Got this over at Chrysalis' Blog.  The loss of the laptop has affected my blogging, but I will try to keep the momentum up that I had going.  Plus, I have been sick and it turned into Bronchitis and was prescribed Antibiotics and the "Good" cough medicine.  I am very sensitive to drugs (they used to call me "two-can" back in my drinking days.) and it either makes me loopy or conks me out.  For the daytime when I'm driving they told me to take an over-the-counter thing, so we'll see what happens.  Life has been happening also, but I am not at liberty to discuss some of the big things yet, but I will bring them to you when it is appropriate.

Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me, some from the beginning, and especially everyone who leaves comments.  Comments are very important to me.

I normally hate doing memes, but this one was sufficiently different to keep my attention.

1. When did you start blogging and why?  Monday, 04 October 2004.  My first entry was entitled "To Blog or Not To Blog" and the entry began,

"To blog or not to blog, that was my question
Whether 'twas nobler in my mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous statements of noodle heads
Or to take up "Pen and Paper" against a sea of troublesome thoughts
And by blogging them out, thereby end them?"

2. How do you use blogging to build friendships?  I don't think I really use it for that, it just happens.  If someone visits my blog, I try to visit theirs back.  After you read a person's writing for a while, you get to know them.  Not all friendships are equally close, however.  I feel I have made some really good friends though.

3. Who do you read every day, rain or shine?  I have a list of about 30 I try to hit every single day, but it is in sore need of being updated so I took the blogroll down.  I am planning to do another entry with an updated list.

4. Why did you choose to share that piece of yourself in a photograph?  If this question is meant about the profile pic, it's my favorite.  My daughter Abi took it and we fixed the background.  I think it's the "real" me and explains why some Indians believed that part of your spirit could be captured by the camera and refused to be photographed.

5. How would you describe your writing style?  Down-to-earth, conversational.

6. If you could spend time with one person (other than your spouse, because really, let's not rack up the suck up points here)?  George W. and Laura Bush.

7. What don't you write about?  Personal things about other people, even other family members.

8. How do you feel about meeting bloggers in real life? Are you nervous? Will you have great expectations?  Never have, but think it might be fun.  Since I am a tee totaling Prohibitionist I don't like to go to bars.  For a partial explanation of this position, read my entry, "Dead Drunk."  I have a hard time abiding drunk people, partly because the first thing they will insist to you is that they are not drunk, they've "Jusht had a couple."  That being said, there are some people I would love to meet in person.

9. Is there one blogger in particular that you find mirrors yourself?  I think Daveman might have at times.

10. What is your favorite thing that you wrote?  That is a tough one because I really put a lot of work into everything I write.  The list in the sidebar shows some of my favorites.

11. Have you written anything controversial?  Yes and I plan to again, too.  I write about whatever I feel like and if someone is offended, well, I don't purposely try to offend, but this blog is about ME and what I think or feel about things.

12. Are you and your blogging persona the same person?  Yeah.  I'm a rotten liar, faker or bluffer and never won a poker game in my life.  This is me.

13. Have you ever anonymously posted on a site to flame them?  Never.  If I comment somewhere, you know it was me.

14. If you had a super power, what would it be?  Invisibility

15. Which five bloggers do you want to answer these questions?  Since I think this is an interesting meme I would just like to see everybody do it on, but on their own, the way Pops did.

When I got that first job at the drugstore back in 1974 (see the entry "Changed"), I learned a lot.  I don't know how much I knew I was learning at the time, but I think back and a few things stand out.

I learned:

If you get out of bed early on Saturday morning and go to work, you can make money.

Working hard helps make you more money.

More money means more Tombstone Pizzas and Coca-Colas and comic books and sci-fi books, especially if your family can't buy you these things whenever you want them.

If you don't sweep and mop in the corners every Saturday, nobody will notice.

If you never sweep and mop in the corners, they will.

Always rotate stock.  Put the older stuff toward the front, even if it means taking everything off the shelf.

While you have everything off the shelf, clean the shelf.

Respect everybody; you never know when the scruffy old guy in the beat-up fishing hat is your boss's grandfather.

Or the mayor.

