First of all, this is not to offend anyone. Secondly, this isn’t exactly intended to be a Pro-Life piece, though that is the greatest example I have of seemingly futile shows of civil disobedience.
Earlier today I was on the phone with a gentleman who is a member of several Pro-Life organizations, in this part of the state. Apparently the anniversary of Roe V. Wade is coming soon, and they intend to protest across the street from the Womens’ Clinic, here in Fayetteville. Now, those of you who know me know that I am a very ardent Pro-Lifer who believes that life begins from the moment of conception. So you would probably assume that I’m totally in support of this action, but I’m not. I don’t see the point in it. I don’t see the point of any demonstration where protesters hold up signs with quippy little slogans that ask drivers by to “Honk For Life,” and so on. I don’t see what good it does other than waste time when you could actually be working to help those at whom you’re quite possibly yelling vulgar comments. It certainly does little to promote your cause, I think.
A certain church group up here has spent days on end protesting outside the clinic, and what did it do? Nothing. Women are still going in for abortions. I don’t know their reasons for doing so, I don’t really need to. I do think that we should work harder to provide and promote options other than abortion. We should not condemn these people, but help them with prayer and suppor; spiritual, emotional, physical, monetary, and whatever else. We should let them know that there are real choices other than abortion. I don’t know how many people there are who would love to raise babies but can’t have their own, but I’m fairly certain there are more than you would imagine. Possibly we should make it easier to adopt babies here, in the United States so those families don’t necessarily have to look elsewhere, like China.
I don’t have all the answers, but I would rather actually try to do something rather than just talk about it. A charity close to my heart are the Arkansas Baptist Children’s Homes. I will offer my money and my prayers there any day before I’ll make a show of protest. That’s all protesting really is, you know, a show. I have no use for empty shows, and it’s come to my attention over the past almost twenty-nine years that those who brag the most about things are those who are overcompensating for how things really are. Those who wear their faith or beliefs literally on their sleeves almost constantly often don’t carry that same faith or those beliefs truly in their hearts. How is that different than those who bomb abortion clinics supposedly in the name of Christ or that church whose members hold horrible signs at the funerals of fallen soldiers? I don’t understand that one at all
Beyond those who protest abortion, what good do any protesters do? What good does a group in Fayetteville Arkansas, holding signs against violence and war, do for the people who live in Israel, the Gaza Strip, Iraq, or anywhere else? How do those signs help anyone? Would it not be more prudent to send actual aid to those ravaged places? So you don’t like the President, does holding a sign outside the White House change his decisions? Does chaining yourself to a tree in North America save a tree in the rainforest?
I had a professor in college ask one of my classes, “Why doesn’t your generation protest things more?” I don’t know about everyone else, but I would rather work to change the things I do not like rather than just talk about it, waiting on others to do the changing for me. It just seems useless and fruitless to me. What do you think? Please vote in the poll and leave a comment.
Currently playing in iTunes: They Bring Me to You by Joshua Radin
I think that I’m getting to the point where I don’t actually need as much sleep as I would like to get. Hardly a night goes by when something or many things don’t wake me up throughout the night. Take two recent nights as an example:Over Labor Day weekend, my nieces, Emma and Kelsey spent Sunday Night with us. I was up off an on with them most of the night, including when Emma woke up at 4AM, and needed to know where I was. I probably woke her up, letting Lucy out to play like she sometimes enjoys doing in the very early morning hours. Somehow, I made it through that night, none the worse for wear, apparently. Last night, Bart woke me up, gnashing his teeth in my ear. Then I had to go to the bathroom and wrap my wrist because it was bugging me. When I went back to bed, Lucy was then awake and needed to potty. She then couldn’t go back to sleep, so I put her in the back yard. Just as I was finally getting to sleep I heard angry barking. Lucy must’ve found her possum friend again, so I had to let her back in the house to keep from angering the neighbors. I then got the hiccups. I never have hiccups in the middle of the night, but then my body has been all sorts of odd lately. Anyway, Lucy came back to bed with us and tried to get comfortable on me, but couldn’t due to my hiccups. So, I put her in the living room and closed the bedroom door. Finally I sort of fell asleep for a few hours. When next I awoke I checked on Lucy (because the last time I locked her out of the bedroom she ate a pen that leaked all over our carpet). She awoke again and joined us in our room, but in the floor. Somehow, I’m more awake than the dog, who stayed inside for her morning nap today, in our bed according to Bart. I don’t entirely understand it, but I’m managing, even though I feel like a nap usually in the afternoon.
