Bush on Faith in Politics

In President Bush's Special Report today (transcripts), he addressed the issue of Social Security then opened up for questions on other issues. He was asked about filibustering and his personal view on the relationship between religion and politics. The reporter had to ask the question three times because Bush kept pussying out on a straight answer.

I'm sure he doesn't want to loose the support of those crusaders out there who feel he's on their side. At the same time, of course, he can't announce in a Special Report that the best way to run America is to appoint Christians (the only ones with morals *sarcasm*).

His final response was that he felt religion was a personal matter and that he wouldn't discriminate on the basis of religion or lack of. I want to believe him. I want to believe him.

Uneventful Morn

But still I've managed to experience a range of (small) emotions.

Luckily, and thanks to NPR, I started out in a good mood. When my alarm went off, they were mentioning Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to Egypt, and because I am obviously very immature, I laugh every time they say Putin. I actually clapped and squealed.

Then, I got a phone call from a student. Yuck. Here's how the conversation went: (insert my thoughts)

Student: Ms. (Me)?
Me: yes?
Student: This is SoandSo who you were going to come and observe today.
Me: yes, hello.
Student: I just got to my school and found out they were going on a field trip. (Can we say poor planning?)
Me: Um, o.k.
Student: And I don't know what you want me to do.
Me: Well, I guess you need to find another time this week you can do your practicum hours and lesson. (It's only 2 hours)
Student: I don't have any other time this week and this is my last day of practicum. (Then how about not waiting until the last week of the semester?)
Me: Um, o.k., were you planning on going on the field trip?
Student: Yes, I told them I would. Do you actually need to observe me do my lesson?
Me: No, but you do actually have to do the lesson.
Student: I've already done one.
Me: Yes, and you're supposed to do two.
Student: silence
Me: I don't really know what to tell you right now. I need to think it through, but I'll probably have to dock you points. I can't give you full credit if you aren't conducting the second lesson.
Student: I can probably find some other time this week.
Me: (Of course you can.) If you're going on the field trip, you will just need to find about 30 minutes to come in and conduct your lesson. (It's CDC with one child, so it would be a very short lesson.)
Me: Sorry
Student: It's o.k. It's just miscommunication. (Um...No. No miscommunication. You were specifically told to plan and conduct two lessons. But too tired and too early to say this.)
Student: Sorry it's so early.
Me: No, no. Anytime.

I mean seriously. She honestly thought I would just say, "Never mind the second lesson. You didn't know they were going on a field trip. I'll just give you credit anyway."

Well there are many worse things college students do and say. This one just happened to rub the wrong way.

Other than that, I've given the easiest final exam ever this morning and said goodbye to one of my classes.

Welcome summer.

Oppressed Christians?

O.k., I know this isn't a popular opinion, especially among the liberal family, of which I consider myself a member (metaphorical not the hyper-conservative family I was born into), but I've hung out enough in the virtual playground of cyberspace enough to see some grossly inappropriate hating of Christians in general. I'm sadly aware of the bigotry that often radiates from the very beings of many "Christians" now and throughout the history of Christianity. There are many Christians, however, who have peacefully chosen Christianity as their faith and want to join others in making the world a better place.

What pisses me off is when people think that they have the right to bash someone solely based on the fact that she/he is a Christian. This is happening far too often.

The following is a case in point (although only one of the many I have encountered and happens to be the most recent). I tuned in (by complete chance) to watch an episode of I Married a Princess to see that they filmed a short segment from the family's church and a segment where Casper Van Dien prayed with his son. When I checked the IMDb message board for the show (as I do for everything I watch), not only did I find out that Casper Van Dien is dorky enough to be a regular poster on IMDb, but I also found this fabulously hideous post:


View: thread flat inline nest
eeeewww Christians!!!

by - jessica_rabit99 (Mon Apr 18 2005 17:26:12 )
Ignore this User Report Abuse

How unsexy. They live in the most sinful state, work in the most un-Christian industry, probably associate with the most ungodly of ppl & yet they are here flaunting their going to church & making their kids pray (which I am against)! This is so wrong. I thought Casper was sexy (only reason I would watch the show) & now I am so turned off by this ACT they are obviously playing to make them feel 'normal'. If you have to have religion to keep your family together, then there's not much to this family in the way of real bonding. If this is how Casper thinks he will 'revive' a B-career, then it's so sad. He was better off being mysterious & not flaunting his family life.


