I truly and honestly don't understand why some moms rejoice in the fact that school will start soon, and they will say "good-bye" to long days with their children. I am one of the strange folk that actually revels in the activity, noise, laughter, and even the bickering. It's living the life.
I am not criticizing those that await the school bus with giddy hearts. God Bless you! I just don't understand.
This song kind of says it...
Saturday, August 13, 2011
It Can't Happen Here....
....but it could.
Excellent article by Mark Steyn. Really.
Big Government corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically.
As part of my promotional efforts, I chanced to find myself on a TV show the other day with an affable liberal who argued that what Obama needed to do was pass another trillion-dollar — or, better yet, multi-trillion — stimulus. I think not. The London rioters are the children of dependency, the progeny of Big Government: They have been marinated in “stimulus” their entire lives. There is literally nothing you can’t get Her Majesty’s Government to pay for. From page 205 of my book:
“A man of 21 with learning disabilities has been granted taxpayers’ money to fly to Amsterdam and have sex with a prostitute.”
Hey, why not? “He’s planning to do more than just have his end away,” explained his social worker. “Refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights.”
Why do they need a Dutch hooker? Just another hardworking foreigner doing the jobs Britons won’t do? Given the reputation of English womanhood, you’d have thought this would be the one gig that wouldn’t have to be outsourced overseas.
While the British Treasury is busy writing checks to Amsterdam prostitutes, one-fifth of children are raised in homes in which no adult works — in which the weekday ritual of rising, dressing, and leaving for gainful employment is entirely unknown. One tenth of the adult population has done not a day’s work since Tony Blair took office on May 1, 1997.
If you were born into such a household, you’ve been comprehensively “stimulated” into the dead-eyed zombies staggering about the streets this last week: pathetic inarticulate sub-humans unable even to grunt the minimal monosyllables to BBC interviewers desperate to appease their pathologies. C’mon, we’re not asking much: just a word or two about how it’s all the fault of government “cuts” like the leftie columnists argue. And yet even that is beyond these baying beasts. The great-grandparents of these brutes stood alone against a Fascist Europe in that dark year after the fall of France in 1940. Their grandparents were raised in one of the most peaceful and crime-free nations on the planet. Were those Englishmen of the mid-20th century to be magically transplanted to London today, they’d assume they were in some fantastical remote galaxy. If Charlton Heston was horrified to discover the Planet of the Apes was his own, Britons are beginning to realize that the remote desert island of Lord of the Flies is, in fact, located just off the coast of Europe in the north-east Atlantic. Within two generations of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, a significant proportion of the once-free British people entrusted themselves to social rewiring by liberal compassionate Big Government and thereby rendered themselves paralytic and unemployable save for non-speaking parts in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And even that would likely be too much like hard work.
Here’s another line from my book:
“In Britain, everything is policed except crime.”
Her Majesty’s cowed and craven politically correct constabulary stand around with their riot shields and Robocop gear as young rioters lob concrete through store windows to steal the electronic toys that provide their only non-narcotic or alcoholic amusement. I chanced to be in Piccadilly for the springtime riots when the police failed to stop the mob from smashing the windows of the Ritz and other upscale emporia, so it goes without saying that they wouldn’t lift a finger to protect less prestigious private property from thugs. Some of whom are as young as nine years old. And girls.
Yet a police force all but entirely useless when it comes to preventing crime or maintaining public order has time to police everything else. When Sam Brown observed en passant to a mounted policeman on Cornmarket Street in Oxford, “Do you know your horse is gay?”, he was surrounded within minutes by six officers and a fleet of patrol cars, handcuffed, tossed in the slammer overnight, and fined 80 pounds. Mr. Brown’s “homophobic comments,” explained a spokesmoron for Thames Valley Police, were “not only offensive to the policeman and his horse, but any members of the general public in the area.” The zealous crackdown on Sam Brown’s hippohomophobia has not been replicated in the present disturbances. Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the last two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid.
