Tangled Weblog

Moving

2009-04-01T15:35:00.001-05:00

I've decided to move. You can find me here.

Protesting the Protesters?

2009-04-01T12:32:00.001-05:00

A story on CNN.com today notes that "activists have a reputation for being early adopters of technology" and they use new communications methods "to disseminate information, connect with each other and gather en masse." From the article:

". . . Internet technologies -- particularly mobile technologies -- have made it dramatically easier to organize groups of people in protest -- and far harder for police to know where to target their defensive efforts.

"[Protesters] have made it impossible for the defenders to adopt a cut-off-the-head-and-the-body-will-die strategy," he told CNN. "[Technology] has made the idea of a frontline of protests almost completely amorphous."

So the police are crying because they can't figure out who is the leader or organizer of a particular protest? Don't we have the right to assemble peaceably in order to protest actions we find disagreeable? As long as the protesters don't begin to act out violently, it seems that the police don't really have any need to know who organized the protest. This complaint seems to me to be the government lamenting the fact that more and more people are dissatisfied with what our elected officials are getting away with and allowing their friends to get away with. These elected officials seem to be afraid that the people will remember that the government is supposed to be “by the people and for the people” and that when the government oversteps its bounds, “it is [the people’s] right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.” The elected officials and police would like nothing better than to quell any opposition before it begins, and that’s why they’re lamenting technology that allows people to rapidly spread news and ideas.

The CNN article notes that the invention of the printing press “made broad dissemination of information possible” and was adopted by early civil and religious libertarians to help spread their messages. Maybe our political leaders would like to go back to the days before the printing press when the people learned the news of their government’s actions too late to do anything about it.

Nothing to see here

2009-03-24T10:36:00.002-05:00

Just as I was getting ready to head home from work yesterday afternoon, I got the text message that advised the campus community of a gunman in one of the buildings on campus, two buildings away from where I happened to be. Because I didn't hear any sirens, I figured it was safe to go on out to my truck and leave, and it was. Outside my building, there was no evidence of any emergency except for the police officer who used his motorcycle to block the road leading to the KUC building. This officer wasn't allowing any vehicles through to that area, but pedestrians still lingered on the sidewalk past the barrier, where they stood and chatted and watched the KUC building as if they were watching the scene of a car accident. I'd be willing to bet that mothers at home who have signed up to receive the text alerts were much more alarmed by the situation than we here on campus were.

I No Longer Trust the Weatherman

2009-01-28T12:51:00.002-06:00

This morning, based upon the weather information on the news, I cancelled my afternoon classes. According to the weather forecasters, we were to experience freezing rain and sleet which would change to snow, and this would last most of the morning, giving us about two inches of snow. Furthermore, the temperatures would fall throughout the day. One could assume, listening to this information, that we would have snow/ice on the ground, and that this snow would last at least until tomorrow, based upon the promise of low temperatures.

No more than thirty minutes after I cancelled classes, it stopped snowing, and the snow that was beginning to stick onto surfaces began to melt away. Right now, I am looking out my window and can see the shadow of my house because now the sun is starting to shine.

Today, the weather forecasters look at several computer models and pick what they think is the most likely one, but I think that the weather people did a much better job years ago before they began to rely on computers. I think that the old folklore that people used to rely on (example: number of fogs in August equals number of snows in winter) are more accurate than most of the computer models.

Next time, I won't cancel class until I can't get out the driveway.

Nothing to say except that I like dates

2009-01-12T16:22:00.004-06:00

I haven't blogged much in a while because I just don't feel like writing about anything. I don't want to write a complaint about the government because I've already said it all before. I'm not feeling creative, so no creative writing. I'm reading things, but nothing I really want to blog about. So that doesn't leave much except for what I ate today.

Actually, that's something pretty good. Last week I ordered some fresh jumbo Medjool dates from Dateland, Arizona, and they arrived today. Take my word for it--they are delicious! If you want to stop eating processed sugary sweets, get yourself some really good dates. They'll make you forget about candy!

Christmas-time Home Improvement

2008-12-26T10:22:00.004-06:00

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas or just a nice day if you didn't do Christmas. I've been away from the blogs because Husband and I have been doing a home improvement project. This seems to be our Christmas tradition. This year it's our living room. We took up the carpet (you wouldn't believe how much dirt was trapped under there--scary!) and are putting down porcelain tile. We also repainted the walls. We're installing the last of the tile today, and we'll probably grout it on Sunday--we have to take tomorrow off to go have Christmas with his family.

We did take some time to have fun by going to the Ryman to hear Vince Gill and Amy Grant. It was the first time we'd gone to one of their Christmas concerts, and we weren't disappointed. Great show!

Back to work.

They all know my name

2008-12-02T13:09:00.002-06:00

Do you remember on the TV show Cheers whenever Norm would come into the bar, everyone would yell "Norm!" like they were glad to see him? I just had my last class meeting with a group of students who always yelled "Hey Mrs. G!" every time I walked in. It's been really cool. I'll miss them.

You might want to start saving up to send your kids to a private university.

2008-11-26T07:03:00.006-06:00

In light of heavy budget cuts and an economy that continues to deteriorate, the Tennessee Board of Regents is looking for ways to save money. Specifically, the TBR wants to change its current business model so that Tennessee's universities achieve "a greater level of productivity" particularly in the way that faculty interact with students. The TBR is seeking ways to save money in the long term by reinventing the way that college instructors disseminate information to their students, and the board recently sent a memo to its university presidents seeking input from the universities on ways to accomplish this goal.

The memo briefly describes the way that the TBR sees the current educational experience and then asks if this model can be changed:

(My questions and comments will be added in bold.)

The faculty is the overseer of the educational process, and the business model for higher education recognizes the importance of the faculty's role. Our current business model (Education is simply a business whose only concern is a bottom line?) has faculty teaching courses populated by students. What are the possibilities for the role of faculty evolving more toward the orchestrators of an educational process to the point they are not directly involved in the dissemination of course material (Is that all that faculty do--simply deliver information?) in a classroom setting? Would such an evolution provide opportunity for a business model that increases efficiency while continuing to improve the quality of students' educational experience?

Within this concept there could be possibilities for productivity and quality enhancement in at least the following five areas: 1) collaboration across a large system; 2) empowering students with technology for understanding a concept and for drill and practice (How does technology replace discussion for understanding a concept?); 3) collaboration among students (Students forming study groups? What a novel concept!) and use of advanced students to assist beginning students (Tutoring sessions? Nothing new there.), along with a similar peer to peer collaboration by faculty (Do the administrators think that faculty do not already share ideas with each other?); 4) focusing by faculty on learning outcomes and using technology to deliver and monitor the learning process (Students already spend enough time focusing on the outcome--the final grade. Most of them don't really care about the "learning process." I guess faculty are supposed to shift their attention away from getting students to learn something and just "teach to the test" so to speak.); and 5) abandoning some of the ingrained structures that restrict our approach to traditional models.

How could these goals be accomplished? The memo goes on to outline possiblities, some of the more "interesting" of which are:

Increase the number of students completing on-line courses by taking steps such as

Providing a discounted tuition to students who expect to work online with no direct support from a faculty member except oversight of testing and grading when the student is ready. (So teachers simply post assignments and grade tests. No discussion of concepts.)

Specifying in the curriculum that students must take a defined number of on-line courses in order to graduate at the baccalaureate and associate levels.

Designing master's level degrees and work to be taken exclusively on-line. (Shouldn't earning a higher degree involve intensive discussion of theories and concepts? The collaboration between students that is spoken of earlier cannot take place in an exclusively online setting.)

Formalize a system that anticipates even greater use of adjuncts (part-time, low paid faculty--one cannot live on adjunct salary alone) to help in the delivery of education under the oversight of full-time faculty and clearly delineate and expand that relationship (Senior, PhD level faculty spending less time in the classroom where students could benefit from their knowledge and experience?).

Build into students' curriculum and into financial aid that advanced students are expected to assist beginning students and financially support the advanced students in that effort (We already do this to an extent with the use of graduate students to teach labs and some beginning courses such as freshman writing or math).

Obviously the TBR would like to see more students enroll in more online courses which are taught by fewer full time faculty. While some courses are perfectly suited for conversion to an online format, others simply cannot make the transition without seriously affecting how much a student comprehends the material. If achieving "a greater level of productivity" means simply reducing the amount of money spent while boosting the grade point averages of its graduates, then the TBR is on the right track. However, if the TBR wants to produce graduates who are knowledgeable in their chosen fields of study, then this is the wrong way to go about it.

I would imagine that this type of discussion is taking place not only in Tennessee, but in many states in our country. I just thought that those of you who have children who may attend a state university sometime in the future may want to be aware of what the bean counters have in mind for higher education.

You can see the entire memo here.

Irony

2008-11-19T11:38:00.001-06:00

I just read a plagiarized essay. Passages were copied directly from Wikipedia.

The ironic part? The topic of the essay is "deception."

Do they really need a handout?

2008-11-19T09:57:00.002-06:00

According to a story in the China View news website:

The General Motors Corporation (GM) has decided to invest 1 billion U.S. dollars in Brazil to expand business there, local media reported Tuesday.

The investment was part of a U.S. bailout package and would be used to upgrade car production lines before 2012, said Djame Adila, a GM's official in charge of the markets in Brazil and other member-countries of the South American Common Market which also groups Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Although the company has laid off employees in some other countries in face of the current U.S. financial crisis, it still needs time to valuate the Brazilian market before making any decision, said Adila, adding that a recent announcement of a 3.5-billion-dollar loan plan to automakers by the Brazilian government should boost the car sales in the Brazilian market.

"To withdraw capital from an expanding market is obviously illogical. What we should do is to protect investment to the emerging markets," Adila said.

The company's car sale at the Brazilian market is expected to reach 2.9 million units in 2009, while that for this year is to reach 2.85 million, up 15 percent from last year.

Does this mean that GM is using their part of the $25 billion that Congress already granted the "Big Three" for retooling their factories to make more energy efficient autos and instead using it in their factories in other countries? If GM has a billion dollars at its disposal to invest in Brazil, why is it asking Congress for more money now?

Is there something that I don't understand, or are the American automakers being less than genuine?

Another Gem!

2008-11-17T12:19:00.001-06:00

"Plastic is a two faced, backstabbing friend when it comes to being economically friendly."

Covering the (wrong) bases

2008-11-10T11:29:00.002-06:00

From a second-year college student's paper:

Physical Activity is one of the most significant aspects of a child's health while their young. A child who doesn't participate in physical activities while there young has a high percentage of becoming obese.

Apparently she wasn't sure how to spell the word, so she chose to use two different spellings in order to cover her bases, but as Husband said when I showed it to him, "She covered the wrong base."

Another gem from the same essay:

A child who is social with friends is more likely to be a more content child and can even avoid a child from becoming obese.

The entire essay was poorly written, and by the time I finished reading it, I was mentally drained and had to stop grading for the night. It would not have been fair to the next student to grade his or her paper when I was in that mental state.

From another student's essay that I had read earlier that day:

" . . . less than five percent of the worlds scientist where present at the meeting."

The sad part about this is that this sentence was part of a direct quote from a source. The student had the correct sentence in front of him but still made mistakes.

Some days when I'm standing at the whiteboard trying to write something for my students, my mind draws a blank, and I can't figure out how to spell the words. And when I'm typing, I find myself spelling even simple words incorrectly. I feel that I'm becoming dumber and dumber with each poor essay that I read. I'm going to have to spend more time reading good writing, or my mind is going to deteriorate. I can see that in order to preserve my sanity, I'm going to have to spend more time on my personal reading.

Internet Soap

2008-10-29T08:42:00.003-05:00

An article in the UK Times Online reports that:

Microsoft has just been awarded a patent for technology designed to automatically detect and remove “undesired words or phrases” from all manner of digital communications, ranging from YouTube broadcasts to internet chat and songs.

The patent describes a system that listens out for phonemes (word fragments) likely to be part of a swearword. If it thinks it hears a forbidden phrase, the software either fades out the offending syllables or simply replaces the rude word with a similar-sounding but clean alternative lifted from earlier speech without a second’s delay.

With Microsoft’s software put in place by parents, children could listen to the most explicit rap music and hear nothing stronger than “gosh darn mother flippers”. Theoretically, the software could monitor thousands of digital TV broadcasts, radio stations and web chats simultaneously.

I suppose it's all well and good if parents want to use this to clean up what their kids listen to. (However, I do wonder why parents can't just tell their kids "hell no, you're not going to listen to that garbage in my house" the way my parents did.) But what about other potential uses of the technology, such as government censoring the Internet to keep bloggers from criticizing its actions? I see a potential for violation of free speech.

This is Maddening

2008-10-18T10:05:00.002-05:00

I thought you might find this article interesting. It is about how much money banking executives are continuing to be paid despite their banks' being recipients of bailout money. Here's an interesting nugget from the article:

At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn [billion] pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.

Maybe I'm reading this all wrong, but it seems that we the taxpayers are being swindled, big time, worse than what we initially thought.

Campus Excitement

2008-10-15T10:30:00.003-05:00

As I type, a campus building has been evacuated and the fire department and police and the county Decon unit are inspecting the building for a "suspicious substance."

Threats and fires last week, and now this. You'd think I work in a public school. Oh wait....

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Update: 10:54 a.m.

