Hate Speech
Posted by: Kathy on: August 20, 2009
Ok, if a preacher says that homosexual behavior is wrong, even though God says it several times in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, that’s “hate speech,” because it might incite someone to go do something bad to a homosexual. But this guy can say, “We need to exterminate white people,” and it’s not a problem? not hate speech? Oh, come on!
He starts off well enough — he views the problems endemic in the society he was raised in, and made a choice to leave Brooklyn and go to North Carolina. Fine. He and his wife had two of their three children at home with midwives. Excellent! Preach it, brother! He determined to live debt-free, and even built a log house with his own hands debt-free. Awesome! More power to you! He and his wife saw the disease and other negative impact from poor diet, so changed to being vegan, and have been vegans for 30 years. I’m sure that has helped many people overcome disease, obesity, etc., and was a wonderful choice to make (although I do think that some people do need meat for best health — but probably not as much as the average person consumes on a daily basis). When I was on a vegan diet, I felt excellent and lost a lot of weight. I’m getting closer to that diet once again.
Then he gets a little… well… off. I think he has some wonderful insights into the problems of the world, although he views them as solely the problems of black people, and caused solely by white people. From a Biblical perspective, we see that everything God does, Satan wants to mess up. God gave family, Satan attacks the family in a multitude of ways, including teenage promiscuity, easy divorce, easy adultery, etc. God gave sex, Satan attacks sex in a multitude of perversions. God gives food, Satan urges us to eat too much of it, and mess up the God-given food with a bunch of man-made chemicals that are actually harmful although they taste good. That sort of thing. Of course, fallen man can mess up things pretty well all by himself, but we must remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against angels and principalities,” etc. So, our primary enemy is not man nor men, particularly men of different skin colors. Our primary enemy is spiritual — Satan. God made man in His own image, and Satan likes for men to die, regardless of how, where, when, or who, because it is killing God in effigy. Murders of all kinds, including abortion, suicide, suicide bombers, euthanasia, all feed into this.
This man is right when he perceives the high death rate of black people from all different types of problems (abortion, pre-term birth, infant mortality, childhood death, drive-by shootings, gang-land slayings, other types of murder, disease, drugs, etc.) as being orchestrated. But he’s got his head stuck so far up his color that he can’t see that these things affect all of us, and it’s not just “white people” who are in control of all these things. There are some do-gooders that really think that the social experimentation that we have been under for at least the past 70 years, if not even further back to Darwin’s time, or before, is actually beneficial to the people that are under it. It seems plausible — single mothers have a hard time making ends meet, so let’s let them have abortions so they won’t be burdened with a child. Yet abortion carries with it unintended consequences — not least of which is the societal devaluing of human life, partly evidenced by the increased incidence of child abuse. Lack of education leads to poverty, so let’s get everybody education. Well, has that really helped? Are we more or less poor, are we better or worse educated, than we were in the 1930s? I’m not decrying education — but there is a reason people choose to homeschool their children, and for the most part it is because they do not think the education in the public school system is good enough. And they’re right. Homeschooled children consistently outrank public-schooled children in every subject, at every age. A nice idea in theory, but in practice, not so much. The problem is not with making sure that every child is educated — that is still a laudable goal! The problem is the way the children are being educated (or not), and the unintended side effects of the way the current public-school system works. We are seeing a gradual (or not so gradual) consolidation of power into central units — for example, instead of education being on a small, local level with a lot of local accountability, we see education is a federal thing, with all the bureaucracy that entails. This means that they have to take a “one size fits all” mentality to solve the problems — but that doesn’t work, because one size almost never fits all. The problems in Brooklyn are different from the problems in rural Mississippi. This consolidation of power also leads parents to become less involved with their child’s education. My husband teaches school in an area with a high percentage of black kids, and it is a poor school district. He deals with these problems all the time — parents who want their kids to learn, but either don’t help or encourage them at home, or even actively though unconsciously cause problems for their kids by their attitudes and enabling, or disabling. This is happening everywhere, in every aspect of society.
