A marriage by any other name

I started this post a couple of weeks ago — about the same time my niece went to the Prop 8 nationwide protest.  I figured I’d post it sometime during Nablopomo, and now here we are at the end, and I find myself lookingfor something to fill in Nov. 30. 

I know I’ve mentioned before that I have no issues with gay marriage, and I do have issues with churches crossing the line on “separation of church and state.” The other day my pal posted this video of Keith Olbermann talking about Prop 8. And I have to agree with him on many of his points. I, too, would be hard pressed to find any close family or friends that are in the GLBT community.

I am truly at a loss to see how same sex marriage hurts my marriage. I mean if you look at the Bible, and you look at Genesis, G-d told Adam and Eve to go out and have babies (and if you continue looking in the Bible you’ll find a lot of polygamy and incest and adultery and other things that we generally don’t agree with now). AND — if you think about it using that text and that traditional story — it MADE sense. There were no people so if G-d had wanted the land to be filled with people – men and women had to have male/female intercourse (now we can get by with turkey basters :} – not as much fun but effective nonetheless).

GUESS WHAT folks, if you look at the current population, humans are NOT an endangered species (an endangering species maybe — but not endangered).

So I’ve decided what I’m going to do — if anyone ever says that gay or lesbian takes away from “traditional” marriage or hurts marriage or something, I’ll look them straight in the eye and say …

Spouse and I are good — I don’t see how allowing gays to marry would hurt MY marriage. How would it hurt YOUR marriage??

Of course, two weeks have past since I started this post as a draft and I’ve had a bit of time to think about it. And today as I was getting out of the shower I finally got it. I realized that gay marriage could possibly directly hurt my marriage??? How you may ask??? Well, if my pal MrMusic (arguably the best hugger in my entire church family) got married to his partner M (not likely to happen anytime soon in Illinois), I’m sure that Spouse and I would argue about how much to spend on a wedding present for them.

And, after two weeks, that’s ALL I got honey.  I can see that destroying the American Family and the fabric of world society.

Obviously some people don’t watch old TV shows

This article in the Chicago Tribune talks about clemency for George Ryan (for those that don’t know, a former Illinois Governor now serving time for rackeeting and fraud. 

This article talks about Michael Vick’s recent guilty plea, which could lead to a reduced sentence and possible move to a halfway house.  Maybe even an eventual return to the NFL.

Whatever happened to keeping your eye on the sparrow??

WWJB

The holiday shopping season is upon us once again, actually I noticed Christmas display while shopping for Halloween costumes (there’s something just basically WRONG with that).

Anyway — it’s also the time of year when certain groups of people bitterly complain about folks saying things like “Happy Holidays” instead of the more (quote)correct(quote) Merry Christmas because … well … you know the because I don’t really need to go there ’cause you’ve heard it all before.

I was reading my friend, Doc Thelma’s, private blog (which I won’t point out here — but I will pull an excerpt)

I’m reasonably confident Jesus would prefer people not invoke His Name for the sake of selling giant inflatable penguins. Remember what He did to the money changers before you complain about it.

Most of these complaints come from the conservative so-called Christians, but I got to thinking, “srsly, WWJB” (What Would Jesus Buy).  If I’m going out Christmas shopping (because my family does celebrate Christmas instead of any of the other seasonal holidays) and if I want to follow in the example of Christ, What Would Jesus Buy.  This Jesus fellow is that same one that was all about helping widows and orphans.  I do not think it does Jesus honour to have a giant inflatable penguin in front of my house. 

(Not to mention — if I keep WWJB in mind while I’m Christmas shopping do you have any IDEA how much money that will SAVE me??)

So — what follows is an audio version of the things that are NOT on Jesus’ Christmas shopping list. 

I don’t know if this will work

My daughter (7) has a lot of issues with self control.  If she gets an idea in her head, she just goes for it without thinking of the consequences.  Two recent examples. 

1. Last week I got a call from her teacher.  She decided that she wanted to buy a book from the scholastic order form.  So she took some cash to school.  She took $60 from her brother’s room. 
2. Today she got out the water paints.  I said don’t paint.  I came back in the kitchen to find her painting.  I said put it away, and when I came back I found that her painting had been finished. 

So today I was at Trader Joe’s (of all places, the day before a food holiday) and found the following

Yep – a chocolate Advent calendar.  24 days of chocolate, one piece at a time. 

Let me stress that last part.  ONE PIECE AT A TIME.  I got one for each of the kids, and there is a promise that they will each get a special prize at Christmas IF (and only if) they manage to use the Advent calendar properly (meaning not eating any candy in advance.  If they want to SKIP a day and have TWO pieces of candy in one day — that’s fine as long as it’s “savings” and not “credit”).  (And as they cost $0.99 each it’s really not much of an expense)

Which leaves two questions

1. Will Princess succeed and get the grand prize on December 25
2. What will the grand prize on Dec. 25 be? 

And then there’s question #3 — which can never be answered — would wall street (and Washington) look a heck of a lot different today if more parents struggled with how to teach their children delayed gratification??

