9/11

9/11/2001 is one of those days etched into our consciousness.  Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing on that fateful day. I had just gotten Sara off to school, showered and headed up to Mama’s before I was heading to Walmart to do groceries. 

Mama came out the door and said, “They think that someone crashed a plane in New York on purpose.”  I said that it had to be an accident but by the time we went back in the house, we found out the second plane had hit.  I went on to Walmart.  I was almost there when I heard about the Pentagon and called my husband at work.

Had someone declared war on us?  No one knew but as the day unfolded and the plane diverted from Boston by its heroic passengers crashed into that field, we all knew what had happened.  It was unthinkable but it had happened. 

But that is not what is on my mind on this 9/11.

The aftermath is what I am thinking of today.  We went to war in Afghanistan to chase a ghost in 2001.  We nave spent in excess of 600 billion dollars there since 2001 and over 800 billion in Iraq hunting nonexistent WMDs since 2003. 

Our economy has tanked and politicians want to fix it by pulling any monies from the programs that provide education, health services and aid to the disabled, the poverty stricken and the working poor.  Less than 500 billion have been spent on ALL social programs since then, including education.

Let’s talk some real numbers – 4488 American soldiers have died in Iraq as well as over 32000 injured.  Over 2000 soldiers have died in Afghanistan and it’s THE LONGEST WAR IN OUR NATION’S HISTORY and no seems exactly clear what we’re doing there.  Perhaps we should remember that war in Afghanistan is a major factor in the breakup of the Soviet Union because they went broke fighting a losing war there.

And now Syria.  While I do see a threat to the Syrian people, I do not feel that the US needs to be in another war.  Nothing we have done has brought back even one of the dead from 9/11 and to be a so-called Christian nation, we are mighty bloodthirsty when it comes to revenge or whatever these ridiculous wars are and have been for more than ten years. 

I believe the best way to honor the dead, both the civilians who died on 9/11 and the soldiers who have paid with life and limb is to declare peace and stop the senseless fighting and bloodshed.  I see no room for discussion there at all.  War is not better than peace.  Ever. 

On Religion

With religion at the forefront with a new pope, I decided to say this.

I don't argue religion with people much. I am a Christian, one of what Facebook folks call The Christian left. I am not a fundamentalist nor an evangelical Christian. I am Pro-choice and I favor marriage for anyone so inclined to marry. I oppose religion taught in public schools, any religion except as an academic study. It is the place of the family to provide their children with religious instruction or if they desire a religious school, then they should pay for it without my tax dollars doing so.

I expect that most Christians fall into this category.

I get offended and pissed off when (insert whatever group you like here) insists on blaming all the faults of modern society on Christianity. Christianity is corrupt but not all Christians are. I think your religion is bullshit as well but I don't tell you that every time I turn around. I am offended that you feel it's fine for you to insult my religion but woe to anyone who says anything about yours or even worse about SCIENCE.

I am totally sick of hearing how grand science is and how Christians don't believe in science. Are you all really that stupid? In the first place, I don't have any problem with science and I subscribe to its theories on the origin of the universe, among other things.

What I do have a problem with are these ideas: 1)That anything that comes from science is the truth when science has changed its truths every few months for the 53 years that I've been alive. What is true today is debunked tomorrow in favor of a more advanced theory. 2)That science is always good. Science and scientists have given us atomic weapons, nuclear waste, GMOs, global warming, air and water pollution just to name a few.

Please remember that if you consider my religion total myth that I surely feel the same about yours. Last time I checked, we still lived in a society here America where one is free to practice his or her own religion and I respect your right to do so without harassment and all I ask is that you treat me with the same courtesy.

That pesky First Amendment

The Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer in School

They sound wonderful and patriotic and Facebook is filled with those stupid meta things with ‘Remember this’ all over.  On the face of it, it’s harmless. 

BUT it’s not. 

Not at all. 

WHY?  Read this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Know what that is? 

Yep.  It’s the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  First, I believe, because when they realized that they needed to do something for the individual, they also realized that this whole revolution business had been about what this amendment says. 

I read every day about how we need God back in our classrooms.  But which one?  Mine?  Yours?  How are we going to do that without infringing on someone else’s right to worship in his own way or not to worship at all?  Can’t be done.  Maybe we should let families teach their children about faith and religion, not the state.  NOT ever the state.   

