Carlos Mencia, the Boondocks and Southpark...

I am all about the ideals of diversity... we all want every person to have equal opportunities and be respected for who they are, not in spite of who they are. But I also hate political correctness. I think there should be a happy medium, really. I love these shows because they insult everyone equally.

Lower taxes, yeah right

I may have had to pay taxes when Clinton was in office, but at least I had the money to pay those taxes and still be able to get by and even save some.. What's savings these days? I'm not seeing it.

Leaker in Chief

If the news of the day is true, and Bush authorized selective and false information to be leaked to the press, then he is not deserving of the office of President. If he has played fast and loose with the truth, he is not and should not continute to act as the steward of our Nation and Our Constitution, and I call for our Congress to investigate his actions!

Fiat Lux!

Thank goodness it's finally the light side of daylight savings time. Can't we just stay this way all year.

Another Year, Another Chance to Get it Right!

I wish there were more love in the world. If you think about it, hate and love are supposed to be two sides of the same coin. I look at the hate I see all over the world... between races, countries, cultures, etc.

Imagine planet Earth with all the hate we see transformed into love! Really think about it. Love can be a huge catalyst of events... Helen of Troy anyone? An entire Greek city-state perished over love and hate. Human beings are infinite in variety of mind, ability, and creativity. I don't know of a single person who is exactly like me. Yet, we seem to instinctively try to divide ourselves into groups with similar characteristics.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself." I wish more people really did this and applied it in a global sense. Imagine the possibilities if we all as a human race could let go of our pettiness and really work with an open mind on solving our world's ills???

There also seems to be a tendency in humans towards fanatacism... When we close our minds to other ideas, we have taken the first step to becoming a fanatic. Fanatics can't have a reasonable or logical discussion because they have no room for doubt in their belief system. I think the movie "Dogma" had the right idea: having a good idea as to what you think goes on from a religious sense--not blindly closing your eyes and refusing to even consider that others can have different points of view.

I am a deist. "What's that?" is the usual reply I get when I say that. Did you know several of our founding fathers were deists? Here's a website that might give you some more good information: http://www.religioustolerance.org/deism.htm

The word "Deism" is derived from the Latin word for God: "Deus." Deism involves the belief in the existence of God, on purely rational grounds, without any reliance on revealed religion or religious authority.

Deists:

	Do not accept the belief of most religions that God revealed himself to humanity through the writings of the Bible, the Qur'an or other religious texts.
	Disagree with strong Atheists who assert that there is no evidence of the existence of God.

They regard their faith as a natural religion, as contrasted with one that is revealed by a God or which is artificially created by humans. They reason that since everything that exists has had a creator, then the universe itself must have been created by God. Thomas Paine concluded a speech shortly after the French Revolution with: "God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon."

History:

The term "Deism" originally referred to a belief in one deity, as contrasted with the belief in no God (Atheism) and belief in many Gods (Polytheism). During the later 17th century, the meaning of "Deism" began to change. It referred to forms of radical Christianity - belief systems that rejected miracles, revelation, and the inerrancy of the Bible. Currently, Deism is generally no longer associated with Christianity or any other established religion. Then, as now, Deism is not a religious movement in the conventional sense of the world. There is no Deistic network of places of worship, a priesthood or hierarchy of authority.

------text left out---- see referenced website above

Many of the leaders of the French and American revolutions followed this belief system, including John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison Thomas Paine, and George Washington. Deists played a major role in creating the principle of separation of church and state, and the religious freedom clauses of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.

I LOVE what I believe to be a good idea: deism. However, a main difference between me and others with religious tendencies is this: I DON'T THINK YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE THE SAME THINGS OR WORSHIP THE SAME WAY I DO!!! We are the country that's supposed to pride itself on being the "melting pot." Can we please throw some religious tolerance into the mix?!?

