So, I got this comment.  As usual, I went to check out the blog of the person who commented.  One of his recent posts was a rant about “Why would anyone adopt internationally?”  His conclusion was that people who adopt internationally are selfish, looking for a “perfect” child and willing to pretty much buy one from a foreign government.  Also, he insisted that it would be better if we all (especially the celebrities) adopted domestically and just threw all that extra international adoption money at the foreign governments to take care of the orphans instead of actually adopting them (yeah, if we gave $3 billion to China, I’m sure they’d use it to improve their orphanages.  Not.).  Commenters weighed in with accusations that people adopted internationally for a cute “accessory” like the celebrities did or because it enabled them to ignore the abuse in their child’s past by putting it farther away.

(Yes, there’s no link to the blog post; I left a comment, this is my own post on the subject, and I’m not interested in starting a blog war.  Early on, I decided to only link to blog posts I am commenting at least somewhat favorably on.  It seemed rude to generate a pingback comment that would lead over to a criticism of the other person’s post.)

I was not, to put it mildly, pleased.  I mean, it’s his blog, he’s entitled to his opinion, but this was just one time too many of some grossly uninformed person slamming the adoption decisions of people he doesn’t know, and then impugning their honesty, Christianity, and motives.  If you read everything out there, you’ll hear a lot of voices yelling that adoption itself is evil, it should be banned, you’re ruining this kid’s life by taking them away from their ethnic community, etc.  It can be very discouraging for adoptive parents and those considering adoption; the last thing anyone needs is some self-righteous “Christian” adding to the stress by criticizing people who choose differently than he did (He’s adopting older kids with a history of abuse, domestically.  Good for him; that is truly admirable.  His post was still out of line, though.  It’s one thing to suggest people consider adopting difficult-to-place kids, but he didn’t stop there.).

Consequently, I am doing what I do when I’m ticked off at someone’s lack of knowledge: I’m writing to try to present some knowledge, hoping that someone will be edified or encouraged by hearing the other side of the argument.

Many of us came to adoption through infertility.  I’d rather not try to explain the gut-wrenching pain of wanting to be open to having a large family and finding out you won’t be giving birth to any children at all.  To put it very, very mildly, after infertility, you’re emotionally drained.  Given the horror stories in the news about disrupted adoptions because a birthparent changes his/her mind after four years, violent psychological issues, adoptees who grow up to go find their “real” family, etc., many couples, discouraged and emotionally worn out, quietly give up on having children at all.  (Even though much of the hoopla presented as “normal” for adoption, is, in fact, the exceptions to the norm.)

Some of us, being exceptionally stubborn or something, decide to adopt so we can have our decisions ridiculed by know-it-all strangers.

Although people can adopt for the wrong reasons, most of us agonized over that form declaring whether or not we would take a disabled child (how disabled?), a child of another race (white, bi-racial, Asian, Hispanic, black?), a child with a history of abuse, a child with unsavory conception details.  Now, if God chose to give us a disabled child through our own pregnancy, that would be His decision, and we would accept that child joyfully.  It’s different when you say you’re open to that with adoption: you will get a disabled child, since not everyone is willing to choose those children, so you’d better be sure that’s what God is calling you to.  As our social worker told us, “You do realize, that by marking that you’d consider a black child, you will get a black child, because they’re so hard to find families for?”

It is not anyone’s right to say someone isn’t ”Christian enough” because they honestly said, “I want to adopt, but I don’t think I could handle a severely disabled child.”  Or an open adoption.  Or a transracial adoption.  Or whatever the particular difficult issue is.

Yes, my DH and I chose to adopt transracially (and when they say that, they usually mean “white parents, black child”).  We said we would consider an open adoption and that we could deal with some minor medical issues.  But I also realize that our decisions are not for everyone; you have to be honest about your abilities and not just try to power through with the, “Well, a good Christian would take the most difficult child out there to prove to the world that God can conquer anything!”  I think everyone (and especially Christians, who are called to be shining examples of God’s love) should prayerfully consider all of the options, but I don’t think that everyone should mark down that they’re prepared to accept every possible negative situation.

