Little Steps Home

Book: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

2012-02-16T11:42:00.002-05:00

I loved this book. Loved. Unabashedly, unreservedly, loved.

Right then. I picked this up...a long time ago. It's one of those books that's been sitting on my shelf, waiting for me to get around to it. To be honest, I almost got rid of it years ago when I did my Great Purge. I held onto it for some reason, shallowly, probably because of the 'Oprah's Book Club' seal on the front.

I'm very glad that I did hold onto it. See above for my general level of :DDD - all the love for this book.

“The death of something living is the price of our own survival, and we pay it again and again. We have no choice. It is the one solemn promise every life on earth is born and bound to keep.”

It's told in the alternating point of views of the five Price women. The mother, Orleanna, and her four daughters; Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May.

Their lives revolve around the patriarch of the Price family, Reverend Nathan Price. The man, a Southern Baptist preacher turned missionary is driven by inner demons whose shapes become clear through the story of the book. Believing that he is on a mission from God, Price drags his family to the Congo in the late 1950s which I think most people know could be, in a massive understatement, called the beginning of a time of great upheaval in the region.

The Price family arrive in the Congo with no knowledge of the language and no idea of the political situation. Nathan has dragged them there against the advice of the people in charge of the mission, though his wife doesn't find that out until later. They arrive believing in their inherent superiority as whites, as civilized, Western people and as Christians. Their arrogance and utter lack of understanding or even a desire to understand the culture and the people that they are suddenly surrounded by is grating and sickening in places.

While the women of the family adapt to varying degrees, forced to learn how to survive in a completely alien environment, Nathan is focused and blind to the point of madness. He sees nothing but enemies all around him, even in his own family. Throughout the book we are shown the damage that his rampant misogyny has on his family. His wife, a strong and spirited woman in her youth when they first marry is beaten down and subjugated to the point where she becomes unable to stand strong enough to save her daughters until it is too late.

"God doesn’t have to punish us. He just grants us a long enough life to punish ourselves."

There is action in this book, though not of the guns and knives sort. The tension, the driving force behind the book is the slow growing understanding of just how far out of control this family is. How at the mercy of a single man and his madness they have become. It's a novel about people and about how they can either bend or break.

It does start out slowly. I can't tell you the number of times that I was reading and thought about just putting it down and moving on at first. There are moments of dark hilarity, like when Nathan is finally told that the reason no one wants to be baptised is that they think he's trying to feed them to the crocodiles in the river that grow fewer and fewer as you read on and begin to understand exactly how delusional Nathan is, how determined he is that he is chosen by God and that he will stay his course no matter how many lives it costs.

"Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened. First, picture the forest. I want you to be its conscience, the eyes in the trees. The trees are columns of slick, brindled bark like muscular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs, war-painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves. Vines strangling their own kin in the everlasting wrestle for sunlight. The breathing of monkeys. A glide of snake belly on branch. A single-file army of ants biting a mammoth tree into uniform grains and hauling it down to the dark for their ravenous queen. And, in reply, a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. This forest eats itself and lives forever."

I know this is a short and kind of really vague review, but I always want to err on the side of not giving too much of the book away. Part of the wonder of books, the thing that draws us in, is not known what's coming on the next page.

This book is worth the time you spend on it. Go read it.

I give this book 4.5/5.

Signal Boost - Paws 4 Pogo

2012-02-15T14:30:00.001-05:00

I'm reposting this from Heather over at Cover(ed) Girl:

A friend of mine, Mandi, is a 100% service-disabled Navy vet. Her service dog, Pogo, is a rescue who was later trained to her current occupation. Pogo has a torn ACL (ligament) in her leg and needs a very expensive surgery ($3,500) to have it repaired. Due to her disabled status, Mandi is unable to work and is on a fixed income. She can't afford Pogo's surgery alone, and is largely confined to her home without her service dog due to her disability.

Here's where we can help! A fundraising campaign has been started at:
Paws 4 Pogo - Fundly.com

If you can donate, please consider doing so. Pass the word along to your family and friends through social networking. Please help us to reach our goal ASAP, as Pogo is in a lot of pain and suffers each day that she doesn't get this surgery.

It's a worthy cause, people! I know that things are tight for a lot of us and that people may not have much, but if you can, please go and donate whatever you can afford to help.

Faith, Part II

2012-02-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

And in full awareness of the fact that probably no one cares what I think about this book, especially in light of yesterday's post, which I have now deleted because I'm a fickle, fickle beast and I just...I don't even know. I need to actually sort myself out here because I'm doing things that are going in opposite directions. Let's just call me confused and still looking, okay? Anyway, back to the book!

This is the end of the section of Morals. Aren't you all glad?

Here's how Lewis starts out the chapter:

"I want to start by saying somethingthat I would like every one to notice carefully. It is this. If thischapter means nothing to you, if it seems to be trying to answerquestions you never asked, drop it at once. Do not bother about it atall. There are certain things in Christianity that can be understoodfrom the outside, before you have become a Christian. But there areagreat many things that cannot be understood until after you have gonea certain distance along the Christian road. These things are purelypractical, though they do not look as if they were. They aredirections for dealing with particular cross-roads and obstacles onthe journey and they do not make sense until a man has reached thoseplaces. Whenever you find any statement in Christian writings whichyou can make nothing of, do not worry. Leave it alone. There willcome a day, perhaps years later, when you suddenly see what it meant.If one could understand it now, it would only do one harm."

I am torn on my reaction to this statement. On the one hand, it's true that there are some things in every religion that people outside of the religion cannot make sense of. I tend to think that it's a lack of proper building blocks of knowledge in many cases, a lack of the understanding of the foundation of the belief. For instance, the Trinity. It makes absolutely no sense to many people who are non-Trinitarian, whether those are non-Trinitarian Christians or members of other monotheistic faiths. I think the Trinity probably makes a bit more sense to polytheists of certain stripes since they're used to thinking of a single divine entity that presents in different aspects or forms. And for other polytheists, it doesn't make as much sense because they're used to discrete gods. So yes, there is some truth to the fact that certain aspects of a religion don't make sense to those outside of it and might confuse them. My problem is the idea that people studying the faith or converting should 'just leave' the parts that confuse them in the hopes that it will some day make sense.

There are some things that I think you need to understand before you commit to a faith! And if you don't understand them then you shouldn't join the religion. Yes, some things are 'minor' or 'not salvation issues' according to some opinions. But those are just opinions and other people may believe that those same issues are a part of the heart of the faith. So if you don't understand them to your satisfaction, because I'm not saying that you have to be able to grasp every mystery of your chosen faith perfectly of course, are you really 'saved'? Are you truly a member of that religion?

Then again, this may be part of my own personal problem. I want to understand and the not understanding drives me crazy. I do know that divinity is so different from us that we can't understand it through our filter of limited senses and I'm okay with that. But the things that we do know, I want to understand. I want it to make sense to me. If I can't grasp even that much, how can I have faith in it?

"the question ofFaith in this (second) sense arises after a man has tried his level best topractise the Christian virtues, and found that he fails, and seenthat even if he could he would only be giving back to God what wasalready God's own. In other words, he discovers his bankruptcy."

I have issues with the concept of moral bankruptcy as the default human condition! I always have. I don't see where people get that. In the Bible, does God create man? Yes. Is God the author of anything evil or wrong? No. That's one of the basic tenets at the heart of monotheism. God = good. End of story. He only contains good, so He can only create good. So if both of these statements are true, then man is inherently, morally good. I do know that this is a simple view of reality, really I do. But boiled down, this is what it comes to in my mind. If God created everything, then everything is at it's core good. That does not take away the fact that people do bad things. We make mistakes. Free will is a bitch, remember? But this whole idea that people are born morally corrupt and dirty just doesn't make sense to me. I much prefer and better understand the Orthodox position that the Fall didn't corrupt the core of human beings but more...smudged them up. So it's like having an incredible work of art covered by a layer of dirt and grime. The art is still there, still beautiful as the day it was created, you just have to get to it.

Since the next several paragraphs are all about the moral bankruptcy of humans and how we cannot understand our relation to God until we understand that we are scum...I just have to go, 'no' at Lewis and shake my head. I disagree. There are morally good people who don't believe in God at all. There are morally good people who believe in different gods. Believing that you are scum and inherently flawed does not necessarily lead you to being a better person or in a 'right' relationship with deity. It seems so very self-destructive to me, like being raised in a household where you're told the entire time that your every impulse is wrong, that your opinions are wrong, that you shouldn't think for yourself in some areas but leave the judgment to those who are your 'moral superiors'. This is a pattern of behavior that leads people to depression and no sense of self-worth when it occurs between human beings. How much worse is it when you believe that the creator of all things thinks that you're so bad He can't even look at you?

So...blah, blah, handwave, 'humans are morally bankrupt'. :p

"Christians have often disputed as towhether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith inChrist. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question,but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissorsis most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that willbring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christis the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out ofthat Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come."

This part I like, in a way. I view the whole faith vs. actions thing as a sort of chicken vs. egg thing. You can't have one without the other. Or, well, you can, but in the salvation economy of Christianity it doesn't work. You have to have faith *and* do good works. I'm not denying that there are arguments as to whether or not the good works are motivated by the fact that you have faith or not, but I'm not aware of any branch of Christianity (which doesn't mean that there isn't one, just that I don't know about it. My knowledge base isn't all inclusive) that says that you can earn your way into God's good graces. I know that some branches have been mis-characterised in that fashion, but it's simply not true. Even Islam, which is accused very often of being a works based religion, doesn't work without faith. I could pray salat five times a day for the rest of my life, give charity, make Hajj, do all the things that are outward signs of a good and faithful Muslim and it wouldn't mean anything if I didn't believe in the message of Islam.

Change in the House of Amber - Restored Post

2012-02-14T08:18:00.000-05:00

There are a few changes going on in my life right now, some you know about and some you don't

I decided to do a reading last night on a change that I've been feeling and seeing for a while now. The truth of the matter is that I've been feeling very disconnected from Christianity for a long time now. I've never been 100% comfortable with it, in spite of the face that I have tried to present to people. I made a choice based on in part wanting to keep the peace in my house and in part on wanting to irritate someone who was nasty to me. Which I think we can all agree are not good reasons to choose a religion.

And I want to say that I feel that, in spite of the wrong beginning, I really did believe. Or maybe it would be better to say that I decided that I should believe, that I wanted to believe and so I believed that I believed. I wasn't lying, or at least not to anyone but myself. But I never felt quite exactly like I meshed. I did have moments of comfort and happiness, where I felt as though I'd found someplace that I could belong. If I was just going on feelings I could happily keep plugging along under the label of Christian because I feel good about it.

But here's the honest truth: I don't see any difference between the claims of Christianity versus the claims of any other religion, ever. Yes, there are different details, but what I mean is that the likelihood of any one of these faiths being correct is equal. So there's no automatic greater weight to be applied to Christianity simply because it's monotheistic and monotheism is so much simpler and more logical than polytheism. First, that's not true. Just look at the debates that rage in Christianity, whether you're Trinitarian or Unitarian. Or Judaism or Islam. Second, monotheism has been tried before, in antiquity. It didn't take off quite as well as it later did but it's not new.

This...really has little to do with what I'm saying though. Other than accepting that fact has made it easier for me to step back and really evaluate what I'm doing. I think, in part, I wanted to be Christian, or at least in the monotheistic tradition because that's what is common. It's what is expected, in many ways, unless you've become an atheist.

The truth of the matter though is that I have always understood the universe and divinity best through paganism. I have to admit and accept that I never really left it, even when I said that I was a Christian and had done away with the old 'superstitions' of my life. I never stopped worshiping some of the gods in small ways. I never stopped feeling the need to perform certain rituals. And when I *did* stop them, something reached out and reminded me. I debated, within my own mind whether or not it was an accident and a coincidence or not. And I don't believe that it was. It's too perfect with meaning and with the devotion that I had let slip.

Since I picked that devotion back up, I've felt better. More settled in my own soul and things have been looking up in my life in general. I know now that in the past my religion has been unbalanced. I'm not going to pick it up exactly the way that I left it because I left it for a reason. I was allowing my anger to control a great many things and my form of worship was one of them. And that's why, I think, it didn't work the way it's working now.

I feel like I'm finally seeing the path that's been beneath my feet the entire time.

So, that was rambling, all to get to the reading. I use a set of rune cards, for the moment. I plan on making my own proper rune set but I need to make them in stone rather than clay since I sleep with the runes beneath my pillow and I'm afraid clay would break. For the moment, the cards work well enough.

The way I do a reading is really simple. I shuffle the deck while concentrating on the question or the event that I want insight on. When I feel that I've got the focus right and given enough time I cut the deck in half (roughly) and draw the card on top of the bottom half. That's the first card. I will usually draw two more cards to further focus and clarify the answer.

Last night I did two readings on the same issue. The issue being whether or not I was right to let go of Christianity and follow what I was feeling.

These are my cards from the first reading:

Cen (Freya) - Asa (Odin) - Mannaz

Right. So Cen (Kenaz) was my first card. It's associated, in this deck, with the goddess Freya. There are a *lot* of meanings on different levels associated with each rune but I'm just going to focus here on the ones that apply to my question. On the mental level Cen is associated with insight. Spiritually, it represents enlightenment, a spiritual awakening or opening. It is a sign of guidance, a reminder that the spirits (or gods) guide believers along their chosen paths.

My second card was Asa (Ansuz) which is associated with Odin. For those unaware, Odin is the chief god of the Norse pantheon. Again, many meanings but it is wisdom, the gaining of knowledge and religious acts. Inspiration.

My third card was Mannaz, or Man as the cards call it. The meanings attached to this are the human intellect, rationality, memory and tradition.

It's a very good, positive reading! I was surprise that the message was so very straightforward and positive without any pitfalls or notes of warning. You get that, sometimes, where there's a message of progress but it comes with a second card that warns of delays or blocks in your life. That's why you draw multiple cards, in order to see further.

I was so surprised by the goodness of this first reading that I did a second one!

Asa (Odin) - Sol - Algiz

I got the Asa/Ansuz card first this time. Which actually just about knocked me on my ass. I've never done two readings back to back as it were and gotten the same card in both. Never. So we remember from the first reading that Odin is associated with this rune and that it's wisdom and knowledge. I personally associate Odin with self-sacrifice in the name of knowledge.

Sol (Sowulo) is a rune that means success, or favorable circumstances.

Algiz is a rune associated with the god Heimdall who is said to be all seeing. There's nothing that can be hidden from him. He's considered a protective deity. It means protection, success through effort at the end of a quest or a period of seeking.

Which all boils down to me getting two readings on the same question with very similar answers. It's...I'm not going to lie. It's very awesome.

TV: The River

2012-02-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

Did anyone else watch The River last night? It's a new horror/suspense/something show on ABC. According to the end of the premier there're only six more episodes of the season, so it's really more of a mini-series than a regular series anyway.

I watched it and I have to say I was neither impressed nor disappointed in it.

The basic idea is that there's a family; Tess (mom), Lincoln (son), and Emmett (father). The father, Emmett Cole, is a famous explorer whose television show followed the family around as they explored the world. Of course there's the requisite falling out between Lincoln and his father and the suspicion/knowledge that Tess cheated on Emmett at some point. But those are all things that are mentioned but not fleshed out in much detail just yet. At the start of the show Emmett has been missing for six months and he and his crew are declared dead. They had gone off on a strange (are you really surprised?), kind of secretive mission to the Amazon and vanished.

Tess convinces Lincoln, who is ready to try and move on, to come with her and some of the television crew to try and find the missing expedition. They tack down Emmett's beacon, which has suddenly and mysteriously turned on after being inactive for half a year, and find it inside a diving cage at the bottom of the river. With no sign of anyone. *makes spooky sounds*

They continue looking, even though everyone is *sure* that the crew is dead, and come across the boat that the missing expedition was using. Also mysteriously abandoned. Blah, blah, spooky shots of the interior, they come to the panic room on the boat (designed in case of pirate attack), which has been welded shut from the outside. There are banging noises coming from within, so the rescue mission believes that some of the crew are alive and trapped inside.

Eventually they restore power and bust the room open to discover...a creepy shrine looking thing, something that looks like a giant seed and no one home. The seed thing turns out to be a native made coffin for an infant which is also alternatively used to capture 'dry ghosts'. Which, shock, is what was in there. According to the recordings that are found on the boat, the producer that Emmett brought with him, Cam, died and for whatever reason came back as one of these dry ghosts. They captured his spirit inside the little coffin and sealed it up in the room after it had killed some other members of the crew.

So the rescue mission, having accidentally set the ghost free, as you do, try to flee. The ghost shreds their little rafts that they need to get back to the boat they were using. They get the Magus (Emmett's ship), going again in 2 hours. Even though it's been sitting in the Amazon for six months with no maintenance, but whatever. The ghost kills one of the camera men and then they manage to trap it back in the little coffin. Not before it tells them that Emmett is still alive somewhere though.

Point of logic: Lincoln decides to dump the ghost-pod into the river. Which seems to me like it would un-seal the pod since there's nothing holding the two halves together. Thus re-freeing the ghost to hunt more people. But whatever. *handwaves the logic*

That's the first hour.

Second hour, they're still on the Magus and there's another point of logic. They have a perfectly good boat without any rust or, you know, giant smears of blood on the walls. Why did they not use the Magus to get back to the non-damaged boat. Then they could still keep looking, but in a perfectly functioning boat. Anyway. Moving On.

Still searching. Through *mumbltyconvenientplotpoint* they pick a direction to look for Emmett which just happens to lead them to an old colonial cemetery. Which happens to be right next to a giant creepy tree with dolls tied to it. Not voodoo dolls or anything, just plain old baby dolls.

Blah, blah, they find Lincoln's childhood bear tied to the tree so they know they're on the right path. He takes the bear from the creepy tree of dolls and you just know that that's never a good idea. Later, there's footage of the dolls moving behind peoples backs and then when they all go to sleep something grabs Lincoln and pulls him out of his tent. The group freak, try to leave, and wind up running in a circle back to the tree. Try to leave again, something grabs Tess and tries to drag her under in this little stream. Back to the tree. Someone suddenly remembers an old story about a girl whose mother had no time for her. The girl fell into the river and drowned, then her spirit, still lonely, started luring people to the river to drown them. The locals, to appease her, started to leave dolls at a tree for her. Thus, creepy doll tree. So they figure Lincoln pissed her off and make him give back his bear.

Ghost girl rejects the bear. She's decided she wants her mommy. She lures Tess off and takes her into the river. In a brilliant move they decide that if they give the little ghost girl her real mother's body that she'll give back Tess. So they go back to the graveyard, find the ghost girl's grave - easily identifiable since the only thing it says on it is her name, 'Rachel' and something about being taken by the river. Then they find the mother's grave. Also easily identifiable because apparently there was only one woman on this expedition and her grave, conveniently, mentions her heartbreak at losing her daughter to the river. Dig, carry somehow fully articulated skeleton to the river and drop it in. Tess pops up in the open grave of Rachel's mom.

And after all that, they're still willing to keep looking for Emmett. The end.

It's like...it's supposed to be a horror show, but there was nothing truly frightening about it. The doll tree was creepy, because really. Dolls. But that was a total rip on a real myth that actually exists in Mexico. See the Destination Truth episode, Island of the Dolls for that one. So far it seems like they're taking things that are supposed to be creepy and throwing them all at us. I'm fairly 'meh' about the show thus far, but I'm all about giving shows the chance to prove themselves so I'll withhold final judgment for a while yet.

That is not right!

2012-02-07T10:27:00.000-05:00

I would like someone to please explain to me what thought process would lead a man to believe that the appropriate response to being informed that his flirtatious approaches to a woman at the gym are not welcome is to come up while the woman is on the treadmill and make sexual gestures at her.

No, it was not me this happened to, and no, I did not see it. If it had been, or I had, I would already have complained and the man would be banned from the gym.

I can't decide which part pisses me off more: that the man thought this was an acceptable thing to do or that the woman didn't report it. Or, or, that she was so freaking *shocked* when it was mentioned to her that she could, in fact, complain about his behavior. Like the thought had never occurred to her that she had another path to take rather than just take it and try to rebuff him herself. *twitches*

I just- I don't even have the coherency to make a rant about this. I'm too pissed for words and that *never* happens.

in which i rant about things i know nothing about

2012-02-06T10:46:00.001-05:00

After talking with Eve on the drive home yesterday I've become half convinced that so much of prenatal care/screenings/tests is deliberately designed to make the parents freak out and then have to go to specialists.

So Evesdottir (still in the womb, keep in mind), has one kidney that is slightly larger than normal. This, according to what Eve told me, is one of the most common birth 'issues', and usually corrects itself. But she only knows this after having been told that the problem which causes that enlargement is one of the signs of Downs Syndrome, panicking about that, then being told that Evesdottir doesn't have any of the other signs three weeks later, then being told that if the problem doesn't correct itself that Evesdottir will be born and have to have surgery. So they have to go to Sarasota, which is a larger city north of where we live, to see a specialist to keep an eye on this 'problem' which, according to everyone is most likely not a problem at all. But just in case. Thus sucking more and more money out of Eve and Kyle, all while making them worry that there's something horrifically wrong with their baby.

*sighs*

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand that modern medicine is a necessary thing in many instances. That it saves people who would otherwise die. I'm all for it, when it's necessary. But is it really necessary to panic people for seemingly no reason at all except to have to send them to specialists?

New Books!

2012-02-05T18:51:00.001-05:00

The arrival of these books has totally made up for having to host a baby shower for two hours. The shower went well, by the way and Evesdottir is set up at least for a little while.

Now, on to the books!

The ones on Christ and God is Red are from sanil, thank you!

The others, the Eddas and the book on Asatru, are ones that I picked up earlier in the week.

I want to go where I'm not exactly allowed...

2012-02-01T15:19:00.002-05:00

I want to go on Hajj. Really.

It's wrong, which I realize. I have no faith in the pilgrimage or in Islam, but I have a desire to experience Hajj and see Mecca. Not just through photos and videos, but in person. No clue why. I want to touch things, you know?

I was reading the Two Cheers for British Museum's Sanitized Hajj Exhibition on Religion Dispatches and it reminded me of my bizarre desire to do this.

Here ends your random revelation of the day.

Movie: One for the Money

2012-01-31T11:18:00.000-05:00

I should admit first off that I came to this movie prejudiced. In the first place, I love the book series this is based on. It's one of the few series that I read faithfully that doesn't involved vampires, werewolves or magic. Secondly, I love Katherine Heigl. Love. And I wouldn't kick Jason O'Mara out of bed for eating crackers either, so really I went in expecting to experience the movie equivalent of a love-fest. All love, all the time.

So you've been warned. This movie would have had to *try* deliberately to piss me off. It didn't. Take all the gushing with a grain of salt.

Okay.

The movie revolves around Stephanie Plum, a Jersey girl from the Burg. Stephanie lost her job as a lingerie buyer six months ago and has managed to just not mention that fact to her family until she can't hide it any longer. Mostly because her car is repossessed in front of their house while she's there for dinner. Her mothers solution to the problem is to get Stephanie married, again. Stephanie, having tried marriage once and not liked it, mostly because her husband was a cheating dick, is looking for a job.

Her grandmother suggests asking her cousin Vinnie, saying that he has a filing job available at his bail bonds business. Stephanie, desperate, shows up to find out that the filing job is non-existent. The only job available is that of bounty hunter. Connie, Vinnie's office manager, offers Stephanie a high-value skip: Joe Morelli.

Vinnie doesn't want to give Stephanie the job, seeing as how she is completely unqualified for it, but she blackmails him into it. In the movie it's bout a chatty manicurist she knows who moonlights as a dominatrix. I think it's funnier in the book because the details are left mostly to the imagination. In the book all that's mentioned is that it was something about Vinnie and a duck. Whichever way you slice it, Vinnie gives Stephanie the job rather than have his mob-boss father in law find out about his sexual indiscretions.

Aside from the $50,000 bounty (significantly raised for the movie from the 1994 book price bounty of a percentage of the $10,000 bond), Stephanie has a more personally satisfying reason for wanting to catch Morelli. Morelli is the boy that Stephanie lost her virginity to, behind the counter of the Tasty Pastry she worked at in high school. He then failed to call and wrote dirty, though flattering, things about her on bathroom walls. In what Stephanie and her entire family insist was an 'accident', she ran him over with her father's Buick, breaking his leg in three places.

Morelli survived to become a vice cop, now accused of murder.

In the course of trying to track Morelli down, Stephanie becomes aware of a series of murders that remove any witnesses to his supposed crime. She also proceeds to get herself way in over her head, attract the attention of a murderous rapist and get shot at and nearly killed multiple times. There's violence in the books and the movie (more on that in a bit), but that's not the point of them. You don't come away from them remembering the bloodshed. At heart they are comedies with some romance and some mystery/drama. You come away remembering how hard you laughed.

Here's the thing. Stephanie is awesome. She does some incredibly stupid things; see, getting into a MMA style boxing ring with above mentioned rapist, after she's been warned that he has some 'anger issues' towards women, as an example. And she doesn't have the first clue about being a recovery agent in the beginning, but she's willing to learn. She takes up with Ranger, a truly bad-ass recovery agent, in order to learn how to do her new job to the best of her abilities.

In a world where it would be easier, more accepted and even expected for her to get remarried and start popping out kids, Stephanie is determined to stay self-sufficient. Just her and Rex, her pet hamster. With maybe some Ranger (more on Ranger in a bit) and Morelli thrown in on the sides. Stephanie is determined to live her life the way she sees fit and not fall into the, as she sees it, trap that has claimed her mother and her sister.

Now then. Quibbles.

The violence: I'm not really sure why, maybe because they wanted it to be more heavily a comedy than anything else, but the movie downplayed the violence from the book. Not so much the out and out violence, since there's not a whole lot of that on the pages, but more the implications of it. Lula (a hooker who helps Stephanie by speaking when no one else will tell her the truth), gets beat up in the movie and dumped in front of Stephanie's apartment. In the book, Lula is beaten, raped in an incredibly violent manner, and tied to the fire escape outside of Stephanie's window. None of that happens on the page. You get the aftermath, with Stephanie horrified and rushing to help this woman who has become her friend. The details of the attack are never given, nothing is ever done to glorify or linger over it. Everything is skillfully implied enough that you understand just how bad the attack was without having an exact picture painted for you.

Ramirez (the rapist, murderous, thug), calls Stephanie once in the movie, threatening her. In the book, he stalks her. There's a great deal of difference between the feeling of relief you get at the end of the movie with regards to Benicio being taken out and at the end of the book because the book makes him so much more threatening.

