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Our Daily Thread 4-26-19

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!

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Today’s header pic is from Linda S., and features Chas and Charlie. 🙂

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Anyone have a QoD?

87 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-26-19”

  3. WHO ISTHAT UGLY CRITTER!
    And how did he get there.?
    Ain’t nothing safe anymore.
    You can’t trust your own DIL .

    You would think she would post a better looking picture of me.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have a better looking picture.

    Liked by 7 people

  5. Chas, there is a twinkle of love in your eyes for that little guy. That little guy will treasure that picture. No ugly about it.
    Bless Linda for sharing it with us.

    Liked by 6 people

  6. You might think the guy is ugly, but Charlie might grow up and love that picture. Not many get to meet their great grandparents, and unfortunately, not many young people today even know who their great grandparents are. I have students whose parents have divorced and remarried or shacked up with so many different partners, that they hardly know their own siblings and half-siblings.

    After that bit of odd news, I hope you can enjoy the comical side of the news. Well, some are serious related to the bombings in Sri Lanka.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. I got a call from my Aunt Sandy (She was married to my dad’s older brother, who died last April from bone cancer). My Aunt Virgie-May (my dad always called her that to her eternal dismay) has lung cancer. Are you seeing a pattern here? My Aunt Gabby died from breast cancer in 1994. My Aunt El is a breast AND lung cancer survivor. That is 4 of 12 siblings. My Uncle B died suddenly. He was going to the doctor that day because he had some issues, but “bled out” that morning as he was getting ready.
    I know that hate is a strong word but I HATE cancer.

    Liked by 5 people

  8. Last night there was a discussion on the prayer thread about women in the military and parents in the military and deployment. There were some strong opinions voiced. It prompted me to ask Mr. P what his plans were with his youngest two boys. One would have gone to his grandmother and the other to a friend. He had to have a plan in place. Of course, he wanted to know why I wanted to know that.
    The whole discussion reminded me of all of my peers who had joined the National Guard or the Reserves to pay for college when the first Gulf War happened. There were some whiners and their parents trying to get out of going. They didn’t sign up for that! They only signed up to get money for college! Even at a younger age, I thought, “Well, is that YOUR signature on the line? Buck up Buttercup, you are going to war”.
    I was lucky. I had smarted off to my father that I would join the Navy and see the world like he did. He said, “Young Lady, you will do no such thing!” I replied, “Yes sir” and that was the end of that.
    I may be cold hearted but if you have signed up, you do your duty!
    I will add this though, having a stepson in the Marines does make we very sensitive every time someone who has never served a day in the military blithely threatens military action. I think it would be good for our country to again have a President who had served. I think they would think twice before sending yours and my children off to war.

    Liked by 4 people

  10. I had the paperwork to join the Navy reserves. Later, when Wesley was a baby, I watched the news on tv at home while holding him in my arms, and I shuddered to think that could be me on the tv had I filled out that paper and signed my name.

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  11. The online Bible conference was really good. I wish I had been able to get all three days from the get-go, but I can go back and watch the recordings. Michelle could consider presenting next year and maybe get a new audience for her books.

    Liked by 2 people

  12. My eye seemed about the same last night. I am suppose to call the doctor’s office today and maybe get to go in. That is bad timing since this is the day that Art plans to take the office crew to lunch as an after tax season treat. That includes my brother, too. So my two rides need my schedule to coordinate with their plans.

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  13. Kim @ 7:01 says I have been blessed. She is right. Many blessings; too many to numerate here.
    However, during devotions this morning, I was thinking about that. I have narrowed them down to three life changing events.
    1. In July, 1949, Bobby Murray talked me into joining the Air Force.
    2. In 1953, Al Tolley asked me if I were a Christian.
    3. In October 1955, I invited Elvera Collins to lunch.

    You never know the outcome of small occurrences.

    Liked by 7 people

  14. Morning! What a precious photo to see upon opening this blog!! Chas there is none more dear than seeing great grandad and namesake regarding one another…with a twinkle in the eye!! Cherish the moments…..