This is the logical dead end of the Nanny State. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the British welfare regime in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want” to be accomplished by “co-operation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from life’s vicissitudes, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.” The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers, the highest abortion rate. Marriage is all but defunct, except for William and Kate, fellow toffs, upscale gays, and Muslims. From page 204:
“For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population”.
I believe it is regarded as a sign of insanity to start quoting oneself, but at the risk of trying your patience I’ll try one more, because it’s the link between America’s downgraded debt and Britain’s downgraded citizenry:
“The evil of such a system is not the waste of money but the waste of people.”
Big Government means small citizens: It corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically. Within living memory, the city in flames on our TV screens every night governed a fifth of the earth’s surface and a quarter of its population. When you’re imperialists on that scale, there are bound to be a few mishaps along the way. But nothing the British Empire did to its subject peoples has been as total and catastrophic as what a post-great Britain did to its own.
There are lessons for all of us there.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2011 Mark Steyn
Excellent article by Mark Steyn. Really.
The New Britannia
Big Government corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically.
The trick in this business is not to be right too early. A week ago I released my new book — the usual doom’n’gloom stuff — and, just as the sensible prudent moderate chaps were about to dismiss it as hysterical and alarmist, Standard & Poor’s went and downgraded the United States from its AAA rating for the first time in history. Obligingly enough they downgraded it to AA+, which happens to be the initials of my book: After America. Okay, there’s not a lot of “+” in that, but you can’t have everything.
But the news cycle moves on, and a day or two later, the news shows were filled with scenes of London ablaze, as gangs of feral youths trashed and looted their own neighborhoods. Several readers wrote to taunt me for not having anything to say on the London riots. As it happens, Chapter Five of my book is called “The New Britannia: The Depraved City.” You have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat me to Western civilization’s descent into barbarism. Anyone who’s read it will fully understand what’s happening on the streets of London. The downgrade and the riots are part of the same story: Big Government debauches not only a nation’s finances but its human capital, too.As part of my promotional efforts, I chanced to find myself on a TV show the other day with an affable liberal who argued that what Obama needed to do was pass another trillion-dollar — or, better yet, multi-trillion — stimulus. I think not. The London rioters are the children of dependency, the progeny of Big Government: They have been marinated in “stimulus” their entire lives. There is literally nothing you can’t get Her Majesty’s Government to pay for. From page 205 of my book:
“A man of 21 with learning disabilities has been granted taxpayers’ money to fly to Amsterdam and have sex with a prostitute.”
Hey, why not? “He’s planning to do more than just have his end away,” explained his social worker. “Refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights.”
Why do they need a Dutch hooker? Just another hardworking foreigner doing the jobs Britons won’t do? Given the reputation of English womanhood, you’d have thought this would be the one gig that wouldn’t have to be outsourced overseas.
While the British Treasury is busy writing checks to Amsterdam prostitutes, one-fifth of children are raised in homes in which no adult works — in which the weekday ritual of rising, dressing, and leaving for gainful employment is entirely unknown. One tenth of the adult population has done not a day’s work since Tony Blair took office on May 1, 1997.
If you were born into such a household, you’ve been comprehensively “stimulated” into the dead-eyed zombies staggering about the streets this last week: pathetic inarticulate sub-humans unable even to grunt the minimal monosyllables to BBC interviewers desperate to appease their pathologies. C’mon, we’re not asking much: just a word or two about how it’s all the fault of government “cuts” like the leftie columnists argue. And yet even that is beyond these baying beasts. The great-grandparents of these brutes stood alone against a Fascist Europe in that dark year after the fall of France in 1940. Their grandparents were raised in one of the most peaceful and crime-free nations on the planet. Were those Englishmen of the mid-20th century to be magically transplanted to London today, they’d assume they were in some fantastical remote galaxy. If Charlton Heston was horrified to discover the Planet of the Apes was his own, Britons are beginning to realize that the remote desert island of Lord of the Flies is, in fact, located just off the coast of Europe in the north-east Atlantic. Within two generations of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain, a significant proportion of the once-free British people entrusted themselves to social rewiring by liberal compassionate Big Government and thereby rendered themselves paralytic and unemployable save for non-speaking parts in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. And even that would likely be too much like hard work.
