Here I am drinking a Big Carl sized cup of water trying to force a tension headache out of my body. I always get sick when I am excited... or when I am braiding my hair... both of which I am doing this week. I am excited to be taking my daughter (and my husband and myself) to the Dragon*Con convention downtown.
It's funny how people react when I say I am going to Dragon*Con. Makes me wonder if I should keep it to myself. It's like I'm a great big freakazoid, going to hang out with the other freaks. First of all, I never-ever professed to be anything less than completely crazy and wildly eclectic. After all, I homeschool, don't I? Isn't that a fringe activity? My daughter did pageants during her tween years... another fringe hobby. Why
not attend an extreme costuming, sci-fi, comic and cosplay convention. Is that really so strange? So to make it sound all normal and educational-like, I point out that my daughter and I love the costuming seminars, and that I plan to spend some time in the artist workshops... there. That's respectable right?
So back to the hair. I took down my dreadlocs this summer. Seeing as they were micro-sized it took all stinkin' summer. They were just past shoulder length, and the weight of them was causing my hair to thin. I probably should have just shaved my head and started over like most smart people who are ready to let go of the locs. While my length is respectable, the texture of my freed hair is not so great, and after 2 days of conditioning, I am braiding it. I actually flat-ironed it this morning, but don't like the lack of fullness that I used to have... sigh. But now my hair is socially acceptable.
So, I read an article today about a young Jewish man who was assaulted and and had his mouth stapled. The authorities are trying to say it is not a hate crime even though he was asked if he was Jewish and saluted with a "Heil Hitler"before being assaulted . I'm kinda sick about the newest trend of people not being allowed to point out when they have had a racial injustice perpetrated on them out of fear of 'playing the race card' accusations, and must wait for a person who is not in that nationality to say..."hey, that was kinda racist". (Thanks Chris Matthews).
And speaking of stereotypes, how did Lindsay Lohan get caught up in another Jewelry Heist? Because once someone is associated with something, people will always go there. It doesn't matter how many times they show their birth certificate. As a person whose birth father was also from another country, I find it really insulting that people would think that an American woman (like my mom) would leave the comfort of the United States and the first-world medical care ( of 40-50 years ago) to go have a baby in a freakin hut... where she could die. That's just stupid. An American woman's constitution couldn't handle such a trauma. Why don't we ride The President of the United States on the real issues, but don't tell lies about his nationality. If president Obama was born in Kenya, then I was born in Jamaica... yeah-mon!
Anyway... why is everybody all over Prince Harry's jock (literally). Since when is the sibling of a (future) monarch not a total goof-off, and since when does a twenty-something vacationing in Vegas wear clothes? Prince Harry, I salute you. So much for what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. My daughter doesn't need to be inundated with photos of the prince's hiney. Next subject please.
Speaking about changing topics... I changed my post title a dozen times before hitting publish.
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6 comments:
SO MUCH in this post! No wonder you had to change it a dozen times before publishing.
What I figure is that if there really is a problem with his actual citizenship, we won't find out about it now. It will be in the history books in 50 years. I think he is most certainly lying about being a Christian because "Christian" and some of his stances on social issues simply do not go together.
He is still our president, though, and more than the questions about this or that, I find the disrespect unsettling somehow. Clinton was nasty and disgusting in every way and the disrespect never went that far toward him. Obama at least is faithful to his wife and follows his own moral compass faithfully (though I am quite sure he is lying to voters about being a Christian or is sorely self-deluded; most likely the former). You know a tree by its fruit and all that.
On the hate: I keep thinking the extreme of this hate is really genocide. That's where people like this are going. Or in the case of disabled people, you could call it eugenics. Call me an idealist though but in sentencing, why is punishment for a crime based on whether it was premeditated, in the heat of the moment, based on "hate" of a racial group or bla bla bla?
