Post-Pope: He Came, He Went, He Didn’t Mention Condoms
Like most areligious people, I find the institution of the pope both fascinating and somehow repulsive. That freaky thing: if one dies they just create a new one. Like vampires or something. The actual pope, His Popeness, is generally a nice guy (at least in recent history, not so for some of those medieval guys!).
But the institution of the pope is steeped in overtly history-shaping doctrine that, in my humble opinion, has lead directly to planetary overpopulation. NOT a good thing. Here we are, reaching out from the 21st century, only to find that we’ve polluted the planet, we’re still fighting god-knows how many wars, and now food shortages and possibly, reaching peak oil. All directly relate to overpopulation and/or scarcity of resources.
There are some aspects of the Catholic faith which my Catholic friends have taken great advantage of, namely, you can sin and then — poof! — you can also be forgiven! Yay! Catholics know how to party. And apparently, also know how to have a lot of sex. Thus, there are many many Catholics, especially in third world countries. More every day. No problem, except for the destitute underfed children searching in dumps for dinner scraps. The pope still refuses to acknowledge that disallowing birth control is bad for his followers. Has he never seen those poor little kids in Mexico City? Or those ragged-clothed twenty-seven year old women in Guatemala with six children? Ugh. I think his pope hat’s too heavy. It’s pressing down on the reasoning portion of his brain.
Oh, How We Need Bush to Leave Office
Greenhouse, greenhouse, greenhouse. Gases, gases gases. The loveliness just keeps rolling in. I voted for Ah-nold. I am mostly a democrat, something of a libertarian, but I voted for Schwartzenegger and I’m proud because the man has held up his end of the deal, at least where it comes to environmental policy. The Bush administration, et al, is just tearing the last of the flesh from the decimated environmental laws with this new federal proposal. This morning’s paper illustrated the underhanded pro-oil, pro-car manufacturers stance of the Bush jackasses:
Tucked deep into a 417-page “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” was language by the Transportation Department stating that more stringent limits on tailpipe emissions embraced by California and 17 other states are “an obstacle to the accomplishment” of the new federal standards and are “expressly and impliedly preempted” by federal law.
California is already suing the federal government (EPA) for the right to implement tougher emission standards. Hello conservative Republicans?? Get on this guy! Remember the Tenth Amendment?
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
California has led the way on environmental legislation for decades. The Bush Administration continues to the desperate end in their pursuit of extraordinary federal and executive control. Guess what Bushies?? The country belongs to the people. And California belongs to its forward thinking residents.
My Treasured Collection
Many people collect things. Seashells, buttons, stamps, old cars. People (including me) feel a deep need for order, for the visual satisfaction of similarly grouped items. The order is suffused with the memory of each event that brought a new item to the group. I feel all of this and more with my collection. Me? I collect Funny Wiener Emails. Scoff if you will, but there’s a mighty joy and a rush of pleasure (of a different sort!) when I open my spam folder and find a gem hidden there amongst the lowly trivial viagra ads. Imagine my delight when I found “turn that trouser mouse into a monster schlong.” Trouser mouse! The brilliance! Or another of my favorites, “rise from the dead ye little head.” It is at once nasty and explicit, while at the exact moment, the perfect poetic metaphor!
Here it is ladies and gents, my Funny Wiener Email collection:
Free Range Kids, or Not…
Have you been following the free range debate? See www.freerangekids.com to catch up if you’ve missed out on the brouhaha.
The issue is whether or not to let your kids roam free and unsupervised, and if so, when and where and how much?
I’m sure there are many parents out there who feel confused and unsure about making declarative statements about this type of thing. Yes, helicopter-style parenting is bad. Doing your children’s homework for them is bad. There seems to be a general consensus that being overly cautious is bad, bad, bad. Unless your kid gets hurt, in which case, it’s obvious the parent did something wrong, probably neglectful.
I am truly perturbed by the fully overblown paranoia of schools, afterschool classes, and organizations like girl scouts over litigation prevention. I would never sue any institution, short of true malfeasance or gross neglect (NOT minor oversight, only GROSS neglect). But my contemporaries don’t agree with me. When I complain about the requirements for waivers, permission slips, health forms, etc., I am thought of as a difficult woman who needs to get over the obvious: bad things happen and we need to be prepared. The school (or fill in blank) can’t afford to get sued, and you don’t want to lose your house if you’re chaperoning, do you?
