Gay marriage fantasies—I don’t think it is the benefits

It's interesting that more young people, liberal and conservative, Christian and non-, have become more favorable about gay marriage--but not so much for traditional marriage, the one promoted in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and all civilizations from the beginning.  They’ve fallen for that “rights” argument—the carrot of government benefits.  Ha!  Marriage in the last 20 years for young adults is becoming more and more optional, with the children walking down the aisle with mom and dad, if they marry at all.  All the government studies in the world that show their own children are less likely to thrive haven’t budged their opinion that shacking up is more fun and economical.

I know a lot of older couples (male and female) living together, who I assume know about all those wonderful government perks gay marriage proponents  seem to seek.  Yes.  She ran into her 1950s boyfriend at the reunion, but they don't want to give up her alimony, so they have a commitment ceremony spoken by a preacher who got her license on the internet and see a good lawyer to protect their assets which will go to the children.  Or her husband died 30 years ago, she's got a good pension, they keep their homes separate, but are always together, on trips, outings and social events. Or they don't marry because of consanguinity or they were formerly in-laws. And of course, there's always his kids can't stand her kids, so for peace and inheritances, they avoid the marriage thing. Or, the worst.  He divorced her after her stroke which left her brain injured so she could get Medicaid and he comes to visit her in the nursing home with his girlfriend with home he shares his wife’s home.

Social security?  Oh really?  Ask any widow in her 50s who hasn't worked in 25 years. Or ask someone with a teacher's pension like me. There is nothing for us.  Also, they might want to talk to a woman, not divorced, whose husband left her for a younger more buff version of herself, and she found out the hard way there is no legal requirement for support while married and he doesn’t care if the house goes into foreclosure or the utilities aren’t paid.

It’s not all Obama’s fault

Other administrations have also contributed to the deficit.

Thanks you, Mr. President

Understanding Mary

The last few mornings I’ve been watching “Catholic Canvas” on EWTN which is an explanation of the art of the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican museums. I had known about the restoration of the frescoes, but the restoration of the tapestries is less known (at least to me).   The cape that appears to surround God in the most famous panel of Michelangelo (God reaching to touch Adam’s finger with his other arm around the baby Jesus), says a doctor, is a model of the human brain.  My minimal understanding of perspective puts me in awe of the “foreshortening” of his style, where the viewer looks up and the figures move into our space, with arms and legs and clothing hanging down.  Michelangelo knew his Bible and Christian theology. But you can’t watch much EWTN without a lot of “Mary,” adoration and stories completely unfamiliar to Protestants—at least this Lutheran.  We Lutherans give Mary a lot of attention at Christmas as an obedient, chaste young woman, and some at Easter as a grieving follower of Christ, but otherwise, not so much.  I was looking up a quote of St. Leo today, one of the few Popes ever elected who was not a Bishop, who had to deal not only with barbarian invaders of the Roman empire, but terrible fights within the church.  I came across this interesting item about Mary as the Mother of God.

Pope Leo wrote many letters and instructions in his lifetime. 140 of these letters and numerous sermons he preached exist to this day. He is known as one of the prime witnesses for the Primacy of the Pope and his authority to lead the Catholic Church. This was a controversial fact and in great dispute in his day. One of his greatest writings is known as the "Tome of St. Leo" and was a defense of the belief that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. This defense of the Incarnation of Jesus also had implications on the Church's understanding of Mary. The Church Council of Ephesus had debated the identity of Jesus and it's discussion was based on the role of Mary, was she "Christokos", i.e., the mother of Jesus the man, or was she "Theotokos", i.e., the mother of God. The sway in the Council was about to declare that she could only be the mother of the human part of Jesus, but this would imply a split in the reality of Jesus. For this to be a fact, Jesus would have only been human until his birth when at that moment the divine took form in the newborn human. Thankfully, the people of Ephesus intervened and refused to allow the Bishops to conclude their vote. They had a powerful attachment to Mary as she had spent her last years of life on this world in their city. The Council was deadlocked until delegates from Leo arrived and announced by his letter that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. This belief, would later become a formal part of our Nicene Creed. When the letter was read the delegates declared that truly "St. Peter speaks though Leo."

http://www.stleo.com/Patron.htm

Today all Christians  agree on the Nicene Creed; those on the fringes who do not may still argue about the divinity and humanity of Jesus. That he was born human and became divine is just one of the many heresies still floating today. Thank you, Pope Leo, for battling both the outside evil and the inside fighting.

Truthland, a film by Shelley, a dairy farmer

The answer to Gasland, a film shown on HBO, which was a lot of lies.  Watch the scene where Shelley interviews the EPA official sitting at a shiny surface desk—they look very odd. Sort of doubles.

Fracking. Minimal risk.  Tight regulations. Very low surface damage.   A million to 2 million wells have been created by fracturing.  No problems yet. It’s been done for decades in Louisiana.  A man, Josh Fox, who didn’t understand the science of it, made a movie called Gasland that is a story—fiction.  If there are problems it is from poor equipment, but not from fracking. Uses LESS water than other forms of energy. It’s clean, abundant, economic and it is HERE.  Flaming faucets?  Water catching on fire began a long time ago—it is not caused by fracking.  “Gas saved our Ass” was one bumper sticker that a Dimick area farmer had. It was a depressed area, and the gas wells save their family farms.

