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Monday, February 28, 2011
"Patriarchy" unmasked.
It's becoming clearer and clearer that 90% of what we see labeled "biblical patriarchy" is in reality unbiblical matriarchy. As a recovered promoter of two of the biggest men in the business, and it is truly a business, I urge you to read this all.the.way.through.
hat tip: Shelley
Labels: Patriarchy
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday snippets...
It's Sunday again! The week has sped by, and half my time with the Virginia family is gone. I'm appreciating every moment...Haven't watched any news since being here, but my limited time on the 'net tells me that the dominoes are still rocking back and forth in the Middle East. Well, I guess the price of gas is telling me that as well :-(
So far I've resisted watching American Idol, other than a few clips, this year. I may jump in later in the season, but then I will have to ask the inevitable question, "What is that thing seated by JLo?"
It's a very nice time of year to visit Charlottesville!
I have to come to Virginia to get Chinese takeout delivered. What's wrong with this picture?
Getting ready to picket if The King's Speech doesn't win tonight. As in, win practically everything. That may not be completely fair of me, since it's the only one I've seen of all the nominated pictures...but I don't have any faith that today's Hollywood is capable of making a better picture.
And speaking of pictures, have you seen the new deal being offered to Amazon Prime members? Right now, it doesn't look like much, but it's offered at no additional charge and it's bound to have a wider and wider selection in the coming months. If I were Netflix, I'd be quaking in my boots. As a matter of fact, I'll be dropping Netflix (again) if Amazon can come anywhere near close to what Netflix offers. Because some months I don't have time to watch a single movie or streamed TV show, so I'd be glad to eliminate the $9 a month!
So it's a blast to be here with the three grandkids I see the least. They change so much in between visits that I am mesmerized to watch them play and eat and sing and dance...Erin, Jude, Savannah, GRANNY LOVES YOU!
My newest audio book is Half the Sky. This one is very hard to listen to. I'm expecting its political stance to be different than mine in places, but the issues it explores need to be a concern for every one of us.
And there, in no particular order, are the snippets from this week. Have a good one!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday edition of the Sunday Snippets...
Okay, I'm a day late. We had surprise company this weekend--both of our expectant-mommy daughters and lots of grandchildren arrived, and we've been busy!Don't call me tomorrow night. Or look for me on Facebook. The Papa and I are going to see Wicked! Yes we are!
On Wednesday I fly away to the east coast for a week to have a nice visit with Annie, Caleb, Erin, Judah, and Savannah. Since they're now the only ones who can't easily get back and forth to see us, I'm going to them :-)
Finished One Thousand Gifts this week, and finished listening to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Trying to decide which of my stack to start on next! So many books, so little time. I'm still working on two or three others...
Will someone please tell me where I can get a dishwasher that is NOT "Energy Star" qualified? I've had it with low-water, low-heat, low-noise, low-capacity, low-CLEANING dishwashers that take over two hours to not clean your dishes with non-phosphate detergent, only to require you to repeat it all again because you can only get half the dishes in and the ones you did get in are only half-clean. ENOUGH WITH GREEN ALREADY! I realize that if this post goes public I may be visited in the night by the Green Police, but if they carry me away then at least someone else will be washing my dishes.
Really, I'm so nauseated by the appliances and the light bulbs and the toilets and the "cleaning" supplies they're pushing on us that I've decided as a matter of principle I will not buy any product or service that advertises itself as "green" or "reducing carbon footprints." I like my footprints just fine and I'm fighting back with my pocketbook.
Molly makes GREAT cookies! Pass me another one.
Are you watching practically the whole Middle East come unhinged? Hey, when you have the Muslim Brotherhood call for the assassination of Qaddafi, it's a really scary world.
Today, Dr. Bernard Nathanson died. What a study in contrasts. He'll be missed.
There is a fountain, filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
Thank you, God.
Have a good (short!) week!
Labels: Books, Grandkids, Kids, News, The Papa, Theater of the Absurd
Thursday, February 17, 2011
On my necessary list.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
As one who has spent much of the past decade on narcotics and other drugs prescribed for pain relief, I find this study very interesting. I'd love to see my brain on drugs!Labels: Science
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
You just gotta be friends with your kids.
I apologize in advance for the photo on the page, but I'm sorry, did no one see this one coming?
Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday snippets...
I've exulted in what will probably be our last frosty-cold week in this oh-so-unusual winter. At least as the temps creep back toward our south Texas spring, I have had more than a normal string of truly winterish weeks. May it happen again next year...
