Love, Marriage and the Patriarchy

This post has become very long. For those of you who already know about Eve Ensler and V-Day and the left-wing feminist agenda, move on to the next post above. If you want to understand the background of the above post, or you want to read my ramblings about the subject, keep reading!

Some hard-core leftist feminists apparently don't enjoy watching others celebrate romance and happiness on Valentine's Day. They had to come up with V-Day, to highlight violence against women. As the article I linked too describes, yes, violence against women is tragic, it is real, and it should be stopped whenever possible. However, linking it with Valentine's Day is seen by many women, like the women of the Independent Women's Forum, and myself, as an assault on normal, romantic relationships between men and women. My husband and I have a stable and loving relationship. I chose to get married, to have children, to be a stay-at-home mom. My husband and I made the decision for me to homeschool our children, and we ultimately made the decision to send them to public school. I'm not a victim of the patriarchy. Since most of my regular readers are also in stable marriages, I think you would agree that marriage and family can be a good thing.

Where the left-wing feminists go wrong in their V-Day approach, I think is two-fold. One, linking violence against women to simple, everyday loving marriages and male-female relationships. Two, thinking that constantly drawing attention to something will somehow magically end it. How much sense does pushing "Valentine's Day as V-Day until the violence stops" really make? I find it hard to believe that leftists really believe in the perfection of humanity, and yet the women that promote V-Day seem to. Welcome to real life, and real, fallen humanity, and a world where there will always be people who are violent, selfish, murderous, debauched, physically ill, mentally ill. I wonder if the Lutheran concept of vocation does not come into play here. I can feel sorrow for tragic events that take place far away, but my real vocation is helping my neighbor, the person that is here in front of me. Putting a sticker on my car that says "Free Tibet" will not free Tibet. Giving my out-of-work neighbor a bag of groceries will help feed a family.

Or are these women just pushing their agenda, that women are victims constantly in need of help, constantly need Daddy Government looking out for them? It's easy to proclaim you'll push X until Y happens, when you know Y will never happen, if your real goal is just to push X. Either way, their ideas and worldview are miles away from me, and I think they would realize that, and despise me for it. What I wonder about it is the people who think, or pretend to think, that this stuff is mainstream, and I'll explain why in my next post.

Nanny-State Nonsense

This story breaks my heart. A newborn baby in Great Britain taken away from her parents, along with six other children, because of "concerns" about their weight. The precedent this sets scares me, but what scares me just as much is most of the comments at the end of the story. Most of these people are cold and judgmental and have no idea about weight gain or loss. I say this because there is a girl in one of the Dancer's classes who is, frankly, obese. She takes three dance classes a week, and I believe she assists for at least one other class of younger students. She has been taking dance for years. Her conditioning is good; she is never out of breath or even sweating hard after a dance class. Yet some of the commenters at the original article think sticking the kids in the story in some sort of activity like dance class for the *three month* probation period would have magically cured their weight problems. Now, I don't know. Maybe this girl from dance goes home and stuffs herself with Twinkies in front of the television when she's not dancing or at school, like so many people insist fat people must do. It seems more likely to me that, just as there are people who need to have a 3,000 calorie diet to even maintain their slender figures, there are other people who have the opposite problem and will struggle with overweight all their lives, just as the comment at the top from the article pointed out. The prejudice upsets me and the fact that these kids' lives will probably be completely ruined for nothing is a sad commentary on what happens when we let the state control our lives.

And as NRO's The Corner points out, a little state control can easily lead to a lot. The current administration is against gun-owning, Bible-believing Christians like us. When will they come to take our kids away to keep them "safe"? Will those who look down their noses at this poor family find the government coming for their kids next?

Oh Snap

I've been doing a lot of thinking since reading at Laura's about the homeless American Girl doll. This doll has been out all year, but her being homeless is never mentioned in the description of the doll in the catalog or online. One has to read about or watch the movie about the main doll of this year's three-doll Doll of the Year set, in which Gwen the homeless doll is included, to find out the backstory, it seems. Probably why it took so long for outlets to latch on to this news.