Prophylactic devices are behind the register, in the third drawer on the right and you shouldn't shout across the store, "Hey Keith!  Where do we keep the, what was it, prophylactic devices?"  Back then such things were not on display and, believe it or not, I didn't have a clue what they were or what they were for.  Until Keith told me, "You know some people get embarrassed when you talk about things like that, especially across the store."  "What?"  "Rubbers."  "Oh."

But really, one of the most interesting things about the job was watching him work the art of the apothecary.  They don't do this much nowadays in drugstores and pharmacies, but back then it was more common.  Old folks especially, who remembered Keith's grandfather, would come into town from all over the county and ask for concoctions that had been made at that counter since the store opened.  A little old gal would come in and ask for an arthritis cream that Keith's father or uncle used to make for her.

Keith had been a sailor at one time and could be a little gruff, a Camel "straight" dangling from his lower lip all the time while he was working or talking, but he always had respect for the old folks that came in.  I think all of the merchants in our town did because in a small farming community it is the plain ol' folks that started your business and kept it in business.  Even though the town was a tourist trap even back then, the locals were always respected.

I should say he used to have a camel cigarette dangling from his lower lip, but we're getting to that.

Anyway, he felt, even in 1974, that the world was losing an art by losing the old-fashioned apothecary and that he should try to keep these traditions going as long as he could.  He also knew there was a very tidy profit in it as well, extra work or not and two more things I learned from that job is that, besides a desire to provide a service to the community, people go into business to make money and it pays to be an informed buyer.  He never cheated or skimped on a prescription or a concoction, however, using only the best, most expensive ingredients and passing the cost on.

So these little old gals would come in and he would put aside the gruffness and get out a sheet of special waxed paper and put a glop of cream on it.  In a locked drawer behind the prescription counter was a small, leather-bound black journal filled with scrawlings made in Latin and written in fading fountain-pen ink.  He would let me page through it, even though I couldn't make sense of it (or maybe because I couldn't make sense of it) because he saw the fondness and reverence I had toward the artifact.  I love old books and things of that sort, always have.  He would take ingredients down from various brown bottles and grind them in a mortar and pestle, then mix them into the base cream and have me fetch the appropriate jar to put it in.  Then he would call the customer, who swore by the stuff.

I also learned that there were drug abusers in the world.  We used to be able to sell cough syrup that contained Codeine over the counter, but Keith had a system he used that he had learned from his uncle and father.  I don't recall if it was a law or not.  If someone wanted to buy some cough medicine, I could recommend any kind but "the good stuff," which was kept on a shelf in the back room, out of plain sight and only available to customers that asked for it that were known people to either Keith or Paul (his uncle that worked with us in busy seasons) who were the only ones allowed to sell it.  If the person wasn't known to them, but looked like they were probably okay, (I didn't know all the signs of a drug abuser or "dope" then) he would make them sign and date a logbook they kept.  I remember one time a guy had come in and bought a bottle of wine and wanted to buy some "good" cough medicine.  Keith just told him we didn't have any.  "I know you guys have.  You all have it.  I really, really want some."  "Sorry pal.  I also have the number to the Police (there was no "911" and all we had were rotary dial phones that were attached to the wall.) Department, too."  The guy practically flew out the door, and Keith explained that the guy would drink the bottle of wine and the bottle of cough syrup together and get stoned.  I was shocked.  The idea of taking more than the proper dose of a medicine just boggled my poor, sheltered little brain.

Keith could make his own cough syrups, too.  They were very expensive and used strange ingredients I had never heard of as well as copious amounts of pure alcohol and Codeine and flavorings.  These recipes also came from his little book and as I said, had a high cost attached to them.

One day after Keith had me fetch the ingredients for a large bottle of one of his cough medicines, he went to work, trademark Camel dangling from his lip.  I had walked away while he was very carefully measuring an exact amount of this, and exactly so much of this other and I was waiting on a customer when throughout the store rang the loudest, most profane string of curse-words I had ever heard.  And many I had never heard.  The customer left as I ran toward the back, picturing my boss lying in a pool of blood and me having to look up the ambulance number, but it was nothing like that.