So I think they could have done more with those aspects, done them well and not lost the comedic flavor of the movie. But that's just me.

And then there's Ranger. Oh, Ranger. Ranger, in the books, is a recovery agent/bounty hunter who is ex-if I told you what I did I'd have to kill you, and is starting up his own security firm. The man has lived. He's been around and seen a lot of stuff. Done a lot too. The actor that they chose for him is handsome enough, though I admit to having pictured Ranger as darker in skin tone than Daniel Sunjata, but I accept him as a 'Ranger' in the looks department. My issue is that he just looks too young! Did Ranger join the military when he was ten? That's the only way he could have done all the things he's possibly done, since he can't talk about them, and be as young as he looks in the movie.

And there wasn't enough of him. Ranger is the other love interest in the books. Stephanie is torn between Ranger and Morelli, it's part of where the romantic tension comes from, though why none of them have realized that many of their problems could be solved with a threesome, I don't know.. There was plenty of Morelli, and I do love the character, but there was not enough Ranger.

Morelli...let's face it, O'Mara doesn't really scream 'Italian' in the looks department. But I'm willing to ignore that in favor of it being O'Mara. Like I said, I'm totally biased on this movie.

Ranger! *waves her Ranger flag* Morelli! *waves Morelli flag in her other hand*

Picture randomly found on the internet. I didn't make it and I can't find who made it to give them credit.

I couldn't choose between them either. But I'm smart enough to suggest the threesome. :D

I'm giving it a 4 out of 5, for lack of Ranger and not managing to walk the line with the violence that Evanovich does in the books. I know it's been getting bad reviews in the press, but whatever. The rating system is based on *my* enjoyment of the movie. And I enjoyed it.

There's no way they're not doing it on purpose

2012-01-29T08:40:00.002-05:00

Peter: I felt the same way about Mrs. Fitzgerald, my Algebra teacher.

Neal: Thus your life long fascination with numbers.

Peter: And smart, leggy brunettes.

Me: *blinks rapidly**chorfles**nearly spits out milk*

Oh, White Collar. You're in a gay off with Suits, aren't you?

For those who don't know, both Peter's wife El and Neal are smart, leggy brunettes. *waggles eyebrows suggestively*

Seemingly Random Question

2012-01-27T09:47:00.001-05:00

Let's play a little game. There's a point to this, really, but before I talk about the point I want to run this little test.

It's really simple. All you have to do is describe Jesus to me. The first things that come to your mind. Not just physically, but personality traits, anything.

Go.

2012-01-24T10:46:00.000-05:00

Dear self:

Stop reading BNF's tweets and thinking that they're talking about you in a bad way. And even if they are, who gives a shit?

If you annoy them or they don't like what you write, then they can fuck off and just not read your stuff.

Other people like it. Just because they're them doesn't mean shit. And they're probably not talking about you in the first place.

Also, you're going through caffeine withdrawals which are making you cranky and depressive. So, you know, huge grain of salt to your responses to things.

Faith Pt 1

2012-01-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

Lewis does two chapters on faith so we're just going to follow his example.

"Roughly speaking, the word Faith seems tobe used by Christians in two senses or on two levels, and I will takethem in turn. In the first sense it means simply Belief—acceptingor regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. That is fairlysimple. But what does puzzle people—at least it used to puzzleme—is the fact that Christians regard faith in this sense as avirtue."

So why would faith be considered a virtue?

Lewis goes on to ask the question in this way: "what is theremoral or immoral about believing or not believing a set ofstatements? Obviously, I used to say, a sane man accepts or rejectsany statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, butbecause the evidence seems to him good or bad. If he were mistakenabout the goodness or badness of the evidence that would not mean hewas a bad man, but only that he was not very clever. And if hethought the evidence bad but tried to force himself to believe inspite of it, that would be merely stupid."

I disagree with Lewis' word choice here, inability to believe something does not make one 'not very clever', especially if the evidence is not at all as clear cut as some would like us to believe. But he does hit on why you can consider faith a virtue in my opinion.

Here's the bottom line, as far as I am concerned with regard to the 'evidence' of any religious group: you choose to believe it or not. There are *always* arguments against and different explanations for *anything* that has been recorded as a religious event or miracle. We may not fully understand these reasons yet but they are always there. So an inability to believe that an account written down 6,000, 4,000 or 2,000 years ago is utterly factually correct given the authors limited knowledge does not make a person dull or stupid. I take 'scientific' proof of any religion to be ridiculous. You will never prove anything that way. Not ever.

People of faith *choose* to have faith. Yes, there's something about the human mind that wants to believe in things. I think it's tied into our imagination and sense of curiosity and wonder. We need there to be meaning to our existence. We need there to be something after death which is a place that we cannot explore or understand with just our minds as we are now.

So you choose to have faith and then you choose what to have faith in. And then you choose to continue to have faith. Faith is a stance that you take. And this is true whether we're talking about having faith in a god or faith in the laws of nature.

You can *know* that something is true, but believing in it takes a little more effort. For example, floating on water. As a child, you know that you can float on water if you lay out on your back because you have been told this and you have seen other people doing it. But there is always that point when it's you being leaned back (learning to swim) where panic wants to set in because part of you is not entirely convinced that the water is going to hold you up.

That's where you make the choice. You can either believe that the water will hold you up if you are still, or you can not believe it and panic. Your panic makes the water fail to hold you up, reinforcing your reason for panicking. :) Conversely, if you choose to believe and be calm, the water will hold you up and reinforce your choice to believe.

That's how faith works and that's why it can be counted as a virtue. Faith is not simply something that one has any more than patience or charity. You train yourself and are trained by the people around you to have those things. But in all of that you are making the choice. Virtues are things that we all think that we should have because they make us better people and make society work better. The downside of that is that we don't have them naturally, though they do tend to make society work more smoothly. We have to work at them. We have to train ourselves to them.

That's faith.

I have an issue with conflating faith with a 'moral good', of course. There's the implication in that way of thinking that people who lack faith are somehow morally corrupt or more likely to commit crimes. Which is not true, of course. But this helps me to see where the idea came from when atheism was emerging from the shadows that atheists were godless people who would rape and steal and murder without a seconds thought because people who had been raised in this mindset had a hard time understanding that people could be good without this particular virtue.

Actual Lunch Time Conversation

2012-01-20T16:12:00.001-05:00

Discussion goes from how much menstrual cramps suck to how it's still preferable to having to sit on your junk every day. From there:

Me: They're just so *ugly*. (in re: penises. Because they are. Don't lie. They're not aesthetically pleasing and you know it.)

G: I know! All dangly and wrinkled...ugh. So much better having everything on the inside.

Me: It's a design flaw. I know the Bible has that whole thing about God noticing Adam was lonely and giving him a girlfriend, but really, it's God correcting the problems in the first release. We're Human 2.0.

G: *laughs*

Me: The first time Adam got kicked by the...the freaking *horse* or tripped over something. God went... "Hmmm....that's going to be a problem. We'll fix it and release a new version."

This all being accompanied by much laughter and hand gestures as we mime flipping the penis inside out and tucking it inside. Because we're five and we had the lunch room to ourselves. Ten minutes later a guy came in and couldn't understand why we were having so much fun. :D

Book: Sabriel by Garth Nix

2012-01-20T11:00:00.003-05:00

So back on my 2011 Books listing post, Sol asked if I'd ever read any Garth Nix, which I had not. Heather turned around and recommended Sabriel to me and agreed to my demands that she *finally* read Jane Eyre in return. How anyone can live as long as she has, love books as much as she does and not have already read Jane Eyre is incomprehensible to me.

Anyway...so I picked up Sabriel. I think it goes without saying that I finished it a while ago but I've been busy so I'm just getting around to posting. We had one of our women at work literally stand up and walk out on her job on Monday so it's been fun. :)

Right. On to the book!

The main character is a young woman named Sabriel, daughter of Abhorsen. She has been raised, since she was about four years old in the land of Ancelstierre at a boarding school that seems to be set along British boarding school lines. Ancelstierre is the more modern of the two countries in the book, the second being known as the Old Kingdom. Ancelstierre is a place of growing technology while the Old Kingdom, separated from Ancelstierre by the Wall, is a place of magic. The two forces do not get along. Magic won't work too far into Ancelstierre and too close to the Wall or inside of the Old Kingdom technology stops working properly.

The book opens with Sabriel being visited by a magical construct sent from her father, bringing the tools of his trade to her. Abhorsen is a necromancer, but one who lays the dead to rest rather than raises them. So someone who uses potentially dark magic in order to combat darker magic. He has sent his bells, which are used to control the dead in various ways, and his sword to Sabriel, essentially passing on the torch to her.

I think we all know where this is going, right? Sabriel rushes over the Wall (well through, technically, she has a passport and everything so she doesn't have to try and sneak past the army guarding the Wall from the Ancelstierre side or anything) to find her father and try to save him before he's too long in Death for her to bring back. He's not really dead, see, not yet because necromancers can 'step over' into Death, separating their spirits from their bodies for a time. Of course, too long separated from his body and he'll be truly dead.

Sabriel goes back to the country of her birth, finding it over run with the dead and worse things, all signs of a Greater Dead rising. This is a powerful spirit that is trying to claw its way back into life, one of the things that Abhorsen worked to stop.

*handwave* Plot things I don't want to give away...yadda...Sabriel runs all over the place trying to find her father, meets a cat who I adore named Mogget. Well, sort of a cat.Whatever. Mogget is awesome. Saves a handsome young man named Touchstone who then follows her around as a servant/bodyguard/annoying but helpful dogsbody.

Action, adventure, romance, ancient secrets and surprising revelations! All the good stuff.

Now, it's a YA fantasy novel and that's rather obvious in the writing style and the content. There's nothing extremely violent, no graphic anything, really though there are one or two hints to characters having romantic and/or sexual feelings towards one another and a mention of two unknown characters having sex. YA, back in the day before YA became the hot new thing.

Which is just my opinion of it of course. I find it funny, looking for a picture of the cover I stumbled over a couple of other reviews and people are calling it all Dark and Gory and Intense. I...thought it was fun and kind of fluffy. Not that dark, not gory and not all that intense. Clearly, the people who find it Dark and Intense have not read what I have read. I think it comes from being a horror/fantasy/dark things fan in the first place. After a while, you either have to be really dark or really skilled in order to wig me out. Very few people manage that. Stephen King has ceased to wig me out, okay? Dean Koontz *never* wigged me out. I've only ever failed to complete one book due to ick factor and that was American Psycho. And even then it was less the ick and more that it was unnecessarily and gratuitously violent.

So YMMV and you've been warned. It may be darker than I think of it.

The pacing of the story isn't bad, though it does get off to a slow start. It definitely picks up about a quarter of the way through, once the adventure has really started.

There are enough hints at the backgrounds and interplay of the characters to get you interested in them. They could have been explored more fully but not without making the book longer or extending it into more books. It is part of a trilogy but from reading the blurbs for the other two they don't focus on Sabriel or Touchstone.

Over all I enjoyed the book quite a lot and am planning on reading the second book in the series at some point as well. It's in my theoretical To Be Read pile, along with so very many other books!

4/5

Religious Courts

2012-01-16T10:04:00.002-05:00

Random, not fully formed thought:

Before all else, not an expert. Not anything even remotely like one. I have a little knowledge, so that makes me dangerous. Fair warning.

In the first place, do they not realize that even if shariah law were to be admitted as a valid legal course in the US that no one is going to force them to go to a shariah court if they have a problem with a Muslim? Even if we, *gasp* elected a Muslim as president, that president could not then turn around and say, 'Right, we're changing things up. Shariah for all and everyone start praying toward Mecca. Allahu ackbar.' *eyes the people who think that will happen*

And I do realize that there are likely people out there who would force other Muslims to use a version of the shariah court system, or something that they would claim as such, in order to perpetuate control and abuse. Do I need to spell out that that's wrong? Or that the court system of the U.S. can be abused and/or circumvented as well?

Also, yes, shariah is not a monolithic thing. Shariah is interpretive, or at least that's my understanding of it and there are definitely some places/people around who interpret it at it's most controlling and oppressive. The same though can be said for many legal systems historically and even in modern times.

That's neither here nor there, at least for the purposes of this random thought.

The people who are always so angry about the idea of shariah law coming into the US, do they not realize that other religions already in the states have their own religious laws and court systems?

Jews have the beit din, Catholic's have canon law and even Christian religions that don't necessarily have a laid out judicial system per say have the system of elders and a council that people can go through to resolve disputes. No, none of these things are exactly like the other but it's the same principle. A religious legal system designed to deal with religious/life issues.

Right then. Random thought inflicted upon the world. Back to work!

The Library, Circa 2012

2012-01-14T11:55:00.000-05:00

I think this'll probably be something of a yearly thing, pics of the library since a good, true library is a living, changing entity. :)

On to the pics!

First set of shelves, the ones that cover the whole wall. If you're very observant you'll notice that in the center row a lot has changed. For one, all my LKH books are gone. I have removed that particular boil from my life. So, yay! In addition, my Stephen King books are slowly leaving. I've realized that once I read them I don't feel the need to ever read them again. So I'm giving them to SBW at work who is a huge Stephen King fan whose late husband accidentally sold her entire collection right before he passed away.

Second shelves, beside the tv. I can't tell you how strangely good it feels to see the books rearranged. They're so pretty!

Under the tv. One of my hopes is that eventually when I've gotten rid of the books that I don't want that there will be room on the shelves for all my ghost and paganism books.

First closet, DVDs. It's really hard to get a picture of all the dvd's on that first shelf. It's so long and the closet is so narrow.

Moar dvd's in the first closet. This is also the comic book closet, but I didn't take pictures of the comics boxes this time. There's nothing much to see since everything is neatly stored in its box.

Shelf to the left of my bed.

Representative sampling of the books under the bed. I've got the first 52 volumes of the original Nancy Drew books under there, some Star Trek books, some Doctor Who books, a pop-up Stephen King book and manga. The manga that goes under there are series that are complete (like Inu-Yasha) or single volumes that I've read (like Romantic Illusions). I, again, have hopes of one day getting them all back on the shelves but for the time being this is the way it is.

Bookshelf at the foot of the bed.

Second closet, more dvds.

Second closet, the rest of the dvds. :D

And the final bookshelf with a little of the non-fiction there on the first row behind the row of manga and then, you know, manga. Also, Murdock is there because I couldn't leave him out.

Manga Review: Black Sun

2012-01-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

This is one of those manga that keeps coming up in rec lists for BDSM themed manga, but one that I had been unable to find until a friend pointed me to Akadot. So I bought it, especially since I'd been seeing how much everyone loved it for so very, very long.

Right. Well.

First off, I found the art to be uneven. Meaning, sometimes it was very pretty and other times, especially when Leonard was in his Crusader helmet I hated it. Especially his face. It became the cliche shojo face of doom.

The storyline was predictable and nothing special. Admittedly, I will happily read the trope of captive falling in love with captor all the live long day, assuming that the story is well done. And this wasn't. Heck, I can even read a mildly well done plot if the sex is really gorgeous or well done. This wasn't. And that's one of the things that people kept saying, that the sex scenes were so explicit, so 'hot'. These people have clearly not been reading the things that I have been reading if they think those scenes were a) well done or b) explicit and hot.

And there were random things that completely threw me out of the story. The slip of the author, or perhaps the translator into calling Jamal, 'Jamal-sama'. Last time I checked Muslims in, well, let's face it, any time period at all in the Middle East, didn't use the honorific 'sama'. And the freaking mitten things that they apparently use on captives hands.What the hell are those? What? That's how much they bugged me, or maybe that just shows how little the story dragged me into it.

Everyone in this story felt like a cardboard cutout. Nothing special. Nothing to draw the reader in and make us care about the characters' lives. It's unsuccessful as a story and it's unsuccessful as pwp.

The single best part of the manga was the little side story at the end with one of the other characters' pet panther.

A second volume as just been released and I will definitely not be getting it.

2 out of 5

If you're looking for a *good* manga with BDSM themes, gorgeous artwork, and a well put together and thought out storyline with fleshed out characters, allow me to point you to the Finder series. My love of which has nothing to do with the hot mob boss trope. Nope. Not one little bit.

Matriarchy

2012-01-11T14:34:00.001-05:00

I was reading an article on the Mosuo people of China that was linked on FB by Muslim Feminists, or is it referred to as Metis' Muslim Feminists group? Either way. So while, upon further reading, the Mosuo are not strictly a matriarchy it did get me thinking.

What would a matriarchy be like, really? There wouldn't suddenly be a lack of murder or theft or rape, I think, because people will do bad things in any society. I don't think that it would solve all the world problems, as I once did.

Would a matriarchy just be exchanging one kind of inequality for another? Not that women would do things the exact same way as men have done them only with women at the top of the food chain, which is the common sci-fi/fantasy trope when the author wants to have a Shocking!alien society. But if you're ruling based on, well, anything really, but we're doing gender here specifically, then there's always going to be a sex that is subjugated to one degree or another.

This was originally going to be a post with a question of what you guys thought a matriarchal society would be like but as I've typed and thought about it in my own clumsy way I've realized that I don't think it matters. Either way you go on this someone is going to be on the bottom of the pyramid.

So the goal shouldn't be to make a patriarchal society into or more like a matriarchy but to make a society where gender doesn't matter. Where everyone is equal.

Though I think that this is one of those things that is a good goal to work toward but I don't think will ever actually happen. It goes so hard against our nature to categorize and rank things.

Hope

2012-01-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

"Hope is one of the Theological virtues.This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal worldis not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishfulthinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do."

Hope, in the Christian sense of the term according to Lewis, does not mean that we leave the world as it is because we're busy thinking and hoping for the next world and Something Better. The people who do the most good in this world are also, he says, those who think the most of the next. They are looking forward to the next world, to meeting their creator and having Him look at them and know everything that they've done in life and they're working to try and be 'worthy'.

Not that any of them think that they can earn their salvation, mind. Just that they don't want to be in front of God and have Him say, 'And what did you do with what I gave you?' and not have an answer except for, 'Wait to die and be with You.' The scenario brings to mind so many examples from the Bible, including the parable of the talents. God has given us things, including the entire world, and expects us to be good stewards of it. He expects us to improve things. He expects us to do something with what He's loaned us and that's why those who think the most of the world to come do the most here.

In theory.

In practice, I think that there are a great many people at least in modern times who don't think this way. They've, according to Lewis' view (and I happen to agree with him at least in the sense that I think this is the only point of view in this area that has it doing any good), misunderstood the point of thinking on the next world. They think that it means that they shouldn't care at all for the things of this world because they are transitory and God is going to wipe it all out and bring it back in perfected form anyway so it doesn't matter. But it *does*, because we're not just spirit which is what the next world is concerned with but flesh and we have been given custody of the physical realm for a time. Not to neglect and abuse it but to work with and to show God that we understand what a gift we've been given.

Lewis seems to think that the neglect of the world is due to Christians ceasing to think of the next and perhaps is some cases this is so. But I maintain that there are too many who neglect this world because they think too much on the next.

I'm having a moment of deep confusion

2012-01-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

Someone explain to me what the point of the Crucifixion was again?

I mean I know that the line is that Christ had to die because he was a perfect man so that his sacrifice could somehow count for us but I honestly find myself going, 'But WHY?' right now.

If everyone is responsible for their own sins and for accepting and relying on God's mercy and forgiveness then what was the purpose of the Crucifixion? Why was all the blood necessary?

Charity

2012-01-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

Short chapter!

"`Charity' now means simply what used to be called `alms'—that is,giving to the poor. Originally it had a much wider meaning. Charity means `Love,in the Christian sense'. But love, in the Christian sense, does notmean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will;that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, andmust learn to have about other people."

So this is what Lewis is talking about in this chapter. Not charity in the sense of giving people money or food or other material items, though those are also very important but Charity in the sense of being charitable. In the sense of treating everyone in a kind and decent manner even if you don't like them personally.

"We `like' or are `fond of' somepeople, and not of others. It is important to understand that thisnatural `liking' is neither a sin nor a virtue, any more than yourlikes and dislikes in food are a sin or a virtue. It is just a fact.But, of course, what we do about it is either sinful or virtuous."

Sort of tangential: Have you ever had someone that you liked on sight or disliked on sight? I have, on both fronts. I wonder why that is. What part of their body language or speech triggers that reaction in us?

It's obviously much easier to be charitable towards people that we like. We're more likely to look with kind eyes on their actions or to forgive them for some mistake or slight. We're more likely to defend them against their detractors and to say things that raise their standing. Because we like them and we want good things for them. But what Lewis is saying is that a Christian should do all of those things even for the people they don't like.

More than that, that they should take care especially to do those things for those that they don't like.

"The rule for all of us is perfectlysimple. Do not waste time bothering whether you `love' yourneighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one ofthe great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, youwill presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike,you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn,you will find yourself disliking him less. There is, indeed, oneexception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey thelaw of charity, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are,and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his`gratitude', you will probably be disappointed."

I think Lewis is saying that we sort of train our emotions in this sense. Spend time acting as though you like someone and eventually you will genuinely like them.

I know for a fact that this is not universally true however. Sure, sometimes you might find yourself seeing the good in that person and growing to like them but you are just as likely to find more and more things that you *don't* like about them and your dislike of them will grow. That being said, in many instances acting as though you like someone and treating them that was will still make your life easier. As long as everyone is acting polite and friendly things tend to run smoother and it makes a better environment. Usually. So I'm all for acting charitably toward *most* people even if you don't like them. I have to add that caveat because, well, I'm not ready to just generalise like that. I'm certainly not capable of pretending to like *everyone* I dislike.

2011 Books

2011-12-31T17:34:00.002-05:00

Right, it's only about 5:30 here but I'm not going to get another book read before midnight.

So here's the count and list for 2011:

Final count: 186

The goal for next year is 300, as you can see by the little ticker I've got at the top of the blog. I don't think I'll make it, but that's the goal. And since my TBR 'pile' is 589 books strong I've got plenty to choose from.

List:

