Heart, Mind and Soul

Search history

2007-07-15T17:48:00.000-04:00

I hope no one is trying to analyze my search history at Google headquarters. I just have to laugh because right now there is so much going on in my life and I'm constantly searching for a variety of things.

First, there is the research I'm doing for my final project. But I'm also trying to get a trophy in Mario Party 4. And I also need to look up lots of travel information to figure out how to get down to Washington D.C. efficiently over the next few weeks. Finally, I have lots random stuff all mixed in.

So my search history (without repeating everything since there's a LOT) randomly includes things like:

"ethical breaches in human radiation experiments"
"D.C. Metro"
"dungeon duos hint"
"Taco Bell 7 layer crunch wrap"
"adolescent autonomy"
"beach volley folley how to beat"
"Lansdale pool"
"The New England Journal of Medicine"
"Septa overnight parking"

I wonder if they oculd do a study on randomness in one's Google searches and overall mental well-being.

I wonder also if simply posting this entry will bring a very random sample of people accidentally tripping over my blog.

Seattle excitement

2007-06-20T09:24:00.000-04:00

I know it's been months since I posted. However, I am now compelled to write something because last night I had my first in-person meeting with someone who I've only known on the internet, Sarah.

She is as cool as is rumored. In fact, I sat there babbling like I was drunk or something (I wasn't!), and she was very mellow and easy-going the whole time.

I also happened to notice how graceful she was. I don't exactly know how to explain what I mean here, but I'll just say it because it's what I noticed. I didn't see it immediately, but as the evening progressed, I began to understand why a random attractive guy might approach her in a park!

Anyway, for those who only know "internet Sarah", let me just say that it's well worth your time & effort to meet her IRL!

Something was lost in the translation...

2007-02-23T09:04:00.000-05:00

Bill has a plastic figurine with hilarious "instructions" on it. I just had to share:

This product is for over the age of 15.

This product has some parts of sharp points due to expressing the reality.

Warning: Choking Hazard - This product contains small parts.
This the box itself.

Please use super glue when you repair the broken parts.

This product contains some very fragile parts. So please make sure that we can not replace if there is a damage as small as being fixed easily by yourself.

This products is made of special material which is easy to be bent by heat with hairdrier. If you find any places deformed, please use a hairdrier to fix it as the original form.

This product contains some fragile parts stored in the box separately with the main body. Please put them on the right places as shown on the sample photo.

Please make sure that the photo on the package is a trial model, so it must be a little different fromthe actual product in the box.

The funniest thing about the second-to-last instruction is that there aren't any separate parts. But my favorite line is "This the box itself". Not sure what it's supposed to mean - perhaps the box is communicating that it's self-aware?

:o)

When guilt is a bad thing

2006-12-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

Guilt can be a good thing, because at least to some extent, it keeps us in line. But I'm starting to wonder whether guilt can sometimes actually stand in the way of true morality.

Case in point: Apparently, Germans feel, on a cultural level, a lot of lingering guilt over the Halocaust. There's a great deal of sensitivity around things being "eugenic" (such as PGD technology, or abortion under various circumstances). It's hard to see at first why this wouldn't be a good thing. Well, my professor (who is Israeli) told about a conversation which occurred at a conference she attended in Germany. There was some dispute over the use of stem cells and at one point, one of the Israeli attendees half-jokingly said (paraphrase), "Well, how would you feel if there was a power outage at the lab where all the embryos are kept?" The German person reacted quite strongly and seriously, saying "Why, that would be like another Auchwitz!"

And I thought: OK, talk about NOT getting it. Not that I think the topic of stem cells is trivial. But wow - that it would be the same level of suffering, etc. as Auchwitz?? And then I realized: the commenter was concerned about the way Germany's past reflected on GERMANY, and not about how sad it was that any humans would do such things to one another. The insane overreaction was really a continuation of a self-centered mentality, just inverted.

It also occurred to me that this happens in the U.S. too with "white liberal guilt". So many white people are all about showing how culturally aware they are wrt other races. And even as I notice this, and can't stand to see people acting this way, I find myself sometimes falling into the same trap.

The question is - what motivates us to moral action, if not guilt? How can we escape the self-centered kind of guilt that at best is useless and at worst is destructive? What would I tell the German guy in the anecdote, had I been there? Whatever I say, if I want it to be effective, it would need to be anchored in... guilt, right?

So, I think it's really very tough. I'm inclined to think that the answer comes from thinking positively - i.e. let's find positive ways to move past our own human darkness. And to be aware of times when your own guilt is really just about YOU.

Pikachu doesn't like me...

2006-11-16T11:32:00.000-05:00

Back when Callista was 3 (or so) we bought her this video game called Hey You, Pikachu.
The idea was that you were supposed to talk to Pikachu into a microphone and ask it* to do stuff. At the time, she liked watching, but expressed little interest in actually playing, so Bill and I struggled with it instead.

Basically, you're supposed to "make friends" with Pikachu and go on all these various adventures with it. First, you find it in the wild, and give it stuff. As Pikachu gets more friendly with you, it meets you outside your door in the morning, etc. One of the games involved finding various vegetables in the woods to make soup, and we simply could not get it to work. Pikachu kept picking up random crap and we kept ending up with "mystery soup". (Bulbasaur would have a "dizzy" face at the end, indicating the soup was bad.) Then, there was this game where you had to feed the Caterpies (pronounced catter-pee) and help them evolve. We somehow kept messing up, the Caterpies kept dying of starvation, and Pikachu was getting way pissed. Eventually, it stopped coming around to our door in the morning. The game was so hard, that we soon figured there was no point in encouraging Callista to try.

So why am I mentioning it now? Well, Callista (who is now 7) found it and wanted to try it out. Bill set it up for her, with more than a little concern that she would get really frustrated with it.

But no! As a matter of fact, she's doing extremely well with it! Not only was she able to successfully feed all the Caterpies, but she got a ruby for it. And Pikachu likes her so much that now he's sleeping in her bed at night.

I cannot figure out why she excels in this and we aren't. I have a few theories though. Like, maybe it understands a child's voice better than an adult. Or, maybe we were overthinking it somehow. Both of those are very possible. Just goes to show that you think you're smart and educated and accomplished, but that sure doesn't make you good at everything!

* that's how they refer to Pikachu in the game - as an "it"

Halloween Mad Libs

2006-10-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

This is just a random posting of some Mad Libs I wrote for Callista's halloween party. It's not intended as anything of interest, just as a way to share them with anyone who might be looking for something good geared to 2nd graders. I believe I have a good lock on second grade mentality, but that's open to discussion I suppose.

Of course, by the time google catches it for searching, it might be after Halloween. But there's always next year.

__________________________________________________________________________________

One day, I was going to the (place), and on the way, I had to pass a (adj.) graveyard. Normally, this wasn't so bad, but today was (holiday), so it seemed creepier than usual. Just as soon as I got there, the sky got dark and it began to (type of weather/precipitation). Suddenly, I heard a loud (sound) and it sounded like it was coming from inside the graveyard! I was scared, but also (feeling).
I looked closer, and I realized that one of the (plural noun) was empty! It scared me so much that I (verb ending in -ed) all the way back to my nice cozy house, where I snuggled up with my pet (animal).

__________________________________________________________________________________

It was Halloween night, and a little witch named (person at the party) decided to have a Halloween party. She decided to invite all the (adj.) creatures who lived nearby: a mummy, a vampire, and a (magical creature). She made (liquid) punch and cookies made with (noun). They all played games and (verb ending in -ed), until (time of day)! But then, sadly, it was time to leave. They went home to bed where they (verb ending in -ed) peacefully until morning.

__________________________________________________________________________________

What a weird day! First, my mom tried to give me (color) eggs and (color) toast for breakfast! Then, my I saw my dad wearing his (article of clothing) upside- down! I thought that was the end of it, but then my bus driver (verb ending in -ed) like a (noun) when she saw me. At school, my teacher told me to (verb) when all I really wanted to do was sharpen my (noun). The strangest thing was that all the kids had an extra (body part, plural), and kept asking me why I had one missing! Just when I thought the day couldn't get any weirder, I woke up and realized it was all just a dream, and really I was safe at home in my warm cozy (item in house).

__________________________________________________________________________________

Food Network Challenge

2006-10-19T21:40:00.000-04:00

OK - I really like this show. Not so much when they do grilling-type stuff, but when they do gingerbread, cakes, candy sculptures, etc. I just love it. Anyway, Bill and I came up with some "Food Network Challenge" titles we'd like to see:

Theme: Jungle; Ingredients: croutons and bread crumbs
Theme: Impressionist sculpture; Ingredient: soup
Theme: History of Aviation; Ingredients: toothpaste and funnel cake
Theme: World Hunger; Ingredients: caviar, lobster, filet mignon
Theme: Dogs in Heat; Ingredients: anything!

Perhaps I'll add more to the list another day. But I'll put a request out to the (possibly 3?) people reading this blog to see if you can add more! Sorry you have to be a registered blogger user, but I really hate spam. Hey, that makes me think of another...

Theme: Elvis; Ingredient: spam

I'd better be careful though. You never know if they'd actually do some of these!

Insipid emails

2006-10-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

I got this email at work, and I just HAD to react to it!

Here's the original email:
-------------------------
From one pumpkin to another!

A woman was asked by a co-worker, "What is it like to be a Christian?"

The coworker replied, "It is like being a pumpkin." God picks you from the
pumpkin patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Then He
cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff inside.

He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He carves you a new
smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the "World"
to see." This was passed on to me by another pumpkin. Now, be a good
pumpkin and pass it on to other pumpkin friends.

I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch. Hope you do
the same!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

My "re-interpretation":
----------------------
A woman was asked by a co-worker, "What is it like to sell your soul to the
Devil?"

The coworker replied, "It is like being a pumpkin." Satan picks you from
the pumpkin patch, stealing you from all your friends and comfortable home,
and removes any traces of the warm and natural earth. Then He cuts you open
and takes from you that which is most valuable - your "meat" (which can be
used to bake pies) and your seeds (which symbolize your future). Sure, he
also carves a smile, but if you look closely, it's really just a grotesque,
unnatural grin that masks the true reality: you are just an empty shell of
the person you once were!

Don't let Satan pick YOU! Warn all your friends as quickly as possible!

Fiction vs. Non-fiction

2006-09-09T21:52:00.000-04:00

Last weekend Callista and I were putting her books on two different shelves when I had the idea that we could sort them into fiction and non-fiction, just as one of those spontaneous learning exercises.

Well, I almost messed up big time, because she picked up a book about Santa Claus and said "oh, non-fiction". I started to correct her by reminding that non-fiction is "stuff that's true", but luckily I caught myself just in time. (By the way, I've never technically lied about Santa Claus. I do believe in the spirit of Santa Claus, so when I tell Callista that I think he's "invisible", I'm quite sincere.)

Then, to add to the humor of the moment, she picked up her Children's picture Bible and asked "These stories - are they real or not?" I, the good UU parent that I am, hemmed and hawed for a bit, then began a confused and ultimately ineffective explanation of library standards. Which she rather abruptly interrupted with "I believe 'em.", while thrusting the book into the "non-fiction" section. I didn't laugh out loud, but was I laughing very hard on the inside! Did I ever mention that I really like 7-year-olds?

The Importance (or lack thereof) of Fertilized Eggs

2006-09-07T16:28:00.000-04:00

There's a conversation going on in one of my posts below having to do with the so-called "rythym method"/Natural Family Planning and the death of very young embryos.

I linked to the article here: Journal Article. L. Bovens argues that it's quite possible that the rythym method causes quite a bit of fertilized egg death, rivaling other birth control methods, such as condoms or perhaps even the pill.

Putting that article aside for a moment, I will argue as follows -

1) It's widely understood that 50% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, most of them prior to the woman even knowing she's pregnant.
2) The earlier in the pregnancy, the more likely the miscarriage will happen, so most of the 50% number is at the zygote (cluster of eggs) stage
3) An egg fertilized in optimum conditions (i.e. sperm not too old or egg not too long after release) has a better chance of surviving than one fertilized a few hours/days "too early" or "too late"
4) An egg fertilized in less than optimum conditions is a likely cause of the high numbers of early miscarriage.
5) Natural family planning has resulted in many pregnancies (much more so than birth control pills), so we know that eggs are getting fertilized with this method.

Therefore, Natural family planning is an intentional limiting of sexual activity to times when an egg, if fertilized, would less likely survive. And, since natural family planning does end up fertilizing a lot of eggs, it is also probably killing a lot of zygotes.

The question I have for Amy is this: Which one of the 5 premises do you think is wrong and why?

Aside from this, I would argue that the intention of using condoms and other barrier methods is to prevent fertilization from ever occurring, so the intention is essentially that there would never be any risk of zygote death. In fact, the true moral high groud in this matter would go to those who are sterilized. Thus, sterilization, condoms, or diaphrams should be the preferred methods of birth control for those who are truly concerned about zygote death. When a couple is ready to have children, they should at least make a passing attempt to time their intercourse during ovulation.

In truth, I suspect that very few people are really concerned about zygote death, since no one seems to be trying very hard to prevent it in any meaningful way. One could argue that not directly trying to cause their death makes the difference, but we certainly try to prevent later miscarriages, and things like SIDS.

Books

2006-09-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

I was tagged for a book survey by The Happy Feminist which is really cool except that I have a hard time answering those particular questions! I've really just read too many books in my life to catagorize them easily.

So instead, I will talk about some books I've read recently. I just finished "The Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler and it's really cool. I like sci-fi, but I haven't read much lately. I happen to really like the main character in this one. I plan to read more of her books and more women sci-fi authors in general.

Prior to that, I read "Guns, Germs and Steel". I really enjoyed it, because although none of its ideas were earth-shattering, it was still a new, more plausible perspective on the way history (& prehistory) has played out, compared to what I learned in school.

Prior to that, I read the first 3rd of "Atlas Shrugged" and have found it difficult to continue with it. I've got some issues with that book, and I almost wonder if Ayn Rand wasn't a bona fide sociopath (assuming that the "philosophy" she put forth in her novels is what she truly believed in). I don't mean she was "evil"; in fact, I made up the term "honorable sociopath" to describe her.

And prior to that, I read "Les Miserables", which was a good book in many ways, though the women characters were a bit one-dimensional. I always liked the musical, and I wanted to finally read the original story.