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  16. Kim, and everywhere we went, we had to have forms filled out as to where our children would go if we were unable to care for them. The military wanted that in our minds so children would not be left abandoned on the wharf so to speak. A lot more advanced planning than most civilians have.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Last night as we let the dogs out one last time a WHOLE pack of wolves was howling to the north of us in the national park. Usually we only here 2 or 3 at a time. It was amazingly awesome. It’s funny how the coyotes all stop yapping when wolves are about 🙂 Maybe DJ needs to import some wolves to the neighbourhood 🙂

    Liked by 5 people

  22. What a great photo! Blessings upon blessings. And I love the “power point” version of Chas’ life highlights. 🙂

    Wolves. Or mountain lions. Yes, we think that might just chase those cy-otes on down the road alright.

    A home surveillance camera video has been going around of a guy trying to steal a car when a coyote comes up. The guy freaks out and starts running around the car to hide. This intrigues the coyote who, of course, follows and pursues …

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  26. Interesting discussion on military duty. While I agree one has to fulfill the terms of one’s contract, the terms seem odd. There are many other countries where women are in the military. Even in West Africa, women served in the military. The most well-known example in the U.S. is probably that of Israel, where women cannot get out of military duty unless they meet certain exemptions, those exemptions being religious reasons (and she has to be a practicing Orthodox Jew to get those exemptions), marriage, pregnancy, and motherhood.

    I am in favour of women being given military training, including combat training. History is littered with the tragedy of women being left as spoils to the victors in military invasions, and it is stupid to deny women the training they need to defend themselves in the event of such an invasion. In the recent awful conflict against ISIS, Kurdish women formed a 10,000 women strong unit: https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-women/ypj/. During World War II, in Eastern Europe, where the Nazis committed genocide against the Slavs as well as the Jews, women fought alongside the men in order to protect themselves – several Russian women in the USSR military set record sniper kills. But if a country wants to survive beyond a war, it also needs women to be mothers, and the years in which a woman is in optimum health for fighting are also the years she is in optimal health for having children. Women can and should be trained to fight, but their role as childbearers should be given equal value.

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  27. This cannot be good . At the social security office They called me Hazel then when she got my correct name she said my citizenship was listed “unknown”!!! She gave me a form to fill out and I am back in the waiting area You see some interesting things in a SS waiting area! Signing off for now Love Hazel If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow send in the troops!!!!

    Liked by 2 people

  30. Kim – Both my parents and my husband died of cancer. Also lost a couple grandparents, an aunt, and even a couple pets to cancer.

    Sometimes I take it for granted that I will eventually get some form of cancer myself, but then I remind myself that that is not necessarily true.

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  32. Our After-Easter Brunch is coming up this Sunday afternoon. Nightingale and I have been doing some much-needed spring cleaning to get the house looking nicer.

    This is the second year we’ve put on this brunch, and we are thinking of making it an annual event. Last year we had two friends and their children come over, and this year we are having those two ladies plus two other ladies (one has one child, the other has no children).

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  36. Military: well, sure Roscuro, but that is not how we have elected to do it here. We have determined that men and women are equal, in all things (except clothing expectations). It would be very unfair to allow a woman off just because of a pregnancy or a child or two or seven. This is where we are. Women (not all) wanted to be in combat. So that is where we are. No excuses, ma’am. The military does what it can to uphold what we have demanded.

    Liked by 1 person

  37. Back in wars before, men had exemptions. Young unmarrieds could be called. Then married with no children. Then married with one child. etc. My dad, though not intentionally, fit right into each exemption as it came up.

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  38. Daughter thinks perhaps they will deport me due to my unknown citizenship I told her I would take an all expenses paid deportation to Ireland! Is the name Hazel an Irish origin?

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  42. Mumsee, it has much less to do with equality for women (N.B. the opposite of equality is inequality) and much more to do with having a standing military alongside a large civilian population. In Israel, women also campaigned for equality in the military (the role of women in the Israeli army has not been always the same since its formation), and they got it, but the exceptions remained. With nearly everyone a part of the military, to not grant exemptions for women around marriage and childbirth would be to condemn the country to rapid extinction with a generation or so. In the U.S., there are plenty of civilian women to do the childbearing.

