Wishlist for Christmas 2010

Howdy all! Been a long time, eh? Just wanted to wish everyone a lovely, beautiful, wonderful, happy Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Midwinter... whatever Holiday you celebrate. Or even if you don't, I wish you a pleasant wintertime anyway. :) Soooo, the big day has come and gone. It was a very nice day for us, actually. One of the best Christmas Days I've had in years. Very calm, pleasant, restful... it did rain on us early, but by afternoon it was clear.

Anywho... just thought I would get a head start on my wish list for next Christmas. Ya know, get ol Santa Claus thinking on it anyway, so... this is my list of wants for next year (in no particular order):

1. High Speed Rail. Like the rest of the world is developing. Why can't I hop a train and make an afternoon trip down to my sister's place in FL? It's only 400 miles. Why should it take me all day to drive there? We've been talking about this since I was a little girl and it still isn't happening. Wake up folks! Park the car and get on the train already. Sheesh.

2. A Space Program that once again sets the standard for the rest of the world. I mean really... Japan, Europe and China are outstripping us in every direction. Mapping the moon; developing living quarters for settlements on hostile planets; etc. When we [humans] finally get out there en masse, American companies will be shut out of the resources to be found there.

3. A Mass Transit System for my town that will actually get me from my home neighborhood to downtown Augusta without having to drive for miles to the closest bus stop. (I don't really foresee this one happening but... I can dream, can't I?)

4. A job that pays a living wage. Preferably one that doesn't require years of college to obtain. I hated college. I'm just not cut out for it. But I can learn. I don't think I would mind a sort of manufacturing job or something like. And besides... how can we survive as a country if we can't MAKE anything for ourselves? Doesn't make any sense to me. All these companies moving jobs to other countries where they can exploit the workforce and then counting on bringing the goods back here where they can sell them for 20 times the cost to us rich gringos. Except... if we have no jobs we have no money!!! DUH. Now what you gonna do smart ass company man? Sell your goods to the cheap laborers you've been exploiting for what you sell it to us for? I think not. Sowing the seeds of their own destruction. OUR destruction. Idiots. However, I digress...

5. A power grid that is secure, safe, and "green". Infrastructure. Infrastructure. Infrastructure. How many times do I have to say it? I'd work on an assembly line making solar panels, windmills, computer chips... whatever (see item number 4). I can do that. We used to build things here. Now we can't even maintain our phone lines and electric supply. And let's not get started on the general water supply...

6. A Pentagon staff that remembers it's history. How many times are we going to arm Middle Eastern countries and teach them to fight against us? They always end up turning on us. Do the idiots running our armed forces really think anything is going to change, there? Most of the folks over there are still living in the middle ages. No, that statement isn't politically correct but I think it's a fair assessment. If not physically then mentally and emotionally in the middle ages. I mean, what is that old saying about performing the same action over and over again and expecting a different outcome? We ought to just let those folks alone and let them live as they want. Oh but wait! We can't. We depend on their fossil fuel supplies too much. Right.... see items #1, 3, and 5. If we had renewable, sustainable, home-grown energy supply right here in the good old US of A we could just pack it up and let that part of the globe go about it's business without us. As a side note: I wonder if they would still hate us as much if we quit buying their oil? Or maybe they would hate us more if the money quit flowing to their kings, banks, businesses and jihadists?

7. Dope smokers to wake up and realise that their habit is killing innocent women, children and old folks in Mexico and other Central and South American countries. Choosing to do drugs is not "not hurting anyone else". There are ruthless, evil, inhuman beings running those Cartels that supply your weed, coke, etc. They kill people so that your money keeps flowing into their coffers. If you smoke their dope you might as well be pulling the trigger for them. Besides, dope makes you stupid. Don't do it. Or... I suppose, if you have to be stupid, grow your own and quit paying the killers.

8. People to quit trying to blow up planes. I myself do not believe the gates to Paradise are to be found in the flames of burning metal and human flesh.

9. A viable third political party in this nation. The two party system is NOT working. In fact... it has become an impediment to progress. Get rid of it. Change it. Fire them all and get some new blood in Washington DC. I don't know... something has got to give, tho.

10. People to do the right thing, because it IS the right thing, not for fear of a vengeful God. I don't know for sure if there is or is not a God. But if there is... I'm pretty sure he/she does not need a mere mortal to do their killing for them.

Anyway, that's my first 10. I may have more as the new year progresses. In fact, I'm sure I will. But this will do for now.

I sincerely hope everyone has a happy and prosperous New Year.