I'm probably going to stop reading for a while since I have two courses this fall and a project to focus on. Come next summer, though, and I'll be starting up again!

Dear Abby

2006-08-29T07:52:00.000-04:00

I read "Dear Abby" a lot. I guess just out of habit. Sometimes her advice is great, but other times, it's really lousy. For example:

DEAR ABBY: My husband and I are having a disagreement and have agreed to let you settle it for us.
My husband has two children, ages 17 and 13, who live with their mother and stepfather. They are with us about 15 percent of the year. Both kids have part-time jobs. They tell my husband what they want for Christmas and their birthdays, and he always gives them generous gifts on those occasions plus presents in between visits. We entertain them with lots of fun activities when they are with us, and take them on expensive trips.

The problem is, they never give my husband any presents at Christmas, his birthday or on Father's Day. Once in a while, they'll send him a card. Family members have spoken to them about this more than once, but there have been no changes.
My husband says he wants to continue to model generosity. I say, enough of this one-sided giving! In a healthy relationship, one person does not make all the effort. I say it's time to modify the giving and/or just give them cards. What do you think? -- HAD IT IN ARLINGTON, WASH.

DEAR HAD IT: Your husband should not suddenly punish his children by cutting off the gifts. Children behave as they have been taught -- usually by their mothers.

When they were younger, their mother should have taken them to buy special occasion gifts for their dad. She probably didn't because she was bitter about the divorce. When they are grown, they may learn to be more thoughtful -- but don't count on it, because patterns of giving are learned in childhood.

------------------------------

Such unbelievable double standards. The mom, sight unseen, is "bitter". Damn bitter women - the cause of every problem in the known universe, apparently. Anyway, I wrote a letter to her as follows:

This message is in reply to your answer to "Had it in Arlington, Wash." I think it's quite unfair to automatically blame the mother for children's poor behavior. You said the mother was "probably bitter about the divorce" and so didn't take the kids out to buy presents for the dad. No wonder so many moms are stressed - they're judged (accused of being bitter, even) for things they have little control over, like a 17-year old's behavior.

Your answer is one more example of how fathers simply aren't judged the same way. I could spin the story completely differently and say that the dad was bitter and didn't take the kids out to get presents for mom, and that's why they didn't learn proper behavior.

My advice would be for the dad to simply reduce his gifts to less expensive, but still meaningful items. (There's nothing wrong with this anyway, even if the kids are angels.) You might say it's HIS responsibility to do this so the kids will be less materialistic.

---------------------

Hey, if it gets published, it will have a much wider readership than this blog! Anyway, it had to be said.

:o)

Questions and answers

2006-07-20T12:47:00.000-04:00

Sarah is doing a question/answer thing to stir up some blog conversation, so here are my answers to her questions (which were great!):

1) What does your notion of "god"/higher being/power/consciousness/etc. look like, if you even believe in such a thing?

I've always felt the presence of a higher being or higher power, but I don't have the words to describe this. As a result, when I say "God", I mean it very loosely. As a child, I bought into the whole "God as man/masculine" thing, but even then I never had a distinct vision of what "He" looked like. Also, "He" always seemed like a YOUNG man, not old.

Now, I'm more inclined to wilfully view the higher power as feminine, not because I truly believe there is any gender involved (or even humanity), but because I'm trying to break the "masculine" limitation of God in my own perception. For as long as I think of God as a male "father", I am not truly open to the true "living" God.

In summary, I think there's something out there & there's something to all this life thing, I just don't know what. It's not so precise as saying "everything happens for a reason" (referencing my original question). Just that there's something important and powerful that guides us which exists beyond our own individuality.

2) Under what circumstances would you have an abortion, if any?

Well, first of all, the timing is critical. I don't have any particular compunction about something like the morning after pill, which is not an "abortion pill", but presumably could allow a ferilized egg to die (b/c it would not have a place to implant). Of course, simply practicing the rythym method kills more fertilized eggs than condom use. (At the wrong time in a woman's cycle, the fertilized egg can't implant, but a condom would prevent the fertilization from happening in the first place).

Other than that, I think I would have an abortion if my life were in danger, or if a pregnancy would cause me severe and permanent health problems. In the case of rape, I probably *wouldn't*. I imagine that would be a very difficult thing to deal with though, and I doubt I would raise the child. Obviously, I hope that would never happen, regardless!

3) What do you think is the primary problem that stands in the way of social justice today?

This is a really hard one. But I think the problem that exists today has been a problem for a very long time in human history. It's that each person feels driven to see themselves as better than someone else, so there always needs to be someone at the bottom to beat up on. Unity among people sadly requires some group of "others" to unify against! Perhaps people are naturally inclined to do this. Lots of social animals have ranking and unfair distribution in their groups. It might not be possible to completely eliminate the tendency to rank ourselves. Even social justice organizations have problems with people jockeying for position. In feminist groups, there's racism. In anti-racism groups there's sexism. Then there's the whole "more progressive than thou" thing (ironic, but IMHO, this tendency is the PRIMARY reason why many people are turned off to social justice movements who might otherwise feel engaged with them.)

Anyway, I know that like everyone else, I'm prone to look for reasons I'm better than others, and it's not something I'm proud of. The solution to this problem is education. Children should be raised in a way that they are constantly encouraged to see all members of their family/classroom/etc. as important. I really like Quaker schools because they seem to promote the best kind of environment for this. In general, bullying should be properly regarded as a serious problem not just because kids might shoot up a school or commit suicide, but because it teaches *everyone* the wrong lesson about how we should treat others.

4) What's the story of you meeting your partner?

I've known Bill since I was 14. We moved in across the street from each other over the summer of 1989, but didn't really meet and talk until the second day of high school. On that day, we were walking home from the bus. It was a beautiful day with lots of puffy clouds that you could imagine were different objects. So that's just what we did - for a pretty long time too. At that time, he and I were the same height, and now he's 4 inches taller than me :o) Our parents invited each other over for dinner on occassion. I remember once we played with legos and he was really embarassed about it (because he thought it was so childish) and didn't want me to mention it to anyone at school. It's so funny now, because we *were* such children then! And now as adults we play with legos with no embarrassment whatsoever!

We were "just friends" in high school, and did a lot of fun nerdy things together like write each other notes in code, play 3-D tic tac toe, and write stories where one person wrote 1-2 pages and then the next person wrote 1-2 pages, etc. We also had lots and lots of goofy inside jokes between us. It was great.

Lots of kids teased us that we were dating. The truth was, I had successive crushes on lots of guys who were *not* Bill, most of which were quite one-sided, but one of which involved a date-type encounter and one a pseudo-relationship. Bill and I really did start dating a short time after high school ended. I'd be surprized if anyone in our grade knows we were "an item", let alone that we are now married. (All the friends I've kept in contact with were in different grades than me). So there's lots of potential for fun if we went to a high school reunion (especially since I never changed my name). Like, we could recruit some friends to pretend they're our "wife" and "husband", and then go to the reunion as separate "couples". Then he and I could "bump into each other" and proceed to have a torrid "love affair". That would be hilarious. Well, there's always the chance that someone will read this blog and my cover will be blown. :o) Actually, it will never happen because neither of us really wants to hang out with anyone from our high school, even for the sake of a really good practical joke. Bill especially feels this way.

5) What artistic abilities do you possess?

I can sing, at times really well (those times being when I'm not nervous and when my singing taps into my emotions). If I'm nervous, then I sing acceptably. I've written some decent poetry (also some really crappy poetry, but no point in dwelling on that). I've written a lot of funny things (stories, fake multiple choice tests, responses to insipid chain emails, etc). I can also cook, which is an art form, IMHO. I could be a really good cake decorator/food artist if I only had a chance to learn. (I'm obsessed with that show "Food Network Challenge".) I like to draw, but the world has told me too many times in too many different ways that I'm not good at it . Not sure how that counts. Overall, I'm more inclined toward music and written things than to anything visual or spatial. I try to avoid dancing in public. ;o)

McChickens

2006-06-14T17:25:00.000-04:00

So, I'm taking a course related to ethics and animals and we're reading an article about whether or not it would be moral to breed chickens that don't think or feel or... anything really, except lay eggs. Imagine - headless creatures fed intravenously with more or less the thought capacity of a worm. Almost like a plant, only it grows meat.

Setting aside safety concerns or other human-oriented issues, and assuming that current "factory-farming" methods are morally unacceptable, would it be morally acceptable to keep the genetically modified chickens in the poor conditions? Would people who now don't eat chicken for moral reasons feel that certain modifications would render chickens fit to consume?

Bill and I actually had this discussion a while ago and we called the modified chickens "McChickens". Thus, it makes sense that when you go to McDonalds, you can either get the "crispy chicken" sandwich or the "McChicken" sandwich. Eeewwww... (in Bioethics, this is called the "yuk" factor.)

Funny quote

2006-06-14T13:15:00.000-04:00

Respectful of Otters has a quote that I liked:

"Faced with a mountain of evidence demonstrating the significant health benefits of breastfeeding, a consortium of health experts and U.S. government officials is making an aggressive push for paid maternity leaves; longer maternity leaves comparable to the recommended length of exclusive breastfeeding; exemptions from welfare-to-work programs and welfare time limits for nursing mothers; insurance and/or public funding for lactation clinics, breast pumps, and milk-bank milk; greater support for nursing mothers doing salaried work, including protected opportunities to pump milk at work, increased flex-time employment options, and greater availability of part-time daycare slots; discouragement of routine obstetric and neonatal care practices which hinder breastfeeding; and, of course, stricter controls on environmental contaminants, such as mercury, known to taint breastmilk.

Hahahahahahahaha! No.

They're pushing an extensive PR campaign to make formula-feeding mothers feel guilty. Because who needs all that other stuff, when we could focus on personal responsibility?"

More theory on trolls

2006-06-14T11:31:00.000-04:00

I just learned today that Tolkien actually foresaw the existence of internet trolls:

"But Orcs and Trolls spoke as they would, without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy than I have shown it. I do not suppose that any will wish for a closer rendering, though models are easy to find. Much the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong"
(p.514)

Wow! :o)

Interesting Quote

2006-05-26T09:21:00.000-04:00

I found a passage is "Les Miserables" that struck me as interesting. It says:

"There are geniuses who, in the fathomless depths of abstraction and pure speculation - situated, so to speak, above all dogmas - present their ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers an argument. Their worship questions. This is direct religion, filled with anxiety and repsonsibility for those who would scale it's walls."

A perfect summary of Unitarian Universalism! Except that I would not only limit it to "geniuses", since that implies you need some sort of special learning to get to that state.

It's been so long...

2006-05-17T13:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I'm just so... busy!

I do have one quick comment, though, which is about the "DaVinci code".

Not that I believe the DaVinci code to be anything more than a work of fiction which includes a few solid facts, a few more tenuous facts, and some outright falsehoods sprinkled in.

Just that the Bible is quite similarly fictional.

And various church leaders are so flummoxed, saying "why are so many people are so quick to wholeheartedly believe in something that's just fiction?" and "there should be warning labels saying that this stuff isn't real" (no joke!)

Um... irony, no?

It's not that you CAN'T be both religious and critical-thinking. Just that most religious people are simply NOT critical thinkers about their religion. And yes, I think this is bad!!!

Another cool gender tool

2005-12-29T17:51:00.000-05:00

The Gender Genie

Very fun. And interesting. Some of my writing is very "female". One of my Bioethics papers was strongly "male".

Don't know what that proves or disproves.

Praying for people

2005-12-09T22:22:00.000-05:00

You know how when someone says "I'll be praying for you" it can sometimes feel uncomfortable? Often when I've heard that it has something to do with coming around to their belief system.

Well, I suppose I have a dirty little secret. I pray for people. Pretty often, actually. Which is rather odd considering that I'm not particularly clear on who it is that I'm praying to.

I simply send out love/energy/thoughts to people. Mostly it's because I want their struggles to end or at least resolve. And for any suffering or angst they may feel to cease.

Don't know what inspired this post exactly. But here it is.

Yup, that's me...

2005-11-16T15:10:00.000-05:00

What kind of humanist am I?

A Handholder

It was a little weird answering the questions because they were based out of the UK. But this assessment is definitely me.

And I took the quiz for Bill too (I know him well enough to answer for him...)

This is totally true of him!

A Haymaker

A few silly things

2005-10-08T21:01:00.000-04:00

What exactly does it mean to be a "Chief Justice" as opposed to a regular garden-variety Justice on the Supreme Court? Bill and I were wondering this when we were talking about John Roberts getting the Chief Justice job recently. We concluded that basically, it boils down to this:

The Chief Justice:
1) Gets the prime parking spot
2) Gets to sit in the center of any picture taken of the Supreme court
3) Gets a special extra stripes on his/her robe
4) Gets to choose the coffee flavor each week
5) Gets to start out any public service announcement the Supreme court makes (we were imagining this particular scenario - the Chief says "Keep your furry friends safe and healthy:" while the rest of the group says "spay and neuter your pets!")

In another conversation, we were thinking about a new Disney resort they should build: "Antarcta-Disney".

I'm picturing a Sleeping Beauty castle completely encased with ice. It's dark there for half the year and extremely cold. You get there by a hellicopter that drops you off and out front you see a frozen Mickey Mouse character with his hand in the air like a wave and with icicles dripping off. Goofy is lying beside him, almost covered with drifts of snow. You only hear the whir of the many generators and the flickering of a few neon lights. They barely stay lit because the cold affects the gas in them. There's no one around except a weathered-looking guy all bundled up. He says "If you're wanting to ride 'It's a small world', I can thaw it out for you. Just let me know. Not sure what else I can get going right now."

Wouldn't that be fun?

An insight

2005-09-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

You know what are really the most accurate terms to replace "pro-life" and "pro-choice"?

It's "abortion control" vs. "abortion freedom". Sort of like "gun control" vs. "gun freedom" (although I guess it's usually called "anti gun control").

I happen to support certain types of "abortion control" laws. I happen to know lots of people who are very strongly "abortion freedom". I also know a few people who are much more "pro abortion control" than I am.

These terms actually resonate with my experience! And allow moderates to label themselves on this issues (for a change).

I can't imagine that I'm the only one who as thought of this, so it seems they aren't particularly "catchy" terms. Well, I don't care. I'm using them from now on.

Starting OWL

2005-09-25T21:35:00.000-04:00

Tonight was the "Parent Orientation" for the OWL class and I have to say that I'm SO proud of myself! I don't know how the parents actually saw me, but *I* felt confident, assertive, etc. in a way that I've never felt before in that type of situation.