Most people who objected to the doll took issue only with the fact that no proceeds from this particular doll went to help the homeless, although American Girl the company does apparently support various charities. I think there is more to it than that, however. Of course, every historical doll in the American Girl series has a "message;" all stories convey some sort of overall meaning. For Addy, the escaped slave from the 1860s, the overarching lesson learned was obviously about the suffering incurred with slavery, although being for young girls the books do not go into details of beatings and so forth, but more about how the family is temporarily broken apart as they escape to the North. Through Samantha's best friend, Nellie, girls can learn about some of the hardships of factory life at the turn of last century and how even children had to work to support their families. However, these were historical themes, and the main idea behind the dolls was to teach girls about history and how girls of long ago were not that different from girls of today. Now American Girl seems intent on turning their line of dolls into After School Specials, with a Very Special Message for every one. Do we need a toy company to teach our children that Being Homeless Is Sad and We Should Help Our Homeless Friends? My daughter retches every time she sees the commercial on the Disney Channel about some sort of environmental crusade that viewers are urged to take part in. More of that self-congratulatory We're So Special and So Concerned That We Will Come Together and Fix Everything. Do they feel the yoke of sin and choose this to try to expediate their guilt? Do they need to feel better about themselves?

Also concerning, as I scanned American Girl's site for information about Gwen, is that the Kirsten doll is being discontinued. This will make two dolls from the original set of three to be canceled, as the Samantha doll and all her things are long gone. Is American Girl going to phase out every historical doll and just become about dolls of today? How sad that the original vision of Pleasant Rowland is being swallowed up. I definitely will not be interested in buying anything more from this company. We'll have to get the things the Dancer wants for her American Girl doll from other sources if possible.

I Felt So Alone

Yesterday Wildchild and her Brownie troop celebrated Thinking Day, with the rest of the Girl Scout troops in our town. Thinking Day is an event when Girl Scouts learn about another countries, as there are Girl Scouts, or Guides, all around the world. Each troop had a table featuring posters and so forth about their country. However, one older troop had a "Rights of Children Around the World" table that made me feel sick inside. Now, I'm not against children having food and shelter and clean drinking water and all that. It's just the phrasing, as in this country a "right" has started to mean "something someone else pays for." Like how many in this country say that everyone has a "right" to healthcare and so we should start a government bureaucracy so everyone can get it for "free." I was also disturbed by the sign that said that the United Nations as central for dealing with problems of humanity. I, on the other hand, see the UN as a corrupt and bloated agency where the top officials take kickbacks and paybacks and whatever else they can skim off, UN soldiers can be rapists of women and children, and they are generally uneffective and overfunded. I also wondered about a sign that said children have a right to love. This reminds me too much of the pro-abortion mantra that every child should be wanted. Like if you don't think you are going to "love" a child, you'd better get rid of it. Sigh. It just seemed to be that this display was long on feel-goodism and short on anything real. One sign even said, "Think of the children." Isn't that what every slimy politician says when they want to take more of our money?

Also, this Girl Scout event took place at the local public school, and I couldn't turn around without seeing a sign about honesty or taking responsibility or conflict resolution. Nothing promoted was bad in and of itself, but it started feeling barf-worthy when it was everywhere in sight. I felt so alone, so lost in a sea of "feelings" and political correctness and mantras. Like there was no one out there who thought like me.

ETA: Oh, and since Senator Obama is the co-sponsor of a Senate bill to spend at least $845 billion over the next five years to fight *global* poverty, I'm a little worried about a laundry list of things that children around the world have a "right" to have.

Does That Make Me Crazy?