Just got the all clear. We can resume our daily routines now. Channel 2 is here to tell us all about it.

What are they teaching kids in school these days?

2008-10-07T07:46:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, in a class of college sophomores, I used the word extrapolate. The word fell out of my mouth just as naturally as you please. I remember learning this word in high school science classes.

Several of my students, however, were unfamiliar with the word and asked me to define it for them. I defined it and told them that they should have learned this word already, and that they likely would encounter it in chemistry class. They assured me that they would not be taking chemistry.

I've come to believe that most university students tried very hard not to learn anything when they were in high school, and they have come to the university with the goal of learning as little as possible while still getting out with a degree. Fewer and fewer students ask substantive questions anymore. Typically their questions deal with process--how to get the assignment done and achieve the highest possible grade with the smallest amount of effort.

I love my students, but sometimes I fear for our world if they are to be our future leaders.

I'll bet you didn't see this on the news!

2008-10-01T14:06:00.002-05:00

Lots of people showed their opposition to the bailout by protesting on Wall Street.

I wonder why Katie and Brian and Charles didn't tell us about this?

Domestic Violence?

2008-09-29T10:28:00.006-05:00

Wednesday begins a new era in our country:

From the Army Times:

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.

I thought this was the National Guard's job.

I found the following statement from the Department of Homeland Security a little unnerving:

There is no credible, specific intelligence suggesting an imminent threat to the homeland at this time. Still, we are closely assessing potential threats and response planning leading into and following the electoral process in 2008 to 2009. Heightened coordination and planning among intelligence community and law enforcement partners is being undertaken solely out of an abundance of caution, and focuses on preventive and preparedness measures for the transition period between administrations.

Maybe it's just me--I haven't been around for a great many "transition periods between administrations"--but I never noticed any sort of conditions that would be considered "potential threats" during previous elections and transition periods. I've seen more people upset after their particular football team loses than what typically happens when their presidential candidate loses.

_____________________

While we were distracted by the economic bailout news over the weekend, the Senate passed and sent to the president a spending bill which includes $25 billion worth of loans to American automakers so that they can retool their factories in order to produce more energy efficient cars.

Ford is already producing energy efficient cars in South America, so why can't they do so here without the help of U.S. taxpayers?

Perhaps this kind of stuff is what the government is anticipating making us mad enough to be considered threatening.

How to Entertain Your Writing Professor

2008-09-25T12:40:00.003-05:00

I just came from one of my small group writing workshops where I supervised my students' critiquing of each others' essays. Today's assignment was a process analysis essay, in which each writer had to describe how to accomplish a task and make that task relevant to a particular audience. There were some really good essays today, but one stood out from the rest. Its title:

Get in and Get Her Out: The Guide to Getting Laid While Still Living With the 'Rents

I have to say, it was one of the most entertaining and well written process analysis essays I've read in a while, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Two Reasons Not to Pass the Bailout Bill in its Current Form

2008-09-24T08:08:00.003-05:00

From the text of the bill (emphasis mine):

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets.

(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

(1) appointing such employees as may be required to carry out the authorities in this Act and defining their duties;

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

(3) designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them;

(4) establishing vehicles that are authorized, subject to supervision by the Secretary, to purchase mortgage-related assets and issue obligations; and

(5) issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authorities of this Act.

In other words, the Secretary may interpret this Act as allowing him to create whatever rules he deems necessary.

Translation: This bill gives the Secretary the power to do whatever the hell he wants to do.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In other words, the Secretary's actions are not subject to scrutiny from anyone.

Translation: This bill makes the Secretary above the law and answerable to no one.

No one man should ever be handed this much power. Ever.

Don't Know Much About Economics

2008-09-19T11:08:00.002-05:00

I don't understand much about the economy, but I know that if I make bad decisions with my money and go broke, the government is not going to step in and take away my debt and make that debt someone else's responsibility. Isn't that what is happening now? The banks that have made bad decisions are being "bailed out" and the taxpayers are now responsible for that debt. This doesn't seem right to me.

Also, if the feds are creating all this new money that the government is going to use to "save the markets" (that's how I heard it on TV), doesn't that create inflation? So we taxpayers are now responsible to pay this debt with money that we have to work harder to get and that now won't buy as much milk as it used to?

I'm sorta scared, and I'm not sure how scared I should be. They didn't teach me enough about this in school.

Trixie Update

2008-09-15T11:11:00.004-05:00

After a week of antibiotic treatment and pain medication, Trixie is still experiencing a lot more pain than she should. She is back at the vet today (our regular vet this time) to be checked out. The wounds on her back are a little infected, and she has a slight fever. She also has some fluid buildup on her belly, which prevents her from wanting to lie down. Consequently, she isn't sleeping much. The vet is going to sedate her and see what's up with her swelling and why she's still having so much pain. We'll know more this afternoon.

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Update: Tuesday 9/16 12:20 p.m.

Trixie has some abscesses in the muscle tissue in her abdomen, where some of the muscle fibers were torn. The vet had to put in three drains tubes to drain out those areas. Trixie rested nicely overnight and is feeling better today. She's in a lot less pain than yesterday morning, but she'll need to remain in the hospital at least another night.

Pet Emergency

2008-09-10T08:10:00.003-05:00

Monday morning we had a pet emergency. A stray dog that had been hanging around the neighborhood for a few days chased my little Jack Russell, Trixie, into our yard and viciously attacked her. The black lab got ahold of Trixie around the midsection and picked her up off the ground. I rushed and grabbed the dog's collar and held on until it put Trixie down. Trixie ran off around the back of the house, and the neighbors who had been out walking took the dog away.

At first I didn't think the wounds were very bad, but I realized she was in pain and scared half out of her mind, so I ended up taking her to the vet--not our regular vet, but the one closest to our house--and they treated her wounds and gave her antibiotics and pain medication.

Ironically, when I was at the vet's office, I noticed a sign on the bulletin board advertising a lost dog that fit the description of the dog that attacked Trixie. I took down the number, and Husband called that evening. Sure enough, it was their dog. The man was sort of surprised that the dog would attack like that, and when Husband showed him our vet bill, he pulled out his wallet and paid it without hesitation.

Trixie has two wounds on her back and two large gashes on her belly. We were pretty worried Monday night because she wouldn't eat, and she didn't rest much that night. But by Tuesday morning, she seemed to feel a bit better, and she was ready for her breakfast when I gave it to her. She's still not comfortable lying down, but she's gradually feeling better. In fact, she's become very demanding from receiving so much attention and thinks she's queen of the house. I think that's a really good sign.

Policics as Usual

2008-09-06T15:33:00.002-05:00

Jon Stewart points out some typical political hypocrisy:

Back at it

2008-08-28T13:30:00.002-05:00

I have just survived my first week back at work. Yes, I know that today is only Thursday--I don't have any classes on Friday!!!!! So I get three day weekends every week!!! Except for this week when I get a four day weekend!!!

I am trying something this semester that I tried once before but didn't succeed very well at. I am holding my Tuesday/Thursday afternoon office hours at the Recreation Center. I figure that if I tell students that they can find me on a treadmill between x time and y time, then I'd better be there. We'll see how long that lasts.

Yesterday I heard the best excuse for why a student arrived to class late. He told me that he had an appointment with his pillow and it ran long.

Class Reunion

2008-08-25T08:03:00.002-05:00

I attended my twenty year high school reunion this weekend. Actually, I attended part of it, the football game on Friday night. I looked at some pictures of the Saturday night event, and I'm really glad I didn't go to that because it looks like everyone was intoxicated to some degree.

After attending the game--which I did not watch--I can say that if I had not gone I would not have missed much. However, I'm glad I went because my suspicions were confirmed: I look much younger than the rest of my graduating class.

The Fair

2008-08-21T07:27:00.004-05:00

Husband and I braved the crowds this weekend and attended the Wilson County Fair. I heard on the news Sunday that 90-something-thousand people attended on Saturday, and I believe it. They were all on the midway at the same time that I was. I've told you before that I avoid going to Walmart on the weekends because I hate crowds. The midway was Walmart to the hundredth power, and by the time we got back to our vehicle, my nerves were shot.

The good thing about it was that we spent most of our time at the arena watching the tractor pull, which was fun even though there were no tractors with jet engines. The stands were crowded, but unlike the midway, everyone was sitting and not trying to go in a million directions all at once. We're going back again tonight to watch the off road trucks, which should be even better than the tractors.

Standing in Hot Water

2008-08-18T09:35:00.003-05:00

This morning at 5:30 I awoke to the sound of rushing water. I thought Husband was in the bathroom washing his hands, so I didn't bother to try bringing myself to full consciousness. But when the sound kept on well beyond the amount of time it takes to wash one's hands, I decided I should probably wake up the rest of the way. I pried my eyes open to find that the bathroom was dark and that Husband was outside letting the dogs out. So I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom where I stepped into a puddle of water. I woke up pretty fast at that point because the water I was standing in was quite hot.

Husband got the water turned off, and we found that the hot water supply line had somehow come off its fitting underneath the sink. Husband had to leave for work, and I spent the next couple of hours sopping water up off the floor with towels that were already half soaked because I keep them underneath the same sink where the leak occurred.

It's been a fun morning. In a few minutes I'll finally get my morning coffee.

God of Mercy?

2008-08-11T09:36:00.007-05:00

Philippians 2.9-11 says, "Therefore, God also has highly exalted him [Jesus] and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the father."

The popular view in Christianity is that when those people who resisted Jesus during their lifetimes finally do confess Jesus as Lord after the resurrection, it will be too late. By this time, God's wrath is burning hot, and it is now time to send the unrepentant to their final punishment.

The popular argument is that not everyone who will confess Jesus as Lord will be sincere about it. Using Jesus's words from Matthew 7.21, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven," it can be argued that some who call Jesus "Lord" will be doing it from improper motives, saying the correct words just to get out of being punished. However, according to 1 Corinthians 12.3, "[ . . . ] no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the "Spirit of truth" (John 14.17, 15.26). Are we to believe that the Holy Spirit will compel some people to confess Jesus as Lord falsely? Merely saying words and confessing something are two different things. To confess something implies that the confessor believes that what he or she says is true. The Greek word translated as "confess" is exomologeo, meaning to say something out of agreement. When the entire world confesses that Jesus is Lord, they will mean what they say. Some will argue that yes, they will mean it, but at that point it will be too late. Their fate was sealed by their lack of confession of Jesus during their lifetimes.

Do you remember that old childhood game called "Mercy"? Two kids would stand facing each other with their fingers interlocked and try to bend each other's hands backwards at the wrists. The stronger kid would inevitably bend the weaker kid's wrists back to the point of pain and would not let up until the weaker kid said "Mercy." The majority view in Christianity paints God as similar to the stronger kid in the mercy game. Those who didn't confess Jesus until it was too late are the ones with their wrists bent back in pain. God will force them to say mercy before sending them off to their final punishment.

The Philippians passage quoted above says that when everyone confesses Jesus as Lord, this will bring glory to God the father. The Greek word doxa, from which the word "glory" is translated, is also translated as "praise," "worship," and "honor" in the New Testament. Is extracting a forced confession from the unwilling an honorable action on God's part? How are we to praise a God who resorts to extortion? This type of God is no better than Nebuchadnezzar who forced his subjects, under penalty of death in a fire if they would not comply, to worship a golden statue of himself. In fact, this God should be esteemed less than Nebuchadnezzar because even when people confess Jesus as Lord, God is still going to throw some of them into the fire. The metaphorical cry for mercy, "Jesus is Lord," will go unheeded. How does this balance with the church's teaching that God is infinitely merciful?

The predominant view in Christianity has made God into a tyrant, someone who coerces allegiance. Can we truly say that we love and honor someone like that? Again, something is wrong with the way that Christianity presents God.

I hate election time.

2008-08-06T15:29:00.004-05:00

Is it just my county, or have people everywhere who are running for elected office ramped up the automated phone call strategy? Every day I can count on at least three or four phone calls which consist of a recorded message from a political candidate. Some of them have called every day for the past week. I wish I could call and annoy them as much as they are annoying me.

Does the federal "do not call" list not apply to people running for office?

Redneck Summer Fashion

2008-08-01T17:22:00.003-05:00

Today in my email, I found this photo of a great new summer look for women:

God's Goodness vs. Man's Evil

2008-07-22T13:55:00.004-05:00

In Romans, Paul says that "as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5.19). Everyone seems to agree all people are sinners and that in the first part of the sentence, "many" means all people. Adam's disobedience caused all people to become sinners. However, the same word and the same construction is used in the second part of the sentence. Why do we say in this case that "many" is only some and not all people? Why was Adam's disobedience more powerful to make everyone a sinner than Jesus's obedience is to make everyone righteous?

In 1st Timothy, Paul said that God "will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2.4). Why do we not take this at face value? People say that just because God wills it, or prefers it, that doesn't mean it will happen. Why not? Why would God want something to happen but then not bring it about? Some will argue that some people won't be saved because they will not accept the salvation that God offers. If this is true, then those people's unholy and less than perfect will is going to overpower God's holy and perfect will. However, in Ephesians 1.11 Paul calls God "him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will." Apparently Paul believed that whatever God wills, God gets.

It seems that the predominant view in Christianity makes the goodness and perfectness of God and his son less powerful than the evil that lies in mankind.