A Lick of Frost – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
Swallowing Darkness – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
Divine Misdemeanors – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/1/11)
Nightseer – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/2/11)
Strange Candy – Laurell K. Hamilton (1/2/11)
The Battle for God – Karen Armstrong (1/3/11)
Dead Beat – Jim Butcher (1/6/11)
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs – Molly Harper (1/7/11)
Grave Sight – Charlaine Harris (1/8/11)
Grave Surprise – Charlaine Harris (1/9/11)
Fool Moon audiobook – Jim Butcher (1/11/11)
An Ice Cold Grave – Charlaine Harris (1/13/11)
Proven Guilty – Jim Butcher (1/14/11)
Dead Until Dark – Charlaine Harris (1/15/11)
Living Dead in Dallas – Charlaine Harris (1/21/11)
White Night – Jim Butcher (1/22/11)
Club Dead – Charlaine Harris (1/22/11)
Dead as a Doornail – Charlaine Harris (1/30/11)
Small Favor – Jim Butcher (2/1/11)
Grave Peril audiobook – Jim Butcher (2/4/11)
True Grit – Charles Portis (2/5/11)
Bleach Vol. 33 (2/5/11)
Definitely Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/6/11)
All Together Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/11/11)
From Dead to Worse – Charlaine Harris (2/12/11)
Turn Coat – Jim Butcher (2/13/11)
Dark and Stormy Knights: Even Hand – Jim Butcher (2/13/11)
Dead and Gone – Charlaine Harris (2/16/2011)
Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris (2/18/11)
Must Love Hellhounds: The Britlingens Go To Hell – Charlaine Harris (2/19/11)
A Touch of Dead – Charlaine Harris (2/20/11)
Changes – Jim Butcher (2/22/11)
Summer Knight audiobook – Jim Butcher (2/23/11)
Side Jobs – Jim Butcher (2/23/11)
Hannibal Rising – Thomas Harris (2/25/11)
Red Dragon – Thomas Harris (2/28/11)
Silence of the Lambs – Thomas Harris (3/4/11)
Hannibal – Thomas Harris (3/6/11)
Holidays Are Hell: Two Ghosts for Sister Rachel – Kim Harrison (3/6/11)
Dates From Hell: Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil – Kim Harrison (3/7/11)
Storm Front – Jim Butcher (3/8/11)
The Lost Gospel of Mary – Frederica Mathewes-Green (3/13/11)
Dead Witch Walking – Kim Harrison (3/13/11)
The Good, the Bad, and the Undead – Kim Harrison (3/17/11)
Death Masks audiobook – Jim Butcher (3/18/11)
Every Which Way But Dead – Kim Harrison (3/20/11)
A Fistful of Charms – Kim Harrison (3/23/11)
Finder Vol. 1: Target in the Viewfinder (3/24/11)
Finder Vol. 2: Cage in the Viewfinder (3/25/11)
For a Few Demons More – Kim Harrison (3/27/11)
The Outlaw Demon Wails – Kim Harrison (3/27/11)
White Witch, Black Curse – Kim Harrison (3/31/11)
Unbound: Ley Line Drifer – Kim Harrison (4/1/11)
Black Magic Sanction – Kim Harrison (4/2/11)
Pale Demon – Kim Harrison (4/3/11)
Blood Rites audiobook – Jim Butcher (4/7/11)
Treasure Trail – ed. Jack Hart (4/7/11)
Midnight Thirsts – ed. Greg Herren (4/8/11)
Bad Heir Day – Wendy Holden (4/10/11)
Fool Moon – Jim Butcher (4/12/11)
Fairyville – Emma Holly (4/12/11)
Inu-Yasha Vol. 54 (4/12/11)
Inu-Yasha Vol. 55 (4/13/11)
Inu-Yasha Vol. 56 (4/13/11)
Naruto Vol. 43 (4/14/11)
Naruto Vol. 44 (4/14/11)
A Thousand Splendid Sons – Khaled Hosseini (4/16/11)
Islam: A Short History – Karen Armstrong (4/16/11)
Naruto Vol. 45 (4/16/11)
Bleach Vol. 34 (4/17/11)
Naruto Vol. 46 (4/17/11)
Naruto Vol. 47 (4/17/11)
Naruto Vol. 48 (4/17/11)
Naurto Vol. 49 (4/18/11)
Blood Price – Tanya Huff (4/19/11)
Naruto Vol. 50 (4/20/11)
The Footprints of God – Greg Iles (4/20/11)
The Haunting – Shirley Jackson (4/23/11)
Posted to Death – Dean James (4/23/11)
The Jewel of Medina – Sherry Jones (4/24/11)
Carpe Demon – Julie Kenner (4/24/11)
Finger Vol. 3: One Wing in the Viewfinder (4/25/11)
The Beekeeper's Apprentice – Julie R. King (4/29/11)
Dead Beat audiobook – Jim Butcher (5/3/11)
Dead Reckoning – Charlaine Harris (5/6/11)
A Monstrous Regiment of Women – Laurie R. King (5/7/11)
Grave Peril – Jim Butcher (5/12/11)
A Letter of Mary – Laurie R. King (5/14/11)
The Moor – Laurie R. King (5/18/11)
O Jerusalem – Laurie R. King (5/21/11)
Summer Knight – Jim Butcher (5/23/11)
Justice Hall – Laurie R. King (5/25/11)
The Language of the Bees – Laurie R. King (5/28/11)
Voices Behind the Veil – Ergun Mehmet Caner (5/31/11)
Death Masks – Jim Butcher (6/5/11)
Bag of Bones – Stephen King (6/6/11)
Proven Guilty audiobook – Jim Butcher (6/7/11)
Carrie – Stephen King (6/7/11)
The World Religions – Huston Smith (6/8/11)
Interview with an Exorcist – Jose A. Fortea (6/9/11)
Christine – Stephen King (6/13/11)
Blood Rites – Jim Butcher (6/16/11)
Cujo – Stephen King (6/17/11)
Smokin' Seventeen – Janet Evanovich (6/22/11)
Dead Beat – Jim Butcher (6/29/11)
The Eyes of the Dragon – Stephen King (6/29/11)
Naamah's Blessing – Jacqueline Carey (7/3/11)
The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger – Stephen King (7/3/11)
The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three – Stephen King (7/8/11)
Proven Guilty – Jim Butcher (7/11/11)
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands – Stephen King (7/13/11)
White Night – Jim Butcher (7/19/11)
Naked City: Curses – Jim Butcher (7/25/11)
White Night audiobook – Jim Butcher (7/25/11)
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor – Anthony Everitt (7/25/11)
Ghost Story – Jim Butcher (7/26/11)
Bleach Vol. 35 (7/26/11)
Naruto Vol. 51 (7/26/11)
Ouran High School Host Club (7/26/11)
Spell Bound – Kelley Armstrong (7/29/11)
Small Favor – Jim Butcher (8/4/11)
1 Enoch – George W.E. Nickelsburg (8/6/11)
The Naked City: Curses – Jim Butcher (8/9/11)
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass – Stephen King (8/14/11)
Turn Coat – Jim Butcher (8/17/11)
Dark and Stormy Knights: Even Hand – Jim Butcher (8/18/11)
Small Favor audiobook – Jim Butcher (8/24/11)
Changes – Jim Butcher (8/27/11)
Side Jobs – Jim Butcher (8/28/11)
Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture – ed. Stephen H. Segal (8/28/11)
The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 1 (8/29/11)
Ghost Story – Jim Butcher (9/5/11)
The Help – Kathryn Stockett (9/10/11)
Finder Vol. 4: Prisoner in the Viewfinder (9/11/11)
The Lincoln Lawyer – Michael Connelly (9/14/11)
The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla (9/15/11)
The Eagle – Rosemary Sutcliff (9/16/11)
The Mythology of Supernatural – Nathan Robert Brown (9/20/11)
Turn Coat audiobook – Jim Butcher (9/21/11)
Supernatural: Coyote's Kiss – Christa Faust (9/22/11)
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah – Stephen King (9/24/11)
Author's Pet (9/24/11)
Bleach Vol. 36 (9/24/11)
Naruto Vol. 52 (9/24/11)
Supernatural: Night Terror – John Passarella (9/28/11)
The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower – Stephen King (9/28/11)
The Dead Zone – Stephen King (9/30/11)
The Brass Verdict – Michael Connelly (10/5/11)
Desperation – Stephen King (10/7/11)
The Reversal – Michael Connelly (10/13/11)
Different Seasons – Stephen King (10/15/11)
Dolores Claiborne – Stephen King (10/15/11)
Changes audiobook – Jim Butcher (10/19/11)
The Fifth Witness – Michael Connelly (10/24/11)
Dreamcatcher – Stephen King (10/24/11)
Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (10/26/11)
The Silver Pigs – Lindsey Davis (11/02/11)
Duma Key – Stephen King (11/04/11)
Everything's Eventual – Stephen King (11/14/11)
Shadows in Bronze – Lindsey Davis (11/15/11)
Side Jobs audiobook – Jim Butcher (11/17/11)
Firestarter – Stephen King (11/19/11)
Venus in Copper – Lindsey Davis (11/23/11)
Explosive Eighteen – Janet Evanovich (11/26/11)
Perfectly Plum – Leah Wilson (11/28/11)
The Scottish Prisoner – Diana Gabaldon (12/1/11)
The Dresden Files: Fool Moon Vol. 1 – Jim Butcher (12/1/11)
Four Past Midnight – Stephen King (12/2/11)
From A Buick 8 – Stephen King (12/7/11)
Private Teacher Vol. 1 (12/7/11)
Gerald's Game – Stephen King (12/9/11)
The Iron Hand of Mars – Lindsey Davis (12/12/11)
The Green Mile – Stephen King (12/17/11)
Only Serious About You Vol. 1 (12/17/11)
The Tyrant Falls In Love Vol. 2 (12/17/11)
Ghost Story (audiobook) – Jim Butcher (12/20/11)
Two for the Lions – Lindsey Davis (12/20/11)
The Shack – Wm. Paul Young (12/26/11)
Bleach Vol. 37 (12/28/11)
Naruto Vol. 53 (12/29/11)
The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 3 (12/29/11)
The Tyrant Falls in Love Vol. 4 (12/30/11)
Hearts in Atlantis – Stephen King (12/30/11)
Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis (12/31/11)
In the Garden of Beasts – Erik Larson (12/31/11)
Hidden – Kelley Armstrong (12/31/11)

2011 Meme

2011-12-29T11:31:00.000-05:00

We're about at the end of the year so I'm finally doing this...

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’dnever done before?

*thinks* Nothing comes to mind. I think it was a very routine kind of year. Or, well, I'm planning a baby shower and I've never done that before. So we'll throw that out there.

2. Did you keep your new years’resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Didn't make any.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not yet. Evesdottir will make her appearance in 2012.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Nope.

5. What countries did you visit?

Imagination-land.

6. What would you like to have in 2012that you lacked in 2011?

Hmmm...I don't know. I want many things but they're all more long term. Right now I'm relatively content. Let's go with the old safety - a boyfriend.

7. What date from 2011 will remainetched upon your memory, and why?

Probably the night we heard bin Laden had been killed. Though I won't recall the date, specifically since I already can't remember what day it was. But I'll remember hearing about it and everyone being on FB all night.

8. What was your biggest achievement ofthe year?

Finally signing up to go back to school

9. What was your biggest failure?

I don't fail! ;D Um. I really don't know...

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

I bought a bunch of presents for the Salvation Army Angel tree. I picked a little 2 yo girl and got her almost everything on her list, with some very wonderful and welcome help from my mom.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My boss.

13. Whose behavior made you appalledand depressed?

A co-worker. NOT SBW, by the way Susanne. Someone else entirely.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Books or training.

15. What did you get really, really,really excited about?

So many things. SO. Many. I'm easily excitable! I got REALLY excited for Thor, Captain America, my best friend's pregnancy, The Avengers trailer, Ghost Story coming out, The Dark Knight Rises trailer, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo....are we sensing a theme?

16. What song(s) will always remind youof 2011?

The cover of Immigrant Song on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack.

17. Compared to this time last year,are you:

i. Happier or sadder?

ii. the same

iii. Thinner or fatter?

iv. thinner

v. richer or poorer?

vi.*laughs* probably about the same as last year

18. What do you wish you’d done moreof?

Reading. I fell down from last year, I think.

19. What do you wish you’d done lessof?

Hmmm...playing Mah-jong. I got addicted for a while and that ate significant amounts of free time.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

I spent it playing with the puppy we're dog sitting and baking. Also, watching Alien and Aliens.

21. How many one-night stands?

365

22. What was your favorite TV program?

American Horror Story

23. Do you hate anyone now that youdidn’t hate this time last year?

Nope. Same old list.

24. What was the best book you read?

Oh, that's tough. All the books? I'll actually have to look over my list at home tonight and get back to you on that.

25. What was your greatest musicaldiscovery?

I've actually been listening to books on cd in the car and not listening to the radio. So really, nothing.

26. What did you want and get?

So very many things.

27. What was your favorite film of thisyear?

Surprisingly, I think it's going to have to be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Yes, it's edged out even my comic book movies.

28. What did you do on your birthday?

Um. I...read. Perfect birthday!

29. How would you describe yourpersonal fashion concept in 2011?

Casual and comfy.

30. What kept you sane?

Who says I am?

31. Which celebrity/public figure didyou fancy the most?

Michael Fassbender and Jeremy Renner.

32. What political issue stirred youthe most?

SOPA

33. Who did you miss?

Nobody.

34. Who was the best new person youmet?

I don't think I met anyone new!

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson youlearned in 2011.

Enhance the calm.

Baby Shower Ideas

2011-12-27T11:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is partially a place for me to keep track of 'game' ideas, etc. but also a place where you all can make suggestions.

Note: They're registered at Toys R Us & Target.

Note 2: No pork or shellfish - his family is 7th Day Adventist. Also, vegetarian option since Eve is a vegetarian.

Note 3: Possibility for shower: A tea with little tea/finger sandwiches and different hot teas for people to try.

Please, make suggestions! I need ideas! Very few of my friends have had children at this point so I haven't been to a lot of baby showers and am more than welcoming ideas!

1. Diapers = every guest gets a diaper and a magic marker. They write something cute/funny/uplifting on the diaper so when Eve and Kyle are changing diapers they get a laugh.

2. Scrapbook pages guests can write advice on, decorate with stickers, markers, etc.

3. Clothespins = everyone gets a clothespin when they arrive. If they say the word 'baby' they lose the clothespin. Whoever has the most clothespins at the end of the party gets a prize.

4. Have everyone personalize a baby T-shirt or one-piece outfit. Before the party, buy a bunch of white or light-colored garments and round up a few small, flat pieces of cardboard to slip inside the clothes to make them easier to decorate. Also pick up fabric paint, paint pens, and/or stamps and permanent fabric ink. Have the guests decorate the clothes any way they want — and make sure they sign them. People can take turns stopping by the craft table throughout the shower. When they're done, hang them up to dry on a clothesline or use baby hangers. Buy several different sizes. That way, the gifts last longer as the baby grows out of some and into others. Can also do this with bibs so there is less to decorate.

5. Everyone brings baby picture of themselves and people have to guess who it is.

6. Make a time capsule for the baby. In the invitations, ask everyone to bring in something that would fit into a gallon jar. The best items are things for the baby to have or read when he or she is older. People have brought in newspaper articles, messages to the baby written on paper or recorded on a CD or DVD, photographs, mementos, even jewelry. Anything will work as long as it fits into the jar.

7. Ahead of time, print each letter of the alphabet on an individual sheet of paper. Once your guests are seated, pass out one sheet of lettered paper to each person along with a supply of markers, crayons, colored pencils, and stickers.

Ask each guest to decorate her page with things that relate to her letter – for example, whoever has letter "A" might draw pictures of apples, alligators, and ants. Your guests should also put their name on the page somewhere and can include a note to the soon-to-arrive baby if they like. After the shower, laminate the pages and bind them together, then give the collection to the guest of honor. (This one would be a little problematic since she's only thinking that there will be about 12 guests.)

It's not like she didn't know the baby was coming...

2011-12-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

And let's pause to have a moment of freaking annoyance.

Eve, who is carrying Evesdottir, has told me the entire time, very vehemently that she does not want a baby shower. She hates all the things that go with baby showers, doesn't like groups of people, etc. etc. So I told her fine, we wouldn't have a baby shower. Then I get a message last night on FB from her telling me to call her grandmother because Ada wants to volunteer her house for the baby shower.

WHAT BABY SHOWER?

Oh, the baby shower she didn't want, but now wants and I suddenly have to plan. THAT baby shower. Which, okay, it's going to be small - mostly family from what she's saying and nothing fancy. She doesn't want any games, nothing. Fine. I still need to get a list of names and addresses of people to invite, get where she's registered (because she registered and didn't tell anyone where) and get the invitations out in time for people to buy presents and actually show up. The woman is six months pregnant. By the time I get all of this done she could be bringing Evesdottir with her to the party! Outside of her stomach!

Okay. Moving on.

Movie: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-26T11:26:00.001-05:00

I know, fannish things belong on the fan blog but basically...it's my blog and I'll post what I want! :p

I'm thinking of moving movie and book reviews over here anyway, assuming that they're more than just me going: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and babbling about the shiny. ;)

First things first: I haven't read the books. I haven't seen the Swedish films. I am coming to this only through the American version of the movie.

That being said, I will be reading the books and seeing the Swedish films as soon as the opportunity arises.

So then.

I loved this movie. Though saying that does not, perhaps, convey the depth of ALL THE FEELINGS that I have for it.

Okay, a basic overview of the movie:

Mikael Blomkvist (played by the ever delicious Daniel Craig) is the editor of Millenium magazine. He's just lost a libel suit brought against him by Wennerstrom, a wealthy businessman. In the process Blomkvist has basically been wiped out. He's lost all his money, everything. He resigns from the magazine in an attempt to distance himself from it, hoping to spare his partner Erika (played by Robin Wright, whom I also adore) and the magazine from being destroyed along with him though everyone knows that Wennerstrom won't stop until he's burned them to the ground and then salted the earth.

In the middle of all this he gets called up to a remote island by Mr. Frode, the attorney for Henrik Vanger, another very wealthy man.

Vanger wants Blomkvist to solve the 40 year old murder of his great-niece, Harriet. She disappeared one day and he is convinced that a member of the family murdered her. Blomkvist is going to turn down the job but Vanger promises him not only a lot of money, but some information that will allow him to take Wennerstrom down for good.

Under the guise of writing Henrik's memoir, Blomkvist moves into a small guest house on the island and starts to investigate. He gets nowhere fast until his daughter drops by for a visit on her way to a Bible camp and notices that the meaningless numbers in the back of Harriet's notebook are references to Bible verses from Leviticus.

Blomkvist realizes that he needs a research assistant to help him track down and figure out what these verses have to do with the women's names beside them so he goes back to Mr. Frode to ask if he knows of anyone. Frode recommends the firm that they had do the background check on Blomkvist before they hired him. Which leads Blomkvist to Lisbeth Salander - the titular girl with the dragon tattoo.

Lisbeth is different, to say the least.

Visual aides are best, so here's a pic of what she looks like in the movie:

And it's not just her fashion choices, of course. She's antisocial, rarely faces anyone directly or looks them in the eyes. And she's a genius. There's clearly been a lot of abuse at some point in her life, and she's been marginalized because of the effects that the trauma has had on her. She was declared legally incompetent as a very young girl and the state has control of her finances. Lisbeth's guardian clearly understands the truth of her situation and lets her control her own finances but early on in the movie he has a stroke and is left unable to fulfill his legal role to her.

A new guardian is assigned, and he takes a hard line with Lisbeth, giving her a monthly salary and nothing else.

Soon after that her laptop is broken and she has to ask for the money to repair it. He gives it to her after forcing her to perform fellatio on him.

A little later on she calls him, claiming to need money for rent and meets him at his apartment. He beats her, knocks her out, ties her to his bed and rapes her. What he doesn't know is that Lisbeth records the whole thing. She calls him sometime later (a few days? the timeline there isn't quite clear in the movie) and tells him she needs money for food.

Once he lets her into the apartment she tasers his ass. When he wakes up she's got him tied to the floor of his bedroom and plays the recording for him. She shoves what looks an awful lot like a cattle prod to me up his ass and proceeds to kick the living shit out of him. Then she explains how he is going to give her control of her money, he is going to write glowing reports about her and how she is adapting to 'normal' society and he is going to start getting her declared competent so that she will have true control over her life. And he is never, ever to have another woman in private with him again. Ever. Or she'll kill him.

To make sure he won't forget the rules, especially the celibacy one, she tattoos 'I AM A RAPIST PIG' in giant letters on his chest and stomach.

I have to admit, I love Lisbeth a lot. A lot a lot. Anyway...

Blomkvist convinces the security firm she works for to give him her address, which does not go over well when he just sort of shows up and politely barges his way into her apartment. He comes within a few seconds of being tased himself. Then he draws her in: he wants her to help him catch a killer of women.

They go back to the island and...well. Investigation happens, secrets are uncovered and that's all I'm saying. I won't give away the ending or the plot twists, though if you've read the book you know what happens.

The mystery aspect of the story was decent. I had my suspicions as to who the killer was, but I wasn't positive and most of the time that's all I can ask of a mystery.

There is some (obviously) graphic violence and much of it is of a sexual nature. But I don't feel as though it was done for the sake of glorifying the violence or done in an over the top splatter-fest manner.

The creepiest part for me was the killer playing Enya (Orinoco Flow) in the background as he gets ready to murder someone, but that could just be me.

The title sequence reminded me a little too much of the Bond title sequences, but that's neither here nor there.

In conclusion: the movie is well worth the time and the money to go see it.

Also, ps: I totally ship Lisbeth and Blomkvist.

The Great Sin

2011-12-23T11:39:00.000-05:00

I am really trying to at least finish reading this book before New Years, if not finish posting about it. I'm a chapter or so ahead of what I'm posting at the moment.

Mostly this is due to the fact that one of my Christmas presents was American Jesus by Stephen Prothero and I'm going to break protocol and read that one next rather than throw it into the Bag of Books! So I'm really looking forward to getting to start it but I need to finish Mere Christianity first!

Another of my presents, by the by, was In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, thanks to my fabulous Big Sis! That book is on Murdock so I'm reading it at the gym. I just started it, but it's already very engrossing. *blinks* I've just realised this means I'm not currently reading any fiction books. *waits to see if the world will come to an end* So far so good!

So let's see...we're up to Pride.

"There isone vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in theworld loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardlyany people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guiltythemselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, orthat they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even thatthey are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was nota Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I havevery seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed theslightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a manmore unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of inour-selves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike itin others.

"The vice I am talking of is Pride orSelf-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, iscalled Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexualmorality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did notlie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According toChristian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride."

And that's because...pride was the first sin, right? According to most Christian thinking at any rate. Pride was what caused Lucifer to refuse to bow down and serve humanity, who he saw as being lesser than himself and all the other angels, and/or to believe that he could sit on God's throne.

"if you want tofind out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, `Howmuch do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take anynotice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?'The point is that each person's pride is in competition with everyone else's pride."

I think that's true, to a point. But then you also can't allow yourself to be a doormat either. There are people out there who don't respect opinions, etc. and will just move you around like a doll if you let them. Users. Do they maybe have an overdose of pride? I think so. But you not having any pride/spine isn't a solution either. Sometimes the scenarios Lewis lists are clashes of egos(pride). Other times they're other people being assholes and/or manipulative.

"Pridegets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more ofit than the next man."

"Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goeson and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man inthe whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he ismy rival and my enemy."

"Other vices may sometimes bring peopletogether: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendlinessamong drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always meansenmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, butenmity to God. In God you come up against somethingwhich is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unlessyou know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing incomparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud youcannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things andpeople: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannotsee something that is above you."

I think it's obvious but I should point out that there is a difference between Pride and pride. And Lewis does make that point later on. There's the Pride that he talks about above, where it drives you to be in competition with, basically, everything and everyone under the sun because you need to be better than they are in every respect in order to feel good about yourself and then there's pride in things. We'll talk about that in a bit.

Lewis believes that people who are clearly Prideful cannot ever be truly religious. They 'worship an imaginary God' according to him and are in reality being misled by the devil. Or their own egos, since we know how much I hate blaming everything that goes wrong in a persons life (or the world) on the poor devil.

"Theytheoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of thisphantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves ofthem and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, theypay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it apound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was ofthose people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preachabout Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the endof the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at anymoment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever wefind that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—aboveall, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be surethat we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The realtest of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget aboutyourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It isbetter to forget about yourself altogether."

I totally get this. I didn't think it at the time, but when I was covering I did fall into this category. I said that I wasn't judging the women who didn't cover, but I did. Not always consciously, but I did. I thought that I was better, closer to God than they were for doing so and that they just needed to be educated and then they'd see how wrong they were. I felt very good about being so humble.

The funny thing is this: Lewis points out that quite often people use Pride in order to overcome lesser sins. Cowardice, lust, anger, etc. have all been overcome by an appeal to Pride, that they are beneath someone's dignity.

"Thedevil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste andbrave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up inyou the Dictatorship of Pride—just as he would be quite content tosee your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give youcancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the verypossibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."

Okay. On to the lower case 'pride' which is not the same as the sin of Pride.

Lewis says:

1. Pleasure in being praised is not Pride. Feeling good that you've been told you did a good job is a good and natural thing. Because the pleasure comes not from feeling that you are superior inherently in and of yourself, but in pleasing someone that you wanted to please. The trouble, where this goes from pride to Pride, is when you go from thinking 'I've pleased them' to thinking 'How great am I that I've done all of this?' And the more you delight in yourself and the less in the praise, the worse you are. At the point when you feel completely self-satisfied all the time and don't care at all what anyone else thinks, ever, because you know that you're the best thing out there then you've hit rock bottom.

2. Pride in family, school, regiment, workplace. Lewis says that it all depends on what the person means when they say they're proud of such things. If they mean that they have warm admiration for them, then that's right and fine. You should feel good about the institutions that you join and participate in. But if they mean that they're somehow better than anyone else because they 'come from' such and such a family, or they went to such and such a school then that has gone over into the area of Pride.

3. God doesn't forbid Pride because He's offended by it. God wants to make people humble in order to make the moment possible where you can meet him. Lewis believes that you cannot get near God and not be humbled by it. (Which I totally agree with. If you were to really meet something so much more powerful than yourself, the only sane reaction is a realization of the very smallness of your own being.) So God forbids Pride because it is such the opposite of human nature in relation to Himself. Pride will not, according to Lewis, ever get you anything or where good in the long run, especially not in the spiritual sense. And since that's the ultimate end of everything, to die and go before God, that's the biggest thing to focus on.

4. A truly humble person is not one that is always telling you that they're nobody. It is someone who you would never even think of in that way. Someone who is cheerful and smart who people just generally like.

AHS - All the love

2011-12-21T23:56:00.000-05:00

You can have some coherence tomorrow. For now:

1) Tate. Tate. JFC. There is nothing that you can do that will make me not like you. Trying to 'make' Violet a boyfriend? I am aware of how messed up that is, and yet still find it adorable and want to cuddle you for the thought. Don't worry, she'll forgive you eventually.

2) The family ganging up to run off/save the new family.

3) Vivien and her baby.

4) Constance, whose name is never Candace. She's the real monster of the show, I don't care what anyone has said.

5) MICHAEL. I was half thinking that the 'devil' baby was not going to live up to the hype. That he'd be a normal kid. Happily, it appears that I was wrong.

Forgiveness

2011-12-21T10:31:00.000-05:00

I take it back. I think this is my favorite chapter, if only because there's nothing in it that I disagree with. There are things I don't understand, of course, but that's not actually a problem with Lewis and more an issue with Christianity itself. So hopefully someone can explain them to me here!

"I said in a previous chapter thatchastity was the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. But I amnot sure I was right. I believe there is one even more unpopular. Itis laid down in the Christian rule, `Thou shalt love thy neighbour asthyself.' Because in Christian morals `thy neighbour' includes `thyenemy', and so we come up against this terrible duty of for-givingour enemies."

This is true. Forgiveness is hard. We've been hurt. We've been wounded and we're bleeding, sometimes physically, sometimes psychologically, quite often both. And we want to make the person(s) who hurt us pay. We want to take the pain that we feel, carve it out of our bodies and give it back to them. To make them suffer as much as we've suffered so that we'll stop feeling it. The worst part of that though, is that it doesn't work. You could take someone and (somehow) manage to inflict the exact same wounds on them, the exact same amount of pain and loss. And you'd still feel yours. Sometimes there's a part of you that is relieved, that feels satisfied but that doesn't stop the pain.

Human nature is to seek vengeance. To seek a leveling of the field. We're bloodthirsty. Forgiveness runs counter to our base instincts. It does, however, work toward the ultimate goal of so many of our other instincts: the survival of the species. If our darker instinct, our blood lust, was left unchecked we would have killed ourselves off pretty quickly. Something else has to intervene, some order has to be imposed.

We're the ones doing the imposing, really. Even assuming that the order came from on high, a creator god or force that said, 'Okay, look. I know that you guys are just *angry* and want to give as good as you got. Better, even. But that's not in your best interests. If you can't work together you're going to die because I designed all the other animals with more on the ball in the natural defenses and physicality department. And if you keep trying to kill one another off you're eventually going to succeed. And then it's going to have been a total waste of my time. So here's what we're going to do. You're going to *want* to bash each other over the head. Don't. Forgiveness is better.'

Leaving aside that forgiveness is not even the first system that we came up with. We came up with a payment system first. Kill someone's donkey? Pay 30 sheckles (or *whatever*). Sometimes the payment was mandated by the government and could be a little bloody. I know we tend to think of the concept of 'an eye for an eye' as barbaric, but at the time? *That* was the restrained option! That was something that was imposed on the people to bring order out of the violence and chaos. So, you know, I think we've come a fairly long way.

Anyway...the point is, one way or the other, we've come to the conclusion that some measure of forgiveness is necessary to keep on rolling. But it's not what we feel in our guts. In our hearts. We (most of us, I'm sure there's someone out there, somewhere, whose first thought is gentle. Good for you.) want justice, which can quite often look like revenge. Forgiveness is something that we're trained into.

"Every one says forgiveness is a lovelyidea, until they have something to forgive,"

I just like that. It's very true, don't you think?

"Just aswhen Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even tosave myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I shoulddo when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in thisbook what I could do—I can do precious little—I am telling youwhat Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find `Forgive usour sins as we forgive those that sin against us.' There is noslightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any otherterms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shallnot be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?"

Here's my question. Why? Why should it be that way? Let's go under the assumption that there is a God. Moreover, that there is very specifically the Christian God. He is supposed to be merciful, correct? Forgiving and loving. If God does not forgive us our sins, we cannot get into heaven. Yes, I know it's a little more complicated than that, there's the whole asking for forgiveness and salvation aspect but the point remains. God is, under this set up, basically holding salvation hostage. 'If you don't forgive the people who've hurt you, you're not getting in here.' Where does that leave the people who have been so hurt that they find it impossible to forgive?