I also read about how the press is biased to the left or to the right (mostly left) and how they need to be shut up.  Is that what you really want?  You want your news from the official US news source written by whoever is in power this week?  You want to live in an insulated world of state truth?  North Korea might welcome you.  I don’t.

The hardest one is this one though:  Freedom of Speech.  How many times have you or I said, ‘He(she) shouldn’t be allowed to say that,’ referring to Neo-nazis, gun nuts, televangelists or whoever is the latest most offensive person out there?  Guess what?  We gotta let that person talk too… freedom of speech is a lot of things, a double edged sword being one of them.  His right is also mine… and that’s how it’s supposed to be. 

It's Not Easy Being Green

I was going to post ideas for being green every day this month until I started looking at them. Many are simply things I am not going to do.

I am not going to be hot all the time or cold all the time to save a kilowatt. Nope. Not gonna happen. Then there's the unplug everything when not using. Right, I want to spend 20 minutes a day resetting my electronics because I unplugged them the night before. Public transportation sounds great but I have to drive 15 miles to use it and then it only goes during working hours. HUH? Many people live where there simply isn't any public transportation to use. I despise those fluorescent bulbs. All light is distorted and ugly and they make electricity buzz in older homes. I have a horde of incandescent bulbs for things like our well house, which needs a tiny heat supply to keep the pipes from freezing.

There are things I do:
I recycle glass, newspaper, magazines, plastic, aluminum and shopping bags.
I donate old clothes and usable household goods to Goodwill or to someone who will use them.
I try to make each trip out in the car do as many errands as possible.
I wash clothes in cold water as much as possible.
I vote democrat because they've shown much more concern for the environment than their Republican counterparts. Simply saying that global warming isn't happening because it might cost you some revenue is stupid.
I am reading more ebooks and such and buying less paper books. I sell, donate or trade books that I want to get rid of.
I try to find used items sometimes instead of new simply to save money and resources.

On Gun Control

Ever since my husband and I were shot at by a neighbor boy June 8, 2012, I have been leaning more and more toward gun control.  I was shocked when so many of my neighbors told me they carry concealed weapons and they have many guns in their homes. I was shocked that this unstable boy was allowed unlimited access to what amounted to a small arsenal:  30-06 rifles, .22s, 50 calibers and others.  He shot at us with the .22 and then paraded up and down our road with a 30-06 on his back.  His father had the nerve to target shoot on our property the next week without permission and become offended when my husband told him to leave the property and not come back.  Said property was across the road from our house.

I was told by many that arming themselves to the teeth was not only their right but their responsibility. 

BULLCRAP! 

We have seen that having more guns has done nothing at all to stop gun violence.  According to this article (http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/18/15977143-gun-control-offers-no-cure-all-in-america?lite ), 310 million guns are owned in the US, 114 million of them, handguns.  Assault rifles and handguns have one purpose, killing other people.

Since Aurora and Sandy Hook and our own experience, I have decided that the only solution for our country is a multilayered one. 

1.  We must figure out why and how our young have become so desensitized to violence that they actually think to use a gun first, instead of talking things out or instead of contacting authorities. 

2.  We must treat the mentally ill.  They are sick and need help, not simply jail.  Jail sometimes turns out even more violent people. 

3.  Ban assault rifles and sponsor a mandatory buy back as Australia did.  I would consider handguns also in this ban.  (See article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/02/did-gun-control-work-in-australia/ )

4. Make longer waiting periods and stricter background checks standard for gun purchasers.  Perhaps even require ANY gun purchaser to take a class in safety and handling firearms (See this: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/08/15780233-police-7-year-old-fatally-shot-by-father-outside-gun-store-in-pennsylvania?lite ).

5. Consider longer mandatory sentences for any crime committed involving a firearm.  Also consider making lending firearms used in violent acts criminal with the SAME sentence as the offender.

I hear many people clamor about their Second Amendment rights and I doubt many of them have ever read the amendment. 

“Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

I cannot see where, in the absence of said militia, anyone actually has need or right to bear arms without being in the military.  Sorry but it’s just not there unless you hold it sideways to force it in. 

Gun control does work and the Brady Bill has worked some – deaths by guns have actually declined from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 (the year the bill was enacted) to 3.2 per 100,000 in 2011.  We can only hope stricter controls will work even better.

We have become a nation of gun toting lunatics and it sickens me.