There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord

That long headline is Proverb 21:30 in case you were wondering.

The number one story I’ve seen repeated in different forms this Christmas season is the attempts by atheists and non-Christians to remove Christ from Christmas, or to remove Christmas itself from existence.

Story after story documents attempts to have Christmas trees removed from city halls, angels removed from federal lawns, Christmas songs removed from schools and nativity scenes removed from windows.

The news articles are followed by dozens of commentaries from writers on both sides of the issue. People who are not Christians can’t stand the thought of Christ’s birth being celebrated. It makes them uncomfortable. It makes them feel left out. It makes them feel targeted, somehow.

I can see how my wanting to celebrate the birth of my savior should have an adverse effect on your feelings. But the main thing as far as I can see, that the anti-Christ activists have succeeded to do, is to bring Jesus Christ into the public eye.

What us Christians might have otherwise celebrated quietly while the rest of the world celebrated Santa Claus and sales at Macy’s has now made it to the front page of every prominent magazine, offering us a multitude of opportunities to share our faith where we might have had none before.

I’m not saying there’s ever a time when there is no opportunity to share the love of Jesus. But occasionally we get complacent. We get caught up in our lives and forget to reach out to the lost. We don’t take the extra time to start a conversation about Jesus.

So I want to thank the ACLU for making sure Christ remains the focus of our attention this holiday season. Thanks for seeing to it that no one views Christmas as merely a day off work and the opportunity to give gifts to loved ones. Thanks for putting Jesus Christ our savior on the forefront of public discussion.

You have inadvertently piqued the interest of some who might otherwise not have thought once about Jesus this season. There are those who might notice the pattern of the easily offended minority dictating the majority’s freedoms and out of concern decide to investigate the matter more thoroughly. You have prepared for us a harvest and handed to us the chance to win souls.

You have also prompted some of us to reexamine how seriously we take our faith. For those of us who might have lacked urgency or fervor in our practice of it, you have brought to light the undeniable danger that one day we will no longer be free to practice it at all.

Now, more than ever, as Christianity quickly becomes an unmentionable, we Christians must redefine our commitment to our faith, and renew the vigor with which we practice it. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Merry Christmas!

I'm on vacation, leave me alone

By some miracle, I got to go home for Christmas this year.

I am on vacation until the first week of January, so stop bugging me.

Actually, I did think about writing a column every day while I was at home, but to what purpose? It would simply interrupt an otherwise chaotic and insane vacation, so I think I'll just take a break.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Enjoy your winter festival, or whatever.

God bless!

Kate

With only a few weeks left, Roberts edges out Hinzman in Idiot of the Year 2004

Jeremy Hinzman deserted from the 82nd Airborne Division and ran to Canada with his family, where he is enjoying domestic bliss at the expense of people like my friend Jesse, an 82nd Airborne Soldier who actually deployed with his unit.

Jesse is out there risking his life, not to mention freezing his rear end off, while Jeremy is working on his Web site and getting support from peace junkies waving white flags. But that’s not even my point.

In the race for stupidest coward of the year, I think Hinzman may have to take second to the brave Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, who convinced a relative to shoot him in the leg so he could avoid going back to Iraq.

I’m proud to say Roberts is a member of the unit I went to war with, the prestigious 3rd Infantry Division, which spearheaded the assault on Baghdad in 2003 (that last dependant clause has actually been added to the division’s official name, I think).

In a stunning display of idiocy, Roberts first asked his relative to shoot him with a .22 caliber pistol while he was on leave in Philadelphia, then claimed he was shot during an armed robbery.

Unfortunately, he and the family-member he trusted enough to get shot by (and who had the amazing lack of sense to actually do the shooting) forgot one little detail – getting their stories straight.

“Gun – check. Leg – check. Gee, Bob, did we forget anything?”

“No, man. Let’s rock n’ roll.”

(Later, in the hospital)

“Well, see officer, here’s what happened …Aww crap! I knew we forgot something!”

In a surprise investigation tactic, the police actually asked both the victim and shooter questions about the incident.