Via JunkYard Blog, a 31-year-old student at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN was suspended for suggesting, in emails to the vice-president of academic and student affairs and the president of the college, that students might feel safer around the campus if concealed-carry permit holders, such as himself, were permitted to carry their weapons. In order to have his suspension lifted, Troy Scheffler, the student, must undergo a psychological evaluation and also any treatment deemed necessary. Ironically, the powers-that-be at the university also stationed a policeman with a gun outside of Scheffler's classroom to enforce the suspension. Ooooh. Weren't all the students afraid of the big, scary gun?

I am tired of universities cracking down on students' free speech in this manner. After reading the article, I do not see anything that Scheffler said that warrants a psychological evaluation. Colleges and universities have become anti-free-speech zones, where only the currently correct ideas can be spouted. Unless you're a Muslim, in which case you're free to call for the destruction of Israel and goodness only knows what else. I'm going to have to be so careful where I send my daughters to college. Especially my eldest daughter, who wants to be a vet. Is she going to have undergo a psychological evaluation if she says that she doesn't believe she evolved from an amoeba?

Day with Daddy

Today is Take Your Son/Daughter to Work Day, and the Scientist and Wildchild are dressed and ready to go off to work with Daddy, while Mommy stays home and cleans house parties like it's 1999. Originally, this day was supposed to be for girls only, to go with their mommies to work so their fragile little selves could see that they really could do all the things boys could do, etc. Nothing wrong with girls seeing what their parent(s) do at work, but I'm glad boys can go too, and that they can see what their daddy does at work as well. Especially since my girls already know very well what I do all day!

The Scientist could definitely be unschooled as far as reading goes. Yesterday she finished up Theater Shoes and read Half Magic. Today, she is taking Five Children and It to read during any boring parts of the day. In 'riting and 'rithmetic, though, she definitely needs prompting and encouragement.

Help Me Understand This

This article in Newsweek (via NewsBusters) caught my eye because it focuses on the Greater Cleveland area, where I happen to live. However, what I seem to get out of it is: "America is in trouble because we don't have enough socialist programs, the minimum wage is too low, and it's all the fault of the eeeevil George Bush." Otherwise, I don't really know what the point of this article is.

Let's start with the sub-title: "For the first time, poverty shifts to the U.S. suburbs." For the first time? Sorry, I don't buy that. To begin with, the two families discussed in the story are facing hard times because the wage earner(s) in the family are currently out of work. Yeah, I grew up in one of the nicest suburbs in Greater Cleveland, and we went through a lot of hard times when my father was out of work, too. In the end, my father ended up starting his own business because he couldn't find a job, and that left our family financially straitened for a time. To be honest, our family was never well-off. The only thing my family splurged on was a parochial school education for my two sisters and I. I'm not sure what the financial threshold was in the early 80's, but when I was attending high school, we even went through a time where I was eligible for free lunches at school, and we also received some food from the government.

Moving on to the first paragraph, we discover that our first token victim was making almost double what our Democratic saviors in Congress want to change the minimum wage to. So changing the minimum wage would help him how? Oh wait, his real problem is that he has no "safety net." No nearby food pantry, job retraining center or low-cost health clinic. Oh, how can those evil Republicans be so cruel? Okay, he was a 38-year-old fork-lift operator. Maybe he should have working on increasing his skills on his own before then? Or does that just make me cold-hearted? On top of the other problems, public transportation is "inadequate." I suppose we should just create a public transportation system that runs through every little nook and cranny of the suburbs, whether or not it is economically viable. We can just take the money out of taxes, after all. Then it won't matter whether the system makes money! After all, this poor man couldn't get a job in another suburb because the bus ride would be three hours each way. But he already has (or had) a car, and if he got a new job, couldn't he afford gas and car insurance again? Or at least after he'd been working for a while?

Then we move on to find out that for the first time, more Americans in poverty live in the suburbs than cities. This is a little different than the article's sub-title implies, and it only makes sense, at least in the Cleveland area. The city of Cleveland has long been built-up, while there has been lots of building in the suburbs. The house where I grew up, in which my mother still lives, has long since ceased to be "stylish" and the neighborhood does not house the same economic class as it did when I grew up. People have moved on to bigger, newer houses, further and further out. This can be seen as unfortunate, but unless we want to dictate to people where they can live, it will happen.

