed his own little girls while their mother was at work. This crime came with its own 9-1-1 tape because the children's grandmother was on the phone with police when their father starting firing. As most cowards do -- and what else but a coward shoots children, right, -- he eventually turned the gun on himself and ended that story.
My editor told me to transcribe the 9-1-1 tape for use in my story. A person can play something that horrific only so many times before one of two things happens. Either you break down or you become numb. I did the first while I was in a back office trying to listen to the static-filled tape in relative quiet. I did the second when I sat down and began to write.
I wrote a lot that night and quickly so as to be rid of the assignment post haste. The nausea, though, lingered on for several more weeks. Terrible.
Now that I answer to no editor, it's always my pregrogative as to whether I address in print something distasteful. Some things, terrible as they are, warrant notice if only to bring light to the darkest reaches of the human experience. Some things aren't terrible per se, just tacky and I am compelled to address them, too. It's tempting to wonder sometimes whether our culture is trying to run itself into the ground on purpose or, with so much momentum built up behind it, could not put on the brakes and regroup even if it wanted to.
The following are recent news items. I leave it to you to decide whether they needed dragging into the light of day or should've stayed buried.
First, from our big buddy in the Middle East: Saudia Arabia has sentenced a pregnant 23 year old woman to jail now with 100 floggings to be administered after her baby is born because she was gang-raped and confessed to it.
Second, from our own fabulous state of California where freedom of choice wasn't meant to include education: A sculptor received nearly $200K of taxpayer money to create statues for a pedestrian bridge in Berkeley. The statues feature small medallions in their bases depicting dogs doing things like pooping, sniffing each other from behind and, yes, having sex. Public money. Public art. And the best they get is dogs having sex. Are people really titillated by this? And if they are, can we identify them and hole them up on Alcatraz while we figure out how to reprogram their brains?
Third, from Michigan where you'd think the economic woes targeting the auto industry would have people taking a more sober and prudent look at life we get: Zoorotica, a Valentine's Day event that for $50 lets you watch zoo animals copulating. Guess all the internet porn, cable TV porn, video game porn, printed porn, and phone porn have become mundane. Nothing's left but to watch animals mating. Whoever cooked up this idea is pretty sad, but not quite as sad as the people who've made this a sold-out event.
And while we're nort of the Mason-Dixon line, let's not forget Chicago whose public schools apparently have a problem treating students humanely. Lots of choking, hitting, and arm twisting going on. Grownups are investigating. I'm sure that will bring about boatloads of change and fast.
Fifth and last, because I feel myself turning green even as I write, we have the Fox News producer who's been arrested for possession of child pornography. According to reports, the affidavit filed to obtain a warrant for his arrest is just detailed enough in terms of what investigators found to make me never want to read it. Never.
The ancient Romans with their Colosseum bloodbaths for sport involving people and animals and their preoccupations with bodily functions seem much more familiar to me now than they did a couple of decades ago.
We look back on that era and marvel at how brutal and disgusting they could be when they weren't exercising their brilliant minds to build an empire.
Kind of ironic, don't you think?
Some background and then I'll forge ahead:
When I was a newspaper journalist a lifetime ago, I was always relieved to get the easy stories, the ones that dealt with the flotsam of everyday small town life -- school board brouhahas, city council flaps, the occasional dustup at the VFD or among members of the parks and rec. department.
Until one day the small town I covered was jolted by a murder, the first in those parts in more than 20 years by some recollections. As the lead reporter it was my job to cover it, blood and all. A woman who came home from work surprised her teenage neighbor as he was burglarizing her house, so he pulled a knife from a kitchen counter block and chased her throughout the house, stabbing her repeatedly until she died.
FYI, the guy, then 19, was finally executed for his crime not too many years ago.
Anyway, that was the first time I had to sit down and write about the misery of other people, the most private of hells that only those who have experienced similar could truly understand. I knew this, and knew I was neither worthy or really able to do the story justice.