Oh, by the way, I'm a libertarian, too. And basically what that means is that I believe the governement needs to stay out of my life. I am an adult and should be responsible for my own behavior. I am by no means an anarchist. Our government has an important role. It is reponsible for protecting and upholding democracy and our constitution first! A government's job is to provide a stable rule of law that is applied fairly to all its citizens. It is my government's job to keep our "homeland" safe, but more importantly, my government exists to guard my freedoms and protect me from those who would diminish them, whether those someones are foreign terrorists or local tyrants. My government is also not supposed to put corporations before the people, and that, my friends, is what I believe to be one of biggest faults of the last quarter century.

When I say here's another chance to get it right, what I mean is this: Our fanatics on both sides of the country--blue/red, left/right, governmental liberal/conservative, social liberal/conservative--need to learn to row in a similar direction. We are not doing our country any good by remaining paralyzed because we are so concerned about getting our way. I look at Washington and see that it's been a lot of "my way or the highway" kind of dealings of the last few years. And the "spin" factor has become obscene. Some of the things that have gone on sound illegal, possibly even treasonous.

What ever happened to the idea of personal responsibility? It seems that idea and politics is often like oil and water. I love my liberty, and these politicians of all stripes need to stop worrying about keeping the job and start worrying about actually doing the job. Otherwise, I'm going to look around 20 years from now and see that my freedoms were bargained away.

But unless we free American citizens start paying more attention, we risk losing those very freedoms that these wars have been fought about. How many of us have read the Constitution? More importantly, how many of us understand our Constitution??? I'm ashamed to say, I'm not in the second category yet, but I'm working on it. I have printed a complete copy of our Constitution and all amendments and am working hard to truly understand what our Constitution really means... Pretty dry stuff, but very important stuff. The balance of our country's power may very well lie in who is appointed our next Supreme Court Justice.

How have we gotten to this point? One of the main thoughts that comes to mind is our education system. It is underfunded, inefficient, and attempts to prepare our youth the same way it has for decades. How many kids in America are learning Chinese? Probably a small percentage. How many Chinese kids are learning English? Practically ALL of them!!! Where are our critical thinking skills? I had to attend a top notch college to get that experience. Everyone's talking about "off-shoring" these days. Well if we had ensured we had a valued and valuable education system these last 20 years, I betcha we wouldn't be talking off-shoring now.

Our teaching staff should be better appreciated and better equipped for their most important of tasks: teaching our next generation of American Citizens!!! But they are not appreciated and not equipped to do their jobs. I would have been a great teacher, but after watching my mother struggle to make ends meet, year after year, I decided not to become a teacher. That same decision is played out every day, and we as a country are the poorer for it.

I love my country and want us to remain the greatest nation on this earth... But we have to stop living in the present and prepare ourselves as best we can for the future. I really do mean we need to look at the Ant and Grasshopper closely. Part of that means providing an education at a level in which all children would be prepared to enter college, not just a lucky few.

What a rant! I'm stepping off the soap box now... I love everyone in this country, but sometimes you're so unaware I could just shake you!

Adopt Our Troops!

I just wrote an Army Sergeant who is attached to training the Iraqi Army. Through shared interests we have come in contact with each other. No, this is not a romance story. I am quite happily married to my husband, who is an Army vet, himself. As a citizen of the United States, it is my responsibility to support our troops. Regardless of my personal feelings about our leadership and that I never supported the Iraqi war [I wanted us to finish the work in Afghanistan (which I FULLY SUPPORTED).], I need to show my support for our troops. So I have been writing to him. I'm hoping he'll write back with an address so I can send brownies (better ones than my husband tells me can be made out of some MRE ingredients).

So here, in this online space, I again am showing support of our troops. I have adopted this man and his unit for the duration of their stay on foreign soil. I think of them every day and pray for their safety. I thank them in my heart for making the choice to be a part of our country's defense. I respect and admire them. I couldn't make the choice they did and enter the service. But I can and do make the choice to let them know how much I appreciate them! So I urge anyone who reads these pixels to please stop a moment in your busy lives and thank those who ensure we have a free society.