All right. This is not fair. I should get to do the potty training years over again...why couldn't they have had THIS when I needed it?
There was something surreal about watching Egypt this week that was reminiscent of the jubilant crowds at the Berlin Wall in various Eastern European countries in the 80s, the protesters in Tiananmen Square in '89, and the tearing down of the Saddam Hussein statue in the last decade. While some of these situations turn out better than others, I haven't seen one yet where the dreams of the protesters come anywhere near being realized. It's worth remembering that no human is immune from the excesses and abuses of power.
Goodbye Robert Gibbs. We'll miss you. Or not.
This is the month where rubber meets road. Is the new crop of congressmen willing to make the REALLY hard choices? And will WE be willing to support them when they try to cut something from which we are personally benefiting if it's something the federal government shouldn't be doing in the first place?
Trust is a very hard thing to regain. Or to re-extend.
This week I'm listening to the fascinating The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. If you're interested in medicine, cancer research, medical ethics, women's health issues, the history of race relations in this country, or just love a good true-life detective story, don't miss this one.
And just in time to make a valuable contribution to my Scripture memory commitment this year, I found Janet Pope's little book, His Word in My Heart: Memorizing Scripture for a Closer Walk with God. What a blessing it's been. It's given me not only helpful hints for learning long passages, but more importantly it's given me even more motivation and rationale for doing it. So far this year, I've memorized all of Philippians 1, half of Philippians 2, and I hope to have the whole book in my heart by Easter. You can watch my progress on the left sidebar. (If it disappears you'll know I gave up!)
And here's another one I want to read this year: I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond, by Michael Oher. What a guy.
If you follow me on facebook, you know that I'm in the middle of yet another hunt for an appliance, this time a vacuum cleaner. It is so frustrating to go through a vacuum every year to two years. I think I just need a permanent cleaning service instead. How come I used my faithful old Kenmore for nearly twenty-five years and now I can't keep one for two?
Labels: Books, Good Stuff, News, Political Observation, Weather
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Hard to even imagine, isn't it?
Dozens of breast-feeding women plan to descend on the Hirshhorn Museum on Saturday for a "nurse-in" to highlight their federally protected right to nourish their babies in public.
The cause of the grass-roots gathering of lactivists: A Jan. 30 incident involving Noriko Aita, who was nursing her daughter on a bench in the Hirshhorn when she was informed by a Smithsonian security guard that she would have to move to the women's restroom.
Aita, a stay-at-home mother from Rockville, said she couldn't find anywhere to sit in the restroom, so she returned to the bench. The guard then told her to try sitting on the toilet. When she moved to another bench instead, another Smithsonian guard told her to stop.
During my two-and-a-half decades of nursing babies (1974-1997), I frequently nursed in public--restaurants, airplanes, amusement parks, beaches, etc.--and I was never once asked to stop or to leave. I can't figure out why when we think of ourselves as so progressive in other areas, this issue seems to be getting ugly... one where the general public feels the right to bully nursing mothers who are using their body parts for God-given purposes, as opposed to showing and using them for purposes that were MEANT to be done only in private.
Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Sunday snippets...
It was a strange weekend. San Antonio got hit with a freak 3/4" snowfall on Thursday, which would have been very welcome under normal circumstances (well, there's nothing normal about snow here)...but the precipitation and the icy air ruined all Nathan's BMT graduation activities AND made it impossible for all the north Texas and Oklahoma family to get here to see him before he leaves for Mississippi tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, we partied as hard as we could with the San Antonio crowd and we LOVED having Nathan at the house for two days. What we failed to do was to get many good pictures, but we'll make sure we remedy that on the next visit.
Too bad he couldn't have hung around for the Super Bowl...we've had a good time watching the game and playing Super Bowl Bingo with all the commercials! (The game ended well.)
The Papa missed most of the game as well, since he's once again in the Islands and made it to his hotel room just in time to catch the 4th quarter.
Yep, that's a snowball in my freezer. Who put that there?
Happy to see that Planned Parenthood is again getting some of the press they deserve. Shocked, they say. "We were profoundly shocked when we viewed the videotape released this morning, which depicted an employee of one of our health centers behaving in a repugnant manner that is inconsistent with our standards of care and is completely unacceptable." Uh...right. The whole organization is built on repugnance.
Is it just me, or has Hillary been looking REALLY tired lately? I don't think she could wake UP to a 3am phone call, do you?