My second opportunity to walk a mile in the shoes of someone who'd lost loved ones to crime came shortly later when a man in this same town angry over an impending divorce shot and killed his own little girls while their mother was at work. This crime came with its own 9-1-1 tape because the children's grandmother was on the phone with police when their father starting firing. As most cowards do -- and what else but a coward shoots children, right, -- he eventually turned the gun on himself and ended that story.
My editor told me to transcribe the 9-1-1 tape for use in my story. A person can play something that horrific only so many times before one of two things happens. Either you break down or you become numb. I did the first while I was in a back office trying to listen to the static-filled tape in relative quiet. I did the second when I sat down and began to write.
I wrote a lot that night and quickly so as to be rid of the assignment post haste. The nausea, though, lingered on for several more weeks. Terrible.
Now that I answer to no editor, it's always my pregrogative as to whether I address in print something distasteful. Some things, terrible as they are, warrant notice if only to bring light to the darkest reaches of the human experience. Some things aren't terrible per se, just tacky and I am compelled to address them, too. It's tempting to wonder sometimes whether our culture is trying to run itself into the ground on purpose or, with so much momentum built up behind it, could not put on the brakes and regroup even if it wanted to.
The following are recent news items. I leave it to you to decide whether they needed dragging into the light of day or should've stayed buried.
First, from our big buddy in the Middle East: Saudia Arabia has sentenced a pregnant 23 year old woman to jail now with 100 floggings to be administered after her baby is born because she was gang-raped and confessed to it.
Second, from our own fabulous state of California where freedom of choice wasn't meant to include education: A sculptor received nearly $200K of taxpayer money to create statues for a pedestrian bridge in Berkeley. The statues feature small medallions in their bases depicting dogs doing things like pooping, sniffing each other from behind and, yes, having sex. Public money. Public art. And the best they get is dogs having sex. Are people really titillated by this? And if they are, can we identify them and hole them up on Alcatraz while we figure out how to reprogram their brains?
Third, from Michigan where you'd think the economic woes targeting the auto industry would have people taking a more sober and prudent look at life we get: Zoorotica, a Valentine's Day event that for $50 lets you watch zoo animals copulating. Guess all the internet porn, cable TV porn, video game porn, printed porn, and phone porn have become mundane. Nothing's left but to watch animals mating. Whoever cooked up this idea is pretty sad, but not quite as sad as the people who've made this a sold-out event.
And while we're nort of the Mason-Dixon line, let's not forget Chicago whose public schools apparently have a problem treating students humanely. Lots of choking, hitting, and arm twisting going on. Grownups are investigating. I'm sure that will bring about boatloads of change and fast.
Fifth and last, because I feel myself turning green even as I write, we have the Fox News producer who's been arrested for possession of child pornography. According to reports, the affidavit filed to obtain a warrant for his arrest is just detailed enough in terms of what investigators found to make me never want to read it. Never.
The ancient Romans with their Colosseum bloodbaths for sport involving people and animals and their preoccupations with bodily functions seem much more familiar to me now than they did a couple of decades ago.
We look back on that era and marvel at how brutal and disgusting they could be when they weren't exercising their brilliant minds to build an empire.
Kind of ironic, don't you think?
February 9, 2009
The Nanny just won't leave the state
The Nanny State is a term used to describe what happens when the government or its agencies thunder into the most intimate areas of people's lives, telling them what to eat, where to live, how to parent and educate their children, what kinds of cars to drive and -- perhaps the most dangerous of all -- how to apply their religious beliefs.
Ask my 9 yo or her younger sibling to tell the story of the Pilgrims and the first thing you'll hear is how they left England so they could worship in peace.
Sadly, the past two centuries have obscured this small but vital factoid to the point that even those who take an oath to study and apply the law are wont to grasp it.
Case in point: A couple in New York has been battling their local school district since 2006 over its charge that they are not eligible to obtain an exemption from vaccinations for their son. The parents are not Christian Scientists -- one of the few well-known religious groups legally granted such an exemption to some degree in every state but West Virginia and Mississippi.
They are Catholic and they maintain that vaccinating their child goes against their understanding of God and His authority over their family.