There he stood cursing and swearing, sans cigarette.  I saw the butt of the cigarette snuffed out in the test tube.  The ash from the cigarette had fallen from it right into the almost finished product.  My laughter did not lighten his mood any and there were many colorful descriptive terms for physically impossible things that came out of his mouth.  I was sent to work the rest of the day cleaning a disused storeroom in an unfinished part of the basement, affectionately known as The Dungeon.  "Go clean the blankity-blank, double-expletive deleted, blankity-blank-blank-blank dungeon!  There's nothing funny about this blankity-blank-blank-blank it anyway."  I had never, ever seen him that mad or red in the face.  I was afraid he was going to kill me or worse yet, fire me right then and there and bye-bye pizza and Coke.  Cleaning the dungeon was worse than getting killed, but I still had my job.  By Monday he was laughing and joking about it himself.

So I learned another thing from that job.  I know some might take me task for saying this, but the way he strung those words together was almost artistic, eloquent, and even poetic or beautiful.  Not just the one word that is now common everywhere, especially certain types of sounds erroneously referred as music by some, but a string that never reused a word.  This may be very bad to say (and it has been a very long time since I have done this myself and emulated his speech) but his alliterations were where they should be with a flowing rhythm.  He was not repetitive or redundant and if you are not living as a Christian you would almost have to be envious of his broad vocabulary.

Yes, there was one more thing I learned from that first job, I learned to cuss like a sailor!  Or don't laugh your ash off.

Remember, the Good Book says, "And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary..."

Thanks to all of you for your kind words and encouraging comments and everyone's support.

I especially wish to thank Pops, for writing so eloquently and often poignantly about his father's last days.  It has been comforting in this time since mom has gotten sick.  She is steadily declining to the point where I have to decide whether to make the trek to Wisconsin to see her one last time (Which was kind of why her church sent her out here) only to turn around and go back again for a funeral or wait.

Savannah and the miniature poodle, Boston Blacky, have become quite attached to each other.  The other day she sat down with him and took the dog's food, poured it into his water bowl and, spoon in hand, commenced to eat it like cereal.  Until Tabitha caught her and made her quit.

The laptop is still belly-up so updates are not as quick as they were, but there is a man in the church who is a tech and will look at it for me.  Hopefully he can do something.

Remember, the Good Book says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain..."

Not much time to update since the laptop went belly-up but here are a couple of things, "hot off the wire."  Mom was in the hospital last couple of days, didn't sound very good at all, but they pulled her through.  My brothers, who live there in Shawano area, had to choose a nursing home for her, though, so she will be moving.  Dad had been working so hard helping her that he was gonna get sick and this was the final blow.  I know my brothers know the area and the local scuttlebutt and can make a better decision than I could.

Giant youth conference at the church called, "Heritage," meant to teach the old-time religion to a new generation.  Oftentimes people are quick to just dump the old ways of doing things without looking into why some of those things were put into effect in the first place.  Ashley, who has a gaggle of girls staying with her, has been talking about it a little on her blog.

Speaking of blogs, in response to Jerry saying that it getting too political could hurt it, when I first started this, the 4th entry I ever did, in fact, said,

"Just a note of explanation now that i have sent out a mail to all my friends and family about this blog.  I have a wide variety of friends from a wider variety of ideologies.  What this means to you, gentle reader (don't ya love Miss Manners?), is that some of you will wonder why there isn't more church stuff, or more political stuff, or more writing stuff, or more funny/weird stuff and while you are wondering about that, the other people will be wondering exactly the opposite, e.g., why so much church or politics, or who cares about the difference between a trochee and an iambus and if he's such a big-time, fancy-schmancy writer, why does he use ridiculously long, yea, verily even, run on, sentences?

"Oh, and i MUST clarify one other thing.  I really am not a big-time writer.  I have had a couple of very minor pieces printed in a vanity press.  This is where this exercise is supposed to come in handy.  I get to practice on my friends and relatives and any total stranger that happens to stroll by."

So, you probably want to keep that in mind.  I don't intentionally offend, but I don't see any reason to sugarcoat anything I believe or think or else the idea of a web-log, an online-journal, becomes a little silly to me.

Remember, the good book says, "To thine own self be true."  Or was that the Bard?