And at one point, I handled an awkward situation extremely diplomatically (in a way that I've never done before). Again, possibly imperceptibly to others, but to me *A BIG DEAL*. Perhaps I will discuss it more at length some other time, but for now, I just want to get it down.

Yay for me!

Goofus and Gallant do Bioethics

2005-09-25T00:46:00.000-04:00

I used to love reading Highlights when I was a kid. OK... I still do!

Well, there's a "comic" in there called "Goofus and Gallant" where Gallant is the example of a mannerly, kind and moral person and Goofus is, well... not.

Recently, Bill joked about explaining Bioethics using Goofus and Gallant and I decided to run with it. I'm happy to hear any other suggestions people might have! I may add others as I get further into my "intro to bioethics" course.

----------------
Gallant: promotes organ donation awareness, seeing it's great benefit in saving lives
Goofus: sells organs on eBay

Gallant: makes sure that every family member is comfortable with removing Sally's feeding tube before approving the withdrawal of treatment.
Goofus: pretends like he "accidentally" tripped over the ventillator plug, since the family should see that it's really time for grandma to go...

Gallant: struggles with the complex question of whether to save lives using genetic materials from potential human beings
Goofus: has great fun combinging all sorts of DNA into fun "mutants" and sometimes forgets to kill them when they get "really dangerous".

Gallant: decides to keep his baby after he's raped, since it *is* an innocent life.
(You might need to use "re-gender" to understand this!)
Goofus: stands outside the abortion clinic looking for someone who's hot, since he knows he'd never have to worry about her keeping some brat

Gallant: respects the patient's choice of treatment, even if he himself wouldn't make that choice
Goofus: decides that the best procedure for the patient is the one that fits in with his massage appointment

Gallant: carefully goes over all the details of the research project with his patients to make sure they understand what they are getting into.
Goofus: forgets which patients are "control" half-way through his experiment and decides to just give them all some experimental drug he's developing. Hey, he could be famous!

------------------
* highly peripheral side note:

I have to say that while I still enjoy Highlights in general, I enjoyed "Goofus and Gallant" much more as a kid. What they really need is a version of the "gray spy" (from Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy) which will always skewer both of them. I always liked the gray spy the best, and similarly, I identify with the (as of yet unnamed) character "Graciella" who understands that life is not so simple and obvious as Goofus and Gallant make it appear. And in case I didn't make enough pop-culture type references, I think that Goofus represents the "shadows" while Gallant represents the "vorlons" from Babylon 5... Something to think about...or not.

-------------------
* additional update:
-------------------
Speaking of MAD Magazine, there's a feature called "Melvin and Jenkins" which makes fun of Goofus and Gallant like I did here. Now I'm feeling paranoid that I actually copied some of the ideas from things I read in MAD Magazine. Well, consider this update as an official disclaimer: some of these ideas may not be 100% mine. I'd still like to see the ideas that others have.

Last night's event

2005-09-25T00:31:00.000-04:00

(sigh) As usual, it's been a very long time since I posted. Well, I thought I'd mention an event I went to last night:

http://www.tbiwarrington.org/html/events.html

I'm very glad that I went, though the benefit of it to me was more peripheral than direct. If I had read the stated words on paper (as opposed to being there in person) it would have been worthless to me as a learning experience. But luckily, it was not worthless because there's a lot of communication that falls in between words.

I'm also sitting here in a slight state of distress over the fact that asked a question that was apparently upsetting to the audience. I had already felt a severe sense of being an outsider, and it didn't help when people *audibly gasped* at my question!

Luckily, it was an anonymous written note that I sent up. And in my defense, the guy who read it changed the wording slightly and (I think) made it sound a lot different.

OK - what was the question?

Well, the rabbi mentioned the Bible passage from Exodus 21:22-23:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges [determine]. And if [any] mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."

i.e. a guy who causes a miscarriage has to pay a fine to the woman's husband. If he kills the woman, though, that's considered murder. This, apparently, is God's extremely obscure way of telling us that abortion is A-OK.

Luckily, I'm not beholden to the Bible, so I can call "bullshit". The passage itself has misogynistic overtones. And if you read all of Exodus and Leviticus (which I DID, a long time ago in 4th grade), there are some unbelievably nasty anti-woman "laws" in there along with the apparent "abortion OK".

ANYWAY... he also mentioned that babies who die before their first 30 days after birth are not given the traditional mourning ritual, because they are not considered really a life yet.

My question was something quite similar to this:

"In the laws about fines for miscarriages, did anyone consider for a second how the *woman* felt about the miscarriage? Also, are Jewish women allowed to mourn their miscarriages?"

Now, of course, I didn't assume that anyone can really be "allowed" or "disallowed" to mourn something. And the way the guy phrased it when he read my question was something like "Do Jews mourn their miscarriages?", and I would not have chosen that wording myself.

My second "lucky" thing is that I told everyone I talked to that I was UU, so there's a good chance they don't suspect it was me who asked that question! Although, who WOULD it be - I was the only non-member there, other than the panelists themselves, one "support" person for the pro-life panelist and a reporter. Maybe they'll think it was the "support" person...yeah...

By the way, one of the worst mistakes my very nice Presbyterian church made was to give me my very own Bible in 3rd grade, at least if you assume their goal was for me to stay a nice unquestioning Christian (FTR, it probably wasn't). Why? Because I actually read the thing, that's why. Every single "begat" and miserable law. It played an important role in my questioning of religion, that's for sure... :o)

This is an awesome web site...

2005-08-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

Re-gender

Don't be fooled by its plain appearance! It lets you see the world with completely new eyes.

I, of course, enjoyed reading the Bible through its lens. But CNN.com is equally interesting.

Enjoy!

Song I like

2005-07-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

I recently bought a UU Hymnal and it feels really special to have it. It's fairly rare that I will buy such a frivolous thing like that (no reason for it or anything - I just wanted it!)

Anyway, I found a song that I didn't remember singing before. It's possible that I did sing it, especially since the melody is familiar.

Here are the words:

When windows that are black and cold
Are lit anew with fires of gold;
When dusk in quiet shall descend
And darkness come once more a friend;

When wings pursue their proper flight
And bring not terror but delight;
When clouds are innocent again
And hide no storms of deadly rain;

And when the sky is swept of wars
And keeps but gentle moon and stars,
That peaceful sky, that harmless air,
How sweet, how sweet, the darkness there.

The last verse is my favorite. The melody is so haunting and sweet - it makes it easy to express the emotion of the words. If anyone who knows me in real life wishes for me to sing this for them, just ask. I am working on memorizing the words.

One interesting thing about UU Hymns is that many of them have similar melodies to Protestant Hymns. I originally thought this was because the UUs just ripped off the melodies and applied their own words. But in fact, I was completely wrong. Some time ago (I believe in the late 19th century), the various denominations had various melodies distributed to them from a central source, and it was up to each to make up their own words. I was fascinated to learn this. UU philosophy seems so relevant to modern life; it's amazing to learn that some of this stuff was written over a century ago.

OTOH, the song above was probably written later. I don't know exactly when, but I'm pretty sure it was after WWII, if not after the Vietnam war. On the other hand, it was definitely written *before* September 11th. The second verse seems like it was taken from that experience! But I suppose it's a relatively generic description of modern warfare.

Abortion - like it hasn't been discussed enough

2005-07-25T07:05:00.000-04:00

I'm constantly reading/thinking/considering on the issue of abortion, and the more I think about it, the more complex the whole thing seems.

I'm inclined to call myself pro-life, but the label has not fit me well because of the many associations other people have with it. Lately, I'm becoming more and more concerned with the concentration of power on the right. I really don't want people who are hostile to women making abortion policy, and I cannot help but notice that this is precisely the characteristic of most pro-life leaders. Generic pro-lifers tend to be as clueless as the rest of the population about women's rights. (This doesn't excuse them, of course, but it means that I don't exactly despise them.)

In theory, I support certain restrictions on abortion though not an outright ban, and certainly no criminalization. I think that our laws should respect both the mother as fully human (and an autonomous, rational agent) and the fetus as something highly valuable - going from some small value as "egg+sperm" to practically human value as "viable fetus".

But in practice, given the two current political choices, each of which seems to work against at least one of the above, I have to (reluctantly) put myself in the pro-choice camp. Especially because the empowerment of women is intimately tied to actually reducing abortions in a *practical* sense.

So welcome me to the pro-choice club, I guess. I can't imagine I'll be getting a welcome wagon or anything, because I'm undoubtedly a contrarian pain in the ass!

Tooth Fairy

2005-07-14T08:48:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday night Callista lost her first tooth. I got to have fun being the "tooth fairy" for the first time in my life. I snuck in, grabbed the napkin with the tooth in it, replaced the tooth with a shiny Sacagawea dollar, re-wrapped it, and shoved the napkin back under her pillow.

Well, she concluded the fairy must be really magic because she just turned the tooth into a coin! Bill (unhelpfully) worried that she might do that to teeth that were still in Callista's mouth... but she knew he was just fooling around. She's getting very good at rolling her eyes at Bill's comments. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Anyway, the funny part of this story is when I was talking to her about it last night. First, she said that the dollar was *2000* years old and she knew that because it said so on the coin. I could not convince her otherwise, so I gave up! Then we had the following conversation:

Me: "by the way, do you know who that is on your dollar?"
Her: "it's one of the presidents from a long time ago - a woman president"
Me: "oh?"
Her: "yeah. She looks like George Washington. She must be George Washington's wife!"
Me: "Did you notice that she was carrying a baby?"
Her: "yes! I know who that is!"
Me: "Who?"
Her: "who's that other guy again? Not Kerry..."
Me: "you mean Bush?"
Her: "yeah him. That's him when he was a baby."
Me: "Hmmm. I don't know about that..."

...and then the conversation kind-of moved on to other things because she got sick of talking about it.

Problem is, I still need to tell her the truth about the coin. And I will, I promise. But I wanted to hold on to the sweet illusion that Sacagawea was a woman president from a long time ago. That there were women presidents a long time ago - of course!

I'll just say this: I love 6 year-olds!

My World View

2005-06-21T09:29:00.000-04:00

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

88%

Idealist

81%

Postmodernist

69%

Existentialist

56%

Romanticist

44%

Modernist

25%

Fundamentalist

19%

Materialist

13%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

A lot of my friends are materialists, I think. But I'm some weird "cultural creative" (whatever that means - the description fits me though)

The Unitarian Jihad

2005-04-14T09:15:00.000-04:00

It seems I have just joined the "Unitarian Jihad" and aquired a new name:

Sister Nunchuku of Looking at All Sides of the Question

It's so TOTALLY me!

Here's some more info: Unitarian Jihad

And if you want your own name, go here: Your Unitarian Jihad Name

:o)

Theory of Trolls

2005-03-24T02:29:00.000-05:00

A few hours ago (while I was taking a short break from paper-land) Bill and I were discussing the existence of internet trolls, namely, who are these people?

His theory is that they're actually artificially intelligent programs that were intially conceived by the NSA to annoy the Russians. When relations started to thaw between the Americans and the Russians, these "beings", to prevent their own demise, had no choice but to escape into the 'Net. At first, they lived in Usenet world, but when that environment dried up, they migrated to popular blogs. The jury is out on whether or not they possess capacity for self-awareness. But one must admit that it's a brilliant feat of programming that these creatures can hold two (or more!) logically inconsistent viewpoints at once.

I was amazed that they exist in so many types of forums (forae?), including those discussing relatively mundane topics. I think that's really great evidence for Bill's theory.

I finished!

2005-03-24T02:18:00.000-05:00

It's now around 2:30 in the morning, and I am a confirmed "rule consequentialist" (i.e. there's no way in hell that answer is going to be re-written).

Around 11 o'clock this evening I thought I was done, and I thought my paper was on the long side. But then I checked the instructions again. It said each answer (to 3 different questions) was supposed to be ~3 pages, no more than 10. Originally I thought it meant the whole paper. While in some ways this was a good thing (I was wondering how I was supposed to cover each question in such a small space), I was caught off-guard because one of my answers was way too short.

It's my own fault.

On the bright side, I am done. And my professor will have a short paper that still covers the topics pretty thoroughly. Hopefully, she appreciates this. ;o)

Can anyone help me?

2005-03-19T23:28:00.000-05:00

I have a question. This question is targeted toward:

1) those who know me personally
or who have read my entire blog

and

2) those who know what the terms deontology & consequentialism mean (you're free to look these terms up)

Anyway, the question is:

Am I a deontologist or a consequentialist?

I think I'm a consequentialist, but I have to defend this in writing for my "Bioethics: Conceptual Foundations" class. And I'm finding it very difficult, because I think both notions are quite compelling. Every other day I seem to change my mind as to which one I am, because I think of some new moral question I didn't consider before. And BTW, saying "both" is strictly prohibited, as is saying "neither".

So far, I've written an incredibly disjointed description of myself as a "rule consequentialist" and am having trouble defending myself against my own deontological attacks.

Maybe this explains why I'm part of the "virtuous non-believers" in the Dante's Inferno test (true believers are always deontologists, IMO). Maybe this is the punishment for virtuous non-believers - that they will never know whether they are a deontologist or a consequentialist.

Maybe what I really need is some sleep... ;o)

Besides, it's quite possible that by the time I get any answers (I suppose that's if and when), I will have already turned in my paper. But it will still be an interesting thing to see what others think.

I like this prayer better...

2005-03-19T23:10:00.000-05:00

Not that I absolutely hate the Lord's prayer, but this one speaks to me more directly.

Goddess’ Prayer

Our Mother, who are all around us,
Blessed be thy children.
Thy blessings won, thy work is done
On earth and in the heavens.

Give us this day, the strength and trust
To confront our fears
As we challenge those who would use
Our fear against us.

Guide us in this struggle
With love and peace
To create a new world of
Justice, joy and harmony.

For thine is the beauty
And the love of creation
In the circle forever.

Blessed be.

I don't remember it being quite that bad...

2005-03-17T09:18:00.000-05:00

This morning I took some medication which said to check with your doctor if you are "beast-feeding". Wow. Hope that wasn't some kind of Freudian-slip.

I decided that Bill should feed the cats this morning, just in case.