Thankful, no srsly

I’m thankful for the Internet — and especially You Tube — where obscure cult classics from the 80s are found.  I figured this was appropriate for a food holiday.

A few things I need to know I learned in Middle School

I’m currently employed in a middle school cafeteria.  The pay ain’t much but the hours almost perfectly mesh with my children’s schedules (it’s in another school district — I think there’s like three days during the year when there’s a conflict, and they “get out” of school a week before me) and the benefits are great.  But there are a couple of things I’ve learned … here are a few rules to live by.

When in doubt, do the dishes.

Sometimes I get caught up with my stuff, or I’m just temporarily unsure of what to do. I’ve always found that stopping and washing the dishes is a good thing to do. It gets something done, and it gives me a minute to collect my thoughts. I actually thought that this would be a good idea in general. If you’re at a friend’s house (for Thanksgiving perhaps) and you don’t know what to do, I assure you that there will be a few dishes needing attention in the kitchen. It might even be appreciated.

The great American Melting Pot is really great

Today one of the people that used to work at the school stopped by.  Sweet old black lady that goes by the name of Grandma.  She brought all of her former coworkers treats for the holidays.  She didn’t bring me anything, as she never worked with me, but some of my coworkers shared.  I had the BEST SWEET POTATO PIE EVER.  Not kidding.  I’ve had sweet potato pie before and never really like it, but this was AWESOME.  She also made some cornbread which we had for lunch with some cheese and japaleno quesidallias which were fabulous with the avocado salsa that my Mexican boss had made.  (And last week the Greek lady brought in these cookies called melomakarona OMG)

NOW, generally I think that race or ethnic background shouldn’t make a difference in a lot of areas (intelligence or capabilities or …) I’m willing to go out on a limb and bet that it’s would be REALLY hard to find a white chick that can make a better sweet potato pie than the one I had today … I’m just saying)

Am I at all surprising?

Grabbed from my pal, The Nita

What has surprised you the most about me (if anything) since beginning to read my blog? Was anything completely unexpected or have I always fit the picture of me you have in your head?

Post this in your own journal (if you like, no obligation) and see how you have surprised people.

today’s twitting

• 17:20 @mikekarr PUMPKINS #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

my mother was a tailor she sewed my new blue jeans

I’m not the dullest knift in the drawer, my elevator goes to the top floor, there’s enough sandwiches in my picnic basket, and I am playing with a full deck.  I’m of at least average intelligence, and I think possibly above average intelligence (I leave that to my readers to decide).

The problem (for me) is that I have surrounded myself with really brilliant people.  They’re cutting with chefs knives, the glass elevator not only goes to the top floor but to the penthouse, and folks are playing with not one, but two decks.  (A good percentage of my holiday card list can be addressed to Dr. — or even Dr. and Dr.)

My adult Sunday School class is a group effort.  We typically have topics that range from 1-6 weeks on a wide variety of topics.  These topics are usually whatever we determine interests us when we plan for the year (and whatever people are willing to teach).  I “volunteered” (meaning I was at class the day we were doing the planning) to do a movie study, and I happened across a fascinating movie (Amazing Grace) about the life of William Wilberforce, a politician, philantrophist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade (in England in the late 1700s).  (And he also started the first society of the prevention of cruelty to animals so he’s a good egg in my book).  I had a few suggestions and a few ideas of my own and I choose this film for many reasons (not the least of which that it had a study guide to go with it and when I went to rent it from Blockbuster I was told “hey we have a copy for sale and you can buy it cheaper than you can rent it.” 

And Sunday I ran a rather successful class (we only got through 1/2 the discussion questions) I overheard someone talking about me ”behind my back” (they didn’t know I was around) about how good the class was, and I got quite a few face to face positive comments. 

But I will say this — when you’re discussing a historical film and in the room you have folks with Ph.D., native Brits, and one of the best history teachers in the district – it can get a wee bit intimidating. 

And there was a point during the class that I got so carried away by the discussion that everyone else was having that I completely lost my place. 

There is one good planning technique with this crowd — I always plan classes that involve a lot of interactive discussion — because we have so many bright minds that all you need to do is find a discussion to lead, and  you get great ideas bounced about. 

And now — it’s over and I don’t need to watch the video anymore (for a while). 

But I’ll leave you with these two (rather unique) versions of the song, one written by Chris Tomlin in response to the film (very comtemporary) ….

And one written by the Blind Boys of Alabama (If you were listening to popular music in the 60s (or if you were listening to popular music from the 60s in the 70s or 80s or 90s …) you really need to check out this second version.  NOT kidding. 

There’s another version of the second with embedding disabled and you can find it here.

Don’t corrupt the boy

This goes out to Heidi Lou, in response to this post ….

DON’T DO IT!!!  Listen to these wise men.  Waylon, Willie, Johnny, and Kris all say DON’T DO IT!!!