Biblical Literalism

When I was in college for the vast majority of my research projects I chose social issues that were near and dear to my own world view. I take particular issue with those who use the bible as a means to justify denying minority groups their civil rights. I'm a proud liberal. Conservatives have made a concerted effort to demonize the word "liberal" and thus redefine it. However I refuse to allow them to define who I am. The word liberal traditionally refers to those who support individual civil liberties and the equality of everyone within our society. That definition applies to me and I'm sticking with it.

One of the things I strongly support is marriage equality. I specifically did major research projects on Proposition 8 in California and the Manhattan Declaration. This afternoon in Michael Eric Dyson's book "Know What I Mean" I came across this (FYI "the president" refers to George W. Bush as the book was published in 2007):

The president appeals to conservative evangelical beliefs about sexuality and gender, and a narrow, literal reading of the Bible that appeals to a lot of blacks and Latinos. That always trips me out because I wonder how people who were illiterate less than 150 years ago could be biblical literalists!

After all, the same religious folk who historically subscribed to a biblical literalism that castigated black folk and justified our oppression and enslavement now use the same principles of interpretation to justify resistance to gays and lesbians. And many black folk are in league with them.

This is exactly my problem with the Manhattan Declaration (MD) . The writers claim that they identify with Christians in the past who championed the civil rights of minority groups in US history (most notably the abolitionist movement, the women's suffrage movement and the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century) while the document itself is discriminatory. Most egregious is it's use of Dr. King's "Letter From a Birmingham Jail".

I think my biggest gripe with evangelical Christians is their literal interpretation of the Bible and their hypocrisy while ignoring the words and actions of Jesus. Jesus was a champion of the sick, the elderly and the poor. He didn't mention abortion or same sex marriage. The writers of the MD claim to identify with Christians who saved infants from Roman infanticide. Yet they don't seem to be terribly concerned about modern day Chinese infanticide, which is based on gender.

As it happens, I have an uncle who has embraced evangelical Christianity over and against his Jewish heritage. I know he, his wife and their son are far removed from my values and my world view. Their beliefs belong to them as my beliefs belong to me. Fine. We all attended the wedding of a common relative this weekend. The ceremony was secular humanistic and as such, I loved it. I felt it was very personal and unique to the couple of honor. My uncle thought it was "interesting". I know from my research on the MD that Evangelical Christians view marriage strictly in the context of God, Jesus and the Bible. So I am certain that my uncle did not like the ceremony for all of the reasons I loved it. That's his business. I'm sure his wife and son felt the same way.

Another issue that is unique to a great many evangelical Christians is their view on health, or specifically healing the sick. Many of them think that if you simply pray enough and love God and Jesus enough, you can pray away any ailment or affliction. If you don't heal then it's your own fault. I find this stance problematic and offensive on so many levels. It bothers me to my very core. I also think it's in direct opposition to the example set by Jesus. While I'm sure Jesus would want people to pray, I think he also would have wanted others to do whatever is within their physical means to help the sick. Maybe that means cleaning wounds or comforting someone with a disease. Maybe it means stitching up an open cut or setting a broken leg. But I don't think he would have been satisfied to just tell someone to pray when there is work to do.

My husband has horrible knee problems. In a nutshell, he got the bad knee gene. He has had multiple surgeries on each knee and this will be a problem for the rest of his life. There's no escaping it and he faces his challenges head on. He has also spent his entire career working in low performing public schools in economically depressed, socially disadvantaged areas. He feels his talents are best used in those areas. I personally think Jesus would have approved.

My evangelical Christian cousin doesn't remember meeting my husband around 12 years ago, but they did in fact meet. My husband actually spent the day with my cousin and took him out to a local go-cart and video game place for some fun. There are passages in the bible that discuss hospitality. As a Christian my cousin should certainly remember the kindness my husband showed him. This weekend, at a family wedding none the less, when the subject of my husband's knee problems came up, my evangelical cousin had the nerve to tell my husband that it's his own fault that he has knee problems. My husband apparently just needs to pray for forgiveness and all will be healed. (Apparently the good he does within the public schools and the community is irrelevant.)