And if you have it in your heart, please contact them. Adopt one or more of our troops for the duration... Because it is our job to remind them why they put on that uniform every day. It is our job to keep their spirits up and remind them how important it is to live in a land of the free and a home of the brave!

"What this town needs is an enema"

Okay, I know it's a cheesy quote, but I do think the idea is applicable for day and time. I've pondered on this for a long while, and I truly believe that a large portion of our citizenry really take for granted all the things that come with citizenship and that with these gifts come also great responsibility.

It is my responsibility as a citizen to stay aware of what my government is doing--at least by knowing what the candidates said they would do and then watching what they really do. We should be watchdogs on our government... the whole "Power corrupts" philosophy. Some powerful people have been taking advantage of the people's trust. And given our citizenry, no wonder they would dare! Being a citizen of this country is a gift and most people don't realize how precious it is! We have rights that are slowly being whittled away. Unless We the People stand up for them, we're going to lose them.

We the People allowed ourselves to be scared into supporting an invasion into another country! We have NEVER been the aggressors before. And the reasons we were scared--need I say WMD's--never materialized. We the People were lied to and manipulated. Where's the Impeachment??? We can impeach someone over an affair but not over manipulating our citizenry into support a multi-billion dollar effort to change a regime in a country that couldn't have possibly hurt us. Instead of having the resources to deal with N. Korea or Iran--who have shown that they are indeed bigger threats than Saddam ever was!

Those billions of dollars could have been put to much better use! Not to mention the thousands of permanent injuries and hundreds of deaths to our brave men and women over there! I criticise policies, but I definitely support our servicemen and women. They are doing the job given to them under horrid conditions and are trying to do it to the best of their ability. Unfortunately, some powers that be seem to be misguiding them in some cases, especially, it seems, with prison guard duty.

Hooray for the media who are finally showing a backbone again and are telling us about these investigations of highly placed officials. I don't mention political parties because I have seen both of the major parties involved with these kind of democracy-destroying attempts at personal and/or party power and influence.

And to talk about another thing that's been bugging me... when did conservative start meaning "social conservative?" I'm a conservative... but of the governmental policy kind... I've been shaking my head over this one. The president gets these social conservatives to support him through his religious beliefs, but then does nothing but help big business when he gets into office... something that is probably hurting a bunch of these "social conservatives."

So I'm going to create a new word for the thoughts I've spouted about above. I call it DEMOCRAZY! More to come on that...

Trials of the Spirit

I have decided I am travelled out! Don't get me wrong. I feel blessed that I have a job and that I am considered a strong resource for all the training we're doing for the upcoming merger. But too much of a good thing is still not good for you. I am road-weary; yet, tomorrow I will get back in the rental car and drive 5 hours to train folks for the next 4 days. And I'll do it again and again and again until the end of October.

Even though I've gotten to the point of despising it, I push my way through because I know that every bit of this effort will lead me step by aching step to a time after the merger when my husband and I can be together again. I'm home on the weekends and a few weekdays here and there, but it's not the same as being home all the time. I keep reminding myself that I work to have a life--not the other way around--even though sometimes I feel that my entire life is revolving around work.

I'm looking forward to being able to carpe diem again!

On Disasters...

Okay, I have to get on my soapbox for a moment...

So this administration mishandles a natural disaster that has been on the prediction boards for the last 20 years. The word nimble comes nowhere near close to describing the efforts to help our citizens of New Orleans. Again, the president waited to see the results of Katrina, and it took him actually seeing the devastation to realize that we needed more forces mobilized.

There have been armed gangs looting and terrorizing the city. You'd think that with his focus on the war on terror, we'd definitely have no home-grown terrorists. These gangs had days in which to terrorize our citizens.