But this guy’s conclusion is completely wrong. In addition to the wild conspiracy theories he spouts from time to time. His conclusion is, [paraphrased] “White people are the problem, so we need to kill all white people. White people are trying to kill us, so let’s exterminate all white people.” Hitler said this about the Jews. I bet David Duke says this about black people. There are plenty of people who will let color, ethnicity, and heritage divide the human race into artificial groups of people, and pit one group against another. The last thing we need is for more fomentation of racial anger, tension, and strife. Rather than focusing anger one against another, the “one solution” he is looking for (which he has decided is to kill all white people) is to fight against the “spiritual powers in high places” — namely, Satan.
The odd thing, though, is that he has figured out and is living the perfect solution, even though he doesn’t recognize it as such: namely, to stop participating in the destruction (however that destruction is coming — whether through eating refined foods, smoking cigarettes, living in debt, killing other people, etc.). But instead of urging people to follow his footsteps into health and financial peace, he’s urging them to kill the “white oppressor.” There are two ways out of oppression — one is to kill the oppressor, and the other is to refuse to be oppressed. He has figured out how to do the latter, so I don’t know why he is pushing the former.
I’m gonna have to start shopping at Whole Foods now!
Posted by: Kathy on: August 14, 2009
We live about 90 minutes away from the nearest Whole Foods, so this won’t be easy, but I want to support the company because of this bold and commendable op-ed piece the CEO wrote against ObamaCare. I agree with him, that the current proposals are too expensive and don’t address the root issues; and that his suggestions will go a long way in minimizing the perceived problems in health care. Here are the eight points:
- Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs).
- Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits.
- Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines.
- Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover.
- Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
- Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost.
- Enact Medicare reform.
- Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
He goes into greater depth in each of these points in the article (except the last one, which is completely self-explanatory — except I wonder how many of these liberals who are so ready to force everyone else to be charitable will be freely charitable themselves); plus has more commentary on reasons why health-care is so expensive today (preventable things like smoking, drinking, eating too much — things the Whole Foods crowd usually laps up).
Unfortunately, there has been the typical knee-jerk reaction from some loyal Whole Food customers who are now calling for a boycott of the company. Yeesh! From what I’ve seen, there hasn’t been a lot of dialogue from them as to why these things are so horrible — just that the author opposes government intrusion into the health care arena, specifically in the area of ObamaCare, and the proponents don’t want to hear alternatives.
If anyone has any reasons why the above won’t work, and ObamaCare will, that’s one thing. But these things seem sound to me. I wanted to get some organic spelt grain anyway!
What a doll!
Posted by: Kathy on: July 19, 2009
An apple doll. Which I’ve never heard of before today. I found her at a yard sale — paid all of 25 cents for her — and spent the afternoon trying to figure out what she was. By looking through pictures on the internet, I found a doll blog, and wouldn’t you know it, she posted something about making “apple dolls” just a couple of days ago! Although my doll is black (perhaps from age), she looked rather similar to the pictures here. (One picture appears below; but you can find out how to make apple dolls by going on the link.)
apple dolls
And here’s my doll…
Full-body shot, front
and the back.
Full-body shot, back
She just intrigued me. Kind of, one of those “what in the world?!?” moments. And for only a quarter — I just couldn’t pass it up. My kids are kinda scared of her. And I don’t blame them — I didn’t show her to them at first, because I thought they’d be scared. When I bought her, I wondered if she could be a voodoo doll, since her body was rather soft (perhaps stuffed with cloth or something — although she does have some sort of metal wire in her insides that you can feel if you’re looking for it, and she seems to be posable, although of course I haven’t tried to move her like that), and her face is, well, creepy. As part of my research into her today, I looked up voodoo dolls. Lots of creepy stuff on voodoo websites! I would not recommend looking up that sort of thing unless you like stuff like that.