When I let me kids ride up and down the street on scooters without helmets, I am practically sending them to their deaths. Not to mention, it is now criminal to let your kids out of doors on wheeled vehicles without helmets. I am not so against the helmets. If your kids are going fast, far, or near fast-moving traffic, they’re mandatory in my house, too. But where did my right to use my judgment go?
Free-rangers argue that children need to be trusted and respected when they decide they are able to make decisions. Only their own parents know when they’re ready, not society at large. But there is such a societal force at work, driven by liability avoidance, that we really can’t argue about kids in isolation from this larger cultural movement which seeks to save us from ourselves. Seat belts, motorcycle helmets, vaccinations, 55mph speed limits, insurance required by law, workman’s comp… It just stretches out larger and larger. It’s so far beyond an argument about kids and how far away from the house they’re allowed to go. It’s about all of us losing our individual rights, and all of the people who demand to be protected.
Protected from what? Well, here in America, we want to be protected from everything. Everything that would cause us physical harm, including terrorists, drug users, cigarettes. Sharp edges, transfats, doctors who make mistakes. But don’t you dare come near anyone’s God-given right to make a buck. Or in the case of liability paranoia, anyone’s ability to keep a buck even if they do something wrong since they’ve got an army of lawyers on their side.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I’ve become a Libertarian. I want my rights back. Sadly, like taxes and military budgets, it seems to be a one-way land grab. I’ll keep working on letting my kids expand their territory, their right to explore the world on their own terms. Who’s working on mine?
Somebody Stop the Plastic
First, apologies since this is not a new thought. (At least I hope it’s not!)
My daughter participated in a school-sponsored event this week: jump rope for heart health, or something like that. She collected donations for jumping rope continuously for ten minutes. Exercise to raise money. Great
But then the American Heart Association had to send her home with goodie-bag-like prizes: completely worthless plastic crap good for nothing but the trashcan. One smelly yellow plastic water bottle that surely leaches PBTs or TRBs or some unpronounceable chemical acronym. And one cheap plastic jump rope that’s so lightweight it doesn’t hit the ground when it’s time to jump over.
Really. Seriously. We don’t need these things. My daughter is proud to contribute to the effort and is no longer a self-centered preschooler (thank god!) who just wants something for herself.
At what point do people actually start to react in a reasonable way to rejecting plastic crap? I think I’ll go write a letter to the American Heart Association.
Where’s My Laundry Folding Machine?
Let’s play SCIENCE FACT or SCIENCE FICTION!
I’ll describe some kind of technological wonder and you guess if it’s SCIENCE FACT or SCIENCE FICTION, okay? If you get all the answers right, I’ll email you a chocolate sundae!
Here’s number one: Scientists are working hard to create a space elevator that will ride up and down from space on a ribbon made of microscopic carbon nanotubes.
Your answer here! Science fact!
Next quiz item: Researchers in Japan have developed an extremely lifelike robot complete with sensitive gums for dental students to practice upon. When the robot feels pain, it yelps!
Your answer here! Science fact!
Next quiz item: Technology for the military enthusiast now includes a rapid firing machine gun system that shoots bullets using electronic propulsion rather than old smelly gunpowder. The gun is completely silent, operates with zero kickback, zero heat, and zero smoke.
Your answer here! Science fact!
Next quiz question: Scientists in Denmark have recently developed a “household laundry aid” that shuttles clothing and other textiles directly from the dryer to a self-contained sorting and folding unit. The unit operates at 20 items per minute on average, folding and sorting the average laundry batch in under three minutes.
You answer here! SCIENCE FICTION!!
No offense to the flip-fold folks, since I’m sure they mean well, but a stinking folding plastic board?!?!? You can tell who does all the inventing and product development in the world. (Hint: **no boobies** Well, except for the overweight, nerdy-type inventor who we really don’t need to picture.)
Where in high-tech heaven is my laundry folding machine?!
I have, in fact, invented an RFID based prototype which I’ve yet to patent. Anyone interested in buying one?
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