No, no, no, good reader. Tempting as it may be, do not be sucked into the vaccination debate and the question of whether mass innoculations are always a good idea.
Instead, I ask you to focus on the bigger picture, the one that is about to unfold:
The parents filed some sort of standared form with the school, presumably having to explain why they wouldn't be vaccinating their son. The school shot back a letter explaining to the parents that the form would not suffice. Instead, they would be required to submit to a "sincerity of faith" test before the district would grant the waiver.
So the parents met with the school district attorney who proceeded to grill them at some length about their religion and why they believed they were entitled to the exemption. They were compelled to do this twice.
One news report quotes the attorney as saying, "If you believe God is on your side, does that mean he's not on the side of someone who believes in immunization?"
"Do you have conversations with God? Has God told you not to immunize?" the attorney asked. "Explain it to me."
The attorney explained to the parents' attorney that the purpose of the interview was two-fold: to determine whether the parents' beliefs were truly religious rather than philosophical or political; and to determine whether the beliefs are "sincerely and genuinely held."
Good readers, does this sound like America in the 21 century? Me, I'm thinking it's a wee bit Gestapo-like.
World Net Daily reporter Drew Zahn tells the rest of the story in his Feb. 8 article on the online news site:
"It's almost beyond words what we were put through," Palma said. "It's such an abusive power, it's so arrogant that 'outrageous' doesn't even label it correctly. It's something you can't even imagine that somebody would take it upon themselves to do – to judge the sincerity of your belief.
"Particularly in a school district," Palma said, "taking it upon themselves to judge your relationship with God? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"
Not only were the Palmas grilled, however, their attempts to file religious exemptions were also ultimately denied.
Following both interviews, the first in 2006 and the last in 2008, the school district deemed the Palmas' beliefs were not sincerely held.
"This determination," wrote the school in 2006, "was made based upon your meeting with the school attorney and information which we received, which significantly calls into question your stated beliefs."
Rita Palma explained to WND that her choice not to immunize her children was a decision of conscience and of following God's leading. In the interview with the lawyer, Palma further explained that she sees a distinction between medicine as a healing for sickness and vaccines, which she described as injecting a sickness as step toward heath. The latter, she insisted, violates her understanding of trust in God and his design for the body.
The school district's denial, however, cited a medical test Palma gave her son as evidence that her beliefs are too inconsistent to be sincerely and genuinely held.
The district's second denial, in 2008, further criticized the Palmas, a self-described Catholic family, for misquoting the Bible and claimed that if their objection was truly a matter of religious conviction, they could have sought something other than public school for their son.
The Palmas appealed the original denial to the state's commissioner of public education, only to be denied again.
First, I wish I could wrap that poor mother in my arms and explain to her in no uncertain terms the fact of which she's obviously not aware. God has no place in public school. Period. Anyone believing otherwise is living a fantasy and ought to wake up quickly.
The second thing I'd do is find out how a public school district with no place for God in its environs somehow knows whether a parent is misquoting the Bible! Are they serious? At a time when textbooks used by schoolchildren nationwide are regularly noted for mistakes, a school district has the AUDACITY to argue the finer points of Christian doctrine with those who actually follow it?
Then I'd proceed to have that attorney explain to me what intellectual freedom is and why philosophical or political beliefs are somehow less valid and unworthy of protection.
But my favorite is the zinger at the end of the above excerpt, the one where the district told the parents they could either capitulate or else find educational accommodations for their son elsewhere. In short, "It's our way or the highway."
Perhaps the first recorded case in recent history in which a public school actually crafted its own argument in favor of private education.
The story doesn't say what the parents elected to do about their son's schooling. My personal hope, of course, is that they've abandoned their effort to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and instead chosen an option that preserves the dignity of families who don't like to tow the party line.
The Nanny gets bigger and bigger with every passing year, folks. Keep your ears to the ground and your eyes upon the road so that she won't barge in to a facet of life near you.
(And where, oh where, has the mainstream media gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?)
Ask my 9 yo or her younger sibling to tell the story of the Pilgrims and the first thing you'll hear is how they left England so they could worship in peace.
