Race or tribes?

So, over the weekend, I read about how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apologized for previous comments about President Obama's skin color. Here's Fox News report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/09/reid-apolgizes-racial-remarks-obama/

I suppose I could go on a rant about liberal hypocracy. But I'm sure that bloggers with more time to spare than I have, are already doing that.

Instead, I found myself thinking about one of Bill Whittle's classic essays by the name Tribes. Now, to be sure, Tribes is a little strongly worded, an unusual thing for Bill to do, but it was written as a response to a very strongly worded comment by a liberal. Tribes explores the fact that color has absolutely nothing to do with anything except the genetics of your parents and how much sunlight you personally reflect. And that's exactly it. A much bigger deal should be made of the direction that each of us choose and the people we choose to associate ourselves with. Our choice of tribe shouts a message to the world, while the color of our skin whispers at best. Go and read it carefully. It's one of Bill's most powerful essays.

http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/?s=tribes

Just Tell Me What You Are

In these wishy-washy days, people don't seem to be keen to be defined by what they are, but prefer to be known for what they aren't. I got to thinking about this on the way home from the in-laws today as I drove past a large'ish Seventh Day Adventist church building. Now, I'm sure they have things they stand for, but mostly they're known as the folks who think that we're wrong for having church on Sundays and that we should celebrate on Saturdays like they do. Hmmm.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Colossians 2:16 [KJV]

The Seventh Day Adventists are not wrong for having church on Saturdays, but nor are we for choosing Sundays.

And for those who like a little more politics in their reading material, we can make similar observations about President Obama and especially so of his advocates. A large part of the campaign approach of then candidate Obama centered around the point that he wasn't Hilary Clinton and then even more emphatically that he wasn't George W. Bush. And pretty much that was it. Oh sure, he made promises and expressed opinions, but all politicians do that. It just strikes me that being the un-Bush is a pretty weak platform to run on. (It did get him the Nobel Peace Prize, for what that's worth these days!)

Definition of Hell?

Some kind soul at the day job left this on my chair for me yesterday and so as the last post was quite serious, I thought a little humor would be helpful.

There have been many definitions of hell, but for the English the best definition is that it is the place where the Germans are the police, the Swedish are the comedians, the Italians are the defense force, Frenchmen dig the roads, the Belgians are the pop singers, the Spanish run the railways, the Turks cook the food, the Irish are the waiters, the Greeks run the government and the common language is Dutch.

Actually, that does sound pretty bad.

I'm Sure That I'm Not Supposed To Say This

I don't like Valentine's Day and I object to what it has become.

It's not that I have anything against romance. The lovely Sis. Geek and I have been married for twelve years and we went out for an expensive dinner last night and held hands and talked and gazed into each others eyes for an evening. Very nice and something I'd repeat in a heartbeat as I throughly enjoy getting all gushy and dopey about my beautiful wife.

So, having established that I'm not just being a meanie, what don't I like about Valentine's Day?

I don't like the fact that it has turned into another Hallmark Holiday and became an excuse to crank the emotional blackmail up to eleven. And how ever did it become all about the ladies and guys are just expected to empty their pockets and cough up flowers and presents? And where on earth did the idea come from to give everyone one and their dog a Valentine card and gift? When I was a lad, you gave a Valentine card only to your true love or the one you wanted to be your true love.

These days the guy that doesn't want to be in trouble had better buy flowers (at least a dozen red roses or you're forever branded as cheap) and jewelry (lots of sparkle or you're cheap again) and then there had better be a romantic dinner for two at some foo foo restaurant where it's impossible for a guy to order anything that he'd actually want to eat. And the lady? She's just expected to graciously accept it all.

I don't know about you, but that sounds wrong to me. Once a year you either survive or you dig yourself so far into a hole, that you'll be lucky to dig out by the following Valentine's Day.

I reject this approach and have made my feelings to this effect strongly known to the lovely Sis. Geek. There is a much better way to go about this romance thing and any lady that thinks romance involves being wined and dined once a year is selling herself, her guy and her relationship short.

What is this better way? Here's what I do. I tell the lovely Sis. Geek that I love her every day. I call her every workday when I go for my midday walk. I try to find things I can do to show her that I love her. (Doing the washing up is one of her favorite ways for me to help, with doing my own laundry a close second.) I make efforts to buy her flowers periodically, especially when I'm not in trouble. I open doors for her, including car doors. I hold her hand when we go places. I complement her when she wears something that I like her in or when she takes time to fix her hair just the way I like it. I let her choose my outfit when we go out on dates (this is a big deal for her, I'm a T-Shirt and Jeans kind of guy around the house). I go shopping with her now and then and take an interest in what she tries on. (I love taking Sis. Geek to Christopher and Banks; they have great priced, nice looking clothes and she looks great in everything she buys there.) When the geeklets were smaller, I changed more than my fair share of diapers and gave them nearly all of their baths. Every year when she goes off to the district Ladies Retreat, I take a couple of days off of work and look after the geeklets and make sure that the house is clean and tidy for when she returns.

I'm sure I'm forgetting plenty of other things that I do, but you get the picture. If there's a "special secret" to this relationship stuff, then I'd say that it would be to pour a little love out on your dearly beloved each and every day. If you do that, things will go well more often than not. You'll make mistakes now and then. Welcome to being an imperfect human-being. But when you mess up, say sorry, make plans to try not to do it again and go back to pouring on the love. Oh, and never buy flowers when you're in trouble, because then she'll wonder what you did when you buy the flowers at other times.

No Tee Vee

Tam, over at BooksBikesBoomsticks recently mentioned that she has no TV and suspects that people think she's weird. Not having met her personally, I can't say for sure, but I suspect not from what I've read of her writings.

This got me to thinking and if my memory works correctly today (never a sure thing), I believe that I have been TV free for about fourteen years now.

It was never a deliberate thing. I moved location to ReallyBigCity, here in the Mid-West of America. As I was traveling light, I dumped all kinds of stuff, including an entire record collection (showing my age there) and anything heavy, especially household electrical articles.

While in ReallyBigCity, I borrowed a TV and a video player and infrequently watched anything. This was a time of working long hours during the week and heading out of town on the weekend to court the lovely Sis. Geek. I was actually glad to be able to return it as it mostly gathered dust and got in the way.

When the time came to move to a different state, the TV stayed with it's owner and I never bothered to buy one when I moved into my new apartment. Not that I'm cheap or anything; what I didn't spend buying a TV, I spent on a nice music system. The music system still works and currently lives in the den where I can rock out or listen to the football games at this time of the year. A much better purchase.

Where I differ from Tam is in the reaction that I get from people when I explain that I don't have a TV. Certainly people are initially surprised, but mostly I hear some variation along the lines of "I wish we didn't have a TV in the house".

The TV, according to surveys that I hear about now and then, is one of the biggest time wasters in this day. I forget how many hours of TV per day the average child is reputed to watch, but it staggered me. If I lost even just an hour a day to TV, I think I'd be so far behind that I'd never catch up.

I'm busy enough as a pastor that I hardly even have time for regular bible reading. I spend much of my time in the bible, but often finding passages by word searches rather than just sitting down and reading it. It's got to the point that I have to read scripture, while car pooling with a couple of my co-workers, from the Bible program on my Palm TX.