Must Logic Be Opposed to Faith?

2008-07-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

The common argument that Christians use to persuade others to accept Jesus and become Christians is that we are all sinners who are incapable of doing good and of being able to choose good. This argument uses Roman 3.9-18 to show how depraved humans are. We deserve to die as punishment for being so depraved. So God sent us his son Jesus to be a sacrifice to die in our place. All we have to do is have faith in Jesus and we will be saved from punishment.

Then the Christian argument (using John 6.44) goes on to say that no people come to faith in Jesus unless God draws them in Jesus’s direction. Furthermore, the argument uses Ephesians 2.8 to say that faith in Jesus is a gift that God gives to us—it is not something that we have in ourselves; we are incapable of producing that kind of faith in ourselves. But, because God loves us and wants to save us, he initiates our salvation by providing us with the faith that we need to be able to accept Jesus.

Two questions arise from this argument: First, if the gift of faith comes from God, then isn’t God being unfair to those who haven’t received the gift of faith? The Christian argument answers that question by saying that God offers the gift of faith to everyone—it is up to us to receive it. However, this brings us to the second question: If we are utterly depraved and incapable of doing good, then how are we able to choose the good gift that God offers? If we are completely unable to save ourselves, and if our minds are constantly bent toward evil, then it stands to reason that we are unable to choose to receive the gift of faith.

This Christian argument is flawed logically. Even if it is true that God offers the gift of faith to everyone, by the tenets of the argument, we don’t have the mental capacity to choose to receive that gift because of our depravity—we aren’t “spiritual” enough to see the goodness in the gift. If we are completely depraved, then when we do happen to choose to do something good, it is only because we think that doing so would somehow benefit ourselves. However, if humans are created in God’s image (Genesis 1.26-7), then it stands to reason that we do have some capacity to see the difference between good and evil, to choose good instead of evil. It could be argued that humans weren’t depraved until the time that Adam and Eve sinned. However, Adam and Eve felt shame and guilt after their sin. Complete depravity would seem to negate any sense of shame or guilt.

The common Christian argument for the reason to choose Jesus is a flawed argument. In order to accept this argument and feel good about it, we must abandon any logical reasoning. To reason through the argument would first bring us to the conclusion that some people receive the gift of faith that allows them to choose Jesus, and some people don’t. God apparently has some arbitrary method of choosing, and we aren’t privy to how he makes his selections. (Amazingly, some people actually believe this, and how they can love a God like that is beyond my comprehension.) If we don’t accept that argument, then we are left with an unsolvable dilemma concerning the nature of humans and the nature of God. If we are created in the image of God, and humans are completely depraved, then something is wrong with God as well.

Of course, nothing is wrong with God, but something is wrong with the way Christians present God to others. Certainly God, who created us with the capacity to think and to reason, doesn’t want us to stop using our brains. Faith, which the bible continually urges us to have, should not stand opposed to the logical reasoning capabilities that God gave us. Either something is missing in the logic, or something is missing in the common Christian presentation of God.

Jujube

2008-07-03T12:53:00.000-05:00

The other day I was reading the autographs in my senior high school yearbook and came across a message from a former classmate that referenced a student teacher we had had in English class. The classmate had written that she felt no guilt for what we did to THAT WOMAN. I honestly don’t remember exactly what we did, and even though I don’t remember her name, I remember THAT WOMAN.

She was a young, blonde, final-semester college student working on her teaching practicum, nearly ready to graduate and become a high school English teacher. I remember one of her outfits vividly. Think back to fashion in the ‘80’s, how loud and colorful and ridiculous some people’s clothes were. This was the era of stretch pants and long tops, and she had this one matching set that consisted of a white background covered with a colorful array of dots and ovals. One of the guys in class remarked that she looked like she was covered in Jujubes, and so Jujube sort of stuck as a nickname for her.

We didn’t give her a nickname because we were fond of her. On the contrary, we hated her, and here’s why. On her first day of student teaching, she came in with an “I’m-the-teacher-you’ll-do-what-I-say” attitude. That’s the wrong thing for a student teacher to do, especially with a group of 17 and 18-year-olds in the spring semester of the school year who can practically taste their upcoming prom and graduation. We were a group experiencing a bad case of “senioritis” and we were not about to take any flack from an inexperienced 22-year-old who wasn’t even a real teacher. We’d show her.

As I said before, I don’t remember what we did to her; it must have been just the constant day to day harassment—the guys calling her Jujube, the girls ignoring her, the entire class disregarding everything she would say as if she weren’t even there. We were relentless, especially when our regular teacher was out of the classroom (ironically, we loved our regular teacher and jumped at her every request). When our regular teacher would leave the room, we would ramp up the torment. I’m not sure what our real teacher was thinking leaving her alone with us—perhaps she thought that our torment was just affectionate kidding, or maybe she thought Jujube needed to be initiated like a fraternity pledge who goes through a night of ritual hazing. Whatever the case, leaving that young woman alone with us was the wrong thing to do because the mild disrespect that we routinely showed suddenly became outright contempt. I’m ashamed to say now that we had no regard for her feelings, no empathy for the stress she was under while trying to perform and make the grade for her teaching supervisors.

Then one day, I guess Jujube had enough. I don’t know what triggered it, but suddenly she ran from the room sobbing, and we were extatic! We had broken her! She did not come back to class that day, and I think she actually left school early. The weird thing was that she came back a couple of days later. The day after the incident, I remember our regular teacher lecturing us for the entire class period, emphasizing her disappointment in us. The student teacher would be returning, we were informed, and we were to treat her with respect. We complied. As fun as it was to give that student teacher what we thought she had coming, that good feeling was overshadowed by the knowledge that we had sorely disappointed our regular teacher.

When the student teacher returned, we treated her with civility, allowing her to finish the few remaining days of her service without further incident. Her treatment of us was with mutual civility, and I’m sure that she was just as relieved as we were when her last day was over. As class returned to normal, our regular teacher never mentioned our bad behavior again, and she never held it against us.

I can’t help but wonder today if that student teacher ever actually became a high school English teacher. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. I certainly wouldn’t want the job.

Bush is in the doghouse--I mean the outhouse.

2008-06-27T07:39:00.003-05:00

According to a newspaper article, San Francisco voters will have the chance this November to leave a lasting monument to President Bush. On the ballot will be a proposal to rename the city's waste treatment facility the "George W. Bush Sewage Plant." Those who are against this proposal say that this type of memorial is unnecessary because "they just want to forget George Bush's presidency" and that it's an insult to name a sewage plant after the president because "sewage plants perform a valuable public service."

The Caney Fork Rock Skipping Competition

2008-06-17T08:19:00.004-05:00

Sunday Husband and I and one of his friends, J, and J’s girlfriend B, put our canoes in the Caney Fork river at Betty’s Island and floated down to the soccer fields at South Carthage. We had to paddle a little more than we wanted to because the dam didn’t generate after 8:00, but it still wasn’t a bad trip. We made the nine miles in about six hours and had a fun time doing it.

About a third of the way, we passed a group of people camping; as we floated past they waved at us and hollered approvingly of the way that we were transporting our cooler. We like to strap our cooler down onto one of those round floats that people ride on behind a boat, and we let the cooler trail back a few feet behind one of the canoes. People always make comments about our method and think it’s ingenious, as if they couldn’t have thought of it themselves. As we passed by we waved back at the group which consisted of two or three girls who were sunbathing and reading magazines and three or four guys who were standing around drinking from red Solo cups. Because I was in need of finding the ladies’ bush, we decided to go ahead and stop there and take a lunch break. We pulled up a couple of hundred feet from where the group’s campsite was located, and as soon as we got out of our canoes, one of the guys from the camping group, a guy wearing a white tshirt for a head wrap, hollered again and motioned for us to come up to where they were, but we just waved back and broke into our lunch cooler.

After a little while of a eating sandwiches and chips and speculating about how much farther we had to go—and giving our butts a break from sitting—I decided to skip a couple of rocks, and Husband and J joined in. After two good skips, all my rock were duds, so I quit because Husband was tossing some pretty good ones, and J’s rocks were skipping nearly all the way across the river. This commanded the attention of the camping guys who cheered and then began skipping their own rocks, with one of the guys nearly matching J’s attempts. Finally, I guess Tshirt couldn’t stand it any longer because here he came, half walking, half staggering towards us along the narrow bank of river rocks. When Tshirt reached us, he stuck his hand out and introduced himself as Allen. He shook all of our hands and asked each of our names, repeating each name and committing it to memory as best as his alcohol-fogged brain would allow. Despite their state of inebriation, he and his group turned out to be a really nice bunch, and they invited us over to their campsite. We politely declined as we were putting away our food, saying that we had to get moving on down the river, so Allen headed back toward his group.

All the while J and one of the camping guys kept skipping rocks, when suddenly Allen turned back toward us and challenged us to a friendly rock skipping competition. “If you win,” Allen slurred, “you can be on your way down the river, but if we win, you have to come do shots with us.” We laughed and began to repeat that we needed to go, but Allen wouldn’t have it that there wouldn’t be a rock skipping champion crowned that day, so we chose J as our skipper against their guy. J went first, and his rock skipped seven or eight times. Everyone on both teams cheered, and then their guy went; his rock skipped about nine or ten times. J tossed another one that was good for another eight skips, and their guy’s next one went nearly all the way across the river for about twelve skips, everyone cheering all the while, like drunken fraternity guys playing beer pong. At that point, Husband and B and I all looked at J and said that it looked like he was going to have to go do a shot, but the guys from the camping group were drunk enough that they couldn’t remember if twelve was more than eight. That let J off the hook, and we got back to the task of packing our gear to leave. Just as we were about to put back out into the water, Allen and his bunch headed back toward us with a camera, wanting to get a picture of the participants of the great Caney Fork Rock Skipping Championship. After the picture, we shook hands again and said our goodbyes, and after urging the campers to be careful, our group went on its way down the river.

I have a feeling that today, somewhere in cyberspace, if I searched hard enough, I would find that picture.

What I Did For Fun This Morning

2008-06-16T10:53:00.004-05:00

In the past few days I have received the same spam email from two different email addresses. Both senders, a Mrs. Morgan and a Mrs. Williams, are posing as widows with money to use for God. I decided to play with the two of them a little. Here's the email from "Mrs. Williams" (the one from "Mrs. Morgan" is word for word the same with only the names changed).

From Mrs Rebecca Williams
N�[38 Rue Des Martyrs Cocody
Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

ATTN:
DEAREST ONE OF GOD

I am the above named person from Kuwait . I am married to Mr Benson Williams, who worked with Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast for nine years before he died in the year 2004. We were married for eleven years without a child. He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days.

Before his death we were both born again Christian. Since his death I decided not to remarry or get a child outside my matrimonial home which the Bible is against. When my late husband was alive he deposited the sum of $2. 5 Million (Two Million Five Hundred U.S. Dollars) in the bank here in Abidjan in suspense account.

Presently, the fund is still with the bank. Recently, my Doctor told me that i have serious sickness which is cancer problem. The one that disturbs me most is my stroke sickness. Having known my condition I decided to donate this fund to a church or individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein. I want a church that will use this fund for orphanages, widows, propagating the word of God and to endeavour that the house of God is maintained.

The Bible made us to understand that blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don抰 have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians and I don抰 want my husband抯 efforts to be used by unbelievers. I don抰 want a situation where this money will be used in an ungodly way. This is why I am taking this decision. I am not afraid of death hence i know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bosom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the Lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.

I don抰 need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health hence the presence of my husband抯 relatives is around me always I don't want them to know about this development. With God all things are possible. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the bank here in Abidjan . I want you and the church to always pray for me because the Lord is my shepherd. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Whoever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and Truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Contact me on the above e-mail address for more information抯, any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing another church or individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I Stated herein. Hoping to receive your
reply.

Remain blessed in the Lord.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs Rebecca Williams.

I thought that these widows needed to get to know each other, so I sent them both the same reply:

Dear Mrs. Rebecca Williams,

Wow, I cannot believe what a coincidence this is. Actually, this is so uncanny that I just cannot believe that it is a coincidence--it must be a conspiracy. I received an email, which I have forwarded to you here, from a Mrs. Susan Morgan who also lives in Kuwait and whose husband worked at the Kuwait embassy in Ivory Coast and who died after a sudden four-day illness. Amazingly, Mrs. Morgan also is childless and suffers from cancer and stroke, just like you! And just like you, her husband also has left a bank account of 2.5 million dollars.

I suspect that you and Mrs. Morgan are the victims of a terrible crime. It is obvious that your husbands were murdered by someone in the Ivory Coast government, likely because your husbands had found out about an illegal financial agreement between high officials from the Kuwait and Ivory Coast governments. Your husbands must have both been able to confiscate some of the money and hold it for evidence against those corrupt officials, but before they could bring those criminals to justice, both Mr. Williams and Mr. Morgan were poisoned with a chemical that made it look like they had contracted a brief and serious fatal illness. What is even more horrible about this crime is that both you and Mrs. Morgan were also poisoned. However, obviously you both were somewhat stronger than your husbands because instead of dying right away, the two of you instead were inflicted with cancer and stroke.

