Busted

And this, oh Susan, is why you should finish your milk BEFORE leaving the table:

It also may explain why you have whiskers in your milk.

Just What We Need: A Building at Frontier Park

Pardon me while I rant.

The people of Erie seem to know how to enjoy Frontier Park pretty well.  On a nice day, there may be cross country and track teams of all ages running.  There are bunches of kids on the playgrounds, tennis players, walkers, joggers, and other nature lovers.  In the winter, people go sledding there.  It seems like a nice outdoor park.  In fact, it is so nice that often it is hard to find parking.

So naturally, someone wants to put a building there.  Not just a few restrooms, which would be a big improvement on the port-a-potties that are there now.  Apparently, we also need a classroom, because we can’t just enjoy the outdoors; we have to be “educated” about them, and if kids are having a field trip at the park, they may need to go inside due to bad weather.  The building will also have restrooms and some office space for the L.E.A.F. (Lake Erie Arboretum Foundation).

The $ 1,000,000, as usual, is from state grants, so everyone can claim it is “free” money, and no one has to worry too hard about whether the building is needed, or is just on someone’s wish list.

Does the state really have so much excess money that it should spend another $1 million on something like this?  I thought we had a budget crisis at just about every level of national, state, and local government.  A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you have a substantial amount of money.  Is it just possible that we should wait until tax revenues are meeting expenses before spending money on things we have done perfectly well  without for the last few decades?

Also, is it really a good idea to build an office in the middle of the park?  There is plenty of empty office space in Erie, and it is located in already existing buildings where parking is already available.  On a snowy or icy winter day, the office in the park will be difficult to get to.

Finally, why can’t we just have an outdoor park where people do stuff outside?  Why does there have to be an “educational center?”  Wouldn’t it be better for people to enjoy the outdoors, rather than think they have to learn about it all the time?

Punxsutawney Philandering

If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you have a job, or school, or some other obligations that require you to get up and face the world, shadow or no shadow, on February 2.

But if you are a dumb hibernating mammal, and your chief career ambition is to find a mate before a car or a farmer’s bullet finds you, why wouldn’t you just sleep in?  Unless, of course, you lived in Punxsutawney and had cameras shoved in your face.

The answer, of course, is, well, to put it delicately, finding a mate.  After all, if you are short, fat, live in a real hole in the ground, have orange buck teeth,  and hair all over your body, you can’t even spin your Facebook profile to appear desirable.  You have to take matters into your own paws and go out and face the world.

That is why male groundhogs come out of hibernation earlier than the females.  They wake up, smell the coffee, and check out the neighborhood to find out where the females’ burrows are.  Then they may decide to crawl into a female’s burrow to spend the night. 

No hanky-panky takes place during these meetings.  After all, the females are still hibernating, and their body temperatures can be as low as 39 F.  It will take them a while to warm up to any male attention.  It’s a wonder they don’t just slap the males.

However, this meeting serves as an introduction, and when the females wake up in the spring, the males can use that  “haven’t I seen you before” pickup line without totally lying through their teeth.

My single male readers should not use the groundhog’s methods of finding a mate, but they can take heart in knowing that even if you are not the smartest, richest, fastest, or handsomest guy around, there can still be someone for you, and an enterprising spirit is often rewarded, particularly if you are working while others sleep.

Martha Coakley: The Worst Candidate Ever

It is just possible that the U.S. Senate seat that has belonged to the Kennedys for the last million or so years will go to a Republican.  In normal times, this event would be about as unlikely as Barack Obama winning a race for Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.  But Scott Brown, the Republican sacrificial lamb who should be getting 30% of the vote in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, is running a spirited campaign and is now leading in the polls.  If he loses, it may only be because the voters in the cemetery are not listening to him.

I hate to jinx Scott Brown, but I can’t help but writing a bit about his opponent Martha Coakley, the Attorney General of Massachusetts, who may possibly be the Worst Candidate Ever.  Even if I were a die hard Democrat, I would have a hard time rooting for her.  Here are a few reasons why.

1)  It is OK for me to misspell Massachusetts, because I don’t live there.  But Martha Coakley ran an attack ad against her opponent, only to pull it down a bit later because the state’s name was spelled wrong.  As my kids would say, “Smoothe….”

2)  In another attack ad, she accused Scott Brown of not caring about rape victims.  The ad has pictures of many women who are supposed to represent the rape victims that Scott Brown would allegedly kick out of the emergency room.  Other than being a cheap shot, this ad has many problems, and may even have broken some laws.

If these women are real rape victims, their pictures should not be revealed without consent, which she almost certainly did not get.  You know, there are rules about privacy and all that. Running this ad would be rather insensitive to rape victims.

However, the picture looks like a modified ad from Classmates.com.  In that case Classmates.com may not be amused, and the girls pictured there might not like the implication that they are rape victims.

