The Fourth

Well it's that time of year again. My least favorite holiday. For those who don't know I completed my BA in History in 2004. So it's not like I don't understand and appreciate the meaning for the holiday. I am a conservative thus I understand patriotism, loyalty and sacrifice. What I don't understand is communities, counties, states and federal governments willingness, especially in light of the terrorist agenda, to put explosives in the hands of people who have a hard time deciding what side of the bed to get out of in the morning.

I guess it's not surprising. We allow them to get married without any impediment besides (in some states) a blood test. They are also entitled to breed indiscriminately without any kind of training at all. Unlike getting a drivers license, no evidence of common sense, skill or intelligence is required. Allowing these people to purchase fireworks is on the same level of stupidity, only the results are immediately disastrous instead of cumulative.

I guess having a father-in-law who was a volunteer fireman (back in the day) who spent the Fourth ferrying people to the hospital who had lost hands, feet, eyes, and suffered severe and extensive burns not to mention those who did not survive made him slightly strident on the subject. Then there were the house fires with their attendant loss of life and property that put the cap on it for him and his family. In my case I think of all that money spent simply to go up in smoke. If people are so willing to throw their money away I wish they'd throw it my way.

Don't get me wrong I love fireworks. I have had some of my best times watching fireworks. However it is comforting to me that the people in charge of large scale fireworks are trained and experienced in pyrotechnics. It's their job and they won't be in business long if they aren't safe. So I can enjoy and appreciate without a debilitating fear for my life and property.

I realize that my opinions do not mirror others in my community and that everyone is FREE here in the U S to make all manner of questionable decisions. I would not stop them from doing so, unless their doing so impacts on my freedoms. So if you are a fireworks fancier do your neighbors a favor.  Don't do them near their house and property and please, please, please don't do them all night long. Not everyone sleeps like the dead (especially the elderly and babies).

Of course if you did those things I probably would have a lot less angst about this whole subject, but then I'd have nothing to complain about. After all I am female  and everyone one knows we love to complain and bellyache.  It's what we do, right Frank.

Caution Religion 2

Things have been a little up in the air for us here at Musings. Life has taken a unexpected turn which has refocused our minds and hearts more on the things of the Spirit. If this offends anyone one who visits here, I am sorry. The fact is that I and my peeps are more interested in the things of God than the things of Mammon. We get distracted (who doesn't), we forget (who doesn't) and then we get reminded (yeah). I ran across this in my readings the other night and thought it appropriated for the times.

22 Yea, and I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous, who are now in the land, that ye would even now be visited with utter destruction; yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but it would be by famine, and by pestilence, and the dsword.
23 But it is by the prayers of the righteous that ye are spared; now therefore, if ye will cast out the righteous from among you then will not the Lord stay his hand; but in his fierce anger he will come out against you; then ye shall be smitten by famine, and by pestilence, and by the sword; and the time is soon at hand except ye repent.- Alma 10:22-23.

Sad to say my sense of humor is non-existent, my sense of the ridiculous has been muted but my recognition of irony remands intact. There is nothing else to say..............

Meanest Mother

I visit the IMAO web site on occasion. Alright more than occasionally. In the course of posting my good internet pal Jimmy asked just how mean a mom I was. This is the answer:

I'm so mean that when my children fought with each other (even just picked at each other) I made them sit on a bed with their arms around each other until I was satisfied they got the point.

When they first start having friends outside the family, if they are mean and nasty to their siblings they are grounded from playing with their friends until they are nice to their brothers and sisters. Not fake nice, not nice only when they think I'm looking but really nice. That goes for all of them for as long as they live in my house. They are respectful to their elders and nice to their peers I don't care who they are or how obnoxious they are. They don't have to like them they just have to be nice. After all, a very special person once said, "It is always nice to be right but it is always better to be nice."

One time when my oldest son did something very stupid I grounded him for the rest of his natural life (or until I decided he'd gotten the point-took about 6 months).

We don't own a game box, or nintendo or anything like unto it. There is one in the house which belongs to the adult child just back from the military but when he goes it goes.

My minor children go to church every Sunday. There is no choice, my house-my rules. No option.

They make their own lunches for school, they do their own laundry by the time they reach high school. (I need my washer and dryer and letting a adolescent male loose in my laundry room is not something I intend to do-sorry guys). I teach them to cook, clean, organize and be responsible. Some times it takes them a while to catch the vision but they get there eventually.

When they don't do well in school they do extra school work for me. They can either do their homework correctly and turn it in or they can do work for me, under my eye, turn it in and do some more. Eventually they get the idea that the teacher is so much easier on them than me.