As for choosing international adoption, instead of trying to detail the concerns with domestic adoption or the absurd criteria sometimes set by local agencies, let me give you an example to illustrate one of the common reasons for international adoption: “God was calling us to China.”  People mock that, and I think it could be abused as an excuse to hide less-than-great motives, but it can also be a real reason.  It’s hard to explain, but you just kind of know, you pray about it, you talk it over with your spouse, and then things fall into place in such a way that you see God’s hand in it. 

The story: One of my daughters is named after a saint who counseled many anxious parents at her convent, worried about their daughters preparing for the missions in China or India.  In addition to being distant, both India and China entailed a very real risk of martyrdom in the early 1900’s.  “But aren’t there people here, in Italy, who need to hear the Gospel?” the parents protested.  “Yes, but your daughter has heard God’s call to go to those in China who need to hear about Jesus, too,” the future saint replied.  Sometimes, it’s not about human logic, it’s about God’s call.

God calls us to different things.  It is not up to us to demean, belittle, or accuse others for trying to honestly discern where God is calling them.

It is up to us to prayerfully, honestly discern where He is calling us.  We aren’t all called to the biggest, most obvious, most likely to attract admiration crosses out there.  We are called to the one He picked for us.  Whatever it is, that is the cross that God means to be the perfect tool in our lives to bring us closer to Himself and, ultimately, to fit us for Heaven.

Kathleen Parker, the “conservative” columnist often cited as proof that even conservatives didn’t like Sarah Palin, has done it again on abortion.

For a long time, she said she was “pro-choice.”  Then she said she was sort of reconsidering.  (It seems a good place to note at this point in the discussion that a lot of the conservatives bashing Palin were pro-abortion.  Apparently, there’s nothing so annoying as a pro-life woman politician, living pretty happily through the difficulties that pro-aborts claim make abortion necessary (in Palin’s case, a disabled child and her daughter’s teen pregnancy).)

Well, apparently Parker is still suffering from pro-abortion blindness.  I read her article in my paper today about forced abortions in China.  Weird, I thought; she didn’t mention Steven Mosher, just this Dr. Littlejohn.  And then Parker mentioned that Dr. Littlejohn is calling on NARAL and Planned Parenthood to do something about this lack of choice in China.

I’m sorry, did we switch to sarcasm when I wasn’t looking?

Planned Parenthood and NARAL objecting to abortions?  Any abortions?  You can’t be serious.

Our president mentioning this to the Chinese?  The guy who voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act?  How gullible can you be?

The only time PP or NARAL cared about women literally dragged in for brutal, involuntary abortions of late-term babies was when Pat Robertson made the mistake of justifying China’s One Child policy with, “Well, you know, they have a population problem…”  Then, the pro-abortion lobby jumped up and screamed that, of course, Dr. Robertson was apparently ok with anything, as long as women didn’t have a choice.  (I agree that his comment was stupendously dumb.)

Other than headline-grabbing, however, PP and NARAL, allegedly proponents of “choice” have been absolutely silent.

(I would also note that they are silent on the fact that college medical coverage almost always covered abortions but not prenatal care, effectively eliminating real choice for pregnant students.  Which is why many people refuse to use the term “pro-choice”: PP, NARAL, and those who agree with them aren’t about promoting choice, they’re about promoting abortion.  It took Feminists for Life to tackle the college medical coverage problem with a smile and a, “Gee, I thought we were all here to promote women’s health…” and shame the pro-aborts into supporting the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Students Act, which FFL had developed and pushed in Congress.)

Ken Blackwell at Townhall had a great article here on why Parker missed the boat.  As I keep telling my parents, if you read the pro-life news, so much of what is considered “new” news is actually old news.

Forced abortions have been going on in China for decades, and Steven Mosher has discovered plenty more since his initial run-in with truth as a “pro-choice” grad student working in China (he now heads the Population Research Institute).  Mosher took his information on forced abortions to the major pro-abortion organizations in the U.S., convinced, like Parker and Dr. Littlejohn, that they would be appalled at China’s treatment of its women.  The pro-abortion organizations all shrugged it off.