I am surprised that you and Mrs. Morgan have not already met, as similar as your stories are. However, amazingly, you both got in touch with me this week, and I am pleased to be able to forward your emails to each other so that the two of you can meet. Just imagine how much more the two of you can do together with a combined 5 million dollars! I hope that you and Mrs. Morgan will combine your resources and put
those corrupt government officials behind bars because they and people like them are the ones who make women into widows and children into orphans. And if you and Mrs. Morgan are too sick to do the work yourselves, I'm sure you can hire some good Christian lawyers who can do the work for you.

If you still want me to invest your money, please send me the full amount in cash, preferably in 20 dollar bills.

If the two widows reply, and if I'm feeling creative, maybe I'll play the two against each other. That should be fun.

Out of the abundance of the heart . . .

2008-06-11T10:34:00.002-05:00

From a UK Times Online article:

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. He said that he found it very painful “to put youngsters in harm’s way”. He added: “I try to meet with as many of the families as I can. And I have an obligation to comfort and console as best as I possibly can. I also have an obligation to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain.”

Spare me.

Forty Bucks I Won't Be Spending

2008-06-10T13:23:00.006-05:00

Here's the latest in services offered to the Christian community, specifically those who believe in the Rapture doctrine. From the ABC news website:

A new Web site is offering a first-of-its-kind service: sending e-mails to nonbelieving friends and family who are "left behind" after you are whisked away by God in the rapture.

The site Youvebeenleftbehind.com offers users the ability to store e-mails and documents that will be sent to up to 63 e-mail addresses six days after the rapture has occurred. Users get up to 250 megabytes of storage space, 150 megabytes of it encrypted for sensitive information such as bank account numbers or eTrade passwords that can be accessed by those who remain on earth.

The owner of this service says that your email is "one last chance to bring [your loved ones] to Christ and snatch them from the flames."

You may wonder, how will the emails be sent? The guy who owns the site has a system in place so that if the majority of his employees don't log into the system for a duration of six days (presumably because they've been raptured), the system will automatically send the stored messages to the recipients.

And this service isn't free; you'll need to shell out $40 a year to make sure that everyone on your email list who is left behind will get that one last message from you.

Hmmm. Now I personally do not believe in the rapture, but even if I did, I don't think I would be leaving my personal information out there on some stranger's server for some hacker to access. And I don't think, if the rapture is for real, it would be necessary to leave messages to my friends and loved ones explaining to them where I have disappeared to.

Besides, I'd feel really stupid if I got to heaven and saw someone there from my email list.

I'm Not Giving Up Tomatoes!

2008-06-10T10:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I learned of a salmonella scare involving tomatoes (apparently for now my state is in the clear). But my question is, is the salmonella inside the tomatoes? If so, how did it get there? If not, why can't we just disinfect the skin of the tomato and thus kill the salmonella?

Um, I'm Sorry, But I Have Some, um, Really Good News To Tell You

2008-06-05T07:51:00.002-05:00

Last fall when I found out that I was getting a bonus on my paycheck, I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Husband about it. In fact, I didn’t wait until I got home, but I called him on his cell phone instead. And I didn’t worry about how he would take the news; I knew he’d be glad to hear it. However, a few weeks ago when I got a memo from my department head about how the department has to cut its budget, which consists mostly of salaries, I had to figure out a way to tell Husband the news in a way that wouldn’t make him worry about the possibility of losing my job. I think most people deliver good and bad news in much the same way—we can’t wait to tell the good news, but we dread having to tell people something that is negative.

Why is it, then, that Christians seem to have a terrible problem telling others what is supposed to be good news? Christian organizations offer workshops in how to share the gospel (literally “good news”), and the participants practice on each other the most effective methods for delivering this good news. They even learn ways to counter objections to their good news. Objections to good news? Why in the world would people object to hearing good news?

“I have some really good news to tell you! We are all sinners. This includes you. You are a sinner, and God hates sin because sin is rebellion against God’s perfect sinless nature. Because you are a sinner, you are God’s enemy, and God says that the penalty for sin is death. If you die without being saved from your sin, you will have no hope of going to heaven. In fact, you’ll spend eternity in hell, the place of God’s punishment for sin. You can do nothing to save yourself from punishment in hell. But there is a way you can be saved.”

No wonder people have such a hard time “sharing the gospel.” You’ve got to tell people how bad they are before you tell them anything good. And the good part doesn’t really sound that good when you think about it: God’s son Jesus suffered and died a terrible death. He took on all the sins of the world, even though he himself never sinned, because he loved us so much. And God punished him instead of punishing us. What? God punished his innocent son? I grew up hearing all this stuff in church, and thinking about it now, I find it a little disturbing. Just think how it might sound to someone who’s never gone to church. And what about people who grew up being abused by their parents or other authority figures? A parent took out his anger at the sin of the world on his innocent son? Think about how that sounds!

To the uninitiated, this good news doesn’t really sound all that good. And there’s something else. The way Christians tend to present this “good news” tends to elevate the Christian to a superior position to the person he or she is telling it to: “I have accepted Jesus as my savior, so I know that I will go to heaven instead of hell. If you died right now, do you know for certain that you wouldn’t go to hell?” It almost sounds like “I made the right choice. I’m in the club. Don’t you want to be like me?” And if the person just doesn’t want to hear it, Christians lovingly tell the person something like, “Well, you just need to realize that if you die right now, you will spend eternity in hell. But God loves you and he wants to save you. If you don’t want to go to hell, you need to accept the cleansing from sin that Jesus offers.” Boy, if that wouldn’t leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth: You’re dirty and you need to be cleaned.

Ironically, Christians remark about people who think they need to get themselves cleaned up some before they try to get right with God. “God accepts us as we are; all you have to do is believe in Jesus, that he died on the cross and was resurrected.” Do you see the irony here? Two things: One, he accepts us as we are, yet we’re dirty and have to be cleansed of our sin or we’ll go to hell (but didn’t God already punish Jesus for the sins of the world)? Two, to keep from going to hell, we have to believe that Jesus not only died, but came back to life? I have been taught and believed for all of my life that Jesus died and rose again, but there are days when I question how true it is. Yet Christians expect people who’ve never thought about it to just buy into the story without investigating it for themselves.

Yes, it’s no wonder that most Christians dread being the bearer of this “good news” and why church and bible study organizations offer “Sharing the Gospel” seminars. If the gospel really is good news, then no one would have a problem telling others about it. Perhaps the gospel we have been sharing is not the one that we are supposed to be sharing. Perhaps we already share the gospel without even thinking about it.

Bible Question

2008-05-29T16:00:00.002-05:00

For some time now, I have had a great deal of trouble reconciling the story of God's commanding Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice with God's prohibition of human sacrifice as noted in such passages as Jeremiah 7.31 and 32.35. In those passages, God expresses his anger at his people's idolatry and their having adopted the practice of sacrificing humans to other gods, and he says that the idea of his people performing human sacrifices had never even entered his mind. If the idea had never entered his mind, how do we explain God's request to Abraham?

I suppose one could say that it never entered God's mind that Abraham actually go through with the sacrifice, but that answer doesn't satisfy me. If God doesn't like human sacrifice, why use that as the big test of someone's faith? Why go to the trouble of removing Abraham from his hometown where idolatry was the norm (and human sacrifice certainly could have been a common practice in culture's idolatry) to a place where he could be influenced to worship only one God, but then test Abraham by asking him to perform a practice that he had taken Abraham away from, a practice that we learn later in the bible that he actually detests?

Lest We Forget

2008-05-27T09:58:00.006-05:00

I like most other people spent my Memorial Day weekend having fun rather than observing the original intention of the holiday. The holiday was meant for us remember the sacrifice of those who died during military service. However, the Pentagon does not want us to remember them in this way:

School's Out For the Summer!

2008-05-05T07:31:00.003-05:00

I posted my grades yesterday afternoon. Now I am free until the 25th of August! Did I ever mention how much I like being a teacher?

Winding Down

2008-04-14T14:34:00.002-05:00

With the semester quickly nearing its end, I am currently catching up on unfinished work and getting ready for the marathon grading session that will begin next week when final papers are due. Classes end on the 23rd, and boy am I ready! Summer is close, and with it, summer reading!!

Husband and I spent a semi-nice day at the airshow on Saturday. The weather would have been nice had the wind not been blowing so hard. We both ended up with sunburns on our faces, but we had a good time. It was his first time to attend an airshow, so I was glad that we got to see the Blue Angels perform. We heard them come in on Friday afternoon and leave on Sunday evening--they flew right over our house. If it hadn't been cloudy, we could have seen them from the back porch.

I've been thinking about lots of blog topics, but I've been too busy with schoolwork to write anything. Maybe when all the grading is done, I'll post some brilliant, thought-provoking articles that will enlighten your minds.

Well, don't hold your breath on the brilliant, thought-provoking, and enlightening part.

More Excitement

2008-04-01T12:55:00.002-05:00

Today we received word on campus that the campus police had received an anonymous email from someone claiming to have overheard someone else planning to bring a gun to campus and "do something" to a teacher in one of our buildings. The university sent an alert to the campus community saying that no one has seen anyone with a gun, nor has anything else suspicious been reported to the police. Therefore, we should remain alert and go about our regular schedule. However, one department in the affected building has decided to cancel its classes for the rest of the day because of the threat, well that and the fact that the heaters are working overtime and making the temperature unbearable over there.

It is entirely possible that this is some person's idea of an April Fool's joke--I think that's probably the case--but it's a rather sick joke.

Bombfuzzled

2008-03-28T13:56:00.004-05:00

I would normally be in class right now instead of blogging, but I seem to have a free hour because of a bomb threat in the building where my class should be meeting. You'll probably hear about it on the news tonight, as I saw a news van cruising around campus a few minutes ago.

I just wish the guy had called in the threat a little earlier so that I wouldn't have walked all the way across campus just to find the building closed.

Things that make you go hmmm.

2008-03-21T14:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Husband and I received a notice from the Internal Revenue Service that we may be receiving a tax rebate check from the government. The letter was very vague, and it didn't say much more than what we have been hearing on the news for the past several weeks. Husband and I just shook our heads and wondered how much money our government has just wasted sending out letters to everyone who may get a check.

According to a Newsweek article, the cost to send a letter out to approximately 130 million households is 41.8 million dollars.

Nearly $42 million to tell us something that anyone who has been even remotely near a television or radio for the past month has already heard about.

There are so many things I could say right now, but I think just shaking my head will suffice.

Independent truckers will soon be priced out of business.

2008-03-10T12:12:00.003-05:00

Unless you drive a diesel powered vehicle, you probably haven't thought much about the fact that the price of diesel has recently risen to around $3.75, which is around .60 higher than regular gasoline. If you don't have to buy diesel, you may think that this doesn't affect you. However, you are wrong.

Have you noticed the price of groceries going up? Much of the reason for the escalation in food prices can be attributed to high diesel prices. Think about it. Nearly everything that you buy in the store arrived there in a truck that runs on diesel fuel, and when the cost of diesel goes up, so does the cost of transporting those goods to the stores. Thus, the prices of those goods goes up accordingly.

Up until the past few years, the price of a gallon of diesel fuel had been lower than the price of a gallon of regular gasoline by around 30 to 40 cents. However in the past four to five years, diesel has been 15 to 25 cents more than gasoline, and just last week, diesel went up nearly 25 cents per gallon in one day.

Even if you can still afford to fill up your car's gas tank, the cost of diesel is something we all need to be concerned about because the higher the price of diesel, the higher the price of nearly everything else we buy, including that gasoline that gets hauled to the gas pumps in a diesel truck.

I'm a winner

2008-02-14T16:28:00.003-06:00

I am flattered and honored that Ayatollah Mugsy would choose my haiku as first place winner in his Valentine's Day haiku contest.

Now if I can only find a way to use my remarkable talent to augment my teacher's salary.

Duh!

2008-02-10T17:41:00.000-06:00

A couple of researchers recently learned from their study that men think that kissing should lead to sex.

Did they really have to do a study to figure that out?

I'm It

2008-02-07T12:52:00.000-06:00

Justin tagged me the other day, and I'm just now finding out about it. The deal is to pick up a book of at least 123 pages, go to page 123, find the first five sentences, and then quote the next three. So here goes:

"To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul be rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder."

I'm going to quote the next sentence as well, as the above makes little sense without it (and because I just like the next sentence):

"I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach."

This is from the story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, and it was in a literature anthology on a shelf in my office.

I'm supposed to tag five people, but I'll leave it open to anyone who wants to participate. (I would like to hear from you, Mugsy!)

Don't disagree with the preacher or you may end up in jail.

2008-01-22T10:13:00.001-06:00

I just read an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about churches who are taking dramatic measures in disciplining church members for "sinning." One little old lady in Michigan was arrested for trespassing, handcuffed, and taken to jail for attending church after having been banned from church after pressing the new pastor to appoint a board of deacons. The pastor decided that she was spreading a "cancerous spirit" in the church and banned her from attending anymore. At another church in Texas, a woman who who went to her pastor for counseling and confessed having had an extra-marital affair. The pastor publicized her sin to the congregation, apparently so that they could shun her.

According to the article, more and more church leaders are disciplining their congregants by exposing their "sins" to the rest of the congregation, causing much discord and humiliation. Isn't this the type of behavior that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for? This type of stuff is one more reason that I have against joining a church.

What Happened to Christian Radio?