3)  Sometimes your mouth opens and something comes out that reveals how clueless you really are about the area that you want to represent.  If you want to represent an area, you should probably know something about it.  So, for example, if you lived around Pittsburgh, you would have to live in a cave to not know who Ben Rothlisberger is, and if you called him a Browns fan, that would indicate a certain cluelessness and unfitness to govern.

So when Martha Coakley called Curt Schilling, the Boston Red Sox pitcher who pitched in the World Series with a bloody sock,  a “Yankees fan,” that was a sign of stupidity almost as bad as going to the Vatican and asking why the Pope’s yarmulke is white.

4) At other times, your mouth opens and you show that you don’t know much about the rest of the world either.  Like when you say in a debate that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan, and then later when you have the chance, you don’t admit that you erred.

4)  Sometimes, your friends don’t help much either.  Like when you bring Patrick Kennedy in to speak on your behalf, and he GETS YOUR FIRST NAME WRONG, calling you Marcia instead of Martha. Or your aide knocks over a reporter who asks you a tough question, and you stand around looking clueless.  Or when Barack Obama comes to campaign for you, and his speech is full of ums, ahs, and disparaging remarks about your opponent’s truck.  Because we all know that owning a GM pickup truck is a bad thing.

5)  Church and state is always a touchy subject, and much more able candidates have gone wrong here.  But one good general rule to follow is that when it comes to matters of conscience, you should not say “you can have religious liberty, but you shouldn’t work in an emergency room.”  Especially when the religious groups that you might disqualify from emergency room jobs include Catholics, who are a large part of your constituency, and are likely to hear of your blunder the Sunday before the election.

Massachusetts is mostly Democratic, and Martha Coakley could still win, but the fact that she is in danger of losing shows amazing ineptitude.  If she snatches defeat from what was a nearly certain Democratic victory, she will have earned the title of WORST CANDIDATE EVER.

Democrats may even agree with me, for once.

[Update:  Wow, Scott Brown actually won this race.  Martha Coakley actually managed to lose, and it was 52-47, which is not even that close.]

Misogyny, Racism, and Beheadings

As a kid, I had read individual stories from ”The Thousand and One Nights” (aka “The Arabian Nights”) in forms adapted for young readers.  You know, the Seven Voyages of Sinbad, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Aladdin.  These were taken out of the original, bowdlerized, disneyfied, and the stories were adapted to be marketable to Western, Christian sensibilities.   Now I am looking at a more “adult” version of the stories, and it is an eye-opener.  The version is translated, and some of the juicier parts are edited out, but at least the stories are more in context.

The tale begins with two brothers who are kings of different lands.  Brother 1 (King Shah-Zeman)  is ready to go visit Brother 2 (King Shahryar) in his kingdom, but before he leaves, he returns to his palace unexpectedly, only to find his wife in the arms of a black slave.  (This is apparently what wives and black slaves will do if you don’t watch them carefully.  This was definitely not in the edited version of the Tales.)  After killing them both (which is apparently what husbands were supposed to do), he goes on his trip, but is miserable, until his brother leaves the palace, and he observes his brother’s wife and the 20 ladies of the court all disrobed in the garden and cavorting with their black slaves. 

He is cheered to discover that he is not alone in his misery, and that all women are equally unfaithful.  When his brother, noticing his improved disposition, asks the reason, he tells him.  The two brothers then pretend to be leaving the palace to go hunting, but return to catch Brother 2’s wife in the act.  They then behead her, and all the other ladies, and all the black slaves.

King Shahryar then develops a nasty habit of taking a wife, keeping her for one night, and then killing her before the next morning.  He does this until the land predictably develops a severe shortage of virgins, and one of the only virgins left is the Wezir’s daughter, Scheherazade.  Sheherazade agrees to marry the king, knowing the danger in that occupation, and she starts telling him a long series of stories, hoping to avoid death by amusing him each night, and leaving the story to continue on the next night.  Apparently the strategy succeeds, and after 1,001 nights, she is pardoned.

I have only gotten to night 9 or so, but here are some observations:

1.  The tales are very Islamic.  The story begins with a doxology to Allah, and the characters show medieval Islamic beliefs and superstitions, even more so than the Canterbury Tales reflect medieval Christian beliefs.  The Djinni are not the cute things in Aladdin, but rather are fearsome spirits that may decide to kill you.  One of them was confined in a bottle for resisting Suleyman (King Solomon), God’s prophet.

2.  There seems to be a cultural thing about marrying the daughter of your paternal uncle (that is, a first cousin who shares your last name.)  Two of the husbands in the stories of so far have pointed to this relationship, noting they they were devoted to her because she was “of his flesh.”  However, there were issues in these marriages.