Sadly, the past two centuries have obscured this small but vital factoid to the point that even those who take an oath to study and apply the law are wont to grasp it.
Case in point: A couple in New York has been battling their local school district since 2006 over its charge that they are not eligible to obtain an exemption from vaccinations for their son. The parents are not Christian Scientists -- one of the few well-known religious groups legally granted such an exemption to some degree in every state but West Virginia and Mississippi.
They are Catholic and they maintain that vaccinating their child goes against their understanding of God and His authority over their family.
No, no, no, good reader. Tempting as it may be, do not be sucked into the vaccination debate and the question of whether mass innoculations are always a good idea.
Instead, I ask you to focus on the bigger picture, the one that is about to unfold:
The parents filed some sort of standared form with the school, presumably having to explain why they wouldn't be vaccinating their son. The school shot back a letter explaining to the parents that the form would not suffice. Instead, they would be required to submit to a "sincerity of faith" test before the district would grant the waiver.
So the parents met with the school district attorney who proceeded to grill them at some length about their religion and why they believed they were entitled to the exemption. They were compelled to do this twice.
One news report quotes the attorney as saying, "If you believe God is on your side, does that mean he's not on the side of someone who believes in immunization?"
"Do you have conversations with God? Has God told you not to immunize?" the attorney asked. "Explain it to me."
The attorney explained to the parents' attorney that the purpose of the interview was two-fold: to determine whether the parents' beliefs were truly religious rather than philosophical or political; and to determine whether the beliefs are "sincerely and genuinely held."
Good readers, does this sound like America in the 21 century? Me, I'm thinking it's a wee bit Gestapo-like.
World Net Daily reporter Drew Zahn tells the rest of the story in his Feb. 8 article on the online news site:
"It's almost beyond words what we were put through," Palma said. "It's such an abusive power, it's so arrogant that 'outrageous' doesn't even label it correctly. It's something you can't even imagine that somebody would take it upon themselves to do – to judge the sincerity of your belief.
"Particularly in a school district," Palma said, "taking it upon themselves to judge your relationship with God? Have you ever heard of such a thing?"
Not only were the Palmas grilled, however, their attempts to file religious exemptions were also ultimately denied.
Following both interviews, the first in 2006 and the last in 2008, the school district deemed the Palmas' beliefs were not sincerely held.
"This determination," wrote the school in 2006, "was made based upon your meeting with the school attorney and information which we received, which significantly calls into question your stated beliefs."
Rita Palma explained to WND that her choice not to immunize her children was a decision of conscience and of following God's leading. In the interview with the lawyer, Palma further explained that she sees a distinction between medicine as a healing for sickness and vaccines, which she described as injecting a sickness as step toward heath. The latter, she insisted, violates her understanding of trust in God and his design for the body.
The school district's denial, however, cited a medical test Palma gave her son as evidence that her beliefs are too inconsistent to be sincerely and genuinely held.
The district's second denial, in 2008, further criticized the Palmas, a self-described Catholic family, for misquoting the Bible and claimed that if their objection was truly a matter of religious conviction, they could have sought something other than public school for their son.
The Palmas appealed the original denial to the state's commissioner of public education, only to be denied again.
First, I wish I could wrap that poor mother in my arms and explain to her in no uncertain terms the fact of which she's obviously not aware. God has no place in public school. Period. Anyone believing otherwise is living a fantasy and ought to wake up quickly.
The second thing I'd do is find out how a public school district with no place for God in its environs somehow knows whether a parent is misquoting the Bible! Are they serious? At a time when textbooks used by schoolchildren nationwide are regularly noted for mistakes, a school district has the AUDACITY to argue the finer points of Christian doctrine with those who actually follow it?
Then I'd proceed to have that attorney explain to me what intellectual freedom is and why philosophical or political beliefs are somehow less valid and unworthy of protection.
But my favorite is the zinger at the end of the above excerpt, the one where the district told the parents they could either capitulate or else find educational accommodations for their son elsewhere. In short, "It's our way or the highway."
Perhaps the first recorded case in recent history in which a public school actually crafted its own argument in favor of private education.
