Random Thoughts

Don’t move the furniture!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, and the return home (albeit for only a few days) of my daughters, I decided to thoroughly clean their former room. “Thoroughly” meant under and behind furniture, moving even the heaviest pieces in order to scrub baseboards and vacuum up any dust rhinos.

During the process, at one point all the furniture was shoved into the center of the room. That’s when I thought I’d get mildly creative and rearrange the furniture rather than putting it back exactly where it had been.

Bad, bad idea. The next day I mentioned to Eldest Daughter via email what I’d done. As soon as I let Eldest Daughter know I’d shifted about the furnishings, she called her sister and they had a conversation. Now, Eldest Daughter has her own apartment, and hasn’t lived with us since 2005. Her visits home are (due to the demands of her culinary job) very short in duration. Younger Daughter left for college this fall. Their room has been unused since September. But it is still THEIR ROOM, which Eldest Daughter hastened to remind me:

Moving the furniture doesn’t really bother me. Sis…let’s just say, happy isn’t what I’d describe her reaction as being, and expect there to be things going back to the way they were. The way I see it, it probably would have been a better idea to give her a couple of summers to go home to a room the way she left it, then slowly rearrange things. But that’s just me. When I came home for the summer from school, the only difference in the room was the decorations.

And believe me, you have no idea how good I am at putting things back where they used to be. I’m very good at remembering where I left certain things and how I left them. One of the wierd things about me, I guess. But that’s only if I want things back where I left them. We’ll have to see when Sis and I get back. I’m used to sleeping in the same spot whenever I visit. And I’d been sleeping in that same spot for a while before I moved. I’d like to keep some semblance of my room intact. Yes, mine. I’ve lived there longer, therefore I get first say in what can stay. Sis can deal w/ that. I let her have free range on the decorations, now it’s my turn again.

On one hand, I’m tickled that Eldest Daughter, nearly 22 years old, still feels like this is her home, and wants to have some part of it remain hers. When I turned 18, I packed up every last thing I cared about, stuffed the boxes in my car and headed for California, with the firm intention (which I kept) of never living in my parents’ house again. It’s very nice to know that I raised kids who are not desperate to get away from me.

On the other hand, doggone it, after 19 years the room really needs to be redecorated, and we need a guest room. Not a unicorn-wallpaper-bordered-twin-beds-girly-girl-room.

I do know that having a personal space to return to serves as an anchor for college students. I guess I just didn’t think rearranging the furniture was that big of a shift.

Don’t change your child’s room.
“The student’s room is ‘home base’—try not to change it very much during his or her first semester away. Freshmen in particular can go through some very difficult times, passing exams, establishing new friendships, surviving in a setting where they are not ‘top dog,’ and often fearing that admissions has made a mistake—fearing they do not really belong at college. Give them a ‘safe haven.’ ”

Redecorating can wait. In less than four years Younger Daughter will be done with college and living in her own place. Maybe then I can redecorate their childhood bedroom. And if not, there’s always the boys’ room.

Given that my sons’ room looks remarkably like this most days:

redecorating it will be quite the challenge.

The intolerant demand tolerance

Once again, California government proves that it’s indifferent to the will of the people who elected it. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors has voted to join a lawsuit against Proposition 8. Spearheading this vote were ultra-left Democrats Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina.

“I think it’s important that the county be heard on this issue,” Yaroslavsky said. “It is unusual for the high court to overturn an initiative. It should be an unusual event, because the will of the people should generally be respected when they cast their vote.”

Except when you disagree with them. Then it’s okay for government to invalidate the entire voting process.

Someone ought to point out to Councilman Yaroslavsky that the county was heard on the issue. Over 82% of LA County voters cast a ballot in the recent election. Prop 8 passed in LA County, with 1,317,125 voters in favor of it.

Yaroslavsky’ and Molina are not fond of considering the voters will, as they proved when they decided to remove a tiny cross from the Los Angeles City Seal. Urged to put the matter before the voters, they refused.

Ignoring the will of the people has become business as usual in California. Meanwhile, we have aggression and threats on the local level in an effort to further intimidate the voting public.

Michelle Malkin gives a run down on the latest acts of insane rage, noting that

Corporate honchos, church leaders, and small donors alike are in the same-sex marriage mob’s crosshairs, all unfairly demonized as hate-filled bigots by bona fide hate-filled bigots who have abandoned decency in pursuit of “equal rights.”