I should add that this self righteous jerk has embraced "Christian Hip Hop". When I heard about that a few years ago it disgusted me. This white boy who grew up in a white, middle class neighborhood and has no ties to the black community at all, has taken a black art form that grew out of black culture and subjugated it to suit his own means. On top of that, he bought his house at a really good deal because it was in foreclosure. Which means this nice Christian boy gained from someone else's misfortune. Nice. So much for compassionate conservatism and for putting the "Christ" in Christianity!

An excess of testosterone

Why do some people think it's a good idea to put a scrotum on the tail end of a really big truck? Someone in my town drives one of those massive, gas guzzling monstrosities. He's got a sign on the side advertising his services as a certified NRA instructor. His big ugly truck has custom rims with little stars on them. Truth be told it hits a little too close to the kind of imagery that one would find with white power hate groups but I somehow think that's not necessarily the case in this instance. The guy who drives it has a big beer gut. Then recently he added the scrotum.

I guess he feels the need to really make it clear that a dude is driving that truck. I hate those plastic ball sacks that morons put on cars. What are they trying to prove? How insecure does a guy have to be to feel the need to wear one on his car? I wish I knew what the thought process was that causes a guy to do that. Unfortunately I suspect there is no thought process. I hate to say it, but I think it's something along the lines of, "Dude, how cool. My car has BALLS!"

Nope. I have no respect for that kind of thinking. I like a man who chooses a car based on his actual needs, as well as the the carbon footprint and who can realistically say, "No, I really don't need a massive SUV or pickup truck. A small car will do what I need it to do just as easily and will consume less gasoline." My husband did that. He bought a purple Honda Fit in 2008. A man who can buy a car like that in purple no less, is a guy who is totally secure in who he is. That is both smart and sexy. My guy had to trade in his ride a few months ago for an automatic. He was so sad that the Fit no longer comes in purple. His new one is blue.

A World of Change

I cannot believe the last time I posted was in November of 2009. My life has changed dramatically since then. I'll give a brief recap:

1. In spring of 2010 I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Public Communications, and accompanying minors in Art History and Women's Studies. I must also pat myself on the back for a job well done, having graduated Cum Laude.
2. (This one is a biggie) My husband got a job in Hartford, Connecticut in September of 2010, so we made the move from Ft Lauderdale to "The Constitution State".
3. I'm officially retired from children's entertainment

That looks like a tiny list but it represents an incredible amount of change. I loved school. My core work in Public Comm. focused on rhetoric and as it turned out, I really enjoyed that field. I keep thinking back to Carl Sagan's references to a "Baloney Detection Kit". That's how I view the field of rhetorical studies. If you know how to properly analyze what people say, it's easier to determine if they're full of poop.

I have long been ready to move out of south Florida. For the past 10-12 years the extremely intense heat has been oppressive and draining on me, as were the increasingly conservative political leanings in the "Sunshine State". Connecticut, unlike what many believe, is not a liberal hippie mecca. It's just slightly left of center. But I think Nutmeggers tend to be a bit more pragmatic than the direction Florida has been heading in.

I'm finding Connecticut a breath of fresh air on many levels. It's cooler for one thing. I saw snow for the first time in my life this winter. As it happens, we moved to New England the one year that it saw historic snowfall. It was intense. One snowstorm in particular in January dropped almost 2 1/2 feet of the white stuff. I've heard that if you can get through the first northern winter, you're golden. I figure next winter will be a breeze. As it happens, I like snow and I like winter.

Spring in New England was breathtaking. It was just indescribable. All the snow melted and things just started popping out of the ground. There have been days that the wind was filled with dandelion fuzz. One day everything looked dead and then all of a sudden things started budding. Over the course of around 2 weeks the tree in our backyard went from bald to lush and green. One day I sat outside waiting for my son's bus to drop him off after school and the air smelled the way spring should smell; fresh, earthy and floral. Now we're headed into summer. We had one day this week where the temps hit 100 degrees. It still wasn't as blistering and comatose inducing as 94 degrees in Florida. It was also hot for only 2 days. Today temps were in the 60's and we were able to sleep with the a/c off and the windows open last night.