That was when Mosher, like others before and after him, suddenly realized that the “pro-choice” movement didn’t really care one bit about women’s health, but only about the money and the ideology.

I’m sure Parker will wait for some pro-abort to blindly stumble across the truths Mosher and other pro-lifers have already uncovered before she acknowledges it, though.  You know, those crazy pro-lifers are so unsophisticated and all.

The annual Catholic Campaign for Human Development collection is next week.  Traditionally collected in an extra collection the weekend before Thanksgiving, the CCHD mission statement claims:

Its mission is to address the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education.

The flyer in our church bulletin this week included a dramatic image of a woman clinging to the poverty line, feet dangling.  Send them all your money now, right?

Unfortunately, like a number of other good-sounding organizations, the CCHD has funded its share of not just questionable groups, but groups who openly fight Catholic teaching on abortion, same-sex marriage, and prostitution.

When the whistle was first blown last year on the CCHD’s funding of ACORN, the CCHD de-funded ACORN.  Of course, they’d already given ACORN $7 million of your contributions.  Couldn’t they find enough nice soup kitchens or something?  Oh, wait, that’s right, they don’t do that.  Part of the grant guidlines from CCHD’s website:

Ineligible for Funding

The following general classifications do not meet CCHD criteria and/or guidelines for community organizing grants:

1. Organizations with primary focus on direct service (e.g., daycare centers, recreation programs, community centers, scholarships, subsidies, counseling programs, referral services, cultural enrichment programs, direct clinical services, emergency shelters and other services, refugee resettlement programs, etc.)
2. Advocacy efforts where only staff, a few individuals, or middle to upper-income people are speaking for a particular low-income constituency without the direct involvement and leadership of low-income individuals.
3. Organizations controlled by governmental (federal, state, local), educational, or ecclesiastical bodies.
4. Research projects, surveys, planning and feasibility studies, etc.
5. Individually owned, for-profit businesses.
6. Organizations that would use CCHD money for re-granting purposes, or to fund other organizations. 

In other words, CCHD does not fund anything that would actually, immediately help poor people, and it prohibits its money from being re-granted to anyone who might.  It also prohibits funding any church-run organizations, so the Sisters of Life and their pregnancy counseling and homes are right out, on multiple counts.

So what the heck does the money do?  Provide emotional support for those living in poverty?  I can’t imagine that a law being changed slightly would make me all that thrilled if I was looking at three hungry kids and an empty refrigerator and contemplating an abortion because there seemed to be no help out there.  Nor do I intend to send my hard-earned money to CCHD to give to an organization just for the purposes of lobbying the government to spend more of my hard-earned tax money on the poor.  Talk about inefficient.

Some people kept digging into CCHD’s grantees and, in short order, they turned up a number of other organizations that used their newsletters to encourage people to vote against parental consent laws for minors’ abortions, for legalization of prostitution, and for same-sex marriage.

The CCHD de-funded a few, disputed some other accusations, and posted a number of rebuttals to the reports of repeated funding of pro-abortion, pro-prostitution, pro-same-sex-marriage groups.  I hate to say it, but I still don’t believe that the bishops are exercising proper control over the CCHD.  Part of their “solution” includes hiring “forensic accountants” to show that no CCHD money was used for anti-Catholic purposes.  So, if you only give money to the KKK to support its BBQ picnics for poor handicapped kids, then that’s perfectly ok?  Most of us would say, no, it’s not ok, and trying to use that excuse sounds fishy.

For years, some Catholics have suspected or outright suggested that what is often taught as “Catholic social justice” is hardly Catholic and that many involved in “social justice” within the Church seem to have missed the memo that Liberation Theology was banned.  Yes, CCHD funds some good organizations, but the bad ones need to be purged from the lists before anything else is spent.

