Intentionally Misunderstanding

I was over at www.myobsaidwhat.com the other day, a place for women to submit some of the more 'winning' quotes from OBs, L&D nurses, nurses, midwives, and the occassional anestisiologist or pediatricians concerning infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, post-partum, breastfeeding, or early parenting. Despite what the occassional troll has to say MOBSW doesn't demonize the medical community, nor even OBs (who the majority of quotes come from), but it does allow a place for women to vent on those members of the profession(s) who *should* be demonized. But it's also a place to see one of, what I believe to be, the hallmarks of the politically correct era, intentional misunderstanding. Now I'm not talking about the submitters, it's a little hard to misconstrue an OB saying 'oh stop yelling, you obviously know how to open your legs' while he forces a woman's legs apart while she's yelling 'stop! That hurts, stop!' (Somehow it's not molestation/abuse if your attacker is in a white coat).
No, I'm refering to the occassional doctors, nurses, and laymen who intentionally misunderstand a comment made so they can be righteously offended by something a commenter has said. Usually it crops up on an especially horrific quote where the ob/rn/midwife/other is being even more inhuman than usual so there are lots of comments along the lines of 'what a complete &*!@! Doctors like this should lose their license and get tossed in a jailcell with a 400lb man named bubba!' (I'm not specifically quoting anyone here) And after a few dozen women have expressed their extreme displeasure at OBs LIKE THIS ONE, some OB (thankfully the sight almost never draws she-who-should-not-be-named...if you don't know who I'm talking about consider yourself lucky) comes on and chews us out because 'not all OBs are like this and I am always very respectful to my patients, they all love me, etc'.
We all know there are wonderful, respectful, and caring OBs/etc out there, that's why we said 'like this' rancid goat when we were commenting.
Now surely professionally aren't the only ones who do this. Sometimes it's a layman who has taken offense. These usually come in references to forced c-sections, inductions, or breastfeeding quotes. Some jerk OB is overheard saying 'there's nothing wrong with this baby, I just need to leave by 5 tonight.' As they are wheeling away mom for an 'emergency' c-section, usually after poor mom has been told she *must* have a c-section *now* or she's putting her baby's life in peril. So, of course, there are a bunch of comments along the line of 'this is why our c-section rate is so high, doctors should have to document a real, medical need for the c-section along with collaborative proof and insurance/people should refuse to pay for unneeded c-sections.' And then someone will come back with 'i'm so tired of everyone being so judgemental against women who have had c-sections! My c-section saved my son's life!'
the problem is hardly limited to such situations. Regardless of what you read, listen to, or who you converse with today it seems almost impossible to get through a full day without someon taking something out of context just so they can be offended. I know, I know, to the cuurent PC mentality nothing is more sacred than being victimized. Victimhood is to be claimed whenever and wherever possible, and if it isn't possible victims are free to re-interpret anything said to them to support their inherient victimhood status (unless you are a white married Christian male, then you can only be an offender, and anything said towards you that is offensive is either your fault for misinterpreting what your victim actually said, or you deserved because whoever said it was just defending themselves.). I get that, as much as I hate PC bs, I do understand the mindset (however insane, yes, go ahead and feel offended if you think PC-ism isn't insane) that mindset is.
What I don't understand is why the people who are misquoted/understood *on purpose* seem to fall all over themselves apologizing. Why do people bow down and take such nonsense? I mean, I assume most of the time people know what they said, and most people I've met (there are exceptions) rarely go around being offensive. So I've got to assume that 99% of the time they meant what they said and were only intending to offend...the specific group they described. So why in the world do they go tripping over their words to apologize to someone *not* within the specific group they were talking about.
If I say 'i think all people named Alyssa are jerks!' Then someone named Alyssa is free to feel offened, and if they could show to me they aren't a jerk I would be proven wrong and should (and would) stand up and apologize. But if someone named Alyma came back with 'well *my* name starts with an 'A' and I'm not a jerk, you are being a judgemental bigot by assuming all people with 'A' names are jerks'. They don't have any standing to object, I wasn't talking about them, in fact I especially excluded them by defining those named 'Alyssa'. Not only do I not feel obliged to apologize to Alyma, I'm far more likely to amend my original statement to include 'and apparently one person named 'Alyma' can't tell the difference between a 6 letter name and a 5 letter name.' And I'm not overly sarcastic or anything, but someone trying to make me into an offender just so they can be a victim isn't getting any sympathy from me. So why the heck are they getting it from so many others?

wow, it's september

So I couldn't remember when I had posted last so I checked my blog and...oh, wow, april writer's challenge? Boy and it's already. Um...okay, sorry guys. Apparently I've been ignoring my blog a little more than I realized.
Mostly I've been busy crafting. Lots of sewing recently. But I'm starting to come back around to a writing mood, so I should find some time to post something soon. If nothing else maybe I can get my laptop to an internet hotspot and post one of the 3 posts that have been sitting in there for months (and months). That and I need to finish a guest post I've been asked to do. For now though, why don't you wander on over and surf some of my favorites? In no parituclar order: http://myobsaidwhat.com http://www.jillstanek.com http://freerangekids.wordpress.com http://www.evolutionaryparenting.com http://realchoice.blogspot.com http://firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/ and http://www.crappypictures.typepad.com there you go, a random assortment of blogs I read on a semi-regular basis, have fun!

April Writer's Challenge- Dialog

So I had a comment on my last piece, the writing challenge prologue for my friend Eric's blog, from another writer/blogger ( http://doingthewritething.wordpress.com/ ) I was surfing over at her blog and noticed she had an April writer's challenge to do a dialog piece. She had a very touching and image-provoking piece up as her entry, a list of email entries, and I immediately know exactly who/what to do for a dialog piece. The submission guidelines are simple, a dialog back and forth of any kind with JUST dialog, no tags, no asides, no descriptions. The goal is to create two or more distinct characters just through dialog. It's actually a goal I've played with for some time, and argued over with creative writing teachers as I tend to keep up with dialog better than they perceive the average reader does. Which is to say I rarely feel tag lines such as (s)he said, so-and-so replied etc are necessary. I tend to make the introduction at the beginning and assume my reader can keep up with the back and forth of conversation. I do, however, tend to like motion or action asides and tonal descriptions like 'he leaned against the wall' or 'she said with pity in her voice', so trying to find a scene where just the dialog would be sufficient to portray the depth of emotion of the scene was somewhat difficult. But a situation from book three of Tiger came to mind as uniquely appropriate. I'm resisting the urge to explain the situation as, well, that would kind of circumvent the point of the exercise, so, hopefully, the dialog is more or less up to the challenge ;) .... here you go!

"Tiger, you shouldn't be standing there. That window exposes you to a hundred rooftops."
"I've lost a husband and a child in the last week Richard, an assassin's arrow is not my primary concern."
"You don't have the luxury of being just a mother or wife, you know that. The nation lost it's Prince Consort and one of it's princes, it needs it's Empress. Come away."
"I can see the city square from here. It's where they hung him."
"He's not there. The servants have his body Tiger; they are readying him for burial."
"I know. I've already been to see him, and I saw the marks on his neck. He was still alive when they hung him this morning."
"I inspected the body. The noose broke his neck. It was a clean death."
"Clean death? Richard, he wasn't a man grown to care of such things, nor a warrior to expect such. He was a child of five, there is no such things as a 'clean death' for one so young."
"Come away from the window Tiger."
"Why? The Grey Wolf doesn't need an assassin's arrow; they've destroyed me. With one fell swoop they widowed me and placed me in an impossible position. They judge me as a mother for letting him die, or they judge me as a ruler for saving his life. 'One must never trade two lives for one'. I had no choice, but my people will fault me all the same, and who can blame them? What kind of mother won't move the world to save the life of her child?"
"They won't fault you. They too have lost children and loved ones to this fight. You share their pain, and so they will follow wherever you would lead."
"Tell that to my nobles, already they plot."
"They're nobles, that's what they do. You knew this war was unpopular when you started it. Too many have made their fortunes in the grey market to appreciate your attack against it."
"Thank you Richard, 'I told you so' was exactly what I needed to hear right now."
"That's not what I meant and you know it. I lost a son and a grandson as well."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
"Thank you, it's the first time you've said it."
"You were watching over Lily, and my husband should have been more than capable. It's too much Richard. The economy struggles, the nobles grumble, the people bleed, and that tiny body. I didn't need to see him hung to see it in my mind. I can see him swinging there, right there on the announcement post of the square."
"Another reason to come away from the window. He's gone Tiger. And you withdrawing your blockade would not have stopped it. It may have delayed it, but you know he was dead as soon as they took him, one way or another."
"No, I don't. I could have withdrawn. The Grey Wolf has returned prisoners of war in the past, has honored ransoms and seen captives home. All I had to do,"
"Was break one of the most sacred rules of your throne and throw away your honor as a ruler. Your people need you. They need their Empress, not a broken mother. There will be time to weep, Tiger; there will be time to grieve; you will have a chance to mourn, but right now you must put on your mantle as ruler and go to your people. Right now their grief will have to be enough for you."
"It's not as easy as you make it sound."
"Easy? I've lost a wife and a daughter in service to you, and now I've lost a son and a grandson as well. Life is never easy, but it's still your choice to follow through or to give up. And you've been through too much to give up on your obligations. Come, your people await your words. Stir them to righteous anger instead of depressed grief. Your family's blood has wet the ground, but you can still win this war."
"I have no righteous anger right now Richard."
"Find it. You have other children Tiger, would you forsake your duty and force the mantle of leadership upon Lily while she is yet so young? And in the midst of a war? Stop this maudlin and pull yourself together."
"Ever the poet,"
"Tiger,"
"No, you're right, I know that, brutal as always, but correct. Bring me my formal attire, I will need the trappings of my rank about me to manage. But I shall."
"Your servants await with it in the outer room, my Empress."
"I hate it when you do that Richard. Go, be with my children, give them what comfort you can. I shall have to be enough for my people this day."
"You will be Tiger."

