Celebrate Christmas in whatever way you wish. There are those who will attend church services for the sociability and those to feel closer to God. However, in the United States everyone gets the day off except those in emergency services...and that is not a small number. Even though our Senate thinks they shouldn't have to work on Christmas, it is not a choice for many who are happy to have any job at all.
Meanwhile, whether you are a Christian, Mormon, Muslim, or 'Heathen', take the day off and enjoy the lights, frenetic shopping and gift giving ritual which will result in long lines of people returning gifts a few days after Christmas. Many will be busy tallying how the Holiday effected the economy while others will have had to endure time with relatives they are happy not to see more often that the yearly compulsory visit. Merchants will restock their shelves for the next Holiday. I have already seen one store with their Valentine's merchandise on prominent display.
US First Lady Michelle Obama has surprised children by answering their calls to a system that tracks Santa's global gift-delivering progress. At this writing, he has made it over more than half the globe. Most people will say, "Christmas is for children" and that is what it has come to be, a stressful time for adults, lying to children, buying what cannot be afforded or paid for until months have elapsed. .Trash collectors will abhor the next week's pick up which will be more than double the usual work, environmentalists will grieve the trees that were cut down and thrown out on the lawn for the town truck to gather.
In all, most of us will breathe a sigh of relief that it is over until next year though not all of us will feel it was an unpleasant time...like having a baby. After the birth most mothers are convinced they want no more children until their little one in no longer an infant and they begin to get a longing for.another for 'family balance'. Decorations will go back into storage and whatever was enjoyed will remain a happy memory.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
CHRISTMAS BUYING, WRAPPING, GIVING AND GETTING
December shouts Santa Claus and Christmas are coming soon but you don't realize how soon. It is like premature ejaculation...before you know it, is has come and gone leaving nothing but a pleasant memory until the next time. The work that goes into it is unbalanced. It takes far longer to shop than to put your gifts away; longer to to buy paper and wrap gifts. than unwrap and dump the paper.
I've marveled at people who pay more to wrap a gift than to purchase it. Having lived through our last major depression, I can't waste good wrappings and ties. When I am able to salvage stuff (before the next generation can wad it up and stuff it in a plastic bag, the problem is always where to store it all for the next year. I realize this simple dynamic is what has made my house a blivet. My apologies if my language has shocked anyone but it is a WW II term that is now in the urban dictionary...ah, how soon we forget! Actually, the generations of today never knew it! They never understood 'stow', only 'throw'.
I wish you loyal readers the happiest of seasons and a wonderful 2011.
I've marveled at people who pay more to wrap a gift than to purchase it. Having lived through our last major depression, I can't waste good wrappings and ties. When I am able to salvage stuff (before the next generation can wad it up and stuff it in a plastic bag, the problem is always where to store it all for the next year. I realize this simple dynamic is what has made my house a blivet. My apologies if my language has shocked anyone but it is a WW II term that is now in the urban dictionary...ah, how soon we forget! Actually, the generations of today never knew it! They never understood 'stow', only 'throw'.
I wish you loyal readers the happiest of seasons and a wonderful 2011.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
THE MELTING POT MYTH; PART 3
When our country was founded, there was little competition between laws and religious beliefs as there are today. As time went on laws were enacted as though religious beliefs demanded them...government began to get into people's lives and bedrooms. Anal sex became a crime (if people were caught, that is). It didn't seem to matter that it is performed in heterosexual relationships and often used where contraceptives are unavailable. Amusingly, celibate priests have often set rules for acceptable sexual practice. They allowed the 'rhythm method' which physically is most unreliable as they knew nothing about fertility or medicine.
Muslim women hide their faces because if they show their face men may get sexual desires. Women who are raped are usually held as being at fault. The variety of the many religions, accepted as bona fide religions, has included newly invented beliefs that border on the totally ridiculous. It would seem that any mentally ill, delusional person can invent a religion because of what he hears in his own head and believes to be direct communication from some God or other....and our government will offer protection for them.
We will never have connectedness among our citizens in this country as long as religion takes precedence over the laws of the land, which should be adhered to by all. As long as we have elected officials spouting religious dictates during legislative debates and trying to make laws that fulfill the dictates of their own religion while violating those of others, there can only be discontent and distrust.
As long as our present president, Barack Obama, who has a white mother and a black father, is introduced as our first 'black' president we will have confusion and racial biases. Obama is the first president to join both black and white...why has he never been recognized as such? Why is that our racial bigots have not accepted that racially- mixed people produce children who can grow up to achieve great things when encouraged and helped to become educated?
