I Don't Understand Why

I don't understand why this is an atrocity

And This is a Choice

I Love Christmas Music

I have been listening to Christmas music. Have been for some time now. I think I began about the time the political ads became a cancer on the airwaves.

There is much that is soothing in listing to the melodies of childhood, for I do not listen to modern carols. No, I plug into the great artists who graced the Goodyear and Firestone albums each year. Bing, Frank, Julie, Andy, Lennon Sisters, Johnny Mathis, Robert Goulet, Steve and Edie, New Christy Minstrels and so many more.

For those of you not from Northeast Ohio, back in the late 60’s to early 70’s, the rubber giants of Akron sold Christmas albums each year in the grocery stores, or somewhere highly available. I was just a tot at the time. Goodyear’s were the best. It was to those albums we baked cookies, decorated the house, checked strings of lights and trimmed the tree. We had a state of the art stereo in a cabinet of pecan finish. Mom will correct me if I have it wrong. There was a compartment for the albums, a turntable where we stacked those precious LP’s and best of all, a red power light in the fabric that covered the speakers. It was this light that fascinated me as a child. It was just like Rudolph’s nose. I remember spending what seemed to be hours fascinated by it.

There was a sliding glass door from which we could watch the snow. A blonde oak piano where mom played carols and Christmas tunes from beautifully decorative sheet music old enough to have been sold for a nickel. Christmas choral and band concerts to perform and attend. Traditions of opening one gift before going to sunrise Church service and the yearly new dress. Memorizing the Christmas story from the second chapter of Luke. The pageants of shepherds in burlap, angel wings of cardboard trimmed with bright silver garland, halos of coat hangers, wisemen’s beards of cotton kept fast with rubber string. Opening gifts Christmas morning and then packing the station wagon to go back to the hills of Pennsylvania to spend the week with the grandparents. A farm still beloved and a house in a little coal mining town that still haunts my dreams.

All this and so much more comes flooding back when I click on Live365. A much better place to spend a few hours than in the midst of a presidential campaign.

Colin Powel Endorses Obama

A surprise, and yet not a surprise that Colin Powel has come out on the side of Obama.

And it is a great relief.

Colin Powel is the one and only man in politics for which I have respect. If he, from his insider position, has examined the facts and feels Obama is the better man for the job, then I heave a great sigh of relief.

I can’t wait until this election is over and we can move on. I hate party politics for the way they focus on the negative and divide our nation.

One thing I have resolved is I am going to be a more active citizen. I will correspond with my elected officials on issues that matter to me. I will think of innovative ways of addressing issues and offer those suggestions. Hopefully, my elected officials will appreciate input. Why should all the ideas come from inside government?

For example, one thing that has been milling around in my brain is foster care for expectant mothers. Young women who choose to keep their baby, but do not have the home support they need could be placed in a foster home with people who will help her with prenatal care, preparing for her child, finances, getting prepared to take care of a child and be a single mother. It is a responsibility I would take on.

But, more on that later.

I hope if Obama is elected, and it appears he will be, Colin Powel will be part of his government.

Teachers Go Too Far

I read this today in an article by Thomas Sowell.

– “The arrogance of third parties, who take it upon themselves to treat other people's children as a captive audience to brainwash with politically correct notions, while taking no responsibility for the consequences to those children or society, is part of the general vision of the left that pervades our education system.”

As a parent, this is exactly how I have felt on numerous occasions. My ten-year-old’s teachers have been filling his head with pro-Democratic rhetoric for the last two years. Teachers I admire as well as teachers I dislike have been abusing their power to indoctrinate impressionable minds into their ideology. This is an abuse of power of the most reprehensible kind. Teachers do hold our children captive in their classrooms. In this state regulated setting, it is not their place to foster their ideals upon our children. They were hired to teach state approved subject matter, not share their beliefs or voting preferences.

If, and I do emphasize if, politics are to be discussed in the classroom, then it needs to be done fairly and in depth. Which opens up an entire cannery of worms. For example, can we really discuss the beliefs of the two parties without bring up abortion? It is a pivotal point.

Last night as we watched the debate, it kept niggling at me that my son was an Obama supporter based upon what his teachers had told him. Should I allow him to remain in the bliss of ignorance or should he be indoctrinated into the real world.

I decided to take the plunge.

I explained what abortion was. This little boy loves babies and the knowledge that people are free to kill them did not sit well with him. I explained many pro-choice advocates do not believe life begins until birth and so do not look upon it as murder. He didn’t buy it.

I hated to have to do that, but I feel his teachers backed me into that corner. It would be wrong for him to continue to believe all about the Obama campaign is sunshine and roses. It isn’t. Not by a long shot.

Some may say that now I am the one who is unduly influencing this child. Perhaps, but he is my child and as his parent, it is not only my right, but more importantly my responsibility to raise him in the beliefs as I see fit. If knowing the whole truth, or as wholly as we can ever achieve, he still decides to believe in Obama, then that is his choice. What I resent are teachers who present only the utopian image.