:o)

New car names

2005-03-11T12:28:00.000-05:00

Seems like there's this weird thing about naming cars after disasters. I don't quite get it. There's the Chevy Avalanche, for example, and Toyota was going to come out with the Celica Tsunami (which I guess they recently decided against, thank goodness!).
Anyway, Bill and I came up with a few more "suggestions":

Chevy Plague
Ford Famine
Kia Rain of Locusts
Acura Infestation
Hyundai Massacre
Mercury STD

Actually, we came up with more, but I can't remember them now.
If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to add them!

Thoughts about the Larry Summers comments

2005-02-19T14:15:00.000-05:00

Boy, am I slow to respond to news. Didn’t he make controversial comments over a month ago? Well, aside from being really busy, I also just have a generally slow response time to new information.

I like to think of myself as sort-of a “crock-pot” thinker. (I’m sure that many of my smart-alecky friends will morph that into “crackpot” thinker, but that’s not what I mean…) What I mean by “crock-pot” thinker is that I’m good at taking ideas and I mull over them for a long time with a very back-of-my mind type of thinking. Kind-of a “low energy stubbornness”. It’s just this constant turning & turning over of a new idea until I finally get to a new place with it. And like a crock-pot, the tougher the problem, the better I do. Also, I’m good at blending (sometimes disparate) ideas (flavors) into one complete whole.

I’m a good thinker if you don’t expect an answer right away. My husband is (IMHO) more of a “wok” thinker – really quick and brilliant. Not that we’re really that different, or that he doesn’t “get” tough problems, just that our styles are different. And, by the way, I’m talking about how we are as individuals, not how we represent our gender group. Which nicely gets me back to the original topic.

Mr. Summers wondered whether intelligence (especially mathematical intelligence) might be in some way influenced by gender (i.e. partially explaining why there are so few women at high levels in mathematics). My first reaction was “oh crap. Not THIS question again.” But I’m not interested in talking much about how evil or stupid Mr. Summers is. After all, the ideas he espoused were already out in public, and already causing harm. Besides which, I remember once making what I thought was just a lame joke, and then when I considered it later realized that it could (and usually would) be interpreted as really racist and hateful. I still regret it to this day. (And this was over 10 years ago!) So I can sympathize to some extent with someone who says stupid things, even if, as Harvard University president, he SHOULD know better. But I don’t like to talk about one man, or his screw-ups.

I can sort-of buy the idea that men’s and women’s thinking might be different, but what I refuse to accept is that we ALREADY KNOW EXACTLY what makes them different or what this implies for men’s & women’s intellectual potential. I also refuse to buy the notion that men & women are so VASTLY different, considering that I would have to start wondering whether I’m really a woman myself (with all this computer/math stuff I’m into).

Could there be differences due to gender? I suppose there could. Could there be differences due to race? Maybe that too. But wait! I’m not done! Maybe there are differences due to blood type! Wouldn’t that be interesting too? I can see why that would be possible, but I guess no one really CARES about that, do they? What about differences in intelligence due to birth order? I really think that that’s possible too. How about differences in people born in different months/seasons (i.e. astrological sign) Maybe there would be variance due to the weather experienced in the first few months of one’s life? Why don’t people study these topics, let alone hear about them in major media?

Why DO scientists conduct studies on gender differences in intelligence? And why do people find this interesting? What questions are they really trying to answer? IMHO, the reason has everything to do with politics, and precious little to do with mere intellectual curiosity. When scientists do these studies, they are trying to either argue that a) we need to promote more political policy to include women (assuming that women are equal in intelligence, but not yet treated equally) or b) things are fine as they are (or we need to revert policies that presumably give women an unfair advantage). If it weren’t for this very POLITICAL motivation, there would be no studies on this issue. From where I’m standing, it’s just too obvious. Which is why I have precious little patience for those who say that these studies are just a simple “pursuit of truth for it’s own sake”, and that it can’t be helped if the culture at large misinterprets or misuses the results of the studies. These theorists often say that “teachers and parents shouldn’t treat girls and boys differently regarding math & science”, while ignoring the fact that this is exactly how their theories are being applied.

Aside from all of this are the assumptions that go into such studies. It is often assumed (for some insane reason) that if you can show differences between boys and girls in one area, then it stands to reason that they differ in other areas as well. For example: “little girls are more nurturing than boys, therefore little girls are not as good at math”. Mr. Summers made this exact assumption in his anecdote about his daughter playing with trucks. Since she plays with them as “mommy and baby trucks”, this somehow illustrates a lack of mathematical ability. (I guess this means that the “typically boyish” activity of smashing trucks into each other is a strong indicator of mathematical ability…or something.) A more subtle example is one where “women aren’t on average as good at spatial reasoning” so this must mean that they’re bad at math generally, not taking into account that there are many applications to mathematics besides physics (game theory comes immediately to mind: no physics at all!). You don’t really need spatial reasoning to be good at math.

I say this because I am very good at math/logic and abysmally poor at spatial reasoning. My husband is excellent at special reasoning and yet struggles immensely with math. We are both very good at verbal logic (you should hear us argue…). And although one or two examples do not prove a lot, I only need ONE example to start shaking up the assumption that men and women have these “complementary” thinking styles. Women and men are NOT “complementary”, even if they are different. Hopefully, my point is not too subtle here. But it’s right at this subtle twist where people’s thinking so often gets jammed. For some reason, everything has to be either/or. But men and women are not “sun/moon”, or “yin/yang”. They’re more like “maple tree/oak tree”.

And granting the possibility that men and women DO have different thinking styles, it’s fairly clear to me that women’s brain power is not “less than” men’s. Makes me wonder what branches of mathematics are therefore YET UNEXPLORED because women historically have been denied access to university study. If women are not “getting ahead” in math, it may be because what is considered “brilliant mathematics” is skewed toward what the men at the tail end of the normal curve are good at. What about the kind of mathematics that brilliant “female” minds are good at, but we don’t even know about it and haven’t been able to apply it toward any good for humanity. (Assuming, of course, that “the good of humanity” is society’s reason for supporting the study of mathematics, and not simply because we admire brilliant men. When you break out of a men vs. women mindset on this issue, you can see what a loss this is for humanity in general.)

Personally, I’m not sure that I even buy the “spatial reasoning” difference. I was just using it as an example. I do believe that the studies on it were probably done honestly. But here’s my anecdotal evidence: I have observed my daughter play with trucks/cars in a similar way to Mr. Summer’s daughter (Callista’s cars very politely negotiate about where to park…) but I made an important additional observation. Callista (now a Kindergartener) happens to be incredibly good at spatial reasoning (puzzles, rotating objects in her mind, etc.) Maybe this is inherited from her father. Maybe she is just a fluke. Maybe she’s actually just average but since she’s my kid (and a heck of a lot better than I am), I assume she’s brilliant. Or maybe playing with cars and trucks actually helps develop spatial reasoning skills, regardless if the trucks are killing each other or having a tea party.

Well, I suppose I’ve said a lot. I actually take this issue less personally than I did in college, when I was still discovering who I was and my potential. I was constantly aware of a sense of trying to prove myself as a female in the very male-dominated computer science program. (BTW, I also have an Economics degree, but that wasn’t quite so male-dominated.) I sometimes still feel like an outsider as a computer programmer, but getting older has caused me to worry about it less, I think. Most of my upset on this issue comes from my recollection of my college experience and the notion of other women having to go through the same thing.

Anyway, maybe someday I’ll write another (more cynical) post about how I think that women’s “natural inclinations” always seem to conveniently coincide with low pay and/or low respect (a.k.a. the “when programmer’s salaries drop, women become better at programming” effect) But I’ll stop for now. I was given the day off to do taxes and I’d better get going.

One of those question lists

2005-02-19T06:43:00.000-05:00

I've seen question lists on other blogs before, but I guess I've never put one on mine. Well, since a friend sent me one yesterday, and this is a nice easy way to respond.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:00 AM
2. Diamonds or pearls? Probably pearls because diamonds seem relatively worthless to me. Usually neither.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Not sure yet… it’s really been a long time… I think it was last May…Van Helsing? I saw it with some friends who wanted to see it. I sort-of wish that wasn’t really the last movie I’ve seen…
4. What is your favorite TV show? This changes every so often. Right now I’ll have to say “Good Eats” on the Food Network
5. What did you have for breakfast? Nothing yet. Yesterday I had a bagel w/ butter. Probably again today. How boring.
6. What is your middle name? Michelle
7. Favorite cuisine? Japanese and Indian (I just left the original answer here! But I’ll also add Thai.)
8. What foods do you dislike? Mushrooms and peppers (unless the peppers are in salsa)
9. What is your favorite flavor? Maple (only real maple)
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Hmmm… Well, I don’t really have many CDs. Most of what I have are mixes burned onto CD. Favorite CD I bought in store: Chopin
11. What kind of car do you drive? Mazda 6
12. Favorite sandwich? PB & J (toasted)
13. What characteristic do you despise? Dishonesty/lack of integrity
14. Favorite item of clothing? Camisole
15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation,where would you
go? Spain (with Bill this time)
16. What color is your bathroom? Black & white & blue
17. Favorite brand of clothing? Whatever fits and is cheap…
18. Where would you retire to? A comfortable home in the woods (I’m just going to shamelessly copy this answer too)
19. Favorite time of the day? Weekday: Right before bedtime Weekend: Early morning
20. What was your most memorable birthday? My 30th (mainly because it just happened…)
21. Where were you born? Schenectady, NY
22. Favorite sport to watch? Ice hockey and ice-skating (even though I’m not really a fan of either)
23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Hm. I wasn’t really planning on sending it out.
24. Person you expect to send it back first? N/A
25. What fabric detergent do you use? Whatever is cheapest.
26. When is your birthday? 02/01/75
27. Are you a morning person or a night person? Morning, apparently.
28. What is your shoe size? 8
29. Do you have any pets? 2 cats
30. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with your family & friends? Not really. But that’s OK with me.
31. What did you want to be when you were little? Doctor/minister/archeologist/anthropologist
32. What are you doing today? Computer programming. I am very well suited for this in some ways (very good at logic and coming up with creative solutions to abstract problems, figuring out a new language just by looking at it), and very poorly suited in other ways (hate being super methodological with finding/preventing bugs, don’t like dealing with computer setup/networking/anything that I see as knowledge-based vs. logic-based). Eventually, I’d like to move into something that’s a better fit. (My “baby step” is my current Bioethics course and I’d like to pursue a degree in that. But a Bioethics degree alone will not make me ready for a new career. I’d have to take it in conjunction with something else, like law/poli. sci./economics/public policy. I’m looking into some programs at Temple, but I'm not ready to start taking courses yet. All in good time.)

Mild chuckle

2005-01-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

Fortunes you would not want to get from a cookie:

1) You will soon need the services of a good lawyer.
2) Avoid carbs. (Hope you didn't already eat me!)
3) The person who shared this cookie with you got the bigger half.
4) Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!
5) Oh... Dear.
6) People dislike you for reasons other than your personality.
7) Your constitution is not well suited for Chinese food.
8) Copyright 1987

For anyone expecting a higher caliber of joke: Sorry! I am very busy!

What is Bioethics?

2005-01-07T05:00:00.000-05:00

For anyone who is curious, here are some links describing what bioethics is all about:

Bioethics.Net
Bioethics at Penn
President's Council on Bioethics

This is what I have to live with...

2005-01-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

Last night Bill and I were joking around and he said I've become much less gullible since the days when I bought things that were "as seen on TV". I said "what are you talking about?" He said, "well that topsy-tail thing". And I said "first of all, it's not a topsy-tail, and second of all, I used it just this morning when I wanted to keep my hair dry while taking a shower. Then he listed other stuff that I had to "defend". Then finally, he said, "and that do-it-yourself lobotomy kit"! I was like "huh?" and he says "don't tell me you forgot?!!"

LOL

Anyway, in other news, I am going to be taking a course at Penn starting next week in Bioethics. I am very excited about this, but it's going to be a lot of work. Also, Bill just got a big promotion about a month or two ago (which involves extra time at work with no subsequent pay raise - arg). So it's going to be a busy spring. I am trying to figure out how I'm going to get it all done. Aside from work, I have

a) Small Group Ministry facilitation
b) Teaching 8th grade Sunday School
c) (maybe) Teaching OWL for 4th-6th grade over a 6-week period
d) Updating the web site for our fellowship
e) Pastoral care commitments (nursing home visits, etc.)
f) Household chores
g) Coursework
h) Spending time with Callista (guess I had to throw that one in...)

Oh, was I supposed to spend time with Bill too? We had some interesting jokes about that which I will refrain from posting on my blog, but you can probably get the idea...

Anime

2005-01-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

Ooo! I still have time to write another entry!

I guess I have to say I'm a fan of Anime. I don't ususally think of myself that way. Bill is REALLY into it, so when I compare myself to him, I'm relatively uninterested. But there are some series that I really appreciate, not only because they are good stories, but because they're refreshingly different.

A few that I really like:

Noir
Azumanga daioh
The Slayers (especially the character Lina Inverse)
Spirited Away (and other stuff by the same director like Totoro and Castle in the Sky)

And while these 4 stories (and characters) are extremely different from each other, they all have something in common that I really like: the main characters are women/girls, they are all well-rounded characters and they all have more important goals than pining after a man. (In Azumanga daioh, there's only one distinct male character, and most of the time, everyone is trying to get away from him because he's creepy and perverted.) In "The Slayers", the main character is a type I have never seen a woman play in any American movie or T.V. show. She's tough, not really "good", not particularly "sexee", but very quick-witted/street smart and wins the day every time.

I don't think of Anime as some kind of bastion of feminism. First, there is big-time sexual objectification of women and girls (though I haven't yet decided if it's worse or the same as most Western stuff). Second, the series that I highlighted here are a few among tons of different series (talking about Anime as a genre is like talking about Hollywood film as a genre). Third, I have occasional "sexism-detector" type issues even with my "favorites".

On the other hand, there are aspects that are nice just because they're different, from a feminist perspective in particular. I remember a discussion on the Ms. Boards where some people were suggesting that powerful or independent or "wild" women in movies (or Western stories generally) are always cut down to size in SOME way. Even, when you think about it, in movies like "Thelma and Louise" or "The Piano". In fact, in the midst of that discussion, no one could think of any movie where a woman was both independent and powerful (or gained independence in the course of events) and did not a) become romantically attached to a male main character (with the distinct sense of losing her independence), b) die tragically, c) have a comeuppance of some sort, or d) act as a sort-of side character with little real significance.

