Cherry-pickers and Hypocrites

Last night, while I was bathing the kids, there was a knock on the door. A couple of “missionaries” from a local church of a particular evangelical denomination were going door-to-door, trying to plant butts in the pews (and, presumably, cash in their offering plates). We’re quite happy with our church, and Odysseus let them know that, but they shoved their “literature” (website here) into his hand, regardless. It rather irritated me, because it made a lot of assumptions, including one that my husband and myself are going to hell for breaking commandments.

I strongly resent that assumption, especially when based on cherry picking bible verses and interpreting them as badly as the writers of this little eight-page comic pamphlet did.

The Ten Commandments are the base on which Western law rests. It’s a good guideline, and we really need to work harder on keeping them for society’s sake as well as for our own, but they have to be understood before they can be followed. And the writers of the pamphlet did not understand what they were preaching about.

Let’s start with their first “commandment”: their interpretation of the 9^th commandment is don’t lie. At all. Ever. What the commandment actually says is “don’t bear false witness against thy neighbor.” In other words, don’t lie about people.

Next, is “don’t steal.” Yeah, that one is clear, and self explanatory, but they say not for any reason, and if you do it once (even as a child), you’re a thief, and will always be a thief. They took a simple commandment and simplified it down so that they could point fingers* at everyone not in their church.

Adultery they took a bit farther than I’d call acceptable—“ever looked at someone with lust? If so, you’ve committed adultery in your heart, which is the same as actually doing it.” Umm…not quite. I lust after my husband all the time (actually, every time I look at him). I look at other aesthetically appealing individuals, and it leads my thoughts back to my husband.

Not to mention, looking at someone with lust falls less under “don’t commit adultery” (Commandment 7), and more under “don’t covet that which belongs to someone else” (commandment 10).

Using God’s name in vain has been, in my opinion, badly interpreted by almost everyone I’ve ever heard talk about it. Yes, using God’s name in cussing isn’t good, and he probably isn’t happy about it, but true blasphemy lies in saying that God would or would not do or think or feel this or that, in support of our own bigoted opinions. You know, the whole “God is on our side, and is against theirs” thing. The worst I’ve ever heard is the Westboro Baptist Church’s assertions that our soldiers are being killed in the Middle East because God hates fags.

I’m not going to argue that He does or doesn’t. Most of the verses dealing with homosexual behavior in the bible are in the sections that are mostly focused on laws setting up health codes. I don’t recall reading much at all about the morality of it. I can’t speak for God, and those who say they can are committing blasphemy worse than those saying “G-D it!” in traffic.

The little pamphlet goes on to assert that we’re all horrible people that are going to hell, without even taking into account that just because we don’t go to their church, we might well have as good a relationship with God (better in some cases, worse in others) as they do. Most of the verses are kind of grabbed from here and there throughout the bible without regards to the context that the verse belongs in. And they condemn everyone not of their church without actually saying that’s what they’re doing. Even better, they forgot a couple of things that Christ said in His ministry: “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and “judge not lest ye be judged”. Granted, they probably thought they were demonstrating that they loved us as their neighbors, but they were judging us for not being members of their church, and assumed that we were automatically bad people that hadn’t accepted Christ into our lives.

The jokers that knocked on our door last night probably had their hearts in the right place, but they have their heads up their asses.

Distinction without a difference

I was talking to my mom, recently. She was complaining about her treatment in my home town, and how it's everybody's fault but hers.

(In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the delinquents and hippies doing the "Occupy" thing in various cities.)

In any case, I offered a couple of solutions (she could move, she could shop in about four different nearby towns, she could volunteer to let people get to know her and prove that the rumors she thinks are being passed around are false). She apparently doesn't want to solve the problem, just complain about it. She says she doesn't have the inner strength to do anything about it anymore.

"So, you've just let them beat you," I said.

"No, I quit fighting."

"You surrendered. You lost. You let them beat you."

"No, I just got tired of it and quit fighting."

Frankly, I don't understand the mindset behind that. Life, all of it, is a fight. If you quit struggling to keep going, you've lost. You've lost your momentum, you've lost the ability to do more than survive, you've lost any respect anyone had for you, not to mention any respect you had for yourself.

It isn't any wonder that she's so depressed.

Oh, shit.

The pixie has discovered that she's a biped. And she's only ten and a half months old.

I won't ask how this happened.

I know damn well how this happened.

The university where I teach has a teacher education program, one of the highest rated in the state. About a quarter of declared teacher ed majors flunk out of the program before they get into the upper division classes, because they're incapable of carrying a B-/C+ average (2.5) in core classes that should be a review of what they learned in high school. Another quarter flunk out because they can't pass the basic skills test required for licensing. Another third of the ones that pass have to take the basic skills test more than once.

In other words, teacher education programs scrape the bottom of the barrel in academics. If they insisted on psychiatric evaluations screening for abusive personalities and/or pedophilia, they wouldn't have anybody graduating with that precious degree that says they're more capable of teaching our sprogs than we parents are.

And it's just another support in the framework of my decision to home school my kids.

Golf clubs?

Well, I guess that's the best most residents of St. Louis can do. Personally, I wouldn't want to take on a pack of wild dogs bent on attacking my child (or even a single one) with anything less than a .380. And if the city we lived in wouldn't let me carry one, I'd be driving the kids to school--until we could move out of the city restricting our rights to protect ourselves and our kids.

Color me shocked.

I'd been suspecting that the whole "Occupy" protests weren't what they were cracked up to be. I never thought they were really normal, everyday, hardworking Americans who've been hit hard by this government-caused depression. I honestly thought they were spoiled children in their twenties and thirties (but mentally twelve), thugs, communists, Nazi sympathizers, and useful idiots.

It turns out I was right.