I get where forgiveness is useful to society. What I don't get is why it's essential to us getting into heaven. I mean I could come up with reasons; that our clinging to our pains causes anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. But what if none of that's true? What if we just don't forgive this slight or that but we're not terrible, angry people? Does that keep us out of heaven? Isn't God supposed to be better than us?

Here's the part that really made sense to me in a way that this never has before. Okay, so we're instructed to love our neighbors (including our enemies) as ourselves. Well what does that mean? Do we feel particularly fond of ourselves? Not always. Sometimes we don't even like ourselves very much at all.

"Do I think well of myself, think myself anice chap? Well, I am afraid I some-times do (and those are, nodoubt, my worst moments) but that is not why I love myself. In factit is the other way round: my self-love makes me think myself nice,but thinking myself nice is not why I love myself. So loving myenemies does not apparently mean thinking them nice either. That isan enormous relief. For a good many people imagine that forgivingyour enemies means making out that they are really not such badfellows after all, when it is quite plain that they are. Go a stepfurther. In my most clear-sighted moments not only do I not thinkmyself a nice man, but I know that I am a very nasty one. I can lookat some of the things I have done with horror and loathing. Soapparently I am allowed to loathe and hate some of the things myenemies do. Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christianteachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions,but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but notthe sinner.

"For a long time I used to think this asilly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man didand not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that therewas one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namelymyself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit orgreed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightestdifficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the thingswas that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry tofind that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently,Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred wefeel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one wordof what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does wantus to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves:being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, ifit is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can becured and made human again."

Okay. And then I can hear some people saying that, well, doesn't that mean that we can't punish anyone? Because we certainly wouldn't put ourselves up for punishment.

No. What Lewis says, and I get what he's saying, is that if you commit a crime and later come to the realization (supposedly through conversion to Christianity) of the severity of your crime, then the correct Christian thing to do is to turn yourself in and be punished for it. Even up to and including being put to death if that's the punishment for your crime.

Now I honestly can't see a whole lot of people up and doing that. The sense of self-preservation in humans tends to be to strong. We might seek to make amends in other ways, but actually walking into a police station and confession to a murder (or even a lesser crime)? Not so much. It's a nice ideal, sure. But I don't think it's going to be implemented anytime soon. And, of course, the assumption is always that, as a 'true' Christian, you wouldn't do things that would require such punishment anyway.

"I imagine somebody will say, `Well, ifone is allowed to condemn the enemy's acts, and punish him, and killhim, what difference is left between Christian morality and theordinary view?' All the difference in the world. Remember, weChristians think man lives for ever. Therefore, what really mattersis those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of thesoul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly ora hellish creature. We may kill if necessary, but we must not hateand enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoyit. In other words, something inside us, the feeling of resentment,the feeling that wants to get one's own back, must be simply killed.I do not mean that anyone can decide this moment that he will neverfeel it any more. That is not how things happen. I mean that everytime it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all ourlives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but theattempt is not impossible. Even while we kill and punish we must tryto feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves—to wish that hewere not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, becured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bibleby loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor sayinghe is nice when he is not."

*sigh* Anyway. My thing, if there is one, is this: I like what Lewis says in this chapter about forgiveness. Much of it makes perfect sense. I'm not saying that it's implementable or anything, but it's nice. There's plenty of things that Lewis says in this book that are nice, counterpointed with all the things he says that I don't think are very effective or correct. However, nothing in this book so far as made 'the case' for Christianity. It's all good if you already believe, but if you don't, or you have doubts, then it's just interesting and sometimes not very convincing.

All-American Muslim - Ep. 6 - A Chance at Redemption

2011-12-18T23:57:00.001-05:00

*snort* So from the description this is going to be all about football. We'll see. *cares nothing about football*

Oh! Before we get started, I had an idea earlier. There's this whole expectation for converts to behave perfectly, to take up all of Islam in one go. But when Islam was being revealed, it was a gradual process. Like with alcohol being forbidden (yes, I had this thought while drinking a Tequila Sunrise). It was revealed in stages. So even though the people who followed Mohammed believed in his revelation they didn't have to to everything at once. I know that's because it wasn't all revealed yet, but my point is: why can't converts take things in stages? It only makes sense.

Yes, the whole revelation is out there, but the covert is like the people who originally converted to Islam. They have lives that they're changing for this religion. It makes sense to me that they take things in steps. Like when I was reading about a woman who is converting to Orthodox Judaism and she said that you take on the practices as you feel called and able to. Same thing. You know what you need to do and you intend to do them, but doing them whole hog cold turkey is too much of a culture shock.

Baby steps people. Baby steps.

Though I absolutely get the convert desire to just *do* and be the 'perfect' member of that religion. And there's pressure from born members and other converts too, because they see you as a representative of the faith and there's likely some questioning in their minds about the sincerity of every conversion.

Right then.

Okay. The Convert who will not be named and His Terrible Wife. I...care little for your 'pain'. Let's move on.

How old are kids when they're expected to be able to do the whole fast? Or is there not a set age and it's just that they do it when they feel able to?

Oh, look, it's Nina's husband. Who we nearly never see. Maybe he's camera shy?

'gasoline distributor' - so many options. Does that mean he works at a gas station? Runs the tankers that move gas around? Owns a bunch of gas stations?

I do like that he's willing to support her in her desire to have a club. Good for him.

*laughs* Dear Nader: *men* need 'like 20 minutes!' at the gym. Women need a whole lot more work. And it's hard to find the time to go to the gym when you've got an infant. Or so I assume.

Football...blah...blah...

Them...blah...blah...

She Who Will Not Be Named's Mom is an awesome person on this subject.

'Hey, your husband has made a lot of changes in his life. Maybe you should back the fuck up and be a human being.'

*bitch-slaps She Who Will Not Be Named* Maybe you should have had those thoughts *before* you forced He Who Will Not Be Named to give up Wrigley.

'I would consider myself a control freak in some scenarios...'

O.O Really? I am shocked. Shocked. Nawal, I love you and I'm glad you're feeling better. But calling yourself a control freak in 'some scenarios' is understating the case.

The handshake thing. I'm with Nina: 'If you're going to shake someone's hand and get sexy thoughts, then you have a hand fetish.' And...it's not a universally accepted rule anyway.

I agree though that I prefer having a female trainer to. There are some things you do when you're weight lifting especially that can get very awkward.

If Nader freaks out about her shaking that man's hand I'm going to be at a loss. He doesn't seem like that kind of a guy. And I find the fact that she feels the need to 'confess' it very strange.

'literally felt like electricity went through my body or something' Really? That's weird.

Seriously. Nina is the most sensible person in the room on the handshake issue.

Football...blah...blah...

Commercial and then...more football. I will make a *terrible* football widow because I can't even pretend to care. Blah...blah...

He Who Will Not Be Named is on the tv...blargh. I know what's coming, and it's not helping you. So you went back and got her. Good for you. I don't forgive you for breaking her heart! Oh, but hey, fucking *compromise*, which should have been done in the first place.

And She Who Will Not Be Named - stop talking about the 'religious situation' because that wasn't your problem, you just used it as an excuse.

Moving on to More Important Things:

Ooof. That's cold. Three times in the back and once in the head when he's already on the ground? Over what? What in the hell were they fighting about and how do you feel that's the right response?

'We can't specify that murder only happens in a certain culture, or religion. It happens everywhere.'

Yeah. Just like every other kind of human evil.

I get what Suehaila is saying about wanting to be there to witness the killer being arraigned because the family can't be there.

*is all choked up*

Christian Marriage

2011-12-14T11:17:00.000-05:00

I have to say, overall this has been my favorite chapter of the book. There are, of course, some things that I disagree with and some things that feel very old fashioned to me, but Lewis also espouses an attitude that surprised me coming from him! And then he ruined it for me with the last couple of paragraphs.

"There are two reasons why I do not particularly want todeal with marriage. The first is that the Christian doctrines on thissubject are extremely unpopular. The second is that I have never beenmarried myself, and, therefore, can speak only at second hand. But inspite of that, I feel I can hardly leave the subject out in anaccount of Christian morals."

So Lewis, like me, is talking from the peanut gallery on the subject of marriage. Just so we're all clear. This is someone who hadn't been married at the time writing about marriage and having his thoughts commented on by someone else who isn't married. We're Statler and Waldorf, basically. :)

"The Christian idea of marriage is basedon Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a singleorganism–for that is what the words `one flesh' would be in modernEnglish. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was notexpressing a sentiment but stating a fact...The inventor of thehuman machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and thefemale, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on thesexual level, but totally combined. The monstrosity of sexualintercourse out-side marriage is that those who indulge in it aretrying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the otherkinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make upthe total union."

I'm not going to go into polygamy, which existed at Christ's time (and afterward) and was never explicitly forbidden. This is one of those things where it's read into the text - that you can only be *completely* one with one other person. There're arguments on both side of that fence though. And there are some people who claim the title of Christian who do believe in and practice polygamy. It's not main stream any longer, but it does exist. So there's obviously, like in so many things, enough wiggle room within the text for people to come up with different answers to the same questions.

But Lewis saying that people who are having sex outside of marriage are trying to separate the kinds of union doesn't make sense to me. Just because these people may not legally be wed or wed in a religious manner doesn't mean that they aren't devoted to one another in the same way that people who have gone through one or both of those other options are. Do you really need a piece of paper or a ceremony to tell you that you're 'one' with the other person? Not always. Though, since we are humans we do like to mark special things like that with ceremonies. But it's not necessary.

"The Christian attitude does not mean that there isanything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about thepleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasureand try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to getthe pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewingthings and spitting them out again."

Clearly Lewis has never heard of a wine or beer tasting.

"As a consequence, Christianity teachesthat marriage is for life. There is, of course, a difference herebetween different Churches: some do not admit divorce at all; someallow it reluctantly in very special cases. It is a great pity thatChristians should disagree about such a question; but...all agree with oneanother about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees withthe outside world...all regard divorce as something likecutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation...What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simplereadjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are nolonger in love with one another, or when either of them falls in lovewith someone else."

*waggles hand* Most churches do teach that marriage is for life. And it's not something that I think should be entered into lightly, but it's (again) nothing that's stated outright. It's not even implied, but something that is inferred from the text. From the same line that is used to teach that marriage is between one man and one woman. The bit about a man and a woman being 'one'. Because if two things have become one, they can't be separated again. Right? Eh. Actually, in many cases they can be separated and become the two distinct things they were before being combined. Now I'm not saying that people should be divorcing willy nilly. I've lived through my parents' divorce, and it wasn't pretty. It's a nasty thing, which just means, to me, that people need to be far more careful when they're choosing someone to marry in the first place. Whether or not you believe that a marriage should last forever, you don't want to turn around and fight a divorce if you don't have to.

Lewis feels that marriage is related to two virtues. Chastity (of course) and justice. Where does the 'justice' come in?

"Justice, as I saidbefore, includes the keeping of promises. Now everyone who has beenmarried in a church has made a public, solemn promise to stick to his(or her) partner till death. The duty of keeping that promise has nospecial connection with sexual morality: it is in the same positionas any other promise. If, as modern people are always telling us, thesexual impulse is just like all our other impulses, then it ought tobe treated like all our other impulses; and as their indulgence iscontrolled by our promises, so should its be. If, as I think, it isnot like all our other impulses, but is morbidly inflamed, then weshould be specially careful not to let it lead us into dishonesty."

Now, everyone, contain your shock. I *agree* with the first half of Lewis statement, even though it's not the position he takes. I believe that it is the *promise* that should hold people in their marriages. Meaning, if you promise, whether it's spelled out or not, to be monogamous with your spouse, then you be monogamous. Period. If you can't do that, then you don't promise to do it. Don't get married. Be up front about it. I'm certain that, somewhere, there is a person who will be willing and happy to let you be yourself while being themselves in return. If you absolutely cannot control your sexual impulses, you have a mental issue and need to seek counseling. Most of us don't have that excuse.

For me it's not so much the 'having sex with someone who is not your spouse' that gets to be about adultery because if it's an open relationship, where everyone involved knows about everyone else and is accepting of the dynamics, then I don't have any problem with it. I have a problem with the deceit and the lies - the abuse of the spouse and their trust.

"If peopledo not believe in permanent marriage, it is perhaps better that theyshould live together unmarried than that they should make vows theydo not mean to keep. It is true that by living together withoutmarriage they will be guilty (in Christian eyes) of fornication. Butone fault is not mended by adding another: unchastity is not improvedby adding perjury."

This is the attitude that surprised me from Lewis! I would have expected him not to make such a concession, but to stick to the black or white attitude. Either you wed and are morally 'legal' to have sex or you are chaste. But I do get the angle he's taking here. If you're already going to be sinning, why add another sin?

The thing that I really liked about this chapter was Lewis' focus on the fact that 'love' is not the basis for a good, long lasting marriage. That first crazy flush of passion dies out. And if there isn't something else there, something slower burning than the crazy infatuation, then you're going to fizzle out.

"There are several sound, social reasons; toprovide a home for their children, to protect the woman (who hasprobably sacrificed or damaged her own career by getting married)from being dropped whenever the man is tired of her."

I have an issue with that statement, but it's a very time and place related one. Or it should be. I don't think that there's as much of a stigma about a woman working and be married any longer, but there are probably some places where there are. I do know that there are still problems with women working and having children. Yet another one of those things that is better but must continue to be worked on.

"People get from books the idea that ifyou have married the right person you may expect to go on `being inlove' for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they thinkthis proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—notrealising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently goout of the new love just as it went out of the old one."

This is so true. Books, movies, etc. Pretty much every form of entertainment that has this as a facet. My question is, it's so widespread, where did it start? Where did we first get the idea that love was some flowery ideal that would last and last? Basically, whose butt do I need to kick? :)

"This is, I think, one little part ofwhat Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unlessit first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: thatis the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it dieaway—go on through that period of death into the quieter interestand happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in aworld of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrillsyour regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will allget weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored,disillusioned old man for the rest of your life."

I just like this. I think it's very true.

"Another notion we get from novels andplays is that `falling in love' is something quite irresistible;something that just happens to one, like measles. And because theybelieve this, some married people throw up the sponge and give inwhen they find themselves attracted by a new acquaintance. But I aminclined to think that these irresistible passions are much rarer inreal life than in books, at any rate when one is grown up. When wemeet someone beautiful and clever and sympathetic, of course weought, in one sense, to admire and love these good qualities. But isit not very largely in our own choice whether this love shall, orshall not, turn into what we call `being in love'? No doubt, if ourminds are full of novels and plays and sentimental songs, and ourbodies full of alcohol, we shall turn any love we feel into that kindof love: just as if you have a rut in your path all the rainwaterwill run into that rut, and if you wear blue spectacles everythingyou see will turn blue. But that will be our own fault."

"Before leaving the question of divorce,I should like to distinguish two things which are very oftenconfused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other isthe quite different question—how far Christians, if they are votersor Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views ofmarriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in thedivorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are aChristian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry ifthe Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that themajority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore,cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be twodistinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rulesenforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rulesenforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quitesharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christiansense and which are not."

This. I don't know what or how Lewis thinks it should be made clear who is 'state' married and who is 'Christian' married, or that I even think that's necessary. But I do think there needs to be a distinction made between religious unions and legal/state ones, assuming that the second category even needs to exist. Religious custom should not be allowed to dictate policy for everyone.

"In Christian marriage the man is said to be the`head'. Two questions obviously arise here. (1) Why should there be ahead at all—why not equality? (2) Why should it be the man?

(1)The need for some head follows fromthe idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as thehusband and wife are agreed, no question of a head need arise; and wemay hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christianmarriage. But when there is a real disagreement, what is to happen?Talk it over, of course; but I am assuming they have done that andstill failed to reach agreement. What do they do next? They cannotdecide by a majority vote, for in a council of two there can be nomajority. Surely, only one or other of two things can happen: eitherthey must separate and go their own ways or else one or other of themmust have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or otherparty must, in the last resort, have the power of deciding the familypolicy. You cannot have a permanent association without aconstitution.

(2) If there must be a head, why theman? Well, firstly is there any very serious wish that it should bethe woman? As I have said, I am not married myself, but as far as Ican see, even a woman who wants to be the head of her own house doesnot usually admire the same state of things when she finds it goingon next door. She is much more likely to say `Poor Mr X! Why heallows that appalling woman to boss him about the way she does ismore than I can imagine.' I do not think she is even very flatteredif anyone mentions the fact of her own `headship'. There must besomething unnatural about the rule of wives over husbands, becausethe wives themselves are half ashamed of it and despise the husbandswhom they rule. But there is also another reason; and here I speakquite frankly as a bachelor, because it is a reason you can see fromoutside even better than from inside. The relations of the family tothe outer world—what might be called its foreign policy—mustdepend, in the last resort, upon the man, because he always ought tobe, and usually is, much more just to the outsiders. A woman isprimarily fighting for her own children and husband against the restof the world. Naturally, almost, in a sense, rightly, their claimsoverride, for her, all other claims. She is the special trustee oftheir interests. The function of the husband is to see that thisnatural preference of hers is not given its head. He has the lastword in order to protect other people from the intense familypatriotism of the wife. If any-one doubts this, let me ask a simplequestion. If your dog has bitten the child next door, or if yourchild has hurt the dog next door, which would you sooner have to dealwith, the master of that house or the mistress? Or, if you are amarried woman, let me ask you this question. Much as you admire yourhusband, would you not say that his chief failing is his tendency notto stick up for his rights and yours against the neighbours asvigorously as you would like? A bit of an Appeaser?"

*sigh* Oh, Lewis. I was enjoying this chapter, and then this. First, there doesn't need to be one person who is the 'authority'. I've been there, I've thought that, and I'm over it. If two adults cannot reach a compromise, there's something wrong. Marriage, in my understanding, is about give and take. Compromise and understanding. It's not about having a disagreement and then one party whipping out the 'I've got a penis' card and getting their way.

For the second half. Well, hah. It sounds kind of good, if you're not thinking about it. Women are *too* strong and tough to be allowed to run around and do what we want. We're too apt to think only of our family and our offspring and conquer the neighbors because we want their pool. Only what it means is that we're too ruled by our emotions to be expected or allowed to interact with the general population. So we need the calm, rational man to negotiate with the other families.

All-American Muslim Ep. 5 - Muslims Moving On

2011-12-11T22:50:00.001-05:00

Ah, I'll have you know that I'm interrupting my reading of The Iron Hand of Mars to do this. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice! :)

Flashbacks to the last ep: I just want to hug Suehaila all over again! They aren't man enough for you!

Doggie!

Yeah, having a pet with severe allergies is hard. My sister is actually allergic to our cats so we have to keep them out of her room. Compromises can be worked out.

Naseem! *makes cooing noises* I spent most of the day with Eve, my friend who is 6 months pregnant with, of course, Evesdottir. So I'm feeling the whole baby thing right now.

Nawal: 'It's very rude!' for babies to cry in public. Ah...they can't help it. They're babies.

Nawal is very cranky. Is that like post-partum or is it just adjusting to new sleep patterns and everything else that's changed?

Meh, even Nina's sister is against her having a club. *side-eyes them all* I do get the issue with the reputation, but it's really unfortunate that this is a concern for them all. Also, I'm fairly certain they already talk about Nina.

The name of the shop is 'Hija Bee'. *dead from cute*

*glares at Shadia* It's Jeff's dog. Rather than trying to get rid of Wrigley you need to think of another way to deal with it. He's had her for 10 years. Okay, I'll be honest. I would never marry someone who didn't understand that I was going to have my pets. I'm torn, really. I know that she has allergies but she's being a bitch about this. Throwing in that it's 'forbidden' by Islam. It's *not*!

Right. Officially, Shadia is at the bottom of my list. And Jeff for giving in to her. You're going to give up a 15 year old dog? If she goes to a shelter she'll be put down. People don't adopt older dogs! Very unhappy.

The first morning of school scene in the Jaafar household is made of cute.

Nawal is not amused by the discussion of having four or five kids. You should take that hint and stop talking, Nader.

To be fair, I think all families give unwanted advice.

I have to say I do find it funny that Fouad is all...we're very against boys and girls mixing, dancing, he'd have a problem if his daughters decided not to wear hijab, but he's so very, very foul mouthed on the field.

'People seem to confuse culture with religion.' - True. But to be fair people within religion also confuse their culture with their religion.

And your kids are terrified of everything because they've never been around them. I guarantee that.

If your problem isn't that it's a religious issue, which it *isn't*, then why do you keep bringing it up? You're not religious but you're more than willing to use religion as an excuse for things that you want to happen. I don't respect Shadia and I don't like her. I'm just going to repeat that, in case you missed it before.

I know, I know. Judgy Amber is judgy. Hush.

Dear Nina: Re: previous conversation wherein you claimed that all the Qur'an asks is that you be modest. I'd agree. And I'd just like to point out that, even judging by modern American cultural standards, you aren't dressing modestly. I'd you'd had a tramp stamp I could have seen it, what with your pants and your shirt being about an inch apart.

Honest to god, I have no idea why Jeff married Shadia. 'It'll be good for Wrigley.' Bullshit. You're breaking that dogs heart. She's not going to understand why the man who loved her and took care of her for ten years is suddenly gone.

Right, back to Suehaila. It'd be great if this conference opened up a chance for her to move out of Dearborn and live the life she thinks she should be living.

Blah....football...I don't care.

And crap. I just realized I was supposed to remind my sister to take her antibiotics at 11. Well, her lights are out and her tv's off now. Hopefully she remembered on her own. Ooops.

You know, why are we focussing so much on Wrigley? Oh, I know, because it's a weird Muslim thing and so un-American that they can't have dogs. But you know what it tells me? Poor storyline choice since we could be focussing more on Suehaila and her conference or Nawal and the new baby. It also has made me loathe Shadia. I mean I'm happy that this dog sanctuary called but I still think it's a shitty thing for her to decide that 'compromise' means 'force Jeff to give up his dog'. Argh. Must remember that we don't see everything!

Ah...see...I think it would have been much better to focus more on Nawal, Nader and Naseem. Seeing a new family and how they adjust would be much better. And I'd be less pissed off.

I seriously don't see Shadia and Jeff's marriage lasting, which is a terrible thing to say and I think that he's going to really regret giving Wrigley up for her.

Sexual Morality

2011-12-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

"Wemust now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christianscall the virtue of chastity."

Must we? Well, if we must.

I think I should point out that Lewis deals mostly with the definition of 'modesty' as regards dress and 'chastity' as regards sexuality. There are other, related, definitions and there is a point where the definitions of both words sort of crossover and can become synonyms. But for the purposes here they're treated in that narrow fashion and I think it's easy enough to understand.

"The Christian rule of chastity must notbe confused with the social rule of 'modesty' (in one sense ofthat word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of proprietylays down how much of the human body should be displayed and whatsubjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to thecustoms of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity isthe same for all Christians at all times, the rule of proprietychanges."

Interesting. But I think that there's some sort of underlying...assumption or belief that Christianity, whether it comes from the Bible, Tradition or just the consensus of the masses that there is a 'Christian' way to dress. I'm sure that it changes from era to era and place to place but the idea is that a Christian will not wear 'x' kind of clothing. There's also the factor that the concern over what is 'appropriate' clothing seems to focus mainly on the clothing of women. You cannot judge a persons spirituality or faithfulness to their religion based on their clothing, though we all do it. I'm certainly guilty of it, perhaps even more than most people. I'm trying to be better about that but it's something of an automatic process so it's hard to grab a hold of it and put a stop to it.

Anyway. There are certain passages within the Bible that can be, and are in some circles, interpreted as directing what kinds of clothing Christians (mostly women) are supposed to wear. However there is, as far as I'm aware, no monolithic (as in believed by all of those claiming the title of 'Christian') consensus on a specific mode of dress labeling one as a 'Christian' or not.

And Lewis' point is that 'modesty' is a societal construct while 'chastity' is the religious requirement. He gives the example of a Victorian lady, covered from neck to ankles in clothing and a 'girl in the Pacific islands' who wears, essentially, nothing. Both, in their modes of dress, are meeting their societal standards of modesty. Both of them may *also* be chaste but their mode of dress is not an indicator of that chastity one way or the other. There is a tendency to equate modesty with chastity. It's a false connection though. One can be the most modest person in their own culture and not be chaste. In the same way someone can dress immodestly by the standards of their society and be chaste.

"I do not think that a very strict or fussystandard of propriety is any proof of chastity or any help to it, andI therefore regard the great relaxation and simplifying of the rulewhich has taken place in my own lifetime as a good thing. At itspresent stage, however, it has this inconvenience, that peopleof different ages and different types do not all acknowledge thesame standard, and we hardly know where we are. While this confusionlasts I think that old, or old-fashioned, people should be verycareful not to assume that young or `emancipated' people are corruptwhenever they are (by the old standard) improper; and, in return,that young people should not call their elders prudes or puritansbecause they do not easily adopt the new standard. A real desire tobelieve all the good you can of others and to make others ascomfortable as you can will solve most of the problems."

I wonder what Lewis would make of modern society? I'm guessing he might not be as pleased by the 'relaxation of the standards' as he was in his own time. I think that this confusion he speaks of is something that always exists. After all, pretty much every generation rebels against the one that came before. I'm sure there were 'old folks' back in ancient pick-your-culture who were railing against the clothes and music and actions of the younger generation while the younger generation were complaining about how old fashioned and stuffy their parents and grand-parents were. The world is, in many ways, like a washing machine. It all just keeps going around and around, the same thing over and over just with different clothes. And yes, that made more sense in my head. I'm leaving it though! Pretend it's some sort of wisdom-y Zen koan or something. 'Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.' Reality is a washing machine on spin cycle. Go with it.

"Chastity is the most unpopular ofthe Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; theChristian rule is, `Either marriage, with complete faithfulness toyour partner, or else total abstinence.' Now this is so difficult andso contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity iswrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One orthe other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinctwhich has gone wrong."

I agree that some people find chastity hard. Others do not. So perhaps the problem is that we've tried to impose what is natural to a portion of the population on the entire population? I honestly think that many people would be better served if there wasn't still the assumption that only one way is the correct way to have a relationship. I don't believe that our instincts are wrong or that Christianity is wrong. Just that it *obviously* doesn't work for everyone on the planet. But nothing does. I've come to think that we're too diverse for any single theology or philosophy to encompass everyone and their needs.

"The biological purpose of sex is children, just as thebiological purpose of eatingis to repair the body."