I have said before that Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is probably one of the most important books a person can and should read.  While Orwell's 1984 may be more accurate I think Bradbury leaves us with a true glimmer of hope, which Orwell does not.  Both books should be read by every member of every society and if you do read 1984, when you get to the end, take a piece of paper and cover the last paragraph, especially the last sentence of the book.  Don't let yourself read that until the very end.  It gave me cold goosebumps and nightmares.  Fahrenheit 451 did not do that, exactly, but made a vivid, lasting impression on me when I first read it when I was 15 and the several times I've read it since.

If you are not familiar with Bradbury's story, it is set in a future time surprisingly like our own in a country very much like ours.  The Protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman of the time whose job is not to put fires out, but to start them.  Houses are all fireproof but books have been outlawed completely.  If you are found to own a book, your books and house are all burned and you are imprisoned.  The title comes from the temperature at which book paper combusts.  Written in the early 50's, Bradbury describes a society where people never go anywhere without their "ear-bud" radios plugged into their ears.  They watch TV on giant, wall-sized screens and never do anything else.

Books came to be outlawed by a process remarkably similar to the "Political Correctness" we see today.  Some group found a certain book to be offensive and protested its printing, held burnings and got it banned from libraries.  Another group found a different book offensive.  Some found the Bible offensive, others found other writings offensive as all the while the people became less and less involved with the government and how it was run and more and more involved in personal entertainment.  They eventually became so complacent and believed the propaganda spewed into their ear-buds and out of their TVs that it was not difficult for the government to pass laws, at first outlawing only certain books nobody ever really cared about or read anyways.  The people continued feeding their minds on the pap from the carefully crafted, inoffensive TV shows while the government banned more and more books until finally all books were against the law.

It all started out with people being made to believe they could not say whatever they wanted for fear of offending someone or some group while at the same time others became so thin-skinned that they took everything as a personal insult and provocation.  The right not to be offended took the place of the right to free speech.

(Obviously, there are some books that may belong on public or private library shelves that are not appropriate for a middle-school library and you can read my piece on book banning to learn how to deal with that and when.)

Here in the United States we place a very high value on our Freedom of Speech.  It was the first one of ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution that we refer to as "The Bill of Rights."  "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  This has been interpreted to include a large number of things I don't know that the founders intended or could even have imagined, but any American citizen has the right to say whatever they want about whatever they want without fear of retaliation.  Our law even protects works of art as well as political speech and prohibits the government from establishing a state religion while also prohibiting the government from interfering with any religion.  It is a great law, but the Supreme Court has given it some few limits.  For instance, you cannot go into a crowded theater and yell "fire!" when there is no fire.  We are protected from libel and slander as well.

So, if you want to make a statement by burning the very representation of your country that fosters this right, well, okay.  Personally I don't understand it and you will never get me to acknowledge your ideas by doing it.  It is the type of thing the REVEREND Fred Phelps' followers do.  You can say what you want and do what you want because we are free; I just hope you also have the poor judgment to do it at a V.F.W. July 4th celebration because I think that if you are one of these ignorant, inarticulate, irreverent fools who believe burning the flag makes some sort of statement, you would deserve what you got.

I don't know if protestors even use this anymore.  I think nowadays it's flag-waving that everyone does.  (You can ask Carter about living in Washington State where protestors drive their cars sporting their yellow ribbons to protests where they spit on returning soldiers and scream vitriolic epithets at them.)  Anti-war hippie protestors of the 60's and 70's that used to burn the flag appear to have learned that most people, regardless of which side of the aisle they are on, don't have any respect for them when they do this.  Besides, it has been established that this is a legal form of free speech which kind of takes the edge off it.  It used to be a deeply shocking and dangerous form of expression, but now the people they are protesting just say, "Well, you have the right to say what you want."  So I don't know how much this even actually goes on any more, if at all.  I did read about a neighborhood in New York that had 8 homes' flags and poles burnt, one being the flag of their fallen Marine son, but this sort of thing is already covered in vandalism and arson laws and is not about free speech.