And, while I am on the subject. This greatly disturbs me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVn59TC2QqM&NR=1

My Muslim faith? I have a great deal of difficulty believing this was just a slip of the tongue. Of course it is possible, however, as a life-long Christian I cannot image ever making that slip. Somethings your subconscious protects you from.

If the man is a Muslim, fine. But don’t hide behind the cross just to get elected.

How to Be a Grasshopper in a World of Ants

I was born a grasshopper in a family of ants. In my family, it’s all about what you do. Never what do you think or feel or believe, no, it’s all about what did you do.

The fable is a familiar one. The grasshopper sings and plays away the summer while the ant works, works and works. Then come winter, the grasshopper freezes its wings off while the ant basks in the warmth of its cozy home eating melted tootsie pops on pretzel crumbs.

I always knew I was the grasshopper and my siblings the ants. I knew I needed to change or come winter they’d slam the door in my face with all the snugness of a thousand ‘I told you so’s’. It’s a battle I’ve been fighting all my life. Then suddenly today the truth dawned on me in all its simplicity.

How can a grasshopper ever be an ant?

Why can’t I just embrace the fact that I am a grasshopper?

In the newer ‘softer and gentler’ version of the story, the ants realize this truth. They take the grasshopper in out of the snow. In return, all through the long cold months of winter, the grasshopper entertains them.

The German Anabaptist ancestral DNA in me screams out to disregard this perversion of Aesop’s moral. Life is all about the work. Don’t allow a clueless culture to convince you otherwise. To be is to do. Dobedobedo.

So, winter is coming. To shut my ancestors up, I suppose I’ll get away from this computer and go do something.

I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do I do….

OK, maybe I don’t really, but it is an intriguing subject. We’ve been getting into watching Paranormal State (A&E, 10pm Mondays). There are definitely more things under heaven and earth than I can explain.

So, who believes in things that go bump in the night? Anyone care to share?

A few weeks ago as we were watching a particularly disturbing Paranormal State, the lights inexplicably went out. Poof, just like that. The light was off at the switch. Of course I explained it away to the kids. The switch must not have been on all the way and it just popped off. However, in 20 years in this house, that has never before happened. Then, the next day a different light was on when I came home that I swore I hadn’t turned on….
dododododododododododododooooooooooo….

To add to the mix, I told my dad the story. He was intrigued and kept teasing my about my spooks. Until… a few days later. Now he’s telling me to take my spooks home with me. In the dead of night a banjo that had sat in the corner of his bedroom for over twenty years inexplicably crashed to the floor. His radio turns on for no reason and the microwave won’t shut off….
dododododododododododododooooooooooo….

So, that got me thinking of my ‘paranormal’ experiences. My grandmother died when I was ten. The night before, in a room full of laughing family, I suddenly knew she was going to die. Then a few days later I was alone in the house and I sensed her presence. I was certain if I stayed where I was, I would see her. Of course I did what any ten-year-old would do, I ran.

My other grandparent’s house was always an unsettling place. Resting between tree clad hills, daylight came late and sundown early. And, my grandparents didn’t believe in any extra lighting. It is an older house, the house of my grandmother’s parents, a bit worse for wear from the damp and coal dust. A place made spookier by grandma’s superstitions. She knew the charms and incantations for getting rid of sickness or warts. Probably passed down by some Scottish granny. But be it the physical properties or the unconventional doctoring, there was just something unsettling about that house. My father told me of how he’d be reading at night and the hairs on the back of his neck would rise, as if he was being watched. The blinds in the back bedroom would fly up for no apparent reason. That room always got to me. If I had to sleep in it alone, I left the light on. Even into my twenties. Later my cousin’s child woke crying, saying he’d seen a face. I certainly didn’t disparage their claim.

Then in my early twenties, my friend and I were housesitting for her sister. Her bedroom was at the top of the stairs, mine all the way down the hall. After we went to bed, I heard her come down the hall and stop in front of my door. I waited for her to knock or come in, but she didn’t. In the morning, she asked me what I wanted in the night. She had heard the same footsteps.

Later that summer a friend of ours left the bar drunk, went left of center and slammed into an oncoming semi. I might have been the last person to see him alive. The night of his funeral we were housesitting again. I sensed his presence so strongly at that house that I knew if I opened the patio curtains, he would be standing there, lost in the darkness, forever separated from humankind.

So, those are my stories. Halloween a little early. What are yours?

Is Kindness a Thing of the Past?

Whether it’s the Wall Street fiasco or the fracas that is an election year, I’m done. Add to the mix three teenagers and a neighbor who finally succeeded in chopping the tops out of my trees on this his fourth covert attempt, and you get one sick to death of it all, worn out by the selfishness that is mankind, bag of bones.

What ever happened to simple kindness? Courtesy? Compassion? Is it so rare that when it does happen it makes the evening news?

Fed up, sick to death, becoming a recluse and moving to Montana.