I couldn’t imagine what her hands and face were made from, because they’re spongy — certainly not wood, nuts, cloth, metal, porcelain, plastic — anything one might imagine a doll might be made of. But she was made from an apple. Astounding. But it’s actually more surprising to me that I discovered in just a few hours what she was made from. I love the internet! I hope that I will learn more about her soon. I emailed the lady on the link I provided above, but for some reason it got kicked back (maybe I accidentally didn’t copy her address correctly?); so I emailed another “apple doll” lady she linked to, who confirmed that it is indeed an apple doll, and said, “a very, very old apple doll.” That probably accounts for her color. Other possibilities to rule out is that a different fruit that naturally dries darker was used (something like a plum, because her face does look like a prune, but not sticky/shiny), or that she was painted black, for the intention of being a black woman. But she has blue eyes.
I’ve tried to find more information on her — pictures of black “apple dolls” but have come up empty. There is a website called “black apple dolls” but those are just a particular pattern of doll made with cloth — not like my little lady at all. Her clothes are partially hand-sewn and partially machine stitched (judging by the straightness and evenness of the skirt’s side seam, and the carefully hidden stitching of the rick-rack on her skirt. The fabric looks and feels authentically old — not a reproduction. She’s just… interesting. I’m glad I got her.
If you want to see more pictures, I’ve got them all uploaded here.
Making do with a small space
Posted by: Kathy on: July 3, 2009
This is in response to a blog post I read, but my reply was too long to leave as a comment, so I’m putting it here and linking to it.
When I first read your post, I didn’t think I had anything to offer — my husband and I lived in >900 sq. ft. when we were first married, but moved when we our firstborn was 4 m/o. But I realized that sometimes “it’s not the size that counts — it’s how you use it!” 
Our condo had great closets — several large ones; our house (which is more than twice the size) has pitiful closets, although we do have an outdoor shed where we can store out-of-season clothes, etc.
In some ways, we feel more cramped or disorganized currently than we did before, and that’s because we don’t have a good place to keep our stuff that we’re not using, so everything is out all the time.
My FIL has a small cabin on a lake where we go on vacation, and that also requires maximizing the space that is there, even more than our condo did. After spending some time there over the years, I guess I do have some advice on living in a tiny space. In no particular order…
* purge!! — get rid of things you don’t use and don’t need. You may want to store your stuff, but think if it’s really worth it ($60/mo storage fee x 2 years = $1500) — there’s a lot of things you can sell at a yard sale or even give away and then buy it later at another yard sale for $1500. Perhaps family or good friends can store your grandmother’s china cabinet for you (or other non-replaceable items); or you can let them have your excess stuff, and as you need a single item, go get it. (Assuming you’re going to be living close enough to friends or family.) Sure, you enjoy home-made pasta once a year, but that gadget takes up valuable space for a limited use.
* go vertical — whether that’s bookshelves, over-the-door shoe holders (which hold *so* much stuff — we have one in the cabin bathroom for all our toiletries, and it has made a huge difference), putting things in bins that can stack one on top of the other, or bunkbeds (they even have triple-bed bunks), you can maximize your space by going up-up-up. Instead of having your kitchen utensils lying neatly in a drawer, you can put them in an empty canister. Get a hanging pot rack for your kitchen — if you get one with enough hooks, you can put your pots and pans on it plus many other things like your colander, grater, pot-holders, ladles, etc.
* organize — when we undertook the scary task of cleaning, purging, and organizing the cabin last year, we were amazed at how much storage space had been wasted not just by having stupid stuff stuck in odd places (boat motor under the bed? why not in the basement?!), nor by junk that should have been thrown away years ago (blankets that mice had made their homes in for several winters), but also by things having just been shoved into a closet willy-nilly with no actual attempt made at organization. Sure, all the games were in the game closet, but they were not neatly stacked so they were all accessible. My FIL’s tools for his hobby were scattered all over the cabin, with duplicates or even triplicates of many items, simply because he didn’t know where they all were. We put everything like that in one spot (all the screwdrivers in one ziplock bag, etc., with all the bags in the same drawer), so now if he needs something, it’s all in the same place.
* make use of odd places to stash things — get the bed risers to get more space for putting stuff under the bed; get dressers or other things that close so things can be out of sight and out of mind. You can store canned foods under a bed or behind a couch, or put board games under the couch. Just remember where you put the stuff.