Is that really the only purpose of sex? Maybe in animals, and while we may be descended from animals we've evolved since then. It's absolutely true that one of the primary biological purposes to sex is to reproduce and preserve the species. But for many humans there is also the biological need of companionship and bonding to be met. I think some people make the distinction and think of companionship as a mental need but I think, for many people, there's a physical/biological aspect to it as well. After all, if all we needed to feel fulfilled was an intellectual connection then the people who don't want children would never have sex. But they do. Yes, you could argue that that's part of our biology's way of forcing/tricking us into doing something that would produce children but even if that's so that doesn't change the fact that we have a biological *need* for sex in order to feel fulfilled, with or without the end result of children.

And yes, I am aware that there are asexual people who do not feel the draw of sex. That's why I said 'many' and not 'all'. It's very, very hard to make blanket statements about anything because there are always exceptions to the rule. And I find that wonderful. :D

"if a healthy youngman indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and ifeach act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populatea small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterousexcess of its function."

But that's not the way it works. Our *biology* ensures that not every single sexual act produces a child. The appetite is *not* ludicrous in excess of its function. I think it's important to keep in mind that not every sexual act produces a child and not every pregnancy lasts to term. I think it's also important to remember that the world has changed a great deal since our ancient progenitors sat in a cave and doodled on the walls. In the past the mortality rate of..well...everyone was much much higher than it is today. Than it was in Lewis' time as well though we've made a lot of progress even since then.

When the sexual instinct/urge was developed it was appropriate to the needs of the species. Let's say, since I have no idea what the actual numbers were, that half of every sexual act historically, without the intervention of modern science and medicine, (in this case restricted to vaginal intercourse obviously) produced a viable embryo. So we have 1,000 couples having sex. Of them, only 500 embryo's are originally produced. Let's be nice and say that 75% of those make it to term. 375 babies are born. Of those let's say another 25% have some sort of birth defect that kills them before they hit puberty. 282 kids who are born healthy. Take away another 50% of those who are lost due to accidents, illness, etc. 141 children survive. 28% of the original embryos have survived to adulthood.

Of those 141 adults, not all of them will survive to pass on their genes. Of those that do survive to the point of getting to try and pass on their genes, not all will succeed. Some of them will and the cycle starts again.

Of course these are all numbers that I pulled out of my ass, but you see the idea, right? Now days the rates of survival are much, much higher in developed first world countries. Our sexual urges, assuming that the main, if not sole, purpose of them is to drive us to produce future generations, are in proportion to the needs of the species as we evolved. Do we need to produce so many children now? Opinions vary. But assuming that your answer is 'no', that's why we invented birth control. And different sexual positions. Ones that do not include the possibility of offspring.

"astrip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage."

I find it charmingly adorable and funny that Lewis felt that he had to explain what a strip tease was. *laughs*

Lewis continues to equate the need for food with the need for sex. He says that if we went to a country where they had 'strip tease' style acts with food, where "you could fill a theatre bysimply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowlylifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lightswent out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon" that we would come to the conclusion that there is something very wrong with that country's appetite for food. And so, it being the same thing and all, there is obviously something wrong with the need for sex in any country that has such things as strip shows. *side eyes Lewis* Because those haven't been around since the beginning of time or anything, just like prostitution. Oh, wait, it's clear that Lewis believes that stripping is something new.

"Onecritic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease actswith food were popular, he would conclude that the people of thatcountry were starving. He meant, of course, to imply that such thingsas the strip-tease act resulted not from sexual corruption but fromsexual starvation. I agree with him that if, in some strange land, wefound that similar acts with mutton chops were popular, one of thepossible explanations which would occur to me would be famine. But the next step would be to test ourhypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food wasbeing consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a gooddeal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon thehypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one. In the sameway, before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of thestrip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is infact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when thingslike the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no suchevidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costlywithin marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and publicopinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion thanit has been since Pagan times."

Another explanation, apart from the 'starvation' or 'corruption' ideas is that there *was* starvation in the land and now that it no longer exists there're expressions of natural hunger that shock some people. People have always had the sexual appetites that we have now. The difference is that, as opposed to Victorian times (for example) we feel more free to express them. The culture is changing and so the visible availability of some things has increased. However, just because some people, in the past, chose to believe that such things never happened doesn't make it so.

"You findvery few people who want to eat things that really are not food or todo other things with food instead of eating it. In other words,perversions of the food appetite are rare."

That's not even remotely true. I'm going to chalk this one up to ignorance of the times and move on.

"But perversions of the sexinstinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorryto have to go into all these details but I must."

Yes, dear lord, some people want to have sex for fun! *gasps in shock* I'm not entirely sure about which 'perversions' Lewis is referring to. He makes it clear that homosexuality is a perversion, of course, but I don't know if he counts wanting to have non-vaginal sex or perhaps the idea that women have (or would really like to have) orgasms. Or perhaps (probably) pain play, BDSM, roleplaying, or any other form of sex that is not 100% vanilla and 'normal' - and those are *sarcastic* air quotes around normal right there.

"We have been told, till one issick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state asany of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon thesilly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the gardenwill be lovely."

I'm not advocating the idea that just getting rid of outdated ideas about sex and sexuality will fix everything, but it would help a lot of things. Think of all the people who feel the need to pretend to a sexuality or gender identity that is not true to them in order to please society or their family. And all of the ones who are so beaten and depressed by it and the harassment they are subjected to be people who believe that they are 'wrong' or 'dirty' or 'sick', the ones who wind up taking their own lives because they can't see any hope.

"They tell you sex has become amess because it was hushed up. But for the lasttwenty years it has not been. It has been chatteredabout all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushingup had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set itright. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think thehuman race originally hushed it up because it had becomesuch a mess."

Um. Twenty years is not a very long time for centuries and possibly millenia of a cultural problem to get cleared up. Just saying. It took a long time to get that way and it's going to take a long time to get it out of our collective system.

Lewis talks about how Christianity is one of the only religions that is sex positive. I have my doubts about that, and even about how sex positive you can even claim Christianity really is. Does it definitively say that sex is evil? *waggles hand* Depends on your reading of the texts. Some say yes, some say no. It's a matter of interpretation. I think it has been hijacked, historically, by men who did have issues with sex and their interpretation became the most widely read and believed for the longest time. However, talking to Muslims you find them saying that their faith is the most sex (and matter) positive. I'm sure I could find Jews who believed the same. And Hindus. Etc. Everyone thinks they're the best and every religion can and has been hijacked. *shrug* Happily I don't base my views on sex on religion.

On the heels of that, however, Lewis says that the 'modern' (his time) view of sex *has* gone wrong. It is warped. We are ill in the sexual sense and need to be cured, but before we can be cured we must admit that we need to be cured. This is one of those things where Lewis and I are just not going to agree. I don't believe that our society, in its continuing attempt to embrace healthy expressions of sexuality (those that are not inherently wrong - pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia, for examples of those that I believe are by their very nature wrong), is sick. I think we're on the other side of that - we've admitted that we were sick, that the shaming and oppression of natural sexual instincts and needs made us sick and that we are now getting better.

Once Upon a Time & American Horror Story

2011-12-09T09:22:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, late to the party. I was bad this week about watching things on time.

Anyway.

I started watching OUaT for the cute factor and the fact that Prince 'Charming' is played by the same actor who played Fandral in Thor. Only without the facial hair which makes him look like a completely different, and much more handsome, person.

However. I'm really loving this show. It's got a little of the cutesy factor going on, yes. But it's not the entirety of the show. It's all about the truth behind the fairy tales which is a thing that I really, really love.

And the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin...

I can't wait to find out what it is that Snow White did to her to ruin her life. What the love was that Snow White took away. I mean I know the Disney version and I know the fairy tale version but I'm interested in what the OUaT version is going to be.

I think it's fairly obvious that *everyone* got played by Rumplestiltskin. Yes? Watching the threads of his manipulation unfold is one of the highlights of the show for me. I think it's also clear that it's not only the Queen who remembers about their previous lives but Mr. Gold does as well. After all, how are you going to enjoy the fruits of all your efforts if you don't remember all the effort you put into getting what you want?

American Horror Story - I have no words. None. Sanil posted something about the theory that Violet was dead, and once I thought about it that made sense. So I suspected, going in that Violet was dead. But actually seeing it was incredible.

I still remember being unsure about this show when it first came on, wondering if it was going to be any good or worth my time. It is. It so, so is.

I love Tate, which I know I really shouldn't because he's clearly a *bad* person. But I don't care. I love him anyway and I can't think of anything he could do that I wouldn't forgive him for.

And creepy as it may be, I'm glad that he and Violet get to be together forever now!

All-American Muslim Ep 4. - Friday Night Bites

2011-12-07T23:00:00.001-05:00

It's a bit late, sorry. I was doing other things!

Baby! Whee! His name is Naseem. :)

Seriously, babies are gross looking when they come out. All covered in blood and that white gunky stuff. What is that?

The part with Nader just talking to him is so sweet.

*sniffles* Nader whispering the call to prayer to Naseem is so *touching*.

So I read somewhere that the show got started because one of the people on it got the idea and shopped it out to TLC. I will lay even money that that person was Suehaila. (Whose name I always have to double check the spelling on.) Hey, so she's a judicial executive/court clerk! I work with people who have that job.

It's not really only in their community that females who are unmarried are expected to live at home. It's that way around here. It's probably more acceptable around here but it's not the norm.

I have to admit to being surprised that Nina and Suehaila are friends.

It's not just that you don't wear hijab Nina, you dress like a club girl. All the time. I expect to see mob guys surrounding you at all times.

And at least half the women at that table are drinking. I assume that they're all Muslim, given the show. Yes, it bothers me. Shut up. I know I'm being judgy.

Nawal cackles because she doesn't have to fast...:)

For the record, every second of this show with Naseem in it I just go coooooooooo....

blahblah...Nina...yadda...mosque...where's the baby again?

Seriously. Can't stand Nina.

Nina - your wardrobe *is* over the top and it is sexy.

'I don't know what those things are called'...it's an abaya sweetie.

I actually think Nina just has an eye-twitch. She just has this weird look.

Oh, hey, Nina's flirting with the cops. *Married* Nina is flirting with the cops. Judgy Amber is judging...

So, what? The 'Night of Power'? If you pray on this night it makes up all the prayers you've ever missed? Is that true?

Return of Naseem! Cute sleeping baby!

Oh, okay. So they were having night practices while school was out. Now that it's back in they've had to switch back to day practices and still fast. Rough.

Why do guys hang out at high school football practices? Or, no, I think this is just for the show. A set up thing because there's no one else there.

I do feel bad that Nina maybe won't be able to open her club because of family and community reputation and pressure. It's not right that men can own the same sort of business and not get a bad reputation but a woman wants to do it and it's oh, no! Not appropriate! *raspberry* And that's what I think about that.

What's more important? The tenets of your religion or football?

Right. For the record, Mike has lost points with me for putting football before the faith of the players. I'm fairly certain God doesn't give a rats behind about football. But if he commanded a fast then I think he cares about that. Or are there football exemptions in the Qur'an that I missed?

That being said, this game has been kind of a slaughter which is too bad. I wanted Fordson to win.

I want to hug Suehaila right now.

More baby!

Nawal is very controlling, I think I've said that before? And I can see it giving her trouble with Naseem now. A lot of figuring out what's what and not being able to do everything herself.

I also want to hug Samira.

The guys hanging out and exchanging baby stories is nice.

I really do feel for Suehaila.

Aw, sweetie, if the guys are intimidated by you, they aren't man enough. You'll find someone! *throws self at her through the tv to hug her*

Um. This 'virgin stories' thing that comes on afterward. Uh. She's never seen a penis? That's crazy. Pick up a medical book or a porno. They're not that scary. Actually, they're pretty ugly. Going on looks of the genitalia alone, I would never bother with guys. And that's your 'it's way too late for me to be up' piece of information for the day.

You're welcome.

School

2011-12-07T15:30:00.001-05:00

Okay, this is something I'm actually ashamed of, but I'm going to just put it out there:

I've never graduated from college.

I'm relatively smart, or so all the tests and teachers and everyone has always told me so it wasn't that I couldn't do the work.

I had student loans, so it wasn't as though I couldn't pay for the classes.

When I first graduated high school and went to college it was in the middle of the utter meltdown of my family. I know I've said it before and I hate to harp on it but it's a huge factor for me here: I grew up in an abusive household. My step-father is a terrible person and the best thing he could ever do is to drop dead. You would think that the final dissolution of that place would have been a relief and in the end it has been but at the time it was just more stress and insanity. This was the time frame where I tried to kill him if that gives you any idea of just how bad it was.

I'm certain that there are plenty of people who manage to have a college career and deal with worse things than what went on in my house. I was not one of them and I feel like I should have been. That I should have held it together and done better. *shrug* It is what it is. I screwed up but I honestly don't know what I could have done differently and survived. I did a lot of self destructive and just plain destructive things in this time and one of them was dropping out of college. I didn't care and partially I think that was because I honestly didn't expect to live long enough to need a degree.

So here I am, 29 years old with a literal butt load of college credits in a variety of courses of study under my belt but no degree. I've gone back to college a couple of times, which is where all the credits come from, but I've never been happy with anything that I've chosen for a degree to work toward. I keep messing around, looking for the career that will make me happy. I don't think it exists in any sort of practical sense and it's time to get over that.

I'm going back to school, as I mentioned in a previous post and getting an AS in Paralegal Studies. Since my job is tied in with doing legal advertisements in the paper it made sense. I'm finally, after jumping through plenty of hoops with the college, signed up for my first class. It's Intermediate Algebra which is a class I need to take to get into the math class the degree requires. It's going to be slow because I can only take classes at night/weekends/online and only on certain days for the night classes but I'm determined to get it done.

Morality and Psychoanalysis

2011-12-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, no lie this has been sitting in my queue for almost a month. I started it on November 11th. Things happened, okay?

This chapter was just what it says on the tin. Morality, specifically Christian in tone of course, and psychoanalysis. I have to say, flat out that I know next to nothing about psychoanalysis. I don't trust psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, etc. whatever they want to call themselves. I have Issues with them. So basically all I know of Freud and Jung and their ilk is pop culture/random information. Oh. And there's a movie with Freud being played by Viggo Mortensen and Jung being played by Michael Fassbender. And it's all about sex. The movie I mean. Or that's the impression I've gotten from the articles and I'm okay with that. Because...well. Hello? Michael Fassbender.

Go Google him. Go on. I'll wait. I'd have included a pic here but I couldn't decide on just one. *wipes drool from keyboard*

Moving on. I don't think my lack of specific knowledge of psychoanalysis makes any real difference here but I'm just laying it out there. If Lewis says something that is outdated or incorrect I might not catch it because I don't know about these things.

Lewis starts out with saying that while he says we will never get a 'Christian society unless most of us become Christian individuals', that doesn't mean that the current crop of Christian individuals can sit on their butts about issues they have with society until that mythical population tipping point is reached.

Basically it's another instance of common sense. If you want an 'x' society then you have to work toward it in the society you currently find yourself living in. What's the saying, God helps those who help themselves? Along with something about God not changing the condition of a people until they change their condition. Same thing. If you sit around waiting for God (or someone else) to change the things around you that suck you're going to be waiting a long time.

"sinceChristian morality claims to be a technique for putting the humanmachine right, I think you would like to know how it is related toanother technique which seems to make a similar claim—namely,psychoanalysis."

Lewis wants people to make a distinction between two parts of psychoanalysis. The 'actual medical theories and technique' and 'the general philosophical view of the world which Freud and some others have gone on to add to this'. In the first case Lewis says that it is sensible to treat the mental health professional as an expert - a specialist in his own field. However whenever they start to talk about the second, the philosophy of the world then they can be discarded because it's not their area of expertise. And that makes sense. Someone can be a neurosurgeon or a professor of pretty much anything and be brilliant and well learned in their field and then proceed to be wrong about something else. Of course they can also be brilliant in their chose field and be *right* about something else as well.

"I am all the readier to do it because I have found thatwhen he is talking off his own subject and on a subject I do knowsome-thing about (namely, language) he is very ignorant."

Personally I think that Lewis has a thing about Freud. Was Freud particularly anti-Christian in his world view?

"Butpsychoanalysis itself, apart from all the philosophicaladditions that Freud and others have made to it, is not in the leastcontradictory to Christianity. Its technique overlaps withChristian morality at some points and it would not be a bad thing ifevery person knew something about it: but it does not run the samecourse all the way, for the two techniques are doing rather different things."

I think that religion and any science can be compatible. It's all a matter of reconciling two things in your head. There are plenty of religious scientists of any discipline so being religious does not preclude being a scientist or vice versa. I think people who take their religious texts extremely literally have a much harder time of reconciling what the texts say to what science says, of course.

"When a man makes a moral choice twothings are involved. One is the act of choosing. The other is thevarious feelings, impulses and so on which his psychological outfitpresents him with, and which are the raw material of his choice. Nowthis raw material may be of two kinds. Either it may. be what wewould call normal: it may consist of the sort of feelings that arecommon to all men. Or else it may consist of quite unnaturalfeelings due to things that have gone wrong in his sub-conscious. Thus fear of things that are really dangerous would be an example ofthe first kind: an irrational fear of cats or spiders would bean example of the second kind. The desire of a man for a woman wouldbe of the first kind: the perverted desire of a man for a man wouldbe of the second."

I keep telling myself that it was the thinking of the time and that we know better now. That we know that homosexuality is not a disease or a 'flaw' in the mind and personality of a person. Then I remember that there are people who still think that way today and I get pissed all over again.

"Now what psychoanalysis undertakes to do is toremove the abnormal feelings, that is, to give the man better rawmaterial for his acts of choice; morality is concerned with the actsof choice themselves."

Lewis gives the example of three young men called up for war. One has the natural fear of danger that any person would have but overcomes it by 'moral effort' and becomes a 'brave' man. The other two are incapable of overcoming their greater fears and 'manning up' as it were. So they go to a psychoanalyst who cures them. Fine. Now they have the same starting point as the first, 'good and normal' man who went to war. But they still have to make the choice to go and fight. One does because that's what he's always really wanted to do if only he wasn't so psychologically crippled. The other says no thanks, I like all my limbs where they are and continues to live his life in relative safety. That's where the moral choice comes in.

Though I guess I'd have to question whether anyone is *morally* bound to go off and fight a war. I sure as hell wouldn't given a choice and it's not that I'm paralyzed with fear over it or anything. I just have no desire to put my life in unnecessary danger. All that being said I have nothing but respect for the people who do and I do understand that we couldn't have a country without them. I just know I'm not cut out to be one of them and I think we're all happier with the arrangement as it is.

"The bad psychological material is not asin but a disease. It does not need to be repented of, but to becured."

So there's that. *eyes Lewis with distaste anyway* I know, I know. 'The times. Not his fault.' Maybe. Or maybe he'd be one of those people who think that anyone who doesn't fit the current societal definition of 'normal' is defective in some way even today. I don't know and neither do you. So.

"Human beings judge oneanother by their external actions. God judges them by their moralchoices."

I think the best part of this is that Lewis makes a point out of the fact that we can't see all of the background noise that leads up to a person making a moral choice. Someone who does some tiny act of kindness that the rest of us would think nothing of may be doing something greater, morally, than someone else making a larger gesture. Because it may have been harder and more against their 'nature' for that person who does the tiny act of kindness. And that's what God sees and judges by.

"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain inwhich God says, `If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and ifyou don't I'll do the other thing.' I do not think that is the bestway of looking at it. I would much rather say that every timeyou make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the partof you that chooses, into something a little different from what itwas before. And taking your life as a whole, with all yourinnumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turningthis central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellishcreature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, andwith other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in astate of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, andwith itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it isjoy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness,horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each ofus at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."

I really like this paragraph as you can tell by how I've included all of it! I think you could change a few words or take out religious references all together and it would still be a good paragraph. Everything we do, every encounter that we have leaves a mark. It changes us. It can change us for good or for bad and we make the choice to accept the changes or change in the other direction. We're not static, though I think that most people never really do complete 180s.

"One last point. Remember that, as Isaid, the right direction leads not only to peace but to knowledge.When a man is getting better he understands more and moreclearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is gettingworse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately badman knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is allright. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when youare awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes inarithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are makingthem you cannot see them. You can understand the nature ofdrunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good peopleknow about both good and evil: bad people do not know abouteither."

I like this for the poetic imagery of it but I'm not sure it's accurate. Personally I know I'm drunk when I'm drunk. I know I'm doing something bad when I do something bad. And I've done some relatively bad things. Not murder or rape or anything of that level but still worse than stealing a pack of gum when you're 6 or something. I think many people who are 'bad' do understand what good is. Then again, I also think that very few people who are truly 'bad' think that they are bad. I think there's a quote (from somewhere, probably the Dresden Files since that's what's on my mind lately!) that everyone is the hero of their own story. No one thinks of themselves as the villain of the piece.

what hanging out with you guys has done to me - I'm looking at you, Becky and Zuhura...

2011-12-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

Excerpts from my shopping trip this weekend to pick up toys for my girl from the Angel Tree at work:

*ponders coloring books* If I buy the Princess coloring book am I perpetuating the gender stereotype? But her card lists that she wants dress-up clothes! *buys a mix of coloring books*

*ponders tricycles*...Why are there no gender neutral cycles? I don't want to buy her a very specifically 'boy' bicycle in case she's a *pink* kind of girl, but...but... *buys the Dora the Explorer trike* At least she's an explorer and multicultural!

*ponders dress up clothes*...Maybe she doesn't want to dress up as a faerie! Or a Victorian lady! Or a bride in a big white dress! Maybe she wants to be a policewoman or a firewoman or an astronaut! Or a physicist! Anyone ever think of that? *buys the cowgirl outfit*

And this is just internet exposure!

2011-12-05T10:39:00.000-05:00

We're not talking about Supernatural.

At all, because I'm pissed.

The worst part about it is that I can't help but feel that the writers were like...'we're losing them. There're only so many world ending things that we can throw out there and the audience is getting inured to all this. So let's smash all the things.'

SMASH

I mean, let's look at it.

Cas - dead? I hold out hope that he's not really dead but he might be. And if so, I have issues with the manner of his death. Namely that it was lame. However, no body so I cling to my hope.

Impala - gone. They're driving around in the Un-pala.

Bobby's house, the only real home they ever had. Gone.

Bobby. WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT!

Now let me be clear. I thought the episode was well done. I've got no argument with the acting or the writing of the episode. I have an issue with the idea that they're taking 'shake up and keep the show interesting' as 'KILL ALL THE THINGS'.

*eyes them*

2011-11-30T09:04:00.000-05:00

Seriously. Not even half way through reading The Scottish Prisoner but it reminds me of how much I love this woman and her work.

Lord John is made of win.

My reaction to Lord John and Stephan finally getting together?

Fangirl squee followed by the explosion of my ovaries. The *only* pairing that would make me happier in that world would be Lord John and Jamie and dammit I *know* why that's never going to happen and understand. But *still*.

Here's hoping everyone survives the book!

All-American Muslim S1 Ep3 - A Muslim Goes to Washington

2011-11-27T22:17:00.001-05:00

You know, so they're showing what happened last week and I can't get over how dismissive and unhelpful Shadia is of Jeff having trouble with his first Ramadan. I know that we don't get to see everything that happens, but her *hand wave* dismissal of him when he's trying not to be a jerk so he gets up from the dinner table is so rude...

Here's my impression of Shadia - she doesn't take her religion seriously so she doesn't expect anyone else to. However, because she also grew up doing certain things, like fasting during Ramadan, she doesn't have any thought to the difficulty of it for people who aren't used to it. She just strikes me as very thoughtless. I hope that's just the impression that the editing has given us and that she's really not that way.

Football...blah...blah...don't care...

I do like them having the flipped schedule, I think it's great that they thought enough about it to do that - I can imagine that they'd have kids collapsing if they had to do all their practicing without food or water.

Another thought: I don't know how many people have considered that the women are having to wear their hijab when they wouldn't normally have to. As in, in their homes. When their home, when no one but their family is there then they can (and I think usually do) take them off. So there's that added annoyance to the filming.

Nawal and Nader! I enjoyed seeing parts of the birthing class. Nader's face when the teacher says 'orgasmic birth' is priceless!

White House vs. training. I don't know enough about football but can't assistant coaches handle the training for one night?

Have we noticed that the show isn't focusing just on the women? Unlike some people who decided to judge the show after the first episode had commented? Yeah. *I've* noticed.

Okay, now they're talking about Nina's club: dancing and alcohol. Nina very clearly feels like an outside. She has this little squinty look she gets and I think she gets it when she thinks the others are judging her. I don't know that they're judging her. I'm trying not to jump to conclusions again.

Oh god, her skirt is so short....too short! Yes, you're pretty and you've got great legs. But your skirt ends about an inch below your butt. This is not necessary. *is horrified by her Jersey Shore vibes*

Right. If I was going to be forced to say of any person on the show, 'I don't like x' it would be Nina. It has *nothing* to do with her being Muslim - I don't like the impression that she gives off and I don't think I'd want to spend time with her.

Really? Did Sahida really just ask if Obama was a Muslim? Please tell me she was being funny...Cripes. Bilal. 'Barak. Husein. Obama. I'm saying yes.' Everyone: 'It's just a name!' *eye twitch*

I have to say, I do appreciate Fouad's dedication to his job. How many people would really hesitate to accept an invitation to the White House because of practice? That being said, I think he should go. Sort of a once in a lifetime thing, you know?

Oh...and the preview makes it look like we get to see the Amen family being all judgy of convert Jeff. Let's wait and see...seriously Bilal, you're not that far behind Nina in my 'I don't like you' poll.

More discussion about converting, how you can't *ask* someone to convert it has to be something they want to do and the discussion about how Islam is Islam and you can't change it to fit your life. Which is, as we've said, both true and not true. There's also the discussion about God's Mercy and messing up. How you can't take advantage of the mercy by intentionally doing something wrong while thinking, oh, well, God'll forgive me so it doesn't matter. People in Christianity (and probably all religions) think that way too. It doesn't work that way!

For Bilal, scarf = more respect. Not so!

Ack! Crap. Shadia, you moron! Look, just saying that 'he converted to marry me' or 'he wasn't raised around it' is not going to endear him to your family and make them forget that he's not fasting. Look, I agree that Bilal can be a tool. BUT. I agree with him and with Suehaila. If Jeff converted just to marry you it wasn't for the right reasons.

That being said, I'm still lobbying for my idea to treat converts as children! Let them ease into things like the Ramadan fast. That doesn't mean them ignoring it but, with the right intentions, working their way up to the full fast. It is hard! They need to stretch and train up for it.

Of course Fouad is going to D.C. Good for him! Awww...the kids are so sweet...