After telling different stories, the two just broke down and admitted they made it all up, according to Police Lt. James Clark. Roberts was arrested shortly after receiving treatment for the gunshot wound.

Personally, I thought it made perfect sense. You don’t want to go to war again, presumably because you don’t want to … get shot. So the logical thing to do, obviously, is … get shot.

Although I can understand why getting shot in the states is marginally better than being shot in the desert (except for the inherent danger of self-loathing after doing such a thing - how do you explain that to the grandkids?), I still don’t think I could go to quite that length to get out of a second deployment.

And while I have several friends who would probably like to shoot me, I don’t think I have any relatives who actually would.

Since having family that stupid is pretty close to the same as living with insane Iraqis, does he qualify for a purple heart, do you think?

Any way, it’s important you know that there are many wonderful Soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division, as well as 82nd Airborne. Don’t let a couple of morons like Hinzman and Roberts ruin your image of us.

UPDATE: Okay so I’ve written two columns already about cowards.

This makes me as guilty as the rest of the media in highlighting the negative instead of the positive. I read a story by Oliver North in Human Events today that reminded me about our brave guys out there who have nearly been forgotten in the rush to discredit their leadership.

I’d write about it, but I can hardly do better than he did. I suggest you read the story yourself, and remember that the majority of our guys out there are closer to Rafael Peralta than Jeremy Hinzman, Marquise Roberts and Pablo Peredes.

It’s just you don’t hear about them. Because the good guys aren’t news-worthy. Unless you’re refusing orders, shooting unarmed children or deserting your comrades, you’re not worth the media’s time.

Except, of course, it serves their purpose to paint you as a hero … like for instance if they can paint Rumsfeld as a tyrant in the process. Then it’s all about the poor soldiers …

I can grunt and spit with the best of 'em, but why would I want to?

My “knight in shining armor” column may have given some of my admittedly hypothetical readers the idea I’m the kind of helpless girl who’s afraid to break a nail and needs a heroic man to sweep her off her feet.

This is only partly true. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I’ve spent years perfecting my image as the tough-as-nails, independent Soldier woman. It’s not quite perfect yet (babies are my weakness – my krypton if you will. Every time I see one of those my Soldier-façade melts and I become a little marshmallow. Stupid babies!)

Women in the Army are usually one of two types. Some are shamelessly promiscuous, and will even go as far as getting pregnant to get out of deployments. These women give the rest of us a really bad name and force us to perpetuate our own stereotype – that is we feel we have to prove ourselves so the men around us will respect us.

Some of us take this to extremes. I try to contain my battle-of-the-sexes related angst to mild offense when some burly dude tries to shove me out of the way just as I’m about to lift a table or a box or something. I admit I resent the implication that I can’t lift more than a paperweight (being female and all).

But I knew a girl in Georgia who got offended when men opened the door for her. She said it was disrespectful and implied she didn’t know how to open a door herself. She insisted women shouldn’t be treated with special respect. Personally, I think she just liked to argue about stuff.

I always contended that while men should not treat us as objects or weaklings, it’s nice to be treated with some respect. When a man opens the door for me or lets me have his seat, that’s not sexism. It just means he was raised right.

Feminists, as they are defined today, are dangerously insane. They’re motto, basically, is “I’ll prove I’m equal to men by becoming one.” Where’s the sense in that?

What intellectually superior champion of the female cause thought of that? “I’ll prove to you that your gender is not better than my gender by trying to make my gender just like yours … oh wait …”

That’s as brilliant as saying that dressing exactly the way men want us to dress to fulfill their adolescent fantasies is about “empowerment” and “celebrating our bodies.”

I celebrate the beauty of my body by protecting it from men who would use it and toss it aside (this is not to imply that I can be easily “tossed” anywhere, at least not right now. Maybe if I just ate a few less chips, as my last idiotic romantic interest told me. He also told someone else he was going to marry me and buy me a treadmill. Don’t get me started, I could go on all day.)

Feminism, likewise, should be about celebrating the differences between women and men. We should celebrate our femininity, not try to suppress it.