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  43. Well, Roscuro, we are not Israel. We are the US of A and the women here have been seriously infected with meism. Not all, of course, but a significant enough number that we are where we are. In an ideal world, it would not be so.

    Me me me. I want to fly fighter jets. Oops, I changed my mind. Now I am pregnant and you should excuse the millions of dollars that went into my education and training because I want out.

    Me me me, I want to be a sniper. Oops, changed my mind. My baby is too cute to leave behind. You will have to excuse the hundreds of thousands of dollars that went into my training and time and resources, because my baby needs me.

    Me me me, I don’t think it is fair that he can drive a tank and I can’t. Oops….

    Me me me, I don’t think it is fair that he can Captain a ship and I can’t. Oops…

    Most women who go in, understand or at least hold to their commitment for the few years required to fulfill their obligation. But there are some who don’t seem to get it.

    And there are others with no desire to serve who will find themselves forced to because of the me me me’s.

    Lest you think I don’t know what I am talking about: Mike served over twenty with me alongside for most of it. retired Major
    One brother in law, retired Colonel.
    Three sons in the military, One is making a career as an Air Force officer. Two got out after their enlistment.
    One daughter in law. Out after her years as an officer.
    One daughter. Enlisted
    One son in law. Enlisted

    Liked by 3 people

  44. Mumsee, and how many men try to get out after their training has been paid for? Being self-centred is not an exclusively female trait. Men and women are equally endowed with the impulse to place themselves first.

    As a healthcare practitioner, I totally reject the portrayal of the urge to remain with one’s baby as being simply a whimsy on the part of the mother. Maternal and paternal care are essential to the well being of infants, and because the woman is the one physiologically capable of providing nutrition to the baby, her care is the one that most societies over the millennia have tried to guarantee in hard circumstances such as war. The alternative to giving birth is aborting the child, – something that modern society encourages women with inconvenient pregnancies to do. The alternative to raising one’s own child is giving the child into protective custody – and government foster care systems are notoriously inefficient. A military that does not see human reproduction as being essential to the welfare of the country they claim to protect does not have their priorities straight.

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  45. My MIL was in the Marines during World War II. Back then, women did the jobs that needed to be done stateside or in offices, or as medical help.

    A few years ago, I read an article about how the equipment that soldiers need to carry on their persons causes much more stress and damage to a woman’s body than it does to a man’s. And in war, rape is almost a given if captured. But let’s not let facts like these stand in the way of “equality” and progress. Right, Mumsee?

    I used “equality” with quotation marks because the kind of equality that many feminists seek should actually be called “sameness” or some other such word. As Roscuro pointed out, the opposite of equality is inequality. But most of us old-fashioned women who don’t want that kind of “equality” recognize that women are indeed equal, but we are also different, and different is not worse or better.

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  46. Yikes! We are having a crazy thunderstorm with heavy rain and hail, and even a tornado warning. But the weatherman on the channel I put on says it’s a very slim chance, that the rotation seen on the radar is thousands of miles up, and even that has petered out.

    I hope it calms down before I have to get The Boy from the bus stop in a bit.

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  47. One thing that really irks me about the polarization of views in modern society is how much each side agrees with the other side, even while violently disagreeing with each other. Take the idea of women’s equality. In the early feminist movements, it was often Christian women spearheading movements toward equality, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, whose essays “Are women human?” and “The human not quite human”, which speak about women being allowed opportunities for study and employment are still relevant today. But in the mid-20th century, feminism got sucked into the Sexual Revolution and that machine spit out abortion rights as the goal of feminism.

    Abortion simply allowed men who wanted to seduce women to do so without fear of being held responsible for paternity support, laying the foundation for sexual harassment in the workplace and the resulting MeToo movement. The result is that both liberalism and conservatism equate equal rights for women now with only destruction of women’s reproductive capabilities – only one side sees it positively and the other negatively.