And then, just to finish making us suspect that this was all starting to sound a little too strangely like the weird machinations of the current administration, several bishops began attacking the people who had dared ask the simple question, “Why is a national-level Catholic organization funding pro-abortion, pro-birth control, pro-same-sex-marriage, and pro-prostitution organizations?”  Like the administration’s attempts to distract from the argument by declaring war on Fox News and using foul sexual slurs and accusations of racism against Tea Party protesters, bishops have accused the investigators of being “partisan”, “opposed to Catholic social teaching”, and “hateful.”  A woman called in to EWTN’s news program to read part of a letter she got in response to a query about CCHD’s money granting habits; her bishop denounced EWTN for presenting false information and said it was an unreliable news source for Catholics.  Yes, EWTN has reported the good and the bad news about the Church and the USCCB, but “unreliable” is not a synonym for ”unfavorable.”  (I’d give you the exact quote and the link to The World Over’s excellent coverage of the issue, but they don’t have this week’s show up on the website, yet.)

Now, just in case you’re wondering, I am not against Catholic social teaching, and I think it’s a horrible shame that good organizations will lose money because of the CCHD’s problems, much like the good work done by some of the UN’s arms that suffered for the defunding of the UN’s pro-abortion work.  I’m for Catholic social teaching: all of it.  The encyclical on labor unions also included the idea that communism was wrong and that the managers deserved reasonable pay for their mental work, too.  Several encyclicals have clearly fingered abortion and birth control as major evils and disruptors of marriages and society.  I hate to toot my own horn, but my family gives significantly to numerous organizations that truly support the welfare of all people: pro-life groups, pregnancy counseling, foster care in China, Food for the Poor, Bishop Gassis in Sudan, various groups of monks and nuns, etc.  And, unlike the CCHD, I give most of my money to people who actually provide services, not just those that advocate and engage in politics.

In other news, after providing coverage of the bishops’ meetings for years, EWTN has been shut out of the upcoming conference.  Strange, isn’t it, that this comes after the last conference?  EWTN, providing extensive coverage of all the goings-on, broadcast the “rebellious” bishops who stood up and declared that the USCCB was significantly responsible for getting the most pro-abortion president ever elected becasue it refused to come out solidly and clearly pro-life in its over-wordy, over-nuanced voters’ guides.  Catholics who just want the Church to follow her own rules were thrilled.  The bishops’ bureaucracy, however, voted the dissenters down and they were ignored.  Just a coincidence, I’m sure, that the biggest Catholic television station in the country has suddenly been given the boot in favor of some broadcasting company that will probably edit the conference coverage to include only those bishops praising the USCCB.

Go to Reform CCHD Now for more information and a printable “I will not contribute to the CCHD until it gets its act together…” coupon for next week’s collection.  There is also information on a novena.

If your family tithes, you probably have a list or a goal of how much to contribute for the year.  We divide ours into categories, then amounts, then rough out how to spread them out over the year.

However, if you go with the amount, I’d like to suggest a charity for your consideration if you’re thinking about making a Christmas charitable contribution or to fill out your tithe for the year.

Grace and Hope for Children

This charity funds placing Chinese orphans into foster care.  Some of these children will be adopted, some will not.  In any case, foster care is better for them than the orphanages.  They get more individual attention, they’re not in an institution, and, in some cases, they get a family long-term when they otherwise wouldn’t.  However, foster care is also more expensive than group orphanages.

Empress in her foster home in China.

Our youngest, known as Empress on the blog, was sponsored by Grace and Hope.  Her foster parents fostered at least one other child, and often two, throughout the time she was with them; she developed a love of having older kids around, which is good, considering she was coming home to two rambunctious older siblings.  Since Grace and Hope sends updates to sponsors, they had a collection of photos and reports from her months in China.  The orphanage gave us a photo book (not all of the orphanages bother to, so we were thankful for that), but it wasn’t a lot.

Someone from Grace and Hope was surfing the Chinese adoption chat sites and found another couple in our travel group.  “I think we have info on your daughter,” she e-mailed.  Our friend e-mailed back, “That’s not my daughter, but I’m holding a baptism announcement for another couple nearby in our travel group with a photo, and that’s their daughter!”  After we proved that we had, in fact, adopted that child (to comply with Chinese privacy laws), we got a CD of photos and reports about Empress’ development and foster home.  We were absolutely thrilled to get this glimpse into her life before coming home to us.