Aside from the fact that we value our freedom of speech so highly in this country there are several valid, practical questions to consider as well, a few of which my liberal blog-buddy Jerry brought up a while ago.  If it's against the law to burn the flag, does that include any and all flags?  The paper one the newspaper prints every year?  A photo of the flag?  A 3x5 cotton flag?  A confederate flag?  A Christian flag?  A Union Jack?  The flags of other nations?  A photo of someone burning the flag?  What is the purpose and intent?  To protect us from the one irreverent (and usually irrelevant) fool that feels the need to express himself this way?  What if someone wants to hold an anti-religion rally and burns a Bible?  Or a Koran?  None of these things are things I would do, nor would most right-thinking people who are interested in communicating their beliefs and actual debate.  It's like name-calling, you stinky poop-head.

Besides, shouldn't you include the guy's house I see every day that has a filthy, faded U.S. flag and tattered POW flag that you can barely read the words on?  Isn't that equally disrespectful and disgraceful, if not more so?  I don't think the flag that flew over Fort Sumter is in as rough condition.  There are way too many people who, in what I desperately hope is patriotic fervor, fly dilapidated, tattered pieces of cloth that excuse themselves as flags.  Those little flags that you attached to your car on 9/12/01 that are just little strips of cloth (or plastic) need to be changed now, sir.  What started out as a national solidarity under the proudest flag that's ever flown over the greatest country in the world, has turned into something of an embarrassment.  I think the real problem is that many people do not really know they are doing something wrong.  The Boy Scouts have put together a nice little easy-to-read guide for proper flag handling and the VFW has put together a little more in-depth flag etiquette and history, including a little more detailed instruction on disposing of a flag that is no longer serviceable.

To me this was a poorly conceived electioneering device and the elected officials from both sides ought to be ashamed of themselves.  Come on, you guys; do some real work for a change.

Remember, the good book says, "Let despots remember the day/When our fathers with mighty endeavor/Proclaimed as they marched to the fray/That by their might and by their right/It waves forever."  Or was that Sousa?

Whether to adress the comments I have received in the comments section or as another entry was difficult.  Apparently blogging is like everything else in life, people hear what they want to hear and read what they want to read.  The comments on part II indicate a lack of understanding of part I, thus, part III.  I really wanted to get on to other things, but I don't like my words misunderstood or worse, purposely misconstrued, so a final outing (pun intended) on the subject seems necessary since .

But where to start?  I guess first is the claim that Society must be educated.  This may be true.  Society needs to be educated that almost all pedophiles are male and one third of all sex crimes are comitted against boys.  81% of sex crimes committed against children by Roman Catholic priests during the past 52 years were homosexual men preying on boys.  A copiously documented article by a Ph. D. on the subject is here:  http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS02E3 along with a brochure by the same doctor: http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BC04C02

To say that allowing this change is not going to lead to anything else is a head-in-the-sand approach.  Establish gay marriage and polygamy will be next.  As I said previously, it may not be in the near future, but it will come.

As to comparing the issue to the civil rights movement of the 60's you will find that many black people find a comparison offensive.  Colin Powell from his book , "My American Journey":  [In testimony before Congress on gays in the military], I said, "I think it would be prejudicial to good order and discipline to try to integrate gays and lesbians in the current military structure." Congresswoman Pat Schroeder quoted a 1942 government report and claimed that the same arguments used then against racial integration in the military were being used against gays today.  She had her logic wrong. I responded, "Skin color is a benign, nonbehavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument. The linking of gay rights and the civil rights movement got a mixed reaction in the African-American community. The Congressional Black Caucus favored removing the ban on homosexuals in the armed services. But other leaders were telling me that they resented having the civil rights crusade hijacked by the gay community for its ends.

So no, it isn't about that.

Yes, this country was founded because of religious persecution, usually, as has been the case since John the Baptist was beheaded, because they preached against the sin and immorality of the time.  The pilgrims preached against the established religious practices and immoral behavior of political leaders and were shipped out rather than burnt at the stake.

Besides, the "religious" arguments at the end of Part II were intended for Conservatives and Christian believers.  Obviously non-believers will disregard this part, although most married people have said the Scripture I quoted in their vows.