    Those who are actually able to see that women’s equality in society and women’s reproductive role are both causes worth fighting for usually end up being called conservative by liberals and liberal by conservatives. But, then again, those who were right in history were often the ones hated by both sides.

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  48. When we were in, the military was generally conservative. That has changed a bit. A lot of conservatives trying to fit in the demand for women being equal. They know they are not physically equal and they tried giving different physical training to meet that but ended up lowering the standards for all. A soldier still has to be able to carry his pack, his rifle, and his comrade so the reality has not changed. Just the training standards so people who could not meet the standards, could be in too.

    Both moms and dads are important to the rearing of children. I guess that is why the Romans did not allow marriage for their soldiers. And other folk along the way. Remember the St Valentine story?

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  49. Kizzie, women fought in World War II. Most of those women in combat were on the Eastern front, as the war and Nazis occupation were far more brutal in Eastern Europe than Western Europe – the Nazis viewed the Slavs as racially inferior, while viewing Western Europeans as being of Germanic descent (a deep irony for my part Polish sibling in-law who views the Nazis as being misunderstood) – and the partisan units of Eastern Europe as well as the Russian army had women in combat. There were, however, some women in combat roles in Western Europe, particularly among the Resistance. North American and even British women did not have to deal with the war directly on their own soil (the British were bombed but not invaded), so they did not have such a pressing need to pick up arms as the women in occupied Europe.

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  50. The East Asian front was different again. There were women at least in Mao Zedong’s army that fought the Japanese – the Canadian missionary writer Isobel Kuhn wrote about encountering one of Zedong’s female soldiers in southern China. The Chinese basically had to become one unified army of men, women, and children in their fight to survive the Japanese invasion – the rape of Nanjing had been a horrible foretaste of what they could expect from the Japanese conquerors. When wars become fights for survival against a genocidal invader, and not simply the chessboard political maneuvers of competing armies as had been the case in Europe during the 1700s and 1800s, then excluding women from combat simply leaves them as prey to the invaders.

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  51. Hi everybody. I’m way behind on here, what with being busy with district auditions business in March, then my only computer going completely kaput a few days later. New one’s up and running now, as of last week, and am I ever glad to see this beautiful header today!

    Playing catch-up:

    Peter, from April 8: “It looks like those North of me (6 arrows?) are going to be in the weather Twilight Zone Wednesday. Places in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and/or Wisconsin are due for 12+ inches of snow, according to our weatherman.”

    Yep, I’m farther north than you, though my state may or may not appear in your list above. 🙂 And, yes, we got hit — but only about 4 inches. Two days before that, we had two small patches of snow still lingering from the winter; one day before that, we were down to one patch of snow, and then… let it snow, let it snow, let it snow, someone said the next day.

    It melted faster than the winter snow, though, and is all gone now, until…tomorrow. When I have a piano concert, of course. Sigh. I hope we don’t get the five inches that I’ve heard is predicted.

    On Easter Sunday, it was 85°. Life in the Midwest, in all its predictable unpredictability.

    Hope you’ve all been well. Now back to the April 8th daily thread to see more of what’s been going on in your lives, friendly wanderers… 🙂

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  52. They’re doing a “shelter in place” at the schools, so the buses will be late. That’s a good idea.

    Now here’s a story of something that happened to me yesterday . . .

    Shortly before having to get The Boy from the bus stop, and while Nightingale was getting ready to leave for work, I was bringing the trashcans back down the lane. Although I had gone out wearing my sweater, I took it off because it was warmer than I expected, and hung it on one of the porch railing posts. After bringing the trashcans back, I went to go back inside the house, only to discover that Nightingale had locked the door!

    Kicking myself (not literally) for not having my keys, I briskly walked next door and asked Denise to text her that she had locked me out of the house. Although not quite panicking, I was worried about when she would get the text, and how long I would have to hang around outside. In the meantime, we walked up to the bus stop, where Denise told Tonya and Mark (neighbors who live in the apartment house on the other side of me – and used to live in my house) what had happened.