* maximize storage — my most recent discovery is the vacuum “space bags”. As long as they hold their seal like they claim, I think it’s a marvelous invention. (I just got them yesterday, so don’t know first-hand how it all stacks up, but so far, so good!) They’re reusable, which is great, especially considering how much they cost. If space weren’t an issue, you might just choose to put your clothes in boxes or bins and stack them in the attic or something; but these bags let you store your stuff in half the space or less — it’s amazing. You can put extra pillows, or winter blankets, or clothes that an older child has outgrown but a younger child hasn’t grown into, (unless you’ve gotten rid of this stuff in your purge), into these bags and shrink it down to much less space. At the cabin, there was extra bedding and pillows and stuff that completely filled the under-the-bunk-bed space, plus half the top bunk and a little extra from another room, and I was able to shrink it down so that everything fit under the bottom bunk, with space to spare.
* a place for everything, and everything in its place. This includes a lot of the above things, but it’s a real sanity-saver in a small space. Get rid of excess kids’ toys, and teach them to put everything away in the proper bin, which can be stacked against the wall on top of the rest of the bins when they’re done playing. You can follow the same principle elsewhere in the house — depending on the size of your new kitchen and how much you cook/bake, you may need your countertops free most of the time, which means you’ll have to put away stuff when you’re done using it; or you may not need so much space, and then you can keep out the coffee-pot all the time. But having stuff out of place will make a space feel disorganized and cramped, even if it’s not.
* get more storage things — plastic tubs or bins you can fill and stack; those 6-foot tall cabinets; plastic drawer caddies that craft-y people use to store their papers or photos or baubles; or toy/quilt/hope chests; beds with built-in storage (I think they’re called captain’s beds) — basically, anything that goes vertical and/or closes to hide your stuff. Get rid of your current coffee table and replace it with a hope chest; replace your end tables with a toy box (a small chest). Your bedside tables (if you have them) can also be replaced with small storage things — a miniature chest of drawers or a cabinet or something.
* You may even go with not having beds (at least for the kids), choosing instead to go with roll-out mats that can be stored away during the day (most of the world probably uses this); or go with things that are small, portable, collapsible, stackable, etc. — folding chairs and card tables, bean bags, floor pillows, etc., instead of couches and dining-room tables and chairs. Things that have multiple functions are preferable to those that have just one. This may include appliances — a tea kettle can only boil water; but you can boil water in a pot on the stove, as well as make soup, heat up leftovers, etc., in the pot. Depending on how many bedrooms and how many children you have (and what ages & sexes), you may need to have one or more children sleep in the living room, so may choose a futon for them to sleep on at night which becomes a couch during the day.
* Don’t worry about what other people think “everybody” should have — if “everybody” should have a dining room, but your family never actually uses it, preferring to eat in the living room in front of the TV, then you can ditch the dining room furniture and use that space for an office. It’s *your* space, so *you* need to define it with the way *you* use it, not how “everybody else” thinks it should be. Probably the majority of people in the world (currently and throughout history) have lived in small spaces, with one big multi-function room and *perhaps* bedrooms as well; they “make do” and you can too.
Here’s what I don’t like about a lot of kids’ videos…
Posted by: Kathy on: June 12, 2009
- In: children
- 3 Comments
The basic story line of far too many kids movies and TV shows is that you have a kid who is some form of brat — yells at his mom, lies to his dad, is sullen because he has to visit his grandparents, etc. — and then over the course of the movie, he is transformed from rotten child (through the power of Barney or whatever) into a good-natured and/or happy kid. I don’t mind the ending, but I don’t like the bratty beginning. In addition to the near glorification of the bad behavior (since the brat is invariably the hero of the show who ends up saving the day), it seems also to reward the bad behavior rather than punish it. Take Home Alone as an example — Kevin is a bratty kid who is accidentally left behind while his family goes to Paris for Christmas, and he ends up saving his home from being robbed. The silver lining (aside from the fact that it is a hilarious movie and I enjoy watching it) is that he is at least punished for his brattiness early in the movie, by being sent upstairs for his rotten attitude. But too many movies don’t show the punishment, or (as in the case of Home Alone), the punishment is too mild for the “crime.”