March Writer's Challenge

For those of you who normally read my blog this is an unusual entry, it's a prologue to a (hypothetical) second book in my Ten Nations world. It's an entry (short fiction) into my friends March Writer's Challenge that can be found here:ericswett.wordpress.com look at the March 1st entry. So, without further procrastination, here is the prologue to Balhook Chaos:

Prologue

“You bungling, maligned, interfering, drunken bastard of a mageling!” Shacree banged into the room already at full volume and flung the handbill at the table. “I thought we had an agreement about this!” The servants wisely scattered but Matthew, Head Mage of the Mage Council, narrowed his eyes and glared back at the furious intruder. His guest simply leaned back and smiled at her.
“Shacree, long time no see.” The elaborately dressed gentleman smirked at her. She stopped her advance on Matthew to turn a murderous glare at his guest.
“You, I told you I’d kill you if I saw you again.”
“Yes, but I assumed it was just one of those threats you’re so well known for.” He returned her glare with an unperturbed smirk. Shacree snarled and changed directions.
“Shacree, stop.” Matthew commanded. Per usual she ignored his command, but it did distract her attention and she once again turned her steps to Matthew.
“This?” She pulled out a second handbill and crumpled it before throwing it ineffectively at Matthew. “We agreed you would stop putting out wanted posters for me.” She growled.
“That was back when you were still being reasonable.” Matthew told her.
“You’ve made me unemployable.” The words came out between gritted teeth and the temperature in the room went up several degrees.
“I told you I needed you at the Palace.” Matthew picked up the second handbill from some eggs and dropped it onto the floor.
“About that.” She pointed one gloved finger at Matthew’s guest. “You force me back to the Mage Palace while Talgis Bloodeyes is here? I’m not your bloody assassin Matthew.”
“That was a long time ago Shacree, and you’ve yet to carry out your threat, besides a little bird told me you were showing more restraint these days.”
“More like a meddlesome winged man.” Despite the tone of the words Shacree’s temper seemed to go down a few notches at the reference to her old traveling companion. “Is he here?” Her voice softened marginally.
“No, I see him every few years, but mostly he’s busy. Af’Raiell comes by more often, but he left a few months back. Are you ready to talk now?” Matthew motioned to a seat. Shacree glared sullenly, took a few steps, and leaned against the wall.
“I’m not sitting at the same table as that.”
“I’m wounded.” Talgis murmured.
“Not nearly as much as you’re going to be if one of you doesn’t start explaining what was so bloody damn important it required setting every bounty hunter in the area on me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Matthew rolled his eyes. “What bounty hunter is going to come after you?”
“What do you want Matthew?” Shacree’s voice dropped into the longsuffering tone Matthew knew meant she was ready to listen.
“Talgis came across something disturbing in his travels.”
“He’s a pirate Matthew, everything he comes across is disturbing, if not before than shortly thereafter.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m retired now.” Talgis input with a smile.
“Then why are you still wearing that ridiculous hat?” Shacree glowered at him. Talgis swept the broad brimmed red hat with its gaudy plumage off his head in a mocking solute to the temperamental woman. Then, ignoring the usual proprieties of the breakfast table, he set it back on his head at a rakish angle. Shacree’s glower deepened.
“I’m Prince Bloodeyes now, with my own island and everything, and Admiral of a fine fleet. I leave the pirating to my captains. The hat is an affectation.”
“Good to see your manners haven’t improved.”
“Nor yours.”
“Matthew, if you have a point, make it.” Shacree resolutely turned her eyes from the aging pirate.
“The government of Balhook Island has radically changed in the last few years; they went from something of an awkward republic to a dictatorship.”
“Mageling, I am not an ambassador, I don’t care what one small island chain is doing with their government.” She said without much patience and as much scorn as she could muster. Matthew ignored the jibe.
“No, but you are a mercenary, and you have experience with chaotic magics. Talgis’s report makes me suspect there is something in your area of expertise manipulating things.” He told her. Shacree snarled and started pacing, fast, quick steps like a caged animal.
“I’ve had quite enough of that to last the rest of my life. We killed most of the Centiums along with their Master not ten years past, how much of a chaotic problem could you possibly be having?”
“You didn’t kill all of them, and the Mage Council has had nothing but trouble the last ten years. As much as we tried to keep it quiet what happened has become common knowledge to the Mage community. Not all of it.” He added quickly as Shacree’s eyes narrowed on him dangerously. “The knowledge that a living, if questionably successful, mix between a person and Centium was discovered had fueled a whole new round of chaotic mages with aspirations of greatness.”
“yes, I’m sure your battle mages are very busy; still lacking anything that had to do with me.” Shacree took a deep breath, stilled her anxious pacing, and leaned once more against the wall. “Matthew, none of this merited dragging me away from a successful job with wanted posters. Az’ might be right about my patience, but it’s still short, and being in the same room as him isn’t helping.”
“I’ve noticed it’s getting a bit warm in here.”
“Deal with it.” Shacree said shortly. In truth the temperature had risen to uncomfortable levels but Talgis made no move to doff his elaborately brocaded silk jacket, nor Matthew his mage robes. Talgis did dab at his brown with a handerchief, which he then tucked back into his sleeve.
“I need you to go with Talgis to Balhook and see what’s going on. You can take care of it if there is something untoward there.”
“Matthew, I’m not sticking my head back in a hornet’s nest. I have absolutely no reason to go gallivanting off to see if some dictator is employing chaos, chaotic beings, or mixes to oppress his citizens. I’m no more a philanthropist than I am an ambassador.”
“No, but again, mercenary.”
“I don’t work for mages.” Shacree growled out. “Get Bladesworn to do it, that sword of his gives him just as much ability as I do to find chaotic magics.”
“Hardly, it only detects chaotic creatures, and they have to be fairly close, which you know.”
“Regardless, his mission is to kill them, mine is to avoid them. Or get Az’Raiell, he can’t be so busy begetting that he wouldn’t welcome a good fight with chaos.”
“Crass Shacree. He’s only taken the one wife, despite attempts to persuade him otherwise, but he is too busy re-founding the government to be dragged away, as is his brother, and Wynter is helping them. And none of them owe any allegiance to me. Even Bladesworn is unlikely to go just because I tell him there might be chaos there.”
“How ironic, since I’m not going to go just because you tell me to either.” Shacree pushed herself off the wall with a thrust of her shoulders.
“But I’m not a mage.” Talgis rejoined the conversation. “I can hire you.”
“I don’t work for those I’m planning on killing either.”
“Stop with the posturing.” He smirked again. “You’re not going to kill me. I’m a pirate. I did what pirates do; you lost. You were young. I was young, and you’ve had well over three hundred years to track me down and kill me if you actually wanted to.”
“About that, you were saying you’re not a mage?”
“Okay, so I’m mageborn, but I’m not now nor have I ever been a practicing mage, not even a Hedge Mage. I’ve never apprenticed, and I’m not vested with the Council. I’m a magic user, but I’m no more Mage than you are.”
“Technicalities.”
“Important technicalities I think.” Matthew told her.
“Besides, how you would like to be able to enter a port again?” Talgis smiled and popped a bit of sausage into his mouth.
“Given that it’s your fault I’m blacklisted you mean?”
“I didn’t burn down that ship, you did that. But yes, I have a certain amount of persuasion in the area. I’ll let it be known that my ships will accept you. I think you’ll find the other captains will stop being so unreasonable shortly thereafter.”
“I don’t have much use for ships.”
“Everyone has use for ships on occasion, if not for themselves than for merchandise. Matthew tells me you still own that stud farm. There are places you could sell a good horse for ten times what you’ll get in the Ten Nations if you’ve got a ship to transport it.” He pointed out.
“Not mentioning anything I care about yet, at least, not more than I care about avoiding Centiums.”
“It’s unlikely there are actually Centiums on the island, unless they’ve been summoned there by a chaos mage. More likely it’s a chaos mage manipulating the local Night Faeries.”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Shacree stressed each word separately.
“I’ve got something you want.” Talgis stood and strapped on his buckler and sword with exaggerated care. “I’ll give you satisfaction, provided of course that Matthew has a healer standing by.”
“Talgis, she’ll kill you.” Matthew exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think she will.” The retired pirate gave Shacree a knowing look, watching her size him up.
“No, I suppose I won’t.” She breathed.
The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to near freezing, and Shacree’s flame red hair took on a corona of real fire. At the same moment as Matthew shouted ‘not here!’ Shacree swept out her hand and table, dishes, and most of the other furniture in the room exploded as she superheated then tore them apart with her fire.
Matthew warded himself against the flying debris and scrambled backwards to the far corner of the room. Talgis raised his arms across his chest and his natural magic flared in a flash, deflecting the debris as well as Matthew’s wards.
Talgis drew his wide cutlass to meet Shacree’s bastard sword. Her one handed swing drove him back several paces, but he held her sword with his. They clashed swords for a few quick blows. Tlagis was good, but he had no chance of beating Shacree, nor even standing against her for more than a few moments. He gave ground willingly, and she pursued him with a psychotic grin on her face.
The sharp ring of steel on steel faded as they fought, replaced by a blunted clang. Shacree’s blade radiated heat in waves and left tacky gouges in his blade. The heat coming off her made Talgis’s face hot and tight, an odd counterpoint to the still-freezing room.
She slipped around his guard to draw first blood; her burning sword searing the wound shut even as it cut a neat slice from inner elbow to outer shoulder. Talgis let out a startled shout, more in surprise at the burn than in pain.
The flinch was all the opening she needed. In three quick strikes she laid him open from left shoulder to the bottom of his right ribcage, across to his left hip, and then sliced deeply into his thigh almost to his knee. The room filled with the scent of burned flesh as he stumbled away with a cry and ended up on the floor as his leg gave out. None of the wounds were life threatening, especially given the lack of blood from the burns, but the spill was a deadly mistake. For a moment, with Shacree’s fire-filled eyes glaring down on him and her sword decending, Talgis was afraid he’d misjudged her and she was going to deliver the killing blow. Shacree’s face twisted as she felt the sudden rush of fear through him and the gibbering in her mind, more muted than it once was but forever there, leapt to the forefront.
Kill! Kill! Spill the blood; crack the marrow! Lap the blood; suck the marrow! Kill!
Shacree snarled and jerked her sword around before she killed him through unintentional rage. Instead she swung the sword in an ark and drove the point through his hand as he tried to scramble away. Talgis aborted a guttural scream and grabbed at his wrist above his skewered hand. He panted, nostrils flaring, and grimaced in pain as she put a booted foot to his chest and pushed him flat.
They stared there, for a long few seconds as they eyed each other. Shacree drug herself back into control, pushing the insanity to the back of her mind. She let a bit of it trickle through into a twisted upturning of her mouth that approached a smile only in the most technical of senses. The pirate paled at the grin and stilled, waiting for her next move.
Shacree winked at him, and his overly gaudy hat burst into brilliant flame. A startled, strangled cry slipped out as Talgis desperately batted the flaming hat off his head with his free hand. It landed in a pitiful pile of ashes nearby and he looked up at her in shock.
“My hat? You have me at your will and you burn my hat?” His voice sounded wounded.
“You have a mage healer waiting outside the door by now, or will in the next minute, in the long run the loss of that ridiculous hat will be more painful.”
“You’re psychotic, you know that, right?”
Shacree grinned again, jerking her sword out of his hand with enough twist to snap bones and aligned it with his neck.
“Tell me why. Why is this so important that you’ll risk life and limb to get me to go?” She said quietly. Talgis drew his hand to his chest and glared at her for a moment, before forcing out a deep breath.
“My son is my ambassador to the island nation; he negotiates trade arrangements for my ships. Eight months ago, after a very disturbing letter, I lost all contact with him. I want my son back.” He told her. Brief emotions flickered over her face, and then the temperature in the room rose as the heat waves from her sword faded. She sheathed it.
“Fine, but you’ll be paying me more than shipping rights.” Shacree stormed out of the room nearly as violently as she entered, nearly running into the healing mage Matthew had called to attend to Talgis. “Be ready in the morning!” She shouted over her shoulder, ignoring Matthew’s call to return.