    Turns out that Mark has a device for picking locks. It took him two seconds (maybe even less) to pick our lock.😲 (Good thing she didn’t lock the deadbolt, but now I know even more why it’s a good idea to do so.)

    So I went inside to get my keys. Couldn’t find them. Know where they were?

    They were in my sweater pocket, and my sweater was still outside. I wasn’t really locked out after all. 😂 Oh, boy, did I feel dumb!

    So I determined that I was not gonna mention that part to the folks at the bus stop, but then I confessed anyway. We all had a good laugh. Now Nightingale has one more thing to add to her “Reasons Why I Should Put Mommy in a Home” list.​ 😀

    Liked by 4 people

  53. I started writing that before I had to go out to the bus stop. When the thunder and lightning began anew, I realized that standing there under an umbrella was not an especially bright thing to do. So I took Denise up on her offer to get into her van to wait with her and Tonya for the bus. Good thing I did, because we had another heavy downpour.

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  54. So, Kizzie, women captured in combat, whether they are soldier or civilian, risk rape. Also, as I remember from the graphic reports of what the Serbians did to both the Muslim women and men of Kosovo during that genocide, which took place in my lifetime, rape as a weapon of war is not only wielded on women.

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  55. Roscuro – What you are describing are cases where there was no other choice. Indeed, if we were invaded, and there were not enough men in our military to fight off the invaders, then of course women should step up and do what needs doing. But as Cheryl has pointed out, our “wars” of late have not been defending our homeland, but trying to be the world’s policemen.

    Except for Deborah and Jael, are there any other biblical examples of women fighting in war? Would the fact that it was the men who were counted for military service in the Old Testament have any application in today’s world?

    Btw, to clarify my comment about “equality”, I am not against the original feminist fight for true equality before the law, and in society. There may still be some areas that need straightening out.

    As you pointed out, the aim of feminism has changed. And many of today’s feminists seem to take an anti-male stance, but there are also still many who have a more mature and nuanced view of feminism.

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  56. Kizzie, I have a story like that on myself from earlier this week.

    We have two walking trails that are quite close to my home, and it’s not uncommon for me to walk over and do one or both of the trails. If my husband is home sleeping, I leave him a note that I’m going, but usually I go by myself.

    Two days ago I took a third trail, this one requiring me to drive to it. I got there and got out of the car and realized I’d left my camera at home, so I came back and got it, walked the trail, and then came home.

    Our driveway can be seen from the main street, and as I passed it I glanced over and said to myself, “Oh, my husband must not be home. The car isn’t there.” It took just a second to say, “OK, Cheryl, you must have left something beside the camera at home. The car isn’t home because I am driving it!” I told him and he laughed.

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  58. Both of my siblings have been in the military. I considered it, but got married and had a family instead. My sister retired from the navy. One of her duties when stationed in San Diego was overseeing those sea’persons’ that were pregnant. She did some hand holding and lots of encouraging to follow through with duty and comittments.

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  59. Kizzie, what was done in Israel (military enlistment, inheritance laws, courtship, etc.) isn’t necessarily a biblical requirement for today. I know people who say that the only queen in Israel (or Judah? I forget) was a usurper, that the throne was supposed to be only for men, and thus it is illegitimate for women to hold office in the USA. But biblically that’s an invalid argument. We are simply never told that women should never hold office in any time or any place. (We are told they should not be elders in the church.)

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  61. Kizzie, about Biblical examples: a good many conservative American Christians wholeheartedly support modern Israel – to the point that to express legitimate reservations about some of Israel’s policies is to risk being branded anti-Semitic – so that the same conservatives who would cite the Old Testament in support of women not being in combat in the American military do not seem to have a problem with women in the Israeli military, despite the fact that modern Israel is supposed to be an eschatological fulfillment in reviving the Israel of the Old Testament.

    I would point out that the time to train women to fight is not when invaders are on a nations’ borders. To only allow women to be trained to fight when the case is desperate is to ensure that they will not have enough time to be properly trained.