Thomas Sowell warns of the danger in tolerating intolerance.

Almost by definition, everybody thinks their cause is just. Does that mean that nobody has to obey the rules? That is called anarchy.

Nobody is in favor of anarchy. But some people want everybody else to obey the rules, while they don’t have to.

A disregard for the voted will of the people, and the implementation of threats and violence are nothing less than anarchy.

Seeking a scapegoat

The church I began attending recently has a new pastor. It’s a big church that fell on hard times a year ago, when its pastor up and quit very abruptly. His explanation was “burnout;” only after he resigned did the fact that he’d indulged in several extramarital affairs come to light.

In the wake of their pastor’s abrupt departure, about 1000 people left this church, and it was by all accounts a rather ugly time.

Fast forward a year. I and my family, looking for a local church to attend, decided to give the recovering church a try. I figure it’s been predisastered.

After the fiasco with their former pastor, and the fact that it took the church leadership a full year to hire a new senior pastor, the odds that another pastor is going to screw them over (metaphorically if not literally) are astronomical.

The new pastor is 180 degrees different from his predecessor. He’s a midwesterner who spent the last ten years leading a church in West Virginia; strong on biblical knowledge, engaging and dynamic but just a glance at his blue polo shirt carefully tucked into conservative tan Dockers tells you this is no aging metrosexual surfer dude. He’s not showy, he’s substantial.

How did he come to take the helm of this struggling church, leaving behind a thriving congregation in the midst of a growth program he himself implemented? According to him and the people who know him best, he simply felt like God was calling him to “step out of the boat,” to step out of his comfort zone and into a new ministry God had for him.

Wow. That’s either crazy, or intense faith in action.

As soon as he and his family made the decision to leave West Virginia and accept the pulpit in Southern California, something interesting happened. A whole lot of anger and venom was spat in his general direction, particularly via the pages of the local newspaper. He wasn’t oblivious to the comments being shared; he addressed them in his final sermon.

In a way, I can understand the anger directed toward him; people hate to feel rejected even if it’s unintentional and unwarranted. The loss was obviously taken not as an opportunity for their pastor and for themselves, but as some kind of failure, and rather than it be their own failure, it had to be the pastor’s.

In a way, I can now also understand why McCain staffers attempted to throw Sarah Palin under the bus after the election. She, like my new pastor, was stepping out of the boat in a big way. That had to annoy people around McCain who surely thought he’d pick someone more moderate/older/male. The fact that Sarah Palin stepped out boldly, fearlessly, with genuine warmth and willingness to take on the job put before her no doubt irritated some staffers. Sure bet it irritated the heck out of the MSM.

Like the bitter people spreading rumors about my new pastor, once the election was over and the loss staring them in the face, Palin’s detractors in the McCain camp coped by attempting to paint her as a foolish diva. They took out their frustration and anger over the loss of the election by blaming her. Just so, some in my new pastor’s former congregation seem poised to blame any future problems on him.

I suppose it’s human nature to look for someone to serve as a scapegoat. It’s also ugly and hurtful, not just to the person who bears the brunt of others’ bitterness, but to an entire church…or to a political party. With the huge hurdle facing conservatives–an extreme left president, congress, and soon judicial branch– more than ever we need to rethink the urge to cast blame.

The Anchoress reminds us of the danger of holding on to resentments; as we approach advent, a timely message indeed.

Prop 8 and marriage: What’s in a name?

After a record amount of money spent by opponents and proponents–more than $60,000,000–on November 4, Californians passed Proposition 8, which reads very simply “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

This is not the first time Californians have attempted to legally define heterosexual unions as the only valid form of marriage within their state. On March 7, 2000, with 61.4% voting for the measure and 38.6% against it. Californians passed Proposition 22 which was identically phrased: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” This sentence was added to the California Family Code, under section 308.5.

Subsequently California’s Supreme Court in a 4-3 split decision declared Proposition 22 unconstitutional. Although homosexual couples already have all the legal rights through a domestic partnership which are afforded heterosexual couples through a marriage, the court determined that it was unfair to deny homosexuals the use of the word and the legal relationship known as “marriage.”

…retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples.

The court’s opinion dismisses the traditional construct of marriage as essentially valueless, even potentially damaging, and implements a new construct, one which does not distinguish between the gender of the participants. This action on the part of the court–proving that voting and the democratic process is meaningless to them–led directly to the people reacting in turn with the passage of Proposition 8.