Back to Samira and her hijab quest...I do hope that Samira eventually manages to get pregnant because she wants to so badly and I kind of think she'd be an awesome mom but I don't think it will be because she put on the hijab.

Oh, hell. The brother-in-law talk about religion...

I do see Bilal's point of how now Jeff is a part of the Muslim tradition and how his actions reflect on other Muslims and vice versa. It's not fair that a convert's actions are more deeply scrutinised than a 'born' Muslim but that's not unique to Islam.

*ponders* I still have my doubts about Jeff's conversion. Not that he's not sincere because I have no way of judging that, but his readiness for it. I think he rushed because he wanted to marry Shadia. Whom I'm liking less and less.

So the 'dislike' column goes thusly: Nina, Bilal, Shadia.

Heh. Nader has no idea what to do with babies...

'Uhhh...your baby's crying...' Run Away!

I have to say the tradition of saying the adhan to the baby when they're born is very nice. Can we institute that for Christianity? What would we use?

*laughs at Fouad* Yes, there are Muslims outside of Dearborn.

Baby? Who do they have in the house doing the 'home video' filming?

God, they're so sweet! For the record, and no one take this wrong, but I would marry Nader. Or someone like Nader. He seems so wonderful. She's maybe in labor, in pain and he doesn't know what to do, they're waiting for her to decide whether or not to go to the hospital and he's praying on/at her belly/for the baby! *hugs them*

Nawal really doesn't want to go to the hospital on a 'false alarm'. I get that but wow, how scary must that be? Pregnant, not knowing if the baby is coming or what's going on...

I'm currently happy not to have this problem...

She called her mom! Who told her to go to the hospital. Good call! Go Nawal's mom!

Nader looks so scared...they won't let him into the room with Nawal.

Finally, she wants the camera off! I wouldn't want my labor being filmed either!

Rum Cake!

2011-11-24T11:11:00.001-05:00

Lo, I have baked! And made a glaze. And a crumble, but that was sort of accidental.

Right, so I'll have to do an update on the reception of this cake but I think it's come out good.

The key to good rum cake?

More RUM!

Now to find instructions on sauteeing the giblets from the turkey.

My Life is Not Conducive to Organized Religion, Apparently

2011-11-23T10:19:00.001-05:00

Okay, so here's the thing.

I do still desire and intend to convert to Eastern Orthodox at some point in my life. I'd rather it be sooner than later, but. But. Life gets in the way. And as life gets in the way it becomes less and less urgent feeling for me to do anything about it.

ETA: Or do I? I mean, thinking about it, if I was really believing down deep, wouldn't I say screw it! to all other concerns and go for it since the ultimate state of my soul depends on it? So perhaps I don't believe as I think (or tell myself) that I do since I'm clearly far more concerned with this life and the things I have to do in it.

I was composing a sort of letter/email (in my head) to the priest of the Greek church and I think it explains my issue so here it is, sort of. Not that this was ever meant to actually be sent, mind. I was thinking about all the problems and it's kind of a joking thing in my head.

Anyway.

Fr. _____,

Good afternoon. My name is Amber _____ and I'm contacting you to speak about converting to Orthodoxy.

I'm certain that you have a regular program for how a conversion would be accomplished, but I'm fairly certain that I would be unable to attend it. Let me explain.

I work a full time job, Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm. In a very necessary bid to get my health back I have a personal trainer. I see her Monday's and Wednesday's from 5:30 to 6:45, after which I have another hour of cardio that I cannot miss. On Tuesday's and Thursday's I must do another hour and a half of cardio. Due to the religion of the owners of the gym my trainer works out of they are closed Friday evening and Saturday (they're Seventh Day Adventists), so in order to get in 5 days of exercise I have to use the gym on Sundays. Due to abbreviated Sunday hours, I am unable to attend Divine Liturgy with any sort of regularity, which is why you wouldn't recognize me. I am also unable to afford to pay for a second gym membership in order to be able to exercise on a Friday or a Saturday.

In addition to the above, I am going back to college starting next semester (January). Which means that I will be taking classes, online as much as possible, but there will likely be some classes I can only take at night which will limit my schedule even more. And those classes will change from semester to semester which means that it is impossible to establish a definite day that I could attend religious instruction.

In other words, I believe that the Orthodox church is the church left by Christ and would like to become a member. However, my life is not conducive to it and I don't have any wiggle room in which to fix that. So unless I can convert by correspondence course without actually having to attend Divine Liturgy on a regular/semi-regular/at all for the next couple of years, then it's going to have to wait.

-

And this is why it would be easier to not bother with organized religion at all, or to return to a personal, private tribal based practice. Then it wouldn't matter that I can't get to the classes or attend the services.

I long for theoretical simplicity

2011-11-22T10:08:00.001-05:00

Okay, you know what I find funny?

So the new blogger dashboard lets you see how many hits a post has gotten, whether or not the people leave a comment. The disparity between the number of hits and the number of comments on some posts...

For example, my last post on the second episode of All-American Muslim has had 172 hits as of this morning. And 3 comments. *eyes the people of the internet* I'm watching you...

I have to say, in spite of all the real life issues the people on the show have and the differences of opinion that are display on how certain aspects of Islam should be lived/practiced it is reminding me of the thing that first attracted me to Islam.

Okay, the *second* thing. The first was the scarves. I'm not going to lie.

What I'm talking about though is the theoretical simplicity of the religion.

There's you and there's God. You're responsible for your own practice and your own understanding/interpretation of the faith. Just: here's the rules, follow them to the best of your ability. And they're not even very complicated or *hard*, on the surface.

1. Shahadah = the declaration of belief in one God & Mohammed as his final prophet
2. Salat = prescribed prayer
3. Sawm = fasting
4. Zakat = charity/alms
5. Hajj = pilgrimage (and that's only if you're physically and financially able to at some point in your life)

It seems so simple laid out like that, right?

Of course it, like everything else in life, is more complicated than it appears on the surface. Eh. Anyway. Just feeling sort of nostalgic somehow.

All-American Muslim S1 Ep 2 - The Fast and the Furious

2011-11-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

Because *everyone* has to have an episode titled after those movies if they can. It's actually a law. I swear. Don't believe me? Well, okay. Maybe not so much as law as a suggestion... :)

According to the summary this is supposed to be focussed on Fouad and the football team. How they have to adjust the schedule to deal with Ramadan.

Jeff's shahada...I actually made a note to come back to this after the show was over. So. The shahada is basically a profession of faith. It's not like a magic phrase where you say it and *zap* Muslim. It's something that, to my mind, you say when you've already become a Muslim in your heart. They mentioned on the last show that you could say it to yourself, but I was always under the impression that there needed to be Muslim witnesses.

Anyway. The shahada is really simple:

لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله

lā ʾilāha ʾillallāh, Muḥammad rasūlu-llāh

There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.

Monotheists have no problem with the first half, it's the second one that causes the issues.

The Shi'a shahada is a little different, I believe. They have an additional phrase referencing Ali, naming him the friend of God, or the successor of Mohammed as it were.

Wee! Okay, I know nothing about football, but watching the boys skirmish is entertaining. That one kid who caught the ball ran really fast, I think. Very impressive.

So in order to deal with Ramadan they've changed the practice schedule to be at night. They'll be practising from 10 pm until 5 am. which seems like a really good idea. I think we all know, but just in case: for Ramadan Muslims are asked (with exceptions for health, etc.) to fast from sunrise to sunset. No food or water at all which is more severe than the fast that anyone else I'm aware of keeps. Apart from some monks, religious. Theirs could be more intense, I'm not sure.

Okay, so Nawal is a respiratory therapist. Good to know.

Is that hostess really ignoring them or is it just the line? I'm rewatching to pay more attention to the people in front of them. The two women were there first and the one man...he's still there in front of them in line...

Ugh. I can't tell. The hostess tossing the menus on the table and then walking away was really incredibly rude, no doubt. They definitely don't do that in the restaurants around here. It's improper behaviour.

ETA: I had another thought about the hostess being rude at the table: maybe she didn't like being on camera?

Ah! So Nader is a federal agent. I like finding out what they do! Don't ask me why.

I have heard/noticed that pregnancy changes people. All those hormones, you know.

Samira (medical receptionist) Fawaz is Sahida's sister. Oh, that's got to hurt, I think. She works in an ObGyn office and she's having trouble getting pregnant.

I thought the issue with adoption was that they (in Mohammed's time) didn't want the children to lose their family connections, name, etc. Not that it was difficult for the child to be...I think the word the used was hallala (halal?) or 'permitted'. I've never heard that used in that way before. 'Halal' has always been, in my limited experience, just the way to describe what is allowed and what is not. So...like drinking ice tea = halal. Drinking a Long Island Ice Tea = haram. Because of the alcohol. I thought that the only issue with people was whether or not they were mahram. So I guess I could see a kind of issue there, but really are there that many men out there who are wanting to marry little girls that they've raised as their own daughters? I think not.

And apart from that, if you've taken the child as your own family and are standing as 'blood' then why can't it be taken as being mahram. When I was considering converting to Islam I asked whether or not my step-father would be mahram (basically concerned with whether or not I'd have to wear hijab essentially 24/7 since we live in the same house) and I was told that they'd consider him mahram since he's married to my mother. No, wait, I think I answered my own question. There's a prohibition against marrying the daughter or a woman you're married to, isn't there? I think there is but I'm too lazy to look it up. Anyway. I find their choice of word strange, whether or not adoption is allowed. Maybe they were just simplifying the wordage for tv?

Oh god, Sahida is such a redneck.

'a big part of it is your belief and your relationship with God' - True. But if you're not following basic rules, is there the possibility that there is a lack of belief? I'm not thinking of their hijab, but alcohol. They were specifically talking about drinking or being in places where alcohol is served. I don't know that Nina drinks (I'm sure that Nawal doesn't) so I'm not saying that. Just wondering.

Okay, so on to Samira's visit with the sheikhs about the infertility issue.

I have to say I really enjoy listening to the Arabic. Don't understand a word, but it's pretty. Like French. Not that they sound alike, but they both strike me as very 'flowing'.

Moving on...

So Samira asks if it would be okay to get invitro using another man's sperm. The sheikh says it wouldn't be a problem if they used her husband's sperm but that it's prohibited for it to be another man's sperm. Which I get, not that it makes it any easier on the people having the trouble.

Now, Samira asks if her wearing hijab would be of any help in them trying to get pregnant. I like that the sheikh points out that there's no connection between getting pregnant and wearing hijab. He does lay out that wearing hijab brings more blessings into your life, 'God will cooperate more with you, you will have more good things in your life'. Which I don't like so much.

If you have the right faith and are keeping the core of Islam, which I see as faith in God, prayers and charity then what difference does the cloth make?

They already have a grandchild! Adam! Sahida's son. Hello!

'I think women are greater than men.'

'Islamically, they are.'

Really? How so? I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't get that. I thought the key was equality. That men and women were equal, yet different.

Blah, blah, Sahida and the country fest...

Football!

I'd be concerned about the night practices too. When's the kid supposed to sleep? And the parents have to get up and drive him there, etc...

'Is that because of their religious beliefs?' - Yeah. Duh.

Nawal always looks so nice...

Her mom wants her to come live with her after she has the baby? No...bad idea. Bad. So the mothers used to stay in bed for 40 days after giving birth, not leaving the house? No. I'd go nuts.

Jeff's first Ramadan? I have to admit that I'm getting more and more the impression that Jeff didn't really...test drive the religion first. Which makes me unhappy. I think it's important to know what you're getting into. And I'm not sure Jeff did.

Okay, I have serious scarf envy right now. I *know* that this is a very important personal choice for Samira and I hope that it brings her something she needs whether or not they succeed it getting pregnant. But seriously. I would move to Dearborn for the scarves. Okay? I have hijab envy and I won't lie.

I like Nawal more and more. I think I jumped to conclusions about her before, calling her judgy. In one of the couch sessions they're talking about the hijab and Nawal says that basically, who is she to go to Angela or Nina and tell them they're not being good Muslims because they're not wearing the hijab. She may *think* that they should be hijabi, but I do like that she has the sense that it's not her job to police their religion.

Bilal doesn't seem to have that sense. Nader is so cute!

Seriously, why do these crazy people think they're doing anything good by going and harassing Muslims? Or anyone really, but since this is a show about Muslims. 'Mohammed is a pedophile!' Really? You think that's going to bring people about to your point of view? No. Not even accurate in the first place and extremely insulting. Unhelpful.

Huh. I never thought about crowd control for taraweh. Pretty mosque...

Okay, not to be insulting (which is what you say before you say something insulting...), but Bilal, honey, you could fast for a while and live off of stored food. And I say that as a person who is unnecessarily heavy (new code for fat!). So I think it's a bit different for Jeff who is about as big around as a stick.

Also, the football players? Are crazy. I mean that's dedication. Football in the middle of the night, after fasting all day, low on sleep. It's got to be hard.

I wonder if, for your first Ramadan you could ease into it. Don't children do that? When they decide that they want to do what Mommy and Daddy do and fast, they fast until they decide not to any more? Eventually they hit adulthood and start to fast all through Ramadan? Can't we treat converts like kids for a while?

I do like the attitude that they shouldn't care whether or not others are fasting. It's a personal thing, right?

Samira's putting on the hijab and taking down all the photos of her without hijab. Which does make a certain amount of sense. I'm not sure about her focus on thinking that putting on the hijab will somehow convince God that he should give her a child. I think if she still doesn't get pregnant that it's going to be a big problem for her.

See, I still love Mohsen.

What's a Prophet Supposed to Act Like?

2011-11-17T22:20:00.001-05:00

I've had a very busy week, so this is going to be a short, no references, not frills post.

I was looking through a blog earlier called 30 Mosques in 30 Days and I don't know why, the thought occurred to me:

A lot of people say, and I've said it, that Mohammed didn't act like a prophet.

But really, if you're looking at the prophets/patriarchs/what have you in the Jewish/Christian canon, did Mohammed do anything that they didn't do? Was he worse or better than any of them?

I think they were all men who acted in accordance with their times: they did some things that were advancements in morality for the times and others that weren't. But we count the ones before Christ as prophets and Mohammed as a fraud or deluded because of the Christian belief that since Christ was God incarnate there's no further need for a Prophet.

Which, fine. That makes sense if you follow that thought process. But I don't know that saying, 'Well Mohammed didn't act like a Prophet. He was too...'insert adjective here'.' works, really.

/end tired, random thought post

All-American Muslim - Ep 1

2011-11-15T22:02:00.001-05:00

So the plan is to do a sort of running commentary on this show as it airs. This first post is a bit late since I didn't decide to do this until Monday morning.

First things first: this is a show on TLC following five Muslim families living in Dearborn, MI. I didn't realize it on my first watching but all of the families featured are Shi'a which is not the 'most common' branch of Islam. When people think of Islam, if they're aware that there are sects within it at all they think of Sunni.

it starts with some of the people sitting talking on couches. They're arguing about whether or not a Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman. The two men say that they can but one of the women, who is the judgy one, says that 'for the actual ritual of marriage both parties have to be Muslim'.

I like Shadia (Amen). She's very much herself, if that makes any sense. She's engaged to an Irish Catholic man (Jeff) who converts to Islam during this show. And she has a 10 year old son from her previous marriage.

Her parents were less than thrilled with her dating since that's typically frowned on in Islam.

The thing I like about Shadia and Jeff is that they seem to be willing to do whatever to be together. It's not about Catholic or Muslim but being with one another.

Okay. Then we get Nader & Nawal Aoude. They've been married for 10 months and she's getting ready to have their first child. And his sense of humor is adorable, I think. Like in the first meeting she says that she wants to have the baby at 38 weeks and he's laughing, asking if she's going to be sending the baby an email to tell it it's time.

Shadia has one brother and two sisters, none of whom appear to be married. I read a review that said that Shadia's father came off as a hidebound old Muslim who couldn't bend from the need to see his daughter only marrying a Muslim. I can see it, but I don't think he came off as crazy harsh. Shadia herself said that she wanted to only marry a Muslim. So it's not just something coming from her father.

It is important to him, but it's not unreasonable. If you're truly dedicated to your religion and it says that it is only proper to marry another member of that religion then it wouldn't sit easily if one of your children married out of the faith. It's no different from Catholics only marrying Catholics, etc. Christianity has (for the most part) drifted from that hard line but it's still there, trust me. I had that mentality myself, back in the day.

'There's been death and wars. People kill because of women.'

'No- Not- It wasn't because of the woman, it was because of the moron who started the war, which was a guy.'

Right, Nina Bazzy. I kind of like her personality, but I have to be honest that I can't stand the way she dresses. It reminds me of the kids on Jersey Shore. But that's a personal issue that doesn't really reflect on her personality, religion, etc. I just don't like her clothes! She's married and has a young son who is adorable! She works as a party planner and wants to open up a club. Her business partner doesn't think it's a good idea because she's a woman and clubs and women (running them) don't go together.

He keeps mentioning that 'you're a girl' and that she has other responsibilities. Like her family. *rolls eyes* But I do like Nina - because she keeps being told that she shouldn't do something it makes her want to do it more.

Another couch session: they're talking about converting to Islam. Now, all of the people on this show with the exception of Jeff are born Muslims. There's a whole thing about converting and people not understanding that Islam is a religion and that you have to follow it and not 'adapt it to fit your life' which I think is bull. Yes, you have to adapt to the religion, but if Islam isn't adaptable to modern life then it's sort of pointless, isn't it? There's a middle ground somewhere in there.

Anyway. Nina makes this comment about how if you're going to convert then 'you have to do it right' and Judgy Woman (who is one of Shadia's sisters, actually) says, 'How do you expect people to convert and expect them, because they're converts to be perfect, to try and be perfect-'

And then Nina interjects and says there's no such thing and one of the other women says they should at least know what they're getting into.

Then Judgy Woman says: 'Like Nina just said, if you're going to convert, you have to do it right, but what about the people who were born into it, they don't have to do it right?'

And I actually get her point, maybe. Nina is not a 'proper' Muslimah, is such a thing exists. She doesn't wear hijab, she works with men, she wants to run a club, etc. Things that, from the looks that were passed around in that couch session were indicative of her not living the kind of Islamic life that she would expect from a convert.

Then there's a little scene with Jeff and Shadia's father (Mohsen) about whether or not Jeff's really thought about what he's doing, converting to Islam. And that Mohsen doesn't want Jeff to feel pressured to have to convert. 'You do it from yourself'. See, that's part of why I can't see what that article was talking about. He seems like such a sweet guy! He even practiced the shahada with Jeff to help him get the pronunciation right!

Fouad and Zaynab Zaban have been married for 12 years. See, when I first watched this I somehow got the impression that the parents required their daughters to start wearing hijab at 9, which I had a problem with. On the second watching Fouad is just saying that they started wearing it around 9 which leaves it more open to it being the daughters' desire. You could argue that the daughters were influenced, but what children aren't influenced by their parents and their peers?

Fouad is the high school football coach and he has the mouth of a sailor on the field, fyi. It's interesting to hear him having to work out the problem of how to train and play football during Ramadan since all the players will be fasting.

Jeff's family - his mother has a problem with him converting to Islam. Not enough to not attend the wedding or anything, but you can see that it hurts her. She starts out trying to play it off as it being okay, but she breaks down and cries about it later on and winds up not attending the conversion.

Angela and Mike Jaafar may be my favorite couple. They were high school sweethearts who've been married for 11 years. They have four kids, 2 girls and 2 boys. Mike is a Deputy Chief for the sheriff department. And their kids are so cute it hurts! Angela also works as a liaison for an auto manufacturer.

I don't like how TLC cuts their teasers before the commercial break. For instance, they make it look like Jeff has cold feet right at the moment of saying his shahada. However, having seen the show I know that that's not what happens at all. Very misleading.

Shadia's brother: 'I've got an announcement to make. Me and Jeff were outside talking. Jeff's decided that we're converting to Judaism. But I brought him back to Buddhism and then we worked on Islam. I had to pay him a couple hundred, so he's going to covert.' *lol*

One thing Shadia says is that you can convert by saying the shahada by yourself. I was always under the impression that you needed Muslim witnesses to make it 'official'.

The Imam's little flub using the wrong sisters name is funny. Suehaila is, I think, older than Shadia and there's apparently a running thing about trying to find her a husband.

I did find it interesting that, from what part of the ceremony they showed the same questions are asked of both the female and the male.

I'm liking more and more the tradition of the woman keeping her name when she marries, fyi. I know that most of the couples on this show have the same last name, but that's just an aside. Of course I'd still take my husband's name because I hate my own - it's the name of my asshat adoptive father. And I'm not going back to my bio dad's name because he was also an asshat. Men. *sigh*

I love the hijabs on this show. How come the hijab never looked as lovely on me when I wore it?

Oh! Oh, crap. I just realized that Judgy Woman is Nawal. Crap. I think it's because she's pregnant during the show but not pregnant in the couch sessions. So they must have been filmed later. I *thought* Nawal and Judgy Woman looked a lot alike! Ooops!

The reception for Jeff and Shadia is very pretty and it's an interesting mix of Jeff's Catholic family and the Lebanese Muslim family of Shadia. Jeff's cousin does a traditional Irish dance which is always neat to watch and then Shadia's family hired a belly dancer.

Judgy-Nawal likens belly dancers to strippers, which I think is rude and excessive. And not at all accurate. The dancer they had wasn't wearing the traditional 'harem girl' kind of outfit, but something loose and flowing. Also, some of the Muslim side of the wedding were making fun of Jeff's male family members for getting too into the belly dancer routine. I didn't see the leering that they saw, but we only get bits and pieces, so maybe it happened off camera for us.

Yet Another Random Post - Question Time

2011-11-15T14:00:00.001-05:00

Am I the only one who remembers things that bugged her at the time way, way after the fact and chews over them and chews over them until she decides to bring the question to the general public?

Probably. And yet here I am, inflicting it on all of you!

Okay. So, as some of you may recall a while back I girded my loins, etc. and got over my social anxiety enough to actually go to the local mosque. I've talked about it a couple of times.

Anyway. One of the things I didn't mention was this: I sat near the back and there was a woman between myself and the sliding doors that formed the barrier between the men's section and the women's section. During the service she had cracked it open, presumably to hear better (there was a perfectly functioning speaker in the room and the imam wore a mic so we could all hear, don't misunderstand). During the actual prayers one of the children in the room started to cry and the mother (being busy with salaat), let the baby keep crying.

One of the women to the *other* side of me wanted me to reach across the woman to my right (the side with the door) to shut it (so the crying didn't bother the men I guess). Only I felt as though I couldn't because there was not enough space for me to actually walk around the praying woman to get to the door. The room was not cramped, but the way everyone had seated themselves took up the front part of the room and there was no space behind where we were sitting - we were up against the rear wall of the room.

And I felt there were two things against me trying to time reaching around this praying woman to close that door. One - it would be rude. I'd inevitably wind up bumping into her because my arms are short (I'm a short person!) and I wasn't that close to the door. Two - I seem to recall something about it being very rude (at the least) in Islam to walk in front of someone who is praying. That second could be wrong, but that's what I was thinking at the time. That it would be really rude to get up, scoot between the row of chairs in front of us and this woman trying to pray, close the door then have to scoot back to my seat.

So that's my question. Was I right to not close the door? The baby was crying, yes, but it didn't seem to bother anyone on the men's side. No one turned and shot glares at the barrier or anything. They were all praying and there were little boys running around behind the men praying too. And also, am I right about it being rude to walk in front of someone praying unless, say, there's some sort of life or death emergency? Outside of Islam, even when you have a Christian or someone else who is praying where there's clearly a ritual involved it strikes me as incredibly rude to just sort of stroll in front of them. I only mention the ritual aspect because it can be hard to tell a Christian is praying sometimes, since there aren't always movements or gestures involved and they can just look like they're sitting there enjoying the weather. So you have no way of knowing, see?

Doing the bare minimum isn't good enough

2011-11-11T10:32:00.001-05:00

I know everyone's talking about the Penn State riots over the firing of Paterno. And it's something that's hard to ignore, really if only because it is so very disturbing. Apart from the fact that I think it's good to know they're so pro-rape up at Penn State so I can stay way the hell away...

Here you have college students, supposedly some of the more intelligent people in the nation (I lean heavily on the 'supposedly' there. I am constantly reminded that being book smart doesn't give one the common sense to come in out of the rain.) *rioting* because a man who was in a position of authority and *failed* to do everything in his power to stop the rapes of children was fired. I don't even know what to say to that. My first reaction was: 'What the *fuck* is wrong with them?' And that's pretty much stayed.

Do they not understand what happened? Is their winning football more important than the pain that these children suffered and continue to suffer? Is it more important to protect the reputation of a man who failed the victims, failed anyone who ever had faith in him as a decent human being and failed to *be* a decent human being than to see some sort of justice done for the crimes that were committed?

No one is saying that Paterno raped anyone, but there is evidence that he knew what was going on and just kicked it up the chain of command. Did he, technically, do what he was required to do? Sure. He did the barest minimum that he had to do, legally. Technically. And he saw that nothing was ever done. And he did...nothing. No one did *anything*. Paterno is hardly alone in his failure here, but the fact that there are more people who failed to be human beings doesn't excuse Paterno. He deserved to be fired. So did the president of the university. And anyone else who knew and did nothing. And if there are criminal charges that can be brought against them, they should be.

I honestly don't know how any of these people can live with themselves. Knowing that they valued their...what? The schools reputation? More than the lives of other people. More than the lives of children.

These people all had a moral obligation to do everything that they could to see Sandusky stopped. That isn't the bare minimum, 'oh, I told my boss'. No. That's calling the police. That's, especially if you're a huge ex-football player, physically *stopping* the man you find raping a boy in the showers and calling the police then and there.

What they did is like...seeing someone being raped and knocking on the next house door you find. Telling the person there that there's someone being raped back thataway. Then standing there, watching them do nothing and eventually just...walking away. Doing nothing but telling yourself that you did all you could.

I had an argument with my parents about this, about whether or not Paterno should have been fired. They thought no because he had met his legal obligation in the matter and could have been fired himself if he had gone outside the university's investigative procedure. My argument was that he could *see* that nothing was being done. He knew that the people above him were doing nothing and he proceeded to do nothing as well. He became an accomplice to every single act of rape that followed by his silence. By his helping to allow this man to remain free with easy access to his preferred victims. He did the bare minimum and he did *not* do what he morally and ethically should have.