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  62. After LOTS of rain the last couple of days I got outside again today, down to my pond and one of the walking trails. And it is really and truly spring. Here is some of what I saw:

    Next to the pond was a family of Canada geese, both parents and four very young goslings. I thought they were going for their first swim, but a man said he saw them there yesterday. Anyway, I watched the family group for a while, including seeing them go into the pond and swim.

    A red-winged blackbird was singing in the grasses near the pond, and I zoomed in and got what I think is a very good photo of him. But I heard nest noises, and figured there was a red-winged blackbird nest down there too, and suspected it more when I saw the female fly away. So I looked a little bit and saw my very first red-winged blackbird nest, and possibly a second one. (I know we had many, many nests in northern Indiana, but the grasses were so thick there was no way to see the nests; females would leave their nests not by flying but by crawling away through the grasses, and you had no way of knowing where she came from.)

    On the trail, I heard a sound in the grass and looked over to see a female tearing dried grass from the ground, to use as nesting material. I also photographed a grove of bluebells that I saw there a few days ago. (Wednesday I found my first pawpaw tree with flowers, though I didn’t know what it was when I saw it. But it was beautiful.)

    Coming home, the geese were back on my side of the pond, so I watched them again for a while. And then I went through the parking lot of a local restaurant that only serves lunch and dinner (but is packed for those meals), because a few days ago I saw a nest of a large bird that is being built in a tall sycamore tree next to the lot, and I wanted to see how much farther along it is, and possibly even see a parent bird and see what species of bird it is–and also, hopefully, to get it used to me coming and going so that I can take photos of the nest in action in a few weeks. A hawk was in a nearby tree, but not in a position to get good photos, so I moved my position a little, and without meaning to, I spooked the bird. It turned out to be a red-shouldered hawk, with nesting material in her beak, so that should answer the question of what species is making the nest. My first hawk nest, and it’s really high off the ground, but building next to the parking lot of a busy restaurant should make the hawks get used to people, and hopefully I’ll get a chance at photos.

    Multiple other species of flower are also in bloom, including dogwoods and tulips, but I found the nesting birds particularly interesting.

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  63. I’ll quickly comment that the US does not have a draft–it’s a volunteer force. People sign up for the military and they often get bonus dollars for doing so.

    Once sworn in, they are subject to the UCMJ–Uniformed Code of Military Justice which protects you in some areas and waives your rights in others.

    Mumsee was trying to help you understand that when a government opts to spend $100,000 you have a service obligation. My husband had to agree to serve three more years when he “re-upped” with a bonus. The Navy had spent a lot of money and 18 months of pay/benefits/moves–to train him to run a nuclear reactor.

    They insisted he “re-up” for three more years after the Navy–you all–paid for him to attend three years of post-graduate school. (In his case, you–the Navy–more than made up for those three years because of the amount of money he saved while doing his job using that training).

    You don’t think it’s “cheating,” to sign up for military service, get the training and then announce you are pregnant so you can walk away from your commitment?

    I’m not going to argue that moms and babies should be separated, I don’t think they should.

    However, when people deliberately take advantage of the system, there’s a problem. This is the best the military has been able to come up with to deal with unexpected pregnancies or parents who sign up knowing they will have to be deployed at some point.

    In addition to that, unit cohesion is important–you have to be able to trust the people you train with will be there when you need them.

    Note, the US has never revealed the military pregnancy rates during the Gulf War–they don’t want people to know how many women deliberately got pregnant to avoid service overseas.

    They were sent home, yes, but they still needed to honor their commitment

    Trust me, the military hands out contraception like candy. They do not perform abortions, they accommodate the pregnancies, but they expect servicepeople to return to work.

    Civilians at least have a choice. But most companies expect women to whom they’ve paid maternity leave will return. Again, it goes back to the expense of training.

    Many people fought against having women in the military–some of that fight went out prior and after the Gulf War, which is how I know the pregnancy rates were never released.

    Most of the women pushing for women in combat were NOT the “grunts” on the ground–the soldiers and sailors–they were the well educated female flyers who wanted the glory.

    Many women, for good reason, left the military after that because battle is not what they signed up for.