Spilt Milk and Other Bumps

We were at the Children's Museum today. It's midweek, nothing really going on, and it was later in the day so there were not many people there. But there were two things that really struck me today. My kids are 2 1/2 and 11 months respectively boy, girl. There was a smallish boy there, by his walk and vocabulary I'm guessing a small 2year old rather than a larger 18month old. Anyway he fell backwards, not hard, and on a cushioned floor. Bonked his head a bit but, realistically, it couldn't have been more than a brief 'ugh'. But he started crying like he'd been dropped on brick and his mother rushes over and scoops him up, holding him tight, rocking him, soothing him, and he kept right on with this pitiful cry until his mom actually left the play area to calm him down.
Contrast:
My daughter took a face first header on a slope a bit too steep for her to navigate without holding onto something (she let go of the side when an older kid approached), unfortunately she missed the softly padded floor and bonked her head into the unpadded wooden side wall. She picked her head up and started to whimper. I said 'oh! Big bonk!' In an uptoned voice. She thought about it for a moment but decided it really did hurt (big red mark with a little scrape) and started crying about the same time I swung her up. I gave her a kiss on her owie (a-boo in our toddler's lingo) while briefly snuggling her close then tossed her up saying 'bonk, bonk, bonk!' I jiggled her, held her up high, and bounced her while I grinned at her. Took about fifteen seconds then she was giggling and squirming. I gave her another kiss, told her she was okay, and set her back down to play.

Why, oh why do parents teach their kids that every little bump and bruise is a world-ending injury? I've been in the doctor's office and heard 5 year olds shrieking in agony after getting their shots for 10 minutes. My kids give a cry or two until I pick them up and give the nurse a 'why did you do THAT' look as they bury their head in my chest..then they sniff and usually reach out to be held by the nurse. Who always comments on how well my kids do.
It's likely kids are more sensitive to pain than the average adult, through lack of exposure if nothing else, but it's not like that poke, bump, or fall is ACTUALLY as painful as the bone-shattering screaming some kids carry on with. They carry on so because they have been taught by neurotic adults that it's worth that kind of attention.
"Ahh! My baby!" Cries the distraught mother as she rushes desperately towards the 3 year old who just tripped and bloodied a knee. Come on, we've all bloodied a knee! It's worth a grunt and a disgusted look, maybe a grimace or a wince with the next few steps. So why do so many parents think it's proper for their child to weep inconsolably for minutes at a time?
And don't tell me it's the kids! I had a nanny job once with a sweet little 2 year old. First day she fell, not even a mark, and she was wailing while her mother scooped her up and 'oh my poor baby'ed her for several long minutes. She tried the same thing with me later that day. I asked 'you okay?', dusted her off, said 'yep, it's okay' and kept walking. She looked at me like 'wow, really?' Stopped crying and caught back up. It took a couple of days, then she happened to fall again in front of her mother. Her mother started over, anguished look on her face. Her daughter bounced up, proclaimed 'it's okay' and was off, leaving the mom with a confused look on her face.
Children mimic, they are developing, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, and socially. They have no idea how they are supposed to act; they look to their caregivers and read the social cues we provide to determine what is the proper emotional response to something. Sure, as they develop mentally they may vary from your example because their fledgling personality is different than yours, but that's just a wonderful sign that they are on the proper road to independence, and as long as you both guide properly and foster their independence they rarely seem to go off the deep end. But you know what I see? Those same kids who learned 'oh the world is ending!' Anytime something minor happens almost never stray from that, they become 5 and 6 year olds, and even 8 and 9 year olds who still can't deal with the slightest thing that happens. I could still tell in high school which kids had parents who thought a skinned knee was a disaster verses the kids whose parents taught them to pick themselves up and dust themselves off. Because it's not just physical wounds they learn to apply that mentality, it's their ability to deal with the skins and scrapes of the emotions that really get hurt by the mentality.
So please people, next time you see your, or my, kids take a tumble, give em a grin and say 'big bonk! You're okay!' And then expect them to be. Because no one is doing the next generation any good by teaching them to cry over spilt milk.

Yes, Yes I am a Country Kid

I was standing over the kitchen sink doing dishes (no, we don't have a dishwasher) trying to convince myself I wasn't being a bad mom for having Looney Tunes playing on the t.v. while I wasn't sitting out there watching it with him. And by him I mean our 2 1/2 year old. After all, it's the first he's watched today, he didn't watch much yesterday either (and none by himself), and I really needed to get some dishes done.
How I wish I had a decent house with a proper kitchen sink in front of the obligatory window overlooking a proper yard. But I don't; we live in a third story tiny appartment without so much as a patio. Between that and my physical difficulties my children currently spend way more time inside then I ever imagined would be the case. But then I never imagined moving back to the city. I hate the city. And that spawned a post idea; let's begin.
The average kid today spends most of their time indoors. No biggy right? I mean, there must have been lots of times throughout history that kids rarely saw the sun...wait, that would be during times of extreme cold like the Ice Age, or when hiding was necessary like during wars. Ok, bad example.
The average kids today eats whatever is available, regardless of nutritinal value like fast food, premade frozen foods, and anything else the parents can work into their busy lives. No biggy, they can take vitamins and there have been plenty of times in history where kids have had less than ideal...wait, that would have been during times of extreme famine, poverty, and war. Ok, bad example.
A large portion of kids today are missing one parent due to out of wedlock births and divorce. No biggy right? There have been plenty of times when a large portion of kids were missing parents...wait, that would have been during times of pestilance, war, and natural disasters. Ok, bad example.
A large portion of kids today are missing sibblings due to an abortion rate that has reached 60% in some demographics. No biggy, there have been plenty of demographics in the past (and currently) who have had a 1 in 5 or even 1 in 3 death rate among the under 5 group...wait, that was due to unhygenic conditions, war, famine, pestilance, disease, and natural disasters. Ok, bad example.
The average kid today spends a large portion of the day away from their mother/father and in the care of non-biologically connected caregivers in mass groups. Well that's no big deal, there have been plenty of kids who...wait, those were in foundling homes, orphanages, and in times when the working population of adults had been decimated by war, pestilance, or natural disaster. Ok...there has to be a good example around here somewhere...
Here's one: the average kid today has more toys and clothes than ever before. Yes, it's true. Adults and children, society as a whole, has managed to accumulate more possessions than all but the richest men throughout history. But you know what they say, "he who dies with the most toys, still dies".
THIS is the "good life"?
We've got the average family working two jobs, so busy that the family unit and especially the kids, are surviving in situations previously found only during calamity why? So we can all have 2 cars, a big screen HDTV with 500 channels, a wardrobe that needs its own room, a collection of toys that needs its own zipcode, a mother who doesn't feel dependant upon a/her husband, and a father who have a 'fulfilling' career? And this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?
All I'm left with is a rarely heard Bible verse: "Woe to those join house to house;
They add field to field,
Till there is no place
Where they may dwell alone in the midst of the land!" Isaiah 5:8

Anyone want to trade this 'good life' for a nice little ranch somewhere? Cuz frankly, I'd rather the farmhouse than the townhouse.

A Giant Step in the Wrong Direction

This ladies is exactly why we have so much trouble getting people, especially medical people to treat pregnant/birthing/post-partum women like thinking adults: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/mum-sues-after-newborn-smothered-20110215-1auwo.html. It's a news story out of The Land Down Under about a mom who tragically smothered her newborn. She laid down to nurse in a side-lay position and fell asleep. When she woke her babe was cold and blue, and had probably been dead for 20 minutes. Now, I'm unsure of the machanics of that, having nursed 2 babies in a side-lay I'm not sure HOW you could smother a baby at the breast from a proper side position. But, I'm a light sleeper. I wake up (even when excessively tired) when my child's breathing changes. My husband sleeps through smoke alarms, and I've seen him fall asleep standing up. Maybe this mom was more on my husband's side of the sleep scale than mine. However it happened, baby's dead. And as tragic as that is it's not the point. Mom chose to room-in, a right we in the US at least have had to fight for. She chose to LAY DOWN and get comfortable for sleep while she was in sole charge of the baby. So what does she do?

SHE SUES THE HOSPITAL FOR "LETTING" HER FALL ASLEEP!!!