THAT PERSON IS STILL DEAD. And to my mind weighting things differently like that means one person is worth more than another. But then. I hear that in sentencing that it works rather the opposite way usually so that's why we need laws to mitigate that...
I don't wonder if we shouldn't have professional jurors hired from the communities in which they serve. Maybe special sequestering internet, they can still be part of our world without talking to everyone about what so and so just did. Because there are just certain people who are so good at working through those biases and would make excellent professionals... I know the history behind why we want "peers" on the jury but we are getting to the point where we can no longer really expect a "peer" that is unbiased in the courtroom without a lengthy and costly process to select them and all that.
On the hair: some of your thinning may be due to getting old. My hair is thinning too. It is no fun.
My I have written a book! I hope you post a pic of your getup for the conference! :)
Hey Happy... I think your comment was perfectly scaled for the post. I have one thing to consider regarding your comment... Does being socially liberal mean you can't be a christian? Because I am.... both... I think. I just don't feel like we have the right to legislate people's personal behaviors... at all. It's not my business... it is between them and God. I also feel like the Bible says that we have to take care of our poor and elderly. Maybe I'm deluded about being Christian too... or is perhaps being a christian and living in this world a source of continual spiritual and personal conflict.
Ps... not old... holding my hands over my ears... now eyes.... now ears... shoot. Just covering the mirrors.
By the way... I love your comments... they keep me on my toes.
As always, I could be entirely wrong and hope that I'm behaving charitably in my disagreement.
Presently to my mind, the legality of partial birth abortion or gay "marriage" runs precisely counter to what most churches and Christians would consider good morality. I just cannot see God Himself putting these things into the "ok" box. It just doesn't work. Maybe I draw the line back a bit further than you do of how our personal convictions translate into national law (and I suppose there is that debate to be had), but there it is.
What is even more concerning is that there really is nothing on the political landscape I can see that IS positive and praiseworthy. I've been thinking about this a long time and I think sometimes, you can be absolutely right morally (which I think the Republican party is on abortion and gay marriage) but if you don't have love for people and God, it's a really bad thing.
It's worse than making mistakes IN LOVE if you know what I mean. I see no heart and no compassion in the R party at all, and an overwillingness to value business over humanity. I honest to gracious don't think for a second that they're Christians either, on the whole.
What happened in the primaries? Because I sure didn't vote for any of these people.
ditto on a lot of what you said. I think about what you have said of not being happy in churches because of the attitudes of Christians. For that reason, I cannot tie my politics to my spirituality. Four years ago, I had someone say to me "you can't be a Christian if you vote for Obama... they didn't even know what my political stance was... just that I was black and they thought black people vote for black people. This is the special kind of stupid I deal with on a daily basis. Add stupid on top of stupid and you get more stupid... ugh... sick of it all. I try not to get into the logistics of abortion or gay marriage. I don't think either side has rights to make laws around it. This is God's business, so they are both wrong, wrong, wrong. That said, when it is time for me to vote based on spiritual convictions, I lean toward demonstrated character, not stated beliefs. WWJD? You know?
I think we agree esp. on the churches... ughh. And I also think that, if you will, someone's expressed "gayness" or even being an illegal immigrant is NOT the sum total of their being just as being an overweight glutton is NOT the sum total of mine.
The 'you are voting for Obama JUST because he is black' thing. I am sorry. This is why you prolly neeeeeed to go to this Afro-centric homeschool convention. There have to be normal people out there somewhere who understand things from your perspective. I don't always but dang. That's hurtful. :/
Ya know?... too bad I missed the convention, but it was a bit out there for me... they were talking about real AfriKan roots kinda stuff. I am far too middle American... I think. All I could picture was busting into the conference room shouting Mah People, Mah People.... Ok... I'm just being silly now. But I don't fit into an Afrikan convention any more than I fit into a KKK meeting... and there are many more like me... something about the total sum of me not being my skin color. ps... you may not have lived my story, Happy, but you have a great capacity for empathy.
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