2008-01-17T15:52:00.000-06:00

It has been my habit for quite a while to listen to public radio in the afternoons on my way home from work, but with my new schedule this semester, I go home too early to listen to the NPR news. So this afternoon I decided to turn on Christian radio and maybe hear one of those bible question and answer shows. However, to my dismay, I found that on one Christian station a woman was talking about the United States' economy. On another station another lady was talking about immigration. And on another station a man was talking about the importance of having a clean colon.

Whatever happened to talking about Jesus on Christian radio?

Branching Out Into New Territory

2007-12-10T10:55:00.000-06:00

After much prodding by my students, I finally joined Facebook. For the longest, I saw absolutely no use in it; it seemed just a frivolous waste of time. However, I've become convinced that my having a Facebook page will result in more students knowing what is actually going on in class more of the time.

Students inevitably check Facebook first thing when logging onto the internet. If they know that they can go to my page and be reminded of the due date for the next assignment, they will do that long before they will log into the school's server where I keep my class website. After exploring Facebook and its different applications, I have found that I can make my page a somewhat educational experience by adding news feeds and a "word a day" application. So as my students are goofing off online, maybe they will pick up some useful information that could actually turn into a good class discussion.

I'm continually finding that I have to go to where my students are if I'm going to be able to get them to learn what I need for them to learn. I'm hopeful that this will be a good experience.

(Of course, my students aren't the only people welcome at my Facebook page. If you know my real name so that you can find me there, I'll be glad to "friend" you.)

Who's to Blame?

2007-12-04T12:25:00.000-06:00

Everyone at my university received the following email alert today: A female [university] student reported that she was possibly sexually assaulted by someone she knew at [a particular] fraternity house in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 1, 2007. The female student reported that the alleged assault took place following a party at the house, and that she was incapacitated at the time of the incident.This case is under investigation by the [university] Police Department.Why was this female student "incapacitated"? Is it possible, just by an off chance, that she had passed out from drinking herself into oblivion? I hear from students all the time about their drinking binges in which the next day they remember little to nothing of the previous night's events. How does this student know that in a drunken stupor, she didn't consent to sex? And does she plan to tell her parents about this "possible" sexual assault? If she does, will they be objective enough to realize her level of irresponsibility in putting herself into that kind of situation? Or will they want to place all the blame on the male student, or even blame the university? I certainly do not condone the behavior of the person who possibly assaulted her, but this young woman certainly should bear some responsibility. Surely she has learned a lesson from this.

Our Faith Needs Some More Work(s)

2007-11-08T11:39:00.000-06:00

This morning I listened to a story on public radio about a couple of women who had encounters with different presidential candidates. One of the women went to a rally for Barak Obama in hopes of speaking to him. From the story:

Punteney has faced much tragedy. One of her brothers was burned as a boy in a Fourth of July fireworks accident and later died. Her brother, as she told Obama, has late-stage cancer. Her father died recently. Her mother has not been well. Punteney said she cries a lot.

A few weeks ago, at the home in Oelwein, Iowa, she shares with her mother, Punteney said she'd been inspired to see Obama when he came to the area.

"I'd seen the commercials," she said. "And he just seemed sincere, like he's for people like my mom, my brother and me."

Many people feel politicians may not be the first place to turn when in dire need of help. But Punteney said she was confident Obama could do something to make her feel better.

"I never had anyone pay attention to me and my needs — and he held my hand," she said.

When I heard this I was reminded of all the people who followed after Jesus because they had no hope, because they needed something that no one else could, or would, give them. This woman sought comfort and relief from a political leader much the same way that people in Jesus’s day sought him out, hoping that he would bring them comfort and relief, hoping that he would bring about a political revolution and change society for the better. What a shame that two thousand years after Jesus came and taught people how to love each other that we still have people who feel the need to seek help and relief for their daily needs from a politician. It is obvious that the church is failing in its directive to feed Jesus’s sheep.

Obama told the woman that he was working to bring health insurance to all people, and then he said to her, "Tell your brother we're thinking of him. Maybe I'll write him a note before you leave today."

I realize that Obama is a busy man and that he can’t respond to every single request for help; however, his reply reminded me of the passage from James 2.15-16: If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

Those of us who call ourselves members of Christ’s church must do more than wish others well; we must do what we can to help make their lives better. We are called to go out of our way and sacrifice our own wants to help those who need it.

I read another story this morning that is indicative of Christians’ lack of response to those in need:

When the first snow falls this winter, 61-year-old Grace Murphy won't be turning on the heat in her Dorchester, Massachussetts home.

With her heating oil tank at empty, she'll be huddled around her gas oven with her husband Paul, 66, and her 88-year old mother.

"I don't buy heating oil because I can't afford to," Murphy said.

[snip]

In Murphy's case, spending on heating oil will mean cutting back on medical expenses, and trimming down an already slim food budget. Murphy, a diabetic, has spent months without taking her medication.

How can those of us who have more than enough tolerate knowing that others are skipping meals and struggling to keep warm?

I recently heard the results of an annual poll that asks consumers to estimate the amount of money they plan to spend this year on Christmas gifts. The average number this year is $909, up from last year’s figure. I know people who will spend hundreds of dollars this year on Christmas gifts for their children, children who received hundreds of dollars worth of gifts last year. What would happen if Instead of spending $500 on toys that the child will get tired of in two weeks, every family were to spend that money on helping someone pay a heating bill or doctor bill, or helping to stock that person’s pantry?

I think if we did this, we would be much, much closer to the kingdom that Jesus promised to his followers.

Keep Quiet!

2007-11-05T10:48:00.000-06:00

I usually think that church signs are really cheezy, but today I saw a really good one:

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.

If we Christians would spend less time talking and more time doing, this world would be much better off.

Milestone

2007-10-03T12:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it's finally arrived, the day I knew would come, the day that would make me officially feel "old."

Yesterday one of my students told me that her mother is 36 years old.

I am older than the parent of one of my college students.

Working Through the Distractions

2007-09-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

This week has been an extremely busy one. I took up essay drafts from all of my students, and that is all I've had time to read this week. Actually, I did manage to get my bible lesson read, and I read a couple of blogs, but the bulk of my time has been spent with freshman personal experience stories and sophomore analytical responses.

This semester I'm experimenting with small group writing workshops in which each group member must exchange essays with the others and read and comment on each essay outside of class. Then the group comes back together to discuss what they have read and help each other improve the essay for the final (graded) draft. This is working out rather well, as the students seem to enjoy "playing teacher" with each other's essays. However, since I am a member of all the groups, I must read and comment on over 100 essays. To do this in a timely manner is next to impossible. I actually was a little over-ambitious in planning how many essays I can read in a week which resulted in my not finishing all the essays that were due to be discussed today. However, it seems to have worked out well anyway because the students were prepared and were able to carry the conversation without much input from me. Perhaps this is what should happen most of the time from now on.

Today is game day at my university, and early this morning parking lots were already being blocked off for tailgating before the game this evening. I really hate Thursday games because it seems that our university is trying to turn into another UT. Tailgating and other pre-game activities are more important than academic activities on days like today. And the students aren't the only ones buying into this attitude; the administration is promoting it as well, it seems. Tailgating begins well before the game and takes place not only near the stadium but also in the middle of campus. The campus is open to all tailgaters, student and non-student alike, and cars are parked in some of the grassy areas which have been transformed into picnic areas complete with gas and charcoal grills brought from home. And although our campus is dry, alcohol is allowed and flows freely. So even as some students are still trekking from class to class, others are enjoying the festivities that are taking place right outside classroom windows. I'll admit that the atmosphere is nice, but it makes it hard for those teachers who have serious activities planned for class. I'm glad I'm not teaching a late afternoon class today.

I'm supposed to do office hours until 2:00 today. My students have essays due next week, and some of them need to come in and get help. But I doubt that any will come today, not with all the better options outside my office.

The band has just begun rehersing out on the lawn. I guess this signals the official start to tailgating. Class dismissed.

Quotable Quote

2007-09-10T11:43:00.000-05:00

From a second-year college student and third-string cornerback on the university football team:

If one has God given talent, one should not misuse it or take it for granite.

Labor Day Anniversary

2007-09-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

I survived the first week back at school without any big mishaps. My students seem OK, but I can already tell that I have at least a couple of slackers. However, I also already know which is my favorite class. My research and argument students had to read a couple of chapters and a newspaper article that I assigned, and one class in particular really impressed me with their level of participation and the intelligence of their discussion. I'm really looking forward to going to that class every day. The only bad thing about it will be that the rest of the day will go downhill because the other two classes after that one don't seem nearly as talkative. But maybe that was just first-week nerves or something.

Today is JMG and Husband's 12th anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long sometimes. We marked the occasion by going out to eat at a home-cooking type of restaurant last night and having some dessert. It was OK. I think today we'll make some homemade ice cream, and if I'm feeling really celebratory, I might even bake a cake.

It's difficult to make special anniversary plans when the occasion falls during the first week of school, and this year it's even harder to do so because we have had an emergency with one of our dogs. We had to take Trixie to the vet yesterday because she was in terrible pain in her back. X-rays showed that she has two bulging discs. She spent the night in the hospital last night receiving pain killers, muscle relaxers, and steroid shots. We're hopeful that she can come home sometime today or tomorrow, but when she does, she'll have to be on strict cage rest for four weeks. Do you know how hard it's going to be to keep a Jack Russell Terrier happy in a cage for four weeks? We'll probably be sleeping with a cage on the bed for a while.

I hope everyone has a nice day off tomorrow if you have the day off. I know I'm going to enjoy mine, even if I end up having to do some school work.

Back to the Salt Mines and Other Stuff

2007-08-27T11:14:00.001-05:00

I've been quiet lately because I've been getting ready to go back to work, which started back up today. I won't meet classes until this afternoon, so the day has been pretty good so far. We'll see what types of first-day of the semester emergencies this semester brings.

Nothing noteworthy has been happening to me as usual, which I guess is good. Husband and I went to the fair last week. We decided this year we'd pay the dollar to see the "World's Smallest Woman" assuming it would be some kind of trick with mirrors and stuff. But to our surprise, when we went up the steps and looked over the wall, there sat a real live, very tiny woman. We said hi and then hurried back down the steps, amazed that she was for real. The next day when we were talking about it, we realized that we both had the same weird, uneasy feeling when we saw the real live woman. It wasn't that we were weired out by her size, but that we felt strange about paying a dollar to look at an unusual person. We wondered whether she's happy being a side show, if she's placing herself on display by her own free will. We both agreed that we'd have felt much better if the whole thing had been a mirror trick instead of a real person.

We also avoided the horse-made ice cream this year. If you have never seen that, don't bother. They put a horse on an inclined treadmill that is hooked up to turn a manual ice cream freezer. The horse must walk or risk slipping off the treadmill. It seems really uncomfortable for the horse.

This was our first visit to the fair in several years, and I think we got enough this time that we won't need to go back for several more.

Convenience is not all it's cracked up to be.

2007-08-15T08:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I stopped at the Kroger to pick up a couple of items, and when I went up front to pay, there was only one register open. Because a lady with a full cart was already in line, I decided to go against my principles and use the self check out. I do not like checking out my own groceries because first of all, it takes me twice as long as it would take an employee, especially when I’m buying a head of lettuce and the barcode is crumpled up and I have to straighten it so that the scanner will read it. Then I have to feed my money into the machine, and if a dollar bill has a crease on the edge, I have to take the time to straighten that out as well. But the main reason that I am against checking my own groceries is that I don’t get a discount for doing so. Part of the price that I pay for groceries goes toward the store’s overhead, which includes paying someone to work at a cash register, take my money, and bag my groceries. When I have to perform these tasks myself at a store, the store is receiving that much more pure profit while providing less customer service. Also, the extra labor involved in my checking my own groceries means that I am in effect paying more for my groceries than when I let the cashier check them.

Every now and then, when I am in the store and see a long line of people waiting to check out, I forget these things and go through the self check out because I perceive it to be more convenient. Yesterday, however, as I struggled to get the lettuce to ring up, I remembered why I hate the self check out, and I resolved to from now on be content to wait in the line and get my money’s worth in customer service.

Summer's Almost Over

2007-08-03T08:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I signed a contract making it official that I am employed by the university for at least one more, and up to three, academic years. School starts up again on Monday, August 27. That gives me a little more than three weeks left to finish getting ready. Where did the summer go?

---------

Husband and I have begun a new project. We are now a part of the community of antique car owners. For a long time I have thought it would be neat to have a car to fix up and drive around to the various cruise-ins, and husband has thought so as well, but we've just now gotten around to doing something about it. We recently acquired a 1949 Ford sedan and a 1949 Ford pickup truck. Alas, we won't be driving our antique automobiles to the cruise-ins for a while, as they require massive work to get them road-ready. My past few weeks have been spent perusing hot rod magazines, websites, and parts catalogs. Yesterday, we took a trip to the paint store and a couple of body shops. We have a vision for what our autos will look like, but it will take some time to get there. My future contains lots of sandpaper.

