television

Just a couple days ago, I was talking to a woman from the company we get telephone and internet service. She reminded me that I now qualify for cable or dish service - whatever it is they offer (I can never keep those two differences straight). I said I would pass on that. She asked who is providing that service currently. I told her our TV has been in its box in the basement for several months. After a moment of hesitation, she told me that if I decided I wanted it, it would cost me only an extra $15.

I've thought many times about why we don't have 110 or 300 stations beaming into our living room.(and I guess we'd save $15 now that I know how much it would cost.)

1. I most surely would fall asleep watching by 7 p.m. just like nursing home residents do.
2. The big picture window to the west and the computer desk to the east allow no room for the TV in this house. How awkward would it be to watch TV against the setting sun. We'd all go blind, except for me because I would be sleeping.
3. I have no brain cells to spare as it is. If I waste my time listening to stuff for pure amusement (a - without and muse - to think) and finding myself filling my mind with off-colored innuendo (which even the best of shows can't part with), what's left is a whole lot of nothing. There'd be no place to go but the couch in really stretchy pants with boxes of bon-bons every afternoon to catch up on the soaps.
4. I hate getting interrupted by commercials.
5. The jangle of a TV prattling on and on is annoying to me. Silence, occasionally, in my line of work, is golden.

While I'm a prude about other things, I don't avoid TV in our house purely for that reason. Cooking shows are very inspiring. In fact, there probably would be all observing and no actual cooking in our house if we did have those channels. I could also blow any number of hours listening to a certain news station. And there are probably plenty of righteous upright followers of Jesus who can watch lots of programming on any number of topics and still be righteous and upright followers of Jesus. I'm not that talented.

And then tonight I read this by John Piper. And I didn't feel quite as odd about my television habits.

kiddie pool

Could I be so bold as to assume summer is here? Perhaps for the time being.

cheerios, circuses and fools

Somebody once said, "There's a sucker born every minute." It wasn't P.T. Barnum, the circus guy who this quote is usually credited to and here's the story of that.

But I thought of that quote this morning when I read the Fox News story of the FDA and Cheerios. The FDA is calling Cheerios a drug because "the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease."

First, would it be so bad, in all honesty, if more overweight, under-exercised, fleshy Americans loaded up on Cheerios and milk. Well, say, opposed to loading up on cheese puffs or soda or TV dinners with their claiming corn as a vegetable and oversalted gravy. Certainly even with the effects of marshmallows and peanut butter, Cheerios have to have more nutrition than a bag of tooty frooties with food coloring and mass amounts of sugar.

Next I would like to address people's intelligence. I appreciate that the government is trying to look out for us making bad choices such as eating too many Cheerios and thinking they will fix our health problems. But maybe, as an individual, I would like to choose what I think makes me healthy. If I want to harvest ditch flowers, dry them and crunch them up in my cereal and drink them steeped in hot water, isn't that my prerogative? And what works for one person's cholesterol, maybe doesn't work for the next guys high readings. Does it nullify the positive results for some if not all get the same dramatic results? On average, the FDA must think the average person is so lame-brained stupid, they now need the government choosing their breakfast cereal for them.

I will repeat my observations, which are by not means scientific: perhaps the government and more specifically our current reigning regime could well head their own advice and cut back on their own petty projects and bloated payrolls. If they have time to skip the really important issues and instead go after silly stuff, perhaps those employees could better serve the general public elsewhere.

And while I'm grocery shopping next, I'll be sure to stock up on Cheerios. For the same reason, we recently bought an SUV. They may soon be a collectors item.

improvising

Improvising is one of the first signs that you're confident in the kitchen. Pamela Mitchell, executive food editor of Everyday with Rachael Ray

I wonder if she would stick by that statement if she observed my version of improvising. But, on the other hand, if she approves a recipe for nachos that includes broccoli florets and cannellini beans (p. 46 of the April 2009 issue), she might offer me a job.

I keep thinking about George Tiller. He's the reknown late-term abortion doctor in Wichita who was shot yesterday morning while ushering in parishioners at his church.

On one hand, perhaps mercifully today - and maybe only today - a few tiny lives will be given another day to live. Those appointments that were on his calendar today. Maybe this day of grace the moms of those little ones will hear something, hear someone or Someone who calls them to make a better choice. Maybe today, the opportunity can slip in to reveal just how valuable they are and the little one scheduled for death today.

