green

Ahem, in The Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, and Penticostalism are indicated to fall under the category of Christianity as are Roman Catholism, the Eastern Orthodox group of churches, etc. It strikes me that anyone who worships Christ is a Christian. For one Christian to claim that another Christian is not a Christian based on a difference in choice of sect strikes me as being arrogant and un-Christlike.:rolleyes

And you definitely don't want to let your kids be ambushed by the pop-ups! Ugh!

Carlene is entirely correct. There has been a number of cultural practices which have grown up around Islam and which have now become conflated with the religion. She mentions the common African practice of female genital mutilation as one example. The practice of honour killing is another example. This is a practice which is not only associated with Islam. Up here in Canada we have seen this occur in new immigrant families who come from the subcontinent of India and who belong to other religions. Though this is a relatively rare occurance the story is always the same. The girl forms a romantic attachment with a boy who is outside the racial, cultural and religious group of the family. The father or older brother kills the girl. From what I have read these honour killings are very prevalent in village life in such places as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan.... There was one case recently in India where the girl was gang-raped and, if I remember correctly, although her rapists were actually brought to justice, the girl may have been killed by her family. There was also the case of a single Nigerian Muslim girl who was pregnant and I believe that the state wanted to put her to death upon the birth of her child. They were invoking Shar'ia which is the Islamic code of justice as an argument for her death. (Nigeria is divided into two areas: one is Christian and the other is Muslim.) Though I have Muslim friends, all of them gay by the way, my understanding of Islam is limited. There is a great emphasis on the purity of the womenfolk in Islamic cultures. As to whether this is codified in the Qu'ran or whether this is a cultural question, I don't know, but certainly the thrust of the cultural practices is to mistrust women. This is done in a variety of ways. Women must be hidden away. The more fundamentalist the culture the more concealing the garb women must wear when they hit the streets. The ultimate is the burqa which is, as we know, a bluddy tent! In such cultures women are often not permitted to leave their homes unaccompanied by a male, even if that male is a young child. Within the house the women have their own quarters. If the men of the house invite their mates home these boys will never see any of the women for the women live separately in zenana. The African practice of removing their female children's external genitals, the labia and the clitoris, and of sewing up the entrance to the vagina, ensures that the girl will have no control over her own sex life and that she will never, ever have as much fun as Paris Hilton does. And as we all know, once the Taliban took control of Afghanistan from the Russians, women were no longer able to work outside of the home, nor were female children able to go to school. Apologists for Islam claim that the teachings of this religion are far more rational, loving, and open than this behaviour suggests. They say that this stuff is all tied up with peasant cultural misunderstanding and that the religion is both sophisticated and relevant. I don't really know. I do know that I have met some very fine people who are practising Muslims during my travels. This is a religion which is much closer to Judaism than it is to Christianity. The two religions are desert religions and one of the things about life on the desert is that travel, and indeed life, under those conditions is much more challenging than it is in a temperate climate. Both Islam and Judaism place a powerful emphasis on helping the homeless stranger and on the requirement of actively doing good works. This makes sense; in a tough environment faith isn't enough. Anyhow, these are my random thoughts.

I am going to address my remarks to TracyK. I believe I know to which individual you are referring but this is entirely irrelevant to what I am about to say. Though you may feel that only those individuals who have had children or who want to have children have the right to weigh in on the topic of child rearing, specifically spanking your child, in fact all of us have passed through one half of the parent-child equation. We have all been children. (To tell the truth it is our experiences as children which likely inform our own decisions as to whether we will go ahead and undergo the experience of being the other half of the parent-child equation.) It is because we have all been children that we all carry with us some notion of what a child should not be subjected to. This notion may be quite vivid and may be created out of the individual's own painful personal experiences from when he or she was a child. It is for this reason that I believe that all adults have the right to chime in with their theories on child rearing even when many of those expressed by the childless are endlessly annoying, based, as they are, on an utter lack of hands-on experience. You have a child and obviously love her very much. This is a good thing for both you and for your child. But instead of becoming angry with an individual who recognises that she is not kid-friendly and thus has decided not to have any you should be pleased that there are women who acknowledge their deficits in this area and will avoid bringing life into this world. This is called responsibility, I think, and it, like loving parenting, is a good thing.

My husband is quite a fan of on-line porn. This doesn't really bother me. I've worked in a male environment for a long, long time and this does seem to be a guy thing. Most boys like to look. I am, however, very pleased that we don't share computers and, yes, he did get a virtual STD. If your FIL wants to look then he should have his own PC and he should have a top-notch anti-viral soft ware programme installed in order to protect himself. If he is unprepared or unable to do this then you will have to install a virtual censor or nanny in order to protect your PC and your kids. Those programmes have a nasty way of installing pop ups and cookies, viruses and worms.

