Exceptional?

 What's the point in arguing about the term "American exceptionalism?" We're a nation of imperfect people, founded on some amazing ideas of a democratic republic, enshrined in our Constitution. We've done some very noteworthy things; we've done some things that were stupid and even cruel. Accepting all these facets doesn't make us [1] less American, nor [2] less willing to accept or work on problematic parts of our past. Can we unify on this, too?   --Marie Byars

Pro-Life Bona Fides

Being pro-life, really being pro-life, means realizing you wanted these lives in the world when you see disagreeable toddlers in the grocery store or are seated near crying children on a plane.  Oh, and blaming it on bad parenting (as in "I'm pro-life, and the mother should definitely have had these children, but they're only being awful because she's a bad parent") doesn't count.  It also may not be true. 

Being pro-life isn't easy for anyone.  It's not easy for the mother who bore children at times that weren't convenient for her. But it's also not easy on the rest of society.  If you're Christian and pro-life, it doesn't fit the full Biblical ethic to make it solely "that woman's problem."  Be pro-life in the best sense of the word, and embrace the messiness that comes from children being in the world!

Hard But Worth It

An old sketch of mine.

Integrity is not easy. But it's important, and it's worth it.

Changes Prompted by 1918 Flu Pandemic

      The 1918 global flu pandemic, coming in the wake of WWI, was a travesty.  So many people were shaken by it, and by their responses (sometimes more selfish than they would have thought of themselves), as well as their survivors' guilt, that first-hand accounts of the flu largely disappeared.
     However, the whole tragedy prompted some positive changes that stay with us.  Here is a slide show accounting of some of those changes:

Daily Mail: 10 Major Changes Resulting from the 1918 Flu Pandemic
 
     I was really surprised this event was given so much credit for countering "eugenics."  Eugenics was the study of how to arrange human reproduction to increase the passing down of "desirable" inherited characteristics. That meant so-called less desirable people were forcibly sterilized (including in the U.S.) There were attempts to promote abortion more heavily among the poor. The 1918 pandemic helped people realize that the conditions of poverty, not personal "defects", allowed diseases to spread more rapidly among the poor.
     Francis Galton, an Englishman, was largely responsible for first developing this line of thinking.  In the U.S., Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, came to believe in eugenics.  (It's not true, however, that she did it for racially motivated reasons.  In "The Eugenic Vale of Birth Control Propaganda" (1921), she wrote that "the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."  Eugenics was finally dealt its death blow after the Nazi's abhorrent use of it.

More Corny Jokes

🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽

What did the mommy rope say to the baby rope?
"Don't be knotty."

How do you make an orange giggle?
Tickle its navel.   🍊

What kind of candy is never on time?
Choco-late.  🍬

What do you get when you cross an elephant with Darth Vader?
An ele-vader.   🐘 👐👥

What has four legs, one head, but only one foot?
A bed. 🌙🌃


What are a storm's undergarments?
Thunder wear.  ☂⛆


Why was the broom late for work?
It over swept.

Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants?
In case he got a hole-in-one.   🏆
Why did the banana wear sunscreen at the beach?
It didn't want to peel.  🍌

What do you call a dentist who cleans alligator teeth?
Crazy!!!  🐊

Corny Jokes

 🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽

Why do you eat sausage on February 2nd?
Because it's "ground hog."🐷🐷🐷🐹🐹🐹

What's a baby's motto?
If at first you don't succeed, cry, cry again.

What kind of craft does a pine tree do?
Needlepoint!   😝

What did the tomato say to the mushroom?
"You look like a fungi [fun guy]."

Where does the trombone stay off the merry-go-round?
Because it likes the slide.   🎵🎵🎵


Why aren't the trumpets on the slide?
Because they like to swing.  🎺🎺🎺 

Why don't Dalmatians like baths? 
They don't like being spotless.

Why did the hamburger quit answering questions?
If felt like it was being grilled.  🍔🍔


What did the cake say to the knife?
"You want a piece of me?"

What's the cleanest section in the choir?
The soap-ranos.   🎶🎶🎶

On a stoplight, red means "stop" and green means "go."
When does red mean "go" and green mean "stop"?
On a watermelon!  🍉🍉🍉😏

Epiphany Day & Carnival Season

Homemade "King Cake" for Epiphany Day, January 6th, the kick-off of Carnival Season.  Purple for Justice, Green for Faith, Gold for Power. Named for the presumed Three Kings (really, an unknown number of Magi, or "seers").  A plastic Baby Jesus is put inside, and whoever gets Him brings the next King Cake.