Next, we find out that the nation's manufacturing sector is "contracting," whatever that means. We don't get an explanation of why this is happening, however. Perhaps because our country has chased out much of its manufacturing, with high taxes and complicated laws?

Our next victim family ran into problems after only one month, when the mother was laid off of her job at a grocery store, and the father missed a month of work with a heart attack. From when my sister worked at a grocery store, I know grocery store workers usually make more than minimum wage rather quickly, so again raising the minimum wage would be moot here. And again, this is a family going through difficult times, for less than three months when this article was written. I would classify this very differently from "poverty." My husband could not find a job in his field for eight months during 2002, and things were very difficult for us financially. But we're doing our best now to recover and get ahead. And we live in the suburbs!

I can't even begin to comprehend this "living wage" versus "minimum wage" nonsense. As I pointed out already, none of the people above were likely to have been making minimum wage anyway. So were they making a "living wage"?

Every family will go through hard times when unemployment hits, and it will probably hit every family at some point. But this article offers no real hope at all, nothing but a sad picture of how hard life is without a socialist "safety net." Can we get a story next time about families who are making it?

Why a Third Party May Not Make It

Because people are too invested in themselves. Clayton Cramer (scroll down to Feb 7) marvels how Professor Volokh, of the Volokh Conspiracy, can claim to be a libertarian and yet defend making the HPV virus mandatory. Basically, what it boils down to is that people want to have the ability, as one commenter put it, to "screw like rabbits with a coke habit" without consequences. It's not enough for people to, you know, limit their sexual activities, perhaps even remain virgins until marriage. Or take the consequences for their own actions. Nope, we all have to get a vaccine, so that the disease can be wiped out and people can think they're safe while they keep doing whatever they want to do.

Yes, there are people who are against vaccines, period. Let's put that aside, if we can, for the moment. There are people out there who not only want mandatory vaccinations, paid for by the public, that have not been adequately tested for those in the target mandatory group, but some commenters there want minors to be able to get the vaccine without their parents' knowledge or permission. We as parents apparently don't have "rights" over our children. Just the responsibility to feed them, clothe them, house them, educate them, pay for any mishaps they do get into getting an abortion, contracting a disease, whatever. As the Chaplain wrote, man is not perfectible. People are showing an increasing willingness to dive headfirst down the slippery slope, and I don't think there's much chance of pulling the country back. Am I a wee bit cynical? Probably. But if you're going to argue I am, I need some really compelling reasons why.

Poverty Is Not Cute!!

Via Lucianne, I found this article by Mary Katherine Ham that makes me want to scream, makes me want to spit at every enviro-whacko in sight, makes me so angry that my hands can hardly stop shaking enough to type properly. How dare they? How dare those pretentious, snobbish glassbowls talk about great it must be to live in poverty? How dare they talk about how charming it is to use a horse and cart, how they are proud to have a horse? Well, in the area of Eastern Europe my grandmother and her family fled, they were happy to have a cow. Because they had a better chance to put food on the table, not because of some environmentalist's wet dream!!

Maybe it's wrong that I feel this more personally, because as I mentioned not that long ago, some of my ancestors came to America from an area very close to that discussed in the article. My great-grandparents' descendants could still be living in a hellhole, instead of enjoying the gifts of freedom to create wealth and make their own choices. Still, there's an ongoing tradition of the wealthy and powerful "bleeding hearts" working so hard on making themselves feel good, while hurting at worst and ignoring at best those whom they claim to care about so much. (h/t Ace.) So perhaps sometimes a problem so pervasive needs to hit you personally.