Locked Out

2007-07-10T09:12:00.000-05:00

When we built our house, we didn't spend a lot of time reviewing the options for many common but necessary items such as door knobs. What we ended up installing were knobs that when you lock them, you can still open them from the inside--meaning that it is extremely easy to lock ourselves out of the house, which we have done several times. (What is the purpose of this type of door lock? Who needs it?) I used to keep a spare key hanging outside in a tree, and it came in handy several times, particularly one cold winter night when Husband and I went out into the garage to see what kind of ice cream snacks were in the freezer. When we realized that we'd locked ourselves out, I borrowed his shoes and socks, as I was barefoot at the time, so that I could go get the key (he didn't know precisely where it was). It was a dark and cold night--I was wearing flimsy PJ's--and when I got into the woods, I had to feel my way to the tree and then feel all around to find the key. It was an adventure, and I didn't feel the need to eat ice cream that night.

Not long ago, some landscaping changes made getting to that key very difficult, so I took the key into the house and forgot about finding a new hiding place for it. That is until last night when Husband and I stepped outside to let the dogs go out before going to bed. As soon as I shut the door, I realized that it was probably a mistake, and indeed it was. To make a long story short, we ended up using a drill and a sledge hammer to demolish the door knob, and in the process, we ruined some of the door frame, creating another chore for my already overworked husband.

Today, my mission is to find a new place to hide the spare key.

My Simpson's Avatar

2007-07-06T10:48:00.001-05:00

This is me as a Simpson's character. It's a remarkable resemblance, wouldn't you agree?

Re-vision

2007-06-28T07:24:00.000-05:00

I reached a new milestone since I last blogged. Last week I visited my eye doctor, just knowing that the inevitable would happen this year. And it did. I now wear reading glasses. I knew it was coming. For a while now I've been sitting as far away from my laptop as my arms will reach. When I read a book, I have to move the book around every so often and look at it from a slightly different angle. I was starting to squint at things. The doctor said that I was suffering from eye strain and said that I would feel better if I wore reading glasses. The good news was that my distance vision is still very good, so I was able to avoid the dreaded bifocals. I swear I will never wear bifocals.

I am reminded at this point of an English teacher I had in high school. She wore two kinds of glasses--a pair for distance and a pair for reading. In class she didn't have to use the distance glasses, but when she wanted to read something she'd put on her reading glasses, read a few lines, look up and take them back off. It was sort of her trademark, repeatedly putting her glasses on and taking them back off. My eye doctor told me that I need to wear my glasses only when I'm going to be reading or working at the computer for long stretches, so maybe I won't become like my eleventh grade English teacher.

Shopping for reading glasses was not an altogether unpleasant experience. The girl who helped me was very friendly and honest and helped me to avoid any glasses that might make me look like a professor. I've never been a vain person, but I rather enjoy being mistaken for a college student when I'm at work, so I certainly did not want glasses that would make me look older. I picked up some brown glasses sort of the same color as my tortoise-shell sunglasses, put them on, and took them right back off again. Right then I decided to stay away from any drab colors. Since I don't have to wear these glasses all the time, I reasoned, why not go for something sort of funky, so I tried on pink glasses and green glasses and red glasses and multicolored glasses. I finally settled on a pair of turquoise and tan glasses that look nice with my eye color and will coordinate with most of my clothes.

When I used my glasses the first time I was sort of shocked. I opened my bible, looked at the words, and then put on my glasses. "Whoa!" I said. Although my eyes aren't in that bad of shape, I was amazed at the difference. I guess I'm sort of surprised since I've been an avid reader since I learned to read that this day didn't come sooner. I just hope that as the rest of my body starts to wear out, correcting the problems will be as simple as a new pair of glasses.

It's Time for Passover Again

2007-06-21T08:01:00.000-05:00

Here's a wonderful piece of information I received in a newsletter from the president of my university:

"State legislators for the second consecutive year approved increased general operating funds for state colleges and universities. Seventy million dollars for new operating funds and 3 % across-the-board employee salary increases were approved.

"The 3% salary increase will be effective July 1. . . . The percentage raise will not apply to adjunct faculty, temporary employees, graduate assistants or student workers."

At my school, temporary faculty teach most of the general education courses--those classes that are required for all students (English, math, etc.). More and more, universities across the country are relying on temporary faculty; however, these same faculty are continually short-changed when it comes to raises and benefits. (I'm one of the lucky ones who does receive good benefits.) These faculty also typically teach twice the number of students per semester than their tenured or tenure-track counterparts.

This is the second consecutive year that temporary faculty will be passed over for a raise. I would complain about it, but because I had to reapply for my job this year and I haven't heard anything yet, I think it's better to keep my mouth shut. But this continual neglect is causing me to rethink how hard I want to work at my job this coming fall.

Relief

2007-06-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

Today we finally got some much needed rain. Maybe now the grass in my yard won't be crunchy. But I doubt that whatever rain we get today will do much to alleviate the drought we're in.

Nothing much is happening around my house. We get up around 5:30; Husband goes to work, and I stay home and do laundry, study my bible, and think up something good for supper, or think up a scheme to get to go out for supper. That hardly ever works on a weeknight, however.
We're planning a fun weekend outing. We're going to canoe on the Caney Fork river on Sunday morning, putting in at the Center Hill dam and getting out at Betty's Island. We had a lot of fun the last time we went, and this time should be even better since we just got a new canoe. I can't wait to get it on the river. It's sort of hard to know how well it will handle just trying it out in my brother's swimming pool, but we got a pretty good idea that it's not nearly as tippy as our previous canoe. (Yes, we actually did try out the canoe in the pool. It was the highlight of our day--we're easily amused.)

Is everyone else having as uneventful a summer as I am?

Book Report

2007-06-12T07:53:00.000-05:00

Tony recommended that I read Doug Marlette’s novel The Bridge, saying that I would love it. He was right; it is an excellent story. The primary story takes place in the present day, but a secondary story—what the main character, Pickard, learns about his family heritage—takes place in the late 1920’s through the 30’s, the main character of which is Pickard’s grandmother, Mama Lucy.

This is a novel that can be read more than once, and the reader can explore different themes during each reading. I particularly enjoyed the little history lesson presented in the story, one that I had never really learned about in school. Mama Lucy grew up in the South working in the textile mills weaving cloth. Her story centers on the textile workers’ strikes during the 1920’s and 30’s and the workers’ attempts at unionizing and petitioning their bosses for better pay and working conditions. What Mama Lucy experiences during this time is fundamental in shaping her actions and attitudes later in life towards her family.

Family dynamics, particularly those of Southern families, forms a major theme in this novel. Mama Lucy is the cause of much friction in the family. When she is first introduced, she a frail but feisty old woman celebrating her ninetieth birthday and resisting being sent to a nursing home. She still does all she can to exercise control over her grown children and grandchildren. Her family consists of a very colorful bunch, very few of which made it past high school, and those who did (Pickard) are viewed with suspicion. Pickard describes his extended family in the scene leading up to his attendance at his grandmother’s birthday party and family reunion:

The Cantrells are a fiercely modest clan, not given to ostentatious displays of personal wealth, material possessions, or hubris of any kind. Any and all forms of “showin’ off,” “puttin’ on airs,” or “gittin’ above your raisin’” are generally frowned upon in my family, and whatever pride we might possess is religiously suppressed, except when it comes to our means of transportation. Any residual Cantrell strut and boast is channeled into the chrome and paint jobs or the horsepower per cubic inch under the hoods of our latest set of wheels. We Cantrells may not go far in the world, but we’ll get there in style. No wonder a number of my relatives made their livings working on and around combustible engines—as garage mechanics, car dealers, auto parts specialists, service station attendants. Ambition in my family was gauged by whether you wanted to pump hi-test.

Pickard’s cousin describes ambition as the “Southern Disease,” a virus that should be avoided at all costs because “nobody likes it when somebody breaks with the rest of the herd. It pressures the rest to do the same, and that’s risky.”

Despite their various feuds and alliances (which will likely remind readers of some of their own past and ongoing family dramas), the extended family is very protective of each other, not allowing anyone, including other family members, to speak negatively of the family in pubic. When a particularly “redneck” cousin decides to badmouth Pickard at the reunion, another cousin comes to Pickard’s defense with a threat that I found particularly hilarious: “I want you to apologize to Pick, ‘fore I rip you a new asshole and rearrange your digestive tract to where you don’t know whether to piss or fart.” If the offender had been someone outside the family, he likely would not have received fair warning before being subjected to such a procedure.

In his dealings with his family, the main character Pickard enters upon a journey of self-discovery. Along his journey, the novel explores many other themes such as loyalty, betrayal, resentment, and forgiveness, not only within the family dynamic, but in other venues as well. This is a novel that can be read and interpreted on many different levels, and readers certainly will see parallels to their own lives in this very engrossing story. I will definitely look for other titles by this author.

If you've read it, let's talk about it. (Do I get an A, Tony?)

Rest In Peace, Woody

2007-06-07T16:24:00.000-05:00

My dogs and I will miss seeing you jumping out of your Element and christening cars on Saturday mornings.

Bored and withering up like this tree

2007-06-05T07:51:00.000-05:00

The lack of rain has taken its toll on the vegetation in my yard. I have watered this tree repeatedly, but as you can tell, my efforts seem futile. It's weird, though, that this tree is the only one that is suffering to this degree. The grass looks pretty bad, too. I last mowed the yard nearly three weeks ago. Husband mowed a little yesterday, but it didn't seem all that necessary.

Life since school has been out has been extremely slow. I have been doing some housework that needed to be done, and I've been putting off some tasks that I know will be very boring. It's sort of ironic, though, that I fear that August will come much sooner than I'd like.

I"ve been reading some. I read a book called The Faith and the Power. It's a history of the time between the crucifiction and the destruction of Jerusalem. Very interesting. Then I started a mystery novel that I picked up for a dollar a couple of weeks ago, but I'm having trouble getting into it.

I have not listened to very much news. It seems that every time I turn it on, it's the same stuff. I'm tired of hearing about Paris Hilton. The story about the tuburculosis guy was mildly interesting. I don't care about hearing from the presidential candidates because I don't see much point in following them this early in the game. Besides, the media will choose the top two in each party and that will be that.

I have not posted in over a week because I have nothing to say. The problem is I still want to blog. I like writing. Someone please give me a writing assignment.

No Worries

2007-05-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

Medical researchers are constantly learning new things about our bodies, disease, and what is good or not good for us. However, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, much of the information that we hear about how to maintain good health is contradictory. For instance, foods like chocolate, coffee, and wine have both benefits and drawbacks. How do we know how much we can have and receive the benefits without the harmful effects? We’re constantly told that we need to keep our cholesterol low, but this morning I heard that people who have low cholesterol are at higher risk for Parkinson’s disease. So now all those people who were afraid of heart disease and did all they could to lower their cholesterol are now afraid that they’ll get Parkinson’s because their cholesterol is too low.

It’s really frustrating to constantly hear all this changing information. It’s confusing. The media purport to give us all this information so that we’ll stay informed, but the real result is that we’re just confused. We’re afraid and confused. We’re afraid of the bad things that might happen to us, and we’re confused about how to prevent those bad things. This causes us to worry which, in turn, has a negative impact on our health. We’d be much better off if we stopped listening to the media reports about what may or may not be good for us and quit worrying about the diseases that may or may not afflict us.

Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Butseek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matt. 6.31-4).

The Nutcracker Suite

2007-05-22T08:26:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, my morning began with something I have been dreading for nearly two months. My gynecologist, whom I have known since fifth grade, is a very good doctor, and she always makes me feel good about what I’m doing to take care of myself. However, when she wants to prod me into doing more (for instance, exercising more), she has a way of using the pronoun we instead of you. She likes to use phrases such as “We’ve reached that age. . .” and “At our age, we really need to. . . .” So, at my visit with her early last month, it was with this tactic that she persuaded me to undergo my first mammogram. She assured me that it wasn’t really all that bad and that she didn’t dislike it nearly as much as that other part of the yearly checkup. I wasn’t exactly convinced, but I decided to go along with it.

Some man who hates women must have invented this torturous procedure. While it didn’t hurt as badly as I imagined it could have, I have nonetheless decided that I will likely not do it again. Surely, a monthly self exam is good enough. If a self exam is good enough for men—you know, guys, that you should examine your testicles periodically—then it should be good enough for women. However, if the medical establishment insists that an x-ray image of the breast is the best way to detect those little breast cancers early, then it stands to reason that men would need to detect testicular cancer early using the same method. In fact, in the interest of promoting healthy families, couples could make appointments together, and her mammogram and his “testigram” could be done at the same time, in the same room even. First the wife could have her mammogram, and then the husband could get his testigram done on the same machine. Besides being a great bonding experience, it would be very practical to do them together because after the exam, the wife would have to push the man back to the car in a wheelchair and drive him home.

On second thought, maybe that much togetherness is not a good idea. After all, when you have to go through a mammogram first thing in the morning, the last thing you want to do is take care of an incapacitated man that afternoon. No, a day of shopping and a nice lunch is a great reward after the torture of the morning.

For What it's Worth

2007-05-17T08:32:00.000-05:00

Recently, Husband decided that he wanted a new car. I told him that he could have one if he stops doing hay in the summers and sells his hay equipment. He agreed, and while we have sold some of his stuff, we still have for sale a John Deere 735 MoCo (mower conditioner). (If you are aware of someone who needs some hay equipment, I'll be happy to point you to the ad.)

I sort of thought that we'd sell all the equipment and then buy the car, but I guess men don't work that way when they want a new car.