    As often happens, the elites ruled the day and the “lesser mortals” had to pay the price.

    Back to work for me.

    Liked by 2 people

  64. Oh, and it’s highly political in the upper echelons of the military. Senior military officers refuse to touch the arguments since it’s not politically correct.

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  65. Hazel busted out of that place in two and a half hours. The kind young fella explained to me that when Colorado switched over their computer information a while back many mistakes were made. All information was manually entered..would you not think they could download info and transfer it to the “updated” system. He said instead of going back and fixing the thousands of mistakes , they made the decision to update info as citizens came in for one reason or another….that is why my citizenship was listed as “unknown”! I’m truly not certain where Hazel came from….but she did have red hair did she not?! 👩‍🦰

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  67. Had I not been a chronic asthmatic, I would have considered the military as an avenue for my medical training – I actually did look into it. As a civilian student, I paid for my living expenses and my tuition and received no pay for the work that I did in clinical. I now have a student debt to pay off. I cannot blame those who saw the military as a route to gaining the education they needed, as unpaid internships as a mandatory part of training are the bane of many civilian students’ existence. Those of my fellow students who worked were informed by the university that they needed to put their jobs on hold in order to complete the required hours of training.

    Is it cheating to get pregnant after signing up and training for the military? I would ask one question in return. How is one able to judge if a woman deliberately gets pregnant? There is no form of birth control that is one hundred percent effective, short of surgical removal of the reproductive glands. The God of Creation still asserts His sovereignty over the opening and closing of the womb.

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  68. My friend and I went to the Pet Expo and bought … nothing. I think we were both sufficiently stunned by the hot dog lunch that cost $20. And admission has gone up to $15 now, it used to be $7 or maybe $10? Parking (I paid this year as she drove) was $9.

    But it was a fun day, good to catch up with her.

    And we got to look at the cute puppies and kittens there for adoption.

    It’s nice to have a real “day off.”

    Glad Hazel made it out of Dante’s First Circle of Hell.

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  70. On the ‘slave Bible’: http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/04/41620/
    ‘In 1807, British missionaries, eager to spread Christianity to all parts of the British Empire, began carrying to the West Indies copies of deeply abridged Bibles. They were intended for use by enslaved Africans laboring under the hot sun on sugar plantations. Slavery was viewed as vitally important to the economic system of the British Empire—which is why these so-called “Slave Bibles” omitted portions of Scripture that might give slaves dangerous ideas.

    ‘For instance, the story of the Exodus, which describes how God used Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt, has been omitted entirely. After all, this stirring story might inspire Caribbean slaves to seek freedom, as well.

    ‘Deuteronomy 23:15 commands that “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee,” so that had to be eliminated, too.

    ‘The warning in Jeremiah 22 (“Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness . . . that useth his neighbor’s service without wages and giveth him not for his work) is also missing.

    ‘So is Galatians 3:28, which teaches that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free . . . for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” That’s understandable. If we are all children of God, if we are all one in Christ, Africans might start wondering why they must spend their entire lives working without pay for their fellow Christians—that is, people who own the plantations.

    ‘Shockingly, Slave Bibles contain portions of just 14 of the 66 books in the Protestant Bible: 90 percent of the Old Testament and 50 percent of the New Testament have been stripped away. Among the passages that stayed in: Verses from Ephesians and 1 Peter, urging servants to obey their masters (without explaining how greatly ancient slavery differed from slavery in the eighteenth century).

    ‘Slave owners were also happy to have their slaves read Luke 12:47, in which Jesus tells a story about a disobedient servant: “And that servant, which knew His Lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”

    ‘What a comforting verse THAT must have been to the Africans while they were being lashed.

    ‘Obedience to one’s master, it turns out, was a key reason for spreading the Gospel among the slaves. The Rev. Beilby Porteus, founder of the Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction and Education of the Negro Slaves, told his publisher to “Prepare a short form of public prayers for them . . . together with select portions of Scripture . . . particularly those which relate to the duties of slaves toward their masters.”