Equal Balance

“The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values: offers food to some need which we have starved.”

   "I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows...
     "I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent… Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty...
     But medicine is not good... When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian.      "But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere...It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they."  --C.S. Lewis, "Equality"; The Spectator, 1943
C.S. Lewis on Equality and Our Core Misconception About Democracy
"Equality"; The Spectator, vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943), p. 192

Walking, American Style

An American author for this Fourth of July, from one of his lesser-known works:

"He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river... No wealth can buy the requisite leisure freedom, and independence which are capital in this profession... You must be born into the family of Walkers...  the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called... but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day... " 
 ---Henry David Thoreau in "Walking",  from the Atlantic Monthly, 1862.

Original Sin

I take issue with both laissez faire, hands-off capitalism and full socialism for the same reason: the inherent selfishness of humanity.  With unrestricted capitalism, you see the selfishness, the rising oligarchy, which this country went through once before, starting about 140 years ago.  With socialism, you would see those who are lazy wanting to sponge off those who work hard.  The optimal solution is a balance between the two.  --Marie Byars

Nuremberg

Nuremberg is an absolutely beautiful city in Germany.  These photos are from the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady (the Virgin Mary).  Nuremberg also stands as a stark reminder of other things. Because this city had a primary palace used for important events by the Holy Roman Emperor ("The Second Reich"), Hitler chose it for his Nazi rallies. Because of this, Nuremberg was nearly bombed out of existence by the Allies towards the end of World War II.  The Germans did rebuild it, but there are things that were never rebuilt. Some of this was intentional, as a perpetual reminder of the evils of Naziism.

This, of course, was also the scene of the post-war Nuremberg trials. The Allies found a venue which was not destroyed to host them.

As some of our foolish U.S. population toys with Nazi rhetoric, even daring to borrow German phrases when they probably don't speak the language, it is important to remember that eventually justice comes to those who oppress and terrorize others.

October in Northern Arizona

A Very Grand Canyon

There may be larger canyons around the world, but ours is very grand.  The kids & I recently went to the less-travelled North Rim, which is higher in elevation.

We also saw Roosevelt Point on the North Rim:

Here's a picture from October, 2010, when I took them to the South Rim:

(Both times, my husband had either work or study obligations.  But he & I went to the South Rim a few years ago for our wedding anniversary.)

Mad Hatter

Visa Americana

Here are some inspiring quotes which were inscribed in the pages of my new U.S. Passport book:


"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."  --Dwight D. Eisenhower


"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or sect, a party or a class-- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity."  -- Anna Julia Cooper

Welsh Wisdom

"Living well is the best revenge."

"One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters."

"He that is not handsome at 20, not strong at 30, nor rich at 40, nor wise at 50, will never be handsome, strong, rich or wise."
      ---George Herbert, Welsh; Anglican Priest (1593-1633)  

Wisdom from St. Patrick

"If I have any worth, it is to live my life for God so as to teach these peoples; even though some of them still look down on me."   

“I pray to God to give me perseverance and to deign that I be a faithful witness to Him to the end of my life for my God.”   [from The Confession of the Saint]

More Sensible Tax Schemes

Let's start a movement:  raise the taxes of the top 1% to a 42% tax rate.  This is not really so extreme. The revenue wouldn't be for the pet products of just "one side."  This is a Centrist movement really worth giving birth to.

As a reminder, taxes on the upper echelons were much higher from Eisenhower until Reagan. For most of that time, the economy was really pretty good. The stock market (which used to not be used as the main measure of how the country was doing) grew just fine.  In fact, much of the action-reaction we have in society can be traced back to the 1980s, which spawned this modern extremism.

Other items from this blog, which refer to outside economists' reports, are below:

42%

Caring for the Growing Service Industry

The Birth of Our Era of Trickle-Down Economics

Zig-Zags (Not Helpin')

More Wisdom for the New Year

"When opportunity knocks, some people are in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers."  ---Polish Proverb

Pretty Accurate from the Center

This article from The Atlantic is pretty close to how THIS Centrist sees things.  However, it uses the term "Moderate", which implies someone who doesn't get too involved.  (In the past, being a Moderate worked, because things just naturally moved to the Center, via compromise.  Now, not so much.) 

Moderates: Who Are They, and What Do They Want?