A Tale of Two Women

I had to go show an office space my company owns to a prospective tenant this week. Immediately before I showed the space, I went to the office next door to talk to them about keys, janitorial service, etc.

The woman I talked to was named "Shasta". She was 28ish and drop dead gorgeous (if you are into a Barbie kind of good looks)--every one of her features was flawless. She had a picture of a 3 yr old boy on her desk. If the boy wasn't her son, he looked a heck of a lot like her. After talking to her for 10 minutes I got the strong feling she was single--I'm not quite sure why I got that impression so strongly, but the missing wedding ring was only a part of it.

20 minutes later Catherine, the prospective tenant, shows up. She's 55ish and scary looking. She was attractive from about 15 feet away, but when you got up close you could tell she'd had a lot of cosmetic surgery. She looked good if you were into a Michael Jackson/alien sort of look. She kept calling me "honey" and "sweetie" and touching me at every opportunity. I guarantee you that I could have asked this woman I had just met to have a drink with me later and ended up in bed with her. It was just tragic. Through her plastic shell she was exuding loneliness and brokenness and was looking for love in all the wrong places. I got out of there as quickly as I could.

It wasn't until I was driving home that I realized that Catherine and Shasta were the same woman. I would bet anything that the main thing separating them was thirty years. Shasta didn't flirt desperately, but that's because she could turn heads at the drop of a hat. Give her 30 more years of loneliness and she will probably call men "sweety" in a strained attempt to get whatever attention she can.

The American idols of sex and good looks are hell on women.

Flannery Again

"Mrs. Hopewell had no bad qualities of her own but she was able to use other people's in such a constructive way that she never felt the lack."
From the short story "Good Country People"--one of my all time favorites.

You Have to Love a Good Atheist

Pet Care by the unraptured.

My favorite quote:

He needs to assure the Rapture crowd that his pet rescuers are wicked enough to be left behind, but good enough to take proper care of the abandoned pets. To resolve that paradox he vets the atheists on two grounds: They must sign an affidavit to affirm their disbelief in God, but they must also clear a criminal background check.

You Have to Love a Good Atheist

Pet Care by the unraptured.

My favorite quote:

He needs to assure the Rapture crowd that his pet rescuers are wicked enough to be left behind, but good enough to take proper care of the abandoned pets. To resolve that paradox he vets the atheists on two grounds: They must sign an affidavit to affirm their disbelief in God, but they must also clear a criminal background check.

Good Stuff From Touchstone Magazine

"Sex education is being used to subvert sex; the very term is a camouflage for the sexualization and homosexualization of children. Sex ed is used to attack not only the individual but also the married couple, the husband and wife who together form the procreative parents of the family, which is the irreplaceable foundation of all societies. The very concept of male and female is being deconstructed into a mere “social construct.” The right understanding of marital sexual union is being subverted and replaced with a view of “sex” as any activity between any two (or more) persons that results in orgasmic sensation. The young are groomed for self-destructive promiscuity, with only subsidized condoms to defend their bodies against disease and nothing at all to safeguard their souls."

They are trying to raise the tobacco tax by 778%

from $2.83 a pound to $24.78 a pound.

Contact your rep now. Mash here to complain.

Just a Great Quote From Groucho Marx

"Outside of a dog a book is mans best friend. Inside of a dog it is to dark to read."

Wow

Very rarely to you get this in national television.

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The Problem

The problem with songs like Faith Hill's "A Baby Changes Everything" (besides being sappy Evangelical sentimentalism) is that they have a "hook". The hook in this work is that you think the song is talking about a modern day teenage girl who has gotten knocked up by her boyfriend. Halfway into the song you realize that it is talking about Mary.

The first time you hear it, you think that. The next 17 times you hear it, you "get it" much, much earlier.

Good Stuff

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An Astonishing Story

90% of the non sports television I watch is in front of a cardio machine at the "Y". Last week I saw a story about girl strippers/prostitutes in New Jersey. In NJ the age of consent is 16, so 16 year olds can strip and actually charge for sex as long as it's in private (I suppose that means they aren't having it on stage somewhere).

The reporter was obviously trying to pull at the audiences emotions, and actually got personally involved in the piece. She said things such as: "Can you believe men are allowed to ogle, lust after, and even have sex with these girls? It is twisted and sick. I get nauseous thinking about those dirty old men putting their paws on these girls." She went on and on about how demeaning it was to the girls.

First of all, I was floored to hear the "L" word. I have come to believe 1/3 of the American economy is based upon men lusting for women. We don't want to mess with that.

But I also thought that if it is "twisted and sick" to do all that to 16 year olds, is it so different for 18 or 21 year old women? I'm certainly against 16 year olds becoming strippers, but as a culture do we really think we are so morally superior because we require two more years before the ogling, lusting, fondling, and sex? Could we ever get the reporter to admit that the whole sex industry is "twisted and sick", and not just when teenagers are involved?

I doubt it.

I Can Only Imagine

Lamar Outdoor Advertising (who own most of the billboards in Alabama) refused to rent billboards such as the above. While I appreciate their stance, I also wonder what Christians are saying by such censorship. Are we afraid to imagine a world with no religion?

I would want no part of such a world. We have a hard enough time living up to the commands to love God and love others as we love ourselves. It would be a scary place--a world in which we think "this is it. Eat drink and do what you want to because in 100 years no one will care about anything".

Would you like to be President or molest a small child, have at it because it's all the same in the end. I can buy atheism, but I can't buy the atheism that says, "there is no God, there is no truth, but you shouldn't kill your grandmother for her millions, anyway." Maybe I'm just too thick between the ears, but the relativists' argument that we shouldn't kill or screw(literally or figuratively) each other because society can't survive, holds no water whatsoever. Why should I care if society survives or not? Why should I care about anything?

Was it Sarte that said the only relevant question for modern man was whether or not to commit suicide? I'm sorry to say, Mr. Sarte that if there is no God, even that question doesn't matter in the end.

Imagine a world like that.

Lesson from the farmers market

It matters not if your corn meal muffins are homemade with fresh hand ground corn and buttermilk made from your neighbor's cow...

if you burn the biscuits.

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Christianity--A Crutch for the Weak?

In college I had a student in Philosophy 101 class who said that Christianity was just a crutch for the weak. Immediately 10 or so other students (myself included) jumped all over her and said that was absolute crap. Many leaders, star athletes, politicians, authors--you could go on and on--were Christians.

I saw a similar quote about Christianity recently, and I had a markedly different response to it. "Yes," I thought, "Christianity is for the weak."

Think about who Christ hung around--prostitutes, tax collectors, fishermen--hardly the high class types.

And Christianity has often made in roads into the poor and downtrodden. Today in India it is the lowest of the castes where Christianity is spreading like wildfire.

And who can come to Christ in strength? We must come in weakness, admitting that we have nothing of our own to bring him, and are nothing without him.

I would probably say that Christianity is the legs of the weak rather than a crutch, but other than that, I have no quibble with the quote.

Thanks Again to Miss O'Connor

“What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”

Special Boy With Freakishly Large Brain Wins Spelling Bee