The "melting pot" metaphor comes from the 1908 play, The Melting Pot, You can obtain a copy from Amazon here. I've not seen it nor plan to do so.
.
Muslim women hide their faces because if they show their face men may get sexual desires. Women who are raped are usually held as being at fault. The variety of the many religions, accepted as bona fide religions, has included newly invented beliefs that border on the totally ridiculous. It would seem that any mentally ill, delusional person can invent a religion because of what he hears in his own head and believes to be direct communication from some God or other....and our government will offer protection for them.
We will never have connectedness among our citizens in this country as long as religion takes precedence over the laws of the land, which should be adhered to by all. As long as we have elected officials spouting religious dictates during legislative debates and trying to make laws that fulfill the dictates of their own religion while violating those of others, there can only be discontent and distrust.
As long as our present president, Barack Obama, who has a white mother and a black father, is introduced as our first 'black' president we will have confusion and racial biases. Obama is the first president to join both black and white...why has he never been recognized as such? Why is that our racial bigots have not accepted that racially- mixed people produce children who can grow up to achieve great things when encouraged and helped to become educated?
The "melting pot" metaphor comes from the 1908 play, The Melting Pot, You can obtain a copy from Amazon here. I've not seen it nor plan to do so.
.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
THE MELTING POT MYTH CONTINUED
Yesterday I wrote about the importance of not assuming we can have a 'Melting Pot' of society. Mankind may be endowed with equal rights, but not all mankind is created equally. Those who disallow abortion are totally without understanding as to what it takes to raise a child to good citizenship and ability to form an attachment to the society around him/her. Loyalty is inspired gradually through life experiences and cannot be demanded.
Customs take generations to 'wash out'. With so many culturally mixed marriages today, it is even more confusing, though it is more often the maternal culture that is the strongest. One must keep in mind that the overriding reasons for coming to America are most frequently economic gain or flight to safety away from a fearful situation. The emigration is rarely due to a rejection of cultural or religious values or beliefs. .There is value and comfort with the familiar which explains why people tend to set up communities of people who came from the same areas outside the USA. While Americans rage at those they see as being disrespectful to our flag, our national symbol, we must not forget that loyalty for the place of birth as a concept far surpasses the hometown identity of most Americans.
However, in a desire to be politically correct we, citizens by birth in the US, have forgotten that our forebears who were immigrants had to speak English, though they may have read newspapers printed in their own foreign language and spoken their mother tongue in the privacy of their home Their children have an advantage of learning a second language while their parents learn English. It is appalling to me that of the more than 140 languages spoken in the US today, acknowledgment in the form of signage, instructions, and even some phone systems (which ask us to press one if we wish to speak in English), does little to maintain the fact that this is a country by and for Americans, though historically we may have stolen it from the American Indians or taken it by force from some of the Spanish. In fact, in many states, English has never been declared the official language the state or of our country. Many people are working on remedying that today.
The spoils of war were a long time ago and should be forgotten as we are asking American Indians and African Americans to forget that their ancestors did not choose to come here and be abused as they were then. America is a very different place for African Americans today. We must not ever forget that all 'black' people here are not African Americans. If skin color were the same, the notion of melting pot might seem more achievable. Anthropologists believe that one day there will have been so much cross-breeding amongst humans that we will all be a more similar shade of skin. However, that will take many generations to achieve. We are far from that today.
to be continued
Customs take generations to 'wash out'. With so many culturally mixed marriages today, it is even more confusing, though it is more often the maternal culture that is the strongest. One must keep in mind that the overriding reasons for coming to America are most frequently economic gain or flight to safety away from a fearful situation. The emigration is rarely due to a rejection of cultural or religious values or beliefs. .There is value and comfort with the familiar which explains why people tend to set up communities of people who came from the same areas outside the USA. While Americans rage at those they see as being disrespectful to our flag, our national symbol, we must not forget that loyalty for the place of birth as a concept far surpasses the hometown identity of most Americans.
However, in a desire to be politically correct we, citizens by birth in the US, have forgotten that our forebears who were immigrants had to speak English, though they may have read newspapers printed in their own foreign language and spoken their mother tongue in the privacy of their home Their children have an advantage of learning a second language while their parents learn English. It is appalling to me that of the more than 140 languages spoken in the US today, acknowledgment in the form of signage, instructions, and even some phone systems (which ask us to press one if we wish to speak in English), does little to maintain the fact that this is a country by and for Americans, though historically we may have stolen it from the American Indians or taken it by force from some of the Spanish. In fact, in many states, English has never been declared the official language the state or of our country. Many people are working on remedying that today.
