Memorial Day 2006

These days it seems like gratitude is in short supply.

Some people think the whole idea of sacrifice -- whether it's for a country or for other human beings -- is stupid, corny and something to be ridiculed and laughed at. I hope that one day they will regain their humanity and moral bearings and feel the shame they should rightfully feel at such sentiments.

Some people, both on the left and right, think that because the political situation in this country isn't to their liking, that this nation isn't worth fighting for. They hate this nation because it fails to live up to their unrealistic standards. If these folks are unable to find their utopian paradise in this fallen world, then I hope they can learn to appreciate what we have in this country, as imperfect as it is. They, too, should be deeply ashamed of their attitude.

While there are far too many ingrates as described above, let the rest of us pay them no mind. Today is the day we set aside to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. They deserve our deepest gratitude; they deserve to be honored.

Burnout

I haven't been feeling well today...I feel like I'm coming down with something. I'm also feeling a bit burned out right now. So, unless I start feeling better, I most likely won't be posting, reading or commenting for a few days.

Update (5/27/06): I'm feeling better today, so whatever I was coming down with, I must have been able to fend it off. However, I've been really busy today and I'm kind of tired and I need to relax. I'll be back...

Come July, I will kiss my glasses goodbye!

That's right, folks...I'm having LASIK surgery in a couple of months! I had my initial tests and evaluation today. I'm very excited and a little scared -- they do have to cut a little flap in your cornea, which kind of freaks me out. But they use anesthetic drops and they will give me Valium to relax me, so I should get through it okay. I know how well the anesthetic drops work because part of my evaluation included having an ultrasound device rubbed over the surface of my eyes. I didn't feel a thing.

During the evaluation, they found that I have dry eyes. The doctor told me that this is probably why I was never able to adjust to contact lenses in the past. The dry eyes may cause me to have more pain after the surgery, but hopefully it won't cause any complications.

I've worn glasses since I was thirteen years old. Back then, I didn't mind wearing glasses because I thought they were cool...I thought they made me look smarter. I tried to wear contacts for a little while in my twenties, but I hated them because they were uncomfortable, high-maintenance and I never could adjust to them. Now I'm ready to ditch the glasses. I want to be able to see clearly without the hassle of needing to wear glasses all the time.

Currently on the iPod...

I'm listening to the audiobook version of G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. So far, it's engaging but it is also heavy listening. This lecture on the book has shed some light on where this book is going:

Gabriel Syme is a poet and a police detective. Lucien Gregory is poet and a bomb-throwing anarchist. At the beginning of the novel, Syme infiltrates a secret meeting of anarchists and gets himself elected to as “Thursday,” one of the seven members of the High Council of Anarchists. If you think it is paradoxical that there should be a governing body of those dedicated to destroying governing body, a hierarchy for blowing up hierarchies, you might be right. You might also note that the main reason Syme becomes a detective in the first place is because he is a rebel against rebellion. The policeman who recruits him explains that there is a difference between the real anarchists and the innocent ones who merely think rules are bad and should be broken. The real anarchists are something far worse than that. “They mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave. They have but two objects, to destroy humanity and then themselves.” This is a prophetic description of the philosophy of the “real anarchists” who really would bring us the Culture of Death.

This seems to be one of those works that is timelessly relevant.

Leftist Vulgarians

They truly are "apes in tuxedos" (or evening gowns), as Sigmund, Carl and Alfred put it:

No matter how well the tuxedo fits, the ape remains an ape. The problems of the Arab and Muslim world are not the fault of America, the UK or Israel. Simply jumping up and down and screaming in a frenzy cannot change that reality. The outrage of the ape in charge (AIC) of the Staton Jones Report is understandable. Both Alexandra and Dr Sanity forced him to look into the mirror, and he saw the ugliness of his dysfunction.

Please note that I'm not saying all leftists are vulgar. However, a majority of them are.

Blog Collage

I think this is a neat idea: Blogs with a Face. It's basically a collage with 50x50 squares that represent each blogger. I'm on there. You can find my lilac rose picture on row 7, column 6.

Correction: Yikes! It's only on row 7, column 6 if you're using whatever weird resolution it is I'm using on my main PC's LCD flat screen monitor. On the standard 1024x768 resolution, I'm on row 9, column 14. Sorry if I confused anyone!

Things get to me sometimes...

...and I keep it in. Usually to be polite and sometimes because I don't have time to post about it. But sometimes another blogger will write a post that will cause me to "let it all out" in their comments. Rather than repeat myself here, I'll just link to the posts and comments I'm talking about.

• Mark Shea posts about petulant, self-defeating religious conservatives. Of course he agrees with them. Being the pragmatist I am, I don't.
• Andrea Harris posts about bloggers (some of whom I happen to like, BTW) who let their jerk-flags fly. I rant in agreement with Andrea.

I feel a lot better now...

Update: Eh...for the sake of convenience...or something, I'll go ahead and duplicate the above linked comments in the extended entry.

My comment to Mark Shea:

I understand the frustration that religious conservatives have -- after all, I'm one too. However, as another blogger stated, the President is the President of the whole country, not just the base and -- I would add -- not just religious conservatives.