I carry my band info with my passport just in case.

All TV is white TV. All history which is taught concerns the deeds and activities of dead white men with very few exceptions. This is why we don't need a white history month nor do we need white TV. Straight white Christian males have typically dominated the world scene. They have been - and generally speaking continue to be - the rulers of European and North American countries as well as the governors of the colonies of these countries and they have typically been the rulers of the financial institutions which drive the world. This is why we white folk don't need a Pride Parade. Of course white women didn't fare quite as well and that is why there are special initiatives set up in order to benefit women, just as there is Black TV, Black History month, and Gay Pride parades, class action suits, etc. Yes, this is a form of reverse discrimination but you should think of it more as being like a golfer's handicap. This apparent unfairness may be required until the playing field has been levelled.

Yah, Green says thanks, too.

Though the small greens were never beaten physically, we were beaten up psychologically by our dad. He really knew how to damage tiny, fragile egos through his emotional violence. And he was capricious; you never knew what was going to set him off. While he lay dying in a coma I was terrified that he was going to wake up in order to berate me about something I had done. I was 49 years old at the time. Go figure, eh. The next day he was dead. I believe that the parental-child relationship is the most powerful one that we will ever face.

I am on Wellbutrin 300mg and Selexa 20 mg and Topamax 100 mg. I have no problems with Wellbutrin but a friend was put on it in order to quit smoking and she had to quit the drug instead. She had an itchy skin while she was on it.

I don't think that the intent of the individual who posted the address of the Christian boylove site on this thread was to alert interested members of LBT of its availability. The point that he was trying to make was entirely different. I suggest that he viewed the site as an example of stunning hypocrisy on the part of a small group of Christians. He was hoping to provoke debate and he has certainly been sucessful. Furthermore, if you take the trouble to investigate this sad little site, as I did, you will find no pornographic images. What you will discover is a tiny group of deeply conflicted Christian men who are homosexual pedophiles and who appear to know that to act upon their urges is not a good thing. I don't believe that this should be censored. I believe that this should be examined and discussed and we are in fact doing this. There are real pornographers out here in the virtual world and the material they post is visually explicit. I have problems with them posting this crap on my own blog. I personally don't like pornography and so I spend a lot of time cursing and deleting. This material is quite different and does merit analysis. R&R is a section which is designed for those adults here who are desirous of talking over some of the more contentious issues which arise in modern life. Hypocrisy is one of them. Pedophilia is another.

Yah, I remember her. That was a rude response to a constituent who had taken the trouble to write back to her upon her request. Boo on her for that!

Though I can understand where you are coming from the truth is that this is a complicated issue. There certainly is the emotional dimension and that is the one which provokes the kill response in so many of us, including myself, to be quite honest with you. The first response of most of us when confronted with heinous deeds is to have the perpetrators of these deeds put down just as we would put down a rabid or defective animal. And, to tell you the truth, there is a part of me which is powerfully sympathetic to this approach. Indeed, there is a part of me which does not understand why the American legal system will spare the criminally insane for these folks really are the truly rabid animals of human society in that they are not individuals who can be rehabilitated. It is simply not cost effective to keep those folks around: they are unfixable. This assessment may sound harsh and it is. Another truth is that those countries which have the strictest gun controls do have the lowest levels of lethal crime. Still another truth is that the death penalty is not a deterant to violent crime. Yet another truth is that America is the only civilized country which santions the death penalty. The rest of the countries which do routinely sanction the killing of their own citizens are third world countries pwned by despots. Certainly this business of justice, retribution, and rehabilitation is a toughie. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that your approach to law and order is not working. Life is easier, I guess, for folks like us Canucks. We are a minor power and whenever we have problems we are entirely comfortable with striking up an inquiry or a royal commission or whatever in order to review the issue. Though these efforts are often futile they are an acknowledgement to us that life is very complicated and that no one single agency is able to solve our problems on its own. And this brings me back to this biz of the death penalty. Of course it is human nature to desire to want to kill those individuals who commit grotesque and monstrous crimes. I suspect that I am a little different from some of you when I say that I figure that it is those individuals who are deemed the least redeemable under law who should be the most logical targets. Indeed the only real reason why I am against the death penalty and do believe that all civilized folks should be against it is because I have got a queasy feeling (after reading various versions of global statistics) that it takes two to tango. Some societies have a much, much higher rate of violence than others. It would be far more productive to examine the paradigms of one's society, wouldn't it?