Opinion on the Middle East Crisis

Okee-dokee... here it is... this is my opinion. Only my opinion. I don't intend to offend anyone. I am not anti-Palestinian/pro-Israeli or vice verse. This is what I think (within my own little pea brain)

See, its like this: If I have a little bitty, brittle stick and I repeatedly strike my neighbor with it. And I know that my neighbor has a nice, strong, heavy, sturdy baseball bat... well, you get where I'm going with this, don't you? If I'm stupid enough to behave in that manner, I have to expect that eventually my neighbor is going to retaliate. And if I run and hide behind my precious son and my neighbor hits my son in the head with his great big, sturdy baseball bat, and kills him.... then, my son's death would be my fault, wouldn't it?

Ya see what I'm sayin'? If those Hamas idiots want to act the way they are, then why is everyone in the world protesting what Israel is doing in retaliation? Why doesn't everyone pour into the streets and protest when Palestinian killers blow up innocent women and children on a bus in Jerusalem? Why is it only wrong for Israeli soldiers to blow up a Hamas weapons cache hidden in a neighborhood of innocent women and children in Gaza? If they don't want their women and children to be blown up they shouldn't put their weapons under their beds. They shouldn't be so cowardly as to hide behind their women and children after they start a fight with someone who has bigger and better weapons than they do. Actually, strike that... they shouldn't be hiding behind them anyway, anyhow, for any reason, regardless of the type of weapons. And if the populace doesn't want that to happen they should insist they take their stupid "holy war" someplace else.

The whole thing about denying that Israel has a right to exist is just silly. They do exist. They will continue to exist. Deal with it. Live with it. Quit being stupid. Just think of all the good things you could do with the money you waste on weapons. Just think of all the wonderful inventions, arts, books, etc., that we'll never use, see, read, because the persons who would have invented it, painted it, written it, were killed before they could! Stupid. What has all your stupid fight about stupid religion gotten you in all these long centuries? Masses of poor, un-fed, un-washed, ignorant, wretched humanity. How can that possibly be showing respect for the bodies God created? Or the Earth God provided us? How can blowing up the land and the people therein be showing respect for anything? Wounding, maiming, denying the basic human rights to God's creations is quite irresponsible for a supposedly "Godly" people, eh?

Anyway, that's just what I think.

Why do we have the ability to get angry?

I mean, really, why do we need to do that? How did it evolve inside us? And do other mammals feel anger, or do we just place that label on what is really, in them, fear? Watching babies, you can plainly see that the ability to feel anger is something we are all born with. But why? What does that ability do for us? Is it something we need/needed to survive? And what about all the other "negative" emotions? What do they do for us? How did we come to have them? Why do we need them?

On the other hand, if you are a creationist, why did God form us with the ability to get angry? Why did he give us the ability to fight? To kill? Didn't Jesus teach peace? Acceptance? Turn the other cheek and all that stuff? So... why did God make us with the inborn ability to feel anger, hate, jealousy, greed, etc.?

I'm not sure what I am. And I don't see why the two are mutually exclusive. Why can't God have set us on the path to evolution? Who says that he had to just snap his fingers and make us "full blown"? None of us was there, how do we know by what method he made us? Who are we to say that evolution was not his way of making us? Yes, I know the Bible says that God made the Earth and all things on the Earth in 6 days and on the 7th day he rested. Well, who are we to say that God's days are the same length as our days? Perhaps his days are equal to a million, million of our days, who knows? Perhaps he put the "spark" into the primordial stew and began life on it's way to what we now have. Why can't it have happened that way: Say God gave up the spark and then sat back to watch what became of it. I don't have a problem with that. Then he sent his only begotten son to us when we were supposedly evolved enough to need him. What's wrong with that theory?

It could have happened that way. All things are possible with God, right? Either he is God, or he isn't God. (I use the general term "he" here for ease of writing). Either you believe that anything and everything is possible with God or you don't. How can anyone put limitations on God, or say what God did or didn't/could or couldn't do? I confess that some days I still wrestle with whether or not there is a God. But most days I come to the realization that I do believe, just not in the way organized religion would have me believe.

But back to my point: whether life appearing on this planet was sheer accident and we did evolve from sludge and are supposedly still evolving; or some all knowing, all powerful Being, which most people call God, formed us and breathed life into us. Whichever way it happened, why do we need anger, jealousy, greed, hate, irritation, annoyance? The emotions that most usually get us in trouble. Why do we need gluttony for crying out loud? Whoever thinks that is a good idea? But really, what do they do for us? I'm trying to think of something that the ability to feel anger does for me personally, and I can't. All I can think that it does for me is make me feel bad and usually get me in trouble, if I don't control it. Is that it? Do we need those things so we can struggle against them? Is that what makes us human?