This could be chapter one of my book someday

How I got started on the path to becoming an obscure journalist

My parents knew when I was very young I would be a journalist. This was not so much because they wanted me to become one (what parent dreams of their child becoming a journalist? Criminal defense attorney - maybe. Janitor - possibly. Head cashier at Wal-Mart - conceivably. Democratic presidential nominee - you're pushing it. But journalist? Come on, now).

Mostly they knew because I tattled on my siblings so often. Also, my stories were often made up. These are the true earmarks of an aspiring reporter. My little brother is next in line if all goes well.

So in order not to disappoint them, (not, of course, because it was an easy “A”) I enrolled in journalism class in high school.

My teacher was a great lady. She didn’t teach me much, but she was a great lady nonetheless. During the three years I was in her class – beginning, intermediate and advanced journalism – I learned two things that I can’t get out of my head even now.

I learned the difference between “it’s” and “its” and that the word “lots” should never be used in journalism.

I also learned from other students that if I saved my tests, I could turn them in again the following year since the tests never changed.

I learned how to get information about other students out of the school computer, that I could get my friends out of class “for the newspaper” and that the rent-a-cops wouldn’t bother me after the first few times they saw me leave campus in the middle of class to go produce “the newspaper.”

This was all extremely valuable information. What I didn’t learn included how to write leads, inverted pyramid style, what questions to ask, who to interview, how to copyedit, or really anything relating to actual journalism.

I did learn the definition of “yellow journalism” which at that time meant to sensationalize news for the sake of ratings or sales, but since then has been simplified to mean, “working for a news agency.” Also I learned “muckraking,” which meant, basically, intentionally digging up or making up unpleasant facts about a person in order to paint him or her in an uncomplimentary light, thereby swaying readers’ opinions about said person. This has since been redefined to mean, “working for a news agency.”

In my junior year - my second year of journalism - I managed to get hired at the local newspaper (which was also the contractor that published the school paper) putting together the classified section. I, for one, thought it was insane to hire a 15-year-old high school student to do a job related to the number one source of the newspaper’s income, but thought better of it and didn’t say anything.

With my new, prestigious position at the paper, I was quickly promoted to “production manager” of the school newspaper. This was mainly because I had a key to the newspaper office and my own computer. This resulted in no end of fun for me and a few select students: mainly the editor, assistant editor and art editor of the Senator News, our illustrious educational institution’s publication.

For some reason, our slightly senile teacher never looked at the Senator until it was published. So when the four of us were putting it together on the weekends, (we had time during class designated for this, but we used it to go to McDonalds usually) we pretty much did whatever we wanted.

If there was too much space, Andrew (the aforementioned art editor) would write a poem in the middle of the front page. We’d insert a “word of the day” complete with definition customized to fit our adolescent senses of humor. Inexplicably, the word was always, “decrepit.” Our headlines were totally unrelated to their respective stories, and since they were usually inside jokes, totally unfunny to anyone but us.

For example, a story about the students elected to school government positions for the year would bear the headline, “Why we hate our editor: understanding the plight of the Senator News staff,” And a story about an upcoming dance would be titled, “Four students involved in hypothetical automobile accident.”

Andrew also did comic strips which made absolutely no sense - reason enough for us to find them hilarious.

So when we picked up the stacks of Senators and delivered them to the school, the teacher would look at them and immediately call the four of us into the hall to discuss our behavior.

This only encouraged us as the lecture was by far the funniest part of our day. At some point I think it became the goal of the whole exercise.

Anyway, since high school I’ve matured considerably in the field of journalism. That is to say I do exactly the same things, but with an older group of people.

(Disclaimer: In true journalistic fashion, I made a good deal of that up. But not all of it. That would be unethical.)

When I find my knight in shining armor, he won't be riding a tank

Every girl is looking for the right guy. Right? Well, here’s a little piece of advice, girls. Don’t look for him in the military.

Don’t get me wrong, our guys in uniform are great. They’re heroes. They kill bad guys and sacrifice life and limb on the battlefield for our safety. I’m proud to know them. I just wouldn’t want to date any of them.