I just don’t think that most kids, especially little kids, make the connection that the bad behavior early in the movie is really bad and ought to be punished, rather than emulated. It seems to me that movies should focus on “good kids” and rewardthem for their good behavior, rather than on the bad kids.
Another thing is that some movies tend to focus on other negative traits, and I am afraid serve to instill fear or anger or whatever in kids, rather than help kids work through it. Maybe I’m lucky, but my kids have never been afraid of monsters or of anything in their room with the light out (although I do have a nightlight). I also am particular about what they watch, trying to minimize the scary stuff if at all possible, and explaining things that might be potentially scary to young minds. But there are movies that portray kids who are terrified of monsters, and although everything turns out all right in the end, it still plants that seed of “maybe there’s something to be afraid of” in little kids’ minds. If a kid is already afraid, then maybe they need to watch the movie to see that there’s really nothing to be afraid of after all; but to take a kid who has no fear but is safe and secure, and show him that other kids his age are afraid of boogiemen, then it makes me think it will make him afraid when he wasn’t before.
That’s one thing I like about Thomas the Tank Engine — the engines are usually helpful and cheerful; and when they have a rotten attitude, bad things happen to them, and they see the error of their ways and apologize. But I’ve turned off some kids’ movies and TV shows because of the snottiness portrayed without swift correction. In fact, this post is inspired by “The Barney Movie” somebody handed down to my kids. I like to screen things before my kids see them, and the movie started off with a preteen boy acting sullen for having to visit his grandparents (I’m thinking this is what it is — I fast-forwarded the very beginning so missed it; he may be sullen because he had to move and leave his friends or something), and then segued into him grabbing his little sister’s Barney toy out of her hand and running through the house hiding so she couldn’t get it. My older son already teases my younger son as it is — he doesn’t need more advanced lessons in the art of teasing!! And I don’t want him thinking (especially at his young age) that there is something wrong with going to visit his grandparents (because he loves to take trips, particularly to see Grandma), nor that he can act sullen with impunity.
I’m not naïve enough to assume that if he never sees bad or negative or sullen that he will never be bad or negative or sullen. Quite the contrary — his heart is already bent towards “bad” so why encourage it?! I hope that by surrounding him with good influences that he will be less inclined to act according to his negative desires, but will be molded into Christian principles — by force of habit at this point, but paving the way for making it easier for him when he gets a new heart, by God’s grace. “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”
SHMILY — 30 days of prayer for your husband
Posted by: Kathy on: June 3, 2009
A Facebook group has been started based on Stormie O’Martian’s book The Power of a Praying Wife. I’ve read this book before, but have let slide the things written in it. So, this is good to have a group effort, an accountability “team” as it were, to keep me focused and on track. Because of the way Facebook operates, she can’t send out mass emails to as many people as have joined, so she’s doing the daily posts on her blog. If you read this early enough in June you will easily be able to “catch up”; or if you want to take it one day at a time so you can have a full 30 days, you can just have today be your first day. Sometimes we underestimate the power of prayer; I trust that this will show us some of the great benefits in store for us as we follow God’s Word.
Oh, and “SHMILY”?? — “See How Much I Love You”
Reflections
Posted by: Kathy on: June 2, 2009
- In: abortion
- 2 Comments
In the wake of the murder of notorious abortionist Dr. Tiller, some of my pro-choice acquaintances have given me some links as “food for thought” for why abortion should still be legal. The first story was a woman who had an abortion with wanted twins because one twin had died and the other was nearly dead, and her health was deteriorating very quickly as well (high blood pressure, no urine output, etc.). I consider her abortion to be life-saving, not merely health-saving, unless I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle. It was also carried out when she was 22 weeks along, so the chances of her baby even surviving were very small, so we’re not talking about third-trimester abortions that kill viable babies, which is what Tiller was infamous for.