EXCUSE ME?
Look people, if you want to be treated like an adult then you have to take responsiblity for your actions. If you want the right to informed consent/refusal, then you have to own the consequences of your choice. In no way, shape, or form is this the hospital's fault. And by trying to win a lawsuit this woman is also trying to set women's labor/delivery rights back whole decades, maybe even generations.
What? Should the hospital go back to forcibly removing all babies to the nursery whenever mom looks tired? Maybe moms should have to prove they have round the clock childcare help lined up for homecare before they are allowed to leave the hospital with their new bundle of joy? After all, don't you know, the baby belongs to the hospital until you can prove you are a fit parent.
I'm sorry for this woman's lost. I can't imagine how horrible it must be to think you caused your child's death, and maybe by blaming someone else she's just hoping to hold onto her sanity. But there are other people involved here too. Her husband, her lawyer, and certainly she's had at least some moments of clarity despite the guilt racked grief. What GOOD does she/they think is going to come of getting up in a sworn court of law and yelling "treat me like I'm an incompetent child because i'd just given birth!" I hope, if this woman chooses to get pregnant again, she agrees with absolutely everything the doctor, nurses, and staff want to do to her and her baby, because you can bet after this they aren't going to listen to her cries of 'i do not consent', and, frankly, can you blame them? Let's just hope the judge dismisses this monstrousity before it becomes how all hospitals view all laboring/post partum women. And let's hope some moron lawyer in the US doesn't read it!

For Teachers and Students, Against Greater Funding

I haven't really been ignoring my blog, I wrote a long entry....on my laptop...that doesn't have an Internet connection....and my usb card is lost...and my husband's is broken. Yeah, that makes 3 blog posts that are going to be woefully outdated by the time I get them transferred and posted. Oh well.
In the meantime I wanted to do a short post on this: http://action.afa.net/m/rc/story.aspx?id=2147504012 it's a blog post about how teachers are getting their salaries and positions slashed all 'er the land. Which, ultimately is sad. Teachers, police, and military personnel are all abysmally underpaid. Yet Education, Law Enforcement, and Defense are all horrifically over funded. Why the paradox? One word: government. Now yes, the federal government is in fact supposed to be in the defense boat, and to a much lesser degree law enforcement (like Federal Marshalls), and the state government is supposed to be in the law enforcement business.
But neither one of them belong in our schools. It makes some sense for local government to be monitoring schools, and I suppose one could make a reasonable argument for some state monitoring (although I've never heard anything convincing in that matter), but, on the whole, education does not work when you make it a bureaucracy. Thus, public school teacher's salaries.
In the hugely bloated funding for education very little trickles down the the most important part of education...the actual teachers. Instead it gets eaten up by superintendents, principals, counselors, mandatory regulations, testing, sex education, pointless classes like 'dream interpretation', and the general bureaucratic nightmare that is public education. Our public school students sit in a classroom in 20 year old desks using 10 year old texts while they have a full contigency of physcological counseling availible, a sex ed program that will not only hand out free condoms and birth control but also arrange for clandestined (from the parents anway) trips to the local Planned Parenthood for abortions, a hundred thousand dollar projection/computer interface, a princi'pal' who earns 6 figures, and a teacher who only makes that if you count after the decimal point. To make matters worse they are bombarded by questionable and experimental teaching methods like 'whole language', 'new math', group learning, group therapy, and 'interpretive ethics'. The result? The last thing the students are doing is learning, at least not any of the '3 R's'. So the public school graduates a bunch of functional illiterates who have no knowledge of history, can't multiply without a calculator, but can darn well put a condom on a banana, and, as an added bonus knows condoms come in different flavors, textures, and glow-in-the-dark models!
The first 'public' school act in American history was the "Old Deluter Satan Act". But we would recognize it as a 'private' school today because the children's parents paid directly for the teacher and supplies. After all, you need very little to learn, a New England Primer, a math book, a decent history book, a desk, a notebook, a pencil or pen, (for those in algebra or higher a calculator), a room, and a teacher. It worked excellently for a couple hundred years. America was on the forfront of science and industry because our schools graduated students who ranked amongst the best educated in the world. Then the federal government got involved in the later half of the 20th century and we have seen a huge increase in the money we spend per student even while we have cascaded from top of the class to back of the pack in both math and language amongst 1st world nations.
Government would like us to think the way to make it better is more of what got us here to begin with. I have a radical alternate proposal: go back to what worked.
Kick the government out of the education system, and the Department of Education off the tax rolls and out of our pockets. Let parents pay directly to the schools that successfully teach what they want their kids to learn. Today both private and homeschool students outscore public school students on grade-level testing and college entrance exams, and have for years, every year. Yet private schools spend a fraction per student that public schools use, and homeschool spends a fraction of that! More money is NOT and has never been the answer.
I feel for teachers, many, although not all, try their best to teach their students despite the restrictions placed upon them by the government. While I was in school my teachers were really my only friends. I spent my spare time, before, during, and after the school day helping them grade papers, ready their lessons, and help tutor their high needs students. At the start or every school year from sophomore year (I was homeschooled freshman year and in a private school grades 6-8) I gave all my teachers gifts of school supplies, at Christmas it was more school supplies and a homemade card (candy for Valentine's Day), and a personal gift on the last day of school. Several of them told me the pens, pencils, etc I gave them kept them supplied with 'extras' for the students that had forgotten theirs so they didn't have to buy them out of pocket. I continued this tradition for many years past graduation until I moved. I scored in the 99th percentile in yearly exams, 'post high school' in placement exams starting in 4th grade (with reading) and in all subjects (please note, for those of you who don't know, yearly placement exams don't test all subjects you learn in school) starting in 5th grade. I graduated with honors, having earned all but 1 A since 2nd semester of 6th grade. I don't say this to brag, I say this so you may believe I am not anti-education nor anti-teacher. I've been in (multiple) public schools, a private school, and homeschooled (officially for one year but really more for two) I have personally experianced all the options, I have personally excelled in my education within (and sometimes despite) those options. I've had to get up in front of class and recite multiplication table, memorize classical poetry, finished a days classwork in a hospital while a parent was in surgery, graded my own tests (without cheating), confered with teachers on which books should be allowed in the class bookshelf, and which should be required verses optional reading in their classrooms (my fellow students were less than happy with that one as it added an additional book to their required reading list), and been the only one who worked on a 'group' project. I care about the education; I care about teachers and our students getting a full and rounded education. Which is why I strongly advise any parents reading this to NOT enroll a child in public education until the government gets its noses out of it.

in desperate need of some humor

I'm in desperate need of some funny, and I'm betting you are too, so, here you go!
Food Groups:

Government: fruits/vegetables, 5 servings daily; grains, 3-5 servings daily; dairy, 3-5 servings daily; meat/protient, 2-3 servings daily; fats/sweets, use sparingly

Baby (over 6 months): boob juice, whenever I'm not too busy; stuff I can fit in my mouth, eat before mom takes it away; stuff mom gives me to put in my mouth, alternate randomly 3-24 servings daily with throwing it on the floor

Average Toddler: simple carbohydrates and other bland colored food, as much as possible; junk food, as much as I can beg, borrow, or steal; green stuff, as little as possible and less when I can hide it behind the couch.

Picky Toddler: mac & cheese, 3-5 servings a day; hot dogs, 3-5 servings a day; pizza, when I'm feeling adventurious and can pick off anything that looks questionable; banannas, only when bribed

Average Married Male: whatever the wife cooks, 2-3 times a day, store bought stuff, whenever she cooks crazy stuff like vegetables; meat, as much as possible, potatoes, see 'meat'; junk food, whenever the kids haven't eaten it all.

Mother (of young children): whatever I can cobble together from what's left from the last grocery run, mostly what's left over on the kid's plate; leftovers, whatever husband didn't eat; food I didn't cook, daily servings? more like monthly; chocolate, as needed.

Father/Mother=Father/Father?

There is this very bizare article over at Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2277787/) about the recent arrest of David Epstein for incest. I almost didn't link to it because I don't want to give such drivel more hits but...it's a lot easier to make my point if you've read the initial article. The author asks the question: if homosexuality is okay then why not incest?

So, first, I just have to say: TOLD YOU SO!

Ok, now that I have that out of my system, back on point.

Summerizing, in case you don't want to link jump, he states that incest is demonstratively wrong and should be illegal (although he also says he doesn't think Professor Epstein should be tried) because it causes a breakdown of the family unit. When Dad has sex with daughter or brother has sex with sister they are trampling what defines a family and therefore it is apropriate as a society to criminalize it/immoralize it. Then he makes the logic-wrenching statement that, since homosexual sex doesn't destroy the family unit it should be allowed and tolerated.
Wait...what?
Let's see, family unit as it has been defined in this country for over 200 years: father, mother, kids. How does father, father, kids or mother, mother, kids not change that? Is this person mentally deficient?
Not only that but that 'family unit' of father, father can not create 'kid' until and unless a 3rd party intervines. So, it's not only father, father, kid, it's actually father, father, mother, father, kid. (Because the adoptive kid still has a biological mother and father) (Or mother, mother, father, kid. ) Yes, adoption is a viable option for a traditional family as well but, in that case, you are adding onto the traditional father, mother pair the offspring of another father, mother pair. No matter how you look at it homosexual relations mess with the traditional family structure just as much as does incest, pedophilia, bigamy/polygamy, and any other deviant sexual behavior you can think of.
Unfortunately how they mess with the structure is fast becoming irrelavent to the liberal left. Especially for those who love the 'nanny state' mentality, the traditional family, with mom and dad raising, teaching, and equiping the children with the family morals and beliefs, is something they hate and are anxious to get rid of. So today it's 'accept homosexuality or you're a homophobic bigot' with people protesting their arrest/convictions of polygamy and incest (a polygamist recently used the same arguement as homosexuals to try to get him sentence over turned), and a ever more softening of liberal public sentiment towards them and other deviants. Tomorrow it's 'accept any sexual act or you're a sexually repressed bigot. (Or maybe they'll have to make up a new word along the same lines as 'homophobic' to be applied to people who hold to traditional morals.)
Guess what, I'm not 'phobic' of immoral behavior, regardless of flavor, I just recognize it is immoral, and will regardless of which flavor the liberals decide is 'in vogue' next. And regardless of what intelligence-insulting drivel they use to try to sooth their shriveled conscience.