All of my adult children have cell phones, my minor children don't. They do have I Pods but they do not have their own televisions or computers and we control what movies they watch and what music is on their Pods. We monitor where they go and who they go with. The seventeen year old has more freedom because she has earned it. The twelve year old may be living here until he's fifty, but I thought that about the oldest boy too and he's turned out really well.

We have had only two R rated movies in the house (both sent to me by my mother-in-law -Braveheart and Schildlers List) Neither of them are opened. I will not willing expose my children to gory violence and incidental and gratuitous sex so it can warp their perceptions of how intimate relationships REALLY function, because what you see on the screen is nothing like what can happen in real life with someone you truly love and are totally committed to. There are even PG-13 movies that we don't allow in the house. What they watch as adults is their business, what they watch here is mine.

Their hair belongs to me as do their bodies. No crazy color, no long straggly hair for boys, no buzz cuts, no piercing for boys, one set for girls, no body art, no skanky, dirty, clothes. Once they are adults they can do as they like until then they are my responsibility and since they are I get to set the standards.


See what did I tell you, I AM the meanest mother on the planet

Nuclear secrets?

Wow, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages. Have I got a surprise for you. It is shocking, inconceivable, unbelievable and contrary to the edicts of the New Messiah. What could it be you ask? Who would go against the greatest leader of our time, the only hope for our future, the atomic agent of change, the last great option for our dying world?

According to IAEA Iran may not be telling the truth. I know, who'da thunk it?

Iran may be withholding information needed to establish whether it tried to make nuclear arms, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday in an unusually strongly worded report.
The tone of the language suggesting Tehran continues to stonewall the U.N. nuclear monitor revealed a glimpse of the frustration felt by agency investigators stymied in their attempts to gain full answers to suspicious aspects of Iran's past nuclear activities.

Unlike;
2006
2007

"When North Korea announced a nuclear weapons test at the beginning of October 2006, Iran publicly condemned it. Iran policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, Carah Ong, noted in her blog that the response of Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini on state-run television said:

'Iran’s position is clear and Iran on principle believes in a world free of nuclear weapons. Iran is hopeful that negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear activities can go ahead in the interest of both North Korea and the international community.' "

— Mohammad Ali Hosseini, October 2006, Iran Responds to North Korea’s Nuclear Weapon Test, quoted by Carah Ong,
October 10, 2006

1950's thru to the present

While other more civilized, sane countries have decamped from the nuclear weapon bandwagon, rogue states like North Korea and Iran have continued to develop technologies which if left unchecked may kill us all.

During the cold war nuclear weapons were an essential part of defensive technology. As long as there was someone out there ready and willing to use those kinds of weapons to eradicate their enemies, the threat of equal or worse damage being visited upon their own country and peoples kept them in line. Saner heads have for the most part prevailed and now we have the village idiots from 3rd world cess pools rattling their sabers or in reality their camel bones at the rest of the world pretending they are actual players in world events. North Korea and Iran remind one of adolescents who must make noise and call attention to themselves due to their feelings of inadequacy.

Most people pass this stage in human development and come to the knowledge that while every life is important, all life is transient. It is apparent that in at least these two countries the leadership will never grow up. They will continue to act as if their lives and the lives of their people is the pre-eminent reason for the existence of this planet. They will attempt to blackmail, bribe, bully and intimidate the rest of the world as long as they believe the rest of the world is too weak, selfish, naive and ignorant to do anything about it.

My guess is that it will take either a nuclear accident like Chernobyl or worse to wake up those who refuse to believe or understand that appeasement never works with megalomaniacs or children. The leaders in these 3rd world circus' are one or the other. My opinion is that their emotional growth was stunted at the same time they should have been taught that there were other people in the world and that they were not the only one's that matter.

Parenting, it always comes down to parenting. My advice. Someone needs to give them a spanking, not a time out, not grounding, a spanking, hard enough for them to remember it for a long, long time. 

Somewhat like Reagan's response to Libya's bombing of a German night club. It wasn't the isolated incident that he was addressing, it was the idea that there would be no consequences to uncivilized behavior. Mr. Kadafi didn't come out of his bunker for a very long time after that. That is the real secret of peace. We must make it much more preferable to what ever those who seek power can ever achieve.

It's a shame that the current crop of political kindergardeners haven't achieved that level of expertise.

Hey Michele

I have had it.  I have only one thing to say to Michele Obama.  Either Cowgirl up or shut up.  

I know, how dare I?  Someone who believes in the Constitution.  Someone who believes in the First Amendment.  Someone who's father, grandfather, uncles, husband and now son are veterans who were willing, if asked, to die for this country.  Someone who believes in personal choice and the freedom to believe in whatever one chooses to believe in.