Here’s another line from my book:
“In Britain, everything is policed except crime.”
Her Majesty’s cowed and craven politically correct constabulary stand around with their riot shields and Robocop gear as young rioters lob concrete through store windows to steal the electronic toys that provide their only non-narcotic or alcoholic amusement. I chanced to be in Piccadilly for the springtime riots when the police failed to stop the mob from smashing the windows of the Ritz and other upscale emporia, so it goes without saying that they wouldn’t lift a finger to protect less prestigious private property from thugs. Some of whom are as young as nine years old. And girls.
Yet a police force all but entirely useless when it comes to preventing crime or maintaining public order has time to police everything else. When Sam Brown observed en passant to a mounted policeman on Cornmarket Street in Oxford, “Do you know your horse is gay?”, he was surrounded within minutes by six officers and a fleet of patrol cars, handcuffed, tossed in the slammer overnight, and fined 80 pounds. Mr. Brown’s “homophobic comments,” explained a spokesmoron for Thames Valley Police, were “not only offensive to the policeman and his horse, but any members of the general public in the area.” The zealous crackdown on Sam Brown’s hippohomophobia has not been replicated in the present disturbances. Anyone who has so much as glanced at British policing policy over the last two decades would be hard pressed to argue which party on the streets of London, the thugs or the cops, is more irredeemably stupid.
This is the logical dead end of the Nanny State. When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the British welfare regime in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want” to be accomplished by “co-operation between the State and the individual.” In attempting to insulate the citizenry from life’s vicissitudes, Sir William succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. As I write in my book: “Want has been all but abolished. Today, fewer and fewer Britons want to work, want to marry, want to raise children, want to lead a life of any purpose or dignity.” The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers, the highest abortion rate. Marriage is all but defunct, except for William and Kate, fellow toffs, upscale gays, and Muslims. From page 204:
“For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what LBJ’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population”.
I believe it is regarded as a sign of insanity to start quoting oneself, but at the risk of trying your patience I’ll try one more, because it’s the link between America’s downgraded debt and Britain’s downgraded citizenry:
“The evil of such a system is not the waste of money but the waste of people.”
Big Government means small citizens: It corrodes the integrity of a people, catastrophically. Within living memory, the city in flames on our TV screens every night governed a fifth of the earth’s surface and a quarter of its population. When you’re imperialists on that scale, there are bound to be a few mishaps along the way. But nothing the British Empire did to its subject peoples has been as total and catastrophic as what a post-great Britain did to its own.
There are lessons for all of us there.
— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2011 Mark Steyn
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Hard Times and Good People
Thanks to Matt Archbold at National Catholic Register for sharing this beautiful piece!
Yes, I cried....
Yes, I cried....
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
New Digs....
So Tim spent the last two weekends putting a new look on the schoolroom, and boy, does it look great!
It was really in need of a face-lift. He did the ceiling a while back, and it looked way too nice for the dingy walls and ratty old carpet.
We thought we'd just paint. But after he got the painting done, the carpet looked even worse.
The edges were really bad because the basement is so damp. So he ripped all the old carpet out and we put down new flooring and he painted the baseboards. I put all the stuff back in, except for a few items that we are giving away.
It is going to be so nice to start school this year in a fresh new space!
I also reformatted the computer, because something went wrong with the hard drive. We got Dell to put in a new one, and I upgraded to Windows 7. It runs again! I may have lost a little bit of stuff, but using Google docs for everything really paid off. I had already backed up all the pictures, but we will see if we can get someone to get the things off of it that are still there.