My response:


Re: eeeewww Christians!!!

by - GrandPooOfAwesome 1 day ago (Mon Apr 25 2005 15:16:16 )


UPDATED Tue Apr 26 2005 13:57:31
Wow, what a pompous and overtly ignorant *beep* I don't throw out criticisms lightly, and in fact it's against my posting creed, but this poster is screaming for one.

You are (seemingly) pompous for thinking you're opinions are absolute. "This is so wrong." Who are you to say what's "wrong"?

You are (seemingly) overtly ignorant to have said, "If you have to have religion to keep your family together, then there's not much to this family in the way of real bonding." Again, who are you to say that praying with your family is a sign of weakness? Most of the families I know who pray together have been very strong and close.

I'm SO tired of people coming on here and posting negative remarks about Christians. I'm equally tired of seeing "Christians" come on here and spew out bigotry. However, it's the former who seem to think it's o.k. to take a stand for every other religion or lack of (as I will take a stand for them too), but too many people think it's o.k. to treat Christians as if they're disgusting.

Is it really "hip" to Christian bash? It's not until we truly recognize and celebrate differences and respect others for them regardless of how closely we relate to them ourselves that we will be able to be a better race. http://www.one.org/

This isn't an unusual occurrence. People post this shit all the time, and I'm sick of it!

That said, Christians need to keep their fucking mouths out of politics, which leads me to the next post.

Justice v. Jesus 05

Yes, I swiped that title from Jon Stewart. I'm not going to go into detail on this because you can just go and read it here or here for yourselves, but I did want to comment and seeing as how I have a blog, I can comment if I want to.

So religious leaders are taking their stand. But, why did they have to go and prove that too many religious leaders are shamelessly pushing the far right agenda, which incidentally stands for more bad than good? Not only that, but they're using crappy lines like "Those people on the secular left, they say, 'We think you're a threat, You know what? They're right."

Admittedly, I didn't see the airing of Justice Sunday, so my comment will be short. I also plead ignorance on most things political (although I don't waller around in my ignorance). All I can really say is that I'm uncomfortable with the idea that these people, who are well respected by many people in their own sects (and I grew up listening to on the radio), are religious leaders parading around as honorary politicians.

By the way, I actually had a poster on my door in college that said, "Dobson is my hero."

I Dream of Chucky

Well, I woke myself up at 5 am with not one, but two blood-curdling screams. Here's the story:

In my dream I was laying in bed and my cell phone rang. I answered. The person on the other line said, "Megan? You've been chosen to participate in a game with Chucky. He'll be visiting you soon."

I said, "I'm not participating. I didn't choose to participate in this; I'm not participating!"

The voice on the other line said, "You didn't have to choose the game, it chose you."

I said, "I'm going to call the help hotline!" (I don't know what hotline that was, but it made sense in my dream.)

I hung up the phone and was going to call the hotline, but the cell phone started ringing again. Where the name or number usually appears, it said "We Hope He Gets You".

I frantically tried to get my shoes and was planning on making a run for the car when the doorknob started rattling. My first thought was to get him in the house and lock him in while I made a run for the car. So, I opened the door and said, "O.k. fine, come in you little fucker!"

He came in and I went out and slammed the door. I was trying to lock him in (which, of course, wouldn't really work) when I heard my cat make a sound. I knew he was trying to get me to open the door again. (This is the part I feel really bad about!) I said, "Go ahead and eat her you fucker!"

I took off down the hill (which doesn't actually exist) and fumbled with my keys to get the key ready. There was a car (although not my car) waiting for me at the bottom of the hill.

There was now a narrator who I asked, "How much time do I have?" (This part doesn't really make sense, but it managed to scare the shit out of me.) She said, "Well, he's been planning it all day so, he's been down here since this morning." At that point I was already in the car and saw that the doors were locked. I realized he was in the backseat.

I woke myself up with two really loud screams. I kept waiting to hear the police knock on my door, but either my neighbor didn't hear it or he could care less if I was really being attacked. I hope it was the former. I doubt it.

Mamaw's Tool Box

Mamaw's Tool Box
Originally uploaded by otherwise known as megan.