They asked me, trying to get me to see their point of view, what I would do if I found out that H (a co-worker) was beating her children. I told them I'd call child services and the police! I certainly wouldn't tell the company's HR department or her boss (who happens to be her sister-in-law in this case). It's not a business issue. It's a legal issue. It's a *crime* and it's a moral issue. I would not be able to live with myself if I knew something like that was going on and did nothing. I couldn't believe my mother even had the guts to ask me that question, really. She lived in an abusive marriage for *years*. I was raised in that home! I know how hard it is, from the inside, to stand up and admit to being abused. If someone on the outside knew, they should have gone to the police. I would willingly lose a friendship or anything else to stop someone from growing up the way I did, let alone ignore someone being raped.

I don't really know how to end this post. There isn't an end to it I guess. Rapes continue to happen. Abuse continues to happen. There are still people out there who think that the people who get raped 'deserved' it somehow. That they did something that invited it. This is bullshit. The idiots who rioted at Penn State should be ashamed of themselves. If it was their son that had been raped would they still be out there weeping for Paterno? I sure as hell hope not. And if not, then why are they forgetting that someone *was* raped? And he knew and did the bare minimum.

Maybe Paterno was a great coach. He might even have been a generally nice guy. It doesn't matter. This is what he'll be remembered for.

And it is what he should be remembered for. For a *huge* moral failure. For failing to be, not even a good human being, but just fucking human.

Meanwhile, the legal process grinds on behind all the media attention on Paterno and his drama. The victims and the crimes are nearly forgotten in all of this media hoopla because it's not as shiny as watching an 'icon' fall and watching his worshipers completely fail at having an ounce of sympathy, common sense or souls.

2011-11-09T13:13:00.000-05:00

I finished Duma Key over the weekend and I really enjoyed it. Not the point though.

I think, and I know this makes no difference to anyone anywhere but I'm just putting it out there, that Perse is the same species or a very similar one to the creature in IT.

Random Stephen King related thought of the day, done.

Social Morality

2011-11-08T14:46:00.001-05:00

"The first thing to get clear aboutChristian morality between man and man is that in this departmentChrist did not come to preach any brand new morality. The Golden Ruleof the New Testament (Do as you would be done by) is a summing up ofwhat every one, at bottom, had always known to be right."

Is it that it's 'what's right' or that it's what is beneficial to society? I guess it boils down to whether or not you think that there is some outside force a God or gods or divine what-have-you that set down rules. If you do, then it's 'what's right' because that outside force has said it is. And if you don't, then it can be best seen as the natural progression and expression of human nature. That we perceive the 'Golden Rule' as good because it presents the greatest benefits and opportunities for continuation of the species.

Lewis goes on to state that Christianity tells you general principles but not how to apply them in specifics. For instance, it tells you to feed the hungry but doesn't teach you how to cook. "It wasnever intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts andsciences: it is rather a director which will set them all to theright jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life,if only they will put themselves at its disposal." This, he says, is the reason why the Church (meaning Christians, not a specific denomination like Roman Catholicism or Baptist or Pentecostal or...etc.) does not (or should not) set out to produce a program for running the world.

"And when they say that theChurch should give us a lead, they ought to mean that someChristians—those who happen to have the right talents—should beeconomists and statesmen, and that all economists and statesmenshould be Christians, and that their whole efforts in politics andeconomics should be directed to putting `Do as you would be done by'into action."

This is where he looses me. I agree with his point that the Church should not be trying to be a political entity. Religion and politics don't mix well in that fashion. My problem comes when he says that 'all economists and statesmen should be Christians'. I know that he's saying this is what people *ought* to be thinking when they say that they want the Church to get involved in politics, though he knows it's not what they're thinking but I'm thinking that since he says this is what they should be thinking that it is his thinking. So he thinks that all politicians, etc. should be Christian. Expand on that and that means he thinks that everyone should be Christian. Which is the goal of Christianity, sure. But it's not practical. It's not going to *happen* and it bothers me, this desire to see everyone in power as a Christian. I don't think that one group should have exclusive control over anything by virtue of simply being 'x'.

Or, well, not in the secular sphere at any rate. There's always an exception, isn't there? For instance, the board of a church should be made up of people who are all members of that church. Therefore making them, in theory, all Christians. Similarly for a mosque or a synagogue.

Shush. I never promised consistency.

"the New Testament,without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what afully Christian society would be like. Perhaps it gives us more thanwe can take. It tells us that there are to be no passengers orparasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is towork with his own hands, and what is more, every one's work is toproduce something good: there will be no manufacture of sillyluxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buythem. And there is to be no `swank' or `side', no putting on airs."

I think I must have missed this part of the New Testament. Where does it say that? And if it does, isn't this a contradiction to the commands for charity? It reminds me of this one scene from The Help. Hildy's maid is asking her for a loan. I believe it was for $60, $70. Small enough. It was all she needed to be able to send both of her sons to college. And Hildy spouted some crap about a 'true Christian' not giving handouts to people who could help themselves and that she wouldn't be doing any favors by loaning that money.

Where's the line? If both commands are contained in the Bible, how do you tell who you're *commanded* to give charity to and who you shouldn't give charity to because they're lazy sods who don't belong in a 'Christian nation'?

Lewis mentions that the ancient Greeks, the Old Testament Jews and the Christian teachers of the Middle Ages all told us not to lend money at interest. I'm not sure *why* he chooses to mention this, really. I'm not sure if he means it as a condemnation of the current economic system or not. But he mentions it and points out that our entire economy is based on doing the opposite of what these three civilizations told us to do. Also, Islam forbids interest. But he doesn't mention that. Perhaps he doesn't view them as as 'great' as the other groups? I don't know.

Then at the end he speaks of Charity.

"In thepassage where the New Testament says that every one must work, itgives as a reason `in order that he may have something to give tothose in need'. Charity—giving to the poor—is an essential partof Christian morality"

So...I still question where the line is. How do you know when to give charity, the essential if not lynch pin portion of Christian morality? Or am I missing something? It's entirely possible. I'm not a Bible scholar unlike some people!

random thought

2011-11-07T14:33:00.001-05:00

I was reading the blurbs and reviews of different books on Amazon, as you do, and I came across this book:

The Deities Are Many: A Polytheistic Theology by Jordan D. Paper

I obviously haven't read the book itself, but the first review mentions that the author makes the case that polytheism is natural to humans.

And I was wondering about that. Is any 'theism' more natural to all humanity than any other? Certainly all of the cultures that I'm aware of (which is not all of them by any stretch) were all polytheistic before the advent of monotheism. Does that make it more natural to our way of thinking and now we've imposed monotheism on ourselves and made things more difficult?

Or are all theologies equally native to humans and it's just that different theologies will speak to one person and not the other due to our diversity?

I have no idea what this means, if it means anything at all. Really.

2011-11-03T11:12:00.001-04:00

Okay, okay, so I said earlier about how we shouldn't read into things too much, right? Right?

So I shouldn't read too much into the fact that the tree that I cut myself on on Halloween was a birch tree, right?

For those who don't know why I'm flailing around like a small nutter...according to what I remember the birch is represented by the rune berkana (it looks like a sharp B) which has meanings of renewal, healing, recovery, physical or spiritual regeneration, a new growth from old roots, and motherhood. Though I think we can safely ignore the 'motherhood' portion right now.

Also, as I recall, sacred to Thor and Frigga (as well as other goddesses but I can't remember which ones right now).

*And* well, a whole lot of other things.

Coincidence...coincidence...coincidence...

All the things!

2011-11-02T10:39:00.001-04:00

So, first order of business. I would like to announce the...acknowledgement of my best friends sproglet! Eve is having a girl! YAY!

They're not telling anyone the name until closer to actual birth if not after she's born. I think they're a little nervous, truth be told, which is not surprising. First pregnancy and all that. So in lieu of naming the sproglet I'm calling her Evesdottir.

Okay.

So...other things.

Lazy Amber is lazy. Also, Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I kind of went nuts with the staying up late and doing things, etc. So I'm tired again. But less tired than I was before.

Oddly, I think I'm allergic to fish oil. Or maybe something they put in the capsules? See, I have this (tmi time..) spot on my leg where the vein sort of bulges out. It's just there and it's never bothered me or anything. Well, last week? A little before that? It started twinging and itching. At first I thought it was in my head, you know? But then it kept going on. Well, the only thing I'd started doing differently was taking these fish oil capsules because they're supposed to be good for your heart. So I stopped taking them and the pains and the itching has gone away. Which is funny since I've taken the same dosage of fish oil before and not had any problem. Weird.

A tree attacked me Halloween night (no, I wasn't drinking) and I have a lovely scratch/scrape all down the side of my right hand.

Reading Duma Key by Stephen King - very good. We were discussing this the other day and I *know* it sounds bad, but here it is: Stephen King was very good and very dark when he was drinking and taking drugs. He got sober (good for him, don't get me wrong!) and he was still good, but not *very* good and not so dark. Then he nearly died. And when he came back he was better than he'd ever been before. The life cycle of the writer = very strange. And, obviously, this is my opinion. YMMV. Anne Rice, on the other hand, was good when she was drunk, then sobered up and lost her freaking mind. It has never come back.

Also reading The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis. Very good. Historical mystery set in Vespasians Rome. I'm only in the first book (it's a series) but I'm loving it. Fast paced, energetic main character. I'm really liking the 'love interest' (I so very, very much want them married by the end of this book which is unusual for me but I think that Helena would be good for Falco. She's awesome on top of a slice of strong willed female) and well it's just well written.

Related note: have any of you ever read the The Girl... series by Steig Larsson? I keep seeing the previews for the movie they've made from the first one, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it's kind of making me want to read the book. But if it's not a good mystery then I don't want to.

We went to a local haunted house thing on Monday. The haunted house was not scary. Okay, it scared two people in the group, but they're kind of giant chickens. Look. Haunted houses' are supposed to be dark. Yes. However, when you have it so dark that the people literally cannot see anything, it's sort of pointless. We went through a corridor where there were heavy canvas-y things hanging in the middle. I assume they were meant to be hanging bodies or something. However, it was so dark that I couldn't see them! So they were just annoying. And the air horn? Not your friend in a haunted house. It's a cheap gimmick to startle people and after the fourth or fifth time? Not so much. Also, over use of the strobe lighting! It can be cool and it helps give the actors that slo-mo movement look (there was one actress who really knew how to use it to the best effect!) but you *can* over do it to the point that, again, the people can't *see* what the hell they're supposed to be scared of! *rolls eyes*

Many props to the little girl who was playing a dead little ghost girl in the haunted house though. She was suitably creepy and kept a very straight and serious face through her whole bit. *thumbs up*

True Confession Time: 'because it will piss ____ off'

2011-10-28T15:18:00.000-04:00

I've realized I've done at least two things in my life for the simple reason that it would annoy/piss off someone that I didn't like.

First, though maybe this doesn't count since I really did have issues with the faith - I quietly left off being a Christian because I was mad at my family. That doesn't take into account, as I say, the issues I actually had with it but it was a deciding factor in leaving and being an atheist. Then deciding I was going to be a witch - partially because I thought it was better to focus on the Female, yes. But also because I knew it would 'concern' people.

Second, going to a Catholic church.

My mother had just married my Dad and his parents were living with us. His mother hated me and she hated Catholicism. She's an angry ex-Catholic. So, when informed that I *had* to go to a church on Sunday's because no one in the house was *not* going to be Christian, I picked the one I knew would piss her off the most. And proceeded to learn everything I could so I could argue with her about it and be right.

Which, upon reflection would be why neither of these things lasted.

Look, It's Halloween, people...

2011-10-27T11:17:00.001-04:00

I get that some Christian groups think that Halloween is evil. I think they're nutters, but whatever. No skin off my nose. I don't go to 'faith based' Halloween activities.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and that's ignoring the religious aspects of the day.

I think the...what do they even call them. Hell houses? The Christian version of a haunted house that shows you all the people in hell. Whatever. They're designed to basically scare people into believing in Christianity. Which is the wrong way of doing it but what the hell. As long as the kids aren't out there wearing scary costumes and worshiping ze Debil. *rolls eyes* For the record, the kids aren't out there worshiping anything except sugar. Which has it's own problems, no question.

Now they're coming out with this thing where they're going to wear white 'to show righteousness' (let's not talk about how irritating and wrong *that* is. *cough*self-righteous much?*cough*) and hand out Bibles (or 'other Christian gifts', though what those might be I have no idea) to kids who come trick or treating.

Apart from making your house about as popular as the people who hand out those little toothbrush kits instead of candy (way to get egged and tp'd by the way!), this is stupid.

First, who's paying for all those Bibles? Even assuming that a household could find a small Bible for, what? Five bucks let's say? How many Bibles do they need to buy to make sure they have enough? 10? 20? More? Who's going to do that?

Second, if I were a parent and someone handed out religious material to my kid I'd be pissed. *I* get to choose the religious information that comes to my kid. Not you, random person I may or may not know to say hello to. How would they feel if their kid stopped by a Muslim household (not for trick or treating, since that's Evil *makes airquotes in sarcastic manner*, but for some other reason) and they were handed a Qur'an? I believe the words shit and fit would apply to most of their reactions.

Third, do you really need to stake out another holiday? You've got plenty. Go away. *makes shooing motions* If you don't like it, don't participate. Don't let your kids participate. Don't try and ruin it for everyone else though, okay?

The *majority* of people you encounter on the street on Halloween are not viewing it as a religious holy day. And for the ones that are? That's their religion and it's their right. Back the hell off.

Here endeth my complaining.

For now.

*makes DUM DUM DUMMMMMMMMMM sounds*

American Horror Story

2011-10-27T10:28:00.000-04:00

Things:

1) I enjoy this show more with each episode.

2) They pronounced Samhain correctly! All the love for that.

3) The music they keep playing when the original owner, the Doctor, is doing nasty things in his basement is from the soundtrack to Bram Stoker's Dracula. You know, the one with Gary Oldman. *shudder* You have Gary Oldman and that's what you do with him? Shame on you Coppola. Moving on...

4) Zachary Quinto! I <3 you. For the record. Even when you're creepy and dead and murderous.

5) I really wish Quinto's hubby on the show had given McDermott a blowjob. I...would pay money for that. No lie.

6) The guy playing the Doctor was in Rose Red. He played the annoying post-cognitive psychic who lost fingers. Can't remember the characters name and I never knew the actors name.

7) Mutant baby? Y/Y?

8) I really want to know where Violet's boyfriend came from. I mean, clearly, he's one of the ghosts in the house but when did he get killed? I want that story.

9) I fear that they're going to kill the dog next week. There was a shot in the preview of the microwave with something red splattered on the inside and that's an urban legend, you know? The dog in the microwave? While this will make me cringe badly...I'll keep watching the show.

10) Abby! That surprised me so, so badly. I really like her and, you know, yes, she's going to be coming back as a ghost (most likely), I'm still going to miss her because the ghosts aren't the same as the people they used to be.

Oh! And at some point I shall talk about Paranormal Activity. All three movies. Maybe tonight when I can add visual aides....

Health Update

2011-10-26T11:18:00.001-04:00

Possible TMI because I basically just talk about breasts, but not in a sexy way. Move along if any of this is too much information for you.

Still going to the gym, still following the diet.

We stopped weighing me in a while back because, while I was still shrinking it wasn't being reflected on the scale in any helpful sort of way. Meaning, I'd lose a pound here or there, but nothing like the five pounds a week or three a week that it had been before. The issue, if you want to call it that, is that I'm building muscle while losing fat. So I'm getting smaller but not losing as much actual weight. Still a very good thing.

So we've been measuring me every two or three months. Last time we measured I'd lost, overall, more than five inches. That's taking all the measurements and just adding up how much I've lost. Very good, I think. :D

I notice the weight loss in that my clothes are getting larger, but it's a slow process. The biggest hint I get is in my bra. I've already gone down from a DD to a C cup and down two sizes around my chest as well. Right now I'm in the middle hooks of the chest strap where when I bought it it had to be at the last set of hooks. And I keep having to cinch up the shoulder straps. So that's fun!

The thing with bra's that I have is this: There are two ways the bra can be wrong. It can be too small, or too large. If it's too small then you get muffin tops a/k/a double boob. That's where you look like you've got little boobs on top of your boobs because the excess flesh is being squeezed out the top. It's not attractive. Not at all. When the bra fits properly, this is not an issue. The bra and your breast should be in one smooth line. However, when the bra is too big (either too large a cup size or too large in general) you can get a similar issue to the muffin top. Meaning: it fits okay when you put it on, but when you bend over you fall out of it. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Producing....the muffin top.

So I always delay and worry about shrinking my bras. It's a lot of fiddling for me to find just the right position of all the straps so that there is no muffin top. Because I hate that like a burning, burning thing.

Another fascinating thing: Your body changes in the weirdest ways when you're losing as much fat as I am. It's kind of like deflating. Not a particularly attractive image, I grant you. But that's what it looks like. You wake up some mornings and find new *dents* in your flesh.

The other thing is, I've been wearing skirts almost exclusively. This isn't for any modesty or 'skirts are women's wear' kind of thing. It's practicality. 1) Skirts are more forgiving to weight loss. I can wear a skirt and have it look good a lot longer than I can pants. They get baggier and look less professional more quickly. 2) Changing clothes at the gym. Slip the exercise pants up under the skirt, whip off the skirt, voila! This is as opposed to the one woman who strips off completely and wanders around the locker room. It's disconcerting to walk in and be greeted by a naked 70 year old woman, alright? 3) I have more skirts that fit than I do pants. And I'm trying not to buy clothes until I absolutely have to. 4) I like skirts. :p

And I really need to go through my closet. Maybe this weekend. Probably not, since I'm lazy. But maybe.

Boss

2011-10-23T23:21:00.000-04:00

I am still convinced that the character Tom Kane is analogous to John Marcone. If Marcone became mayor of Chicago and then got a progressive, degenerative illness. I don't picture Kelsey Grammer *as* Marcone, physically. For that, see Gabriel Macht.

Go google him. I'll wait. Oh, no, I won't. Here:

You're welcome.

I think it's all the attitude. Here:

"If in the course of doing what I feel is best for this city there is collateral damage...So be it."

You tell me who said that. John Marcone or Tom Kane.

Both of them certainly could have and that's the awesome part.

And then there's the part where, having been handed a pair of severed ears in a really nice box by the guy whose ears they are he waits until he gets home to open it. Sees that it's the ears, goes 'eh' and puts them down the garbage disposal. Then tries to have an emotional moment with his wife.

His balls clank when he walks.

In other news, I clearly have a thing for the anti-hero type. Thankfully that's just my taste in fictional men!

I find myself wondering

2011-10-23T19:06:00.000-04:00

About the religion of my ancestor's. Not the more recent ones. I know that. They were Lutherans and quite proud of it. German Lutherans, in my experience, tend to be proud of that. The combined ethnicity and religion. Because, after all, Luther himself was German.

I'm thinking of further back. Earlier than Luther. Earlier than Christianity. The pre-Christian tribal religions. It's an aspect of my ancestry that I've never thought of before. I'm proud of my German heritage but I've never considered the religion that my forefathers (and mothers) lived. Clearly I'm thinking about it now - something I blame on you, sanil. :)

Funny thing. In just the basic, googling beginnings of research it turns out that the tribal religions of Germany were closely related to the Nordic tribal religions. Which makes perfect sense once you know it and probably before that even if you bother to think about it, which I never did. :)

And I've been mildly obsessed with the Vikings for ages, which is what makes it funny for me. It's something I should have known but didn't!

Thought for the day:

2011-10-22T18:03:00.000-04:00

You know your team is pretty badass when this:

is your team woobie.

*hums Avengers theme as she wanders around the house*

The 'Cardinal Virtues'

2011-10-19T22:03:00.001-04:00

There are, according to Lewis, seven virtues. "Four of them are called 'Cardinal' virtues, and the remaining three are called 'Theological' virtues. The 'Cardinal' ones are those which all civilized people recognise: the 'Theological' are those which, as a rule, only Christians know about."

This chapter, as you can see, deals only with the Cardinal virtues. Lewis says he'll get back to the Theological ones later, and I must believe him. :)

The term 'cardinal' has nothing to do with Cardinals, either the birds or the Roman Catholic ranking of priests. According to Lewis it comes from a Latin word meaning 'the hinge of a door'. I made use of the wonder that is Google and found that the term for the hinge of a door is 'cardin'. So, there you are.

The first Cardinal virtue is prudence. Prudence is, essentially, practical common sense - taking the time to think about what you're doing and what the likely outcome is going to be. Many people think that Christians are supposed to be 'foolish'. They take the instruction to 'be like children' in order to enter Heaven incorrectly. Christ told us "to be not only as 'harmless as doves', but also 'as wise as serpents'. He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim."

Lewis believes that being a Christian will keep a person sharp. "Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself."

Then why do we have so many classes about Christianity? I don't think this is what he was going for, but Christianity is not instinctive. It's not something where you go, 'Oh, I'll be a Christian' and suddenly you know how. You have to be taught and so, um...yeah. I think being a Christian *does* require a special education. It is also an education unto itself, since you learn the tenets and then have to live them which teaches them to you even better.

The next cardinal virtue is temperance. Most people, as Lewis points out, view temperance as cautioning against excessive drinking. But that's not what it means, really. It refers to *all* pleasures, and it's not about abstinance. It's about *restraint*. You go so far, to a reasonable point, and no further.

"An individual Christian may see fit to five up all sorts of things for special reasons...but the moment he starts saying the things are bad in themselves, or looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning."

Temperance = moderation. It is reasonableness in your actions. Are you unable to drink a little without drinking a lot? Then don't drink. Are you making a hobby the center of your life and neglecting you family or your other responsibilities? Then you need to reduce the level of involvement with that hobby.

The third cardinal virtue is justice. "It is the old name for everything we should now call 'fairness'; it includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, and all that side of life."

The fourth cardinal virtue is fortitude: "both kinds of courage - the kind that faces danger as well as the kind that 'sticks it' under pain."

So the four cardinal virtues are, in Amber terms: Common Sense, Self Control, Fairplay and Strength of Character. I don't think that very many people would say that any of these are bad things and since these are the virtues that Lewis says everyone is aware of I don't know that there's really anything more to say. We'll see about the theological virtues once we get to those.

Fandom

2011-10-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

can make me love things.

For instance, I've never previously cared much about Hawkeye (let's leave aside the fact that my entire love of the Avengers is a new and shiny thing - I did previously collect Avengers comics. For Iron Man and Captain America and the slash. Because they are married.), but thanks to fandom and all the awesome fics getting written about him in movie verse, I'm kind of loving Clint.

Also, Coulson. The little short films Marvel's put out starring him? Adorable and genius and I want to put him in my pocket, but he'd probably go ninja badass on me.

Ninja post

2011-10-19T10:49:00.002-04:00

Not dead!

Just...rather tired, truth be told. I must not be sleeping well, though I don't remember waking up during the night. But I've been going to bed 'on time', or as close as possible and I'm still oversleeping and waking up tired. That's delaying the whole...Mere Christianity thing because I'm not reading it in the morning and then when I sit down to type up a post on what I have read I'm just *tired* and don't feel like it.

So. But I'm determined to do better! I *will* get the post I've been working on out tonight. It's about the 'cardinal' virtues.

Bag of Bones

2011-10-17T00:22:00.000-04:00

So A&E is making a mini-series of the novel Bag of Bones. On the one hand, yay! Because I love that book. On the other, Stephen King adaptations do not tend to go well for the most part.

With two exceptions. The Stand and The Shining. The original one with Jack Nicholson. Not 100% true to the book, of course, but I think it's closer to the spirit than the remake (which I kind of like anyway, but I eat junkfood too so that doesn't mean anything).

Also, I have an AO3 account. So. You know. I've been distracted by cleaning things up and posting them. Priorities, I has them.

ps: It was nice seeing Jo again. And then I'm looking forward to next week with the power of a thousand burning suns. James Marsters *and* Charisma Carpenter? I may not survive.

You Can Tell Where My Mind Is Focused

2011-10-14T13:53:00.000-04:00

A friend and I discussing movies and what's coming out soon:

Her: So what's on for this weekend?

Me: Well, we're either going to go see Moneyball, that's the one with Brad Pitt and baseball? Or the remake of The Thing.

Her: Oh, count me out. The fact that they even made a remake is deeply offensive to me.

Me: I know. Well, next week is Paranormal Activity 3.

Her: I didn't even want to see 2.

Me: I know, but they've sucked me in!

Her: I understand. Well, no I don't, but.

Me: And Avengers comes out in May! *huge grin of hugeness*

Her: Wow. Checking off the days, are we?

Me: I'm just very aware that it's like...seven months until the movie comes out. Less than a year. *still grinning with maniac gleam in her eyes*

Her: *backs slowly away from the crazy*

Me: I will totally go see it at the midnight showing! And then again, and again, and again.... *grins the whole time*

Temporary Marriages

2011-10-14T11:41:00.000-04:00

What do you guys think of the idea?

I know, modern, secular times who would even bother, right? If you want to live with someone and have sex, you just do. It's a non-issue unless you come from a highly religious background or live in a very religious area.

But I'm thinking about it in the context of religion.

I know that in Islam there's the concept/practice of mut'ah nikah. I've hardly studied it in depth or anything because I don't have a horse in that race, but the basic idea as I understand it is that it is something that is permitted in Shi'a but not Sunni practices. The idea is that a man may take a wife for a limited, specific amount of time so that he does not commit the sin of zina. So a man goes off to war or on a long trip or what have you and his wife does not come with him. He finds himself *unbearably* in need of the ability to have regular sex. Rather than just find a woman and have sex with her (implying seduction, rape or simple prostitution) he finds a woman and marries her. But before they're married there is the understanding and (I believe) a contract that the marriage is only to be for, let's say four months. And he will pay her mahr and then they're married for the four months, with almost all the same rights and obligations as a permanent marriage. At the end of the four months they separate, no divorce necessary and life moves on.

There's some controversy about this because some claim that the practice was made haram, etc. etc. And there is some criticism of it because it doesn't seem to be very different from prostitution. *holds up hands* I know it's not viewed as the same thing at all by Muslims who believe that it's permitted. I'm just saying, from the other angle that it *resembles* it in many ways. There are also many ways that it differs - a large one being that provision is made for the possibility of children from the mut'ah nikah which is clearly not the case in prostitution.

In a similar vein there was a little furor a week or two back about Mexico (I believe) allowing temporary marriages. These would be marriage licenses with an expiration date of a year (or possibly whatever the couple wanted). There is also the historic practice of marriage only lasting a year and a day. This was practiced by the Norse tribes, as I recall and probably many others. The marriage could be renewed every year.

Okay. I can hear you wondering why in the hell I'm thinking about these things.