Oh yeah, and speaking of new digs....
They are Cicada killing Wasps, and, indeed the evidence is on my porch.
They like the area in front of the little patio.
They dig burrows like this...
Fortunately, the only thing they harm is the cicada population, so that works for me!
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Painful Truth
I have this friend.
She is a dear friend, and I am really worried about her. She has such a wonderful heart and she is always so generous, but I am very concerned because she has gotten herself into some serious trouble.
See, she is so generous that people have been taking advantage of her for a long time and she just won't say "no" when they ask her for money. She used to be very well off, but things just haven't been going well for her, and since she is afraid to be honest with the people that come to her, she has been borrowing money so that she won't have to say no.
I'm not sure why, maybe it's pride, or maybe she is afraid that if she doesn't give them what they want they won't be her friends anymore. The problem is, there just isn't enough to go around. She has made these people think that she can support them, and she is being dishonest with herself, and with them.
I know that there are people that have tried to talk to her and explain the situation, but she won't listen.
I also know that the people that she owes money to are not going to be patient when it becomes impossible for her to make her payments. They are going to exact payment one way or the other.
I love her, but I feel like she is just being pigheaded in allowing herself to be bilked over and over, and in letting these "friends" of hers suck her dry to the point of ruination. Maybe she doesn't see how serious the situation has become, or maybe she is just in denial, but the facts are the facts.
She has so many people giving her conflicting information, and she seems unable commit to a plan that will help her solve her problems.
It breaks my heart to watch her go through this, but at this point that's all I can do. She has refused to listen to people much better at helping her than me.
I will pray for her. I hope you will pray for her. She is a great lady and she is in serious trouble.
She is a dear friend, and I am really worried about her. She has such a wonderful heart and she is always so generous, but I am very concerned because she has gotten herself into some serious trouble.
See, she is so generous that people have been taking advantage of her for a long time and she just won't say "no" when they ask her for money. She used to be very well off, but things just haven't been going well for her, and since she is afraid to be honest with the people that come to her, she has been borrowing money so that she won't have to say no.
I'm not sure why, maybe it's pride, or maybe she is afraid that if she doesn't give them what they want they won't be her friends anymore. The problem is, there just isn't enough to go around. She has made these people think that she can support them, and she is being dishonest with herself, and with them.
I know that there are people that have tried to talk to her and explain the situation, but she won't listen.
I also know that the people that she owes money to are not going to be patient when it becomes impossible for her to make her payments. They are going to exact payment one way or the other.
I love her, but I feel like she is just being pigheaded in allowing herself to be bilked over and over, and in letting these "friends" of hers suck her dry to the point of ruination. Maybe she doesn't see how serious the situation has become, or maybe she is just in denial, but the facts are the facts.
She has so many people giving her conflicting information, and she seems unable commit to a plan that will help her solve her problems.
It breaks my heart to watch her go through this, but at this point that's all I can do. She has refused to listen to people much better at helping her than me.
I will pray for her. I hope you will pray for her. She is a great lady and she is in serious trouble.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Bitter and the Sweet.....
Life is such a mix of sorrow and joy right now. It seems like the pendulum is swinging so fast that I can't catch my breath.
Last week our friends, the McLanahans lost their unborn baby. They were so excited, and we had been rejoicing with them. Then the news came suddenly, and we were mourning. We pray, make a meal, hope for God's comfort and pray some more.
Then in the midst of the sorrow, there was a time for celebration and fun, as we went up to a local waterfall to join the Hoppels on Kevin's birthday. We are so blest with the friendship of this family and Kevin's friendship with the boys.
Even as we were enjoying the beautiful day and great people, I received word that another sweet baby had passed into the arms of The Lord. It broke my heart. Calvin and Katherine are just the greatest young couple, and they were so thrilled with the gift of little Gabriella. She was only 26 weeks old. Such a sword has pierced their hearts. We pray, again, for the comfort and peace that surpasses all understanding.