What also disturbs me here, is that these idiots are not just rhapsodizing about how wonderful it must be to live in filth and use outdoor toilets in freezing cold weather. No, they're getting their noses out of the air long enough to butt them in and do their best to prevent something that would actually help the people in the area. Even one of the Chaplain's reads, the Daily Reckoning, thinks the mining project could be a great investment if it was ever actually allowed to get off the ground. But no, the people there should live by selling woven baskets and wood carvings to tourists. Yeah.

Ironically, do you know when mining did the worst damage to the area? During the Soviet era. Yep, during the socialist paradise that all these nutjobs want to bring back. Considering my trip to West and East Berlin right after the Berlin Wall fell, I can easily believe this. West Berlin was a thriving, modern city. East Berlin was burning brown coal for fuel and still hadn't gotten around to rebuilding a lot of the damaged areas left over from WWII. Not very environmentally friendly to have brown coal dust coating the streets and the buildings. There were areas in East Berlin where nothing would grow anymore due to the pollution. Not the way I want to live. And the more I learn about the evil out there, and the stupid who mindlessly assist the evil, the more I want to fight back to keep them from destroying my dreams, or the dreams of my children. If only the poor around the world could get this chance as well.

A Change of Pace

So, I was surfing around YouTube while looking for something in particular, and I found this television clip. If you don't want to watch, basically it's a discussion of the current trend of college women's basketball teams having members of the men's team scrimmage with the women's team during practices, and the pros and cons thereof.

I don't talk about sports too much, although I enjoy rooting for Cleveland professional sports teams, as much as one can enjoy watching your team find ways to lose. My body is definitely not made for serious athletic pursuits, and my daughters have other aptitudes as well. But as far as basketball goes, I've always had a fondness for girls' high school basketball. This is probably partially because my mother played basketball herself for Lutheran High, back when girls were only allowed to play half court ball, so as not to strain their delicate constitutions.(!) Also, I attended Lutheran West High School, where the girls' basketball coach, Karen Wittrock, is the winningest girls' basketball coach in the state of Ohio, with over 600 wins and less than 200 losses.

This video, however, offers some interesting things to think about beyond the realm of females playing basketball. For starters, the coaches talk about how it is great for the women to be playing basketball against the men, because the men are "bigger, stronger and faster." Okay, hold on. Aren't women and men supposed to be absolutely equal in every single way already? No?

It also brings up issues related to Title IX, wherein legislators attempted to create desired results by mandate, in this case, making sure women had absolutely the exact same opportunities to play absolutely the exact same sports as men, whether the women want to or not. Of course the result, as so often happens when legislators try to force their own visions to come to pass via a law, seems in my not so humble opinion to have hurt more than it helped. For updates on the follies of Title IX, the International Women's Forum seems to be the best go-to site I have found. In the case of the issue we're currently discussing, the argument is that benefits to women athletes from Title IX are being erased, as second-string women's players get less playing time while the first-string women are playing against the guys. As is to be expected from a brief television blurb, this issue is not resolved adequately. One coach says, actually, all the women get more playing time under this new practice. This makes no sense to me, since who would the first-string women be scrimmaging against, if not the second-string women, if the men were not there?

Overall, I found this issue intriguing because the thing I like about women's basketball, particularly at the high school level, is that it is different from men's basketball. Women are different from men, and while I think women can excel in athletic pursuits, women are different physically and this may result in different things. Women's softball has its differences from men's baseball. Women figure skaters have cut back on the relentless pursuit for more rotations in jumps, opting for difficulty in combination jumps instead. Jumps require a certain level of upper body strength to muscle the body through the jump, and men do have the advantage in this area. I saw all the serious knee and ankle injuries to the girls who played basketball while I was in high school, and I wonder if the goal of playing more like men will only make this worse, or if better conditioning and new conditioning techniques will offset this. While I don't think girls should be limited to half-court ball, and I like the idea of girls and women in basketball being more aggressive for the rebound or on defense, I don't think changing their style of play to be exactly like men is something that should be striven for. Anyone else out there have an opinion?