The spoils of war were a long time ago and should be forgotten as we are asking American Indians and African Americans to forget that their ancestors did not choose to come here and be abused as they were then. America is a very different place for African Americans today. We must not ever forget that all 'black' people here are not African Americans. If skin color were the same, the notion of melting pot might seem more achievable. Anthropologists believe that one day there will have been so much cross-breeding amongst humans that we will all be a more similar shade of skin. However, that will take many generations to achieve. We are far from that today.
to be continued
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
THE MELTING POT MYTH
We will always have stereotypes because it is a human attempt put into categories. to remember and understand.
The concept, like so many other important ones, was missed by the limited scope of the 'experts'. They missed that ethnicity involves both conscious and unconscious processes which fulfill the need for security, identity and a sense of historical continuity. The language and customs of a culture determine that which gets labeled as a problem. Police are not taught to distinguish, or in fact to even question this, as they are too concretely bound to maintain laws which are rigid and leave little room for exceptions or interpretation. Thus, sociologists were wrong with the melting pot theory and were destructive to families by not looking at the belief systems brought by different cultures and their religions.
Freud had early psychologists focusing for too long only on the parenting...more often only to mothering. Many more parameters are needed. Some of the parameters to be explored along with ethnicity are religion, country of origin, language, class, color, socio-economic, and intelligence/educational level. One must not forget the differences within groups and that is no such entity as 'the black family', 'the Jewish family',. 'the poor family' or 'the rich family.'. Yet people continue to try to make diagnostic and descriptive labels.
When children are caught between the value system of two opposing dictates, normal to their family is often considered not normal outside the family...especially to those mental health professionals who have the presumption to define 'normal' for us all. At times these value systems conflict with the laws of our land. We had an example of a young woman in Florida a few years ago who insisted on covering her face, refusing to have her picture taken for a driver's license. Since the picture ios required by law for identification, her cultural dictate was disallowed if she wanted to drive a vehicle.
to be continued......
The concept, like so many other important ones, was missed by the limited scope of the 'experts'. They missed that ethnicity involves both conscious and unconscious processes which fulfill the need for security, identity and a sense of historical continuity. The language and customs of a culture determine that which gets labeled as a problem. Police are not taught to distinguish, or in fact to even question this, as they are too concretely bound to maintain laws which are rigid and leave little room for exceptions or interpretation. Thus, sociologists were wrong with the melting pot theory and were destructive to families by not looking at the belief systems brought by different cultures and their religions.
Freud had early psychologists focusing for too long only on the parenting...more often only to mothering. Many more parameters are needed. Some of the parameters to be explored along with ethnicity are religion, country of origin, language, class, color, socio-economic, and intelligence/educational level. One must not forget the differences within groups and that is no such entity as 'the black family', 'the Jewish family',. 'the poor family' or 'the rich family.'. Yet people continue to try to make diagnostic and descriptive labels.
When children are caught between the value system of two opposing dictates, normal to their family is often considered not normal outside the family...especially to those mental health professionals who have the presumption to define 'normal' for us all. At times these value systems conflict with the laws of our land. We had an example of a young woman in Florida a few years ago who insisted on covering her face, refusing to have her picture taken for a driver's license. Since the picture ios required by law for identification, her cultural dictate was disallowed if she wanted to drive a vehicle.
to be continued......
IT IS SHOCKING TO LEARN HOW MUCH WE HAVE TAKEN FOR GRANTED
I've never thought about oxygen not always having been around. Yet, oxygen-utilizing genes appeared during the tail end of the Archean Expansion 2.8 billion years ago, which is more consistent with the date geochemists assign to the Great Oxidation Event. Now I've heard many 'events' during our formative years of our world, but the Great Oxidation Event is a new one on me. While I was busy remembering the names of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, the world was busy in late stages of evolution and a history that long preceded the poor humans who either made up God or couldn't tune in properly to God's bandwidth.
As you read this, three billion year old fossils are being deciphered. Click here for the story. It does rather shatter the fairy tale of the snake, apple, Adam and Eve, and all the sins that women have been forced to suffer payment for supposedly having been committed by Eve. Men were not, and many are still not, willing to admit they may be stronger physically but not superior since superiority should not be based on physical strength as we are currently learning in our wars. Thus, the Bible, written by men, is as objective as the Roberts guided Supreme Court seems to be.