The Good Book says, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

Thank you to everyone that commented on my post about the marriage definition amendment.  I had not planned on doing another post about it anytime soon, but having read these comments I would like to address a couple of points before going on to something else because I believe that what people said was sincere.

I was always told (and taught in public school sociology class) that homosexuals were not distinguishable by any outward features, e.g. if a man talks soft or a woman has a haircut like a man’s that that does not mean they are gay.  Homosexuals are just like everyone else and anyone you know and even those you might least expect could be homosexual and you would never know.  This is true.  In fact, if I were a gay person I would find this latest advertising campaign that shows a dog walking like a cow and mooing, extremely offensive because it’s saying that you can tell by these outward signs what a person is.  It is meant to depict, by having a dog saying “moo,” that some people are “just born that way.”  But it’s still unnatural.  A dog saying “moo” is unnatural and the other dogs in the pack might or might not let it run with them, the normal dogs barking and chasing squirrels and eating trash, not ruminating.  This ill-thought advertising campaign was conceived by our former mayor who is now the president of the gay and lesbian society here.  She did a lot of stupid things as mayor, too.

Now, why should the rights of the God-fearing Christian majority be infringed by having to subsidize these unnatural unions?  Why are the rights of Christians always the first to be thrown out?  You are not seeing, aside from the larger problem of the overall moral decay of modern society, that the practical upshot is, in fact, that once you validate marriage as being anything other than one man and one woman, you have to validate all of the other types as well.  This is not taking away anyone’s rights.  Besides, many rights are taken away from us all the time by merely submitting to the rule of law.

Which leads to why the government has to be involved.  The government is already involved in everyone’s day-to-day life.  You cannot steal.  You cannot murder.  You cannot peddle child pornography.  These are laws of our land and we live by them every day.  You can murder someone, but there is a penalty to pay.  Life is sacred, the innocence of children is sacred and marriage should be sacred as well.  Go ahead and live in whatever sin you wish, just don’t ask me to condone it or vote that you should be allowed special privileges to do it.  I don’t feel sorry that the government doesn’t allow someone to steal my car (as if anyone would steal my car, but that’s another entry).  I expect to be protected.  45 states already have definitions of marriage as being a contract between one man and one woman, so really it is representative of the majority of the states.  When was Democracy ever “minority rules?”

The last thing is love.  I think it will probably shock almost every one of my readers to find out that I believe that gay people can be as much “in love” as straights.  Christians, Pseudo-Christians and Christian-Wannabes have allowed love and especially marriage to be cheapened to the point where this conversation is even necessary.  The big problem is Christians.  The harder-core the Christian, the more at fault.  “Umm…Herb, I thought YOU were a hard-core conservative Christian?”  I consider myself as such and I don’t think there is enough leadership in the basic Christian community in the area of instruction about marriage.  Christians have allowed divorce to become a rampant ill in our society by condoning it.  By not teaching, preaching and preparing people for what marriage is supposed to be about you have set them up for failure.

Love is not a twitterpated, giddy feeling of attraction to a person, although that can lead to true love.  True love is a decision.  It is a conscious, committed, decision that grows stronger and stronger the more it is tested; even when the “twitterpation” has been worn down by dirty diapers at three in the morning, the Bible lets us know that we can set our affections.  We can choose who and/or what to love.  It is deeper than a feeling.  “Oh, I just couldn’t help myself falling in love” is really not true.  You felt attracted to that person, maybe by their wit or looks or charm or the way they looked at you, and it led you to want to be closer to them.  Of course it is not always a conscious decision; a couple of lonely people are attracted to each other in some way and immediately decide then and there that if that person will have them, they will stay with them through thick and thin, but it is the commitment part that is love, the setting of affection on that one person forever no matter what, not the goosebumps you feel when their hand touches yours.  That all works into it of course, but the bottom line is that love is that decision to stay forever.  Christians are only allowed to dissolve a marriage in the event of adultery and Jesus even said that that was because of the hardness of an unforgiving heart.  Christians have made this teaching worthless by making all manner of frivolous exceptions.  While there can be situations where divorce is unavoidable, much of the divorce that goes on in our country could be considered frivolous.  For example, a situation where a man (I use the term loosely) sleeps around on his wife and abuses her emotionally is not, in my opinion, frivolous.

