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“I do my religion Sunday in Church…” UPDATED

So says Nancy Pelosi in reply to questions posed by CNS News regarding the recent suits filed by 43 Catholic institutions and dioceses against the HHS contraception mandate.

Oh….and Bishops don’t speak for the Catholic Church….erm…. or something…HotAir covers that here.

But back to “Doing Religion”

Ma’am,

I do my laundry Monday at home.

I do my banking Tuesday at the Credit Union.

I do my grocery shopping Wednesday at Wegmans.

I do my doctor’s appointments Thursday at the clinic.

I do my date nights Friday at the Taco Bell.

I do yard work Saturday at home.

But….I go Sunday to Church to celebrate Mass.

I live my religion daily (or maybe better – practice my religion – since I’m still learning/failing/trying/growing). In Church or out of church.  At home, while folding clothes.  Standing in line at the bank. Picking out produce in the store.  Wiping noses and changing diapers.  Living it.  Daily.  Not something I “do” for an hour once a week.

I know, this pales in comparison to some of the jaw droppers she’s come up with –  the whole “gotta pass it to see what’s in it” schtick…but that one sentence grabbed me today and really really saddened me.

Update: Listed in Sunday’s Best of the Blogroll by The Daley Gator – thank you!

 

Got it on Craigslist!

Isn’t it adorable? A real deal Thinking Chair!! Got it for a steal on Craigslist!

My older son’s old bike he outgrew (like everything else these days) – sold it on Craigslist!

The ball pit for the younger son? Found it Craigslist!

The backless bar stools we replaced with chairs with backs (ah comfort) – sold those on Craigslist!

Oh and this beauty….

Isn’t he adorable? We found him on Craigslist! No, really! We met some lady through a Craigslist discussion who had too many embryos and was placing the spares in loving families! How exciting! Double cool is that while I was chatting with her I found the bassinet and onesies I needed on CL, too.  Can’t wait for the big family reunion where the children she kept get to meet the children she gave away! Fun times!!

Happy…umm….Mother’s Day, y’all.

H/T Creative Minority

 

A Nightmare That Will Last Forever

“All we wanted was a family. Instead, we were landed with a nightmare that will  last forever,”

So says an embittered consumer who didn’t get the commodity she ordered an anguished mother who was implanted with the sperm from a man with a different race.  

More family structures are crashing down.  As IVF numbers increase, the children “mistakes” increase…

 The largest sperm bank in Britain is under investigation from health  officials over claims they used sperm from the wrong donor after a gay couple  had two children from different racial backgrounds.

The alleged mix-up at the IVF clinic only emerged after the birth of the  couple’s second child, who is of different race to the rest of the family.

The parents are said to be “devastated” at the alleged mistake as they had  wanted their children to be genetically related by using the same sperm donor,  The (London) Sunday Times reported.

“The damage to the [younger] child in the future, to both the siblings and  the family unit could be quite catastrophic,” said Caron Heyes, the couple’s  lawyer.

How quaint…the gay parents who are unable to produce children as a couple wanted to hold on to the old fashioned notion of actually having their children share the same genes!  So…not having the same sperm donor is catastrophic to the family unit, whilst the whole artificial conception, two mommies thing is ummm…what exactly?  Newsflash, ladies: the damage to the family unit was done long before the clinic mixed up fathers sperm vials.

 

A parent’s worst nightmare…?

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we ad-lib to conceive…

From LifeSiteNews

Single mom wants baby.

But she’s on a budget, so sperm donor is out of the question.

So she goes the way of “ex-boyfriend with benefits” – sorta – she pays him $1400 for his “service”
– you know his guy friends were fist bumping, “Duuuuuddddeee! Score!”

For the next three years, she allows her daughter’s father (ex-boyfriend with paid benefits) to visit his daughter.

When her daughter is three years old, mom dies of cancer. Absolutely  horrible for such a young child to lose a parent…but because of her non-traditional family, insult is added to injury as an ugly custody battle ensues: (emphasis mine)

The ex-boyfriend of the deceased single mother then entered the scene  to make a parental claim for the young girl, arguing that he was her legal father. The case appeared before a Quebec court. The ex-boyfriend won a paternity ruling from the Quebec Court of Appeal last year, and that ruling was upheld last month when the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of the case.

Michael Lubetsky, the lawyer who represented the girl’s grandparents at the appeal court, told the National Post that it is a parent’s “worst nightmare” that a biological parent can “show up and start asserting rights over the child.”

“That’s incredibly disruptive…. It’s an attack on the family structure,” he said.