The story doesn't say what the parents elected to do about their son's schooling. My personal hope, of course, is that they've abandoned their effort to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and instead chosen an option that preserves the dignity of families who don't like to tow the party line.
The Nanny gets bigger and bigger with every passing year, folks. Keep your ears to the ground and your eyes upon the road so that she won't barge in to a facet of life near you.
(And where, oh where, has the mainstream media gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?)
February 8, 2009
Now I sell books
Since this is my 'blog, I am free to promote myself.
I am now an independent rep for Usborne Books, a publisher of children's books and one of our family's personal favorite sources of solid reference materials.
We use a lot of Usborne's stuff in our homeschool and a good friend of mine who lives in Miami and wants his daughter to learn Spanish is persuing the catalog of bilingual titles even as I write. (Thanks, Jason.)
Anyone reading the 'blog who would like to know more about Usborne titles including content of their more popular series, age appropriateness, books of theirs I like and those I've sent back, and pretty much anything else about why I decided to go on and try to sell their stuff myself, email me or post through the 'blog.
I've never cared about selling anything until now and it's taken me two years to summon up the courage to sign with Usborne.
They offer sales, free book incentives and more, so keep me in mind if you're shopping for Usborne.
Thank you.
I am now an independent rep for Usborne Books, a publisher of children's books and one of our family's personal favorite sources of solid reference materials.
We use a lot of Usborne's stuff in our homeschool and a good friend of mine who lives in Miami and wants his daughter to learn Spanish is persuing the catalog of bilingual titles even as I write. (Thanks, Jason.)
Anyone reading the 'blog who would like to know more about Usborne titles including content of their more popular series, age appropriateness, books of theirs I like and those I've sent back, and pretty much anything else about why I decided to go on and try to sell their stuff myself, email me or post through the 'blog.
I've never cared about selling anything until now and it's taken me two years to summon up the courage to sign with Usborne.
They offer sales, free book incentives and more, so keep me in mind if you're shopping for Usborne.
Thank you.
A continuation with corrections and clarification
My previous posting about southern historical revisionists needs revising. I wrote it late at night -- when I do most of my writing -- and in reviewing it I discovered some mistakes.
First, the word "shanties," the plural form of "shanty" was misspelled. Ugh. I hate misspelled words.
Second, it's worth clarifying that the Soviets didn't only stock their bookstores with an overabundance of Lenin's works while banning most of the literature from the West, they also did a great job of banning many of the writings of their own intellectuals.
Third, I remembered after I posted that it is illegal in Germany to display photos of Adolph Hitler or other Nazi swine, so great is the national shame over that time in history and the cumulative desire to never see Nazism rise up again.
Should we do the same thing here? Should we make it illegal to post photos or put up statues of Robert E. Lee, Jeff Davis, Stonewall Jackson or other Civil War figures? And if we go to that extreme, should we then reconsider the images that abound of many of our nation's founding fathers who also owned or at least condoned the owning of slaves? Should we consider banning images of President Harry Truman who gave the order to drop the atomic bombs over Japan? Talk about a calculated mass killing. What about former President Geo. Bush and his wars on two fronts? Ban his likeness, too?
See how silly this all becomes. It turns into a game of "my people's horror was worse than your people's horror," an argument that goes nowhere fast. As far as southern legislators go, their protests over flags, statues, plaques and books all smack of grandstanding. It's righteous indignation that looks and sounds good until you start picking it apart. Then it just looks like nothing but a waste of breath and tax dollars.
How open do we want to be as a society? What parts of our history are worth preserving in the context in which they occurred?
Personally, I want to read it all and I want my children to read it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, the redeemable and the redeemed.
First, the word "shanties," the plural form of "shanty" was misspelled. Ugh. I hate misspelled words.
Second, it's worth clarifying that the Soviets didn't only stock their bookstores with an overabundance of Lenin's works while banning most of the literature from the West, they also did a great job of banning many of the writings of their own intellectuals.
Third, I remembered after I posted that it is illegal in Germany to display photos of Adolph Hitler or other Nazi swine, so great is the national shame over that time in history and the cumulative desire to never see Nazism rise up again.