"The Slayers" series in particular turns this pattern on it's head. And I loved watching that. It made a difference for me, even as an adult, watching a silly show, to see myself and my own possibilities differently. It's almost like having a nutritional deficiency of a particular vitamin and then being presented with a food that's mostly junky but just so happens to also have that nutrient your body really needs. And the shows I mentioned are also quite enjoyable in and of themselves, not just feminist soap-boxes.

A Chance to Blog

2005-01-01T08:01:00.000-05:00

OK - it's finally a quiet New Year's Day morning. We let Callista stay up really late so now she's sleeping in. So I can... blog!

I do have a bunch of things I've been wanting to put up here. First being some "UU Absolutions" that I wrote. Apparently, in the back of the UU Hymnal, there are Confessionals (a sort-of prayer where you admit you've done wrong), but no Absolutions (in Christianity, this is where you are assured of God's grace and the fact that Jesus died for your sins). The challenge in such a piece of writing is to have it be spiritual but not specifically God-based, and yet possibly be meaningful to someone who's world view is God-based. Also to not be completely wishy-washy and meaningless. Bonus points for making reference to the natural world. So with that in mind, I had a creative burst of energy (or maybe it was a muse) and came up with a few. I won't argue that these are brilliant. But probably blog-worthy.

PROPOSED UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST ABSOLUTIONS

1) No matter what we have done, no matter how terrible an act we have committed, we can always make the choice here & now for the good. We can turn our souls away from darkness and towards the light. Today's right action may seem like very little when compared to our past failures, or to the failures of the world around us. But the choice of one tiny raindrop in a gigantic thundercloud is part of the universal choice that ends a long and painful drought. This kind of choice is the essence of humanity's salvation.

2) Let us learn to accept our own flaws, so that we may find a way to accept the flawed nature of others. Let us not give up on ourselves or on humanity; let us cling to the hope of a better path, a wider vision, and a truly open circle of love and acceptance for all creation. Let us believe it to be possible.

3) My will is smaller than the web of life; my will is smaller even than its impact on my being. My will cannot change the past, nor can it alone transform the cosmos. My will is weak; I am often a mere channel for what comes to me, passing on to others that which was passed on to me. There is no blame for the smallness of my will: it is simply the truth. But my will is not nothing. Through my will I can, in even one small action, open wider the channels of kindness and love. Through my will I can choose to hold back the flow of hurt and pain. This is my opportunity at every moment.

Not as geeky as I thought... :o(

2004-12-09T11:20:00.000-05:00

You are 25% geek

OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

The New Teletubby

2004-12-02T10:32:00.000-05:00

I heard there was a new teletubby. Jerry Falwell rated him as slightly less offensive than the apparently gay Tinky-Winky. He didn't take too well among kids, but for some reason, parents seem to identify with him.

Name: Thanatos
Sex: Male
Color: Black
Shape on top of head: pentagram
Favorite toy: Blood-filled cauldron
"TV on belly" shows: The video from "The Ring"

Episode appearance 1:

Narrator: La-la bounces her ball
La-la: Uh-oh! La-la ball stuck in tree!
Narrator: Maybe Tinky Winky can help!
Narrator: Tinky Winky throws his bag up in the air.
Narrator: Maybe the bag will knock the ball out of the tree.
Tinky Winky: Uh-oh! Tinky Winky bag stuck in tree!
Narrator: Maybe Dipsy can help!
Narrator: Dipsy throws his hat up in the air to get the bag out of the tree.
Dipsy: Uh-oh! Dipsy hat stuck in tree!
Narrator: Maybe Thanatos can help!
Narrator: Thanatos no! Not that! Aaaaagh!
Narrator: Now the tree is all burnt down. Silly Thanatos!

Episode appearance 2 (spoken by Narrator):

Look! It's Thanatos.
But where are the rabbits?
Thanatos! Do YOU know where the rabbits are?
Thanatos? What did you do to the rabbits?
Oh, Thanatos! What a naughty Thanatos!

Episode appearance 3 (spoken by Narrator):

There's Tinky Winky, playing with his bag! How he loves to play with his bag!
There's Dipsy with his hat. Dipsy loves his hat.
And now here's La-la playing with her ball. Bounce, bounce, bounce. La-la loves her ball!
Look at Po! Po rides her scooter here and there, there and here. She loves her scooter.
Oh, and here's Thanatos! Thanatos is marking off the days with a piece of chalk! Thanatos is waiting for death.

I'm going to Toronto...

2004-11-22T18:17:00.000-05:00

I talked to my best friend last night and she's getting... MARRIED! This SATURDAY! I can't believe it. It was a very spontaneous thing. Anyway, I'm headed to Toronto on Saturday. My best friend (BTW named Yael) is Canadian, which works out very well for her because she's marrying a woman and gay marriage is legal there. I have not met this other woman, so I am a little anxious about the whole thing. Doesn't mean I don't trust her. It's just very weird. They've been together for well over a year, so it's not like she's doing something super-foolish. I guess I just never do things that spontaneously, so it just freaks me out.

The two of them will also be spending a few days with us around Christmas. I don't remember if I told my parents that Yael is gay. And I also am not sure of how they'll react! They're not overtly homophobic (after all they're Kerry-voting anti-war Democrats), but they have some pretty (lets just say) "homophobic leanings".

Since we'll be having my parents and Bill's parents over for Christmas brunch, I think I'll need to make sure they're clear on the situation beforehand. I think they can figure out how to behave politely.

Curses!

2004-11-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

Here's a list of really creative "curses" that Bill came up with in his spare time WARNING: do not read this at work or in public because a few of them are truly rolling on the floor funny... Also, you'll notice that a few of them only apply to males. But that's OK. They're still funny.

May a new form of louse appear on your head and may it be declared an environmentally protected species.

May you unknowingly pick up the annoying habit of saying "I, myself..." every time you speak in the first person.

May you wake up every morning to the sound of gerbils gnawing on tin foil.

May the actual shelf-life of every product you buy be mysteriously reduced by a factor proportional to its cost.

May you experience unexplainable and deep rooted feelings for terror every time that you see an animated pig.

May you be the announced grand prize winner of the "Win a Weekend Getaway in a Mountain Cabin With Richard Simmons" contest every other year, even though you never enter.

May both of your neighbors purchase large, noisy dogs. May both neighbors inexplicably name each of their dogs after you but claim that there is no relation. Furthermore, may the old lady down the street get confused and call the police repeatedly, complaining that several neighbors have told her that YOU were responsible for tearing up her flower beds, taking a dump in her yard, and possibly impregnating her dachshund.

May you get food poisoning every time you eat lettuce.

May a photo of yourself, taken for an unrelated contest at the mall, turn up in a wildly popular Enzyte commercial, portrayed as the "grumpy, whiny guy". Only then do you remember the fine print on the contest entry form, "All photos become the property of Sun Marketing Inc. I give legal consent for my name and likeness to be used in future promotions..."

May the cracks and stains in your driveway begin to resemble the image of Allah. May pilgrims from all over the globe gather in front of your house to witness this wonder. You will get the distinct impression that pulling your car out of the garage would be an act of utmost sacrilege.

May you gain fame for being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for something involving paper cuts.

May the ratings for elasticity and reflectiveness of everything in your house be swapped.

May complete strangers keep pointing to you and saying, "Hey, it's that fungus guy". May they all have wildly differing recollections as to where they saw or heard about you.

May you acquire an overwhelming fascination with baskets.

May you always be assigned the number 23 whenever the opportunity arises.

May you always be the victim of pranksters who switch the sugar and salt in dispensers at restaurants.

Never agree to be hypnotized before an audience or you will surely wind up in jail.

May you become the guidepost by which "out of style" is measured.

May a birthmark shaped like "Mr. Yuk" appear on your forehead.

May you begin receiving dozens of "self help" pamphlets in the mail each week from various organizations and on a variety of topics.

May your nostrils become strangely attractive to ladybugs.

May you have reoccurring dreams about the food dancing around in your refrigerator, then, each time, find food scattered all over the place when you enter your kitchen the next morning.

May the roles of toothpaste and mustard switch roles in regards to your dental health...

Friday's Dream

2004-11-22T18:08:00.000-05:00

I didn't get a chance to write about this, so I'm writing now.

On Friday night (or maybe it was Saturday morning?) I had a dream I was in a city and I saw two beautiful towers being built. Well, I guess it was New York City because then someone told me they were the new trade towers. I have to say there was something very beautiful and uplifting about that dream. It made me feel very hopeful. It almost made me think that maybe some of these awful problems we have in the world might even be solved some day. I know that's a weird thing to think (and truth is, this feeling has faded since Friday...). But then, if we can't visualize a better world, how exactly will we create one?

Anyway, I thought I needed to capture that thought before I moved on to other blog entries...

I'm obsessing about food...

2004-11-18T11:52:00.000-05:00

Today I'm participating in the Fast for a World Harvest (or "Hunger Banquet") set up by Oxfam.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning to go work out and I haven't eaten anything since then (or before then, either).

Wah. (I'm being a baby about it.)

But it fosters awareness, that's for sure. The reality of (even minor) hunger makes clear what others in the world are going through.

I sort-of half forget that I'm not going to be *having* lunch until I remember that I'm waiting for tonight at 6:00 (actually, a little later, because there's a service first). I keep mentioning it to everyone I talk to because I can only think about food right now. Ugh. It's only 12:00.

Wah.

The Brick Testament

2004-11-12T17:42:00.000-05:00

I recently found this web site:

The Brick Testament

It is soooo funny. It's a Bible illustrated with lego bricks. And contrary to what many might think, it is NOT for children. It is also very subversive.

Here's a quick and funny sample:

Benjamin is Born

The Million Moderate March

2004-11-11T11:58:00.000-05:00

I've been witness to a lot post-election angst lately (with people breaking off relations to family members, even!). I think the solution to this is the "Million Moderate March".

I'm half serious, half kidding. But to me that very ambiguity might have tremendous appeal. Speaking of which, here are some potential chants (BTW, I've stolen these from other places...I wish I could take credit):

"Give me ambiguity, or give me something else!"

"Ambivalent? Well, yes and no..."

"We moderates are unique, just like everyone else."

"We're moderately angry and we're not taking it any more!"

"What do we want!! A modest change in fiscal policy. When do we want it!! Over a period of 5-7 years."

If there were such a march, I would definitely go.

Which leader would I be?

2004-11-10T13:27:00.000-05:00

You were Lincoln!

Which Leader Were You in a Past Life?
brought to you by Quizilla

Can't say I'm super-disappointed!

Who's more feminist?

2004-11-09T18:17:00.000-05:00

Last week I walked into a discussion about abortion between my boss and another guy I work with. Now mind you, my boss is a big Bush supporter (he's got a brother who works for Wolfowitz!), a big war supporter, and not in any way shape or form what I would call a progressive feminist. I also would not remotely put the other guy in the "progressive feminist" category (if anything, he'd think "radical feminist" was an insult).

Now, I'm not saying that either of them are "bad people". I have seen and heard of some pretty kind deeds from both of them, and they are both very professional and respectful when it comes to serious interaction with others at work. But they're also the "ha ha let's make racist/misogynist jokes and then say 'we're only kidding, what's your problem?'" types.

Anyway, they happened to both be pro-choice. They both pretty much said that they remembered how bad things were "before Roe", how every child should be wanted, and the "scourge" of teen moms, etc. So this means that they're oh so pro-women, right?

Wrong. There was more to this conversation. (And here, it was mostly with the 2nd guy while my boss stayed relatively silent.) When I asked him if he approved of sex-education (non-abstinence-only), he said no. When I said it was scientifically proven to be more effective (than abstinence-only) at preventing pregnancy, he said he didn't care. To him, apparently, it was the principle of the thing. (huh ???)

Then, at another point in the conversation, he stated (his exact words) that he'd "kill his daughter if she came home pregnant". Thus implying that it would be OK with him if she got an abortion (since he agrees with its legality and even seemed to not have a real moral issue with it), as long as he didn't have to know about it. And also that it would NOT be OK for people to even KNOW she was pregnant (i.e. by making the foolish choice to *have* the baby!)

I want to know what people like Mouse or Ampersand think of this scenario. A "pro-life-ish" feminist arguing with two "pro-choice" anti-feminists? They'd probably think I was talking about Bizzaro World. Except that this was real life.

I happen to think that this is the trend in the abortion debates. Non-feminists are rapidly coming over to the pro-choice side. (e.g. Hugh Hefner, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Arlen Specter)

But what feminists don't seem to realize is that this particular trend is not going to make the non-feminists suddenly more feminist. It's just going to make the reality of abortion much uglier than it already is.

Mark my words: In 10-20 years, the Republican consensus will be saying "you're pregnant? We're not helping you. Just get an abortion. We're OK with that now."

I'm disappointed

2004-11-04T10:47:00.000-05:00

I voted against Bush for two major reasons:

1) The Iraq War (poor timing, dishonest reasons for entering, plus poor post-war handling all add up to one big awful screwup, IMHO)
2) The national debt (sort-of related to #1...)

There were other things I wasn't crazy about with him, but they didn't really worry me so much as these two.

So I was disappointed that he won. In general, I don't like the idea of the Right having such a monopoly of power, as currently seems the case. It doesn't appeal much to my "radical moderate" sensibilities. And I'll say this: there are some *way* better Republicans out there than Bush.

I was also disappointed about the 11 states approving bans on same-sex marriages. I suppose I wouldn't have minded so much if I'd actually heard any kind of logical argument *why* same-sex marriages are such a bad thing to allow. But since I haven't, I can only imagine that it's based on hatred and disgust for homosexuals. And this saddens me greatly.

It seems clear to me that homophobia is rooted in a kind of sexism - one where women are supposed to act one way and men are supposed to act another. Anything that challenges this notion produces a deep sense of anxiety. Heterosexual men seem to especially loathe gay men because somehow it challenges their sense of masculinity.

Boys are taught at a very young age to not be "woman-like" or "girl-like" in any way (it's the worst insult on the playground!). Why is it bad to be like a woman? Well, of course - because women/girls are *INFERIOR*. This notion is often (sometimes literally!) beaten into them by their peers. And they carry this into adulthood, spewing this poisonous attitude on anyone who happens to be in the way.