Prop 8′s passage certainly is not the end of the debate by any means. Thanks to four court judges, the homosexual community has come to believe that marriage between people of the same gender is a constitutional right. John Stephenson details the legal wrangling bound to occur over this measure. I’m honestly having trouble understanding how anyone has the right to get married any more than they have the right to get a driver’s license, or the right to enter into any other legal contract.

There are all kinds of restrictions on who can marry whom. There are all kinds of marriages which are not legally valid in the United States. You might fall in love with your own father. Can’t legally marry him though. You might fall in love with your sister. Can’t legally marry her either. You might fall in love with several people at the same time. Can’t legally marry more than one of them at a time, not even in Utah. And if the women are under a certain age, you really can’t marry them. You might fall in love with a goat, but (unless you’re in the Sudan) you can’t marry it. You might feel a deep attraction to a particular picnic table. Can’t marry it either.

The legal bond of marriage is inextricably connected in all societies to religion; it is typically celebrated within a religious ceremony. Attempting to co-opt the institution of marriage, to alter it in order to fit a construct other than a male-female pairing, isn’t just a matter of gaining some sort of right. Marriage is a sacrament to Catholics, a divine institution to Mormons, a representation of Christ’s union with the Church to Evangelicals and both a command and blessing to Jews. To hundreds of millions of people for whom marriage has deep religious signifigance, changing the nature of marriage is the desecrating of a divinely ordained institution.

Jason Dulle explains why the demand for marriage as a “right” is profoundly illogical.

If homosexual marriage is not a right that can be grounded in a transcendent source then it is grounded in the will of the people, and the people have no moral obligation to give it.

The people of California have made their decision regarding this issue. However, the homosexual community is determined to continue the fight. And they’re doing it in a way pretty much guaranteed to make them less acceptable, less understandable, and less “ordinary” than they ostensibly seek to be regarded.

If they insist on comparing themselves to black civil rights leaders, they might consider taking a page out of that book and demonstrate some dignity; screaming invective and demonstrating rabid intolerance of one’s opponents isn’t likely to garner one respect nor tolerance.

Jeff Jacoby articulately deconstructs the homosexual marriage/black civil rights comparison:

…a fundamental gulf separates the civil rights movement from the demand for same-sex marriage. One was a fight for genuine equality, for the right of black Americans to live on the same terms, and under the same restrictions, as whites. The other is a demand to change the terms on which marriage has always been available by giving it a meaning it has never before had. That isn’t civil rights – and playing the race card doesn’t change that fact.

I have to ask, if it is unfair to limit marriage to one man and one woman at a time, is it not unfair to limit it at all? Shouldn’t any combination of people who love one another (partners’ love for one another is repeatedly cited as a rationale in the California Supreme Court’s decision) be permitted to marry lest they be considered “second class citizens?” And what about those goat and picnic table lovers? Ought they not to be given equal dignity under the law? If not, why not?

Because that’s not what marriage is?

Edited to add: This juvenile nastiness is certainly not going to help the homosexual marriage cause. At all. And potentially felonious behavior isn’t going to either.

The Anchoress takes note of the conflict, revisiting an earlier post to ask:

Why is it that when people are looking for their own rights, they somehow – in making their arguments – forget that others have rights, too? Again, it’s the question of being consistent. If winning a “right” is a good thing, isn’t sustaining a right also a good thing?

And so it begins…

A $600 million campaign wasn’t enough. Once you’re elected President, well, you need even more spare change from donors before you can get to work on all that Change you promised them. Apparently the $6.3 million of our tax dollars Obama will have to spend isn’t enough.

The campaign is over, but President-elect Barack Obama is still raising cash — this time to help fund his move into the Oval Office.

Though Team Obama is set to receive $6.3 million in taxpayer funds for its transition efforts, it also has created a nonprofit corporation to supplement Uncle Sam’s cash with private donations.

Obama, a Democrat who shattered fundraising records during his campaign against Republican John McCain, is soliciting contributions of up to $5,000-per-person to the nonprofit, the Obama-Biden Transition Project, which is set up under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Service code.

At a time when charities are feeling the economic downturn, it’s so heartwarming to hear that Obama has created a brand new non-profit to which Americans can donate. Perhaps his transition team could use the slogan, “Give Your Change to Help Obama Bring His Change!”