The 'Ethics' of Food

"And God said 'See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.'" Genesis 1:29

"Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is , its blood." Genesis 9: 3-4

For a long time that was the only 'food ethics' I considered. If it moves or brings forth seed we are allowed to eat it. I grew up in the country, cattle country; there was a chicken farm right next to the local school, and I was in a state where almost everything is local to within a couple hundred miles, if not a couple dozen.
The horror stories of factory farms and mistreated animals were PETA propaganda that would be laughable if so many people didn't believe them. The meat of the animal is the muscel, and you don't get muscel if you raise the animal in standing room only. Unhealthy, uncared for animals will only get you unpalatable, unsellable product. No one is going to mistreat their meat animals, it's distroys one's livelihood. Besides, I'd personaly seen beef, pork, chicken, and even turkey ranches/farms. The animals were content and well cared for and slaughtered humanely.
Where I grew up the local store bought almost all the 4-H animals, and even labled which packages of meat came from the blue ribbon winners. And the farthest you could expect produce from was oranges from Florida when the local ones were out of season. (Well, I guess bananas were imported from wherever it is that they grow) There is almost nothing that isn't grown of raised in the Northwest, and that dwindles even further when you add in some citrus and tropical fruits from California.
I rolled my eyes at the 'animal rights' crowd and felt sorry for the people that actually believed that crap. And, having seen the difference between crops grown with and without insecticides, I washed my produce and ignored that overpriced 'organic' section. Only earth first freaks or those that were gulible enough to believe them bought a 97 cent apple for $3.
Then I moved.
I went to the local store and couldn't find the chicken. Oh, they have these little game hen things they insist on calling chickens, all 'plumped with up to 12%' who knows what. But there was no CHICKEN. And they wanted almost a $1 more a pound (on average) for these chicken-esque things than the normal ones back home. Ok...no chicken, where's the beef.
The 'fresh' beef had clearly been frozen. Isn't 'never been frozen' the definition of 'fresh'? How old was this stuff? And why was it so bloody expensive. And...what? 'Injected with up to 12%' what the *bleep*? I had known that some chicken, the really cheap stuff used by like questionable diners and roadside lunch trucks used chicken that had been 'plumped' but beef? I didn't even know you plumped beef! Ok...where's the pork?
The clearly 3rd rate pork they were passing off as 'fresh' was frozen too. And since when were pork chops that small? Ok...fish?
"Fresh trout: farmed in the UK, dyed to improve color" EXCUSE ME?
I broke down and bought some overpriced, injected, and frozen 'fresh' beef. And off to make dinner. Fast forward a few hours.
Wait, what happened to my meat? The 2 lb roast looks more like a 1 lb roast, that's not enough to feed us! And..oh bleck! That's not beef! What did they do to this?
Took me about 2 months of eating weird tasting beef for me to figure out what they had done to it... In Oregon people raise cattle on grass and hay (or alphalfa if it's really good beef) and fatten it on rolled oats and other grains. Over here they feed them corn. Corn! You don't feed a cow corn! They can't digest it properly, they get all bloated and don't develope the muscel and fat correctly. You feed cracked corn to chickens, not cows! No wonder this beef sucks.
The undersized chicken is tasteless and stringy. The pork IS 3rd rate, undersized, and tastes old to-boot. Never have gotten up enough courage to try the so called fish.
And then there is the produce. The apples are hit and miss at best. The rest is barely eatible at best. And it's all so old as to be almost pointless. Apples go bad in a week. Bananas are lucky to last 3 days, and that assumes you buy them green. Pears are worse then pointless, they're rock solid in the store and go directly from unripe to rotten, the pulms, nectorines, and peaches follow suit. The citrus might last a couple of weeks, but it's all tart and sour anyway so why bother? And the vegetables are rarely better.
Peppers start rotting almost immediately. Lettuce is limp from the store. My potatoes rotted under the cupboard in a week. ROTTED! Potatoes don't rot, they sprout! What in God's green earth do you have to do to a root vegetable to make it rot as opposed to sprout? What they do? Irradiate them then store them for 3 months before putting them out for sale?

2 years ago I would have flatly refuted the existance of wide-spread animal cruelty or poor living situations in the food market. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure there is another explaination for what passes as 'food' in the Midwest. I still think the organic section is just overpriced malarky, but when I'm staring at plums from Chile, pears from China, or Peruvian peaches, that overpriced, wormy produce is starting to look better and better, especially since it might taste like something other than gasoline and cardboard.
The dairy is right there too. Growing up the milk came from local, family owned farms and went from cow to shelf in 48 hours or less. It all says 'hormone free'. The first time I tasted milk over here I thought I'd got a gallon that had gone bad. More than a year later the milk still tastes funny (I'm going to guess they feed their milk cows corn too) and the cheese tastes more like colored plastic than cheese, that is, when it tastes like anything at all.
Oh, and they don't even sell 'grade AA' eggs. And everything in the stores is pasturized! Where's the raw apple cider? Even the farmer's market meat is frozen and liquid/cheese is pasturized. I actually had a meat seller at the farmer's market try to tell me there was no difference between fresh or frozen meat. (Even more unbelievable that meat defrosted in the microwave tasted no different than never frozen meat). THIS is what people who grew up here really think meat is supposed to taste like?
I still try to cook from scratch but I've got to wonder if, given what I have to work with if my home cooking is any better than store bought stuff?
And now I hear the FDA is holding hearings on the safety of food dyes (in pretty much any packaged food).
So what's my point? I'm not sure really, because I haven't made any decisions yet. But what I do know is that I've been confronted with a reality that is quite a bit different than what I thought was a universal (that and a strong urge to open a chicken farm to sell real chickens locally).
What's the food like where you live? Are you aware it's different elsewhere? What do you think about the ethics of food?

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

"One the 1st day of Christmas my true love gave to me; a partridge in a pear tree" wait, what? I like that song but, you know what, it makes about as much sense as "We Three Kings" wait, you don't get the comparison? Well here, let me help, here is my list of my 'favorite' Christmas gafts. (In no particular order)
1) Happy 'Birthday' Jesus? The Bible gives us enough information to determine when Jesus was born, and it wasn't in December. The timing of Christmas, Christ's Mass, was initially to celebrate his conception. The Light of the World was conceived on the Jewish Feast of Lights, which falls in November or December (due to the variation between the Jewish and Gregorian calendar). The specific date chosen by the paganized 'official' church was an attempt to line up with pagan festivals (much like trying to slip 'All Hallows Eve', a completely made up holy day, right next to Samhain. Christmas does have legitimate Christian roots just the specific date, Dec 25, was to help make the official church's celebrations more popular.) Of course there is nothing really wrong with celebrating your birthday on a day other than the actual anniversary of your birth. How many times do we schedule birthday parties around other things, like weekends or other birthdays, for convince? But that the average person, probably even the average Christian, doesn't know that we celebrate His birthday around the date of his conception is definitely annoying.
2) 3) 4) We Three Kings..at the birth. Here's a 3 for 1 sale on these guys. There is no real reason to think of them as kings, and plenty of reason not to. They were 'wise men' or 'magi'. Almost assuredly Persian in origin these figures were most likely learned men of the palace(s) astronomers, sages, advisors, and/or scholars of prophecy. Their number isn't mentioned in the Bible. The '3' is assumed because three types of gifts are mentioned. But the number of magi are not know. For all we know 20 magi decended upon the palace at Jerusalem looking for the newly born king, each with their gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Or maybe 5 wise men had pooled together resources to bring the three gifts worthy of a King-God. Think about your birthday parties, or any gift giving occassion, how many times does the number of gifts exactly match the people involved? (Especially when there are some rich people involved) and speaking of birthdays, they weren't there for the BIRTH! Nativity scenes annoy me more than most because they always show the wise men there the night of His birth. These men saw the star on the night of his birth. They quickly started their journery, traveling from Persia, probably from a palace, to Jerusalem, without the benefit of modern travel. They then spoke with King Harod. Then all the chiefs and scribes gathered together and and consulted their charts and held counsel together. (Tell you what, go ask Congress to answer an obscure procedural question and tell me how long it takes to get an answer) Finally they traveled to Bethlehem and "came into the house" and found "the young child" with Mary. (Note that the angels had used the term 'babe' when talking to the shepards night of) Given that Harod had all male children 2 and under slaughtered in an attempt to kill Jesus this whole process probably took....about 2 years. You'd think with all the nativities with their richly dressed magi and loaded camels that the average person must think the wise men from the east were capable of teleportation!
4) 5) Inn/stable: here come those darn nativity scenes again, the new family settled amongst the wooden stalls kneeling amidst straw with farm animals peeking over the wall. Rustic, cute, and extremely unlikely. There are a couple of possible (Biblical/historic) answers to this one and none of them are what a 21st century American is going to think about when hearing the words. 1st, and most likely, is Joseph and Mary were staying with extended family. But, do to the Feast of Tabernacles (Jesus's birthday, falling in Sept or Oct) and the Roman census there would have been a lot of extended family in the area. Homes at the time were usually built in 3 levels. There was the recessed lower level, the bedrooms on the 2nd floor, and then either an 'upper room' or a flat and habitable roof. The upper room or roof was the guest area, the 'inn' of the day. (True inns were fairly uncommon) If the upper guest room/roof was full when Mary and Joseph got there, then they would have been put up in the ground floor. This recessed ground floor would have likely contained the kitchen and things of the family livelihood too important to have outside, like a loom, potters wheel, carpenter work bench and tools etc. It was also where they brough their more delicate animals in to shelter for the night. A lamb, a calf, maybe a pregnant goat, or sick donkey, any animal that the household didn't want to spend the night outside. Thus the manger. You don't bring animals inside and not provide ready access to food, unless you don't mind them snacking on the decor. Another highly likely senario is like the first but, since it was the Feast of Tabernacle, the whole extended family may have been camping out in temporary dwellings (part of the feast) either on the roof or lower level, thus resulting in the crowding mentioned. (If you're 9 months pregnant and your choice is roof top or lower level how many pregnant women are going to choose the stairs?) So most likely Jesus was born into a warm circle of extended female relatives (who would have cared for Mary in her labor, birth being a woman's only task back then) in what we would today call a livingroom with a few curious animals looking on. There are 2 other less likely but possible senarios: there was a Roman inn in the town or their extended family's house was so full they were given the outdoor stables for privacy/space in birthing. In that area caves were used for stables/barns. It's possible if there was no room for the birth in the overcrowded house the animal cave was the next best offering, but see above for the gaggle of female relatives. Finally Roman inns were fairly predictable buildings. You had the inside space for a communal eating space and possibly higher priced rooms (those might be found in a 2nd story too) and then on the outside of the building you had straw filled stalls, used as both cheap lodging by the less wealthy travelers and to stable the horses or donkeys. While this is a historic possiblity in that such buildings existed, given the importance of family and guests in ancient Judea it is extremly unlikely Joseph would have been turned away from the household of his extended family, regardless of how crowded it was. As they say, there's always room for one more.
6) The happy couple's tailor. Why is Mary (and to a lesser degree Joseph) always shown in rich purples and blues? Lavishly swathed in the finest fabrics? These were things that only the rich could afford. Purple, blue, and to a lesser extent red dyes were expensive. No working class Jew could afford such things. Plus, she's just given birth, who wears their finest to a birth? Birth is messy, you've got every type of bodily fluid there is going all over the place. Even if by some stretch of imagination Mary had been gifted some regal fabrics the last place she's going to wear them is in labor! The second to last is traveling by foot or donkey on a dirt road. There is no reason to portray the young couple in anything other than sensible peasant browns.
7) Nativity scenes: see above. Also they have a tendency of showing everyone blond and blue eyed and/or the baby Jesus with arms outstretched basking very knowingly in all the adoration. Jesus came to earth 100% man (will still maintaining His godhood), so, like all men at the time of their birth He would have been tired, socially interested only in His mother, and likely unable to hold up His head, and, like Jewish babes were at the time, tightly swaddled with only His face showing.
8) Santa Claus is coming to town. Ok, I understand that not everyone who celebrates Christmas is a Christian and they need someone to focus attention on. I get that. I still don't get Santa. Mostly because it involves lying to your children and I definately don't get that (we always knew our presents came from our loving parents not some fat burgler who was only interested in you if you were 'good'). And I don't get why Christians 'do Santa'. There is nothing remotely Christian about him (he is not based on the Catholic saint Nicholas [which still wouldn't be a Christian connection], he's a mixture of Celtic and German mythology sprinkled after the fact with some Catholocism), and even if you just find him a 'fun' and 'harmless' figure, he still involves LYING to your children, which is against the Christian faith. So yeah, I hate Santa.
9) 'Happy Holidays': Yes, Christmas is a religious holiday, a Christian holiday with a fair portion of various favors of pagan thrown in (tree, yule log, Santa etc). It's a mutt holiday, that many people of many faiths celebrate...so why the huge push lately to not only remove any semblance of Christianity from Christmas but to refuse to acknowledge even the name? 'Winter trees' on sale in stores, 'holiday party' at work, 'winter break' for the kiddies, business telling employees they can't say 'merry Christmas', businesses and government removing nativity scenes (which you already know I don't like but are very much part of the tradition of Christmas), some of which have been fixtures for generations, cities putting up 'holiday' decorations instead of 'Christmas' decorations. It's sickening. Sit by your yule log fire reading 'twas the night before Christmas' to the kiddies by the glow of the lights from your Christmas tree while baby Jesus and the 3 wise men look on from the mantel, but it'll get you fired if you wear a button that says 'Jesus is the reason for the season'. Nevermind that it is, in fact, CHRISTmas that we, you, and the atheist next door are celebrating (I have met people who didn't make a big deal out of Christmas, I have met people that further mixed in pagan traditions with Christmas, or edited out parts they didn't like, but in 28 years I have known 1 person who actually didn't celebrate it) deplorable.
10).....so initially I was going to have 12 to go with the whole '12 days of Christmas', but it's taken sometime to write this and now I can't remember what my last two were supposed to be. So I'll leave you with a couple comments. I don't object to different people celebrating different days, different holidays, different ways. My 1 friend who doesn't celebrate Christmas celebrates Winter Solstice. I have given her Solstice gifts. What 'feast days' you celebrate, and how you celebrate them, are strictly between you and God. The Bible says celebrating certain days is a matter of conscience, not sin, so I've nothing morally against any feast day you may celebrate (I may have a moral objection to certain practices that in and of themselves are wrong such as lying to you kids or see my post on Halloween 'a different world'). I hope, whatever form or version of Christmas or other winter holiday you celebrate, you have a wonderful time with friends and family, and maybe my list of annoyances provided you with a few minutes of thoughtful humor.
Do you have a 'favorite' Christmastime annoyance?