While we were in China, the difference between the girls who had been fostered and the girls from an orphanage was very obvious.  We will be forever thankful to the family who obviously showered Empress with love and attention when all we could do was pray that she was being well cared for, and to the organization that helped to make that loving start possible.

The sponsorships can be charged automatically every month.  They have a minimum of $35 per month, although sponsoring some specific children is a little more.  Most children are eventually adopted, although some of the special needs children have not been adopted.

Please consider this worthy charity in your family giving plans: Grace and Hope for Children.

So, my morning started pretty ok.  DH got to sleep in because the base was on delayed start due to flooding and power outages from the nor’easter.  The public schools are all closed again (same reason), but that doesn’t affect us; homeschool would happen as normal.  After a bit of sleeping in because of the dreary weather (Empress was up, promptly, at 7:30, as usual, and in our bed, telling us all about everything), we meandered downstairs for breakfast.

Looking out back, I decided I should go check on the plastic deck boxes down on our little dock on our glorified drainage pond.  When I got there, I found the dock awash in four or five inches of water (it’s normally about two feet above the lake level) and one deck box about to go over the edge of the dock into the lake.

The other box was nowhere to be seen.

I phoned the DH to notify him that the kayaks (unlike the bright orange one we saw drifting, upside down, across the lake yesterday) were ok, but a deck box was missing.  Ok, one muskrat-gnawed deck box with a Super Soaker water gun inside.  No big deal.  He encouraged me to look for it, just in case it was still afloat, saying he’d seen something floating across the lake before he left for work.

I pulled out the binoculars and checked (knew all those hours at sea looking for contacts would be helpful for something).  Much to my surprise, there it was, hung up in some willows submerged in the lake.

No sweat!  I told the kids I’d be right back, pulled out a kayak, launched it from the steps, paddled off the dock (like I said, it’s under four to five inches of water, which is enough to float the kayak where we’re usually walking), and set off for the deck box.  No reason to let it sink while waiting for the DH to get home this afternoon and help, right?

All was going well.  I had the top lid panels pulled off, mostly drained, and in the boat.  I had the loose items that were still in the box (no water gun, unfortunately; we’ll have to look for that later) in the kayak, too.  Now, for the box itself.

That didn’t go so well.

I was trying to pull it out of the water enough to let the water drain out so I could perch it in/on the cockpit in front of me and paddle home before the wind kicked up again when I counterbalanced a little too much.

I can now say that, yes, I have flipped a kayak in our lake.

I managed to throw the stupid deck box into the mostly-full-of-water kayak and pull the whole lot over to someone else’s nearby pier.  Shoved the box against the grassy hill and hoped it would stay until I came back with the minivan.  Emptied most of the water out of the kayak.  Verified that, strangely enough, I still had the paddle, both earrings, both contact lenses, and both sandals.  And, hey, growing up in Wisconsin, I could say that I wasn’t nearly as cold as I’d been some days in July swimming in Lake Michigan.

As I told the DH later, all I actually lost was my dignity and a hair band.

I got back in the kayak as the wind kicked up and paddled home.

The kids didn’t seem at all interested that Mommy was dripping wet, just that I hadn’t fed them breakfast, yet.  I directed Diva to serve cereal to everyone and sloshed off for a warm shower.  After getting drier and warmer, I drove the van over to the other side of the neighborhood, dragged the deck box and its remaining contents up the hill, and loaded it all in the back of the minivan as the wind and rain started back up in earnest again.

Recovering over a belated breakfast of bread with chocolate spread and a hot chocolate, I started reading the paper.  Flooded cars, flooded houses, popping electrical transformers.  My little deck box escapade was hardly the worst thing going on today.

And then I noticed: oh, look, it’s Friday the 13th.  Lucky me.

