A farmer who sought to knock off some coyotes on his farm–in an effort to increase the wild turkey population–ended up getting a felony conviction for killing bald eagles.
13 years later, President Bush pardoned him.
But for 13 years, Leslie Owen Collier carried the burden of being a convicted felon.
Remember that when you think of the government as your friend.
I’d even suggest that our federal government is the second largest terrorist organization in the world, next to Red China.
I cannot remember where or who wrote the comment here, but someone commented how some people view singles with envy because they have so much time on their hands.
In our humanity we rarely see the whole picture unless we’re living it. I have been told by another that she envied me because I had time alone every other weekend when my girls went to their dad’s. I think I just left it alone.
I’m up in the wee hours listening to my Oldest cough in her sleep. She was born with allergies that cause much congestion. We spent many a night holding her as she slept so we could keep her elevated. We suctioned out her nose and throat often through the days and nights. When she was about two years old, I would prop her up on the couch, put in a nine-hour video of pre-recorded kids shows, and go back to sleep. I knew the video would not finish before I woke up for the day, and watching TV distracted her enough to calm her system so she could eventually fall asleep.
She’s resistant to every OTC and prescription cough med out there. Now, she just toughs it out. She can cough for a looong time in her sleep before waking up. She takes an inhaler for her asthma and a nose spray and eye drops for her allergies before bed. Most of the time it’s enough. The last week or so it’s not been.
My Youngest has an infection with rash. I took her into the doctor and got an antibiotic for her. This antibiotic has a high probability of making her sick, and she already has lots of problems with her whole gut system.
My fiance spent the day Saturday with a chain saw cutting up the tree that fell in our yard a week ago. I am VERY thankful it did not damage anything … the tips of the tree branches hit the house and fence. The kids begged him to leave it up for a week so they could climb and play on it. The kids won. But fears of rot and the tree becoming dangerous as supporting limbs gave way meant it had to be chopped for fire wood. A man with a chain saw and a tree on a cold day; he was a happy man.
I helped with the tree stuff, did some mending on the sewing machine, took my daughter to the doctor, cared for my kids, and my laundry pile is screaming for attention … or rather, my laundry mountain!
I am often tired, rarely well rested, always behind in most things that need to be done, always taking care of what must be done as Momma. There is little space left in the memory of my brain for anything extra.
I remember days when I did not have children, longed for children, had so much time. I look at elderly women and realize these days with kids are fleeting. Someday I will have an empty house, void of the sounds of quarreling children, laughter bouncing down the hall, the front door bursting open as children come and go as they play, dog poop on kid’s shoes, mud and leaves decorating the floors. I make a concerted effort to breathe in these days. It is hard. Often weeks fly by, and I cannot figure out where they went.
That people often look at others and only see what they want to see is sad. It is sad because there is so much more to a person than what another chooses to see. It’s not that we must be able to empathize with everyone else, but I believe we must acknowledge and accept that another’s life is what they say it is (for normal, healthy people).
I wish I could share your lives with people who choose to only see the time you have on your hands. I wonder, though, if they would willingly choose to see. Life is hard. Comparing one’s “hell” to another’s is futile. Accepting, believing, lending a hand, a shoulder … may that be what we share … and may it be contagious.
Oldest has stopped coughing … never woke up. Youngest has woken with a sick stomach from the meds. Sleep … ahhh … elusive sleep!
~Ame~
He needs to quit handling firearms and hire someone who knows what he’s doing–like me–to handle that aspect of personal security.
This is almost as funny as the account of my favorite badass in the Bible–Jael–nailing a tent peg through Sisera’s head, or the woman dropping a millstone on Abimelech’s head.
First, there was the DEA agent–the only one “professional enough”–who made the mistake of handling his own “unloaded gun”. Now we have a police chief who shot himself in the thigh with a .45 caliber handgun. That had to hurt.
For the sake of the good chief, and others, here is a public service announcement on the rules of firearm safety:
I almost never go shopping on so-called “Black Friday”. Part of that is because I am happy to contribute to Citigroup’s financial demise. (I will drink to their bankruptcy.)