The Ashes of the Phoenix

While having an online back and forth over at www.moralscienceclub.com something occured to me. Something fundamental that I hadn't realized before and it inspired me.
We get and receive complements all the time in life, some sincere, many insincere. But can you think of the best complement you've ever been given? Out of everything from everybody does one stand out as 'the best'?
I can. While there are a handful of complements that I have been honored over the years to receive I think one bestowed upon me freshman year in college squeaks by as the best.
I was sitting in my buddy Adam's room in winter of freshman year (mine not his). It has been a rough month. I was dealing with a lot of personal stuff, very much depressed and struggling deeply with some relationships...but so were a lot of my friends and I was doing my best to comfort and help them, non-christians all, as they struggled with their own messes. I don't remember specifically what sparked the conversation that night but he looked at me and said: "I know your God exists because despite everything you still have such hope, and I know that comes from something greater". It goes right along with a handmade poster I had hanging in my locker in high school "It is fruitless for a mirror to have 'self esteem', 'self worth', or pride. Reflect the LORD!"
In what has certainly been one of my lowest points, personally, I succeeded in something that all Christians struggle with for their whole life (and certainly I still do). I reflected the hope of Christ and love of God so brightly my non-christian friend was able to see God through me. What Christian could possibly want for more? To die to ourselves so that Christ shines through? Almost 10 years later and I still can't come up with a better wish, a more perfect goal, a more noble hope.
I have long said that Christians and non-christians alike get depressed. The difference is Christians have HOPE. It means a lot, the difference between hope and hopeless, especially in the worst of situations.
So back to my revelation. I, and the blog author Jim, were in a back-and-forth discussion with a regular tagged 'girlevolving' about abortion. Specifically how abortion is not made morally right just because someone's situation is bad or because the babe will be poor, beset by hardships, or disabled. And something occured to me.
Christians look at any situation, regardless of how bad, and see the hope held therewithin. We know that every situation can be used for good, every heartache a path to joy, every empty wallet a start to a full heart. History teaches us the undeniable resilance of the human spirit. The greatest rise from the worst of situations, the strongest unfold from the weakest.
Non-christians look at a poor mother, an abuse victim, a woman struggling to make ends meet and can only see how hopeless it is. Why bring a child into that? Do not fault, they tell us, the murder of a babe in womb to save it from a lifetime of suffering; it's a kindness, a curtesy, a heartwrenching decision that the woman believes is 'best' for herself, her existing children or family, perhaps even the soon to be dead child itself. And we look at that and marvel at how they can view it that way, horrified at the wanton destruction of so much potential! A child could be exactly the thing that turns a delinquent teenager into a responsible adult, that convinces the abuser they are wrong, or finally gets the abused to leave. A baby could lead to a new friend, who leads to a job opening and financial security, or it could repair a fractured family as the mother is forced to accept help from relatives. That disabled babe might become a world class scholar, or painter, or simply find happiness and acceptance in a commited loved one. How can they not see that they are trying to 'fix' a temporary problem with a permanent and horrific 'solution'. Abortion not only doesn't address the problem, it takes away the solution that can be found in new life!
Somewhere along the way they forgot, or maybe they never knew, that humanity has survived every horror, every holocust, every depression, and has risen to greatness. Not by dying, but by living! Somehow they can't see that humanities ability to overcome and rise above puts the phoenix to shame! Like that mythical bird humans rise back up from the ashes of distruction, but it is not simply to our old selves we arise but to a greater self. From the desolation of despair do humans create the finest riches. It is the soul scarred by the worst that life has to offer that has the most capacity to empathize and help others, and the most capacity to revel in the simple most universal joys of life.
We see hope.
They see hopelessness.
Which is why, I realized suddenly, that all the biology, science, statistics, and facts so rarely make a difference. You can not make the hopeless understand hope, and you can not take hope away from those who have it.
But you can try to give it; it can not be forced, only offered, only accepted. And the best way to do that is to introduce them to the Author of hope. He can not be forced upon anyone either, but if they accept then hope springs eternal. Hope allows even the weakest, basest of humans in the worst situation to pick his head up and exclaim "it is well with my soul!"

Oh I Wish I had a Keyboard...hooked up to the internet that is

I like to blog; I want to blog. And today is one of those days that thumb-pecking at this cell phone qwerty just won't cut it. I have so much I want to post right now. So, baring the sudden appearance of an internet connection to my laptop I'll just say this:
A blog I read over at www.mamaeve.com did a post on parenting today that made me want to write about the topic in more than quick responses, so, check her's out and think on it. http://www.mamaeve.com/index.php/effective-discipline/235-something-more-my-lessons-with-sibling-discipline
A friend posted on facebook about wanting the DREAM act to go through and that sparked a mini-debate on illegals on her board. I've written about illegal aliens before, but apparently never on my blog so, next time I get to a computer look for something on the topic to be forthcoming. In the meantime, if you are a facebook fan I expect you can find the discussion off my page, it's on Leslie's post.
And a brief post over at moralscienceclub.blogspot.com about how sexual 'rights' are trumping inalienable rights makes me want to write something on personal responsiblity. I suppose you could look back at my 'altered' post to get an idea of what I'm likely to say.
Anyway, I'll leave you with two points, you can ponder how they relate to the topics at hand. First, from wise old Mother Goose: there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she knew not what to do. So she fed them on broth without any bread, whipped them all soundly, and sent them to bed.
Then from old honorable Nathan Hale: "I regret I have but one life to give my country."

I'd say the victim was between 18 and 25 years of age.