I became interested in the Mustang when the new body style--a real, honest retro style--came out a couple of years ago. I dragged Husband to a dealership right after they came out because I just wanted to see one up close--I appreciate a beautiful car, and the new Mustang is a beautiful car. I had no thoughts of buying one. Husband, however, got the fever, and though it subsided, he never quite got over it, and a couple of months ago, I broke down and made the deal with him.

Now when Husband decides to do something, he does it all the way. The way he thinks, if he's gonna spend the money to get something, he might as well get exactly what he wants the first time. He does his research, and in all the time I've known him, he's never made any bad deals. This time has been no exception; however, I think we both got a bit more than we bargained for when we bought this car.

He picked out a Roush 427 Mustang. This car is a real head turner. No more than fifteen minutes after we'd driven away from the dealership, a guy yelled at us with admiration for our car and took our picture as he drove alongside us. Later on down the road, some young kid parked on the side of the road with his souped up Honda gave us two thumbs up and then bowed in a posture of worship. We laughed and laughed. Whenever we go out to eat, we see men stop and inspect the car and sometimes take pictures. It's absolutely amazing.

I can't help but wonder what people think of the owners of this car. To me, it's a pretty car, and it's fun to ride around in it. But many people attach a lot more to ownership of a car and make judgments about people by the cars that they drive. I've done it plenty of times myself. I know better than to do that now. While some cars are more aesthetically pleasing than others, they all have one thing in common: They are all a hunk of metal that get their drivers from one place to another. We get into trouble when we begin to measure the worth of a person by the value of his automobile, or house, or clothing, or any other material possession and think that the person who has the more beautiful possessions is the more valuable person. Possessions can be fun, but their value is only in the eye of the beholder.

I See London, I See France. . .

2007-05-11T10:18:00.000-05:00

If I see one more news announcer holding up a pair of granny panties and saying "poor Paris" I'm gonna scream.

Of course, it would be punishment enough for her just to wear granny panties without going to jail.

School's Out!

2007-04-27T06:12:00.000-05:00

I have a big stack of papers to grade, but after I'm done, I'll be free until mid-August to do whatever I want.

Having to read so many essays during the school year doesn't allow me much time to read what I want to read, and by the time summer arrives, I've forgotten about all the books I've heard of during the previous months that I thought I might like to read. So if you have any suggestions for my summer reading list, I'll be glad to hear them.

Could it Have Been Prevented?

2007-04-18T13:35:00.000-05:00

The young man who killed all those people at Virginia Tech was obviously a very troubled individual. News stories have portrayed him as a loner, someone who didn't have close friends. Students who knew him said that when they would speak to him, he'd stare right through them without saying a word. Perhaps we'll learn about his past as time wears on--I wonder what he went through to make him end up the way he was?

When we encounter people who are obviously very troubled, how are we to respond? How do you reach out to a person who no longer wants to be reached out to? Is a person ever too far gone to be helped by another human being?

If you look at all these school shootings, it seems that it was always the "weird" loner who perpetrated the crime. Have we been guilty of contributing to their weirdness? Have we ever not taken the time to become friendly with weird people because it's just so much trouble to try to relate to them? We need to do our part to make all people feel like they are treasured; otherwise we run the risk of helping to drive some people to commit these desperate acts. Jesus hung out with the social outcasts of his day, and we need to not be afraid to do the same. Perhaps we might help to save a life.

Checking In

2007-04-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately, but I've been swamped at work, and the time I haven't been working, I've just not felt like blogging much. I still have lots to say, but just no time or energy to say it.

I did take some time for an outing with my mom last week. We went to a spa and had a massage and a facial. It was my first time, and it was GREAT! I can't believe I waited so long to get a massage--I won't wait that long again. When I get done grading all the reasearch papers I'll be collecting very soon, I'll probably go again.

Y'all have a wonderful day!

Picking Up Strays

2007-04-01T10:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a little black and white beagle showed up and started hanging around at our house. He’s a friendly little dog, and we liked him from the start. He rolled over onto his back, showing us his belly, and, of course, we obliged to give him a belly rub. Since we were outside for a big part of the day, he stayed around, alternating between following us around as we worked and taking naps in the shade. Because he was wearing a collar with a tag, we figured out pretty quickly that he belongs to one of the neighbors, so I decided to walk him back home. However, he didn’t want to stay, and about five minutes after I got back to my house, he showed up again. So I called and left the neighbors a message, thinking they’d come get their dog after they got home. But they didn’t. He ended up spending the night on our front porch. We figure he’ll go home eventually, but for now, we have a new little companion.

The problem is that our dogs do not like this situation at all. At his first chance, one of our Jack Russell Terriers, Pete, took out after this little dog and left a mark on his face. Of course, we punished him, but he is still very upset that this little dog is here. This morning he took out after the beagle again, so we ended up trying to be dog whisperers and making him be friendly. After a few minutes, our dog seemed to calm down, the two dogs enjoyed a wary truce. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Our dogs are very territorial and protective, and if you know Jack Russell Terriers, you know that they’re very jealous little dogs, and our dog Pete is jealous of even the other two dogs in our house. So he’s especially jealous when a strange dog comes around and we’re friendly with it.

People are like that too. When we have a circle of friends, and a new person tries to come into that circle, we sometimes are jealous and don’t want to be hospitable. We’ll even do what we can to let that person know that he or she is not welcome, sometimes resorting not necessarily to violence, but to meanness and spite. We don’t want to get to know that person because doing so means that the relationships we share with our circle of friends that we have become so comfortable with will be different. If a new person comes in, those relationships might change; we might lose our place in the circle. Our friends might decide that they like spending time with the new person rather than us. We don’t consider that we might end up having a great relationship with the new person. Instead, we fear the changes that inevitably will take place, even if the changes might be good ones. Like dogs, we become territorial, allowing our insecurities to turn us into snarling animals instead of the loving creatures that we are called to be. Fear and insecurity are terrible emotions that we would do well to overcome if we want to be better humans than our dogs are.

Insuring Our Treasures

2007-03-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

Disgusted with his insurance company after Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Simmie Harvey let his homeowner policy lapse and left his house in the hands of a higher power.

Somebody up there must like the 88-year-old Baptist minister: His newly uninsured house escaped serious damage last month when a tornado ripped through the city's Uptown neighborhood and toppled a tree that narrowly missed his home.

"I wasn't lucky. I'm blessed," he said. "I'm going to be all right. The Lord takes care of me."

Facing soaring premiums or feeling shortchanged by their insurers, a growing number of homeowners and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi are "going bare," or dropping their coverage altogether, insurance agents and consumer advocates say. Many more are drastically reducing their coverage. The rest here.

I've been wondering about this for a while. Christians are to be different from the rest of the world, but in reality, we look just like everybody else. We purchase homes and other tangible property that must be insured, especially if it isn't payed for. We buy "treasures" and then pay someone else to reimburse us for it if it should become damaged.

Is this just a necessary evil of living in today's world, or would it be better for Christians to live differently? Can we live without insurance? Should we?

Equal Time

2007-03-15T09:35:00.000-05:00

If Fred Thompson really does run for President, should NBC give all the other candidates the same amount of time that Thompson gets in his role on Law and Order?

They're Gonna Git Ya Whatever Way They Can

2007-03-07T13:50:00.000-06:00

According to a story in an Illinios newspaper, an elderly couple in Illinois is being threatened with penalties by the state's department of revenue for their use of vegetable oil as fuel in their car.

"They told me I am required to have a license and am obligated to pay a motor fuel tax," David Wetzel recalled. "Mr. May also told me the tax would be retroactive."

Since the initial visit by the agents on Jan. 4, the Wetzels have been involved in a struggle with the Illinois Department of Revenue. The couple, who live on a fixed budget, have been asked to post a $2,500 bond and threatened with felony charges.

Read the entire story to see the ridiculous hoops the state wants this couple to jump through in order to be able to collect used cooking oil from restaurants and use it for fuel for their car.

It's really pathetic that we're told to decrease our use of gasoline, but when people try to provide their own alternative, they are penalized for it. The reason for this is obvious: our government in dependent on the revenue derived from gasoline taxes, so they must find new sources of revenue. However, harassing people for being resourceful isn't the answer.

Back in time for Spring Break

2007-03-02T06:14:00.000-06:00

Spring Break begins for me this afternoon at 3:55 p.m., and I am ready! Unfortunately, I have about twelve papers to grade, and I have to do my taxes. Thankfully, I am feeling much better after my battle with the flu, and I look forward to actually having a little fun if an opportunity for fun presents itself. Maybe I'll even blog a little bit over the break.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

This is How They'll Read Our Minds

2007-02-23T09:39:00.000-06:00

I guess I'm a little bit slow, but I just realized that when I am logged into my Blogger account, I am also logged into Google. My Google account name is at the top of the Google search page. Yes, I know that Google owns Blogger, but I just didn't think about the idea that my blog content and my Google searches are now connected in one account.

Does anyone else find this a little bit disturbing?

T.M.I.!!!

2007-02-21T13:26:00.000-06:00

This is what I get for allowing my students to write about topics that they feel strongly about:

One of my students is working on her cause/effect paper, and the topic she's chosen is what causes many girls/women to be overly flirtatious to the point of being a tease. Of course, when she told me her topic last week, my suspicions were confirmed that she is a lesbian. I'm fine with that. However, today she informed me that her research on her topic just became more complicated because,

"The straight girl that's been flirting with me told me this morning that she's bi."

Don't Bother Crying Me a River Because I'm Wearing My Hip Waders

2007-02-20T09:42:00.000-06:00

This week marks the sixth week of classes here at my university and is nearly the halfway point of the semester. Next week is the last full week before Spring Break. So a professor would think that she is well past the point of having to deal with the student who appeared on the class roll but never bothered to show up to class. This morning at my 8:00 class, however, a student I had never seen before came into my classroom and introduced himself. I always have one student on my roll who for some reason has registered for class but has no intention of ever coming, and this guy was this semester's winner. I never expected him to show at this late date.

Now, this guy was desperate to find a way to begin attending my class and pass it, and he came to class armed with several ill-conceived arguments with which to plead his case. First he tried the "I-really-thought-that-I-had-dropped-the-class" appeal. Since obviously the computer system somehow wanted him to remain in the class even though he thought he'd pushed the right buttons to drop the class, he wanted to know if he could begin attending class and make up the work he had missed. I said absolutely not. There's no way I'm going to allow someone to come in at the middle of the semester and have a chance at passing this course when everyone else has been coming to class from the beginning. He then began to try to break me down. His next tactic was to give me the "but-my-GPA-will-suffer" story, saying that if he dropped now, he would get a grade of W (Withdrawn) which would harm his GPA. Of course, this is not true. A grade of W simply shows that the student dropped the class after the drop deadline. The only way that he would be harmed is financially if he were to drop below full-time status. Upon inquiry, I learned that he is enrolled for 15 credit hours, so dropping my class would render him no harm.

Next, he tried the old "my-mother-will-be-very-disappointed-in-me" trick. He wanted to attend class and do the rest of the work (assuring me that he's really good with writing and grammar). I told him that there's no way that he can pass because he's already missed too much work. He said that he'd rather attend class and do the work and fail giving it an honest try instead of not coming to class at all because his mother would be disappointed in his dropping a class. I told him that as an 18-year-old, he is able to make his own decisions about what classes to take and what classes to drop. Of course, he then applied the "but-my-mom-is-the-one-who's-paying-for-school" appeal, which had no effect on me whatsoever. I shrugged my shoulders.

Who is he trying to kid? I know that once a student gets a foot in the door, he'll do whatever he can to try to change my mind and allow him to pass the course, so I gave him no opportunity. I told him that attending class would do him no good and that he'd be better off just sleeping late in the mornings. He finally realized that no amount of illogical argument would get me to allow him to attend class, and he left.

If these students put as much effort into their academics as they do coming up with excuses and sob stories, I'd have some of the best college students ever. But I wouldn't get to share their antics and laugh about it with you.

R.I.P., O.V.

2007-02-16T11:22:00.000-06:00

My grandpa, O.V. Warren, died late Wednesday afternoon. He had been sick for about three weeks, and for the last week, he really didn’t know that he was still alive. He was 97 years old.

His name, O.V., is just that—the letters do not stand for anything. In fact, most of his brothers and sisters had only letters for names: L.V., O.T., U.T., and S.T., I think; there may have been more that I don’t remember. S.T. changed the spelling of her name to Estee—I can’t really blame her. I guess his parents didn’t have much imagination because only one or two of the kids that I know of had actual names.

My brother once asked Grandpa what O.V. stood for, and Grandpa answered, “Old Varmit.” Ever since then, that’s what my immediate family has called him.

It’s sad that he’s gone, but he lived a long, healthy life and still got out and pretty much did for himself to the end, so we really can’t be anything but grateful.

Rest in peace, Old Varmit.

I suspect some bad essays this semester

2007-02-13T09:45:00.000-06:00

I've been really busy with school the past week or so, so I haven't really had much time to blog. And to tell the truth, nothing has really pressed my buttons enough to make me want to. However, I did get a great line in an essay this week:

My life has been filled with many unsuspected events.

On another note, I took my research and argument students to the library yesterday. It's amazing how many of them had not been in there before and didn't know where or how to find things. Do school kids not go to the library anymore? I remember when I was in elementary school, every week or so, we went to the school's library where we learned how to find books, and we were expected to check out a book and bring it back on time the next week. Going to the library was always a fun experience because we could browse through the books and find some interesting story to take home for a week.