I am such a gadget whore that I’ve spent the past hour hitting the “refresh” button on endgadget.com so I can keep up with the latest Apple Event. New iPod nanos. I want one. I don’t need one, but I want one. I just hope to be able to update the firmware on my iPod Touch again. Genius looks intriguing.
I don’t like that Facebook is going to force us to use “The New Facebook.” It’s all buggy and doesn’t work correctly. It’s too Myspaceish.
I think that Arkansas is going to have their rear ends handed to them this weekend by Texas unless they play well all game and not just the fourth quarter. I think that Oklahoma will prevail over Washington, unless the PAC 10 officials give the Huskies the game.
Anyone who works in downtown Fayetteville must know the great cat and mouse game that we all play with the city parking management employees, or as I like to call them, “The Male Meter Maids.” Like Jerry trying to get to the cheese before Tom can trap him, we all attempt to put as little money as possible in each parking meter. Too often we’ve all lost money to malfunctioning machines or have been but a minute or two late and have found that irritating little, light green envelope expertly placed between our windshield and our driver’s side wiper.
It has become increasingly apparent that those who give the tickets enjoy playing the feline part in this game, so much so that a coworker was actually told, “I’ll get you next time!” when he managed to pull out of his spot just before a ticket was issued. We’ve all done it, and there’s a certain exhilaration that comes from beating the guys in the blue t-shirts before they get us. I personally have almost run over a male meter maid who was trying to get my tag number down before I could leave, even though I still had a minute left on the meter.
I think my greatest triumph over the male meter maids had to have not had anything to do with my own car though. I was walking back into the office after lunch when I noticed what had to be one of our vehicles in the process of getting a ticket. The red light on the meter was blinking and the aptly ugly city Honda Element was parked behind it. A male meter maid was banging his hand-held ticket machine against his leg. It was apparently jammed. So, I took that moment to grab a quarter out of my purse and slammed it into the meter, foiling the issuance of the ticket.
I felt somewhat like how Wellington must have felt after Waterloo. OK, maybe that’s taking it a bit far, but to quote Gilbert Blythe in Rilia of Ingleside, “by George, Anne-girl, it was satisfying.”
Today I’m neither here nor there. I’m not overly tired, but I’m not exactly what you would call “bursting with energy” either. I woke up at 3:00 am in order to make it to work by 4:30 so I could take calls and emails forWinter Weather Closings at work and post them to our ticker and website. I didn’t entirely mind this at all. It gave me a chance to work half of my day before most people arrived at work. I was sad to not see my nightsider friends today though because I happily went home after noon. I didn’t stay home though. Bart stayed home today in order to study for hisLEED exam tomorrow, so he and I went toLoafin’ Joe’s for lunch. Then, we exercised our privilege as American Citizens and voted early in the Arkansas Presidential Primary. There are a lot of things I don’t like about the State of Arkansas, but I like being about to vote early. Now I don’t have to fight the crowds onSuper Tuesday.
I’m supposed to go with my friend, Amanda, to see Anna, the brand-new daughter of our friend, Sandra. However I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been awake such odd hours, I have PMS, or I’m getting this horrible strain of the flu that’s been going around, so I think I’ll have to wait to meet Miss Haskins because I’m running a low-grade fever and have a dry, scratchy throat.
So here I am, it’s Friday night. I should be either getting a head start on my weekend chores or playing with Lucy. Instead I here because I just wanted to share my day. All in all, it’s been a good day. I’m blessed with the husband I have, the home I live in, my dear puppy, my friends, my family, and all the material goods a person needs to persist. Despite feeling rather out of sorts, I’m happy because life is good.
Last night on the drive home from work I was listening to my local talk radio station as I often do and caught the hourly ABC News Update. Of course, with temperatures reaching near and over 110 degrees Fahrenheit one of the top stories is the weather. As I listened to the report, I almost had to pull over in order to finish laughing, but alas, pulling to the side of the road is now illegal in the State of Arkansas.