Can you OD on corn dogs? Okay, just wondering.
And wouldn't this be wonderful. (But if you think your LAST flu shot made you sick...)
Did I mention that this week I ate the World's Best Fried Chicken Livers? Yeah, well I knew you'd want to know, even if you're glad that I ate them and you didn't have to. My brother definitely got whatever cooking genes were to be had in our end of the pool.
And this month...another one of our kids starts driver training. How many more times do we have to get to do this? It's not having young drivers that I mind...it's the stupid state laws that change every three weeks so you can never be sure of what they're going to ask for this time.
Ummm...is there a mute button on Ron Reagan? Just checking.
Tomorrow: Sourdough Banana Bread. Definitely gotta use these bananas.
If you're reading One Thousand Gifts, you'll understand: this week I want to make progress in living eucharisteo.
Have a great week, y'all!
Labels: Family, Food, Kids, Political Observation, Sanctity of Life, Science, Sundays, Theater of the Absurd, Weather
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Classical Writing update
In case any of you have been checking back to see what I think of our new writing program, I wanted to give an update.
We've been homeschooling for 26 years now, and I have never found a program that's brought us as much benefit as Classical Writing.We've tried Understanding Writing, Writing Strands, the writing component of Tapestry of Grace, and several others whose names I can't recall right now. While we've found some good points about all of these, we've never seen the kind of success we'd hoped for, either in results or in our ability to be consistent with the programs. And despite that fact that I am a writer, I was never very good at teaching writing skills. I can mark up a writing assignment just fine, but pointing out errors is a far cry from teaching good writing.
Well, so far this academic year, Tim has produced a dozen good pieces and has learned a lot of grammar and diagramming skills to boot. I will humbly confess that this is probably more than I've ever accomplished in an entire academic year with any of my other kids, as writing was always one of the first things to fall off during the crazy times (read: several times a year). Well, we've had our share of crazy times this year, with a wedding, travel, BMT graduation week, etc. and yet we've still managed to accomplish what I consider a tremendous amount of quality learning.
Granted, I am only teaching one student writing this year (John Caleb is taking his writing through our co-op). I can't claim that everyone is going to get the results we've gotten with Tim. However, Tim is a boy, and boys tend to be more resistant to writing than girls, and yet he is thriving in this program. As a matter of fact, what I've learned this year is that he's already a very good writer and I just didn't know it! He's enjoyed each piece he's done, especially because much of the material has been very guy-friendly: Trojan horse, Genghis Khan, etc. And during the weeks that we haven't been able to do a writing project, he's actually been disappointed, prompting me to check to make sure he's feeling okay. I've NEVER had this kind of writing enthusiasm with any of my nine, even with those who are natural writers.
Labels: Homeschooling
Friday, February 04, 2011
I'm sure you've heard it said, as a preface to the utterance of some near impossibility, "It'll be a cold day in hell when [insert severe improbability]." Only slightly less well known is the corollary preface, "It'll be a snowy day in San Antonio when [insert equally unlikely event]."
Well, I don't know how hell is feeling about now, but this must be the day for all the unlikelies to be rejoicing. Because it's a snowy day in San Antonio.
Now some of you will snicker at our 1/2-3/4" of snow while you're still digging out from your 22" driveway mounds. But consider: the last time we had even a dusting was in 2004, and the last time there was any accumulation was 1985. So there are 25-year olds in our city who have never made a snow angel or pelted their little brothers with snowballs. And there are many who've never seen snow fall at all.
While I dearly love a good snow and am one of the few in this country who can be snowed in for two weeks and still hope for more, the timing of today's snowfall following a week of hard freezes brings a bit of a sting: today, we were supposed to watch our son graduate from Air Force BMT (Basic Military Training) along with a large crowd of well-wishers from our family, church, and wider circle of friends. Instead, because all roads in our usually balmy city are closed this morning, there will simply be an "announced" graduation and Nathan will be free to come and spend the afternoon and evening with us, IF the roads open in time.
The winter storm was, all along, a very improbable occurrence in San Antonio. What was not improbable was our son's successful completion of his training and his passing through another gate of adulthood, one which has changed him in ways that will affect his entire life and future.While sitting and talking with him at the base yesterday, I was fascinated to see and hear the subtle changes in him as a result of two months of grueling training, profound disappointments, and soaring triumphs. Few experiences in a young man's life can distill all these into so short a time and make so large an impact as entry into the military. And it goes without saying that few career moves make such a large contribution to the Constitution's prescription for us to "provide for the common defense" as the one a young man or woman makes to enter our country's armed forces and serve her with vigor.