You see I’ve known quite a few of them and trust me, what they lack in chivalry they make up for in genuine stupidity.

In the barracks I live in now, there are about 20 men and one woman, my roommate, who understandably spends most of her time in the room.

I spend my time with a select five to seven of them. By “select,” I mean, whichever ones happen to be in the TV room at the same time as I am.

But there are only five seats in the TV room. When I walked in the other night, all five were occupied, so one of the more courteous males said, “Oh Kate. Did you want to sit down?” and tossed a throw pillow on the floor. This produced an inordinate amount of laughter from the rest. Come on, guys, it wasn’t that funny.

Another night I was helping another young lady move out of the barracks at about 10 p.m. She had no car and she was nine months pregnant. I called one of the guys – let’s call him “Clay” (because that’s his name) – and told him the situation.

“Uh …really?” Clay asked, sounding like he wished he hadn’t answered the phone. I asked to borrow his truck. “Oh sure! Nooo problem.” Relief. Thank God she didn’t ask me to help!

While we were loading up the truck I was surprised to see two of the other guys headed down to our end of the hall. Were they actually going to help?

No, they were just there to sneak chalk blocks behind my wheels so I wouldn’t be able to drive away. That is funny.

My weekend job includes dropping Clay and Stuart and sometimes a few others off at the bar at about 10 p.m., then going to pick them up at 2 a.m., plus one or two giggling blonde friends who need a ride home. I don’t mind doing this at all. I’d rather pick them up than have them drive.

They generally thank me by telling me I’m the wind beneath their wings and offering to beat me senseless. Then they dump their curly fries on the floor for good measure.

One night, since it was already late, I decided to just stay out with them. Note to self: Don’t do that again.

Since I was going, they asked me to act as both designated driver and “fake girlfriend” in the event either of them started talking to ugly girls. Fine, just this once.

While standing there feeling immensely uncomfortable, the fifteenth skeezy Army guy of the night came up and asked me to dance. I guess Clay could see the pained grimace on my face because he headed our direction immediately.

Rescue? No such luck. “She’s the best dancer I know,” Clay told the potential suitor. “What’s wrong with you Kate? Get out there and dance.” Wow, thanks buddy.

But nothing brings them more joy than making fun of my faith in God.

The funny thing is I don’t have to say a word about it. My mere presence and the fact that I have a belief system they don’t share irks them so badly they can’t let it go. Are we perhaps feeling a little guilty boys? And once one of them gets started, it would take a mortar attack to distract them from the subject.

“Wow, Kate, whoever made this movie must hate God,” Jamie will say, while Dane giggles uncontrollably. And it goes downhill from there.

By the end of the night, Dane is usually convulsing in a way that has me worried for his health.

Sadly, these guys are kind of a good trade, considering the group of cretins I was stationed with before.

These were sophisticated gentlemen whose favorite thing to do in Kuwait was hold a cigarette lighter under each others’ butts to see how long they could do it before being noticed.

The moral of this story?

I may find the right man out there someday, but I can pretty much guarantee he won’t be wearing combat boots.

Stop kidding yourself. There is no 'fair and balanced'

There never has been nor will there ever be such a thing as fair and balanced news reporting.

As long as people instead of robots are the ones doing the reporting they will find a way to inject their personal beliefs into every story they write.

Journalists are taught to present both sides of every issue fairly and without bias, keeping their feelings about the subject out of the text. But trust me, we journalists are experts at appearing unbiased while slipping little hints in here and there that are intended to convince rather than inform.

We are also ready and willing to sacrifice the truth at the altar of ratings, promotions and furthering our political agenda.

While this has always been true, it has always been at least partially veiled by a pretense of ethics and standards … until now. As the political tension in America becomes so thick you can practically see sparks in the air, news stations and papers are getting bolder and bolder in their attempts to sway their audiences.

We’ve gone from merely flavoring our sentences with a few well-placed words like “claimed,” and “allegedly” to intentionally placing quotes out of context to serve our purpose of sensationalism.