3.  Women are really untrustworthy, even if they were your first cousin before you married them.  So far, there are three instances of wives who cheated on their husbands, and were found lying with black slaves.  Perhaps Scheherazade figured her King would relate to these stories, after his troubles.

4.  And if you hadn’t guessed already, the view of blacks in these tales is one-dimensional.  They are always slaves, and good for not much except ruining marriages.  You will NOT read these stories unedited in a high school literature class.

5.  The way a man deals with these problems is obviously to behead or otherwise kill the adulteress and her lover.  Failing that, he may get a sorceress to turn the woman into an animal or some similar punishment.  Of course, the woman may strike first and put a spell on her husband.

6.  Once you get through the dim view of the world as described above, the actual stories are pretty interesting.

I will try to plough through these stories, but this was not what I expected.

The War on Boys at Wal-Mart, or…

How the Nanny State intimidates businesses into doing law enforcement, even when perfectly legal products are being bought.

Now that Christmas shopping is over, this story can be told. 

Some time ago, my son (then 15) went to Wal-Mart to buy a Swiss Army knife.  A Swiss army knife is a tool that all boys ought to own, and they ought to be able to carry them to school without fear of being suspended.  So he goes to the check out line, and the cashier says that he isn’t allowed to buy it.  You know, it’s a KNIFE, and KNIVES are WEAPONS, and all WEAPONS are BAD.  Especially when a BOY buys it, with his Mom right beside him.

So he gave the money to Jane (aka the Mrs.), and she paid for the Swiss Army Knife.  The cashier looked the other way and said that she didn’t want to see the money changing hands.

We didn’t have the heart to tell the cashier that he was buying the knife as a present for his little sister.

I realize that knives account for about 14% of American murders, but pocket knives are really bad as murder weapons.  First of all, they are not usually very sharp.  Secondly, if you try to hurt someone with them, the blade is likely to close on your finger.   If you are going to kill someone with a knife, you could use a military knife, or a hunting knife, or a long kitchen knife.

This year, my 15 year old daughter went to Wal-Mart to buy a kitchen knife as a Christmas present.  The knife had a 3 1/2 inch blade, so it wasn’t the most deadly thing she could have bought, but it would have made a much better weapon than any pocket knife.  I watched her go through the checkout line, and the cashier did not question the transaction.

Because as you know, a kitchen knife is a TOOL for the kitchen, and it is NOT a weapon, especially if a girl buys it.

Sometime, I’ll see what happens when one of my kids tries to buy spray paint.  Or maybe the folks at FreeRangeKids can start having their kids try to buy stuff that is perfectly legal, but can be misused by some morons, and see how the cashiers respond.  I bet the responses will display many inconsistencies, and will show a pattern of discrimination against boys.

New Year’s Resolutions 2010

OK, so everyone makes and breaks New Year’s resolutions, but it doesn’t stop  us from trying again the next year.  Last year, I posted 4 resolutions, kept one of them for the whole year, and kept two others for long enough to do some good.  So, ladies and gentlemen, here we go again:

1.  I will attempt to enjoy my freedoms as an American citizen in a special way this year.  Each week, I will try to do something that is perfectly legal in the USA, but could get me arrested, beaten, imprisoned, or even executed in some other country.  I will try not to record repeat offenses, but come up with something new every week.  Lord willing, I will update you all periodically on my progress.

2.  I will attempt to lose 15 pounds.  I just weighed in at 180 pounds, in my underwear (yeah that’s too much information), after a Thanksgiving, Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s full of self indulgence.

Losing weight is a common New Year’s resolution, but the real battle here will be against laziness and gluttony.   Some people can blame their weight on their metabolism, but I am not one of them.  I think St. Paul said something about “the sins of some men go ahead of them, and the sins of others trail behind.”  If you take that in a thick-headedly literal sense, gluttony can go either way.

3.  I will attempt, once again, to read the Koran and blog about it.  I tried this last year, and I didn’t get too far.  I read a few Suras of it, took a few notes, and I wrote nothing.

4.  There is an area in my house that I could call the “Graveyard for unfinished projects.”  This is where some old projects (typically involving guy hobbies like model airplanes) have gone to fester.  I will attempt to revive these projects and finish them (with the aid of interested and capable little hands), thus reclaiming some living space.

Recognizing the Savior Early: A Christmas Reflection

The passages in the Bible about Jesus’ birth are so familiar, that often we take them for granted.  For example, look at these accounts of events surrounding Jesus’ birth.

Luke 1:39-44 Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

The babe here is John the Baptist, who will grow up to be a great prophet.  But even before he is born, he recognizes the unborn savior near him.

Luke 2:8-18 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold,an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
” Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.”  And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.  Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.  And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

Shepherds were not considered trustworthy in that culture, but here they are given the message from the angels that the Savior was born.  They follow the angels’ instructions and see the baby.