So today, in spite of the ice on the roads and the sub-freezing temperatures in our city, we honor our son as the newest official graduate of AF BMT and member of the Texas Air National Guard. Congratulations, Amn. Warren.
(Amn. Nathan J. Warren with his happy "significant other," Cheyenne Sabo)
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Coming soon to a state (or province) near you.
A couple in Laval, Que. has sparked a fierce debate over how far schools should go to teach children about environmental responsibility after their six-year-old son was shut out of a kindergarten draw to win a stuffed animal because he had an environmentally unfriendly sandwich bag in his lunchbox.
Marc-André Lanciault said he hadn’t heard of the school’s draw or any environmental policy until his wife, Isabel Théorêt, was making their son Félix a sandwich and he begged them not to put it in a plastic bag.“He said, ‘No mommy, you can’t do that. Not a Ziploc,’ ” Mr. Lanciault said.
Through tears, the boy told his parents that the school had held a draw to win a stuffed teddy bear and only children who didn’t have any plastic sandwich bags could enter. The family normally uses Tupperware, but it was all in the dishwasher, and so they had packed their son’s ham sandwich in a plastic bag.
When Mr. Lanciault questioned his son’s teacher, she confirmed the school had staged the draw at a lunchtime daycare and that any student with a plastic sandwich bag was excluded. “You know Mr. Lanciault, it’s not very good for the environment,” the teacher told him. “We have to take care of the our planet and the bags do not decompose well.”
Labels: Theater of the Absurd
Calm down, everyone...
...your spiral light bulbs and your hybrid cars and your low-flow toilets and shower heads are going to keep you warm in the long run. Just be patient and listen to Al Gore's take:
An Answer for Bill, February 1, 2011 : 11:43 AM
Last week on his show Bill O’Reilly asked, “Why has southern New York turned into the tundra?” and then said he had a call into me. I appreciate the question.
As it turns out, the scientific community has been addressing this particular question for some time now and they say that increased heavy snowfalls are completely consistent with what they have been predicting as a consequence of man-made global warming:
“In fact, scientists have been warning for at least two decades that global warming could make snowstorms more severe. Snow has two simple ingredients: cold and moisture. Warmer air collects moisture like a sponge until it hits a patch of cold air. When temperatures dip below freezing, a lot of moisture creates a lot of snow.”
“A rise in global temperature can create all sorts of havoc, ranging from hotter dry spells to colder winters, along with increasingly violent storms, flooding, forest fires and loss of endangered species.”
Please. Just trust Al. He's got it under control.
Labels: Theater of the Absurd
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
One of the joys of blogging has been meeting fellow-bloggers in real life, folks I might never have known without this medium. Yesterday, I had the privilege of meeting a woman I've only known by email and blogging, setting up a rendezvous at a Panera Bread close to Oklahoma City. I've corresponded with her, prayed for her, hurt for her, and rejoiced with her, and yesterday I got to share a meal with her. God's blessings come in the sweetest ways...thank you, Susie Dutcher!
(And why didn't we get a picture, huh?)
Labels: Friendship
Atlas Shrugged watch...
And no, this is not from The Onion, even though its absurdity begs that question:
Last Thursday, CNN reported that a Florida legislator has proposed a bill that would have public school teachers issuing a grade to parents. Yes, grading the parents. HB 255 provides that “each prekindergarten through grade 3 student report card shall include a section in which the teacher grades the parental involvement as satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory…” based on criteria set by the bill.
The whole idea of setting up public schools as overseers of parents is one more sign that American parental rights are in danger. Parents should not have to answer to government agents unless and until there is solid evidence of abuse or neglect on the part of that parent. Giving a grade to every parent clearly violates this constitutional principle.
In fact, this bill would espouse the same foundational principle as the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child: assume that all parents are bad parents, and that only government oversight can save our children from parental incompetence.
Totalitarian regimes are built on assumed guilt; the nanny state determines which citizens do or do not require their “services.” Florida’s bill would establish a system to do the same. A free nation, on the other hand, operates on the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. Parents do not need government intervention (interference) unless there is proof to the contrary. The Supreme Court has held that “historically, [the law] has recognized that natural bonds of affection lead parents to act in the best interest of their children.” Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979) Sadly, Florida’s proposed bill recognizes no such thing.
To find out more, and to register your concerns, go here.
Labels: Education, ObamaNation, Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd