To the Hilt

on romney

Leave it to a random commenter on WorldMagBlog to verbalize the feeling that has been lingering in the pit of my stomach since I first saw him on a debate:

"He's extremely photogenic, wife is gorgeous - as is his family - and, of course, he's worth a quarter of a billion to boot. From a political PR man's perspective, I suppose Romney is a Republican packaging dream. I also think Romney is the political equivalent of a bright, shiny object. If birds had voting rights in the US, no doubt they'd vote for him in flocks." - Scaramouche

Bright, shiny object, indeed.

on huckabee

"Huckabee was the most original and interesting of the candidates. His unique style came through when he defended his pro-life views by asking why, if we “move heaven and earth” to find hikers lost on Mt. Hood or in a coal mine, we don’t defend human life in the womb. His explanation of how his faith leads him to embrace global stewardship in the face of climate change and to want to punish Enron-style executives who fleece their workers was both novel and intriguing."

No, really? Check him out.

action alert: dog owners in CA

I was just moseying around the internet for a moment and decided to visit farmcollies.com, home of the English Shepherd. Well, that led me to a website documenting AB 1634, a mandatory spay/neuter that the animal rights activists are trying to get passed out in California. While I am in favor of responsible breeding practices, this bill is mere insanity. Furthermore, there are actually exemptions for breeders who sell over a certain amount each year. Puppymillers rejoice!  (sigh)

I have not done extensive reading, but it appears that there are very few loopholes or exemptions. One of them is that if the dog has been shown in the past two years in a venue approved by your local animal control agency, then it is all right for it to be intact. An interesting point put forth by the Save Our Dogs website: you retire a bitch from her show career in order to be a mother, but after two years you are required to spay her because she has not been in a show ring.

As for working dogs: you know, the sort we see on so many homesteads? No exemption.

Whether you live in California or not, I encourage you to go to SaveOurDogs.net and join the grassroots effort to stop this bill before it's too late. (And you thought NAIS was the only thing you had to worry about...)

modesty in art

While reading the text responses to the question of whether or not leotards, sheer skirts and tutus in theatre or dance performances are immodest, I came across a very interesting rhetorical question:

"How can art be exempt from modesty?"

This statement implied that yet, it is immodest to wear a leotard and such in what most would call the "proper context". You know, I might have agreed with this fellow, once upon a time. But then again, I also would have been horrified by much of what is classic art but which is actually modest. I attended a class while visiting Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, PA, called "Intro. to Fine Arts" and they were comparing three different sculptures of David, two of which, hmm... were rather lacking in the clothing department. Were these pieces immodest? Not in the context in which they were produced. There are similar pieces of art from the course of history that involve the female body in a similar way. Are these necessarily  immodest?

I have to admit that it is still a question that I struggle with, but I think that when it comes down to it... lust is the corruption of appreciating the beauty that God created, yes? And don't these pieces celebrate this beauty in itself, and not the lust thereof?

Just... food for thought. Does anyone else have input on this subject?

you know...

...that you live in a snowbelt when:

• People begin sculpting and spraypainting the building-high snowbank into masterpieces. (Pictures coming when my disposable camera is developed.)
• The local news channel has 175 school closing listings, and the only five that are delayed rather than closed are all within a 25-mile radius of you.
• Not only are they all in a 25-mile radius of you, they are the same ones that just got hammered by the epic lake snows.
• This leads you to the conclusion that the schools are more obsessed about funding and getting the sheep herded into mindless array than they are about the safety of the roads, because if they actually cancelled, they would have to take a day away from vacation.
• Said schools decide to continue to do all of this despite the fact that the entire county is under a state of emergency.

I love this place.

"modern industrial society"?

"Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I shall have nothing whatever to say in praise of an easy life. Yours is the work which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, the most mothers have very hard times; and yet what true mother would barter her experience of joy and sorrow in exchange for a life of cold selfishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which often finds its fit dwelling place in some flat designed to furnish with the least possible expenditure of effort the maximum of comfort and of luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children?"

If we heard something like this now, they'd fry the speaker. In oil. To think, the following was said in 1905!

"In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small land owners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling."
(emphasis mine)

Yep, you heard me right. 1905. Roosevelt. If he thought they were headed downhill then, what would they say about the current state of our country?