Um, like glow-ee, grrlfiend. Glow Ee Green is a grrl fiend, too, eh. Haha.:clap2:

I always find that I LOL whenever I cut the cheese, especially when I do this while I am having a bath.:clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2::clap2:

A good and measured response, Carlene, but I have got to confess that my tongue was not really that well anchored in my cheek when I fired this one off. Mea culpa. I always love it when you respond for I am a real hot head and I tend to be intolerant of what I see as the victimization of one generation by another. You moderate my responses and provide an excellent counterweight. What I see as going on in this family is that dh's mother is an egotistical, self-absorbed, destructive woman and that this pattern of behaviour is deeply entrenched. She is costly to this family both psychologically and financially and there will be no payback. Furthermore, reading in between the lines, and I may be wrong on this, it may well be that this woman's son finds himself none too fond of the old lady and is only shackled to her through a sense of convention and feelings of guilt. If this is in fact the case he may secretly be longing for his wife to give him the nod to set himself free. And remember, the Bible does say something along the line of leaving the parents and cleaving unto the wife, I think. Of course my advice comes coloured by my own background and yet I must also confess that I really, really like the ethical/moral style by which you are managing your life. (Your approach is a kinder, gentler, more tolerant approach.) I see this woman as being a dreadfully destructive individual and my personal inclination is to cut her loose and to move on. I would wish to do this for the health of my family. This is, however, a harsh and pessimistic approach to the problem of the question of how to deal with a nasty old gal.

This is very, very cool, Betsyjane. It does strike me that there is a peculiar climate at the moment. It is no longer legal, nor well-viewed, for majorities to enact exclusionary policies. Men-only clubs must now accept women members, and White Anglo-Saxon Protestant networks must get real and accept Jews, Blacks, Catholics, and other folks who do not fit the WASP template. At the same time, in Australia and in Montreal, Canada, gay male clubs have demanded the right to evict individuals who are neither gay nor male. In Australia this issue has been debated in their Parliament and has been reported on internationally. As for the Montreal bit of business, well, this concerns a daughter who opted to rendez-vous with her father for a girl-dad visit at a gay bar. She ended up finding herself evicted because she is a grrl. The matter is of some interest to some Canadians. Here in Toronto there has been a directory of black business owners for some years now. There are contests for black beauty queens. And there are women's clubs, business directories, and the like. When Green's husband catches wind of these new inequities he tends to get real cranky. He likes to say that everyone is equal and that the goose and the gander must share the same sauce. I am inclined to feel a little differently. You see, I feel that those of us who do comprise the majority have been and still are in the driver's seat. These social and business initiatives are simply catch-up work. The truth is that many people - people who are not part of the traditional power structure by reason of their sex, religion, colour, or sexual orientation - have been handicapped and just as one handicaps a golfer so this society now finds itself allowing minorities to get away with a certain number of discriminatory activities denied to many other folk. This seems to be a phase which our society must go through, perhaps.

Re Falwell's recent death: RichardDawkins.net - The Official Richard Dawkins Website [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IDfKKWBEZk]YouTube - Hitch vs. Hannity on Falwell[/ame]

It should help you keep it off for the surgery leaves you with a much smaller stomach. You simply cannot not eat very much without feeling full. The trick is to eat a healthy diet, to make sure you are taking in sufficient protein and fresh veg/fruit. And you will need fibre and a full array of vitamins and minerals. Congratulations on your weight loss, by the way.

I disagree. I don't think that society has gone downhill. I think that it appears to have gone downhill and this is because of the new style of media coverage. Back in the old days, the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, we didn't have the same degree of media attention given to these sort of gruesome and tragic events. We did not have such television shows as A&E's array of series covering true murders in America. We didn't have the murder specials which air on the major networks and we didn't have internet. The truth is that the media has discovered that we have quite an appetite for this material and they pander to this appetite. But make no mistake, there have always been people who have behaved in a monstrous fashion. These days they just get their 15 minutes of fame is all.

I have a number of gay friends, both men and women, who get tons of action through on-line gay dating sites. I am both fascinated and envious even though I am now happily in a relationship. Though E-Harmony shouldn't being cutting out gay folks I doubt if many gay people, at least the ones I know, would be interested in using them as a method of finding temporary or permanent love. Still, I hope the company gets its fingers smacked.

Hahahaha So is trying to light your shoes! :confused: But seriously, I flew to Mexico and back and my band didn't set off any alarms. Enjoy your trip. :eek:

I am a really, really wishy-washy ENFJ. My stats are extraverted - 11%, intuitive - 38%, feeling - 50%, and judging - 1%

Did you serve them take-out Chinese food for dinner? Let us know how it went, eh. We have all had MIL problems.

Although I now spend much of my time loitering in the R&R area of this site I spent large amounts of my time in the lap band related sections when I was undergoing the process of being banded last September. I learned much more here than I did through the clinic that did the surgery. The general site of LBT is really informative and very supportive. All any member need do is ask for information/help/support and it is always given.:)R&R is a whole nuther thang. It's fer folks who feel like wrassling.:confused: