Oh, WOW!
Posted by: Kathy on: December 12, 2009
We’re going the wrong way!!!
Posted by: Kathy on: October 20, 2009
- In: children
- 2 Comments
Recently, I’ve read several articles and blog posts and facebook stuff that is talking about how horrible America is for not providing maternal leave — the “best” we have is 12 weeks unpaid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, or for a primary caregiver to take off of work to care for a sick family member. One woman said that we need to “demand” paid leave, and that every country has paid maternity leave, ranging from a few weeks up to a year (I think Canada gives 52 weeks paid leave). The running theme through these posts is that paying mothers not to work after having a child is showing that maternal-infant care is a high priority, that the breastfeeding relationship is a high priority (because, really, how many working moms are able to successfully 100% breastfeed their children for the first 6 months, which is the AAP recommendation, and continue breastfeeding for the entire first year?), that “women count,” and all sorts of other feminine/feminist/woman-centered catch phrases and lingo that is designed to grab women’s attention and get them to say, “Yeah!”
I know some women truly have to work; and others just want to work although they could stay home. But a large percentage of working moms who are currently griping about not being able to afford to live on one income, or who can’t take 12 weeks unpaid leave, could actually do it. It would just require quite a bit of sacrifice on their part. I know, because I’m living it. Other than socks and underwear, I can’t recall the last new article of clothing that I bought in the past 5 years. Most of my clothes are older than that, and the remainder have been bought at yard sales or thrift stores (probably less than $50 total), or were given to me. Same thing for my children — they have my brother’s sons’ hand-me-downs, and an occasional yard-sale purchase, with the extremely rare new item of clothing. The only ones I remember, in fact, other than a bag of socks, was when both my kids got car-sick and threw up on themselves in the car, and we bought them each a shirt ($4 apiece, I think) for the ride home. Most of the gifts we give them are likewise from garage sales and thrift stores, with an occasional new item. Sometimes when I look at an item, I think, “It’s not so much the cost of X, but the cost of X plus all the peripherals it requires to run optimally!” — Like an iPod — while that’s expensive by itself, then you have to get a sock (or several socks, so you can be “unique” like everybody else), an arm band, a wrist strap, the earphones (and earbuds and headphones, depending on your mood), and then you have to pay to download stuff or have a subscription… It all adds up. Or satellite TV — not just the cost of installation and the contraption, but the monthly bills, plus the ever-present temptation to increase your service so you can get this or that channel, and the occasional pay-per-view thing… and then because you have such a nice satellite, you want to get a bigger TV so you can see better, or enjoy it more… and then because you sit around watching TV all the time, you gain weight, so then you get a Nintendo Wii, which is expensive for the contraption, plus you have to buy wrist straps and hand-gadgets, a step thing, and multiple games… Because you do it a little at a time, it creeps up on you, and you’ve spent your entire annual income with nothing to show for it, and at tax time, you wonder, “Where did it all go?”
The generation before mine didn’t have to worry about that as much — there were very few electronics on the market, and they tended not to be “the gift that keeps on taking” with all the peripherals and monthly fees. But there’s peer pressure now, and the “I see it, so I wanna get it” pressure, and “everybody’s got one, I want one too” pressure. And it’s not easy! It’s not easy saying, “No!!” It’s awfully tempting to leave my kids so I can work for stuff — stuff I see that other people have and enjoy, and I would like… but I choose not to.
And that’s one thing that really bugs me — I have made the choice, the sacrifice, to stay with my children rather than have a bigger house, nicer furniture, better clothes, more gadgets; and then there are people who are feeling like it’s their “right” to stay home with their kids, and make somebody else pay for it.
That’s the “going the wrong way” bit — I would LOVE for somebody to pay me to stay at home and take care of my children. I would LOVE to generate an income from doing what I’m supposed to do. But until some rich person comes up to me and offers to pay me to watch my own children, that ain’t gonna happen. What will happen, though, if legislation like this ever were to pass, is it would make women less employable, because such a law would undoubtedly color an employer’s decision on whom to hire. If they choose a man, they won’t have to deal with this whole paid leave thing, and trying to find somebody to hire for the weeks or year after a woman gives birth. [That has been one of the unforeseen problems with the Americans with Disabilities Act -- fewer disabled people were hired, out of fears of future legal problems.] Such a thing may even be unconstitutional, unless men are likewise given paid leave after the birth of a child (the old “equal protection” clause), and that would more than double the problem. Secondly, who is going to pay for this maternal leave? The company? The government? Either way, it screws things up. If Walmart suddenly has to pay thousands of people not to work, what do you think that’s going to do to prices? And if “the government” (that’s you and me) has to pay, then that’s going to result in much higher taxes. Either way, somebody else will be required to pay for you to take your paid leave. And if the collective “us” (either as consumer or taxpayer) has less money in our pockets (due to higher taxes or prices), that means more people will have to work more hours, in order to be able to afford to eat, live, and buy things. And if there is less money to spend, that means that women who would have chosen to stay at home with their children, and been able to do so on one income, no longer can, so they will be forced into working outside the home, thanks to women “demanding” that somebody else needs to pay them not to work.