One-Upmanship

Now that one needs to have had a child to have a legitimate argument, where can we take it from here? Let's see, I suppose having a son of military age gives you the most moral authority. Unless, you know, your son is actively serving in the military and you support him. Or your son died in service for his country, and you don't hate the president, and are proud of your son's service.

So where can we go from there? Number of children? Difficulty/length of deliveries? Difficulty during pregnancy? Mastitis? Spent lots of nights sitting up with sick children? Maybe we should come up with some kind of point system. A Caesarian gets you so many points, morning sickness all nine months gets you so many points. I'm feeling full of moral authority already.

More of the Same

I wanted to update everyone that yesterday I received the books I ordered from Book Closeouts. I ordered them late Friday night, so they made it here in good time, and the shipping is not overpriced either, which is how some places with low prices "make up the difference." I did have the items sent UPS; media mail will take quite a bit longer but is of course cheaper!

On the subject of books, what do all you parents with school-age kids think/do on the subject of "reading" in the higher grades? The Scientist devours any book within reach, and her comprehension is fairly good. Is there any more to it than that? She doesn't always see the "deeper meanings" English classes are so fond of; you know, like "What was the author trying to say with the thunderstorm during the argument of the two main characters?" yada yada yada. But I think she's a bit young for that yet. By the way, she's ten, eleven all too soon!

Another question for you Ohioans, or anyone who knows of a good source for maps. I am doing some history of the state of Ohio this year, and I would like to find a good size map that shows important roads, cities, historical places, etc. A road map might work but is really a bit cluttered for what I ideally want. Also it would be great to have a topographical map where the girls could see, for example, how much flatter the land is here in the northern part of the state than down south. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

On the Big Government front, it is of course the national government's job to get all obese children in this country to lose weight, right? And yet experts are bemoaning the government shutting down "a promising program that portrayed exercise as cool." So let me get this straight, kids are supposed to resist every temptation to smoke cigarettes, but these "slick ads" encouraging kids to exercise were working so well? Of course, the government did basically force cigarette companies to quit running a lot of their "slick ads." Obviously our children just need the proper advertising, and at a cost of $59 million last year, what a steal! State and local projects do seem a little more promising, and more appropriate at the local level, like new bike paths or a community garden. Still, I dislike reading quotes from "experts" that talk about "full-scale" social change being needed. And of course they should be in charge. Sorry, but no. My husband and I will decide how our family should live, thankyouverymuch!

I'm also disturbed by the reaction of a woman's family to her sentence of 8 years for starting a fire in her home and keeping her two daughters inside. Fortunately, neighbors managed to save them. The woman has problems, yes. The family admitted she was schizophrenic and off her meds when she almost killed her daughters. However, I disagree with what her stepfather said: "She needs help more than jail time. You know, I thought the system would rehabilitate people, not incarcerate." Well, if she needs help, where was her family? Why weren't they making sure she was taking her meds? Maybe she shouldn't even be living alone with just herself and her two daughters? For that matter, where is the children's father? Hello, the Criminal Justice System's job is to incarcerate! How can "the system" rehabilitate her? How will they magically insure she takes her meds once she is free? There are plenty of psychiatrists out there, and even financial assistance if you can't afford the payments. Perhaps her family should make sure she starts seeing one when she gets out of the joint. And I say this as a person who has seen mental issues/problems with being off medication/not admitting you have issues at all. But the first responsibility lies with the individual, and then with family/friends when things become difficult for the individual, and they can, and probably will. I wouldn't trust "the system" to "fix" anyone.

Strong Fences Make Good Neighbors

Certainly not a popular quote today, judging by my quick research to double-check that I had it written correctly. We are to be tolerant, open to all viewpoints, multicultural, full of "positive emotional energy." Pfaugh! Complete and utter nonsense! As confessional Lutherans, for example, we know that God has given us His truth in His Word. As humans still in a sinful condition, we won't always follow this truth, but we always need to look to His Word for the truth, certainly not to other sinful humans. So we need to create a fence, to block out that which would come in to corrupt us, and cling only to God's Word and Sacrament.