At long last, we have acquired a new camera (the previous one, after a long struggle, finally succumbed to its Diva-inflicted injuries).  The vagaries of technology and markets being what they are, the new camera cost significantly less than the old one, has more functions, takes sharper pictures, etc., etc.  (Gotta love the free market, at least while it lasts.)  So, I will fill my 7 Quick Takes with pictures, and eschew the politics and more somber subjects of the world for the day.

1.  The car.  Like the camera, we got a deep discount for buying something that someone else bought, then returned quickly.  Their losses.

[This photo scrapped due to weather difficulties.  Namely, two days of nor'easter.]

2.  Crash’s Christmas present was concert tickets for the big touring Star Wars extravaganza and a night with just him and Daddy.  After mulling the how-to over while weeding, the actual costume took ninety minutes, including the drive to and from the store to buy the fabric.  He was a big hit, the DH tells me.  (It’s easy, really!  Khaki pants, dark shoes, long-sleeved white shirt.  Yard of fleece for the cloak (cut strip off for hood, sew one side together, gather hood slightly, gather body of cloak to hood, two grommets and a leather thong to fasten), yard of crinkly stuff for the vest (two long rectangles, hemmed on all sides.  Drape diagonally, tie with belt made from folded over and sewn last piece of fabric).  Add lightsaber.  Strike pose.)

3.  The post-concert aftermath: Daddy and son “watching” Star Wars DVD’s.

4.  As a result of my in-laws’ stuff being in storage, I have a few particularly impossible-to-replace items being stored at my house.  That includes this tapestry I did for them (which I’m trying to encourage to flatten out by hanging it with coffee mugs attached to the bottom rod) when they still played with the SCA (medieval re-enactment club, for lack of a better short explanation).  Based on the Bayeux Tapestry, with the traditional Latin grace before meals.  It’s about 2.5 by 3 feet.

5.  Shameless cute kid photo.

6.  Soccer season is almost over.  I’ll be happy to have my Saturday mornings back, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.  Crash on goalie (bored, which is good for the goalie) and Diva getting an angle on the ball.

7.  Finally, presenting the major time sink as of late.  I would work until 9 pm at my in-laws’ packing boxes and stuff, then come home to restore my sanity (!?!) working on this.  65 pieces per block x 56 blocks = 3640 pieces, not counting the borders and backing.  My DH looked at me slaving over the ironing board on one of many, many passes each part made through and commented, “That looks like way too much work for a hobby!”

Take a minute to go visit Jen at Conversion Diary, host of the weekly 7 Quick Takes Friday.

When I first heard the news that there had been a massive shooting at Fort Hood, my first response was horror, a prayer for the victims, and a gnawing concern that this was going to turn out to be another terrorist attack.  Mentally, I squashed that last thought, even after I heard the shooter’s obviously Arabic name.  It isn’t fair, I told myself, to assume anything.

Well, we aren’t assuming anymore.

As more details came out, we all heard about Major Hasan’s outbursts in favor of suicide bombers and Muslims fighting the U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There were the suspicious internet postings (which could not be conclusively linked to Hasan, so the charges were dropped).  His family told reporters that he had been discriminated against for “his ethnicity.”  Given his vocal support for America’s enemies, I’m guessing it may not have been his ethnicity (or even his religion) that was the reason for the animosity he attracted.

It didn’t take long to start seeing a pretty awful picture of warnings and reports to the proper military authorities that were ignored or dropped for lack of proof.  Was political correctness a factor?  Did people fail to prosecute the accusations as well as they should have because they feared a PR headache with the ACLU or some other watchdog group if they accused a Muslim of these things?

And then more linkages came to mind.  Al Qaeda had claimed they were trying to recruit doctors specifically, to cause us further insecurity.  Remember the terrorist ring of Muslim doctors in Britain who tried to bomb Glasgow airport?  Plus, there have been thwarted attempts to attack military bases in the U.S. and elsewhere (notably, Fort Dix) and the murders at the Arkansas military recruiting office by a Muslim convert.