What will be the first change he implements? From the AP wire today...

President-elect Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.

John Podesta, Obama’s transition chief, said Sunday Obama is reviewing President Bush‘s executive orders on those issues and others as he works to undo policies enacted during eight years of Republican rule. He said the president can use such orders to move quickly on his own.

“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we’ll see the president do that,” Podesta said. “I think that he feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set.”

With everything we’re facing as a country, removing restrictions on stem cell research is at the top of Obama’s to-do list?

At first I was marginally grateful that removing any possible constraints on abortion wasn’t to be Obama’s first task the minute he takes office, though apparently that’s on his top ten list as well. The United States is in a world of hurt financially, but by all means, lets give federal funds–our tax dollars–to other countries to promote abortions.

Robert George at the Witherspoon Institute examines the range and ramifications of Obama’s “pro-choice” position. Can we be surprised at this? The man did say babies were a punishment.

And that babies who survive abortions should not be given appropriate medical care.

Well America, you wanted “change.” And so it begins.

Post-election withdrawal

I’m out of town on family business, but just had to share this gem from The Onion. To prevent choking hazard, please do not eat or drink while viewing.

How do we handle defeat?

I’ve raised my children to be politically aware, and they’ve surpassed my expectations. Younger Daughter phoned me from college Wednesday, unhappy with the way the election went, and even more unhappy about the reactions some of her classmates were displaying. Daughter was cleaning her dorm’s common bathroom (a job she willingly took for the modest salary it provides) when another student approached her and exclaimed, “Today’s celebration day!” Daughter’s mind was focused on scrubbing, not partying, so she asked, “What celebration?” Her classmate responded, “Praise Jesus, Obama is President!”

The fact that this classmate is African American ought to be mentioned. Understanding that and the racial pride of the young woman, Daughter was nevertheless disturbed by the brief discussion they had. “It’s like his position on abortion isn’t wasn’t even an issue to her,” she recounted to me. “I don’t get why people who say they care about things like that went and ignored them with Obama. It’s like all that mattered was he was black.”

Victor Davis Hansen ponders exactly that fact:

…something is still puzzling about hours of television showing African-American ecstasy based on apparent racial pride rather than glee that someone of Obama’s views was elected—all often editorialized by teary-eyed objective journalists. A person from Mars who watched this post-election celebration, might study the popular reaction to the Obama victory and become puzzled: “Aren’t people now saying pretty much what Michelle Obama said twice, and to great criticism, during the campaign: that the emergence of Barack Obama was occasion for many to have pride in their country for the first time?”

For a great many people, that Obama is black is all that mattered. Daughter is trying to get her head around this, because her own political choices have been made the hard way, by looking at what the candidates positions and beliefs involved. This is the first time she ever voted (having turned 18 earlier this year) and she wanted to be thorough. Each candidate, each initiative was discussed with her father and me, and her entire absentee ballot was carefully filled in before she mailed it.

What a contrast to the many young people I saw during my day as a poll worker. Dozens of them, literally, who came in, got a ballot and asked “I only want to vote for president, I don’t have to fill out the rest of this, do I?” They wanted their ballot counted, but they weren’t interested in voting for any of the other offices nor the initiatives. They were just there to vote for Obama. There is something sad in such willful ignorance.

It was cool to vote for Obama.

I am proud of Younger Daughter, and her older siblings who also voted absentee, and their little brother who is too young to vote, but paid close attention to the election and continues to ask many questions. He is trying to understand why people voted for a man who wants to raise taxes. He knows the freefalling stock market has evaporated our future resources, and he knows that higher taxes won’t help. “If Obama raises taxes that will mean we’ll have even less money, won’t it? ,” he reasoned. “Then I won’t be able to go to [the private school we've applied to] next year, if the government takes more of our money.”

We’ve had many discussions recently about the economy and the election, and about handling losing with grace, and about how important it is to win gracefully as well. Life lessons. Younger Son wants to know why people blame President Bush for so much when “He’s only one man.” We’ve talked about how Bush led our country during a very scary time, and how he’s demonstrated the character of a godly man: He doesn’t hate on those who are determined to hate on him.