On a worldly corollary, my church building also has fences, to help protect the property from being defaced and destroyed. I have gotten the impression over the years that many who claim to follow Christ look rather askance at property rights. Perhaps this comes from the early believers in Acts who chose to live together and share everything among each other. I think more often, we are told to be good stewards of what God has given us. Does this mean throwing our property to the four winds? No, we need fences, walls, locked doors and gates to protect and take care of that which God has given us.

This quote occurred to me originally in conjunction with the current problems on our southern border. I thought there would be more protests today, it being a Hispanic holiday. I should have known that the socialist and communist groups quietly organizing things behind the scenes would instead choose the communist holiday of the first of May. In any case, the fact that we are letting so many people come into this country illegally completely disgusts me. While some argue that building an actual, physical fence along our entire border is not logistically, practically possible, we must have some way to protect the citizens of this country. Letting landowners along the border protect their own property would be a start. If the rights and privileges of being a citizen of this country are not worth protecting, they will soon be not worth having. God help us all when that time comes.

This means something to me on a personal level right now as well, however. I have been battered emotionally for many years by outside family members. Now I am receiving protests and nasty words because I have chosen to retreat for a time. I have locked myself behind a fence to protect myself, my children, my husband, my marriage. My family, the four of us that share these walls, are most important to me. The family is our foundation here on earth. Without it, we have nothing, so I have to protect it first and foremost.

We cannot as Christians always hide behind walls and fences. Sometimes with God's help we must ride forth and do battle with the forces of evil and darkness. But I thank God that we have places of safety, that He protects and shields us through this life. I think fences and boundaries are essential to surviving with others in this world.

Wrapping Things Up

We have some end-of-school-year stuff to take care of. I'm re-registering my youngest daughter with Brownies and I'm doing it differently this year. They have an "optional" section at the bottom for ethnicity, and in the case of adult registrants (leaders and such) highest education received as well. I left it blank last year, since it says it is optional and I object to ethnic "quotas." Well, being the leader of my other daughter's troop, I was very irked when I got copies of our registration forms back for troop records and found that the area registrar had filled that section out for us! Hmmm. Not very optional then, is it? So this year I'm writing across the whole box in big letters "I Choose Not to Fill Out This Section." I can't see how checking a box stops discrimination, which I presume is the reasoning behind this. And I would like to know how someone who doesn't know me from Adam can ascertain my ethnic background and education level.

As far as my older daughter's troop, of which I am the leader, I have no idea how that is going to go. It was a difficult year for me. I became a leader by default, in mid-September or so, because what was supposed to happen troop-wise fell through and if my daughter was going to be in a troop, I was going to have to lead it. This year we had few girls and little money. I also had to deal at times with some modern girl attitude, which basically seems to be "It's all about me." I'm sure a lot of you have seen these shirts in stores with slogans like "It's funny how you think I'm listening." Uh-huh, that makes me real enthusiastic to share and teach things. Not that I didn't honestly try my best. It just made it discouraging at times, wondering if it made a difference.

My youngest daughter is also in gymnastics, and this year for the first time, she's learned simple "routines" and will participate in end-of-year "competitions" with other girls her level. No judging yet, just award certificates. She's only seven. I'll post some pictures after the events. She enjoys gymnastics, and I'm glad she's getting the opportunity to take classes. She's very active and she'd rather be climbing and jumping and moving around than anything else. I'd like to try to get her into ballet also, if not this summer than next fall.

Ironically, whilst I was complaining above about people filling things out for me that I don't want filled out, my husband IM'd me a personality test: Machiavelli personality test. I scored as a high Machiavelli, not surprising for an Evil Genius, although I was not overwhelmingly high. It was interesting how a Christian worldview slants the test both ways. On the one hand, we know we are not to lie and cut corners to get ahead. On the other hand, we know that people are not naturally good and kind!