    ‘As the Slave Bible exhibit points out, “The publishers emphasized portions that justified and fortified the system of slavery . . . This allowed missionaries to ‘save’ the souls of enslaved Africans even as they condemned their bodies to servitude.”’

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  71. Re women in the military: yes, a person who has signed up to get “free college” and then wants to walk away should not be able to do so. But then, a person who drives drunk and gets into an accident shouldn’t walk away free and clear, either.

    Part of the problem is that the military has emphasized perks so much that people join for the perks–and I can’t imagine that makes for the strongest possible military. Didn’t it used to be the case that one could be eligible for the free college after serving a certain number of years? Would something like that be feasible?

    A few months ago a high school girl sat at the same table as I did at a church event; I had not met her previously. She was enrolled in some sort of high school military group, and she was excited about it, and possibly a career in the military. Why did she sign up? In her words, because the recruiters were so cute. Well, sorry, but I hate to see people make life-altering, family-separating decisions because of stupid teenage decision making. As long as recruiters are pushing a career in the military as a wonderful decision with lots of perks, recruiting at baseball games, recruiting with fun and games, my sympathy is going to be with the young people. And a person who wants to leave should be required to pay back any benefits that have been given but have not been earned–and I do mean required–but it should be possible to leave.

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  72. They still do that. People serve their enlisted time and get out with the GI bill to pay for college. Officers have generally completed college prior to going in. Both of those stations allow for lots of education, but the education they get during their time of service (rather than working, school is their job for which they get paid along with the education) is expected to be paid back through work.

    One of my sons went to college with the Air Force paying. He dropped out of college and found a job. In due time, the Air Force showed up and told him it was pay back time. He then spent four years as enlisted in the Air Force. It is how it works.

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  75. Maybe in sharing the link about the slave Bible? (I don’t know for certain, but that was my guess, as you did not include any of your own commentary with that.)

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  79. As with most things in life, you can’t have it both ways.

    I spent today in a real estate class, At Home With Diversity. This time the instructor was an Arab Christian of Jewish descent. His parents immigrated from Lebanon when he was a small boy. He is now 74. His parents would not teach him Arabic, they were Americans now and he needed to learn English. He was delightful. I loved his teaching style. He told me what I needed to do to become a Florida Real Estate Instructor as they do not have enough….and Boy! Do they need some!!!
    I feel like I learned quite a bit from him and this is the THIRD time I have taken this class since becoming a real estate agent.

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  80. Kim – Hubby’s dad’s family immigrated to northern Maine from a French-speaking area in Canada. Hubby’s dad only knew French when he went to school, and he struggled to learn English. So he refused to teach Hubby any French.

    That reminds me that my own dad took German in high school, and his German-born dad helped him with his homework. Unfortunately, colloquial German and the kind they teach in high school are quite different, so that “help” didn’t help. Dad didn’t continue with it after that class.

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  81. I always thought your last name was French Canadian, Kizzie. It saddens me to hear when someone loses their parental tongue, there is so much history and culture embedded in a language that to be unable to speak the one your forefathers spoke is to lose a large part of one’s history and contributes to a sense of loss and disorientation. It is like removing an ancient landmark (Proverbs 22:28).

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  84. As I have said, there have always been evil people. There have always been people who take what God has given and twist it. There have always been people who say Christians are evil because in the Bible it says to stone your child if he sasses the parents. Nothing new here.

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  86. It is not a small or routine matter to God when His words are twisted to justify evil. The Bible says that those who work evil in the name of Christianity cause the way of truth to be blasphemed (II Peter 2:2). Those who claim to be Christians and use their religion as a cloak for evil (I Peter 2:16) are held to greater responsibility than the world (James 3:1). Jesus warned that those who called him Lord and worked iniquity would be rejected by him (Matthew 7:21-23). Those who twist Scripture to work evil ends are the unrighteous servants who see that their Lord delays his coming and begin to beat their fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunken (Matthew 24:48-51). Jesus called such apparent Christians the same thing he called the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. The Lord had mercy on those broken in sin, and kept his fury for those who had the truth and abused it.

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