But wait - isn't it true that girls don't want to be like boys or be called man-like? Well, not really. If you say she LOOKS like a man/boy, sure, that's insulting. But not if you say she acts or thinks like a man. There are some that actually see that as a compliment! (I've been "complimented" like this myself. You can just imagine how pleased I felt...) The main problem people seem to have with lesbians is how they (stereotypically) LOOK, and the fact that they seem to be rejecting men (or the need for men). Overall, I get there sense that there is less outright hatred for lesbians, especially if they're pretty.

Anyway, I have another "political" post in the works. So much for this being a "humor" blog. (But I'm sure there will be more humorous things in the future.)

Luckily, the rest of my life is pretty happy and peaceful. Nothing much to report there.

Two funny things

2004-10-30T06:41:00.000-04:00

At work, Bill had a meeting with the HR department to discuss a new "non-compete" type clause that they now had to sign. Anyway, in the middle of it Bill raised his hand and (not skipping a beat, as usual) said, "Where it says 'one human soul' here, does it have to be our own?" :o) Unfortunately, according to the HR manager, it does have to be your own, which totally stinks...

(just kidding, I think!)

I think Dave Barry is taking a year off. Maybe Bill should be his temporary replacement!

The second thing is a list that Bill and I made up of new Harry Potter titles (in case J.K. Rowling runs out or something). I'll share some of the funnier ones (at least the ones I thought were funny)

Harry Potter: The Urban Legend of Poprocsoda
Harry Potter: Escape from a Fundamentalist
Harry Potter: Minors in VCR repair
"Harry Potter realizes that all this witchcraft and wizardry is hardly going to get him much of a job when he graduates from Hogwarts. Enjoy this wild ride as Harry confronts one of the greatest challenges yet: a Muggle VCR instruction manual..."

Harry Potter: Hermione starts losing her powers once a month
Harry Potter: The Tax Form Labyrinth
Harry Potter: Dispute of the cable bill
Harry Potter: Hogwarts moves to L.A.
Harry Potter: Psycotherapy for the Dursleys
Petunia Dursley finally confronts the issues she has with her sister and why she feels the need to reenact the painful scenario onto Harry and Dudley. Dudley realizes that he eats too much to overcome a deep sense on inadequacy. Peace and tranquility finally find a place in the Dursley household.
Harry Potter: Dumbledore gets a hip replacement
Harry Potter: The Rogaine Nightmare
"If you thought Harry Potter's bad hair problems were terrible before, just wait to see what happens when someone accidentally spills a "hair growth formula" on him in Potions class. Snape is NOT happy..."

Harry Potter: The Tree-Huggers
Harry Potter: Hogwarts library defies the Patriot Act
"Federal agents are trying to determine whether the forbidden section of Hogwarts library has any materials that terrorists might peruse. But Madam Pince won't be having any of it, and the agents are having quite a time getting around some of the spells cast on the books! Real trouble comes when Hogwarts is put on a list of organizations harboring terrorists..."

Harry Potter: The Gryffindor keg party
Harry Potter: The horrible, terrible, no good very bad day
Harry Potter: Clash of the Plaids and Stripes
Harry Potter: The Magic Mushroom Addiction

And someone at work came up with "Harry Potter: Loses his Virginity", which I thought was funny, but I think I've heard it before.

What not to wear

2004-10-27T10:02:00.000-04:00

I've never watched the show "What not to wear", but my gut reaction to the idea is distinctly negative. Apparently, family members &/or friends "volunteer" people as candidates for a makeover and to improve the person's clothing choices. Yesterday someone was telling me how great it was because the people being made over are so happy at the end. I didn't contradict her at the time because it wasn't an appropriate context for argument. However, my first thought was "um... you don't suppose they would only AIR the ones where people are happy at the end???" What about all the candidates who were really pissed off at their so-called "loved ones" for doing such an awful thing to them, and killed them all? (But hey, they would look really good for their mug shot!). Would the show include them?

I'm just waiting patiently for the show where people can nominate their loved ones for a "character makeover" - to teach them to be less judgmental, cruel &/or rude. I think I'll be waiting a long time...

It's been a while...

2004-10-26T13:00:00.000-04:00

I feel like I haven't had a chance to goof on the computer for ages. Problem is, I used to have so much more time in the morning before Callista had started school. But I don't want this blog to become a big nothing! So I thought that maybe I would try to transform it a bit into a humor blog (but not be too strict about that, especially if I happen to find more time). Every day I hear something that makes me laugh or Bill says something hilarious. So I'm going to make an effort to jot down a little note to remind me of what it was and then write it on here. If it's relatively inane, well, who cares?

Last night we were making fun of John Denver's song "you fill up my senses" (which I love, BTW). I think it's an easy target, really, but it was fun. So I took some of the ideas (and I don't remember some of the funnier ones... sigh) and wrote a parody:

You fill up my senses like a hot crowded airport,
like a liver-filled blowpop,
like a box full of bees, like a moldy brown grapefruit,
like a broken down buick.
You fill up my senses, but it's really too much.

Please go away now, let me have a break from you,
let me escape from your laughter, let me die in peace!
like a moldy brown grapefruit, like a broken down buick
I really don't need you, hanging around!

Sad News

2004-10-04T09:36:00.001-04:00

It seems like forever since I've had a chance to write. (Actually, I don't really have a chance now either, but I've been wanting to write this sad news since Wednesday.) Last week, my father-in-law lost his job. I worry because he's rather close to retirement age and I don't really know how easy it will be for him to find another. I'm not privvy to my in-laws general financial situation, and that actually leaves me feeling more anxious for them than I otherwise might. (My mother-in-law works, but I don't know how much she makes or even if she has health insurance through that job.)

Not that my own anxiety is going to be of much help to my father-in-law. I just care about him so much. Even before I married my husband, he treated me like his own daughter. Plus, I know what it's like to lose a job, having lost my job 2 years ago and being out of work for 6 months. Some days you're feeling OK, even a little happy because you no longer have to work any more. Other days, you just feel terribly anxious and depressed because not only are you lacking in money, but you also feel like you've lost your identity and you wonder if people will respect you. I remember wondering (ridiculously) to myself if it was appropriate for me to keep reading "Working Mother" since it obviously was no longer really "meant" for me.

I wish I knew what would happen, so that even if they ended up having to be a little "poorer", at least their lives would be relatively stable and secure. I wish there was something we could do to help. Right now all we've come up with is the pledge to always pay for dinner when we get together with them, and to make clear that we do not need Christmas presents (unless they want to give us something really cheap as a token, which I personally think is fine even if you *aren't* unemployed...). It doesn't seem like very much, but I'm not sure what else is possible.

Switching Gears

2004-09-25T15:03:00.000-04:00

Since it's been a while since I've had a chance to blog, and I don't know when I'll get another chance, I would like to switch gears a moment and talk about something else that's come up recently.

Yesterday, my little brother announced that he has acheived A+ certification.

This was no small feat for him, since he is border-line mentally retarded. I am overwhelmingly impressed, and very proud. I have come a long journey of learning to accept my brother and recognize his value in spite of his disability. And I realize now more than ever that he has many bright paths ahead of him, whether or not I had ever accepted him. I know our parents are thrilled. They're going to throw him a party.

He's like the tortise in the fable. He's exceeded expectations!

We are all connected

2004-09-25T14:53:00.000-04:00

I just came from the memorial service of Katherine Kerns Elder. It was amazing how many lives she touched and the good work she did. As you can imagine (if you view the link), we had a few differences of opinion. But actually, I don't mean that in the way the term "differences of opinion" is usually meant. We never argued with each other about abortion; we knew where each other stood and we simply agreed to find common ground instead. And we had a lot of common ground; a lot of common vision. I feel very touched to have known her. She introduced me to many new religious concepts I had not explored much before. She was a role model and a kind and generous person who encouraged me. She listened compassionatly to me when I lost my job, and made me feel like I was still worthwhile. I admire her work, her love, her being.

I suppose this is why UU is so incredible sometimes. We can admire, encourage, and even love those who seem a world apart in some ways. We can encourage each other in our journeys. Katherine encouraged me and encourages me still to stand up for what I believe, to hold fast to what's right and true in my heart, to have compassion for others, and to believe in the future of this world. How can I feel supported in my own truth by someone who disagrees with me? This is the paradox and the miracle of Unitarian Universalism.

The Ice Cream Store

2004-09-22T22:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a little story I thought of. Much of it is loosely inspired from a long-ago conversation on soc.feminism. Scarily enough, the soc.feminism thing was much longer and drawn out!

First, here's the "key":

Vanilla = full-time homemaker role: "opting out of the rat race"
Chocolate = careerist role: "bringing home the bacon"
Swirl = some aspects of both roles: "a balanced life"

Felicia the Feminist says: It's great that women can have chocolate now. I'm really happy about my own bowl of chocolate here, but...

Charlie the Chauvanist says: Oh, no! Starting up with your feminist whining!

Felicia: Well, vanilla looks good too.

Charlie: Oh, I see. You're unhappy about your choice. Well, tough. That's life. Maybe you should re-think that whole feminist philosophy of yours which encouraged you to choose chocolate.

Felicia: Um... It's not that. I like chocolate. I just think it would be nice if I could have some vanilla too.

Charlie: Hah! You're saying you want both?! You can't have it all, sister. You only have so much time to eat it all.

F: I don't mean that I want two bowls of ice cream. I can't afford two, nor can I eat two whole servings.

C: I've seen a few women do it, though it's really rare.

F: I agree, and I'm not one of those women.

C: So you want something that's impossible.

F: No, I don't think it is impossible. Maybe there's a way to blend the two...

C: How selfish of you. You want everything handed to you. You can't afford two bowls of ice cream. Do you expect everyone else in the shop to foot the bill for your other bowl? And then only eat half of each?

F: No! That's not what I'm asking for.

C: That's what it sounds like to me.

F: What about altering the machine so the two flavors could mix together... a "swirl", perhaps? Do you have any ideas how to do this?

C: Look, there's no real answer to that. You'd be best off just accepting things the way they are. Life has tough choices. You're lucky you even have any choice. It used to be that women could only have vanilla and men chocolate. Now women can choose chocolate too.

F: But what if I like aspects of both flavors?

C: Sounds like your female hormones are giving you a craving for vanilla. You should have considered that possibility before you made your purchase. Feminists are pushing women too hard to choose chocolate, and this is the result. They're wreaking havoc on society because they're not considering hormonal differences!

F: I don't see how hormones are even relevant to this discussion.

C: Hardly irrelevant when you consider statistics ! On average, women have a very strong preference for vanilla & men for chocolate.

F: Hmm. Interesting how vanilla-eaters are so often disrespected.

C: Well, it takes a tough constitution to digest chocolate. In any case, people can't change the way they're hard-wired.

F: OK. Even if what you say is correct, I'd argue that both sexes have some degree of preference for both flavors. Why is it even relevant what people statistically choose? I know I would like a little of both and I know many other women who...

C: There you go again. You feminists just can't stop complaining. Look, YOU CAN HAVE CHOCOLATE NOW, just like men, if that's what you really want. Though I suspect very few women really want it.

F: But consider that women still get dirty looks for choosing chocolate. Never mind the few men who dare to choose vanilla! Come to think of it, did you ever consider that a lot of men might like the "swirl" idea? I bet a lot of people would be happier if it were an option.

C: You mean you would be happier.

F: Well, yes, I would be happier. When I first came into this shop, I was sort-of expecting the "swirl" option, but I wasn't able to articulate it. But even if I could have explained it, it wasn't even there.

C: So, I was right. This is about your own life - your own bitterness. You can't stand the chocolate you chose, but now you're stuck.

F: Hold on a second. I said I like what I have now. Chocolate is very nice. I'm grateful I even have a bowl. But I see other women coming in the store who seem to have the same vague assumption I had that they could combine the two.

C: Selfish, selfish, SELFISH! Who's going to pay for the other bowls of ice cream for all you lovely ladies? Us men?

F: You're clearly not getting my point. Is anyone else in this shop interested in talking about how to modify the ice cream machine so it can make swirl?

C: Duh! You can't change the machine! Who do you think you are? It runs according to natural physical laws that can't be changed.

F: The same sort of engineering that went into the existing machine might be applied to this new idea...

C: You think you're a god or something. Like you can force women to suddenly like chocolate and men to like vanilla.

F: Arrrgh. Does anyone else want to talk about my actual idea?

Some thoughts about Jesus

2004-09-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about the Bush vs. Jesus link that I posted below. A lot of people say that human beings distort the message of Jesus. Which is undoubtedly true, but they usually mean that in a bad way. IMHO, a lot of what we think of as "Jesus's message", both good and bad, is only what other people have made of it. It says more about human nature than it does about the actual person of Jesus. As a good UU, I really believe in the positive aspects of human nature, so I like to give people credit for Jesus. :o)

Train School

2004-09-21T07:42:00.000-04:00

We learned on parent's night that each child in Kindergarten gets their own paper train stuck on the wall. If a child misbehaves, the train is turned a little to say that it's "going off-track". If the child misbehaves again, the train has to go to "train school". Bill & I sort-of chuckled at that. The next day when Callista came home, Bill asked her if anyone had to go to "train school". She looked at him with a suspicious look and said "how do YOU know about train school?" :o) :o)

A few days later, Bill found an old maid card under Callista's bed. Not just any card, but THE old maid card. He asked her why it was under there, away from all her other cards and she said "I don't want to play with THAT card." I guess you can sort-of play without it...

And just this morning, I found a napkin on it that said "I love you, From Mommy". She wrote it on her own napkin for lunch! Last week, I wrote her a similar note, and I guess she really liked it!

By the way, so far, my fears about her being bored in Kindergarten have not been realized. We're staying aware, though.

Cute stories

2004-09-21T07:28:00.000-04:00

Now that I finally have a chance to sit down at the computer, I would like to quickly throw out a bunch of stories at once.

First, the cat story. Two mosquitoes flew into our door one night and one of our cats (Jiji) caught one of them right away. The other mosquito flew high up into a corner of the ceiling. It was no less than half an hour that our other cat (Jubei) watched it intensely, waiting for it to come down. When it finally did come down (on the other side of the wall), it came right down near Jiji and he quickly scarfed it up! We felt so bad for Jubei that we half considered opening the door to let in another mosquito...

Controversy in UU

2004-09-16T07:52:00.000-04:00

Last night I went to the RE (religious education) teacher's orientation at Buxmont. There was a moment when the conversation started to get a little heated. Can you guess what it was about?