I like crime drama, Law and Order, SVU, CSI, NCIS, and Bones, even the 'oldies' like Murder She Wrote and odd ball ones like the Sentiel and Moonlight, but I find their means of aging bodies extremely annoying. Growth plates are bad enough. I had an xray in 5th grade and the only growth plates still open were on my sacrol crest. I stopped growing in 4th grade (that would be around 10) while my father grew two inches between 21 and 25. I was 5'6" and 130lbs in 4th grade, and 5th, 6th, 7th...you get the point. In fact I was still 5' 6" although I had dropped to 125lbs when I was married at 22. On the other hand my (female) cousin grew steadily until she reached her final height (about 5'8" but I may be off an inch or so) in late high school.
And then there are the teeth. According to crime shows everyone gets their wisdom teeth between 18 and 25, all four of them. Excuse me while I roll my eyes. Let's see:
Dad: 3 wisdom teeth removed in late 20's, never got the 4th
Mom: 2 wisdom teeth removed in late teens, never got the other 2.
Brother: 2 removed in early twenties (don't know if the others have/had come in)
Me: all 4 erupted and removed at 12. (Yes, really, I'm not kidding)
Husband: all 4 removed at 18 or 19.
Friend1: currently in her 40's, never got them
Friend2: 1 removed in late 30's...
Do I need to continue?
How do real life cops determine age of an unknown subject or victim? I have no idea, but I certainly hope they have something more reliable then those old television standbyes of growth plates and teeth! I realize it's television, but really, it's as ridiculous as using non-poisonous species of snakes, frogs, and spiders and having the scientist run away screaming. Really? Because a phd biology major doesn't know the difference between a Coral snake and a Milk snake, and, according to Hollywood niether do we. Which I find just insulting. I mean, come on, is it really that difficult to paint a snake? Or use one of the non-poisonous varieties that really do look like a poisonous one?
I like t.v. and movies, I do, but I shouldn't have to check my brain at the door to enjoy one.
What about you, what's your 'favorite' Hollywood annoyance? Or, when did you get your wisdom teeth in/stop growing?

Rational Questions About Vaccines

I want to start by saying both my kids have received their age-appropriate vaccines (except for chicken pox), so far. My husband and myself both had all our childhood vaccines and my mother was a firm believer in the yearly flu vaccine so I got one every year too... and I still got the flu every year growing up. I also managed to get the mumps when I was 20. The mumps, seriously, who gets the mumps anymore? So I've always had a few questions about vaccines. Lately, I'm finding I have more.
At varrious health care facilities and public offices I see the flu vaccine touted as anywhere between 60% and 90% effective. But a meta analysis by the Crochane institute places it's effectiveness at just 1% for healthy adults, and warns that, since most of the studies were carried out by the vaccine's makers that 1% might be overstated. 1%, really? For a disease like small pox that, even among healthy individuals, has a 1 in 3 chance of death even a 1% effectiveness would certainly be worth it, but the flu? The point, realistically, seems to be little beyond a feel-good placebo effect. A placebo that does have known side effects.
And about that...I always throught double blind studies with vaccines (any drug really) vs placebo to test for side effects and efficency the placebo was supposed to be some sort of harmless 'sugar pill'. Yet now I'm reading that placebos, to maintain the 'blindness' of the study are things meant to mimic expected side effects. Yet then they epress the likeliness of side effects in compairison to the 'placebo' users in the drug trials. I honestly don't know if I believe it, but I've read it from more than one source and it is both despicable and sounds likely (realisticly how else WOULD you keep a study double blind if only one group was getting side effects?)
Another thing, the CDC says doctors woefully underreport minor side effects. Which makes sense. When I call the peds office to ask for proper dosing for weight because my infant/toddler has a minor but annoying fever after a vaccination I don't expect them to call and report that to the CDC. And what parent is going to call themselves and say their babe is cranky and feverish. We've already been told to expect that. The paperwork says minor fever/crankiness has a 1 in 3 chance of occuring after vaccinations but in 12 years of childcare I've NEVER met a kid that didn't have that reaction. It seems more likely that 1/3 of parents/doctors are apt to report.
So dragging myself towards my point...I have some questions that I feel are valid, reasonable, and logical questions about vaccines.
1) if vaccines are as effective as touted why do health officials say unvaccinated kids put 'others' (who are vacconated) at risk? I've heard/read it so many times it's apparently a mantra, unvaccinated kids in our schoools put all the students at risk. Only, wait, the kids are vaccinated they are supposed to be immune to the diseases they are vaccinated against, so how could being around kids who aren't vaccinated, and who could potentially have the sickness, possibly put them at risk??? I've had chickenpox, I'm immune so I have no fear of being around someone who has it. I've been vaccinated against measles as a child, and had my booster as a young teenager, can I, as an adult say the same? Could I even as a child? It doesn't make sense. So, are they lying when they say vaccines produce immunity to the diseases they vaccinate against? Or are they lying when they say unvaccinated children put vaccinated children at risk? Is there a third option?
2) If I catch a 'one time' sickness like chicken pox, mumps (seriously, MUMPS!) etc, I'm immune for life. I can, twenty years from now, take care of another with the disease without any risk of becoming sick (well, theoretically. I know a whole family, 4 kids, who ALL got chicken pox twice. Yes, it was 'really' chicken pox, confirmed by a doctor both times. On rare occassions you can get one time diseases a second time.) Yet the vaccines 'wear off'. Vaccines require multiple shots and even, years later, boosters. Why? If they actually produce immunity, why is it temporary? How can the (hypothetically) same antibodies produced by the vaccine not stick around when the antibodies from the disease sticks around? What's more, many of these sicknesses are known to be less severe when caught as children, so are we, as adults, all wandering around at risk for significantly worse cases of something if we happen to get exposed to it in our 30's, 40's, or, worse, 70's? Is this really worth it when the diseases as children are (usually) merely annoying? (The paperwork I received about the chicken pox vaccine when it was offered to my eldest child actually stated 'chicken pox is a painful childhood disease that can cause life long scars' really? States are making a vaccine that has only been around for a few years mandatory because they are afraid kids might get a scar?) Are required vaccines for our children putting us at risk as adults because they don't really produce immunity? Or are we being used as pin cusions for the money with unnecessary booster shoots?
3) What are the actual effectiveness vs side effects? I remember learning about Pastuer and his small pox vaccine. Long before 'double blind' trials he had real world proof his vaccine worked. Children receiving the vaccine were less likely to die from small pox. (did you catch that, it didn't provide immunity to small pox, it lessened it's severity) The trade off was they had a mild case of a different version of pox, which was non deadly. That makes sense. Deadly disease significantly less deadly for the price of a couple of sick days. But what about today's vaccines? What are their side effects? The real side effects, as in, take a 1000 kids, what side effects will they have, not what side effects are reported via doctors or what side effects are worse than those that had a 'placebo'. But what side effects do they actually have? And how effective is it? This relates back to a previous question. Can a vaccinated person really safely be around the disease without catching it? Does the vaccine just provide for a milder form of the disease? And I want to see the actual numbers. When the public health office says the flu vaccine is 70-80% effective to keep people from catching the flu, but the Cochrane institute says it's 1% effective, and that's questionable, it's clear us parents are not getting the correct/full information. When I looked at the papers on the Cochrane site I see lots of studies about different vaccines effectiveness in the elderly, or in children with specific health problems, but nothing (other than the one about the flu) about the effectiveness and side effects of the vaccines towards regular kids.
Alright, when I started this I know there was a fourth point, but I've been interupted in writing this so many times that now I can't remember it. So I suppose those three will work for now.
Do YOU have any questions about vaccines? Have you found any answers you would like to share?

Circumcision and Common Sense

Recently I've been reading a lot about the who circumcision debate, words like 'intactivsm' and 'MGM' have been introduced into my vocabulary, and I've read both thoughtful and thoughtless comments from both sides of the aisle. To be up front I am against circumcision for my family. My son, and my husband, are both 'intact'. As I was a virgin when I married and not given to looking at nude males I've never seen a fully grown naked man other than my husband. So I don't know what a circumcised penis looks like on an adult. I have, however, seen it on children when I babysat as a teenager. I think it looks obscene. I think, by mimicking what an erect penis looks like, it sexualizies infants and children.
I'm a Biblical Christian, and Biblically speaking Christians are not supposed to get circumcised, so I'm always surprised when I hear a fellow Christian mention the procedure. It's my understanding, from a historic standpoint, that Jewish circumcision used to be a lot less 'extreme' than it, and secular US circumcision is today. I've never spoken to an Orthodox Jew about it though so I'm not sure on that point.
Recently my friend on Facebook brought up a proposed ban in San Francisco, CA on infant non-medically indicated male circumcision. Many repliers pointed out that female circumcision had been banned for years, why not male? Parental choice verses protection of children went back and forth, and in general most people had a thoughtful comment to leave.
Yet I think many people are looking at this with veiled eyes. On the one hand you have people saying things like, I want him to look like his father/older brother, it's cleaner, it looks nicer, or that's just what you do. On the other side you have people pointing out that you wouldn't amputate a kids leg if his father had only one, the varried and sometimes severe (including deah) side effects, it's no more difficult to care for than female genitals, it looks nicer, it's not the parent's body, and 'just because' isn't a valid reason to do a medical procedure. A few pointed out that we let parents pierce their infants ears so why deny them the option to circumcise?
Yes, society protects children from what society as a whole deems abusive, and that does change generation to generation. But just because it 'mutilates' the body doesn't automatically means it should be protected from. All societies throughout history have given parents/adults broad rights over a child's body in order to bring them into the society properly. Male or female circumcision, head shaping, foot binding, scarification, tattooing, neck/lip/ear/etc stretching, binding of the waist/ankles/wrists/etc have all, for one culture or another been seen as a normal and non-abusive act for a parent to inflict upon an infant/child. To call every child ever born into these societies (which includes out own during certain times) 'abused' stretches the word past any meaning and detracts from what it actually means. Saying that WE 'know' it's 'detrimental' means we get to tell others what is abuse and what isn't is the highest form of egocentric racism/culturalism. There are plenty of things 'we' (Americans) do to our children that would be considered abuse or neglect if viewed through the lens of another culture.
I would be willing to bet the vast amount of those calling out against circumcision because it's mutilization of a non-consenting body put shoes on their kids without mind or thought. Shoes premanently deform the feet, leading to many problems later in life not seen in societies that don't wear hard soled or structured shoes. So if their objection is really to deforming/mutilating the body why are they so cavaler about shoes?
The main difference is that America is a melting pot, and, increasingly so is the industrialized world. We want to embrace the cultures of the world while simultaneously preserving some sense of out own culture. So, as a culture we pick and choose what of other cultures we are willing to adopt and what we are willing to decry. Fortunately or unfortunately that is most likely to follow either the popluace majority or the money. Either way the industrial society has something that preindustrial society did not, a conflicting voice. In tribal cultures even extreme rituals of body modification is acceptable because everyone went/goes through it. It's not abuse, and people don't come out the other side as abuse victims. But in any society that which is unusual is, most often, going to be seen as destructive and unwanted.
The circumcision debate should not be 'to mutilate or not to mutilate' but rather have we, as a society come to a turning point where individual choice has made this particular modification rare enough for it to no longer be normal? I don't think so, in some places circumcision has dropped below 50% in the newborn generation, but not in all places, and even a 50/50 split is still well within the range of normal. It is time for those who don't like circumcision to talk to others and try to convince others, eventually the odds will swing (one way or the other) and perhaps male circumcision will, like the restrictive corset, become one of the 'horrors' of our cultural history. Or maybe it, like tattooing, will be regulated to an 'adults only' decision.