We have had the good news that Pat and Ann Waltenburg have a new grandson. Praise for His safe arrival and the Blessing of a safe delivery for Kate!
Lilly's grandpa is very, very ill and is undergoing a very serious surgery. We have been praying for success, and hopefully a time of better health for him.
Yesterday I got a call from Nina, and when I got on the phone, Nina was so upset that I couldn't understand what she was saying. I thought I was going to get more tragic news. I was prepared for Nina to tell me that Lilly was in the hospital. It wasn't as tragic as it could have been, but at the time it must have seemed like a disaster. Lilly had cut ALL her hair off. Not just her bangs, but everything, except a small tail in the back that she couldn't reach. I know that it will grow back, but it is going to be awhile. I felt so bad for Nina!
Last night we had our final session in the "Road to Emmaus" book study that we have been doing on The Mass. Such grace and blessing. The Mass is such an incredible gift and we have been given the opportunity to study it with some of the wonderful people of the parish. More prayers that our fervor will hold on, and that we can share it with others.
Today was another fun-filled day as we traveled to Lancaster County to play laser tag at a place up there. The boys had such a great time! They were with their friends, they were doing something that they love, it was really good.
Tomorrow morning is the service for the McLanahan baby, and then the boys are going to spend the afternoon with their friend Henry, which is something they have been wanting to do for weeks.
Such a mixed bag of emotions, and God is there for us in the midst of it all. He shares every moment with His children. I pray that I will always be aware of His presence and His love through every swing
of the pendulum of this life. He is the point that it swings from.
Last week our friends, the McLanahans lost their unborn baby. They were so excited, and we had been rejoicing with them. Then the news came suddenly, and we were mourning. We pray, make a meal, hope for God's comfort and pray some more.
Then in the midst of the sorrow, there was a time for celebration and fun, as we went up to a local waterfall to join the Hoppels on Kevin's birthday. We are so blest with the friendship of this family and Kevin's friendship with the boys.
Even as we were enjoying the beautiful day and great people, I received word that another sweet baby had passed into the arms of The Lord. It broke my heart. Calvin and Katherine are just the greatest young couple, and they were so thrilled with the gift of little Gabriella. She was only 26 weeks old. Such a sword has pierced their hearts. We pray, again, for the comfort and peace that surpasses all understanding.
We have had the good news that Pat and Ann Waltenburg have a new grandson. Praise for His safe arrival and the Blessing of a safe delivery for Kate!
Lilly's grandpa is very, very ill and is undergoing a very serious surgery. We have been praying for success, and hopefully a time of better health for him.
Yesterday I got a call from Nina, and when I got on the phone, Nina was so upset that I couldn't understand what she was saying. I thought I was going to get more tragic news. I was prepared for Nina to tell me that Lilly was in the hospital. It wasn't as tragic as it could have been, but at the time it must have seemed like a disaster. Lilly had cut ALL her hair off. Not just her bangs, but everything, except a small tail in the back that she couldn't reach. I know that it will grow back, but it is going to be awhile. I felt so bad for Nina!
Last night we had our final session in the "Road to Emmaus" book study that we have been doing on The Mass. Such grace and blessing. The Mass is such an incredible gift and we have been given the opportunity to study it with some of the wonderful people of the parish. More prayers that our fervor will hold on, and that we can share it with others.
Today was another fun-filled day as we traveled to Lancaster County to play laser tag at a place up there. The boys had such a great time! They were with their friends, they were doing something that they love, it was really good.
Tomorrow morning is the service for the McLanahan baby, and then the boys are going to spend the afternoon with their friend Henry, which is something they have been wanting to do for weeks.
Such a mixed bag of emotions, and God is there for us in the midst of it all. He shares every moment with His children. I pray that I will always be aware of His presence and His love through every swing
of the pendulum of this life. He is the point that it swings from.
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