It's All Sparkly, Cool

I guess I am getting kinda "girlie". I have never been one to covet diamonds and pearls and rubies and all that stuff. But my dear husband gave me a gift today, a totally unexpected gift. A gift that if you'd told me I was getting it, I would have said I didn't want. I would have said I had no use for it. I have never felt the need nor the desire for "adornment". I am what I am: a plain old Jane, ruthlessly practical, no nonsense, kind of girl. Then my husband gifted me with this:




And look! It even has tiny little sparkly diamonds down the shank. Isn't that sweet?




The pictures may not be the best quality, but it is so pretty and so sparkly. I can't believe he picked it out all by himself. And that I like it too. Our tastes are usually so different that what he likes I don't and what I do like he detests. I'm not sure why he got it for me. I mean, he's talked about it for years, but we've never had the money and well... you can see from my old wedding band that we aren't wealthy people. Poor folks just don't waste money on things like this ring. He got a really good deal on it (my son told me how much he paid, later on), but it's still more expensive than any single item I've ever owned, excepting cars and a house. I worry that he thinks he's gonna die so he wanted to go ahead and get this for me before he does. Or maybe he thinks I'm going to die because I haven't been able to get my sugar down to acceptable levels yet. I don't know... I'm just being silly, I guess.

He does start his radiation treatments tomorrow. I'm going up there with him. When I asked him if he wanted me to, he says, "They won't let you in there with me, you want to just go up there and sit around in the waiting room?", so I says, "Won't you feel better knowing that I'm out there in the waiting room?". So he looks kind of sheepish and he says, "Well, yes." So I says, "So... then I'm going with you." So that's my plan for tomorrow. He's getting up at his usual 3:30am and going to work, then he'll leave there and come get me and we'll be at the hospital by 11:15am. First they have to mark him and tattoo him for the machine and the girl said that will take about 45 minutes, then they will go ahead and do the first treatment. Since it's his very first, the girl said it could take up to 45 minutes as well. So... I will be sitting up there reading my book until they are finished with him. Then, when he's done, he will bring me home and go back to work. I know he is scared. He admitted it to me a few days ago. A very, very hard (shameful, in his eyes) thing for him to do. Men are so weird and funky about those kinds of things. It's just weird. I mean, what's so shameful about admitting you are scared about having radiation treatments for cancer? I would be terrified. And I would admit it in a heartbeat. In fact, I am scared. For him. For me. For Thomas.

Anyway... you want to hear something funny? This is how much my honey knows and understands me: Yesterday the History channel and Discovery and the National Geographic channel were running some really good biblical history shows. I was watching them while I was ironing Pete's work clothes and then when I was finished with the laundry I just laid down on the bed and continued watching. Stuff like that is extremely interesting to me. Anyway... as I'm watching Pete comes in to see what I'm doing and he stands there and watches with me for a while. He isn't in to all that like I am. He likes historical fiction, but I like my history hard and dry. Just the facts, Ma'am. So, like I was saying, he comes in and he's watching it, and he gets this puzzled look on his face and he looks at me and he says, "I thought you were agnostic, what are you watching this Jesus stuff for?". That just blew me away. How little my sweetie knows me or understands how I feel. So I said to him, "I do believe in Jesus. I just don't believe in organized religion."

And I do believe in Jesus. I mean, I believe there was a person named Jesus and I believe he might have tried to teach mankind a better way of living. I mean, look at it this way: for the stories to have lasted this long, for it to have made as much of an impression on humankind as it has, there must have been a person whom they began the stories about. Look deeply enough into any myth, story, belief, and there is almost always a kernel of truth to be found. I believe there must have been a person named Jesus; just like there was a real Muhammad, a real Buddha, a real Confucius. These are historical figures. We have evidence that these people existed. Just like we have evidence that King Richard III of England existed, or Pontius Pilate. I believe that if we could delve deeply enough into the past, we might find evidence of persons that humankind built the myths of Zeus and Hera and Athena around. Go back far enough and you may find a real Gilgamesh, a real Beowulf, a real Jason, a real Epona, a real Thor. Perhaps there really were Amazons or Valkyries. Or perhaps they were real people like you and me, who did unusual things, were especially great leaders of their people in times of crisis, or were the hunters, warriors, shamans, of their clans, who lead them to a better place to live; discovered something incredible like fire, like flint-working, like how to pile stones up to make a dwelling, etc. and the people remembered them, and told the stories about them and then they died and their children told the stories to their children and so on and so on. And oral traditions change. A word changed here, a sentence changed there and a larger than usual war hammer or ax becomes the hammer that Thor hurls lightning bolts with. Or the weird looking, man-killing foreigner becomes the evil, man-eating monster Grendel, whom Beowulf slew. Drop just a few words and the flood that washed away one settlement in one valley becomes a great flood that washes the whole world away. Who knows. I don't claim that it's the God's honest truth, but it is my opinion. So, yes, I believe in Jesus. I believe in God, perhaps. Perhaps believing makes it real. Perhaps when enough people believe in a God it makes that God live. I don't know.