That being said, one person can, in fact, set their affections on another and commit to stay with them and be loyal to them for the rest of their life.  This does not mean that it is any less of a sin or that I have to condone it.  God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve or Eve and Louise or Adam and Eve and Steve and Louise.  When God made the first man he took a rib from the side of man, not from his head to be above him or his foot to be beneath him, but a rib from the side of him, to create a helper for him (and most men need help from a woman, believe me) to be with him.  It was only one rib and even after the fall of man, God did not create another woman for Adam.  They were to stay together, “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”  In our promiscuous society we often forget that a woman and a man are supposed to “save themselves” for marriage and the act of consummation is supposed to bind the two together in the same manner, to become one.

Marriage between one man and one woman forever is what God intended; what is commonly called “The Nuclear Family” is how God created it.  Of course Hollyweird has tried to cheapen and mock this teaching by making everything okay and Christians who know nothing about their Bible or even their own religion fall prey to their machinations.  The Marriage Definition Amendment is only one step in saving our society from itself.  Christians need to re-learn their own teachings, what they are and what they mean.

Remember, the Good Book says, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.  What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Coming next, The Flag Burning Amendment

People who oppose a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman are wrong.  This issue is being touted by the media as a ban on gay marriage who say anyone who supports the measure hates gays, which is not the truth, but an example of the standard these days for the pap frequently pawned off as journalism is to take the worst possible look at something, from the liberal side, fire off a couple of cheap shots at conservatives and then on to the next story.  Of course they have to sell ads or Mad Ave will get mad (whenever you watch TV you should always observe who is mainly paying for the program, even news).  My problem is that if you say anything against them, for instance, if you point out that it is an unnatural act and a sin against God and nature and nothing more than lust-fires burning out of control, the first word out of their mouth is "homophobe"; often when they have no knowledge of where you come from, who your friends are or why you believe what you do.  Homosexuality is a form of sexual deviancy.  Normal sexuality is one man and one woman.

Oh, I heard that.  So, you want to know who I am to define for you what is normal.  Hah!  See, that is the crux of the whole problem.  Who am I to tell you what is moral?  But then again, who are you to tell me what is moral?  You are equally intolerant and miss a larger point.  The fact is that without a moral compass of some sort, we get on a slippery slope.  The standard backbone of culture for the last six thousand years has been: marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.  Leave it alone because if I cannot impose my morality on you nor you me, then there can be no end, because who is anybody to tell anybody what to do, and have the government subsidize it to boot.

By what seems to me to be a logical progression of the argument, the government should also allow polygamous marriages.  They have been backed by various religions and cultures over time and are once again being espoused (pun intended) by Hollyweird itself having new stories about it.  You are no better than they are and cannot impose your morality on them.  "Well," you say, "There are children under the age of consent involved."  That is your morality that you are imposing on this poor minority of religious people.  Why cannot their morality change the age of consent?  Why is your morality so much better than theirs that you can make a law against it?  Besides, the Colorado Court of Appeals just ruled that since we have no clear legislative or statutory guidance on what a common-law marriage is, we have to go back to centuries-old English common law, the basis for Colorado's common law, where a girl who is 12 and a boy who is 14 can just say, "I intend to marry you" and they have a common law marriage.

What about communal marriages?  Instead of a mere one man and two or three women or two men or two women that love each other, what if one of them falls in love with someone else?  Or they all fall in love?  Add the third, fourth or fifth parties to the marriage?  It's only fair.  What if the 14 year old boy states he intends to marry a 40 year old man?  What if your particular deviancy is to be bisexual?  Add another partner?  You could have a whole household orgy every night.  The Romans did.  Before their civilization fell.  What about the woman who got married to a dolphin?  I don't have the link handy but the ceremony was performed by a clergyman and some people believe that dolphins are smarter than us anyway, so, why not?  "Herb, you're getting ridiculous now."  Am I?  Are you going to tell me that anyone in their right mind would have thought 100 or 200 years ago that this was an issue that required an amendment to the Constitution to resolve?