Since I'm also a realist, I hardly see how pitching a petulant fit and sitting out the elections to "teach the GOP a lesson" will accomplish anything positive for our side. It's been tried before and it gave us eight years of Clinton.

All I can say is, don't come crying to me when sitting out the elections gives us a Democrat controlled Congress. While the Republicans may not cater to our every whim, at least they won't do worse.

It helps if you think of Republicans as cobelligerents rather than allies.

My comment to Andrea Harris:

Yeah, I kind of have a hard time getting upset about the “pre-pregnant” stuff when there are things like this going on. I mean, really, priorities people.

And yes, the allergies/asthma is a “character flaw” stuff disgusts me as well. Gosh, do they think people want to go into anaphylactic shock and perhaps die after ingesting certain substances? I sure do wish I could take penicillin or NSAIDs without having frightening allergic reactions — it would make life a lot easier — but I can’t. My mother had asthma as a child but it went away when she got older. Did she have some character flaw as a child that she doesn’t have now?

Also, I had to shake my head at the commenter in one of those threads that said this: “I think that an allegic reaction can be much worse for the people seeing it than the people having it.” Uh, no it isn’t, dude. It’s pretty damn scary to be the person having an allergic reaction. Trust me on this.

Sorry for ranting, but this stuff has been getting to me, too.

Save Nazanin!

As horrific and twisted as it sounds, there is a real possibility that an Iranian girl named Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi may be executed for the "crime" of defending herself from a rapist. Read about her story here and sign the petition.

(Via Relapsed Catholic.)

Roe Attorney on Tossing People from the Lifeboat*

Via Relapsed Catholic and Hillbilly White Trash comes this: The American Thinker - What some pro-choicers really think. Ron Weddington -- who with his then-wife Sarah Weddington was co-counsel on the Roe v. Wade case -- wrote a very provocative letter to President-elect Bill Clinton. While doing a Technorati search on this topic, I noticed some leftists accusing those who posted on this of "cherry-picking" various passages of the letter. Well, the entire letter is reproduced in this PDF file (on pages 61-64), so yes, it is every bit as bad as the passages make it sound.

Here are some excerpts with my admittedly sarcastic commentary bolded and in brackets:

The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can’t afford to have babies.

There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true, but we only whisper it, because as liberals who believe in individual rights, we view any program which might treat the disadvantaged differently as discriminatory, mean-spirited and...well...so Republican. [Because, of course we all know Republicans hate the poor -- unlike us.]

[...]

You made a good start when you appointed Dr. Elders, but she will need a lot of help. You will have to enlist the aid of sports and entertainment stars to counteract the propaganda spread by church officials seeking parishioners, [Yes, people should listen to movie stars, pop stars and sports stars instead of their pastors. Celebrities are so much wiser, after all.] generals seeking cannon fodder and businessmen seeking cheap labor that, throughout the ages, has convinced the poor that children are necessary to fulfillment as a person. [I never knew that people had babies because generals and businessmen told them to -- you learn something new every day!]

[...]

[G]overnment is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions. . . . There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery. . . and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don’t have a lot of time left. [More babies are being born every second! We must stop the scourge!]

[...]

We don’t need more cannon fodder. [Get rid of those damned military people! They usually vote Republican anyway.] We don’t need more parishioners. [Same goes for those damned godbags.] We don’t need more cheap labor. [We have illegal aliens for that.] We don’t need more poor babies.

Margaret Sanger's philosophy lives on.

*I couldn't help but think of the Steve Taylor song, "Lifeboat".

To All Mothers...

You do the most important job in the world.

Latest Furl Entries on Sidebar

Furl is a very handy web tool that allows you to keep an archive of interesting articles and links that you find on the web. In most cases, it will also save a copy of the article so that if the link no longer works, you still have the article. You can mark entries as public, so that anyone who views your personal archive can see them, or you can mark them as private, so that only you can see them. Also, people can subscribe to the RSS feed of your public archives.

Furl allows you to display the latest Furled items in your public archive on your website. I have added this to my sidebar under "Recent Furl Entries". I'll be adding the link to the RSS feed shortly.

Speaking of neat tools, I am publishing this entry using the Performancing plugin for Firefox. I found out about it when Andrea mentioned it a few days ago.

Fourth Blogiversary!

I've been blogging for four years today. I can't believe I'm still doing this, but while I may not be a prolific poster, I still like to have this little soapbox around when I need it.

One good thing that's come out of blogging is that I'm not as shy* as I used to be (at least not on the Internet -- in real life I can still be shy in certain situations). I've also grown a thick hide over the years -- I'm not as sensitive as I used to be. Of course, that may not be all good. But one good thing about it is that it's harder for people to hurt my feelings. When I was younger, if someone was nasty to me, I would cry. Now I get mad and fight back. I'm also more likely to speak up if someone says something that I strongly disagree with. I used to suppress that urge and wear a tight, nervous smile while seething inside. Now, I'm more likely to speak up (in a polite way, of course).

The most important thing to come from blogging is all the great people I've met while doing this. (Excluding the trolls, of course.) I want to thank all of you who have linked me, who read this stuff and who comment here. I really do appreciate you. :-)

*I'm still as introverted as ever, which is a good thing. Shyness is not the same as being introverted...a lot of people mistakenly think they are.