Random Thoughts on a Friday

1. Number One was an angry rant. When I re-read it, it sounded childish and petty, so I deleted it. Feel free to continue on to Number Two.

2. I wish I had enough money to quit my job. I’m burned out, angry, grumpy, and generally unhappy. I don’t know if it’s anyone’s fault, particularly, though I tend to be upset at my bosses. It’s just the way I feel.

3. Dumb quote of the day: Republican Representative John Duncan — “… it seems rather elitist that people with academic degrees in health think they know better than parents…”

When did being “elite” turn into a bad thing? When did it become a sin to be educated and trained? Personally, I WANT my doctor to be one of the elite! I want the people governing me to be elite. I want the people teaching today’s children to be elite.

Rep. Duncan was talking about sex education. His view is that the parents should be in charge of educating their children about sex, and he’s right — parents should teach their children about such things. But they’re not, so the schools have to instead. And if the schools are doing it, what’s wrong with having an educated professional in charge of the program?

It seems miserably backwards to me that we should choose those who are to educate our children based not on their education and qualifications, but rather their lack of such education or qualification.

4. I’m tired of getting political “jokes” e-mailed to me. I’m getting probably 15 or 20 anti-Hillary e-mails a day. I’m hoping Obama gets the nod in the primary, but I don’t wanna see anti-ANYONE e-mails. They’re rarely funny, and all they do is prove, once again, that our nation can’t decide politics on issues — we depend instead on slurs, slander, and cheap humor. Don’t get me wrong, a good political cartoon can make a definite statement, and so can a well-turned phrase. But the vast, vast majority of what I see is merely ignorant name-calling. I don’t want to see it in my e-mail any more.

That’s what blogs are for.

5. United States President G. Walker Bush has disappointed me. He has once again stood in front of the nation and failed to take responsibility for his actions. Instead of acknowledging that his policies may be flawed, he’s telling everyone that the current political and economic mess is Congress’ fault and that there’s nothing he could do about it.

Whatever happened to Democratic President Harry S. Truman’s famous “The Buck Stops Here” philosophy? Whatever happened to the notion that we must hold our public officials accountable, including the President, for their actions? Yes, Congress plays an important part in public policy, but I don’t want to hear excuses. Get the job done, dammit.

Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain is already showing signs of continuing the Bush/Cheney/Rove policy of blame-shifting. He has publicly denounced an attack ad being run by the North Carolina Republicans as being false, but claims he’s powerless to stop them from running the attack ad. Isn’t he kind of the guy in charge these days? Doesn’t he have control over his own party? Why won’t he step up to the plate, do the right thing, and declare attack/smear ads be stopped? Because then he’d be held accountable…

6. I get an e-mail roughly three times a day, the same message, listing the various ways Christianity has played a part in American history. At the end it says, “It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or ‘In God We Trust’ on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don’t we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!”

Well, I have problems with that.

My first question is quite simple — who’s trying to change our money? Is someone seriously trying to change the Pledge of Allegiance? No. Oh, sure, some whacko comes up every now and then who wants to make waves, but no one takes them seriously. This is NOT an issue, as far as I can tell. Liberals do believe in the separation of church and state, but I don’t see anyone getting freaky about it… Most liberals are, after all, Christian — just like Jesus, the most famous progressive of all.

My second problem is a bit more touchy. It’s my opinion that if your faith in God is so weak that you need to be reminded of Him every time you spend a dollar to buy yourself some Ho-Ho’s, you have more problems than you know. If you truly had faith in God, you mightn’t feel so threatened.

My third problem with the e-mail revolves around the base logic of the last sentence, quoted above. Iowa passed a law recently banning cigarette smoking in bars and restaurants. This has caused quite the upheaval — the level of chest-thumping and moaning by smokers is incredible; they feel their rights are being violated, and that the government has no right to tell them what to do. One survey I saw said that some 82% of Iowans are non-smokers. So why can’t we tell the other 18% to sit down and shut up? That’s what the e-mail said about religion… So, if the smoking minority are upset about their rights being trampled by the majority, don’t you think they’d also be vocal about the religious majority trampling the rights of the minority religions? Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be working that way.

Personally, I fail to see where another person’s beliefs threatens my belief in God. We are a Christian society, by and large, and part of Christianity is accepting other people. Acceptance. Compassion. You know, those values. They pertain to other people, too, you know.

7. A meme… SkylersDad memed me a while back. I haven’t forgotten, I’ve just been busy. Until now. It’s a simple one — list five relatively clean web sites you like. Feel free to play…

Torso pants — Odd t-shirts. Fun site.

I Can Has Cheezburger — lolcats

HippieBoy Design — My site. Go there. Buy a website or something. Please.

Weather — I live on this site waiting and hoping for good riding weather…

Drew — My buddy’s site. He’s trying to work his way out of the print shop too.

8. I’m tired. Shoot. I just caught myself sleeping. I think I was snoring. Not good when you work ten feet from the boss’ door.

9. I’d best get something done. Have a good weekend, ever’buddy!