Well. I don't have any problems with these concepts. Different cultures, times, etc. I might not enter into such an arrangement, but I don't judge the people who do. However, I just recently found out that one of the men who works at our office told someone else that he 'gets married whenever he wants to have sex'. And this bothers me and makes me think less of him. So why should that be? If I have not issues with other kinds of temporary marriages, why do his actions bother me?

Two reasons: the hypocrisy and the deceit.

Hypocrisy - This is a man who claims to be a sincere and practicing Christian. He has made statements that express his heavy disapproval of those who engage in premarital sex. He's polite about it, but he's *judgy*.

Now there are, as there are in so many, many things differing opinions on the permissibility of divorce in Christian circles. They range from those who believe that divorce is never, ever on option to those who allow divorce without any penalties. But it is (I believe) universally understood within Christianity that it is not the normal state of things. That it is not what God desires for people. That it is *frowned upon* if nothing else.

But here is a man who judges others by his version/understanding of Christianity who marries and divorces with seeming disregard for the deeper meaning of what marriage is supposed to be. He is abusing what the marriage, from a Christian religious view point, means.

Deceit - I don't think that any of the five women he has been married to knew that he viewed the marriage as just a legal/moral way for him to have sex. I think that they were deceived as to what the marriage would entail.

So that's my problem. If both of the people were entering into the marriage with the same idea of the purpose and what it would entail, no problem. And if he were less of a 'better than you' kind of person, if wouldn't bother me as much most likely.

dead from fangirl glee

2011-10-11T14:03:00.000-04:00

Avengers trailer.

*explodes and has to reanimate self to watch again*

All the- and the-

No. Words. Must. Watch. Again. While grinning like a lunatic!

Work? What the fuck is that?

PanAm

2011-10-10T22:09:00.000-04:00

Colette made me cry.

AHHHHHHHH

2011-10-10T13:21:00.000-04:00

Okay, okay, remember the post about animals and how I can't stand them being hurt?

I have somehow managed to never read the novella Apt Pupil before. It's about a little psycho kid who figures out that one of his neighbors is a Nazi in hiding. So he (like you do) goes and blackmails the guy into telling him all the juicy details of the concentration camps. And it goes as well as you expect something like that to go.

I'm reading along, quietly freaked out because holy crap this kid is *wrong in the head*.

And then the Nazi guy catches a stray cat and shoves it in his oven so he'll stop having nightmares. And he's talking about adopting a puppy because bigger is better, you know?

*shudder* I'm skimming this fucking story. I see any mention of any kind of animal and I skip ahead.

The fucking kid ran over a wounded bird on his bike.

I don't even-

I hate this story so much.

I want both of these people dead.

Guidance or Matrixing?

2011-10-10T09:42:00.000-04:00

I think I've talked about the idea of matrixing before. It's a term that I've mainly heard used when talking about photographs, videos or audio recordings where people see or hear something that wasn't there in 'life'. Faces in windows, mirrors or the trees. Like, say you're looking at a door. There's a stain pattern in the wood and it looks like a face. Or a person. One of the doors at the salon I go to has a pattern on it that looks like an evil monkey face.

It's not *really* a face. No one purposefully put that pattern there. It's an accident of shapes and then my mind making sense out of random things. Our brains are trained to recognize faces and the shapes of people, so we see them where they aren't.

A similar thing can happen to people in life. Where we see patterns and a meaning where there isn't any.

Say that someone notices a streak of the number 5 coming up in their life. They catch the fifth bus, they find five dollars, they have five china cups with the same pattern, etc. etc. etc. And then the start looking back through their life and they find more and more fives. So they start to think that the number five has a mystical, personal meaning for them. Does it *really* mean something?

Well, in so far as our perception dictates reality, sure. But does it mean that there's some divine force out there putting all these fives in that persons path? Or is it just coincidence and the way our brains work combining to make us see a pattern and meaning where there isn't one?

And what the hell does this have to do with anything, I hear you asking.

Well. I know a lot of people who feel guided by divinity of one sort or another. Most of them have not felt so guided for their entire lives. It's something that came later to them.

So they're noticing something. The end of some thread and looking back and seeing this pattern. It's something that is only clear to them in hindsight. And, of course, now that they've recognized the pattern they look for it in everything and tend to find it because that's how it works. If you want to see the pattern badly enough you will see it.

Of course, people who believe that they're being guided or believe in the pattern will argue that it is there and that their god/gods/divine essence put it there. And it's kind of hard to disprove that.

Sometimes you don't even *want* to disprove it because it's so easy to fall into it yourself. I was thinking about this, about how some people feel *led* which is not something that I've ever really felt. I've felt drawn to do this or that thing, but I've never really noticed a pattern of the kind I'm describing.

Anyway. I was thinking about some of the people I know who feel that there's been this pattern, this presence in their lives that they only recognized at a later date and I realized that I could find a similar pattern/presence in my life. And for a few minutes there was this weightless sort of 'oh shit' moment because it deals with something I had left behind. An aspect of that that, at the time, I had neglected because of personal emotional issues.

But, having given myself time to calm the hell down - is it really a presence? Or is it just that this thing appeals to a part of my personality, so I've been seeking it out both consciously and subconsciously and now that I'm thinking about it it seems to be a pattern imposed from the outside? Combined with the lack of direction I've been feeling lately in regards to spiritual things that would make it an easy solution to latch on to.

Clearly I'm holding back on jumping that bandwagon because, frankly, I suspect that it's more to do with my own brain than with anything external acting on my life. But then, I'm a skeptical person by nature. Not very trusting, even of my own experiences, such as they may be. The vehicle through which we experience reality is limited, our understanding is limited, and it's easy to make something out of nothing.

Also, October and the upcoming Samhain, always make me nostalgic. Make me miss things I've left behind and feel the pulse and pull of them more acutely than I do at any other time of the year.

SPN: The Girl Next Door

2011-10-08T17:11:00.000-04:00

I wasn't feeling well last night (stupid female biology) so this is a day late. :)

I do worry/wonder about that cut of Sam's. Not that I think he's infected by Leviathan's or anything, but it was Purgatory magic blood glass. That's got to be bad.

Oh, hey. So I know this is supposed to be all serious and worrying, but Dean in a backless hospital gown! Full rear nudity anyone?

BOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew he couldn't be dead.

I like stoned!Dean.

Limp faster!

Ha! It's cute that Dean and Bobby are addicted to Spanish soap operas.

Again: Bobby is the smartest guy on this show. I really do need to do the Bobby & Hendricks appreciation post.

Wasn't Mistress Magda the lady that Chuck was talking to? I think she was.

No, Sam. Cake <> pie.

Kitsune! Youko Kurama! Naruto! I'm having an anime moment.

Also, bb!Sam.

And Sam's doing something stupid.

My Bloody Valentine ref.

This will not end well Dean.

Red Hood tshirt!

Sammy's talking to Dean, right? I mean, bb!Sammy in the flashbacks.

bb!Sammy is adorable. And his brothers repository of knowledge. 'How do you talk to girls?'

Her necklace. Isn't there something about kitsune and moons? Too lazy to look it up.

Hey! I love her!

Ah, I want kitsune girl and her kid to live. Let them live!

Dude. Sam needs to stop dating. It never works out.

Oh, Dean. Shit.

Seriously, I mean. Okay, that was cold. But uh...if you want to be responsible, you kind of should have killed that kid too.

'Everything is better with cheese.' That's just so wrong.

JO!!!!!

The Three Parts of Morality

2011-10-08T15:49:00.002-04:00

Back to Mere Christianity!

I actually don't have much to say or argue with for this chapter.

Lewis posits that there are actually three facets to morality.

1. It is concerned with fair play and harmony between human individuals

2. Harmonizing the internal drives of an individual

3. The general purpose of human life

I have no argument with those. I even agree with Lewis when he says that people tend to focus far too much on only the first aspect, thereby ignoring the second two.

People can legislate morality, sort of, by making laws. But as Lewis says, all the laws in the world won't actually *make* a person moral, internally. They can act moral on the outside and still turn around and beat their spouse when no one can see. An immoral person, a bad person, will still be like that no matter what the law says. They'll just have to find ways to go about doing what they want without getting caught.

It does lead back to the question of where morality comes from. I tend to think that it is not something that we know innately as I think you all remember, but that it is something that is taught to us. The teaching starts so young and is so pervasive that it seems innate to many people but if you took a child and raised them on an island without ever teaching them right from wrong they would not have the same moral values as any society on earth. They wouldn't understand why theft is wrong, or killing someone else because they'd never had the interactions that would teach them the consequences of those things.

We invented morality (or it was invented for us) to protect and preserve society and the human race from extinction. Morality is not universal - the details vary so widely from age to age and society to society that I don't know how anyone could make that claim with a straight face.

But I digress. As I said, I don't disagree with Lewis that morality has three aspects. And they're all related - they all lend themselves towards the goal of morality which is to help keep humans from killing ourselves off.

This was just an introductory chapter so we'll see what else Lewis has to say.

Why's it always got to be the pets?

2011-10-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

I was watching the premier of American Horror Story last night and the wife has a little dog. And I watched the entire episode waiting for that dog to get killed and knowing that, frankly, the story so far is not good enough for me to keep watching the show after they kill that dog.
People have different squicks, different things that just kill a story for them. Animal death is mine. I have to be very invested in a story to keep going after that.

I know that they're going to kill this dog because that's what happens whenever there's a pet in a story like this.

Supernatural killed a dog a couple seasons back and if it had been any other show? I probably would have stopped watching for a while if not all together. Puppy...

I Am Legend? The dog dies. I hate that movie for that reason alone.

I'll never see Marley & Me (or read the book). Where the Red Fern Grows? Forget it. Old Yeller. The movie coming out in December called War Horse? I'm pretty sure that horse dies. I won't see the movie until I know for sure otherwise. There was an article a long time ago about a Richard Gere movie and it was all about him and this dog. I got the impression from the article that the dog dies and I have wiped all knowledge of that movie from my mind. Paranormal Activity 2 escapes this just because the dog lives.

You can do pretty much anything you want to the humans in the story and I'll be okay. But throw in a pet that gets hurt or killed and I'm gone...

pouts begin wank/

2011-10-04T14:57:00.000-04:00

The Playboy Club was cancelled.

Okay, this happens. TV shows don't do well and they get canned. I get that. But what I don't understand is the shit fit that people were/are having about it being degrading and sexist. I mean, I guess intellectually I get it. I see their angle I just don't agree with it.

*Can* it be degrading to show women wearing skimpy clothes and being hit on by men?

Sure. Not arguing that. But I think the difference is in the attitude of the women and the portrayal (since this is fiction) of the reasons for them being there. Is it falling into the cliche of women who are only escorts/porn stars/exotic dancers/Bunnies/whatever because they have low self esteem and they need men to lust after them and take care of them to have value in their own or any other persons eyes?

Then it's degrading.

Is it degrading to show women who are doing their jobs because they like them? If the jobs just happen to have less clothing involved? I don't think so. One of the Bunnies was working there to pay for her medical degree because her father told her that 'women don't do that' and refused to help her like he would have a son. One of them was saving the money to buy land so she could have something that was hers. And there were other stories that we didn't get to see yet with depth to them.

Why is their method of earning money less valid than a woman who works waitressing? Or secretarial work or any other kind of job that a woman does? I don't think it is.

On the flip side, they're running a show where the woman is a hard boiled detective type in the place of The Playboy Club until the other replacement show is ready.

I want to know why it's not sexist and degrading to portray a woman who has to act and dress in a stereotypical 'male' fashion in order to get respect but it's degrading to portray women who are proud of their gender and their sexuality? They don't want to be men and they don't want to be kept pets. They just want to be given the same respect and opportunity as a man would be, no matter what the job that they choose is.

Why is it fair game to make women feel like they have to have a metaphorical penis before they can be equal?

/end wank

2011-10-04T02:19:00.002-04:00

I don't even know. It's 2:17 am here and I'm still up because I was writing something for someone. That's done, so I answered a few emails and now I'm going to bed.

I'm determined to get the whole Mere Christianity posts going again. Now that I'm off of vacation and have less time to do them - it would have made sense to do them last week when I was off, but that didn't happen. I did Florida things and when it was rainy I sat in the house and read Stephen King novels. And then I watched scary movies just to help freak myself out. Moving on...

Actually, I'm not moving on. That's it. Bed now.

Sleep is god.And in addition. I watched this show about ten people who went out to live like cave people for 10 day. Or maybe it was 11 people. Whatever. I want to do that! It needs to be like one of those retreats people go on. So I can go out and run around and see if I've got hunter/gatherer instincts left. and also so I can erase the shame of almost all of the women on the show being whiny lazy people who didn't help with the hard work. Like, three of them did work, after periods of asshatery. One even helped kill the elk. But two of them sat and did fuck all and whined because the freaking fish still had it's head on it and then she wouldn't eat the elk because it used to be alive and all. Whinebitchmoan.

SPN: Hello Cruel World

2011-09-30T22:01:00.000-04:00

Sammy's losing his shit...

Also, once again, I adore Mark Pellegrino.

Miiiiiiiiissssssssshhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa...*pinches his cheeks*

I'm still afraid for Cas. FYI.

How're the Leviathan's going to keep Cas-Jimmy-vessel from exploding?

See, Michael and Lucifer were totally making happy fun times with Sam all the time.

Cas has the zombie shuffle going on. Oooohhh...water. Leviathan, water. Makes sense. Did they just leave Cas? Does that mean he's safe or dead? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

*glares at trenchcoat* NO.

Dean is weeping!

Um, no. That better not be it for Cas. I will find you!

Oh, look. Kids are Creepy trope.

I was totally going to write threesome fic while I watched, but that's not happening.

Why is Sam's hand still so hurt? Hasn't it been a couple of weeks since he cut it on the evil blood glass?

Oh, hey. Sam is talking about what's going on. That's new.

Bobby - I am not paid enough for this shit.

You know, the boys should just have tracking chips implanted and save themselves the trouble.

Heh. I am considering writing a 'paper' comparing Hendricks from the DF and Bobby from SPN. Only sane men in the room.

Teenage boys eating other teenage boys in the locker room. I'm not even going to have to touch that one.

'Annie knew where babies come from. Disgusting by the way.'

Oh. So they take over a doctor to feed them. Got it.

Huh. Shapeshifting creepy girl into a doctor. Interesting.

Not the good kind of orgy in the locker room.

Dear woman: stay in the freaking bed. Never follow the weird people down the hall. Never.

What does this woman think she's doing? Does she think she's some sort of hospital ninja?

Dumbass.

Badumbum.

Ack! Run away hospital ninja lady! Why on earth would you stop to take your purse?

Who is this lady? Really? SHERIFF MILLS! I didn't recognize her! That explains it!

I'm guessing that 'the Boss' is the head Leviathan that is still inside Cas.

Yes, let's leave the hallucinating guy alone with all sorts of weapons. This will end well.

This is a Dean hallucination.

Uhm...I'm shipping Bobby/Sheriff Mills. FYI.

Toldya.

Sam's hallucinations are pretty crazy alive and detailed. So Dean's a hallucination, how did they drive where they drove? Was Sam driving hallucinating being in the passenger seat?

'I am the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time.'

So Sam's going to base reality on Dean. Who doesn't always have such a firm grasp of it himself.

Did anyone else think that the 'blood' that welled up when Sam was squeezing so hard looked awful black?

*blink**STARE* WHAT?

PA3 commercial! Eh. I've seen that one. I was hoping it was the longer one. Whatever. I wants it.

Nope. Didn't think the car would work.

I am going to find those writers, and shake them until they give me the entire season.

Is Cas fucking dead or not?!?!

TV Update + bb!Loki

2011-09-29T23:10:00.000-04:00

Dropped Ringer because it bores me. Which is sad.

Dropped Secret Circle because I can only take so much teen angst and I want to keep watching Vampire Diaries.

I just don't care about Person of Interest even though it was well done, so I'm dropping that.

I'm loving Playboy Club and Pan Am. Okay, that may have a *lot* to do with the women and the clothes. I'm shallow.

In absolutely more important news: I'm getting excited for the steampunk!Three Musketeers movie.

And in yet MORE important news:

Why did no one ever tell me that Marvel had made Loki into a kid?

wee!Loki is the bestest thing ever. And...yeah. I'm obsessed. Damn you Hiddleston for being so awesome that I had to go looking at the comics and now I'm doomed. DOOMED!

Looking for Book Recommendations for someone else

2011-09-29T01:50:00.000-04:00

The daughter of a friend of mine is looking to start reading again. She's an adult and she doesn't like mysteries.

I'm thinking of recommending anything by Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks. My friend told me she thinks her daughter would like romantic dramas or just dramatic fiction. I know, I know. All fiction is dramatic. Moving on.

Apart from those two authors I was thinking:

The Red Tent
The 19th Wife
The Help

Any other ideas?

The Practical Conclusion

2011-09-26T23:01:00.000-04:00

"The perfect surrender and humiliationwere undergone by Christ: perfect because He was God, surrender andhumiliation because He was man. Now the Christian belief is that ifwe somehow share the humility and suffering of Christ we shall alsoshare in His conquest of death and find a new life after we have diedand in it become perfect, and perfectly happy, creatures. This meanssomething much more than our trying to follow His teaching. Peopleoften ask when the next step in evolution—the step to somethingbeyond man—will happen. But in the Christian view, it has happenedalready. In Christ a new kind of man appeared: and the new kind oflife which began in Him is to be put into us."

I've been trying to write this post for a couple of weeks now. Sort of circling it and then walking away to do something else because I'm not really sure what to say. The above paragraph is the opening paragraph of this chapter and it proves that Lewis is using humiliation and humility as related words. It doesn't sit well with me, but that's probably just a personal thing.

Lewis seems to think that sex and conception, birth are 'odd': "We derivedit from others...and by a very curious process, involvingpleasure, pain, and danger. A process you would never have guessed.Most of us spend a good many years in childhood trying to guess it:and some children, when they are first told, do not believe it—andI am not sure that I blame them, for it is very odd."

I don't know why it seems so 'odd'. Maybe to a kid it seems odd because they have (or shouldn't have) any concept of sex. But to an adult it should seem perfectly normal. It is what it is, and we enjoy it when it's done right. How else should new life be conceived? If God is in charge of the design of everything then the reproductive process is exactly the way He wants it to be. And if He's not and it's all evolution, then this is the most secure and efficient version that nature has come up with to date.

Lewis believes that there are three things that spread the 'Christlife'. Baptism, belief and communion. He lists them in that order, by the way. That's not me. :) Baptism is a kind of second birth, being born into the family of Christ, the Church. Belief (depending on your age or position on the subject) can come before or after. Converts, obviously, believe before they are baptised. Children who are raised in the more traditional branches of the Christian faith are baptised long before they are capable of rational belief. Arguments for both sides are documented elsewhere. I come down on the side that if a child is born into a Christian family then they deserve to be baptised as soon as possible so that they can take as full a part as is possible in the life of the Church. The same goes for Communion. I don't understand the reasoning behind making children wait to receive Communion until some fairly arbitrary age. Well, I understand it but I don't agree with it. I think it's more important to feed the child the spiritual food that they need which goes hand in hand with being raised in a Christian household.

"I cannot myself see why these thingsshould be the conductors of the new kind of life. But then, if onedid not happen to know, I should never have seen any connectionbetween a particular physical pleasure and the appearance of a newhuman being in the world. We have to take reality as it comes to us:there is no good jabbering about what it ought to be like or what weshould have expected it to be like."

I think this is one of those things where everyone has their thoughts on why such and such is required or conducts Grace, but it all boils down to this. We don't know why God chose this method over that, but He did. It's sort of a, 'God says so' thing. Which is not particularly satisfying to the intellect, but if you choose to believe in a divine being who runs the world then there are some things that cannot be answered any other way.

Lewis goes on to say that of course baptism, belief and Holy Communion are not everything. That people must strive to imitate the spirit in which Christ lived their entire lives.

"A live body is not one that nevergets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the sameway a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who isenabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after eachstumble—because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him allthe time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind ofvoluntary death which Christ Himself carried out."

I think that's about all I've got to say on this chapter. Now that I've done with it, I can finally pick up the book and read the next chapter.

SQUEEEEEEEBLE

2011-09-26T21:43:00.000-04:00

The trailer for One for the Money is made of win!

I cannot wait for this movie. I love these books so freaking much and the movie! *high pitched dolphin noises* I'm not sure about the guy playing Ranger, but then again, no man alive could live up to the description of Ranger in the books.

Go here: One for the Money trailer and watch. And squee. SQUEE.

Tonight's Dinner

2011-09-24T22:20:00.001-04:00

The 'breading' for the chicken. Special K cinnamon & pecan cereal.

In it's ground up form.

On the chicken before going into the oven.

1/2 hour in the oven at 350 and it comes out fully cooked and still juicy.

I also made a sweet potato casserole to go with it.

SPN Season 7: Meet the New Boss

2011-09-23T22:14:00.000-04:00

LET IT BEGIN!

God, I love the music on this show!

CAS!

DEATH! Hi Death!

Crowley...I love you all so much! *crosses all limbs that can be crossed* Don't die!

Wait, wait. You know what would be really funny? Cas' first line of the season is: PSYCHE!

Yes Dean, bow down before the shiny deity.

Wow...psycho Cas is a bastard.

Someone hug Cas! Hug the crazy out of him!

Yay flashbacks of Sammy in hell. It's about damned time. Stupid wall's been breaking down for ages and nothing.

Cas is totally talking to corpses, isn't he?

Or just rehearsing?

Or...both.

Dean, I don't think that's gonna work. I mean I'm not a car person or anything, but isn's steel tougher than human legs? I think so.

Hey....Mark Pellegrino's listed as a guest star. I am intrigued.

ps: I would totally date Bobby.

And I don't like Dean's hair right now.

Hallucinations. Right. Which explains Mark Pellegrino being listed as a guest star.

Dear preacher man: die. Messy.

'You're wrong, I am utterly indifferent to sexual orientation. On the other hand, I cannot abide hypocrites like you reverend. Tell your flock where your genitals have been before you speak for me.'

Kinda loving god!Cas atm.

And whose voice was that? What was with the burning the bench thing?

Clearly the writers for SPN have watched Hellraiser one too many times.

Cas is on the move!

She- was that Lucy Lawless? If not, she sure looked like her.

CROWLEY!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. A mobile home. And all the anti-angel things aren't going to work. He's GOD.

Don't die Crowley!

Hee. I love Crowley so much.

Ohh....oh oh oh! Jimmy! Jimmy wasn't even a super special vessel. He was just a normal angel vessel. (Sam is totally nightmaring getting choked right now and I'm too busy to care.) god!Cas is burning through the vessel. So if Lucifer had to drink demon blood to keep Nick-vessel going and Sam too, what does Cas need to be drinking?

'Unfortunately I lost my god guns.' And that is part of why I would date Bobby.

Poor Crowley. :( He's always getting jerked hither and yon.

'You do want to conspire, don't you?'

Oh boys. You're going to piss off Death so very, very much.

Okay, I like that one.

They're going to kill Cas. I'm sure of it. And I don't like it. Not this ep, but in the season. And it's going to piss me off. I'm...trying to prepare for it.

Dean is totally Batman.

I do like how Dean brought Death a snack.

Seriously, Death is going to kick all your asses.

'Kill god. You heard right. Your. Honor.' Bobby.

'Because we said so. And we're the Boss of you. I mean. Respectfully.' DEAN.

Leviathons = cthulu. Tell me I'm wrong.

'Please Cas. I know God. And you, sir, are no God.'

'Should we kick box now?' Seriously, this show.

CAS! OH NOES! He's snapping. *weeps*

I <3 DEATH SO MUCH!

And Cas just went and killed all the peoples. Yeah. The monsters are running god!Cas from the inside.

Sam feels for Cas and Dean's just...he's been down this road before and had it fuck him in the ass.

Sammy, right now, I love you. It's not going to work, but I love you for trying.

*WIBBLE*

ALL THE WIBBLES!

Really? It can't be that simple. It's Supernatural.

And Cas appears to be dead, and I will not abide that bitches.

Hot damn!

Hello baby...

'I'm ashamed. I really over reached.'

I knew it. Son of a bitch.

Okay, seriously, Misha is going to have so much fun with this.

And yet:

YOU BETTER FIX THIS PEOPLE!

I'm happy to see Mark Pellegrino again. That is all.

Fucking writers.

Once Again, I Never Said I Was A Nice Person

2011-09-23T11:17:00.000-04:00

I know we're supposed to think that all lives are equal, yadda, yadda. Assuming, of course, that the other person is not trying to kill us. Or maybe some people think that life is equal just the same. I'm not one of them. I mean, if you're trying to kill me, I'm going to try and kill you first. Because I like my life more than I like yours. It's really that simple in that respect.

So there was this article in the paper yesterday/today about a pair of brothers who were driving their motorcycles way too fast (estimated at about 100 mph), without helmets. One tried to pass the other one, hit him, and he (the brother who tried to pass) was killed on impact. The other brother is still alive but it critical condition and consensus is that he's not likely to make it. And the article mentioned that both brothers had extensive criminal records. We're talking, drugs, robberies, assaults (one on a 13 year old girl!) and a long, long list of others. The family is pissed off that this was listed in the article, saying that they're in mourning and what difference does it make about their histories? Well, given that they both had several drugs charges on them it makes it clear that drugs and/or alcohol were probably involved in the accident.

We were arguing about this at work this morning. Most of the people were agreeing with the family, saying that it shouldn't make any difference. At least, until they read what these men had been up to. Some of them maintained position, others not so much.

Me? Well, in the first place, my sympathy for them was pretty small in the first place since their injuries/death were caused by their own flagrant stupidity. Accidents mean no one's guilty. But these two were. Even if they'd been shining, upstanding citizens in the first place, they were being idiots and that's what got them killed. Not a fluke of nature, something out of their control. No. They made choices, and those choices killed them. Secondly, they were bad people. And so, you know, I've got nothing. As soon as I read the 'criminal background' and the charges listed? What little human emotion I had for them vanished.

I think I actually horrified one of my co-worker's when I said that I didn't care that they were dead/critically wounded because they'd been criminals. I get that we're supposed to think everyone is equal, and I do in the beginning. No one's life is inherently worth more or less than anyone elses' because of gender, race, religion, etc. But when you do things that endanger the lives of others (let alone yourself) and do it again and again...I clearly do judge your life to be worth less than the lives of people who don't make such choices. And so when the consequences of your life choices catch up to you, I'm not going to spare a thought or a feeling for you. I don't feel happy or anything that these men are dead. I don't feel anything at all about it. I just don't care.