STDs infect one in four teen girls

A CDC study released in March 2008 estimates that one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of 14 and 19 in the United States – or 3.2 million teenage girls – is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (human papillomavirus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis).

Even though most of the young women had either received information/services on STDs or contraception, the recommendation was for more counseling, testing and treatment.  No mention of the obvious—chastity and celibacy to save their lives or fertility.

So I moved ahead to the 2012 study presented at the same conference. For some odd reason, the researchers were encouraged that there was more testing among African American women, those who had multiple sex partners, and those who received public insurance or were uninsured.  But all that showed them was there is a problem. I’m not sure why annual screenings are recommended as a solution when the retesting rates remain low.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/stdconference2012pressrelease.html

Bi-polar disorder in children

For the general population, a conservative estimate of an individual’s risk of having full-blown bipolar disorder is one percent. Disorders in the bipolar spectrum may affect 4 to 6 percent. When one parent has bipolar disorder, the risk to each child is 15 to 30 percent. When both parents have bipolar disorder, the risk increases to 50 to 75 percent. The risk in siblings and fraternal twins is 15 to 25 percent. The risk in identical twins is approximately 70 percent.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695748/

Who is homophobic? Society or the gay men.

Men who have sex with men is the primary way HIV/AIDS is spread.  Although less than 14% of the population, blacks (men and women) have 44% of the new infections.  New HIV infections among 13-24 year olds increased 22% from 2008 to 2010, and half of those were African American.  If the gay black or bi-sexual man is afraid to go to the doctor/clinic and continues to risk his life and the lives of the men and women he is having sex with, then who is being homophobic?  The black man with the disease, that’s who.  That excuse might have been good 20-30 years ago, but not in 2013.   Stop blaming others in society for their unwillingness to be healthy, chaste and faithful to their partners.  If they don’t think enough of themselves and their boyfriends or casual sex partners, why is the CDC (the government) expecting others to? The increase from 2008 to 2010 shows young men are being careless with the hard earned truths of the 70s and 80s.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/HIVFactSheets/TodaysEpidemic-508.pdf

Remodeling the upstairs bathrooms

One thing we've learned while remodeling two bathrooms (other than it costs much more to remodel than to build new) is that the building trades are doing just fine--they are very busy here in Columbus. If they were sloppy or careless, the recession did them in (as it should--survival of the fittest). However, to avoid what Obama is doing to small businesses, they are running on very small crews and expecting a lot from their employees. I'm hoping deadlines can be met. We're expecting company in June, and I don't want to send them to the neighbors.

My husband was not fond of the wallpaper in the guest bath, but I sort of enjoyed it.  High end decorators with big price tags, two men, lived in here about 23 years ago—I think this reflects their taste.   The cabinets and doors are black.  The guest bedroom had black carpet, yellow walls (lightened by the next owner from a dark green), and black and forest green checkered fabric on the walls and ceiling, plus pink roses drapery fabric with forest green completely covering the window. My husband said it looked like a funeral home.

Tax cheats in the White House and Congress

Congress gets an annual report on serious delinquents working in each government agency who are tax cheats each January. This year 98,291 current civilian employees have a severe tax lien against them. When retirees and military personnel are included, the debt figure goes up to an astounding $3.4 billion. In the Senate, there are 217 who owe the IRS a total of $2,134,501, and there are 36 tax cheats in the Executive Office of the President, owing a total of $833,970. Let's insist they clean up their act before spending one more dime of our money. The president should be ashamed to even mutter the words "fair share" if he can't get his own staff to pay theirs (and they all make excellent salaries).

Source:  Washington Times

The War Against Women—more breast cancer

Kill the babies; then make the women vulnerable to breast cancer and suicide.  Good plan, Democrats.

I was reading an article in JAMA (Feb. 27, 2013) about the increase in aggressive breast cancer among young women (15-29). Why the increase? Well, about the only suggestion offered was better imaging technology. No mention of oral contraceptives and abortions, which many studies have shown to create a problem for young women. Oral contraceptives are a class-1 carcinogen. Pregnancy and nursing protects breast tissue. Abortion increases breast cancer risk as reported in numerous studies. But then that would be both political and religious, wouldn't it, if the premier medical journal of an organization that has backed Obama 100% actually reported this?

Didn't AMA cover up tobacco risks and the Tuskegee syphilis study scandal? Isn't the journal packed with ads from pharmaceutical companies? The abortion that hurts the health of women the most is a first pregnancy abortion. I wonder if they are told that at abortion clinics? Clinics that are supported by the same government handing out oral contraceptives like they were lemon drops.

Republicans and immigration reform

Everyone seems to be talking about immigration reform. The 1986 IRCA didn't win friends for Republicans even though it was an example of bipartisan legislation many years in the making and included employer accountability, border enforcement, and amnesty for millions. 27 years later the illegals have tripled, the border isn't enforced, and employers are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The government bureaucracy did expand, however.