The other blog post was the story of a woman who also killed her wanted baby after finding out that he had some sort of deformity that might kill him in utero, or soon after birth; and at the most, he might have a few years of life, with painful surgeries that would be necessary to extend his life, and his particular problem was such that the baby would have constant muscle spasms and be in pain. Let’s assume she was correct in this. She made it sound like her choice was a mercy killing, and even picked a Bible verse, “Do unto others…” as her reasoning behind it, saying that she wouldn’t want to be in pain, so that gave her the right to kill her baby. But what stood out to me is that she stated that his disease or deformity was such that he likely would be stillborn. So, no abortion would then be necessary, to save him from being born alive, right? Also, she said that he would have to undergo surgeries to extend his life. No, he wouldn’t. Parents choose all the time to withhold treatment from their children that have marginal benefits — and in fact, some doctors will refuse to perform surgeries or otherwise care for or treat babies they consider to be unable to be saved, and therefore not worth the effort. About a year ago, I read a blog of a woman whose baby had Down Syndrome, and also had a particular heart defect or two, and her doctor refused to operate on the baby, saying that it would not be worthwhile to perform the surgery that could save his life because the second defect also had a high death rate, and it was not curable by surgery. Well, God cured the baby — the other defect just went away, with no medical justification or reasoning; then the doctor performed the surgery (three months after the baby “should have” died). Doctors have also refused to resuscitate babies who are born with anencephaly, as another example.
So, going back to this woman — she killed her baby when he likely would have died of natural causes before ever seeing the light of day; and even if he had been born alive, he likely would have died very soon. My sister-in-law died of colon cancer several years ago, and although her case was terminal, if I had gone over to her house and “put her out of her misery” by killing her two days before she naturally died, I still would have been a murderer. I understand to some extent this mother’s feelings, because I wouldn’t want my child to suffer — I didn’t even allow my boys to be circumcised! But I still fail to see where anyone gets the justification to take an innocent person’s life — that belongs to God alone.
In case you want to know — I’m not glad Tiller is dead, and I think his murderer should be punished for his crime. We have a rule of law in the country, and we are not allowed to take justice into our own hands. This was the action of one nut-job, not indicative of the entire 160,000,000 pro-life people in this country. If you want to check out more reasons behind why Tiller’s death is bad for the pro-life movement, or if you want to get more information about Tiller and his replacement, or anything about abortion, you can check out Real Choice.
A powerful story of forgiveness
Posted by: Kathy on: May 31, 2009
Click here to read the story of betrayal and forgiveness, of breaking matrimonial vows and restoration.
The Devious Side of “One True Love”
Posted by: Kathy on: May 20, 2009
It sounds so innocent, doesn’t it — “One true love”; “my soulmate”; “my life partner” — who knew that it could actually be used to cause more divorces than marriages?
Let me give you my background, so that you know I’m not a bitter, angry woman who ended up on the wrong side of “true love.” I am married to my one true love, my soulmate, and my life partner. I don’t have a problem with the terms, necessarily. The problem comes in with how they might be used in a nefarious way.
Here’s the deal: every marriage, every relationship has its ups and downs, its good times and bad times. Too many people have the idea that when you’re married to your “soulmate, one true love, life partner” or whatever other term one may use, that you won’t have any problems, or that what problems you have will be mild or self-limiting; and that if you have any “real” or serious or deep problems, then that is an indication that you must not be with your “one true love.”
See how that line of thinking harms your relationship?
Instead of “my one true love” leading you to think that your relationship is worth fighting hard for, it ends up leading you to think that your relationship is either going to be always a piece of cake, or else it’s a wrong relationship, or not the “right” one. Therefore, if it’s not the “right” relationship, then there must be someone out there who is your “one true love,” and it’s better for you to let go of your current relationship, so that you can be free again and hopefully find your “real” one true love some time in the future.
But the sad reality is that if you can’t put forth enough effort to save your current relationship despite its faults (or despite the faults of your spouse), then it is entirely possible that you won’t put forth enough effort to save any future relationships with any future “soulmates” you find. [This is not to say that all relationships can be saved. But I simply cannot believe that more than 50% of all marriages should be doomed to failure, which is what current statistics show.]
So, by all means use “one true love” as long as it works to your advantage. But when it becomes a weakening force, discard it, and just work on saving your marriage.
Fight FOCA