We sold our condo in south Florida almost immediately. We had a contract in less than 2 weeks of listing it. The underwriter for the buyer's lender dragged their feet going to closing though. So it took around 3 months to get to closing. We were able to sell it and wash our hands of the mortgage. We weren't underwater, which is a relief given the sad state of affairs of the current housing market. However we lost all of our equity, which stinks.

Our first day in the Hartford area we found a fantastic rental house. It's a duplex owned by 2 brothers, who live on one side and rent out the other side. We have enjoyed living here. It's a beautiful house and our landlord's maintain it meticulously. The backyard is a park-like oasis. Unfortunately one of the brothers is getting married, so the other brother will be moving into our side, which means we have to move in a few months. Bummer.

Adam's right knee is shot so he has surgery scheduled in 4 days. He's been in pain. My poor husband. I bought him an ipod to help him through physical therapy. He finally broke down and traded in his manual transmission car for an automatic.

Finally, I've been a bit burned out with the field of children's entertainment. It had been getting old for me. It wasn't fun the way it was 15 years ago and I was no longer able to make a living on it. This move gave me the opportunity to make a clean break. I'm very happy with that change. It has been wonderful to have my weekends back, to do whatever I want. For the past 6 months I have been working part time as a writing tutor at a high school. I sincerely hope I will be welcomed back next school year. It will be a double bonus if they have a full time position that would be a good fit for me. I now have weekends with my family though. I cannot remember the last time I had weekends to myself. Maybe high school? That was 20 years ago.

Since we moved to Connecticut we've been to a craft festival, an apple festival, we went apple picking twice, strawberry picking once (and we'll go more this summer-there are plenty of farms in Connecticut). My son and I went to a sheep and fiber festival and just this morning we went to a farmer's market. In a few weeks our town is having a summer festival which I'm really looking forward to. South Florida doesn't have stuff like that, at least not to the degree that this area does.

I taught myself to crochet around 5 years ago. Forgot how to do it. Then re-taught myself during my final semester in college. 6 months ago a co-worker taught me to knit. I like both, but I seem to be doing more knitting. Our niece is having her Bat Mitzvah in September and my cousin is getting married in November, so I'm gearing up to make a lovely shawl that I can wear for both occasions. I got a black dress for the Bat Mitzvah, I just need to get a more formal one for the wedding. I love the fact that I now have the time to do something like knit.

So overall, life is good. I'm going to try to post here more often and I need to post some pictures too.

Out with the old and so on...

We toyed around with the idea of selling our condo and moving about a year ago. I had absolutely no desire to deal with the mess of the housing market. It has improved a bit since then. I'm not sure how much, but I suppose enough so that it would be worth giving it a try.

With the prospect of selling our home comes "cleanup". I think I've mentioned that I'm a slob. My house isn't dirty, but it is cluttered and messy. (I prefer to think of it as "lived in" but I somehow doubt prospective buyers would see it that way.) Regardless, I've started the laborious process of purging. It is slow going. I need to pick up the pace though, because we desperately need to have the house painted before we list it. In order to paint, we must declutter.

What is the elephant in my computer room/office? The old Windows 98SE computer, circa 1999, sitting on a desk in my office. It hasn't been used since I bought the one I'm typing on 6 years ago. (Yup-6 year old XP. That's another post altogether.) It's literally collecting dust, along with the little desk it's sitting on. I have toyed with the idea of getting rid of the old clunker for years. Why haven't I? Because I haven't wanted to bother with the technical aspect of wiping the hard drive clean. I sat down and played with that today. I researched online about how to do it. (It's 98% complete as I type this!)

I turned on the computer and touched the mouse. As it happens, that mouse has rubberized parts on it. Those rubberized parts, after not being used for years, have become sticky and, well...icky. The mouse didn't want to work. I putzed around with it for about 10 minutes until it finally responded. (Oh goodie-I think it just finished reformatting.) I did it!