Should we do the same thing here? Should we make it illegal to post photos or put up statues of Robert E. Lee, Jeff Davis, Stonewall Jackson or other Civil War figures? And if we go to that extreme, should we then reconsider the images that abound of many of our nation's founding fathers who also owned or at least condoned the owning of slaves? Should we consider banning images of President Harry Truman who gave the order to drop the atomic bombs over Japan? Talk about a calculated mass killing. What about former President Geo. Bush and his wars on two fronts? Ban his likeness, too?
See how silly this all becomes. It turns into a game of "my people's horror was worse than your people's horror," an argument that goes nowhere fast. As far as southern legislators go, their protests over flags, statues, plaques and books all smack of grandstanding. It's righteous indignation that looks and sounds good until you start picking it apart. Then it just looks like nothing but a waste of breath and tax dollars.
How open do we want to be as a society? What parts of our history are worth preserving in the context in which they occurred?
Personally, I want to read it all and I want my children to read it all. The good, the bad, the ugly, the redeemable and the redeemed.
February 6, 2009
Please pass the Pravda
Aside from people who hurt children, the elderly and animals, I really detest historical revisionists who come in the guise of righting wrongs, making amends, or attempting in some fashion to secure a do-over for things that can't be done over.
Case in point, the lamentable loss of authentic Southern history at every twist and turn.
As if removing statues, scratching off the wording on plaques, taking down pictures and putting other pictures in their places, removing books from schools and libraries will, in one jot or one tittle, truly change the past.
A whole slew of legislative efforts are on the table around the country to remove from sight the statues of historic figures like Jefferson Davis, who was many things before he was president of the Confederacy for four years. In the case of the Davis statue, it's actually a gift from the Sons of the Confederacy that can't seem to be given away. The SOC tried to give it to Virginia, but they couldn't find a place for it. Now, it's Mississippi that either can't or won't take it. Will refusing to erect the Davis statue make it any less likely that Davis was, in fact, president of the Confederacy?
In other places in years past the Confederate flag itself has been the source of grief. In Texas some years back, a plaque in Austin that made reference to the Confederacy was targeted for removal.
In Georgia, there's a move to get rid of a statue of three-term governor Eugene Talmadge at the statehouse. Will getting rid of this statue change the fact that Talmadge was a racist and a scoundrel?
See, this is the problem with some legislators -- black and white -- who don't really know what to do with themselves. They are conflicted even now, so many years after the Civil War has ended and the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s has, by many accounts, achieved its laudable goals.
In their efforts to make amends ad nauseum for a time in our nation's history that should never be forgotten, warts and all, they run the risk of doing the very thing they don't want us to do!
If you take away the statues, plaques and pictures, if you yank the books with racially charged language of a bygone era (think Mark Twain's novels), if you refuse to restore the elegant antebellum plantation homes alongside the pitifully poor slave shacks, how on earth is anyone supposed to compare and contrast anything and in so doing formulate an honest and balanced opinion?
Slavery never looks as bad as when you can compare the lives of humans relegated to tumbledown shantys to those of their white counterparts basking in opulent stately mansions.
Take away those mansions and you lose the impact.
Today's children NEED to know that the South is about more than Martin Luther King Jr's famous march across the Edmund Pettis bridge or the cruel church bombing in Atlanta that cost the lives of innocent children. They need to know it's even about more than the monumentally important integration effort at a Little Rock high school.
They need to know that the South today is also the result of what came before MLK, Atlanta, and Little Rock. Like an equation in mathematics, the South now is the sum of the Before plus the After. Everyone should know who the players were, what slavery was, who condoned it and why and who condemned it and why. They need to understand the politics and culture of the antebellum era, the perspectives that led to secession, and how those attitudes fueled racism into the modern day. They need to know something more substantial about ALL the historic figures, from Andrew Jackson and Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant.
How can we possibly teach our children well if all we show and tell them is one side of the story?
I say put the Davis statue up alongside one of MLK or Frederick Douglass or Abraham Lincoln. Put facts on the plaques. Let viewers decide for themselves.