Personality Type
Posted by: Kathy on: October 14, 2009
One thing I don’t like about Personality Tests, is that often the questions are “yes/no” and my answer is “maybe.” Then I have to choose an answer that doesn’t totally suit me. Another problem, is that there is a tendency to pigeon-hole oneself (or others) into a set personality, and then treat them like you think they are, rather than as they really are. But I took a test, and thought I’d like to remember the results, so here it is:
Jung Explorer Test
Actualized type: ESFJ
(who you are)
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ESFJ – “Seller”. Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.
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Preferred type: ESFJ
(who you prefer to be)
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ESFJ – “Seller”. Most sociable of all types. Nurturer of harmony. Outstanding host or hostesses. 12.3% of total population.
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Attraction type: ESTJ
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ESTJ – “Administrator”. Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.
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Take Jung Explorer Test
personality tests by similarminds.com
ARGH!! You don’t *need* a MoonBounce!
Posted by: Kathy on: October 13, 2009
Yes, another rant about the people on the local cheapcycle/freecycle networks! Grrrr….
Someone just posted that her kids’ birthdays are in early December, and she’s going to have a birthday party at her church and “really really needs” a MoonBounce and would like to borrow one, since she would be charged $150 to rent one for three hours. Then she says that “only about four little kids” will be on it.
I can understand her not wanting to pay the money. I wouldn’t want to pay it either, which is why I wouldn’t rent one either. But I can clearly distinguish between a “want” and a “need.” If only about four children will be on it, why get it at all? She seems to be throwing a party for her two children — is she saying that in addition to her two children, there will be only two other children at the party? Seems unlikely. Perhaps her children are twins, born just before and just after midnight, so they are just one year/old, or in some other way will not be among those jumping; perhaps most of the other invited guests are likewise very young children, so only four 3-y/o or higher will be there? Possible. Yet she not just “needs” but “really really needs” a MoonBounce? For four children to amuse themselves? Good grief!
Perhaps she was implying that she’d police the MoonBounce to make sure that no more than four children were on at a time — but that wasn’t what she said. And even if she had 30 children, a MoonBounce cannot, under any stretch of the imagination, be considered a need!
ROFLOL!!!
Posted by: Kathy on: October 9, 2009
Oh, this video is so funny!!
Race, shmace — we’re all the same!
Posted by: Kathy on: September 26, 2009
Back before Darwin, the term “race” used to mean people of a different country — for example, the English race versus the French race. Then with the popularization of evolution, and specifically the racist tome Descent of Man, there was the idea that man evolved from animals (specifically, the apes), and that some people (those with white skin) were more evolved than others (those with dark skin). Australian aborigines were actually hunted, stuffed, and mounted in museums as animals, although as animals that were almost human. Early proponents of evolution even theorized that the three “races” (Caucasian, Negroid and Mongoloid) each evolved separately from three different types of apes or monkeys. While few if any evolutionists will trumpet such ideas today, racism is deeply entrenched in our culture, in large part due to the century or so of such teaching, which culminated in the eugenics movement in America and elsewhere, and the Holocaust in Germany.
It is considered a racial slur to call Barack Obama a monkey, but not George W. Bush. This has its roots in evolution. It would be a slur to say a man was like any animal, but it is not considered racist to call a man a jack-ass.
While the evolutionists have softened their stance on race, they still say that the races took tens of thousands of years to develop. Many people think that today — that people of different racial groups must be vastly different or widely separated. But that’s simply false, and here’s a picture as proof:
This is a picture of a father, mother, and twin girls. The parents’ mothers were both white and their fathers were both black. So, one generation was “pure” white and “pure” black, and then the next generation was mid-brown, and the youngest generation again became lighter and darker than their parents. Although the girls look the same to me, as far as facial features go, based on skin color alone, they would be classified as different races — races that supposedly are widely divided by thousands of generations and tens of thousands of years. Hmm — doesn’t look like that to me!