...And now, the piece of garbage isn't doing anything at all. I think it just might be fried. (I'm pretty sure it was supposed to clean everything clean and then reinstall 98SE.) I'm sure some techie somewhere can figure out how to get the thing to work. But I'm done with it. There really isn't any sensitive data on that machine anyway. So I have to get rid of the machine, keyboard, mouse, the old monstrosity CRT monitor and the little desk the whole mess is sitting on.

Maybe I'll just freecycle the little desk. I really don't have the time or energy to deal with freecycle this weekend.

Sigh... I suppose this is progress.

laptop repaired...sort of

I (finally) got my laptop back. My husband has a tech buddy who had it for a week. He tried all manner of things in his efforts to avoid wiping the hard drive clean. In the end, I was right-that's what it took. It's essentially a brand new computer, but I'm not terribly happy with it. That's not tech-guy's fault. The screen looks all stretched out (yes-I tried tweaking the screen settings, it didn't help) and Firefox keeps closing for no reason. I'm ready to kick it to the curb.

My goal is to replace the beast with a sleek Macbook within 6 months.

BSoD

My laptop crashed last night and I got the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death". Fortunately I don't keep too much of great importance stored on my laptop, so I'm not hyperventilating or having major heart palpitations. Now if my desktop crashed...well let's just say it would be quite the traumatic experience. (Note to self: back-up desktop with an external hard drive-ASAP!!!)

I mainly use my laptop to work on papers for school. I also use it to surf the net and play. There's a good chance I'm going to loose some school related items from past semesters, but nothing I'm in dire need of recouping. I'm not even sure it's worth it to try and retrieve anything. I'm thinking it might be easiest to just wipe the hard drive clean and reinstall XP. If I choose that route, I think now is the time to crack open my laptop and add some RAM memory. It really needs a bit more anyway.

edited to add: It seems that the backup disks that came with my laptop-the ones with xp-have mysteriously disappeared. Grrrrrr. How the hell am I supposed to reinstall the os when I can't find the os?

Bustin' out

I went to the mall today. (You know you're in the middle of a nasty recession when you visit a mall just a few weeks before Christmas, on a Sunday afternoon, and the crowds are no heavier than usual.) Today I was on a mission; I was hoping to buy a few new bras. I hate shopping. Bra shopping is particularly annoying. I can never seem to find anything that actually fits. As it happens, all of my bras are old and stretched out. I was getting a bit desperate. I've known for several years that I should get myself properly measured and fitted, but I've never known where to go. I know Macy's occasionally has fitters in their lingerie department, but when? I haven't a clue.

This afternoon I hit JC Penny first. My visit there was dismal and disappointing. I tried on 7-10 bras to no avail. Then I made my way over to Macy's. After half-heartedly, and a bit aimlessly, wandering the lingerie department a store employee walked by...a store employee who had a tape measure draped across her shoulders! "Excuse me ma'am. " I almost gasped. "Are you doing bra fittings?" It turned out that she was.

She pulled me into the fitting room. First she took the measurement for my band size. "34." She said. That sounded about right. Then she took the measurement for the cup size. "C." I thought I must have heard her wrong. She must have made a mistake, because I knew there was no way I would fill a C cup. I have rather small breasts. In high school and college (my first 2 years, immediately following high school) I didn't even fill an A cup. When I was nursing (I was the true 24 hour "Dairy Queen") I was a solid B cup, but Little Man was born almost 6 years ago. C cup?! That was just insane.

She saw the doubt etched across my face, so she measured once again and insisted I was indeed a 34 C. She kindly, but firmly, suggested I try on a few in that size. I figured I knew she was wrong, but I followed her advice anyway. Imagine my sheer surprise when I discovered that they fit! Shell-shocked and flabbergasted I tried on a 4-5 more in my new size and ended up buying 3. I'll probably go back in a week and buy a few more.

I drove home in a slight daze. 34 C isn't too shabby. My standard joke used to be that my bra size is triple-HA. (As in, "HA, HA, HA!") That joke just doesn't apply anymore.