Pacifist != Adult

The WordNet definition for “pacifist” includes “adult” in the See Also section. (See http://hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/pacifist and http://www.hyperdic.net/dic/pacifist.htm.) That connection is obviously misplaced and is even a little absurd. The ubiquitous state of war around the world was created solely by adults without consulting a single child. It seems that whoever submitted that connection deliberately compromised the accuracy of the WordNet dictionary for the sake of making an ignorant political statement.

06/28/2006 Update:

Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six [Muslim] "youths" got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate passengers. There were some forty people on the bus. Demoor asked the "youths" to calm down, whereupon they turned on him, savagely beating and kicking the man. At the next stop thirty passengers fled the bus. The thugs kept beating Demoor. They then pulled the emergency brake and jumped from the bus leaving their victim to die. –The Brussels Journal

There was only one adult on that bus, and he was murdered by 40 pacifists.

“Thus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for my salvation is near to come, and my righteousness to be revealed.”

“How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? …Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.”

FLDS Hostile to Strangers?

My husband paid his first visit to Colorado City, home of the FLDS, on Saturday….As he filled his truck with gas, none of the people who’d stopped to fill their vehicles would meet his glance. Inside the store, he held a door open for two young women. They didn’t look at him or offer a word of thanks.

He was hungry, so he checked the shelves for a snack. At the counter, he tried to make small talk with an older woman working the cash register.

Silence.

“The feeling I got is I don’t exist,” he told me later. “I am not a human. I’d rather they call me names. At least they’d be acknowledging I am alive.”

He couldn’t get over it. “That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like the Twilight Zone. I can’t believe people will be like that. Poor souls.” -Brooke Adams, “Fearing the different“

One of the defining characteristics of a godless people is hostility toward outsiders. It was one of Sodom’s main sins. Strangers are one of God’s three protected classes: widows, orphans, and strangers. I don’t know anything about Hilldale or Colorado City. I’ve never been there, and I’ve never met anyone from there. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of Adams’ comments (although she seems fair from what I’ve read). However if that attitude is standard among the FLDS group, she is right that it is unquestionably “un-Christ like behavior.”

Religionist Hypocrites

Some people are so caught up in their own self-righteousness. They wink at homosexuality, witchcraft, and idolatry (all capital offenses in God's law); turn a blind eye to lying, godless politicians; and despise the destitute, widows, and fatherless. They preach openness and tolerance all day long, but don't you dare disagree with them about any of their sacred moral cows. They are religionists who will tell a destitute single mother to take a hike so they can recarpet the sanctuary. They think it's cute to dress a little girl like a prostitute, but revile a man who tells his wife to wear a head-covering to church. They'll accept a woman who moves from man to man like a prostitute paid in alimony and diamond rings, but they'll hate a man who remains faithful to two wives simultaneously. Hypocrites. Pit-bulls bred and trained to do violence to God's laws and God's Name.

Discrimination Against Caucasian Men

Interesting article in June 19th's ComputerWorld: "100 Best Places to Work in IT 2006". Here are some of the statistics cited as justifications for three of their top five picks:

-#2 University of Miami: "74% of IT staffers are minorities."
-#3 Capital Group: "52% of the IT staffers are minorities."
-#5 Grant Thornton LLP: "43% of its IT managers are women. 29% of IT staffers are women."

I don't have anything against minorities or women. I think that if one person is more qualified to do a job, then that person should get the job. It doesn't matter to me if the person is a black woman from Atlanta or a hermaphrodite from Sacramento. If he/she/it can do the job, then great! The problem is when people start discriminating against one group in order to make up for a perceived injustice to another group.

Do minorities really make up 74% of the IT professionals in the Miami area? Or 52% in all of the Capital Group locations? I'm having trouble believing that. I think you'd have to work hard to hire that many minorities in technical fields--or you have to hire them all from India--because most IT people in the United States are white men. Even in Miami.

I work in an IT department with eight men and one woman. This department isn't unique. I've been in IT departments with ratios of 12 to 0 and 15 to 1. These companies weren't discriminating against women. It's just that there aren't many women interested in these jobs, and many of those who do apply aren't qualified. Grant Thornton must be discriminating against men from the very beginning by giving a preference to women regardless of technical ability. If the numbers of men and women who apply for positions at Grant Thornton are roughly the same as at other companies, then men competing against women for the same jobs are at greater than a 50% handicap just because they are men. They continue to discriminate against men who seek promotion. If you are competing against a woman for a management promotion, your chances of getting the promotion drop by one-third solely because of your gender.

The article should have been called "100 Best Places for Minorities and Women to Work in IT," because they don't look so great for white men.

Update 07/10/2006: Read-worthy post at http://lndavout.blogspot.com/2006/07/response-to-lee.html .

Happy Fathers Day. You're worthless.

I just watched Animal Planet's Most Extreme: Dads. By the end of the show, I was really feeling how great it is to be a man. Maybe their list of top ten animal dads will explain why:

10. Lion - Defends his children.
9. Antechinus Mouse - Mates nonstop.
8. Golden Jackal - Gives his food to his children.
7. Giant waterbug - Cares for the eggs.
6. Rhea - Cares for the eggs.
5. Stickleback Fish - Cares for the eggs.
4. Jacana Bird - Polyandrous and lets female kill his young.
3. Bull Frog - Cares for the young.
2. Penguin - Makes milk for the young.
1. Seahorse - Gestates and gives birth to young.

Number 10 is a pretty good pick. The lion is strong and fierce. He's number ten because he defends his family and territory from predators and intruders. So far so good.

Number 9 is OK. Hyper-potency is something to be proud of. I guess. It's not bad at least. Well, sometimes anyway.

Number 8 is pretty respectable. You have to respect a man who sacrifices for his children. We're not doing too badly yet.

Number 7 is...well, he's mom. He made the list because he does things that women traditionally do in a human household. Same with number 6 and 5 and 4. They all hang around the nest and care for the eggs. If that wasn't bad enough, the Jacana lets any old female come along and kill all his eggs before laying some more in his nest. He has no way of knowing whether this batch shares his genes or not. He's a polyandrous sex slave. And these traits make them great dads how? I suppose they're great dads for being bugs, birds, and fish, but Fathers Day is about human fathers, isn't it?

Number 3 is another homemaker, only he sticks around to care for the tadpoles, too. Yeah! Another Mr. Mom!

Number 2 not only cares for the young, but he makes a milk-like substance for them too.  Swap to a human Dad breast-feeding his baby. Isn't that sweet? Are you sick, yet?

Number 1 has an internal pouch into which the female lays her eggs. They gestate inside of him, they hatch, and he gives birth. Animal Planet says he is number one because he is both mother and father.

Now, dads, don't you feel special? Now you know that defending your children and sacrificing for them is the least of your good traits. Emasculating yourself and doing everything you can to turn yourself into a woman is your only hope of really measuring up.  Fathers are worthless except when they are able to emulate mothers.

The End of Your Dreams

With the end of your dreams at hand
Every breath must be planned


2/23/2015 note: This cryptic little verse doesn't refer to the planning of dream endings, but of the literal breaths one takes to supply oxygen to the body. When sorrows beat hard enough, it's difficult just to breath. One has to think about it, consciously planning each and every breath simply to stay alive.