Signed in November 1986, IRCA required all persons to show authorization to work in the U.S., increased border enforcement, and created a legalization program for undocumented immigrants who met eligibility requirements. While critics complain that IRCA failed to prevent future waves of unauthorized immigration, they often forget the important things IRCA accomplished.

IRCA legalized approximately 3 million immigrants who met strict eligibility requirements, 1.3 million of whom legalized under the special agricultural legalization program. Obtaining legal status allowed unauthorized immigrants to improve their lives and contribute even more to the U.S. economy.

http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/11/07/remembering-the-benefits-of-irca-25-years-later/

Safety in flying

An air traffic controller who lives in Columbus and attends our church writes:  “Thank you Mr. Obama and your inept Senate and administration whose gallant efforts today, to block Senator Moran's Contract Tower Amendment, succeeded; thus in turn costing me and a thousand other Air Traffic Controllers their jobs. Your political brinkmanship in using the safety of the national airspace system as a pawn in some elaborate narcissistic game continues to prove your inadequate ability to govern this country. Shutting down 238 Air traffic Control Towers (nearly 50%) which control nearly 1/3 (28%) of our nation’s air traffic is utterly absurd as well as dangerous. I now have grave concern for the flying public as well as the ripple effect that will be felt among all who use these airports across the country for their livelihood. You have done a great disservice to this country and I pray that the cost in not in human lives.”

Spelling was a victim of the sequester

These workshop providers are racists

I was watching/listening to some parts of a diversity/multiculturalism/hate all euro-Americans training session for teachers of Wisconsin that was narrated by Dana where participants were told it was impossible for blacks to be racists because they have no power.  Really?  A black president, black attorney general, blacks on the Supreme Court, black senators and representatives, black Secretary of State, black governors, black mayors, black CEOs, black college presidents, black doctors and lawyers, black millionaires,  our top military leaders are black, all the major franchises have black owners, and so forth.  I think what these trouble makers mean is that if a black is really successful in a capitalist country, they aren't down with the struggle as Al Sharpton said.

How racist is it to ignore the accomplishments, and power of 13.6% of the population?

Who was Charles Darwin?

Church of England, but no real belief system. Worshiped at a Unitarian Church. Grandfather was a doctor and poet—very liberal and “evolutionary” in his thinking. Father was a physician and a good communicator. Shrewd investor. The culture was of “free thinkers” when Darwin was growing up. Great winds of change.  Man is supreme; no need for God. Darwin didn’t like medical school, preferred natural sciences.  His father thought he was an idle, sporting man so pushed young Charles toward the clergy (positions could be bought) so he would have an income.  He couldn’t assent to the orders of the church. So he took an ocean voyage . . .

Columbus on the move

In the last 6 days I've done more traveling around metropolitan Columbus than probably the previous decade. I am so impressed with our city even on gray rainy days! Congratulations to our Republican governor and Democratic mayor. I saw lots of growth and ingenuity, great small businesses, and yet big developments, too. Our immigrant community is starting many new businesses; I saw expansion everywhere. (unemployment 5.8%)

It was three trips to the east side for my eyes (I was wowed by Mt. Carmel), and then lots of driving around picking out bathroom cabinets, fixtures, tops, lights, etc. Yesterday we spent an hour with a salesman who will be singing in Vaude Villities (a local talent show 71 years old). At all the businesses, the sales force was knowledgeable, polite and helpful. Today the contractor came and ripped out the old shower. Finally, we have a dumpster and big trucks in our drive-way just like our neighbors.

Remember when the feminists told women they didn’t need men?

Also told them that marriage was a trap.  Oppression.  What’s a piece of paper?  They needed to be liberated.  More liberated than men.  So why if it was a trap when a woman was married to a man, is it not a trap when it’s two women or two men?

Monday memories—bathrooms

We are stripping the walls, moving furniture, and emptying bathroom cabinets that will soon be removed.  The contractor is to start on Tuesday.  Two 1970s era bathrooms are being upgraded (I’ve got a bad case of sticker shock). Who knew we had 6 different boxes of band-aids, and never could find one when needed? And to think my father was a senior in high school before he knew people had bathrooms inside their homes.             

                                

The story he told me, which may be embellished a little because he was a great story teller, was he knew there were bathrooms in public buildings like schools.  He attended Polo High School and was in the senior play.  Because his parents lived on a farm and there was a night rehearsal and then the performance, he stayed overnight with a fellow cast member and realized that people living in town had toilets inside the house, just like at school!  He was a year ahead of his age group, since in rural schools they weren’t real picky about that, so I’m guessing he was about 16 or 17 when this was taken.

When I was in first grade and my father returned from service in the Marines after the end of WWII, his old route with Standard Oil had been taken over by someone else, so he was doing a long drive to a different area.  So he bought a home in Forreston, about 15 miles from our home in Mt. Morris.  It was an old farm house on the last street at the south end, and it had no indoor toilet.  And there was a pump on the counter of the kitchen.  Really, I don’t know what my mother must have thought, but she learned carpentry and plumbing and we soon had a bathroom.  Nothing fazed that woman. Of course, being six years old, I thought it was a great adventure.  Now, not so much!

Noah’s Ark—Lessons from