I dare because with personal choice and freedom come responsibility.  There are intended and unintended consequences of our words and actions.  When one makes public statements they are then responsible for the personal consequences of those statements.  Ones race, gender, age, occupation or intelligence (or lack thereof) should have no impact on those consequences. It would be racist in the extreme to ignore the anti-American statements made by the wife of someone who claims to want to be president of the entire US, not just of those with African ethnicity.  Should Ms. Obamas remarks be forgiven because she is black or because she's "just" his wife.  If Mr. Clinton or Ms. McCain had offered the same assessment would there be the hue and cry over people taking exception to them. Somehow I think not. 

This to me is racism in it's worse form.  Mr Obama can't win on ideals or plans.  We HAVE to vote for him, because otherwise we're bigoted racist, xenophobes.  What a novel way to elect the best and brightest.  What a way to choose a leader.

I won't vote for someone because of the color of his skin, nor will I not vote for someone for the same reason.  It's not someone's time, nor is it their turn.  We're voting for the leader of the free world here, maybe we should stop the shallow pontificating and find out exactly what this man plans and who is he going to tap to help him do the job.  

They'd better be the best, the most qualified leaders or there won't be any freedom to worry about. 

Trans-gendered kids?

Ladies and gentlemen, someone, anyone educate me on how a 7 year old can be confused about his gender.

A 7 year old has no idea what a man or woman "feels" like, they don't have any deep understanding of the differences between males and females. Hormones such as they are have not yet begun to make them crazy, cranky and somewhat costly.

Now I know that I am just a simple woman. I don't have a PhD nor do I have a 6 figure job. I am not a psychiatrist or doctor but lets look at this logically. If you have never tasted broccoli how do you know you won't like it? If you've never seen the vegetable do you even know what broccoli is? One wonders who is counseling these children, do their doctors and parents have Dr. Ruth on speed dial, are they spending too much time in front of Will and Grace or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?  Isn't this akin to child abuse?  If not why?

Once one is an adult if they chose to delude themselves into the homosexual scam, well there is not much one should or could do about it. The basic fact is that a person is born either male or female (with some few examples). No matter how the "feel" they are what they are. It is what one does with the trials and difficulties in life that shows the stature of the soul.

At least for those who believe in a soul. We are apparently becoming an endangered species.

What did Shakespear say?

A friend sent me this in an email. It is no wonder this country is in the mess that it's in. Many lawyers while a necessary evil are an evil none the less.

As Mr. Shakespeare said in Henry VI, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Over and over again we have seen shyster ambulance chasers attempt to circumvent the legal system not for the good of their clients, not for the good of the community but to line their own pockets and those of their handlers.

This was reported in an  article at CNN "

"In California, a 2000 voter referendum banned same-sex marriage, but state lawmakers have made two efforts to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills."

Now with activist, constructionist judges there is no perversion too vile, no crime too heinous, no group too violent that they can't champion them. People like Ayers, Reverend Wright, John Edwards, and apparently the Supreme Court of California are bent on destroying the fabric of our society from the inside out.

Lest anyone think I am a sexual bigot, I personally don't care what people do in the confines of their homes/ apartments. I don't want to know your sexual orientation. Since I am married and have been for 30+ years I'm REALLY not interested. 

No matter how many studies you do, how many diversity training videos I have to watch, or what new revelation about this writer, poet, musician, famous individual or that, I still know that homosexuality is an aberration. While it does occur in nature, the consequences which naturally occur ( all of the genes are removed from the gene pool) are effective and unbiased. It is not normal behavior. Roughly less than 4% of the population is gay according to this report.

Now I'm the first one to say that most folks have an agenda about this but the facts are that if you put two homosexuals together (without some serious intervention) they will never spontaneously produce offspring. Those genes will be deleted from the pool.   The most damaging part of the California Supreme Court issue is not the homosexual agenda per se.  It is the fact that radical judges are setting aside the will of the people in order to pander to special interest groups who have no understanding of the basic tenants of democracy.   

"We the people of the United states, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility.....".  NOT we the Supreme Court, not we the President, not we the Gay and Lesbian Alliance.  We the people, the voters, the citizens are supposed to be in charge. 

Like the media, lawyers seem to think it is their job to "save us", to "educate us" to "beat us into submission" if necessary.   They are taught that attitude by professors who spend their time in the hallowed halls of academia.   The arrogance factor of these people is overwhelming. They are unable to understand the concepts of personal liberty, freedom and self governance.

E.B. White opined;

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.

This my fellow citizens is the elitist nonsense we have to battle. Now, then, everyday in every way the battle continues to rage.  "Never give up, never surrender.