You don't do me any favors by rewriting history to make it more palatable. That's what they did in Soviet Russia for so many years when books lauding Lenin and Communism cluttered the shelves of every bookstore while the intriguing stories from the modern West were censored or banished altogether.
The Soviets perfected the art of historical revisionism.
Do we in America really want to do the same?
Case in point, the lamentable loss of authentic Southern history at every twist and turn.
As if removing statues, scratching off the wording on plaques, taking down pictures and putting other pictures in their places, removing books from schools and libraries will, in one jot or one tittle, truly change the past.
A whole slew of legislative efforts are on the table around the country to remove from sight the statues of historic figures like Jefferson Davis, who was many things before he was president of the Confederacy for four years. In the case of the Davis statue, it's actually a gift from the Sons of the Confederacy that can't seem to be given away. The SOC tried to give it to Virginia, but they couldn't find a place for it. Now, it's Mississippi that either can't or won't take it. Will refusing to erect the Davis statue make it any less likely that Davis was, in fact, president of the Confederacy?
In other places in years past the Confederate flag itself has been the source of grief. In Texas some years back, a plaque in Austin that made reference to the Confederacy was targeted for removal.
In Georgia, there's a move to get rid of a statue of three-term governor Eugene Talmadge at the statehouse. Will getting rid of this statue change the fact that Talmadge was a racist and a scoundrel?
See, this is the problem with some legislators -- black and white -- who don't really know what to do with themselves. They are conflicted even now, so many years after the Civil War has ended and the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s has, by many accounts, achieved its laudable goals.
In their efforts to make amends ad nauseum for a time in our nation's history that should never be forgotten, warts and all, they run the risk of doing the very thing they don't want us to do!
If you take away the statues, plaques and pictures, if you yank the books with racially charged language of a bygone era (think Mark Twain's novels), if you refuse to restore the elegant antebellum plantation homes alongside the pitifully poor slave shacks, how on earth is anyone supposed to compare and contrast anything and in so doing formulate an honest and balanced opinion?
Slavery never looks as bad as when you can compare the lives of humans relegated to tumbledown shantys to those of their white counterparts basking in opulent stately mansions.
Take away those mansions and you lose the impact.
Today's children NEED to know that the South is about more than Martin Luther King Jr's famous march across the Edmund Pettis bridge or the cruel church bombing in Atlanta that cost the lives of innocent children. They need to know it's even about more than the monumentally important integration effort at a Little Rock high school.
They need to know that the South today is also the result of what came before MLK, Atlanta, and Little Rock. Like an equation in mathematics, the South now is the sum of the Before plus the After. Everyone should know who the players were, what slavery was, who condoned it and why and who condemned it and why. They need to understand the politics and culture of the antebellum era, the perspectives that led to secession, and how those attitudes fueled racism into the modern day. They need to know something more substantial about ALL the historic figures, from Andrew Jackson and Robert E. Lee to Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant.
How can we possibly teach our children well if all we show and tell them is one side of the story?
I say put the Davis statue up alongside one of MLK or Frederick Douglass or Abraham Lincoln. Put facts on the plaques. Let viewers decide for themselves.
You don't do me any favors by rewriting history to make it more palatable. That's what they did in Soviet Russia for so many years when books lauding Lenin and Communism cluttered the shelves of every bookstore while the intriguing stories from the modern West were censored or banished altogether.
The Soviets perfected the art of historical revisionism.
Do we in America really want to do the same?
February 4, 2009
Speaker of the House must've missed math class
A new video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has surfaced on YouTube in which she claims the new stimulus package must be approved pronto or else 500 million American will continue to lose their jobs every month.
I find this interesting since the total U.S. population as of July 2008 is listed at just over 303 million.
Either the country has experienced exponentially high growth in just seven months or else Mrs. Pelosi might want to review her math.
I find this interesting since the total U.S. population as of July 2008 is listed at just over 303 million.
Either the country has experienced exponentially high growth in just seven months or else Mrs. Pelosi might want to review her math.
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