My posting here has gone steadily downhill lately. I've either run out of things to say or just finally realized that I never really had that much to say.
I'm going to make a real effort to get back into the habit of writing pithy little rants and blowing up about things that don't really have any bearing on my life.
I've considered a number of tactics to rehabitualize the posting thing. I could use this as an outlet for making up words, a personal favorite pastime. I think one of my problems is the bogdownedness I feel with normal life sometimes. I've got a really sweet habit of getting myself into a personal funk from which all topics, even the rare good one, just seem like crap that I prefer not to plod through.
Good (or not so much) rants are another personal favorite. I can always think of something to bitch about, so perhaps I should admit that uninformed spouting of vitriol is my true forte and should just stick with that.
So with that, I'll wrap this post and begin an angry screed against something completely inane and pointless. I'll give it all I have, writing furiously while railing furiously, tilting at windmills with made up words full of sensity and knowability while simultaneously nonsensabacle.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
full quivers, empty heads
If that title doesn't piss off the over-breeders, then I will have to resort to even more inflammatory rhetoric, but I'm pretty sure that'll get 'em. If you think a quiver full is a good way to get a deer during bow season, you are obviously not up to date on the newest dominionist tactics.
God is the ultimate physician, or so we are told by a certain segment of fundamentalist christians. These people revel in having large families as they overpopulate the earth. The only birth control they use is faith that their supreme leader will decide if they need more babies. One must wonder, given this bit of insanity, whether they bother ever going to human doctors. You can't very well call god your doctor and then take your medical business elsewhere when he doesn't give you that physical that the new job says you need, but that's part of the christian thing where there words and actions don't really actually coincide so much.
What's wrong with having a bunch of babies? Isn't it their right as christian weirdos to overpopulate the earth? Who am I to suggest that their reasoning is both faulty and frightening? Are they suggesting that god is a condom and can decide to break or not based on whether he thinks you need more babies?
A quiver full of babies is considered a blessing, or so we are told. Does that mean that my youngest brother and his wife are somehow not worthy of being blessed? Because they had a hell of a time getting and staying pregnant. If you met any of my family, you'd have to also note that they are the kind of people who could be considered good christians. They follow the Bible's teachings and vote republican. How about my second oldest brother and his wife? They have three beautiful and bright daughters, but during the years they were having children, she had a couple of very difficult pregnancies and her own trouble producing.
My real issue here is one of absolute terror that these people are attempting to out breed people who think rationally. They are breeding christian warriors to eventually have enough votes to establish their theocracy. They don't want a free America with liberty and justice for all. They want to base national law entirely on biblical dogma, and since they can't do that as things currently stand, they will change it with masses of brainwashed children.
Christians have every right to pretend their scriptures make sense. They have every right to justify following certain parts of the Bible while ignoring other parts. It isn't my holy book, so I'm in no position to require that they follow it completely or interpret it sensibly. I can only use my knowledge of their book as I've read it, and I can certainly call them out when I catch that whiff of bullshit that follows them around.
The Bible makes very few references to breeding, and those it does are misconstrued to justify making more babies than they should. What the Bible does mention more than any thing else is that it's followers should spend their time taking care of the poor and the needy and the less fortunate. I'd think that children in foster homes, children needing a stable family, fall under all those headings. But certain people, assuming that god didn't mean for them to worry about other people, are too busy making too many babies so that they can send their christian army into the world to fight evil.
I have as many kids as I need. I come from a fairly large family, and I'm not completely against people having big families. I do think that people should use common sense when planning their families and controlling their own personal birth rate. What is a reasonable number of children? That's a question I can't answer. I do know that children should not be produced as political tools for future christian election wins, and that sounds to me like the plan when I read some of the writings by quiver full people. It's disturbing and frightening and wrong.
hat tip: this is a post I'd considered before, though it was reading at Spunky's place that got the brain wheels rustily cranking out my thoughts. Follow the link to a blog that I find well written and well thought out even when her beliefs make me cringe in fright. I don't always disagree with her, for what it's worth, but I hope like hell people like this never get in a position to dictate right and wrong for the country. Our current president has shown us time and again why overly faith based people aren't good at running nations.
God is the ultimate physician, or so we are told by a certain segment of fundamentalist christians. These people revel in having large families as they overpopulate the earth. The only birth control they use is faith that their supreme leader will decide if they need more babies. One must wonder, given this bit of insanity, whether they bother ever going to human doctors. You can't very well call god your doctor and then take your medical business elsewhere when he doesn't give you that physical that the new job says you need, but that's part of the christian thing where there words and actions don't really actually coincide so much.
What's wrong with having a bunch of babies? Isn't it their right as christian weirdos to overpopulate the earth? Who am I to suggest that their reasoning is both faulty and frightening? Are they suggesting that god is a condom and can decide to break or not based on whether he thinks you need more babies?
A quiver full of babies is considered a blessing, or so we are told. Does that mean that my youngest brother and his wife are somehow not worthy of being blessed? Because they had a hell of a time getting and staying pregnant. If you met any of my family, you'd have to also note that they are the kind of people who could be considered good christians. They follow the Bible's teachings and vote republican. How about my second oldest brother and his wife? They have three beautiful and bright daughters, but during the years they were having children, she had a couple of very difficult pregnancies and her own trouble producing.