From what I've read, Tiller's purpose in life seems to be to help women facing motherhood in the upcoming weeks or few months bypass that responsibility. From his own statistics to the state of Kansas, many, if not a majority, of small babies he has poisoned (his preferred method of abortion) and slaughtered, were viable (they could live outside the womb) and were removed from the wombs of their mothers for their "mothers health". Her mental health, that is, not because her life was in danger because of the pregnancy - elective abortion.

Among his accomplishments, according to his own admission, are over 2700 abortion done between the 1994 and 1997 with the AVERAGE gestational age of the baby at 27 weeks. On average, of the approximately 600 post-15 week gestational age babies he snuffs out each year, about 150 or so are named as fetal abnormalities. One of his former employees, put that number perhaps higher, testifying that she estimated 95% of the babies she saw aborted were perfectly healthy.

On the other hand, oh how horribly wretchedly tragic for a man who has made his living taking innocent, vulnerable lives specially created by his Maker for the past 36 years to meet his Maker before he had things straightened out with his Maker. Perhaps he did have a last minute opportunity to make amends before 10 a.m. yesterday morning. And how ironic that Mr. Tiller breathed his last while in church.

Most alarming however are the words of a fellow late-term abortionist in Colorado, Dr. Warren Hern who claimed that Tiller's death is the "inevitable and predictable consequence of decades of anti-abortion" rhetoric and violence.

Oh how ironic that men who have profited greatly from the legalized violence and brutality against 40 million+ in the last three and a half decades would decry those who defend the rights of tiny unborn babies and the dignity and significance of their moms, offering hope and a peaceful solution at a difficult point in their lives.

reptile

Could it be that I would be part reptile due to the fact that whenever the sky is gray and the thermometer drops below 55 I become lethergic and listless and unmotivated? Or perhaps a better explanation for such a problem is that I am simply unmotivated?

Yep, that's probably it.

Or maybe I just need to spend a little quality VHS tape time with Cindy Crawford or Elle McPherson and if I put on leotards and Reebok princess athletic shoes I would naturally feel warmer on days like this?

When the upstairs is finished and the basement has some living space in it again, maybe I'll check the thrift store for that $3 exercise step I saw on Saturday and make a little fitness room for myself.

Stepping to Cindy Crawford in the dark, dampness of the basement is sure to boost my motivation.

unqualified

It's quite obvious, among other lessons to be learned from such a situation, that family services and the legal system has way too many on staff and way too much money on their hands. In this story from New Ulm, 13-year old Daniel Hauser was diagnosed with cancer. When the family tried traditional chemotherapy to treat it and CHOSE to discontinue that and go with another treatment, the family doctor turned the Hauser family into Family Services.

A Brown County judge spent 58 pages on a ruling today that details why the family must be forced to go back to the chemotherapy to treat their son. The threat to remove the boy from his Catholic homeschooling family of 7 other siblings remains unless his family complies.

My argument is not about the best treatment for cancer, although I might wax eloquent in at least 58 pages on this topic of medicine and the failings of chemotherapy on just the people I am related to and are friends of mine.

Are there no children actually being neglected by parents under the influence of anything in excess or illegal in the New Ulm area?

How about any left alone for many hours without adult supervision on Friday and Saturday nights?

Perhaps even one of two might be going home from school Friday afternoon without hope of a meal until they go back to school Monday morning because their parents are engaged otherwise?

Surely there must be something else for these officials to devote their time to. Perhaps the money spent fighting a family trying to raise their kids in the best way they know how could be better spent making Saturday lunches for kids whose parents actually are absent. Although I am surely at the top of the list of folks not in favor of government handouts, surely there is some program some bright family services employee could conjur up to keep small kids off the streets when they should be in bed and while there parents are living the "good life" downtown.

Or... perhaps those problems are too numerous and too complicated and it's much easier to pick on a family where they could actually do some harm...I mean think they are doing something beneficial.

Silly as it might seem now, what if some well-meaning child services employee sees me feeding my kids grainy bread sandwiches and apples at the park some afternoon and feels they are being neglected and deprived because they should eat be eating white bread and twinkies? Will I be the next target? What if I don't run my kid to clog up the clinic everytime they have a sniffle or fever and chose instead let them rest in the comfort of home and give out a few extra vitamins? Will that be considered "medical neglect" as Colleen and Anthony Hauser are accused of?

Thankfully, God is still on His throne and He is still in charge. Oh but I shutter and tremble to think of the implications of the government superceding God-fearing honest parents' judgment. Their track record with nearly every other category is dismal at best. How are they qualified to make demands on how I raise my children?