Our paper, of course, came out with a series of subheadings the day after the shootings implying the shooter was crazy (of course he wasn’t right in the head; he shot forty people) or that it was the stress from the wars that led to this (I can see the scene at my paper’s editor’s office: “Can’t let a good crisis go to waste!  What a great opportunity to point out the evil nature of Bush’s wars and get to imply that the DHS report fingering returning veterans as a security risk may actually be right!”).  And they wonder why I keep telling their obnoxious marketing department, “Well, I’m not sure your paper is worth the cost of renewing my subscription again.”

In the small sidebar the local paper dedicated to mentioning that, “Well, ok, he was a Muslim, but we don’t know if that means anything yet!” the paper deigned to mention that Hasan had argued loudly with colleagues that this wasn’t a “war on terror” but was, in fact, a “war on Islam.”  Therefore, he didn’t want to participate in the killings of Muslims and wanted to get out of his committment to the Army (never mind that, as a doctor, he wouldn’t be killing anyone).

Maybe this will give us, as a nation, to discuss who we really are at war with.  Fighting “terror” has been ridiculed from all sides as an entirely inadequate description of who we are trying to defeat.  What capital or objective must be taken to defeat terror?  When is the war over, at what milestone?  I mean, it sounds rather amorphous; radical Islam can be absolutely anywhere.  How do you fight that?

Our answer, unfortunately, has been that we don’t.  Preachers of real hate are ignored so that the government can declare “war” on Fox News or go after churches “hateful” enough to argue that homosexual “marriage” is not a right and abortion is evil.  (Anyone hosting a Democratic candidate at the pulpit is ok, though (our Virginia Democratic candidates swept through eleven churches the weekend before the election, our paper reported cheerfully), as is anyone preaching hatred against America.)

For much of its history, Islam has been at war with everyone around it.  Lulls in the fighting have generally only been for regrouping.  The fact that U.S. forces have defended and helped rebuild mosques in Iraq doesn’t mean anything to those who would insist that the U.S. is at war with Islam in general.  Nor does the fact that we allow mosques and madrassas in our country, but there are no churches nor Christian schools allowed in Saudi Arabia and few allowed in most other Muslim countries.

We are not at war with Islam.  We want to believe that there are adherents of Islam who are decent people who wouldn’t kill their wives or daughters for “honor” nor put up with those who do.  We want to believe that many Muslims don’t condone blowing up innocent civilians in Israeli cafes or crashing planes into busy office buildings as a method of spreading their faith.

The Basque separatists finally quit fighting when they got some measure of autonomy.  The various radical communist groups in Europe quit bombing things as time wore on and they got a little political power.  The IRA never took out its political frustrations half-way around the globe; they had/have a particular aim, and the violence has decreased as their political voice has increased.  Islamic terrorism is not like those other ideologies’ terrorism, yet we refuse to see the difference.

Unfortunately, we have yet to come to grips with the fact that significant sections of Islam are at war with us.  Not for Israel, not for Iraq, not for Afghanistan, and certainly not for some alleged lingering anger over the Crusades.  Radical Islam will be at war with us until everything is “submitted” under Islam.  Unlike in Christianity, there is no softening of the theological position with an acknowledgement of the humanity of non-believers; the order in the Koran is to convert or kill everyone.

We have let our political correctness drive us into a corner.

Thirteen soldiers died at Fort Hood for that intentional blind side.

And, no, I certainly do not mean the week of “volunteerism”-oriented programming.  (or the related spate of comic strips on “volunteerism”)

I’m not into the crime or courtroom dramas, so I didn’t see this when it came out.  My husband watched it online after getting an e-mail from Priests for Life encouraging everyone to check it out.  DH said it was very good, surprisingly even-handed, and even pro-life.

The episode is from Law and Order, discussing the situation of a pro-life person who confronts and kills an abortion doctor at his church.  They put a few twists on it that the actual case of the murder of Dr. Tiller didn’t have, but it’s obvious where they got their idea (common for the show; they take cases in the news and examine them through fictionalized versions).

Priests for Life put up a link to Law and Order’s abortion murder episode.

