why our schools are to blame

I got a call from my daughter's school complaining that there were hurt feelings when not everyone got a birthday party invite. I told them I refused to force my kid to be friends with people who are mean to her. I thought about and realized that this "everyone is special" bull$h!t is what's wrong with America. The snotty girl can treat others like crap all year and still go to all the parties. The C-student gets the same gold star as the A-student. The fat kid is told they are perfect and pretty just the way they are. Fast forward to when they're 30... the mean girl has been divorced twice. The C-student wonders why he's been passed over for a promotion for the fifth time in a row. The fat kid is now diabetic and has arthritis in her knees. Our country can't compete globally because our schools are afraid competition will make kids feel bad about themselves. Oh, boo hoo.

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its a shame

Justices Rule for Protesters at Military Funerals - NYTimes.com

I am all about free speech. I mean, hey, I'm a blogger, right? Free speech means I can rant and rave about how much the world sucks & my government won't (probably) shoot me. But these protesters are stepping over the limits of human decency. If you don't agree with the war, protest at the pentagon or white house. If your issue is gays in the military, picket a military base. If you think your god hates America, get out and don't look back lest you turn into a pillar of salt. It's ok to have lost all respect for your government and its decisions. It's very much not ok to show disrespect to an individual who died trying to do their job, and worse, to add to the pain of those mourning the loss.

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The first iteration

So some scientists have extracted DNA from a woolly mammoth and plan to create a clone. (Have they not seen Jurassic Park?) This comes up in discussion with RR, who is all excited because he heard on Christian radio how scientists know DNA can only survive for thousands if years, so they must have been wrong about earth being millions of years old, proving scripture accurate. He fails to see some obvious flaws in that logic- 1) science may have misjudged when woolly mammoths went extinct 2) they may have underestimated the time DNA can survive in certain conditions. What's more likely: #1 and/or #2 are correct or God didn't put dinosaurs and such in the arc?

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thoughts from my daughter

After spending the day with her Pop-Pop (the churchy type), my seven year old daughter asked to be a guest writer for my blog. The following is therefore being dictated to me by Little One:

"In the movie "Fantasia," a ghost touched a rock and it turned into a volcano and then she cried when the forest was destroyed by fire from the eruption. Her tears made all the trees and flowers grow back. It doesn't make sense for people to believe things like that because volcanos explode because of pressure and things grow back after fire because of nutrients in the soil. I think those people who believe that spirits cause bad things like fires and storms are weird. Spirits don't cause good things either. Spirits are just silly. It's all science. Hey, has the precipitation started? There was a 100% chance snow-slash-sleet tonight."

Islamic Center in NYC?

I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of hearing people rant and rave about a "mosque" at Ground Zero. One, it's really more of a community center, like the YMCA (Christian in name, but I've never heard of any indoctrination going on there either). Two, you cannot judge an entire religion just by its extremists. If we could, we would say that because the KKK invokes the name of Christ, all Christians are white supremacists. Three, many Muslims were killed in the attacks as well. And atheists. And Jews. And Christians. And probably some Buddhists, Taoists, agnostics, and anything else you can think of. It was a WORLD trade center, after all, and culturally diverse.

But a Senate hopeful from Nevada seems to think that not only should the Islamic center a few blocks from Ground Zero be blocked, she is convinced that Islamic law has taken control in a couple American cities. Talk about delusional! Read about it here.

I suggest you Google a list of names of the five dozen Muslims who died that tragic day, and as you read them, think of them with the same compassion you would show for anyone else.

Then read more about this story that talks about a young man named Salman Hamdani. He was on his way to work when he stopped to offer his skills as an EMT. The pieces of his body were found nearby later. Some of my fellow ambulance crew members in my small little town are very against the community center, but they should think of Hamdani along with the 343 FDNY firefighters who died as heros that day and realize that this center is not an affront to America's freedom, but rather an affirmation of it.

Meditation: Sacred or Sin?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101007/ap_on_re/us_rel_southern_baptists_yoga

It seemed to me that the main argument this preacher has against yoga is meditation. But Psalms 12:4 says

"Consider, and hear me, O Lord, my God. Enlighten my eyes, that I never sleep in death"

Hmmm.... enlightenment...isn't that one of the goals of meditation? But what does this preacher's holy book have to say about meditation itself?

And the words of my mouth shall be such as may please: and the meditation of my heart always in thy sight (Psalms 18:15)

My mouth shall meditate truth, and my lips shall hate wickedness. (Proverbs 8:7)

Sounds to me like these Southern Baptists ought to read a bit before denouncing what many people would say is a healthy practice. And have they even looked at their own rituals? What is kneeling if not a pose/posture, and what is prayer if not meditation and those recitations of the Lord's Prayer and the Doxology sound an awful lot like chanting to me. Where do you stand?

No Parking

Dear people who parked in front of the ambulance bay: I apologize if you feel the inconvenience of walking a few extra feet in the rain outweighs the value of a timely ambulance response. However, you cannot block firetrucks and ambulances with your vehicle. One, the time it takes to track you down and have you move your car are minutes that make a life-and-death difference to someone in need of emergency care. Two, it is illegal. Please do not cuss and argue with us. K, thanks, bye.

(The kicker to this is that they were using the fire station for a church dinner. You'd think church people would not be so mean, argumentative and selfish. Proves my point of hypocrisy once again.)