Younger Son wanted to know if Obama would be hated too, once he becomes president. I told him I hoped not, regardless of how good or bad a president he becomes. It’s ugly when a country turns on its chosen leader. That sort of hatred indicates a smallness of spirit and a meanness of soul, and an opening for evil. There’s far too much evil in the world already. Far better we bless than curse, even if the man in office is not the one we voted for.

Lorie Byrd at Whizbang considers how we ought to treat a new president vs. how badly it’s been done:

Even many of those who opposed Obama the most vehemently appear to be genuinely interested in seeing him succeed for the good of the country. I don’t see any who show a desire to treat President Obama as those on the left treated President Bush for the past eight years. That says a lot for conservatives. I fully expected more on the right to want to reciprocate in kind. It is possible to disagree, even vigorously, without wishing for assassination as some did of President Bush and VP Cheney, and without calling the President a chimp, or Hitler. It is possible to point out serious problems with the policies and judgment of a political opponent without descending into wild-eyed moonbat mode as some on the left did when they questioned the “maternity” of Sarah Palin’s child Trig and when some even said the child would have been better off aborted. I hope that by getting their preferred candidate elected that vicious, disgusting behavior will end.

My children have all independently expressed dismay to me over the way George W. Bush has been publicly despised. Neither they nor I can really understand the level of venom cast at a duly elected man who has served his country for eight long thankless years. We haven’t seen him break his marriage vows by dallying with an intern, nor lie under oath in court, nor fail to act as Commander in Chief. In contrast, we’ve seen President Bush offer steadfast leadership and unwavering compassion in our nation’s worst days.

Michael Gerson at the Washington Post lists Bush’s considerable though ignored accomplishments, and offers a heartfelt summary of the character of the man:

Many liberals refuse to concede Bush’s humanity, much less his achievements.

But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a deeper decency — a decency that is privately engaging and publicly consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology — a measure designed to save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women’s advocate. It is one reason I will never be cynical about government — or about President Bush.

For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable. But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W. Bush.

My children and I honestly don’t understand the Obama love any more than we understand the Bush hate, though apparently they’re two sides of the very same coin. The extremes are unsettling; these are mere men, after all, human beings neither worthy of worship nor deserving of execration.

As Jeffrey Scott Shapiro of the Wall Street Journal notes,

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, “We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”

Therein lies the key to a healthier future for our country. And we on the right side of the political aisle can lead the way. John Hawkins believes we are already doing this,

With so many conservatives thinking McCain was going to win, you’d think the howling would have been unearthly after Obama’s victory. There should be conservatives threatening to move overseas, on medication, heading off to the psychologist, and non-stop attacks on the American people for being so stupid. Why not? After all, that’s what the left did after their loss in 2004.

And yet, the most common reaction across the right side of the blogosphere was either a congratulations to Obama, a recognition that having the first black president was a historic moment for America, or some combination thereof.

Allahpundit models a similar approach while offering thoughts on the way Dean Barnett would have handled Obama’s win,

My guess is he’d have handled the news tonight with the same magnanimity that distinguished all of his writing. So in that spirit, congratulations to Barry O on a race superbly run and to our country for not having let the wrong reasons deter it from making the wrong choice. I’ll never be a fan, but I swear I’ll never take a nutroots posture either in relishing his failures because it helps my party. Like it or not, he’s my president. As a great man once said, country first.

The Anchoress is optimistic that we might actually learn from all of this, and become a more cooperative nation,

I’m hopeful that the left – if it takes the time to actually condescend to notice how well it is being treated by the vanquished – might consider that self-indulgent defamation is the lesser way; that such a consideration may inspire introspection, and perhaps the smallest bit of regret for some of their appalling excesses toward the right and toward the American President who did not return hate in-kind.

I’m hopeful. I’m an optimist. I KNOW that the folks on the right – for all of their faults, and both sides certainly have faults – want America to be successful and strong and exceptional and free. I’m hopeful that hugely empowered left will discover that – beyond the feel-goodism of “free social programs” which are never free -they actually, really do want all of those things, too. That they’ll look back on the last 8 years and realize, finally, that their enemy was never George W. Bush. Bush, the guy who never dehumanized them, was only trying serve those corny ideals.

And then, miraculously, we may actually have unity.

May it be so. May we conservatives not waste time trying to pin blame and looking for a scapegoat, but instead, look toward the future. May Obama prove to be worthy of the great honor and responsibility now on his shoulders. May we encourage him in his efforts and not despise him for his failures, whatever they will be.