It was just weird that my darling husband has known me for all these years, been married to me over a decade, and he still doesn't understand my kind of spirituality; still doesn't know that I believe anything. He was so shocked. He looked so confused when I told him that I believe Jesus is or was real. That I just didn't believe what organized Christian religion told me to believe. He really looked shocked when I told him that I believe that if there really is a Devil; a Satan; that he had hijacked the Christian church before it ever got started good. That he has been steering it since the beginning and laughing and rubbing his palms in glee at all the evil the "Church" has done and continues to do in Jesus' name.

I don't guess I should be too hard on the man for not knowing what I believe. I don't always know what I believe myself. Goodness knows, belief in anything is a hard thing to find sometimes. Faith has always been hard for me. I can remember lying in bed when I was a small child, like 4-5 years old, before I even started school, wondering if I was going to go to hell because I couldn't find it in myself to believe in the God that the preacher told me to believe in. I was scared to death that there might really be such a God and that I would be punished horribly for not having enough faith to believe in him the way I was supposed to. I still wonder about that sometimes. Cause I know that if utter and complete belief in God is the ticket to heaven, I'm not getting in. That kind of belief is beyond me. I suppose the one true thing that I've always believed, the one thing that has always stayed with me since I first learned it as a wee small child, is The Golden Rule:
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You.
I've always tried to live by it. It is a thing that I believe in, a thing that works. It is a true thing that I believe would make the world a better place for everyone, if everyone believed in it the way I do. But I can't force people to believe it. I wouldn't want to if I could. For then, how would I be living by the Golden Rule?

Anyway... enough meandering for today. Must go get some sleep and prepare for tomorrow. I'm stressing a little bit, but I'll be fine, I'm sure.

G'nite All!

Random thoughts

I used to think that if NASA or some scientist, somewhere would go ahead and find proof of life on other planets that maybe, just maybe it might make us (here on Earth) think twice about whether or not we are so different from one another after all. Now... I don't think that way anymore. If alien creatures from the stars landed en mass all over this planet, it wouldn't stop the anger, the hatred, the killing... we humans would still be prejudiced against one another for one reason or another, color, sex, religion, ethnicity, whatever. If alien creatures did ever land on this planet, why, it would just give us another being to hold up as 'different' and therefore to be despised. Why do people need to hate other people? Why does what religion someone practices make them better or worse than their neighbors? I can read the Bible just as well as the priests and preachers and I don't believe I have ever found any where therein that Jesus said we should despise or hate another being for any reason. But it seems to me that organized "Christian" churches teach nothing but hate. Homosexuality is a sin; women should be subservient to their husband; if you don't take a particular church's word for how things are and how you are supposed to live then you are damned; go into almost any so called Christian church and you will hear that they alone know what God means for us to do and if we don't believe as they do then we are going straight to hell; do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to hell.

I am so disgusted by everything that's been going on. The war, this president going on with his little "I am the King" mentality and Congress just going along with it. The new thing that pissed me off was the thing with the CDC testimony before Congress. The White House diced, sliced and julienned the testimony that the CDC lady was supposed to give. I did not realize that they could do that. I thought that when someone or some department got called in to testify before Congress they were supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth, etc. Not tell what the White House says they can tell and nothing beyond that. The whole system is so out of whack. I feel like I'm in a Twilight Zone episode. I have real bouts of actual vertigo sometimes just watching the news. Nothing seems real. And people seem to be fine with just going on about their lives and ignoring the situation.

And the Democrats are really pissing me off. They are just going on like it's all business as usual. And it's not! Nothing is 'as usual'. Why can't they see that? I don't think that a Democrat will win the White House in '08. They are doing all the wrong things and nothing right. And that damned Nancy Pelosi. She is really getting off with me something fierce! If I have to see her stupid smile one more time I may actually throw something heavy at my television. (I need a new one, anyway) She and Harry Reid have made a real dog's dinner of the whole thing. Well, I can't just lay all the blame on them, I guess. To be fair, I need to spread the blame around to the whole Democratic party. They are loosing the '08 election and they all seem to not realize the fact. They are beginning to all look like grinning idiots. Pisses me off something awful!

And to think that the religious conservatives may well be the one's who bring a viable third party to our nation!? How incredible is that? Just what we need, a conservative Christian political party. Can you imagine what life would be like if that took over the government? No better than the Taliban, eh? The skinheads and the KKK and the neo-nazis and others like them would just love that. Give them the right to burn crosses, lynch anyone who isn't a "true believer". Encouraging hate, fostering strife between the sexes, between races, ethnicities, other forms of religion. Ugh! What a nightmare!

I'm pretty sure this isn't what my ancestors fought and died for.