Part of it is I have no use for the rampant materialism. I will buy gifts for relatives. My dad will get a subscription to a favorite publication. My stepmom will get a Starbucks gift card. My brother and sister-in-law will get gift certificates. My nieces will get gifts, possibly gift certificates. I’ll get cards for my co-workers.
That said, I have no use for these stampedes.
If you’re going to shoot a firearm accurately, sight-alignment is very important. Your chances of success are not going to be good if you hold the weapon like this:
While Candice Watters addresses a very important issue behind the protracted singleness issue–she calls it Caution and Courage, whereas I often note the tradeoff between risk aversion and risk tolerance–there’s still a little more to this than merely saying, “People need to be willing to take more risk.”
Sure, risk-tolerance is important. But that is only part of the picture.
In this back-and-forth over protracted singleness, much has been made of the “gender gap”. We all know that the women outnumber the men–60% to 40% when including all marital stati–whereas, as I have pointed out, the most granular study on the ratio of Christian singles, never married, broken down by age group, seems to tell a different story.
Even then, that doesn’t explain the issue of protracted singleness.
(1) That the women outnumber men in the Church (again, we are talking general, not including marital status) is not a recent phenomenon. That has actually been the case for centuries.
(2) The issue of protracted singleness among Christians, on the other hand, is a recent phenomenon.
There are several possible answers:
(1) The Christian men are out cavorting around like tomcats, not wanting to marry because they can get orgasms without commitment.
(2) The Christian men have no balls, and don’t want to commit.
(3) The Christian women have bought into feminism–at least tacitly–and embarked on life paths that have made marriage more difficult.
(4) Many Christian women have spurned the men in church for nonbelievers.
(5) The ramifications of feminism–easier divorce–have made the risk higher for both men and women.
(6) Demographic factors that have scattered singles–especially those who pursue college paths–to a degree that other generations did not experience.
(7) The lack of networking among the larger Church.
(8) Some combination of all the above.
If the matter of protracted singleness were not a problem, it would hardly carry the magnitude of passion that it carries in the blogopshere.
On other blog spaces, I’ve pointed out that one can experience protracted singleness for any number of reasons, some of which may be the fault of the individual whereas other factors may be–and probably are–beyond his or her control.
And what I have listed so far are the general causes.
What about specific cases? Some people are more difficult to marry off than others. Some of us have personality disorders (twitch twitch). Some have social challenges. Some fall outside the conventional attractiveness envelope.
Even in those cases, protracted singleness among them is probably worse today than it was in prior generations.
I’d submit that this has to do with two of the general causes:
(6) Demographic factors
(7) a lack of networking among the Church.
Among those of us who have pursued the professional ranks–and by that I mean anyone who has at least a 4-year college degree, or beyond–we are (a) less likely to find our mates in college as many college students in prior generations did, (b) more likely to find ourselves living in unfamiliar cities or towns after we graduate, in churches whose parisioners are overwhelmingly are older than us, whose pastors run from “singles ministry” in fear of breeding a sexual predator zone, and who haven’t the foggiest clue how to help singles find mates.
The demographics are killing us, and the Church has little or no means to address it. As a result, singles are resorting to more recent methods–Internet dating (eHarmony, match.com, Christian Cafe, etc.), Internet chats–that are not proving to be successful in percentage terms.
That tempers flare from time to time should not be surprising. The Church–especially the leadership–has utterly dropped the ball in this arena.
To that extent, the Church needs to take a lesson from the literal children of Israel, as the Jews are not the most resilient people in the world by accident.
The Jews are the masters of the world at networking. Especially when it comes to matching people.
If I’m a Rabbi in Philadelphia and I have a young gal who is in her 20s but single and wanting to marry, I can talk to people in my synagogue who know a family in Jersey who has a son who is looking. I get the families in touch, and the rest is elementary.
That dynamic is not always necessary, but when you have some people who are more difficult than others to marry, the network can be critical to resolving this.
Unfortunately, that is less possible as long as the Church is divided. When you have one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and thousands of denominations–scattered along the Arminian-Calvinist spectrum–such networking becomes a greater challenge.
Assault a Child, Get 3 Years
Just pathetic.