Can we please do something to chase these nitwits out of our parks? Low pressure fire hoses with soap and water ought to do the trick.

What's sauce for the gander...

The definition of hypocrisy is telling people to do one thing, and then doing what you told them not to.

Google and its CEO are a really good example of that: Google is under investigation for moving profits offshore to evade taxes, while the CEO says "higher taxes would not prevent him from investing or spending. Opponents say higher taxes would hurt growth."

Riiight. I'd think that the CEO of a company like Google would be wise to the fact that Google enables the common person to do a search to find little gems like the bit of hypocrisy mentioned above.

Aw, hell.

Michelle, did you have to live down to the stereotype that women (and Christians) are stupid and emotional in such a spectacular manner? Joking or not, this is worse than your hysterical shrilling about Perry and Gardasil.

She just lost my vote. Not that, once Cain announced that he'd be running, she had it in the first place.

A gramme is worth a damn.

I finished up grading last week's blogs for my Comp I students yesterday, and found this. Basically, the headshrinks want to force-medicate us all by adding lithium to our drinking water. They say that it'll reduce violence, dependence on illegal drugs, and suicide. Unlike Aldous Huxley's creation Soma, lithium is used to treat extreme mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Also unlike Soma, lithium has side effects which can indicate toxicity, or overdose.

Umm...no. Not just no, but hell no. Should this start, I would be switching myself, my husband, and my kids over to bottled water and looking for a home in the country with a well. I have been medicated in the past--including Prozac--and I'm still not over some of the bad side effects (namely, panic attacks, irritability, hostility, and aggression), especially of the drug named. I will not permit some "expert" to medicate my family, with or without a diagnosis.

O brave new world that has such people in't!

Wow. And I didn't think my opinion of bureaucrats could go much lower.

The bottom feeders in charge of Topeka, KS, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that, in an effort to avoid necessary budget cuts, they're going to refuse to prosecute crimes with real victims.

Odysseus said he didn't want to get into this particular can of worms, so I will. I have a better idea. Rather than telling Cletus that he ain't gettin' arrested when the he hits the little woman and she gets the gumption to call the cops (or Marlene that she ain't gettin' arrested when she hits her old man with a frying pan for telling her he liked his ex-wife's cooking better than hers*), try not arresting those involved in victimless crime. You know, like renting a prostitute, or possessing just enough drugs for your own use.

If Topeka, KS (a college town), would stop arrests on possession, they'd probably save their entire city budget three times over, in just the first six months.

Another (less likely) option would be to get rid of all of the senior undersecretary type positions in the city administration. Buuut....since the suggestion was made in an effort to not have to do that, poor Topeka is going to have to start stocking more concealer to hide the black eyes that each job saved is going to create, and hope to God that it doesn't get worse than that.

Because they can't refuse to prosecute when domestic violence pole-vaults into murder.

*This actually happened to my dad.

What do you do with sloppy joe leftovers?

If you have at least half a pound of beef's worth of leftovers, try this:

2 c elbow macaroni, rotini, ziti, or penne
1 can corn
1 can diced tomatoes

1. Cook and drain the pasta. 2. Drain corn and diced tomatoes. 3. Stir corn, tomatoes, and leftover sloppy joe mix into pasta. 4. Warm through, top with cheese.

This takes about ten to twenty minutes prep and cook time, and should be about four or five servings. Great for getting veggies down picky kids. The imp ate 'til his little belly was sticking out, and the ten month old pixie loved the tiny bits of hamburger and pasta bits I fed her.

Big day.

The imp is turning three today. We're taking him to his grandparents for the day in a little while. Right now, he's watching Growing Up... on Animal Planet. Yesterday it was sitka deer, today it's a dromedary camel. He loves this kind of thing about critters, and Animal Planet only has it on before 9:00 a.m.

Today is going to be so much fun, and the imp gets to spend the night with his grandparents tonight (which means I can finish my grading tomorrow before he comes home).

Since when are you not allowed to have firearms in your private property?

I'm sorry, but Florida has it wrong: it is not acceptable to tell college students (or public school teachers, for that matter) that they're not allowed to have firearms in their vehicles on school property.

Missouri dealt with this same issue, a few years back. It was found that a vehicle is an individual's private property, even if it's parked on public or state property. Schools and universities cannot tell an individual who is otherwise legal to have a gun on their private property that they can't have a gun in their car (private property).

Personally, I don't think the state has a right to tell people that they can't exercise their second amendment rights on state property (like a state university). I have no issues with individuals posting that their premises are target-rich environments, but states and federal agencies that post no weapons policies on their premises are doing so in direct violation of what they were told not to do.

Thank God I married my best friend.

I recently heard a song on the radio, one that came out a little over ten years ago, one that I'd tried to forget. Not because it was a bad song, but because it's a great one that has a terrible subject matter.

I remember being the kid in the song. I remember being one of the children in the middle of the divorce, the rope in the custody tug-o-war. My dad (abusive asshole that he was), didn't want us, didn't know what to do with us, and didn't want anything more than to hurt Mom...won the initial battle.

I lost count of all the promises broken by every adult around me. It's why I try not to promise anything to my children. I don't want to be the one that destroys the innocence that expects promises to be kept.

Thank God my kids won't ever have to go through their parents making empty promises as they split up.

Sorry about the bitter sadness in this post.

Surprising.

Apparently, people on Medicare/Medicaid are more prone to abuse prescription drugs than people who are not.

This surprises me not at all. If an individual would be otherwise inclined to abuse drugs, it's cheaper (though not cheap) to abuse illegal narcotics than to shop around for doctors and buy prescription drugs. However, if the government is going to pay for the doctors and prescriptions for you, there's no reason to spend your own money going the illegal route.

And the government wonders why the taxpayers wanted nothing to do with subsidizing healthcare programs.