Actually, it was about doughnuts, and whether or not they are an appropriate snack for the youngsters. This issue comes up every year, but this was the first I've seen it so tense! See, in a Christian church, when someone questions your doughnut policy, you just say "God decreed that it be so" and the argument is over. In UU, you have to actually talk it through, take into consideration the dissenters point of view, etc. Problem is, some people just don't understand that a doughnut is a "holey" food at Buxmont... If we had a communion-type ritual, I think it would be with doughnuts and coffee instead of bread and wine...

Anyway, I am teaching a class about heretics. It occurred to me that maybe UU should change their name to "Unitarian Universalist Heretic Heathens" in which case the acronym would be "Uuhh...." :o) :o)

Life's little ironies...

2004-09-13T10:39:00.000-04:00

This morning as I was coming in to work, I got behind an old guy in a fancy-looking convertible. Wouldn't you know it - his blinker was on the whole time!

Thinking about eating meat

2004-09-12T08:55:00.000-04:00

A long time ago, I meditated on the idea of whether humans eating meat was morally acceptable and I concluded that it was, so long as the animal was still respected as a living being. I hate hearing how animals are so badly mistreated on "factory farms". I mean, it's true that they're going to die, but is that any reason to treat them as if they have no intrinsic value other than for food, completely oblivious to any pain they might feel during their lifetime?

I think that animals should be treated with respect, even from a legal perspective. Maybe not given rights as a full human being, but something. For example, I think it should be illegal to shoot your dog one day, just because you feel like it. Severe mistreatment or neglect of pets should also be illegal.

Yesterday I was talking to someone about this subject, and he (a vegetarian) was asking "what moral authority do we have to kill animals?" I'm still pondering this, actually. My first thought is that it's not a matter of moral authority as much as an issue of moral boundaries. Saying an animal is of "less value" than a human being is not necessarily saying this fact comes from any source of authority as much as saying this being is "not human". If you went really far with it, you could ask what gives the moral authority to kill plants? I would say that plants are nothing like a human being, so there's no dilemma whatsoever. On the other hand, it is dangerous to our moral sensiblities to allow the wanton killing &/or mistreatment of creatures we see as near human. In U.S. culture, there's a tendency to humanize animals in literature and media while simultaneously depriving the real beings of even the slightest respect for their intrinsic life. That seems really messed up.

What's my point here? I don't have one really, because I'm still trying to think this through.

This is why I love MAD Magazine!

2004-09-10T20:47:00.000-04:00

Bush vs. Jesus
http://dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/131837/777

Yikes! Am I a hypocrite???

2004-09-10T13:47:00.000-04:00

I don't want another kid. But what if I became accidentally pregnant? How does this mesh with my "pro-abortion restriction" philosophy? Would that possibly change how I feel & think about abortion? I don't think so. First of all, I'm taking fairly stringent precautions right now to prevent pregnancy. But I recognize that pregnancy is one of the risks of sexual intercourse. If for some reason, the precautions I'm taking don't work, I am fully prepared to take on the responsibility for the child that results. (And I'd expect my spouse to fully accept responsibility in the same manner.)

In my personal situation, that would probably involve keeping (and fully loving & accepting) the child. If I truly didn't think I could handle that possibility, I would plan to put the child up for adoption. If I thought I simply couldn't handle a pregnancy at all, I would either a) refrain from sex, b) get sterilized, or c) only have sex with men who are sterilized (i.e. ask my husband to get a vasectomy). All the while pushing even harder for development of temporary birth control that's as reliable as sterilization. Unfortunately, with our current technology, penile/vaginal sex carries the risk of bringing a new life into the world. The life in question is not, IMHO, the mother's personal property. There may be reasons to end the life, but they need justification.

When I was young, before I decided to engage in sexual intercourse, I very carefully considered how I would handle the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy. Knowing the risk, I decided that adoption was the way I'd go. In college, I had a pregnancy scare. It really made me understand what it might feel like to have an unwanted pregnancy. The experience is a major source of the sympathy I feel for women facing this. At the time, as I pondered the possibility, I felt a *tremendous* pull to have an abortion, as much as I had already decided against it. I feared facing the world as an "inappropriately" pregnant woman, and abortion seemed like the magical solution to all of that.

In the end, that experience girded me even more strongly against a powerful cultural force: abortion as a solution to the messy fact of women's reproductive capacity, without having to change any fundamental social structures. This trend seems to be worsening as more and more Republicans are becoming pro-choice: "Hey, you're pregnant but you can't afford it? Well, we're certainly not going to help pay, or provide any social support. But we're very happy to grant you the right to kill the kid! And now we can completely wash our hands of the matter! What? You don't want an abortion? What's your hangup?"

Anyway, I realize that an unplanned pregnacy would be easier to handle now than when I was in college. Certainly it would be smiled upon more. It wouldn't be my choice, but it would be like anything in life that can't be controlled. Say I wanted a child, but it turned out to be a disabled child. Not my choice, but I would do everything in my power not to resent him or her for that fact.

One and only one

2004-09-10T13:41:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been getting all sorts of subtle and overt messages that I should be having another kid (from relatives, aquaintances, etc.) I'd always comforted myself with the notion that by having only one child, at least I'm not contributing to overpopulation.

Well, this article rips that security blanket right off me!

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/P92820.asp?GT1=5100

You'd think this guy never heard of pollution or scarcity of resources! At least he made a point not to blame "selfish women".

Anyway, right now is not a time I would choose to have a child, but I wrestle with all sorts of guilt over this choice. If I don't ever have another child, my daughter will have to live with the fact that not only does she not have siblings, she doesn't even have cousins (I have about a zillion cousins, so I can't imagine this). And like the parents who decide to have another kid to get bone marrow to save their eldest, I'm thinking of it only in terms of what's best for her. Here's what each part of me says:

Mind: Duh. You don't want another kid. You don't want to contribute to overpopulation. As much as your first child strengthened your relationship with your SO, a second kid would probably weaken it. You need freedom and time to yourself. There's nothing even remotely selfish about not reproducing. Probably the opposite is true. It's both immoral and ridiculous to bring another child into the world just for Callista's sake.

Heart: Am I hurting my daughter? What if I change my mind later and my daughter is too old to be really close to her sibling? Or worse, that I wait too long and have infertility problems? What if I'm old and I look back on my life wishing I had more kids? How will I feel if my daughter dies? (I know, this is extremely morbid.) What if my SO and I become sick and feeble or die early and my daughter has to take care of us alone or live a life with no immediate family?

Soul: I have no desire for another child.

Mind & soul agree against... heart? Two out of three would easily close the book on this subject, right? Wrong. For some reason, that's not the way it works. My heart is very sensitive to outside pressure, especially around subjects related to Callista. So I've been riding an emotional roller coaster on this one.

IRONIC TWIST: My staunchly pro-choice mom is the main person pressuring me to "have another" (though, to her credit, it hasn't come up lately). I'd love to know what she'd think if I got pregnant and decided to abort...

First Day of Kindergarten

2004-09-08T07:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was Callista's first day of Kindergarten. She was all about proving that she knew everything already. The sad thing is that probably already does know most of the academics. I'd much rather she felt she was average or even slightly below the other students so that her overconfidence wouldn't turn to laziness and then into boredom. I want her to be excited about learning and not think that being smart is an end in itself. Unfortunately, I get caught up in that mentality myself.

But she had fun. We'll see how the year goes.

Weekend Thoughts

2004-09-06T17:31:00.000-04:00

Saturday we went up to visit my grandmother in Staten Island. I had a good time, though Callista (and Bill for that matter) were getting rather bored. I think part of the reason I enjoyed myself more is a) she's part of my family, so I have history to talk about (unlike Bill) b) I like talking generally and c) I get along better with old people than most.
On tolerance.org, thay have an interesting little game. On the ageism one, I actually rated as having a bias in favor of older people (in terms of their competence and benevolence). It was weird because I think the typical reaction is to have a bias in favor of young people. Well, it's hardly super-scientific, IMHO. It's just interesting.

Sunday I led a song at my fellowship called "Step by Step". I love this song! I like singing it as a duet better, but I need to find someone who will sing it with me.

Step by step the longest march
Can be won, can be won
Many stones to form an arch
Singly none, singly none
And by union what we will
Can be accomplished still
Drops of water turn a mill
Singly none, singly none

Well, I've had a good weekend so far. Kindergarten is coming up tomorrow!

Could I be a moderate?

2004-09-02T19:47:00.000-04:00

Some of my opinions just ride the fence:

1) Guns: The right to own a gun is an important one. But I'm not at all into "gun culture" and I support certain types of (IMHO) reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.

2) Environment:
- Animal rights (Treat animals with respect, factory farms are bad, mistreating pets should be illegal)
- But...Animal rights not equal to human rights
- Protection of environment is extremely important
- But...Should always be for the sake of humans and their livelihoods (both short and long-term).

3) Freedom of Speech: There are good reasons to restrict certain types of speech in pubic arenas. Primarily when it's hate speech, or violent/sexual content that might disturb children. Sometimes that puts me in the liberal camp; sometimes the conservative. Chalk this one up to becoming a parent... (BTW, when I say "restrict", I don't always mean "ban".)

4) Health Care in the U.S.: OK - something needs to change. Just please do not try to impose any idealized agenda (whether insanely free market or socialist) on this one. A pragmatic approach is the only reasonable one here!

5) Outsourcing/Globalization: Not a bad thing IF citizens and world leaders have as their *primary* goal to improve the lives of all human beings on this planet. And they are regularly assessing the impact of each and every globalizing policy toward this end.

6) Lifestyle includes:
- middle class income (actually, high, but in a high-priced area)
- a "normal" car (Mazda 6) - not a Volvo or a hybrid, not a gas-guzzling SUV
- "normal", boring clothes
- like (and dislike) all different sorts of films, from independent/artsy to mass-culture blockbusters
- like most types of music. Especially enjoy classical; don't like country or rap (with a few exceptions)
- many boring "suburban" activities (like shopping at Target)
- watching "The Simpsons"
- a modest townhome
- reading "Newsweek"
- appreciating the work and dedication of our politicians, no matter what party
- moderate/independent friends

Thus I conclude that "radical moderate" is the only reasonable description of my politics...

Could I be a conservative?

2004-09-02T19:44:00.000-04:00

OK - here's why I'm not really *so* liberal.

1) Abortion: I do not agree in the "right to choose" philosophy related to abortion. While I wouldn't want an abortion ban, I do support certain types of legal restrictions. I'm not an extremist as far as the law is concerned. I even think the "morning after" pill should be available OTC. (And I wouldn't cut funding to overseas family planning groups if I were president.) But I am aghast at the rhetoric which seems to pit mother against fetus, assuming the fetus has no rights whatsoever, or that it is just a "thing". Morally, I am really quite opposed to abortions which occur after the first couple of months of pregnancy. My husband agrees with me, but very few in my family or circle of friends does (including in-laws!). This is a hard opinion to maintain in such an environment.

2) Death Penalty: Sometimes it's the only option that makes sense. It is always a tradgedy and should be seen as a failure of society, but there are crimes like torturing and/or murdering children where I can see no other option. It needs to be rarely, carefully, and justly applied, as much as this is humanly possible.
This may seem hypocritical given my opinion about abortion, but here's how I would lay it out:
- Human life is valuable.
- But sometimes the existence of certain lives weighs unbearably on others.
- When lives are taken, there had better be a really good reason, and it should happen rarely.
This is what I apply to any question about the right to kill other human beings.

3) School Choice: I like the idea, if only the agenda behind it were not a religious one. Not that religious schools should necessarily be exempt; I just wish that there was more to the issue than promoting Catholicism (or preventing that promotion).

4) Big Business: Most businesses and business leaders (even global conglomerates) are doing activities that are a net benefit to humanity. And this is at least a part of their intention (beyond pure profit).

5) Taxes/Economic Policy: Many rich people are deserving of what they have, because they worked very hard for it and planned, saved, etc.. Society should make extra-sure it rewards this kind of behavior. Also, many rich people are very kind and generous and do a great deal of good in the world, just like many poor and middle-class people.

6) Sexual issues: As much as I believe in acceptance of homosexuality, I can see how it could *very easily* lead to acceptance of things like polyamory and consensual incest between adults. I have concerns about both of these types of arrangements, while not outright rejecting or hating those who practice them.

7) Lifestyle:
- Very little alcohol consumption
- No cigarettes or illegal drug use *ever*
- Only have had sexual intercourse with one person (spouse) in lifetime (without feeling guilty about it)
- Know a LOT about NASCAR (including various trivial facts)
- Know a LOT about the Bible (including various trivial facts)
- Would never dream of disrespecting an American flag (but don't get me started about const. amendments!)
- Enjoy reading "Reader's Digest"
- Occasionally bemoan what I see as a "moral decline" in society. ("Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?!!?") Though to clarify: I don't believe in making laws about it.
- conservative friends

So I have views and attributes that are just all over the map... But wait! There's more...

Could I be a liberal?

2004-09-02T19:42:00.000-04:00

Here's where I agree with liberal politics (at least what I think are typical liberal beliefs):

1) International relations: I see myself as a world citizen, not only as a citizen of the U.S.

2) War: You don't just go around declaring war on other countries and killing scads of innocents (let alone your own soldiers) without a *really good reason*. (Note: There aren't that many good reasons.) You certainly don't give passionate speeches about "the sanctity of human life" once you've done this!

3) The Downtrodden: I very much want to end (or at least reduce) oppression of all forms, and I want to create equal opportunities for all people as much as possible.
I'm especially concerned about:
- Institutionalized &/or "subtle-but-deadly" sexism.
- Institutionalized &/or "subtle-but-deadly" racism.
- The deep hostility in U.S. culture against homosexuals. (Also, I support same-sex marriage.)
- The deep hostility in U.S. culture against other marginalized groups: fat people, mentally ill, physically/mentally disabled
- Children growing up in poverty (people in general, also, of course, but especially children)

4) Economic Policy: Should primarily focus on creating the foundation for people to live decent, productive lives, and to provide equal opportunities. It should NOT focus primarily on GDP growth or efficiency for its own sake.