My dad gave this to me the last time I went home. I thought he'd lost his mind at first, but then he told me it was my Mamaw's tool box (my mom's mom). She was really proud of it. My Mamaw passed away two years ago. We were very close.

Love ya Mamaw!

My Cat is Faux Sweet!

I’ve been saying to my cat Harriet, “You’re faux sweet,” which is true because she’s totally faking it. It’s funny because she doesn’t know that “faux” means “fake”, so she thinks I’m just saying “so” in a cute way like with the “f” sound instead of the “s” sound.

I’m totally tricking her.

Come to think of it, I bet she doesn’t even know what I’m saying at all.

"Look What I Can Do!"

Possible Need for Name Change

Instant message transcripts with sister C, minus the cool emoticons and plus some really bad grammar:

grandpooofawesome: The Pope died. I think I'm gonna try out.
C: the pope pooped out huh
grandpooofawesome: yeah, you think i should try out?
C: GO FOR IT
grandpooofawesome: yeah, i can do that papal stuff and live in italy
grandpooofawesome: i'm pretty infallible too
C: WOOO HOOO
grandpooofawesome: i'm gonna have a chat about it with the college of cardinals
C: you can be the GRAND POPE OF AWESOME
grandpooofawesome: YES THAT'S AWESOME! THAT'S THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER!!!
C: I KNOW
grandpooofawesome: You can be adviser to the pope, via instant message.

Am I a Feminist?

Yes. That's my answer although I think I will forever question. My understanding of feminism has come a very long way beginning with that first discussion with Professor Z (the better) at Poets about the different waves of feminism and what postmodernism means for us and then with the marvelous Professor N and his proof that you can learn about feminism from an "old" white man.

I'm not the most enlightened person on the planet, but God, I've come a long way.

In my class today, I talked about multicultural education/cultural diversity or as I had to explain to my class critical pedagogy & multicultural education. Oh it was a good day. We got to talk about hegemony, marginalization, assimilation, and deculturalization, all new words to them by the way.

We did a couple of activities from Paul Gorski's website the Multicultural Pavilion. One of the things we did was the Circles of My Multicultural Self to get them thinking about how they view themselves as we had discussed the different levels of culture from the concrete/superficial (food, clothing, music) to the abstract/deep (beliefs, values, traditions). At the bottom, it asks you to:

Name a stereotype associated with one of the groups with which you identify that is not consistent with who you are. Fill in the following sentence:

I am (a/an) _____________________ but I am NOT (a/an)_____________________.

Then, it gives this example:

I am a Christian, but I am NOT a radical right Republican.

Which, incidentally, has been mine for a long time although I use the label "Christian" a little loosely now. To my surprise, mine changed today. One of the students said: "I am a female, but I'm not a feminist." When I got back to myself, I talked about why "female" was one of my satellite circles and how much being a female meant to me. It was also my "Share a story about a time it was especially painful to be identified with one of your identifiers or descriptors" because of a time in traffic school where the officer attempted to make all females in the class feel like they were there because they were inferior drivers. (Prick!) Then I felt it my duty to explain why people often misunderstand what feminism is really about. I then changed my stereotype association to:

I am a feminist, but I am NOT a feminazi.

And yes, I know the term "feminazi" is a terrible word coined by a suck-ass person.

Here's why some may think I'm not a feminist:

-I don't mind if a man does all my car maintenance and I never learn how.
-I prefer to say to a man, "You do the yard work and maintenance and I'll do the housework."
-I'd love to stay home with my children if that opportunity ever arises. (Although if married, I would also be open to working while my husband stayed home.)
All of these, however, are personal preferences and not personal beliefs of how things should be. I love being female, and I love female things.

Here's why I believe I am very much a feminist:

-I believe men and women should be equal but not necessarily the same.
-I believe everyone should have the same rights and opportunities.
-I believe the above includes same-sex couples.
-I believe people have been discriminated against and are still being discriminated against based on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, therefore, it's vital that we continue to think critically to eliminate biases within ourselves so that we can act in a way that brings about change.

Ode Unto Jorge

Jorge is my stylist, I shall not want for another.
He maketh me sit down in the chair and anointeth my
head with scented oil.
He leadeth me into hair styles I never would've chosen
on my own.
And he maketh me appreciate the art of hair.

Thanks for the "avant-garde" do.