Tag Archive for 'family'

Family values

The Last Ten Remaining Principles of the Republican Party
(Taken from Savethehumans.com)

1. We swear to uphold the inalienable rights to life, liberty, social security, and the pursuit of cell growth until you exit the womb. After that, we promise to notify you who you can marry and when you can die.

2. The welfare system is an insidious crutch, unless you wear a tie and donate to the Republican National Committee, in which case it’s more like a red, white, and blue, corporate colostomy bag.

3. Government spending has ballooned to record highs thanks to us, and therefore must be reigned in through increased funding of new cost-cutting initiatives.

4. We will not rest until we see a democratically elected, theocratic dictator in place in the Middle East. Only then will America’s cities truly be safe for a thorough nuking by Iranian terrorists.

5. We fully support an unwavering commitment to the promotion and defense of the greater good, which consists of the larger of any two voting blocs.

6. It is critical that we reform our overly complicated legal system by adding dozens of new laws that forbid American citizens from complying verbatim with all the old ones we’ve already screwed them with.

7. If church and state are the legs that support this great country, then the smuggling of religious propaganda into the courts and schools are the testicles, and government-funded religious charities are the taint. (”Taint the church, taint the state, it’s a faith-based initiative!”)

8. Socialized medicine is an immoral infringement of the rights of patients and doctors, leads to poorer quality health care, and is absolutely fabulous when endorsed by one of our own.

9. In protecting the nation’s borders, we must strike the proper balance between fingerprinting bloodthirsty Polish tourists, strip-searching elderly white women, and bending over and taking it up the tailpipe by hundreds of thousands of potential Hispanic voters who might get royally pissed off by our immigration policy.

10. The solution to the crisis in American public education is more teachers, higher test scores, and replacing needlessly complicated theories like evolution with the phrase “God did it.”


Hey, I thought it was funny.

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Religion problems

Well, it happened. I made the mistake of showing my mom a financial aid application on which there was a section called “Religion”. The form was already filled out. I had marked “none” as my religion. As you can guess, a grilling soon ensued.

“What does it mean ‘none’?”
“Are you a Christian, or are you not?”
“Where are your morals, if you aren’t?”

And so on. I was hoping this “discussion”–if you can even call it that–had waited until I was out of the house and on my own. As it happens, she even asked me why I hadn’t moved out, if I didn’t believe in her religion. That didn’t make too much sense to me, but it sounded to me a lot like a guilt trip. Ah man, I really don’t want to confront her and apologize. The apologizing part I can deal with. The look that says “You’re going to hell and there’s nothing I can do about it”, I can’t.

If, by this time, you’re completely lost, let me explain. I grew up a Christian. Lutheran, to be exact. In the past half-year or so, I’ve grown apart from my religion. I decided–through what process, I don’t know exactly–that religion wasn’t for me. God didn’t appear to be very active in the world, so I decided to call myself an agnostic deist. In other words, I don’t know if there is a God for sure, but I believe there is, but I don’t think this God is anything like the Christian God. As my Comparative Religions teacher so succinctly put it, “He started the top going and walked away,” meaning that God created the Universe (I have yet to find a suitable explanation as to the question of how or even why), but then…left. I don’t know where or why, but if God really was watching our every move, then why is there so much hate and misery in the world? Yes, yes, I know the old argument about how having us deal with our own problems makes us stronger, but how is AIDS our fault? Or any sickness for that matter? Is God punishing us for something? Did the human race as a whole do something so unspeakably horrible that we’re stuck with cancer?

My answer is no. If God was anything like the Bible says–loving and merciful come to mind–then he wouldn’t do this to us. No one can ever do something so evil that the whole of humanity must suffer for it. The reason we’re saddled with so many problems is because God isn’t there. He left us to our own devices a looong time ago. To put in the required Star Trek analogy, this is sort of like Q’s little Robin Hood game in the TNG episode “Qpid.” He created the scenario, but then gave it a life of its own. The same goes for God and our Universe.

Now my mom knows I’m not a Christian, and I can only guess at how she must be feeling. I should really talk to her, but I don’t think she wants to hear any of the things I have to say. And on top of that, my dad (who knew this all way before my mom did) keeps trying to get me to rethink my decision about not associating with any religion. Eh, I suppose I can put up with that. As long as my Grandma doesn’t get involved. She’s so hardcore Christian that she believes the Bible is completely factual, with everything in it being literal. In short, the Earth was created in 6006 BCE, there was a flood that covered all of the world up to the tallest mountains, and Jesus was God. In my opinion, that’s all bunk, but apparently the opinion of a Godless teenager doesn’t count for much in my family.

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Darn puking babies

Oh man, it’s only two in the afternoon and I’m wasted! As in, super-tired. I get drunk only after five on holidays. Just kidding. Earlier, there was the annual Fourth of July parade in Sedro, which consisted of horses, logs, Bigfoot, more logs, and a whole lot o’ tractors. And us, the combined Burlington and Sedro marching bands. Fun times, for a hick parade. And currently we have a few relatives over for burgers, beans, and pistachios. No clue where the pistachios came from, but they’re there. My cousin Jordan recently had a baby. I can’t remember his name at the moment (it’s Graham or Randy or something like that), but he is mesmerized by my new hat. It’s the weirdest thing. He’s so hooked on it that he completely misses my famous eye-vibrating trick that always gets babies giggling. Oh well. At least he didn’t puke on me. I hate it when babies do that to me.

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Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States