Of course, this comes as no surprise to those who believe the Bible, because we’re all descended from Adam, and the New Testament reiterates that God has made “from one blood” all the nations of the earth.
Another reason to promote abstinence
Posted by: Kathy on: September 25, 2009
The launch of the so-called “Sex Degrees of Separation” (of course the title comes from “six degrees of separation” — the idea that every human is connected to every other human on the planet in six people or less — for instance, I shook hands with Magic Johnson when I was a child, so that is one degree; which means that every other person he has ever come in contact with would be two degrees away from me) shows the exponential problem of multiple sex partners. Here’s an article discussing it a bit, and here’s the calculator itself.
Of course, there are some assumptions in the calculator which may or may not be accurate. If two virgins marry, it doesn’t matter if the “average” man or woman has had 6-9 previous sexual partners (who themselves were also previously sexually exposed to multiple partners), their total risk is “1″. I would like to see the data and assumptions that this calculator is based on — certainly not monogamy!
Out of curiosity, I put in my real stats (my husband as my only sex partner), and it came up with an indirect exposure to over 1.2 million people. Mm-hmm. I put in my real stats for when I got married (to see if the ages made a difference), and it was 1.0 million people. So, despite the fact that my husband and I have been monogamous for the past 6 years, I somehow became indirectly exposed to an additional 200,000 people? Uh, yeah. Of course, the “average” person (who may not be real — some people will sleep with anything that moves while others may retain their virginity or at least be much more choosy) will sleep with more people the older s/he gets, so it would make sense for the relative risk to rise. But then, you can’t calculate your real risk, if you’re one of the outliers.
At the lowest risk (aside from virginity and zero sexual partners, of course!), namely being a 16-y/o girl whose last sexual partner was a 16-17-y/0 boy, you would be indirectly exposed to about 3,000 different people. However, if you’re a 16-y/o boy whose last sexual partner was a 16-17-y/o girl, your indirect exposure is “only” 17.
I just realized that you can calculate your risk going back to three degrees of separation, instead of six. Doing this for a woman sleeping with one 25-y/o man drops the risk from 92,280 to only 282. So, that could be a way to show lower risk from chaste or more-chaste people.
Back in college, I remember an experiment the biology teacher did, which was supposed to show the risk of sleeping around. It didn’t work… yet it did work. Each student took a vial of clear liquid (it looked like water), and we were supposed to mix and mingle with the other students, swapping fluid — you see how it could mimic sex. Since it was the first day, and most of us didn’t know anybody else in the lab, or we sat next to people we did know, we mostly just mixed fluid with the people who were closest to us. The teacher called out for us to “circulate and make friends,” but we still pretty much stayed within our 3-person lab groups, or at most with the lab group nearest us. Then after a little while, she came by and put a drop or two of a chemical into our vials, to cause a reaction with the heretofore unknown substance put into one (or more) of the vials that looked clear. It ended up that very few people had vials that turned blue. I think the person who made up that experiment intended it to show risk of having sex (swapping fluids indiscriminately with everyone in class), with many or perhaps even most of the vials of clear water turning blue. Instead, the reverse was shown to be true — that if you’re monogamous (only swapping fluids with your lab partner), then you lower or eliminate your risk of STDs. Since only a few people’s vials turned blue, it didn’t make a big splash, like the visual from everyone’s vial turning blue; but it made the point (in reverse) just the same.
Theistic Evolution
Posted by: Kathy on: September 24, 2009
Many Christians, overwhelmed by the so-called “scientific evidence” put forth by evolutionists, have kowtowed to them, and, unwilling to make a complete break with the Bible, have accepted both God and a godless evolution, mingling them into the incoherent “theistic evolution.” Basically, God created everything (which is the “core” of what Genesis really says [according to them]) but he did so using evolutionary means, just like the secular, atheistic scientists say.
This article blasts that position, showing it to be not just Scripturally untenable (despite the protestations of the theistic evolutionists I encountered after writing this post), but also to be intellectually untenable as well. It includes quotes from various atheists about theistic evolution, including,
Our best allies for defending evolution are members of the mainstream clergy groups.
This is because, as atheist Frank Zindler said,
The most devastating thing though that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of … evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed.
As this mother found out (first comment), once people accept evolution as a fact, with a bit of theology thrown in (God started the Big Bang and worked to “create” the universe including this planet and everything on it via materialistic processes and over the course of billions and billions of years), then it is but a small step to discard the idea that God had anything to do with it, because of the logical inconsistency of holding onto billions of years with one hand, and holding onto the Biblical creation account (which clearly shows just a few days of creation, and that only a few thousand years ago) with the other hand. Having accepted “the fact” of long-age evolution, the only thing left to challenge is the “theistic” part of it.