You Look Like Someone Stole Your Birthday

I was reading an article about symantics and it was referencing the change in meaning of pregnancy and, specifically, 'conception'. Historically when pregnancy 'began' has varried some. Not every woman cycles every 28 days, and not every woman who misses the first expected day of her period is pregnant. The first successfuly abdominal surgery to remove a tumor in the U.S. (no, I don't remember the year) was proformed on a woman who sought medical help after a 13 month 'pregnancy'. I've seen the old drawing of this poor woman, looking very pregnant, being led astride a horse to the nearest doctor, many miles away. In some cultures if a pregnancy did not produce a birth (as in fetal demise that doesn't naturally expel the stillborn) the woman was still considered pregnant with a 'sleeping' baby, that might at some future date awake and be born. (Current medicine refers to these retained dead babies as 'stone babies' because they become calcified in the womb) Many cultures waited until the mother felt pregnant, or until 'quickening' (when the baby starts moving) to claim a pregnancy. Yet even in cultures that don't have calanders or counting the concept that pregnancies last about 10 moons (9 months give or take) is an accepted fact. I'm unaware of any culture through out history that didn't have a correct expectation of how long pregnancy usually lasts. Which, logically, means that pretty much every woman has understood that their pregnancy began before they knew they were pregnant.
With the advent of modern medicine we can tell if a woman is pregnant much earlier, and with more reliability than ever before. Most OTC pregnancy tests now work up to 5 days before a woman misses her period. But even now women understand thet they have to be pregnant BEFORE they can know about it. So where am I going with this rather long preamble? Conception.
Conception, the very moment a pregnancy starts. For generations the term conception was synonomous with fertilization, which is biologically sound. The moment sperm meets egg and fertilization occures biological life begins. The new human, medically termed a zygote, meets all the biological requirements of life and are a unique individual with a fully complete DNA that has never existed before nor will again (discounting asexual reproduction or cloning). As late as the 90's this was still the accepted medical description of conception, and therefore pregnancy (1995, 26th edition of Stedman's Medical Dictionary: "act of conceiving, or becoming pregnant; fertilization of the oocyte (ovum) by a spermatozoon to form a viable zygote"). But something happened. It started in the 60's actually when, following the lead of Planned Parenthood instead of biology, the ACOG redefined pregnancy to begin at implantation. This is primarily tied to the advent of hormonal contraception that can keep implantation from happening, thus terminating a pregnancy under the old definition. In the late 80's when the 'morning after' and 'chemical abortion' came onto the scene (the later wasn't legal in the US until 2000 but was medically known and availible elsewhere starting in the late 80's) the trend to redefine pregnancy as starting after implantation as opposed to fertilization gained more supporters. (The 27th edition of the above mentioned text, published in 2000, changed to read "act of conceiving; the implantation of the blastocyte in the endometrium).
I am reminded of 1752 when the official change over between the Julian calander and the Gergorian calander happened. To align the calander 11 days were deleted. People went to bed on September 2nd and woke up on September 14th. A bunch of people had their birthdays stolen that year. But in the last generation literally millions of people have had their birthdays stolen by medical personnel that assured a women that their birth control or morning after pill wouldn't abort a pregnancy. Yes, some mothers still would have chosen abortion for their newly made babes, but many would not have as well. And those mothers weren't given a 'choice'. 'The Pill' and the 'Morning After Pill' had far too much appeal to the abortion advocates to let a little thing like the dictionary to stand in their way. And, for whatever reason, the established medical community (especially pharmicutial companies anxious to get their pregnancy killing drugs to a wider clientel bas) has been following the abortion industry like good puppies since Planned Parenthood's early years. (I blame a mix of clever marketing and monetary gain)..
Language changes, and definitions change, it's true. But when the medical community redefines a medical term for a non medical reason I call BS. Nearly 50 years after the 1st redefining of pregnancy and still the average woman doesn't know the morning after pill "won't harm an established pregnancy" only because the company that created it put a * after pregnancy in their initial literature and gave the then unusual definition of 'an already implanted' baby. To the average mind conception still equals fertilization . Webster still defines conception as "the process of becoming pregnant involving fertilization or implantation or both". Yes, even Webster is starting to jump on the badnwagon, but it still shows the common English definition involves fertilization, the biological start of life, as the start of a pregnancy.
In the 1700's the establishment stole 11 days of birthday anniverseries, today we've stolen 50 years of actual birth-days from the most innocent and youngest of our societies, and most people don't even realize it.

Monsters in the Dark and What I Learned from Them

So a couple of the blogs I commonly read are all doing parenting pieces, apparently there is a blog carnival going on. i dont know what that is but it seems to be something of a 'jump on the bandwagon' style thing, so I figured i'd toss in my 2 cents. Course, my '2 cents' would fill pages so...in an attempt to follow up on the 'will post via cell even if it's short' point' and because I'm feeling philisophical today, I'm going to touch on something my father told me once: "monsters are only scary because they don't have names. You'd be cranky if you didn't have a name too. So if you feel scared by the monsters in the dark just give them names and they won't be scary and will go away." My brother and I had, if I remember correctly, been complaining about having to go out to the wood pile in the dark, a scary thing for a young kid, when my father first dropped this jewel onto my little mind. It had the immediate effect of my brother and I shouting names into the dark while fetching wood. "George, Jill, Martha, Thomas, Amanda!" Any name that popped into our head. We gave those monsters names and by golly, they really did leave us alone. Even as a five year old it's hard to be scared of something you just bestowed the name "bob" upon.
But in the long run I look back at this nugget as one of the wisest and most insightful things ever said to me, by anyone. I have no idea if my Dad meant it as such, I don't know that my brother gleaned any deeper meaning from it. But I know it has followed me all these years. Let me break it down.
First, he acknowledged the monsters. Unlike so many adults my Dad didn't just say 'there is nothing to worry about; there's no such thing as monsters'. Because there are monsters. When you're a kid the monsters under your bed or hiding in moon-cast shadows ARE real. As real as the monsters we come to know as we get older. Because there are monsters. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, serial killers, and Hitlers exist and are just as scary, just as monstrous as the preverbial boogyman. What is more, even before my family came to the Lord, we acknowledged the spirit world and its evil (we just didn't explain it the same light). Demons exist, and I believe it's foolishness to dismiss our innate fear of 'monsters'. My Dad's acknowlegement of the monsters gave us the right and permission to be afraid, a key step to understanding fear is recognizing it's validity.
Second having given us the right to fear instead of mocking it by saying it shouldn't exist he gave us a way to combat it. In a very real way this relates to the old 'give a man a fish and he eats for the day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime' proverb. He gave us a way to combat fear, define it. Yes, shouting names into the darkness has a certain obsurdity to it, but the concept doesn't. It is the unknown that terrifies us, the 'nameless dread', the 'unseen terror', that chills our very spirit. The dark is scary precisely because we can't see what's out there. Telling us to name the monsters gave us a vital tool to deal with more than the dark. I knew from a very young age that, once I had defined and known a things nature I could then logically attribute to it only that fear which it deserved, which is usually far less than it would have been given otherwise.
Third, because of one and two, we were able to get over a fear of the dark (and the monsters of childhood) much earlier I think than the average. The dark might be scary for a five year old, but, as mentioned before, 'bob' is not, and, even to a seven year old the obsurdity of shouting names into the dark is nothing but laughable. It is extremely difficult to be afraid andtake seriously that which reduces you to gails of laughter. Yes, I remember occassionally needing to call out some names at 9 and 10, but for the most part by 8ish I had outgrown the child's boogyman. Because, ultimately, that which is capable of being dismissed merely by naming them are not worthy of fear.
Finally it is a lesson that is fully applicable to nearly all fears. When I was younger I had very little fear of the dark, I have very light sensitive eyes so the darkness was always somewhat of a relief, a respite. But I did have a very nearly overwhelming fear of walking towards the light with darkness at my back. Finding myself walking back towards the lit house in the dark would cause my pulse to jump, my breathing to quicken, and my whole body to quiver with the need to RUN! Of course running didn't really do any good, it just got me out of the situation marginally faster. So, annoyed with what I knew to be a pointless fear (if the dark didn't scare me all around why should it be scary just behind me?), I applied my Dad's lesson to it. I sought to understand it, to define it. It was based in a nightmare i'd had years earlier of running through the dark towards a point of light with some slathering monsters chasing me. Hardly unique I know. So I knew where the fear came from, I was afraid of the situation because it reminded me of a nightmare. Well that's hardly something to be afraid of, a remembered nightmare? Why should I be afraid of something just because it reminded me of a dream? Once I had named it I was able to asign the appropriate level of fear to it, namely, none. So I forced myself to walk slowly, breath normally, ignore the fear and demand my body catch up with my mind. It took conscious effort and time but my body did catch up with my mind.
I've had more than one person ask in an annoyed voice "don't you have any irrational fears?" To which, thanks to applying my Dad's advice I can reply: "no, that would be irrational." And why would a rational person put up with that? I have had irrational fears, and some took me years to fully dismiss from my physical body's automatic reaction, but I have never actively allowed an irrational phobia to linger. Nor have I ever allowed myself to panic over something I can't control.I seek to understand a fear or panic, do whatever is logically required or merited given that understanding, and then put it from my mind. All because my Dad thought to tell us to give those creepy darkness monsters names.
In conclusion I hope someday I get to tell my children to shout names at the darkness, and I hope they too take a valuable life lesson from naming the monster under the bed 'bob'. Because knowing that there is no reason for irrational fear or panic and that such can be overcome is definately a lesson I've used more than nearly any other through out my life. And in no doubt it will continue to need to be dusted off the shelve and used again and again as I age and deal with all those irrational parental fears that crop up as my kids age as well.
Love you Dad.