I had to read that a few times and wonder, “Have we gotten to the point that we are saying that with a straight face?” An attack on the family structure? WHAT FAMILY “STRUCTURE” ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Structure,  loosely defined,  is something made up of parts, held or put together in a particular way.

Structure

Not stucture

This is what happens when we start tinkering with a STRUCTURE that has been in place and worked for thousands of years.  When we embark in a DIY “structure” it all comes crashing down on us, sooner or later.  And the children are the ones who get crushed.

UPDATE: linked by Lin at No One of Any Import and a Recommended Read of Pundette’s! Thanks!

Saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication…

…or getting drunk or even killing someone…

So says an Islamic scholar.

And…ready for a firestorm…..I agree with him…..

What I mean is…if this man believes that Allah is the true god and there is no other god than Allah….to acknowledge and to encourage and to “bless” if you will a false god IS worse than fornication.  Mortal sin is mortal sin, but as a Catholic parent, the lesser mortal sin (if you will) would be for my son or daughter to engage in premarital sex versus actively worshipping Satan.

Now obviously I believe he is flat wrong in his religious viewpoints, but from what I understood him to say in English (who knows what he’s saying in other parts of the clip) – given his religious beliefs, he is correct – it IS a worse sin to blaspheme regarding “the worst evil” and encourage others to do so as well (for which there can be no forgiveness nor repentance) than to get drunk or even to kill another (a lesser evil as I understand his position).

Too bad that the phrase “Merry Christmas” has become so secularized that we forget that what it is (or should) mean is “Rejoice! Our Savior is born!” – today its just a greeting that doesn’t get much thought behind it – but I think he has it “right” as far as what the phrase should mean and I think that its sad that an angry man who is for all appearances trying his best to stir up hate and division has managed to do a decent job of explaining what it means to wish someone Merry Christmas.

Gulp.  There I did it.  Devil’s advocate in all sense of the word.  Hope the WP comment section is fireproof…..blast away!

Update: I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what had made me react to this video the way I did, rather than to immediately dismiss it because of its inflammatory rhetoric.  My Aha! moment came this morning and I recalled this excellent article in the NCR by Matthew Archbold which addresses the subject from the stand point of the “hollowers” – those who want to remove the sacred from Christmas.  It struck home with me and I think that’s why part of the scholar’s message resonated with me in the way that it did.  Mr. Archbold’s article is here and it is an excellent read.

1-800-222-1222

Know that number. It’s poison control. It’s been 11 years since I’ve had to call it for my firstborn. I had to call it last night for my second. (No cliffhanger – he’s fine).

Take a minute to do an internet search for it and find your local center.  Order the free magnets and stickers.  Maybe even donate (this service is free but run by contributions).  If the time ever should come that you need that number, you’ll be glad you did.

Murphy’s Law of Toddlers #28 states, “A toddler will not learn the skill of twisting open a top to a bottle with the bottled water you have given him.  He will learn that skill when he comes across the lone bottle that escaped your child-proofing scrutiny.  That bottle will contain rubbing alcohol.”

Yes, he ingested some.  Happily he is fearfully and wonderfully made and his little body realized that it was a poison in his system and it came back up in its entirety, along with dinner.  I was on the phone with Poison Control while my husband called EMS to start them rolling just in case.  We avoided a trip to the ER and the trauma of a stomach pumping because we were able to speak to Poison Control.

So, go now and get your stickers.  If you have elderly parents, you can get some information to help them prevent poisoning, too. And after you’ve ordered them, go smooch you child/ren’s cheeks and do another once over in your house for hazards.  I’m a former EMT and car seat safety technician for goodness sake –  safety is my middle name –  but I missed that bottle.  What might you have missed?

 

“You…you…daffy daffy daffodil!”

I just love daffodils – what’s not to love? They are sunny yellow. Frilly petals. And the name…who can be angry when they say daffodil?

Which is why I instructed one of “my boys” (in a former life I worked as a school based mental health counselor) to substitute the word daffodil when he was angry for some of the more…. ah…colorful language he usually dished out.

That very afternoon he got ticked off at his teacher and blurted out in his full on angry voice, “You….you…daffy daffy daffodil!” He still got sent to the office. The teacher didn’t know what the “code” was but was certain that it meant something other than sunny yellow flowers. I explained WHY I suggested the word and that it was my desire to start with eliminating the R-rated language, and then we’d work on self-control. She wasn’t pleased and asked for punishment. Happily the principal recognized the baby step forward and with firm admonishment not to call his teacher a flower’s name again, he sent my boy back to class.