Why a Constitutional amendment?  Why get the government involved?  Because we are a nation of laws, governed by rule of law. We have laws protecting us from murderers and thieves and child molesters.  Why can I not be protected from a fringe minority's deviant behavior being paid for at my expense?  Look at it.  Do you want to Pay Social Security (Which my president tried to fix and was stonewalled by the elder Senator from Massachusetts who said, quote, "Why are we bothering with this?  All we have to do is raise the tax that everyone pays in and move on." end quote) Benefits to the surviving spouses?  How many of the surviving spouses?  What if the spouse is a dog?  Not an ugly person, but a real dog, because that is what they are into? Or a dolphin?  What about the orgy commune?  Who gets paid what to whom?  How will divorces be handled?  With more and more marriages and more and more types of marriages there will necessarily equal a need for more and more divorce courts, more and more judges, etc.

Marriage has been a man and a woman in all major cultures from the beginning, not just Judeo-Christians, so why change it now to satisfy the lust of a minority?  I contend that the government is not establishing a new religion or preventing the free exercise of the same, but protecting its interests and the interests of its people.  Besides, how far down the road of moral decay will you let the country go?  Did you know the Dutch already have a political party made up of pedophiles [their word] whose platform is lowering their age of consensual sex from 16 down to 12 and decriminalizing child pornography?  We already have NAMBLA marching on congress, how long will it be until the issue is whether over 8 really is too late?  You say that I am an alarmist, using scare tactics but just look at how the morality of the country has slipped over the past 100 years.

Lust will always be with us and so will rebellion, which are the two things that really make up this matter.  People are always going to be filled with desires of all sorts (including the lust for money and the lust for power) and we (especially we Americans) never like to be told what to do.  I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.  Now, see, if you add, "And I don't care who gets hurt doing it" then we have a problem.  Go ahead and commit your sin, but at least care about who is going to get hurt.  For example, there is one group who could have stopped the spread of AIDS by merely modifying their behavior slightly, not quitting their behavior, only modifying it would have slowed its progression and they are still acting irresponsibly, now seeking political sanction for their deviant sin.

What people do in their own homes is and should be their business and I don't want to know about it.  This also does not apply to private industry.  If Apple Computer or CSAA Insurance or Levi Strauss want to offer benefits to employees by criteria they define, that is their business.  It is their private business and the government should not be involved.  Let them provide for their employees how they want and if you want to support those businesses go ahead.  Personally I think it is hard to find a company in any industry that supports every belief so I recommend making business decisions, e.g., buying a computer, based on business criteria, such as price, quality, etc, although I have never bought a brand new pair of Levi's Jeans since they refused to help the Boy Scouts.  Even though they later reconsidered their position I found that the less expensive brands cover me just as well.  Thrift store jeans, Lee, Wrangler, even *lowers voice to a whisper so the haters won't gig him* the Wal-mart store brand, Rustlers, *resumes normal tone* are good enough.

 But still, who are you to tell me what is morally acceptable, and who am I to tell you?  I think I have made a strong case that the government must be involved at some point or there will be chaos and lawlessness.  As to my own morality, the only final authority I accept is the King James Version of the Bible.  It has been used for the last 400 years as a guidebook to many individuals and nations, ours included.  I also think that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove, at the very least, the diligence and care with which these Scriptures have been handled and preserved as they were handed down, to avoid mistakes.  But people will believe what they want to believe and do what they want to do, which is why, even though the Ten Commandments say "Thou shalt commit no murder" they still had to have laws about dealing with murderers, same with stealing, etc.

A constitutional amendment is necessary to define what marriage is.

Remember, the Good Book says, "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

When I worked at big-name Insurance company, one of the first classes they put everyone through, even if you were "only" a mail-clerk, was called "Basic Insurance Course."  One of the interesting things about insurance policies is the copious number of amendments that are added to very old policies.  Read More

I had started this entry before I blog-frogged around and found some others that were similar topics.  I don't know if there was a theme or not, but I had thought about this the other day.  I have been really working on keeping ahead of myself on updates.  Sometimes I'm too much of a perfectionist, though.  *Heavy sigh* Instead of, "Always a bride's maid, never a bride" it's, "Always a perfectionist, never perfect."  Anyway, here goes...Continue Reading