Luke 2:25-32 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.  And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law,  he took Him up in his arms and blessed God and said:
“ Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,
According to Your word;
For my eyes have seen Your salvation
Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples,
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.”

Here, an old man had been promised that he would see the Savior before he died, and he recognized the baby when he was 6 weeks old, and came to the Temple.

Matthew 2:1-2, 9-11 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.  And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Jesus was again very young, and had most likely not spoken a word.  This did not prevent the wise men from recognizing him as the future King.  They called him “King of the Jews”, but they obviously meant that he was to be their king too, or they would not have come from a far away country.

Most of my readers are Christians, and these passages are very familiar.  To a non-Christian reader, however, these passages show something unique about Jesus.

Nearly all famous religious leaders are recognized for what they said or did.  Mohamed, for example, attracted followers in his adult life.  So did  Buddha, Confucius, and Joseph Smith.  No one looked at these future religious teachers in their cradles, and predicted their future accomplishments.

With Jesus, it was different.  The Bible records that he was recognized as Savior before he was born, and he was recognized multiple times before he could speak, or do much of anything.  He was recognized by men and women, by angels, and even by a star.  The focus in the Bible begins with who he is, rather than what he did.  His words and actions are important, not in themselves, but because he is the Son of God, sent to save us from our sins.

When a Black SUV Loses Control in Front of You…

Is it bad luck?

I am beginning to get superstitious about Black SUVs, after the last week.

Last Sunday, I was driving down I-79 with the family, and the roads seemed to be in good shape.  We were near Edinboro when a black SUV started to pass me.  I looked over, and noticed that he was fish-tailing, just a bit ahead of me in the left lane.  That lane apparently had black ice.  His back end wobbled back and forth, a bit worse each time, and then (you remember these things when your life is flashing before your eyes) he rotated clockwise and did a complete 360 degree spin.  I was preparing for his rear end, which had temporarily become his front end, to spin around and hit my left side, but I pulled ahead of him (braking would have been bad) and the spinning SUV missed me by no more than 5 feet.

If you know the country song “Jesus take the wheel”, well, one hopes that is what happened to the other guy.  I didn’t notice anything happen to my steering wheel, though the kids report that I accelerated a lot, and I do not remember accelerating much if at all.

A second or two after this excitement, I looked in my rear view mirror.   I am happy to report that he appears to have stayed on the road, and no one rammed into him.

For the rest of the trip, I slowed down, and only came close to freaking out when some chick in a Prius decided to pass me, while chatting on her cell phone.  Then I realized that she would probably just bounce off my minivan, and I calmed down.

Then, a few days later, I was taking the kids to school, and was on 28th street at the corner of Parade.  At that corner you should always assume that the other drivers are idiots, because people love to run the red light at 28th and Parade, just so they can stop at the red light at 26th and Parade.

The light had turned green and I was about to go, when lo and behold, a black SUV comes barreling through the red light (which had been red for at least 2 seconds).  I’m glad I wasn’t in a hurry to get to school, or my Honda would have looked like a pretzel, and my wife would be shopping for personal injury attorneys.

So the whole superstition about black cats crossing my path just doesn’t phase me any more.  But if it is big, black, motorized, and operated by a person who thinks 2 tons of metal ensures his invincibility, consider me scared.

The Names of Jesus

If you are anywhere near a Christian church this time of year, you will hear the following Bible passage, which is from the book of Isaiah, about 700 years before Jesus was born:

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given;  And the government will be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  [Isaiah 9:6]

This morning’s sermon focused on these names of Jesus.

“Wonderful counselor” is fairly obvious to us.  Even most non-Christians are willing to believe that Jesus was a great teacher, and many of His sayings are memorable.  However, it is easy to see Him as only a teacher who is in the past, and to forget that He continues to teach us through the Scriptures, the preaching of the Word, and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

“Mighty God” is less obvious, but not less important.  Isaiah’s prophecy is that Jesus will be God himself, sent here to take the form of a man.  This makes him different from any other religious teacher.  Of course, Christians recognize Jesus in this way.

“Everlasting Father” is the hardest of these names to understand.  Instead of thinking of this in terms of the Trinity, we should think in terms of human relationships.  Leaders in many cultures are called “fathers”.  (Think of the title of a priest, for one example.)  Jesus, as the head of the Christian Church, is our Father in this sense.  He displays this role after he rose from the dead in John 21:5, where he says, “Children, do you have any food?”  Because He cannot die (he got that over with 2,000 years ago), he is an Everlasting and perfect father.

“Prince of Peace” is a title that we must have faith to believe.  It begins when we turn to Jesus for forgiveness of our sins.  Then we have peace with God.  As the kingdom of God advances, His peace will also spread, although in the present age there will be people who oppose God, and our own sinful nature creates a war within us.  However, when Jesus returns, all evil will be utterly defeated, and all things will be made new.