I guess if we were in England, however, that little outburst would be considered hate speech.  From LifeSiteNews:

Children as young as three years old are being recorded in a government database as “racist” or “homophobic” for using words that are construed by teachers as politically incorrect.

In 2008-9, 29,659 incidents were reported relating to children as young as nursery-school age, who are monitored under the Labor government’s “hate speech” regulations, according to figures obtained by the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties organization.

Approximately 95% of the cases of “hate speech” relating to school children involved name calling alone, without any physical contact or violence.

Incidents recorded included a student calling a fellow student a “broccoli head,” which was deemed racist, and another “homophobic” dispute between primary school children who called each other “gay” and “lesbian.” Another student was deemed homophobic for telling a teacher that an assignment was “gay.”

Ummm…two things on this.

1. Broccoli head!?! Racist?!? Srsly?!?

2. Now about “homophobic” primary school kids using the terms gay and lesbian – for the record 20 years ago, my ADD/ADHD/BD (add diagnosis du jour) boys whom I worked with at that elementary school were guilty of giving each other black eyes, breaking furniture, stealing,  cussing up a storm (I’m gonna guess daffodil might be hate speech, too – mea culpa) and a whole lot of hell raising, but they NEVER ever called each other “gay” or “lesbian.”  Ya wanna know why?

Because NO ONE HAD TAUGHT THEM.   Sexual orientation was NOT on their radar screen nor were the terms in their vernacular.  So here is my genius idea for cutting down on “homophobic hate speech” – stop teaching 3 year olds about lesbians! Presto! They will stop using that homophobic word! Can’t use it if you don’t know it! Just sayin’…..

No idea for the whole “broccoli head” thing – especially if the school is serving it up all soggy and sans salt….blech!

Linked by Pundette as a “Recommended Read.” Thanks!

 

Healthy aka yucky lunches spawn new breed of criminal…

Straight A student suspended for possession of…..Oregano.   From AOL news….

Seventh-grader Adam Grass and three other students at Hickory Middle School in Chesapeake, Va., were suspended last week after being caught with what teachers initially thought was a bag of marijuana but turned out to be a stash of oregano, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

Unfortunately for the disciplined boys, now facing expulsion, there isn’t much of a difference between Italian herbs and Mary Jane, at least in the state’s eyes. According to school board member Christie Craig, Virginia has a zero-tolerance policy against “imitation controlled substances.”

Adam is a straight-A student and National Junior Honor Society candidate, achievements his father, Patrick Grass, doesn’t want to see go up in smoke all because of a childhood prank….

…The elder Grass also explains that his son was merely holding onto the oregano for a friend, meaning he’s really just an innocent spice trafficker.

“Hey dude, don’t expell me man, it’s not my spice, I was just holding it for a friend, dude!”

With what the schools are offering as meals these days, can you blame a kid for trying? Oregano wouldn’t be my first choice of spice to bring – I think I’d sneak in some good old table salt but then I’d probably be booted for possession of imitation crystal meth or something. 

I bet  Michelle  didn’t realize the fall out of her healthy meals – taste prohibition spawns spice-easys in our schools…next thing you know the fighting will begin over control of the blackmarket Tobasco….

Because Mosquitos have rights, too ya know!

A chuckle from today’s  Medline Links –

Genetically modified fungi kill malaria-causing parasites in mosquitoes

(No, that’s not the funny part – although that is quite the mouthful, isn’t it?)

Here’s what made me snort coffee:

Spraying malaria-transmitting mosquitoes with a genetically modified fungus can kill the malaria parasite without harming the mosquito, potentially reducing malaria transmission to humans, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

Oh thank goodness!  I can keep myself safe without the angst of having killed such a sweet little thing.  Aren’t they cute close up?

But in full disclosure….there’s actually a method to their madness:

One of these new strategies is killing Anopheles mosquitoes by spraying them with the naturally occurring fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae. Previous studies have found that this method nearly eliminates disease transmission when mosquitoes are sprayed soon after acquiring the malaria parasite. However, this strategy is not sustainable in the long term. If treating mosquitoes with the fungus kills them before they have a chance to reproduce and pass on their susceptibility to the spray, mosquitoes resistant to the fungus, which would reproduce normally, will soon become predominant and the spray will no longer be effective.

Because of this, Dr. St. Leger and colleagues tried a more focused approach. Rather than developing fungi that rapidly kill the mosquito, they genetically modified M. anisopliae to block the development of the malaria parasite in the mosquito.

Shame really – I was ready to join the cause.  Save the mosquito!!!  I’d nominate it for the Dem’s mascot but another bloodsucker already beat me to it….