My real issue here is one of absolute terror that these people are attempting to out breed people who think rationally. They are breeding christian warriors to eventually have enough votes to establish their theocracy. They don't want a free America with liberty and justice for all. They want to base national law entirely on biblical dogma, and since they can't do that as things currently stand, they will change it with masses of brainwashed children.
Christians have every right to pretend their scriptures make sense. They have every right to justify following certain parts of the Bible while ignoring other parts. It isn't my holy book, so I'm in no position to require that they follow it completely or interpret it sensibly. I can only use my knowledge of their book as I've read it, and I can certainly call them out when I catch that whiff of bullshit that follows them around.
The Bible makes very few references to breeding, and those it does are misconstrued to justify making more babies than they should. What the Bible does mention more than any thing else is that it's followers should spend their time taking care of the poor and the needy and the less fortunate. I'd think that children in foster homes, children needing a stable family, fall under all those headings. But certain people, assuming that god didn't mean for them to worry about other people, are too busy making too many babies so that they can send their christian army into the world to fight evil.
I have as many kids as I need. I come from a fairly large family, and I'm not completely against people having big families. I do think that people should use common sense when planning their families and controlling their own personal birth rate. What is a reasonable number of children? That's a question I can't answer. I do know that children should not be produced as political tools for future christian election wins, and that sounds to me like the plan when I read some of the writings by quiver full people. It's disturbing and frightening and wrong.
hat tip: this is a post I'd considered before, though it was reading at Spunky's place that got the brain wheels rustily cranking out my thoughts. Follow the link to a blog that I find well written and well thought out even when her beliefs make me cringe in fright. I don't always disagree with her, for what it's worth, but I hope like hell people like this never get in a position to dictate right and wrong for the country. Our current president has shown us time and again why overly faith based people aren't good at running nations.
english as a second language
I'm no linguist. I'm just a guy with a couple of drinks in him. Something that I believe is that, were I to move to England, I could easily learn English, but for now, I suppose what I speak can best be described as American. Another post for another time might be about the question posed to me some time ago by a Mexican coworker. He wondered why we in the US refer to ourselves as American when there are in fact a couple of other Americas that we sort of preclude from that designation.
So my point here gets back, hat tip style I suppose, to the book I mentioned in a different post. I'm reading An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, written by English food writer Elizabeth David. The problem I'm having is one I've also had with Julia Child with her definite French leanings. I should point out here that I have a huge crush on Julia.
I'm sure my attempts at pronouncing French sound really funny if I were trying to say them to a French person. Lucky for me they usually stay in my head, but that's where the problem comes in. When you are geek about reading random food related stuff, you find often that you're reading about French food of one kind or another as well as about French other stuff.
Sometimes I just get stumped by a word, and I end up with a snooty French man inside my head pronouncing the words in a variety of ways. I can run through a few words that seem to make a certain sense in my head, and suddenly, out of nowhere comes the hard one. I'm not pretending I get all the words right, but I get them right enough in my brain till the one word shows up. My brain beats at it every which way, but my complete lack of any real knowledge of the language cuts through all my confidence from earlier. And that little snooty French man starts saying the word in a very stereotypical French way, laughing AT and not WITH, at which point I'm doomed to stay stuck on this word until I put the book down and walk away for a while.
For what it's worth, I'm cool with the French. I have nothing against them really. They seem to have a nice enough place over there in Europe. Maybe one day, when mother powerball bestows her wealth on me, I'll take a trip out there and have some of their food. I hear it's good. Hell, I might even learn the language finally.
So my point here gets back, hat tip style I suppose, to the book I mentioned in a different post. I'm reading An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, written by English food writer Elizabeth David. The problem I'm having is one I've also had with Julia Child with her definite French leanings. I should point out here that I have a huge crush on Julia.
I'm sure my attempts at pronouncing French sound really funny if I were trying to say them to a French person. Lucky for me they usually stay in my head, but that's where the problem comes in. When you are geek about reading random food related stuff, you find often that you're reading about French food of one kind or another as well as about French other stuff.
Sometimes I just get stumped by a word, and I end up with a snooty French man inside my head pronouncing the words in a variety of ways. I can run through a few words that seem to make a certain sense in my head, and suddenly, out of nowhere comes the hard one. I'm not pretending I get all the words right, but I get them right enough in my brain till the one word shows up. My brain beats at it every which way, but my complete lack of any real knowledge of the language cuts through all my confidence from earlier. And that little snooty French man starts saying the word in a very stereotypical French way, laughing AT and not WITH, at which point I'm doomed to stay stuck on this word until I put the book down and walk away for a while.
For what it's worth, I'm cool with the French. I have nothing against them really. They seem to have a nice enough place over there in Europe. Maybe one day, when mother powerball bestows her wealth on me, I'll take a trip out there and have some of their food. I hear it's good. Hell, I might even learn the language finally.
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