5) Political Correctness: So often and easily maligned, but usually one could substitute the phrase with "politeness" or "consideration for others". Not saying outrageous examples of political correctness don't exist. But often something that seems silly to one person makes sense to someone else, or the thought behind the "politically correct" idea is not well known or understood. (I read something once which listed the word "chairperson" as an example of out-of-control political correctness. But "chairperson" sounds perfectly normal and reasonable to me.) Sometimes simply agreeing to terms someone else would prefer, out of kindness, makes the most sense on many levels. If it seems difficult to use "politically correct" terms (whether they're offensive in themselves or cause undue hardship with little obvious benefit), it's a good occasion to discuss this with the person making the request. Not just dismiss their concerns while feeling smug and satisfied with yourself!

6) Crime: I'd like to see crime prevented with money spent on community development rather than prisons. I'm horrified by the imprisonment rate in the U.S, especially when compared to other countries.

7) Lifestyle (these are meant to be silly):
- low meat diet
- shop at "Whole Foods" market
- enjoy sushi
- cohabitation before marriage (without feeling guilty about it)
- UU as a religion
- teach a jr. high sex-ed class (not abstinence-only) at my UU congregation
- split household chores evenly with spouse (we are equally lazy...)
- kept birth name upon marriage (among many other "card-carrying feminist" lifestyle choices)
- watch (and enjoy) "The Daily Show"
- lots of reading (I could be viewed as an intellectual if one squints hard enough)
- long, "hippie" hair style
- liberal friends

I sure seem liberal! But then, see the next post.

Politics

2004-09-02T19:39:00.000-04:00

What am I? who am I?

One would assume from my previous posts that I must be a super-left wing liberal. After all, my religious views are so unconventional, I'm such a strong feminist, etc. But I don't identify as a "Liberal". I call myself "radical moderate".

Usually, when people say "radical", they mean passionate. Well, I am passionate, but that's not what I mean. The root of the word "radical" is..."root". Radicals want to change society at it's roots, or to "uproot" things and replace it with a new structure.

I see myself as a radical, because I see so many things that need to change on a very deep level. But I am a moderate because I don't fall into group thinking about what those specific changes should be. Rather, my ideas fall somewhere in the MIDDLE (root meaning of the word moderate) of the current political spectrum. Probably the left side of middle, but with plenty of room to swing in either direction.

Some might wonder how I expect to have any influence in all the profound changes I want without allying myself to a big group. First of all, the "big groups" out there always seem happy to accept my monetary donations, regardless of my other opinions. They also accept my volunteer efforts in a similar, non-questioning manner. Second, the most effective political change IMHO, involves just talking to people, treating them well, influencing them to vote (hopefully in favor of your ideas) and of course, voting regularly oneself. Often I wish I could devote more of my "workday" time to various "good causes". But with family responsiblities and the general need to earn a living, I struggle to content myself with donations, volunteer efforts, and, um... writing in a web log.

More on Motherhood

2004-09-01T15:19:00.000-04:00

I don't know whether or not Callista will follow in my feminist footsteps or not. One day about a year ago, she piped up that "girls can't be doctors". I wasn't 100% sure where she got this, but I suspect a kid at daycare may have said something. The incredible irony of this is that there are two women in our four-person pediatrician's group who she's seen just as often as the men. Amazingly, the messages she gets from culture about things are actually more powerful than *reality*!

I have since "proven" to her that women can in fact be doctors (and that there are many women doctors and even men nurses). She's also learned a couple of other lessons:

1) Girls and boys can like any colors (i.e. don't make fun of boys about pink)
2) Girls can be anything they want to when they grow up (except Dads)
3) It's good to grow big and *strong* (so far, she's never questioned this one)

I do think she's coming around. Possibly even turning into a little feminist. Once I found a paper in her room which said "For Boys" on it in red crayon. I asked her what it meant, and she said "boys at her daycare said girls can't like red, so this is for them."

Also, she once came running happily proclaiming "Mommy, I got fuzzies on my legs, JUST LIKE YOU!" I'm pretty lackadasical about shaving my legs. Not that it *never* happens. It's just not a priority. In any case, I felt a tender regard for her sweet innocence. I reacted by saying "That's great! You're really becoming a BIG girl!"

So we'll see. Whether or not she's feminist isn't something I can truly control. My hope for her would be that she a) has a happy life, b) uses just means to acheive said happiness and c) knows how to think critically so that she doesn't fall into traps that promise long-term happiness, but fail to deliver. Thinking critically in
life is like knowing how to steer your boat in an ocean - you'll inevitably be tossed around in ways you can't control, but you need to be able to navigate somewhat so you can keep yourself afloat. That's all I truly want for her. I'm crossing my fingers...

Motherhood

2004-08-31T10:00:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been thinking about this poem in relation to motherhood/parenthood:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so he loves
also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran

I was listening to the rendition of this poem in song (by "Sweet Honey in the Rock") with my 5-yo daughter the other day. When I asked her if she agreed with the song, she said "NO!" It took me a few seconds of mild annoyance at her obvious misunderstanding and ridiculous stubborness to capture the irony of that exchange. I laughed with the light, bubbly laughter of bemused self-recognition, which seemed to irritate her for some reason. It only made the whole thing funnier.

Unitarian Universalism

2004-08-27T14:22:00.000-04:00

My church (fellowship) is an incredible community. And my faith (Unitarian Universalism - also known as UU) is one I will never relinquish, at least as far as the principles and core beliefs are concerned. Are there flaws, misconceptions, hypocrisies, and otherwise annoying behaviors among UUs? Absolutely. And that's just counting my own contribution!

I have always been UU, really, since I had any real religious consciousness. I was raised... "Christian" (Anglican, Presbyterian, and a smidgen of Catholic schooling.) I encountered numerous people during this experience that I hold in very high regard and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

But I never could really call myself a Christian, because I never really believed that Jesus was God. I had (and still have) a great deal of respect for what Jesus said. I was a mega-pacifist as a child because I knew that this was Jesus' message. What *would* Jesus do, after all? Would he ever agree to dropping a bomb on *anyone*? No matter how bad or irredeemable that person might seem? Let alone children? Anyway, my motivation in holding these beliefs was to play the part of a real, bona-fide Christian. Well, I'm not. My values are mostly Christian ones, yes. After all, just being part of U.S. culture is going to involve some incorporation of Christian values. But I am at the core UU. Ironically, my (overt) pacifist political stance kind-of faded away along with the pretense of my Christianity. (Especially ironic since UU as a denomination is much more "pacifist-leaning" than Presbyterianism...)

My mind: Says pacifism is not always the answer, not even usually the answer, maybe it's... occasionally the answer... should be considered as a possible answer in certain situations.

My heart: Cries for justice and defense of decent people *however* that may be acheived. (My heart is kind-of a crybaby about political stuff generally, and I don't usually count on it in the voting booth...)

My soul: Well, my soul is still pretty darn pacifist (I recognized this on 9/11... I'm assuming here that your soul is located in your gut.)

So I'm a "closet pacifist". And I go around defending war-supporters in my congregation - go figure.

But while my soul retains some lingering childhood beliefs, I have never, at any time, with heart mind or soul, accepted that Jesus is God. Nor do I accept God as He is commonly presented. And I don't regard the Bible as a Holy Book; my respect for it is the same as that for any other religious document and no more. (Reading "The Happy Heretic" or "The Skeptic's Bible" sometimes gives me solace, though I'm not an athiest.)

I *can* say that I have known God, though I cannot define God. (The only thing I will insist is true about God is that no one else *really* knows anything either.) My most recent self-challenge has been to break the habit of thinking of God as male, primarily by intentionally visualizing Her as female. This practice has helped me in many ways to break other habits of conceptualizing God - habits that limit understanding and true connection with a force that simply says "I am that I am". For example, is God all about order and symmetry and grand cathedrals and Bach cantatas? Is God a mighty and ominous figure? They say "God is all-powerful." Well, what is power? Can it be held by a round-bellied matron? Can God be found in a spider that's missing a few legs and yet still striving to survive on the jungle floor? (stolen from Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible") Can God be found in childbirth, that messy, slimy, painful, primal process which yeilds a life - a life
screaming, clawing, weak and vulnerable, yet so beautiful. Of course God is there. This kind of thing is mostly where God can be found. Can I love this God with all my heart, mind & soul? Yes, I can, and I do. And I continue to seek even greater understanding.

Thankfully, UU is a place where I can safely explore these ideas, and many others. It might seem rather chaotic from the outside. Actually, it's rather chaotic from the inside too. But it's worth considering that many of the "weird" ideas accepted by Unitarians and Universalists in the 18 & 19th centuries are now fundamental principles of American philosophy, rarely questioned even by the Religious Right. Food for Thought.

Why am I first a feminist?

2004-08-25T11:16:00.000-04:00

I think my response hit a nerve with the guy at work who sent me the "nagging" article. He gave me the old, tired idea about how feminists are always looking for problems in everything, acting out their anger from childhood, and there's never any hope for happiness in their lives - just frustration and bitterness. I honestly don't know if he was kidding or serious, but it didn't matter. The argument was just ridiculous.

Feminism is my favorite cause. Though it may not address every problem in the world, it really addresses so many. If it were possible to get rid of sexism completely, I honestly think that people's lives would be vastly improved. And when I think about it, I realize that my co-worker is half right about anger being part of my motivation. I'm angry about things I personally have experienced due to sexism, and not just in my childhood. And I'm even more angry when I see other women enduring similar things and worse. Let alone the fact that men often lose out too (Some argue with me that this is a reason I should stop beign "so angry" - because "men are hurt by sexism too", as if they think my cause is to equalize suffering as opposed to ending it!)

Blatant mistreatment of women may come from just a few men who are simply selfish and mean, who take advantage of their priviledge and power. But it's mental inertia (from otherwise well-meaning men and women) that keeps those power structures in place. It's hard to envision different possibilities and to change one's habits of thought. Easier to deny other's suffering and pretend that your own isn't really that bad.

I find solace in doing something about this, even if what I do is really very little. There's purpose in making things even a little bit better. Maybe that means I'll never be truly content with my life because I see sexism "everywhere". The truth is, when I don't speak up about what's right - that's when I'm frustrated. When I finally say something, even if it's not well received, even if it's not perfectly written or very original, that's when I'm able to relax and enjoy life.

Here's a quote I found from the (now defunct) Ms. Magazine web boards:

"Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions... for safety on the streets... for child care, for social welfare... for rape crisis centres, women's refuges, reforms in the law." (If someone says) 'Oh, I'm not a feminist,' (I ask) 'Why? What's your problem?'" - Dale Spender

I'm so glad I copied a bunch of stuff that I liked from those boards, because it's all lost now! Unfortunately, most of the quotes have no attributions. Well, blogging isn't "real" publishing, right? And if, by some insanely remote chance someone reads a quote I copied and recognizes it, they can always let me know they said it and I'll be happy to give credit.

Here's something else from the Ms. Boards:

I'm a feminist because one day I discovered that the rest of the world doesn't think equality is obvious.

I'm a feminist because I had enough of being treated like a sweet little girl and having my opinions dismissed.

I'm a feminist because I can't stand to see my beautiful, smart friends agonizing about their weight, dumbing themselves down, erasing themselves for guys. It's awful.

I'm a feminist because this world leaves me no other choice.

I'm a feminist because I'm anti-bullshit in general, and in my life, I see a lot of anti-woman mentalities.

I'm a feminist because I believe in equality, for all people to be seen as people, and not a role, not a thing, not a race, not a group, and certainly not a stereotype.

Well, I can't agree with these more. Feminist is the first way I describe myself.

Just for fun

2004-08-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I read articles from women.msn.com because they always seem so full of bad, sexist advice. Maybe I like to torture myself.

This one was sent to me by a co-worker: http://women.msn.com/806748.armx?GT1=4529

Here's my response to him: (He thought it was funny. Maybe a little scary. But he sent it along to his wife and sister, for whatever that's worth.)

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Mary Ann says: "If I have to look at your tools in the front yard for one more day, I'm going to scream."

Love says: "I'd like to make the place look nice for my book club. So sometime this weekend, could you bring your tools into the garage?"

Barb says: "Oh look! Here comes the trash truck. Bye bye tools that used to be in the front yard!"

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Donna says: "If you spent as much time playing sports as you did watching them, you might be able to lose some weight."

Love says: "I've decided I want to get in better shape, and I thought it would be fun if we did something together."

Barb says: "See ya later! I'm off to my work out with my new personal trainer...he's so strong and muscular, I'm bound to get in shape!

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Rachel says: "You bought another piece of stereo equipment? How the hell do you expect to send our kids to college if you're blowing all this cash on junk?"

Love says: "I'm getting a bit worried that we're not saving enough for the kids' education. Could we sit down sometime this week and go over our finances?"

Barb says: "You owe $X to the joint account, which covers bills, retirement and college. If you don't want to pay it, feel free to buy stereo equipment for your own damn apartment."

Tom says: "If we're going to get into a big thing about who's spending what, then I'd like to have all the numbers in front of me. I'm willing to compromise but she has to, too. Because frankly, those highlights she gets aren't cheap."

Barb says to Tom: "Hope you like gray hair! Oh, and also hairy legs and pits, because razors aren't cheap, either, y'know."

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Nora says: "Are you planning something special for my birthday?"

Love says: "You know what I would love to do for my birthday..."

Barb says: "I'm expecting a surprize party for my 30th birthday, and it better be good."

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Olivia says: "What do you mean you're going for a bike ride? Your parents are visiting next weekend and we still haven't repapered the upstairs bathroom."

Love says: "Why don't we spend a couple of hours straightening things up, and then we'll take a bike ride."

Barb says: "If your parents see fit to complain about the ugly bathroom, they can go look in the dirty old mirror up there and remember who raised you. I refuse to do their nagging for them!"

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And once your man does what you ask -- or better yet, takes the trash out on his own -- Love says it's crucial to give him positive feedback.

"Acknowledge and appreciate any activity that moves in the right direction. And be sure to listen to his point of view. Because sometimes taking a bike ride is actually what you both need to be doing."

Barb says: "This is wonderful advice for raising a child. Or a puppy."

Barb also says: "Will there never be a time when I need positive feedback for doing chores, because, well, I don't always feel like doing them? Or a time when he needs to hear my point of view in favor of slacking off? Nah. That might mean I'm not a perfect wife and mother, or even worse: that I don't want to be!"

Introduction

2004-08-24T12:29:00.000-04:00

I am:

A feminist
A Unitarian Universalist
A mother
A "radical moderate" (And would have chosen "theradicalmoderate" as my blog title if I *could* have, but it's taken)
A full-time computer programmer

At some point I will go into more detail on these, when I feel like it.