Atheists know this; too bad more Christians don’t. Even Dr. Dobson, of Focus on the Family, whom I generally agree with, is a long-age theistic evolutionist. Sad to say.
Does the Bible forbid abortion?
Posted by: Kathy on: September 7, 2009
- In: Bible| abortion
- Leave a Comment
There are some religious people who claim to believe the Bible (or at least the Old Testament), and say that abortion is not wrong, is not murder, is justifiable, is not prohibited by the Bible, etc. They will usually “argue from silence” and note that abortion as such is never mentioned, much less prohibited. Or they’ll take the passage in the Law of Moses that talks about if a pregnant woman is struck and “her fruit pass from her”, that it is not a murder charge — there is no taking of the striker’s life for causing the fetal demise — they assume that “her fruit pass from her” is a miscarriage, and the “evil” that may happen afterward is maternal injury. Others will note that this passage could easily (and, they say, more properly) mean that this is talking about a preterm birth in which the baby lives, and the “evil” that happens afterwards could be either maternal or neonatal injury. Obviously, in those days, there was precious little that could be done to save preterm babies, so it could easily mean that if the baby was big and old enough to survive, then the person that struck the woman and caused the premature birth would only receive a mild sentence for endangering the pregnant woman and by extension her fetus/neonate; but if the baby could not survive and/or the mother was injured or killed, then the person would pay with his life, if a life was taken, or he would pay some sort of restitution for the injury.
That’s about the sum total of so-called “Biblical support” for abortion that I’ve seen. If there are others that I’ve missed that you’ve heard of, feel free to add them.
Most Christians that try to answer this question or argument basically give the explanation I outlined in the first paragraph, in response to the “her fruit” passage; and say things like, “Of course abortion as such isn’t mentioned — it’s obviously murder, so wouldn’t need to be specially mentioned, any more than a specific type of rape or child molestation would need to be mentioned, other than a general prohibition against any sort of sexual conduct outside of marriage.”
While I agree with this, it doesn’t go far enough, because all the opponent has to say is, “The fetus is not a person and therefore cannot be murdered. It is not obviously murder.” Then the two people just end up in a stalemate.
The line of reasoning I’m about to put forth will only work for people who believe the Bible. The others will find some carnal excuse to continue to support abortion.
In the creation story, God created Adam and Eve in His image, and also the animals, and said that they each would reproduce “after their kind.” [Kinds are not necessarily "species" as we define them, but probably could be a "family" or "genus" as we classify them. All dog types, including domestic dogs of all breeds, wolves, foxes, dingos, etc. would have been originally one "kind," which speciated after the flood.] But, using species that are familiar to us, it’s obvious that dogs produce other dogs — they don’t give birth to cats; cats give birth to cats; mice give birth to other mice; cows don’t give birth to horses; humans give birth to humans, etc.
Later on in Genesis (perhaps even a few different times, plus other times in Exodus), capital punishment for murder is not just allowed but even required. Gen. 9:6 is one such passage. But more than just being a law given, this verse also contains the reasoning for the law: namely, “for in the image of God created He man.”
To kill a man is to kill God in effigy, which is why the murderer is required to lose his own life. He has, one might argue, made the ultimate insult to God. This is also, I would argue, why Satan loves murder so much. He would love to kill and/or dethrone God; but since he can’t, he will do as much as he can — and this includes killing men himself (perhaps by subtly encouraging them to do self-destructive things, including suicide, promiscuous behavior [becoming infected with lethal diseases such as AIDS], addictions to drugs and alcohol, etc.), and inciting them to kill each other — on a large scale like the Holocaust, or on a small scale like drive-by shootings. Also by abortion.
Because, as I said before, man produces after his kind. This has been proven by genetics — at conception, the male and female gametes come together, and their genes mix to produce a genetically new human. If that “conceptus” is taken and analyzed, it would show that it was definitely human, even though it was only a one-celled creature. It is also most certainly alive, biologically speaking, so to kill this life would be to kill a genetically unique human. To kill a man, a human, one of the human kind, one of the creatures made “in the image of God,” is to commit murder.
Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Study
Posted by: Kathy on: September 6, 2009
Generation Rescue has published the results of a telephone survey (which, btw, is the same way the CDC conducts its vaccine-related surveys):
“We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys.”
Read all the findings at the above link, which itself has more links, including the actual survey methods and questions, objections they believe will be raised to the survey and results, and more information.
Fight FOCA