What was so funny were the obviously hand-picked reactions of people to the heat across the nation that they played. One woman from Washington D.C. proclaimed that it's global warming. It's global warming, the ice caps are melting, she's melting, yada, yada, yada. I wasn't surprised that the drive-by media played that little clip. After all, their favorite "story" is that the world is coming to an end, things are worse than they've ever been, and it's all George Bush's fault.
Come on, it's summer. Almost every summer we go through this. We're lucky this year because it's started in August, not July or even June. Here in Northwest Arkansas we've yet to reach the century mark. We've come close, but haven't yet hit it. I can think of numerous times in my twenty-seven years where we had 100 degree days in mid to late June.
It's absolutely arrogant of us to believe that we as human beings have so much influence over the Earth. Long before we were able to measure greenhouse emissions, the globe was subject to Climate Change. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly glad the the Earth warmed up from the Ice Age and even the Little Ice Age. I would love to have a time machine and take all the celebrities and such who cram global warming down our throats to the Bering Straight at the end of the Ice Age. Can you imagine? There would be widespread panic. "The world's coming to an end!" "We can no longer walk from Alaska to Siberia!" "What are we going to do" "We must stop burning the fires that keep us warm and heat our food!" "Surely we must have caused this calamity!" "Though there's no true scientific proof of this, a consensus of us say that we believe this in order to gain exposure!"
I think that the Global Warming scare is the biggest scam in the history of scamming. The entire sale of carbon credits to offset carbon footprints is such a waste. Seriously if you believe that, I have some ocean-front property in Arizona that you might be interested in purchasing. Al Gore can tell the world how to be "greener," but he'll still fly around in his fancy jet, kick-back in his huge, air-conditioned house, and count all the millions of dollars countless gullible people will hand him for carbon credits.
Now I do think we need more gas-efficient vehicles and we do need to find an alternative fuel for our needs, but not for the same reasons. I think we should never allow ourselves to become so dependent on foreign sources of energy. When we are so dependent, other countries have a vise-grip on our balls, so to speak. I hate to see trees cut down and land developed because I always stand amazed at the wondrous beauty of God's creation. I loathe trash and litter because it takes away from the pristine beauty of the world.
Common sense has left the general populace. We no longer can form our own opinions on anything. We let the media dictate what we think, and the media likes to scare us in order to obtain ratings. It's all sensationalism, not journalism. Form your own opinions. Take a broad look at the history of this world, not our recorded history. Don't be that close-minded. We didn't cause the Bering Land Bridge to flood all those ages ago, and we aren't causing the polar bears to drown now.
This is a letter that I emailed to Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor today regarding the recent Immigration Legislation that has been bandied about the Senate.
Yesterday you voted to revive a bill that the people, no VOTING, TAX-PAYING CITIZENS or our state have resoundingly opposed, the Immigration Bill. Do you even care at all what your constituents want, or are you just a cog in the liberal Democrat agenda? What Congress wants, want the President wants is not what We the People of the United States of America want.
We do not want an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants. They are ILLEGAL. They shouldn't be pardoned for breaking our laws. We shouldn't be punished because they break our laws. We shouldn't have to learn Spanish in order to communicate with people who have come into our country illegally.
They aren't the backbone of our country. They are a drain. Hard-working Arkansans can't get work or can't get good pay because the illegals undercut wages. Their children receive free health care when the children of real Arkansans must do without.
Don't you see the problem here? Don't you understand what you're doing? You are creating a greater welfare state than we have now. These people don't want to be Americans. They want to keep their Mexican culture and language and only reap the benefits of our money, health care, and education.
You aren't gaining respect, and you're losing my vote. No, you've lost it. I don't want a liberal casting my votes. I don't want someone who has no inclination to vote in the best interest of Arkansas but rather her own misguided agenda to represent me.
You, are no American. You are no Arkansan. You are a selfish, misguided person who needs to redeem yourself in the eyes of your constituents.
This email has fallen on blind eyes and deaf ears, I am sure. I have no faith in you. You'll continue to destroy this country that I love and be happy about it. Shame on you and all of your cronies in Washington.
Busy Nothings