Apparently, library trips have fallen by the wayside for kids today, because too many of them seem to view going to the library as a chore to be avoided whenever possible, and they have no idea what to do once they do go inside. I think the internet has ruined the library experience for many people. I know that the internet is going to ruin the grades of some of my students who will find out that they can't use the first hit on a google search to write a good research paper.

Terror Tax

2007-02-07T11:56:00.000-06:00

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said Tuesday that Congress should consider a special tax to pay for the nation's war against terrorism.

Such a tax could help ease the squeeze that military and security spending is putting on "critical domestic programs," said Lieberman, whose support for the Iraq war has come under fire from anti-war Democrats.

Lieberman favors President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq.

"I think we've got to start thinking about a war-on-terrorism tax," Lieberman said during an Armed Services Committee hearing on Bush's defense spending proposals. "I mean, people keep saying that we're not asking sacrifices of anybody but our military in this war, and some civilians who are working on it."

More here.

Do I have to pay the tax if I don't support the war?

Just A Typical Exciting Evening at JMG's House

2007-02-05T11:19:00.000-06:00

We did not watch the Super Bowl at my house yesterday. Trixie was busy watching the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. Here she is cheering for the boxer puppy.

Actually, the Puppy Bowl did not interfere with the Super Bowl, but since neither Husband nor I are sports fans, we watched Gunsmoke, Andy Griffith, and M*A*S*H* and were in bed by 9:00. We did manage, however, to see a couple of Super Bowl commercials in between episodes of our favorite TV shows.

Dinner and Supper are not Interchangeable Words

2007-02-02T13:13:00.000-06:00

Apparently, people all over the country are confused about what name to call the evening meal. I know this because nearly every day, at least one person surfs into this blog having googled the terms "dinner" and "supper." Being the truely Southern country girl that I am, I wish to offer my expert, educated opinion, which should clear up the matter definitively.

Here in my neck of the woods, the meal eaten in the evening is always called supper. If you have moved here from some other area, you should be aware that when someone invites you to supper, you will be eating sometime around 6 p.m. It doesn't matter what type of food you eat in the evening, whether a sandwich, steak, soup, salad, chicken and dumplings, pizza, or tacos; the meal you eat in the evening is always supper. (Sometimes I like to eat breakfast food such as biscuits and gravy and eggs and grits for supper, but I still call it supper.)

So, then, what is dinner? Now here's where it can become confusing, but it really is simple. Dinner is eaten around noontime. Always. However, sometimes we don't eat dinner; instead some days we eat lunch. Here's the difference: Dinner consists of a hot meal that is served on a plate not made of paper. However, if you can hold it in your hand, and/or it comes wrapped in paper or sits on a paper plate it's lunch. A hamburger served hot on a plate is still lunch because you typically pick it up with your hands. Most of what you could eat in a fast food restaurant would qualify as lunch. Dinner is a heavier, more substantial meal than lunch, and it tends to make you sleepier than lunch does. Dinner also tastes better than lunch. It's more satisfiying and more memorable. No one talks about Grandma's Sunday lunches, but they sure do remember her Sunday dinners.

Today's typical adult works outside the home, and usually eats lunch instead of dinner for the noontime meal. However, some working people do eat dinner. How does one know whether he or she is eating dinner or lunch? Some foods could fall into either the lunch or dinner category, for example, say a loaded baked potato. If said potato is served on a plate (and I don't mean a paper plate), then I would call it dinner, but if it comes from a drive-thru barbeque stand, then it's lunch. Soup and salad are some other problematic foods. Usually soup and salad are lunch. However, if the soup is really hearty and is served with some bread, then I'd probably call it dinner. If the salad is just some greenery, then it's lunch, but if it's one of those that's loaded with meat, then I might call that dinner. If the soup and salad are eaten at the same time, then in my book, that qualifies as dinner, but only if both are served in real plates and bowls, not paper.

I don't know what it's like in other parts of the country, but most native Southerners that I know adhere to these definitions without really giving it much thought. These aren't definitions that we were taught, but ones that we just sort of learned through traditional use. However, the line that tends to divide the language of food is being blurred, mainly because of the migration of people from one part of the country to another, and because of television watching. As we are exposed to new and different people with their different ways of speaking, the little things that make us unique, such as our different names for the same thing, are gradually falling by the wayside.

No matter where I go, however, I will never eat dinner after dark.

Snow Day!

2007-02-02T08:41:00.000-06:00

This morning I woke up to find that it was snowing outside, and there was about an inch of snow on the ground. This is the most snow I've seen in ages.

Of course, I had a bit of a dillema. My students have a paper due today, but I really don't want anyone getting killed on the highway on my account, so I decided to cancel class today. I doubt anyone will complain.

So I get to enjoy a snow day at home today. But it isn't quite as fun as when I was a kid and school was cancelled. Now I'm the one who has to weigh all the factors and make the decision, and I'm the one who has to rearrange the schedule to keep the class caught up. Being a grownup sort of sucks sometimes, but I still like snow days.

Why Bother With Church if This is All There is to It?

2007-01-28T10:44:00.000-06:00

I've been sitting here working on some handouts for my students with the TV on in the background. Right now a certain church minister from Texas is on. Every time I have listened to him, his "sermon" sounds like a self-help workshop. Before his sermon, he has everyone hold up his or her bible and recite a little mantra about how "I am what the bible says that I am, and I can do what the bible says that I can do." During his sermon, he doesn't open his bible, and he rarely quotes from it. When he does, it's always one verse lifed out of its context so that it works well with his topic. Today he's talking about developing good habits and overcoming bad ones, and he used Paul's words in Romans 7.14 as an illustration. Right now he's offering the opportunity for TV viewers to ask Jesus into their lives, but he never mentioned Jesus once in his whole sermon.

Every time I hear this preacher, it's the same sort of thing. It's all about self-improvement, with some asking God for help thrown in. Maybe I'm just watching on the wrong days, but I sort of doubt it. I think I can see why there are 25,000 people in attendance at his church. There's no real challenge to act like Jesus. Everything that's said is something that could be read in any popular self-help book in any bookstore. People can attend that Sunday service and come away with some decent advice on how to improve their lives, but they haven't gotten anything that will help them understand God and his purpose for the world. From everything that I have observed, people will come away with a false spirituality that will do them little good in cultivating a deeper relationship with God. I hope that the smaller Sunday school classes offered at that church are more "meaty" than what is being presented in the main service.

I'll admit that I haven't been to church much in the past 10 years. Is this the trend in churches today? If so, I'm not missing anything.

We Like Foreign Oil, But Not Foreign Wool

2007-01-25T10:43:00.000-06:00

This is wierd.

According to arkansasleader.com, "Bancroft Cap Co. in Cabot, the only company currently under contract with the Department of Defense to supply the U.S. military black berets, has dropped the hat and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court, forcing the Pentagon to look for a new domestic supplier. There may not be another U.S. company that can supply the military with 100 percent domestic materials, which was Bancroft’s downfall: It got caught mixing domestic and foreign wool and leather, which is in violation of U.S. law."

. . .

"Not listed among [Bancroft's] creditors is the Department of Defense, the company’s biggest customer, which alleges that Bancroft owes the government repayment for 340,000 black berets at about $4 each which were shipped before March 2006. Those berets were paid for and then later found to contain either foreign wool or leather and therefore unacceptable. Whether Bancroft concedes that its berets contained materials not produced in the U.S. is not known because repeated attempts to contact owner Barry Goldman have failed."

Surely the Pentagon has more important things to worry about.

No Gold for You

2007-01-21T11:21:00.000-06:00

This week in his State of the Union speech, the president is set to outline a new plan which would be aimed at helping to provide health insurance coverage for people who have none. According to an article reprinted in the Seattle Times, “The basic concept of the president's health-care plan is that employer-provided insurance, now treated as a fringe benefit exempt from taxation, no longer would be entirely tax-free. Workers could be taxed if their coverage exceeded limits set by the government.” In the president’s plan, “The administration would cap the amount of benefits that can remain tax-free at $15,000 for a family and $7,500 for an individual; anyone whose health insurance cost more than the cap would pay tax on the difference. The cap also would be used to establish the amount of the new deduction for people who lack coverage. In this example, a family buying insurance could take a $15,000 deduction — even if the insurance cost less.”

OK. So the federal government wants to tax the difference between the $15,000 cap and whatever the excess cost is. I guess this is like allowing a certain amount of income to be untaxed, but when you earn more than that amount, you have to pay tax on the difference. I get that. I don’t like that if my insurance cost goes up, which it has every year, I’ll soon be paying tax on the difference. But I get it. Apparently, the tax revenue generated is supposed to offset the cost of the next part of the plan, the tax deduction for people who have to purchase their own insurance. The way I understand it, if I bought my own health insurance instead of getting it through work, no matter how little it cost, I could claim a $15,000 deduction on my income taxes. However, I’d venture to guess that most people who don’t get insurance through work either can’t afford what their employer offers or they aren’t offered insurance at all. If the former is the case, these people can’t afford an outside plan either. If the latter is the case, they probably are not paid enough to even consider buying insurance on their own. In either situation, a tax deduction won’t do them any good because they likely already have enough deductions to make their adjusted gross income below the taxable limit. Another deduction is not going to put more money in their pockets to be able to buy health insurance.

What this plan sounds like to me is just another way of collecting more tax to fund the unpopular war effort.

In his Saturday radio address, the president said that the way people normally purchase health care, through their employers, “unwisely encourages workers to choose overly expensive, gold-plated plans.” Now that’s an elitist statement if I’ve ever heard one. A worker who is willing to spend a little more for the better of the plans that his or her employer offers should not be criticized for wanting the best that is offered. I want the president to show America his health insurance plan. I’d be willing to bet it’s more than “gold-plated”—it’s solid gold, I’m sure. I’d like for him to live like an average American for just one year, with an average salary and an average health insurance policy, and see what it’s like to wonder whether insurance will cover a hospitalization from a major illness or accident.

This plan won't do anything to help people who already can't afford insurance. And it certainly won't help those who because of pre-existing conditions must either pay outrageous insurance premiums or do without.

Luther's Day

2007-01-15T08:27:00.000-06:00

It's really great that the federal government has set aside today to celebrate my husband, Luther's, birthday, and there will even be parades in his honor!

Happy birthday, Baby! I love you!

Misc.

2007-01-11T08:23:00.000-06:00

There's a lot to blog about, but I'm not feeling very articulate today, so I won't say more than a couple of sentences about any one thing.

First, my grandpa is very sick. He had to have surgery last night, but he seems to have made it through OK. The situation is still very serious, however, because his body is pretty much worn out--he's 97 years old.

Second, Husband slept really well last night because I did not snore once. However, I slept only fair because it was my first night using a CPAP machine. This is going to take a lot of getting used to. I had to force myself not to take off the mask in the middle of the night. My dog Pete wouldn't get very close to me after I put the mask on--he didn't like the way I looked.

Third, I did not watch Chimpy's speech last night. Just watching and listening to him gets on my nerves, so I'll just see what the commentators have to say about all of it.

Fourth, I still have a lot of work to do before school starts. I have to get my websites up and running, which will mean either going over to my parents' house to use their high speed internet or going to the office, and I don't want to go to the office until it's absolutely necessary.

Fifth, Husband is having sinus surgery on Tuesday, and he is scared half to death about it. I keep telling him that everything that the nurses said could go wrong won't go wrong for him. I think today I'll look online for people who have had the surgery just so he can see that lots of people go through it just fine. He'd never admit it, but he's a little bit of a hypochondriac, so if he knows about any complications that could occur, he will think that he's having the same complications. I hope he doesn't drive me crazy next week.

I guess that's all. I know your life is richer for reading all of this today.

I'm really not in a bad mood--I'm just feeling sort of lazy and don't feel like putting a lot of effort into providing you with one of my usual enlightening and thought-provoking articles.
:-)

Thou Shalt Not Plagiarize

2007-01-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

Sunday morning as I was straightening up my kitchen, I turned on the radio and began listening to whatever radio preacher happened to be on at the time. This particular guy was preaching out of Romans, which I found interesting since I am studying Romans in BSF right now. As I listened to the guy, I began to realize that his sermon sounded very familiar. The more I listened, the more familiar the message became. I suddenly realized where I’d heard these words before. Now, I am one of those annoying people who talks back to the TV and the radio, and at this moment, I turned to the radio, pointed my finger at it, and exclaimed, “You’re a plagiarizer!”

This guy was preaching straight from the BSF notes. I know this because he read almost word for word, as if they were his own words, a passage straight from the lesson 11 BSF notes on Romans—a passage that I blogged about just a few weeks ago.

I was so amazed that this guy would do such a thing that I went to the internet and found the website for his ministry and clicked on the link for that day’s radio broadcast. As I listened, I hoped that I’d hear him give credit to the BSF notes for the ideas, but he didn’t.

Now, I know that sometimes preachers will recycle other preachers’ sermons. I’ve heard preachers say that they heard so-and-so preach this message and wanted to use the same material, but they gave credit to the author. This guy just made it sound like all the illustrations were his own.

Is this common practice among preachers? What do you think about this?