If you follow football at all, you know what happened with Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers, or, more specifically, the new management.  The details are a little fuzzy, with a lot of they said/he said.  Favre had been frustrated by the lack of good talent on the team; reportedly, he’d even offered to take a pay cut to allow the team to hire some better new people.  Finally, Favre said he was going to retire, then changed his mind.  The management declared that they had “moved on.”  Many fans cried, “Foul!” and claimed the management was just trying to make a name for themselves, which meant getting rid of the previous management’s legacy, i.e. Favre.

The protests came to nothing, and Favre, after sixteen years with the Packers, was traded to the New York Jets.  The Jets did ok last year, but let Favre go at the end of the season.  Then, horrors of horrors, Favre signed with one of the Packers’ arch-rivals, the Minnesota Vikings.

The coverage dripped with nasty t-shirts (“Benedict Favre the traitor” being one of the milder ones) and distraught Packers’ alumni shaking their heads and saying, “Gee, we thought he was a good guy…”

People.  Get over it.  Seriously.

It’s football.  Not a war.  Not a country.  Not even politics.  Just football.

You fired him; what did you expect?  That he’d remain in mourning for you forever?  If one of my Naval Academy classmates took a job teaching at West Point, we’d rib him pretty hard.  But we would not seriously throw around the accusation of “traitor.”  We would not bemoan that we “used to think he was a good guy.”  (Ok, most of us wouldn’t; I was reminded by a recent commenter that some people take Navy sports way, way more seriously than I ever would.  Which is why the kicker one year was getting e-mails that bordered on death threats from alumni for missing a field goal at the Army-Navy game.)

All this, yet we can’t say anything bad about people who are betraying the Constitution.  The people who are selling our grandchildren into debt slavery.  The people who laugh and sneer that Republicans love Mao for being a strong dictator, but can’t seem to keep actual vocal Mao admirers out of the staff immediately surrounding the president.  No, you must not criticize them, or else you are a racist who just hates Obama!  And don’t you dare hold a rally protesting the government’s spending spree with our tax dollars, or the media and Nancy Pelosi will call you other nasty names, too, and claim that you are funded by big corporations… even though the big corporations that gave money to the Democrats seem to be benefitting rather nicely from the “stimulus” spending.

On second thought, maybe the problem is closer than it first appears.  Both the “Favre is a traitor” and “Everyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist/redneck/idiot” people are seeking to squash criticism of their own actions (or their side’s actions) by loudly maligning anyone who dares disagree, hoping to shift the argument from the facts to, well, arguing about the argument.

The elections are coming up and, although it’s an “off” year, since it isn’t a presidential election year, the ads and phone banks are out in force.  Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for attorney general, has been called a dangerous, right-wing zealot (Why?  Because he’s a truly conservative, pro-life, pro-school voucher, homeschooler.  Yep, dangerous people, those homeschoolers!).  McDonnell, the Republican candidate for govenor has been accused of being anti-working-woman because of a graduate thesis he wrote twenty years ago (in spite of his having a daughter who is an Army officer and the fact that our president’s law school thesis remains shrouded in secrecy).

We need to redirect the argument to what is important.

Not football.

Not name calling of opponents.

The election is tomorrow (ok, technically “today”, now, in the Eastern Time Zone).  Get out there and argue about what is important.  Our future, our country, where we are headed, and where we should be headed.  The rest can wait.

Well, I’ve been in and out of the blogosphere lately (mostly out or just lurking briefly), but I am finally officially back.  The move from you-know-where is half over; the second half comes when my in-laws rent a mobile home somewhere and we get to move everything out of the storage units and into the house.  (Oh, joy.)  The good news is, a lot of stuff is gone, via the huge rummage sale, donations, and the trash, so the next move should be neither so painful nor so drawn out.

I’m sort of absorbed in a long-overdue quilt project, which will be shown whenever I have a working camera again, but I hope to be back to regular posting, effective immediately.

Thank you all for your patience and your continued visits, even when I was terribly irregular about being here to “meet” you with anything new!