"Eric Alm, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering, and Lawrence David, who recently received his Ph.D. from MIT and is now a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, have named this period the Archean Expansion....Oxygen did not exist in the Earth's atmosphere until about 2.5 billion years ago when it began to accumulate, likely killing off vast numbers of anerobic life forms in the Great Oxidation Event" (from the Science Daily article 12/20/2010).
Two thousand year ago people were being duped by those who sought to convince them they knew better because they were getting messages from God. Today Fox News seems to be singing the same tune and people are still falling for it. In the movie TRON, it was a good thing to be 'Clueless'. However, in human life on the planet right now, to be clueless is you need your wits about you! Read a related story about how human diseases can be related to ancient genes.
As you read this, three billion year old fossils are being deciphered. Click here for the story. It does rather shatter the fairy tale of the snake, apple, Adam and Eve, and all the sins that women have been forced to suffer payment for supposedly having been committed by Eve. Men were not, and many are still not, willing to admit they may be stronger physically but not superior since superiority should not be based on physical strength as we are currently learning in our wars. Thus, the Bible, written by men, is as objective as the Roberts guided Supreme Court seems to be.
"Eric Alm, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering, and Lawrence David, who recently received his Ph.D. from MIT and is now a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, have named this period the Archean Expansion....Oxygen did not exist in the Earth's atmosphere until about 2.5 billion years ago when it began to accumulate, likely killing off vast numbers of anerobic life forms in the Great Oxidation Event" (from the Science Daily article 12/20/2010).
Two thousand year ago people were being duped by those who sought to convince them they knew better because they were getting messages from God. Today Fox News seems to be singing the same tune and people are still falling for it. In the movie TRON, it was a good thing to be 'Clueless'. However, in human life on the planet right now, to be clueless is you need your wits about you! Read a related story about how human diseases can be related to ancient genes.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
'TIS THE SEASON FOR OLD, HAPPY ENDING, MIRACLE MOVIES
My hands were busy on a project so I couldn't read. Since I rarely watch movies of any sort on TV, it was a novelty for me this afternoon to watch some LifeTime tear-jerkers ( I say that humbly and honestly, not in a derogatory intent) as I worked. Recently most news has been horrifyingly clear at how cruel mankind is, how arrogant and greedy the people who have the most control of our lives can be, and how violence seems to enjoyed as 'entertainment.'
It was nice to see movies where people were warm, human and kind to one another. Why that should bring me to tears puzzled me for some time. I speculated it was a verity on triggers....past ghosts, memories of a kinder world, sadness at our current inhumane one, and good actors who were able to emote in a realistic way....at least well enough for me to feel the sadness they were projecting in the story and with their acting.
Normally I prefer happy stories with happy endings but not even romance novels are written that way. Their formula is that there must be suspense and angst before the final happy resolution. That is why I frequently re-read the ones I liked, so I can skip the anxiety producing and sad parts.
The 1983 A Christmas Story; 1947 Miracle on 34th Street; 1954 White Christmas, are just a few of the gems we will be treated to as we are most every Christmas and never seem to tire of them. Even non-Christians can relate to movies where people were caring, giving and kind. There probably was a reason why, as children in grade school, we all had to read so many stories like The Christmas Carol by Dickens.
Check this site out for some previews. And, if you don't remember O. Henry's Gift of the Magi find a coyp in the library and see how much our world and values have changed.
It was nice to see movies where people were warm, human and kind to one another. Why that should bring me to tears puzzled me for some time. I speculated it was a verity on triggers....past ghosts, memories of a kinder world, sadness at our current inhumane one, and good actors who were able to emote in a realistic way....at least well enough for me to feel the sadness they were projecting in the story and with their acting.
Normally I prefer happy stories with happy endings but not even romance novels are written that way. Their formula is that there must be suspense and angst before the final happy resolution. That is why I frequently re-read the ones I liked, so I can skip the anxiety producing and sad parts.
The 1983 A Christmas Story; 1947 Miracle on 34th Street; 1954 White Christmas, are just a few of the gems we will be treated to as we are most every Christmas and never seem to tire of them. Even non-Christians can relate to movies where people were caring, giving and kind. There probably was a reason why, as children in grade school, we all had to read so many stories like The Christmas Carol by Dickens.
Check this site out for some previews. And, if you don't remember O. Henry's Gift of the Magi find a coyp in the library and see how much our world and values have changed.
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