On the flip side though, I am humbled and amazed at the depth of love and caring our normal everyday citizens have for each other. I work in a place that has normal, everyday people. I'm sure that some of them are well off and comfortable, but I know that others are barely scraping by. My work team decided to get involved with the relief efforts and less than 24 hours into it, we had to empty collection boxes twice!

And in the midst of this, our Chief Supreme Court justice dies and less than 24 hours in, we've already heard from the president that will quickly replace him. Why does a political disaster mean more to our president than a natural one?

And while I'm on my soap box... let's talk about this "culture of life" the president supposedly believes in. Why is a less than pea-sized conglomeration of cells more important than our soldiers' lives? Why is it okay for our president to send our men and women to be killed and injured to a war in a country that was not going to hurt us?

I am worried about the state of our nation and the priorities of our leaders. I see so much deception and spin-doctoring going on.

But what scares me more is that there are a lot of people out there who believe everything they say. Wake up, America!

Being Good

I just finished reading a book called Tathea... What drew me to it was the name because I've always been interested in odd names beginning with T (a quirk of mine). Anyway, the protagonist is a woman who was an empress of a country that suffered a coup and she was the only survivor of the ruling family. Tathea embarks on a journey to initially save herself and in doing so discovers her true purpose in life: to lead people to God by showing them and teaching them to strive to do good things in heart and action.

It's a fictional tale that discusses a possible origin of Christianity and is quite interesting. Being a non-christian, myself, I find it a very interesting read, nonetheless. The basic message is to keep love in your heart and follow the law of constently striving to be good and do good, regardless of the trials and tribulations you face, and to learn from mistakes and to strive to be better. I now find myself wishing that more people (no matter what the name of their religion is) were to follow these precepts.

Can you imagine what a better place we could make this world if each of us tried our very best to be good and do good?

Ladies and Gentlemen

We need more ladies and gentlemen in the world. I'm not talking about the concept of "titled nobility." Instead, I'm talking about:

People who do right by themselves and each other... People who admit when they're wrong and then work like hell to make things better... People who are gallant... People who can be trusted in and who know how to trust... People who know how to tell the truth, but also know how to tell it without being hurtful... People who understand the meaning of loyalty... People who know how to respect and be respected... People who are responsible--for themselves and their actions and the consequences of their actions...

And that doesn't mean that you can't have fun... in fact, I feel that quite the opposite would happen if you surround yourself with ladies and gentlemen... because you know that you can truly trust in them... you can get past superficials and really connect with people on a deeper level. You really can talk about life, the world, and everything... you can joke and kid with them because you know it's meant in pure fun and not to hurt...

I put my stake in the ground on this one. I found a gentleman... I believe he's one of the last southern gentlemen in this day and age, and I am so blessed to be his lady. The very wonderful thing is that in their own way, our close friends are ladies and gentlemen, too.

It's so much better to surround yourself with people you can trust to be there for you when you need them and who you would go to the wall for if they needed.

What would Heinlein think?

Anyone who really knows me will know that Robert A. Heinlein (and thus Ginny Heinlein) had a huge impact on me. I find it amazing that many of the themes I've seen in Heinlein's work are being brought to life in the real world.

Does anyone else think that we are on the brink of the Crazy Years?

I'm not going to be writing about survivalist stuff... although I do believe in that famous "Always Be Prepared" motto...

I believe that our country is facing a crisis. I believe our freedoms are being infringed upon and I believe that "bread and circuses" is becoming a reality these days. I would sincerely like to see our entire federal and states budgets have the slate completely wiped clean so we can get rid of all the pork barrel politics that have been happening.

In addition, I would like to see our tax system completely converted. At the moment, I'm sold on a national sales tax since we're a hugely consumer-based economy. Of course, the idea of only being taxed one time ever instead of again and again and again also tickles me. I'd rather hold onto my money and earn interest on it before I spend it.

And lastly but most importantly... I wish those in charge of our government would stop trying to meddle in my private life!!! Government should exist to serve the people, not control us. More on this later.


My thoughts... I wish Heinlein were here so he could do some more grumbling!