In one of many examples of such tainted reporting, NBC’s Katie Couric and the Washington Post both quoted Donald Rumsfeld’s seemingly uncaring response to a Soldier’s queries – but chose the only part of the quote that made him sound calloused.

When Spc. Thomas Wilson asked, “Now why do we Soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don't we have those resources readily available to us,” Rumsfeld replied, “I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they're not needed, to a place where they are needed. I'm told that they are being--the Army is--I think it's something like 400 a month are being done. And it's essentially a matter of physics. It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production capability of doing it. As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. . .”

But NBC and the Post simply quoted the last sentence. “As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Not surprisingly, neither station mentioned (or has mentioned since, that I’m aware of, but I could be wrong) that Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts, who is embedded with Wilson’s unit, coached him ahead of time on the questions he should ask Rumsfeld. He also made sure before the press conference that his Soldier and another from that unit would be picked to ask questions.

“(We) worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have,” Pitts wrote in an email.

Pitts said he had just experienced a great day for a journalist. I don’t know what kind of journalist he was talking about. The validity of the Soldier’s question in no way excuses Pitts’ blatant manipulation of the story to suit his own purposes.

While touting his work as the only truth-telling journalist in the modern world, retiring TV journalist Bill Moyers said he would go out telling the “biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee.”

"We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people,” he said. If that’s not fair and balanced I don’t know what is.

By “right-wing media” Moyers presumably meant “Fox News,” the only news station that occasionally appears to want America to beat the terrorists. He can’t have meant the New York Times, CNN, or any of the other national “news” agencies whose reporters practically broke into a visible sweat trying to get John Kerry into the White House.

This is a classic example of the democrats’ habit of distracting from their outrageous behavior by accusing republicans of the exact same behavior. To be fair (and balanced), Moyer said he is not a liberal. He simply wants to tell the truth.

There will never be truly unbiased news. The average American will forever be forced to hear the news as the media wants us to hear it. If you get out and do the research yourself, you will find endless evidence of this fact, in Iraq, the 9/11 Commission, the presidential campaign and everywhere else.

Don’t just blindly believe what the TV tells you. Seek truth.

p.s. For more on Bill Moyers, visit http://temlakos.blogspot.com, one of my favorite blogs.

Canada can keep our cowards

“We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.”
- George Orwell

Jeremy Hinzman is no such man.

A deserter from the 82nd Airborne Division, Hinzman is seeking asylum from Canada so he won’t have to face jail time in the United States.

Hinzman said he did not believe the war in Iraq was just, and therefore would not fight in it. Well okay then. Why didn’t you say so to begin with?

He said a court-martial would be unfair and he would be treated more harshly than other deserters because of his view on the war – despite the fact that other deserters with the same views, such as Staff Sgt. Camillo Mejia who was tried at Fort Stewart, Ga. earlier this year, received only a year in jail.

Anti-war activists love Hinzman and Canada has welcomed him with open arms, though he has not yet been granted asylum.

To help him out, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey testified at a refugee hearing that Soldiers in Iraq routinely shoot women and children and murder unarmed Iraqis in the streets for basically no reason.

Coincidentally, Massey also believes the Iraq war was unjust and criminal. “Any act of violence in an unjust war is an atrocity,” he said.

Is any of this starting to ring a familiar bell?

To anti-war activists it is reminiscent of the thousands of draft-dodgers who fled to Canada during Vietnam. The main difference, as Human Events columnist Michelle Malkin pointed out, is that Hinzman was not drafted. He volunteered for duty in the U.S. Army, which, in case you’ve all forgotten, exists for the sole purpose of fighting the nation’s enemies and following our commander in chief’s orders.

But to me, it sounds suspiciously like another guy from the Vietnam era – one who did not flee to Canada.

Let’s see, you go to war (Hinzman deserted before Iraq, but was deployed to Afghanistan), you come back, you protest the war, you smear your fellow brave Soldiers, you claim they commit murders and atrocities … yep, sounds like John Kerry to me.

Maybe Hinzman could be the democratic candidate in the 2024 presidential election. He could base the campaign on his war heroism.

In all fairness, at least Kerry was not a deserter.

I can’t say no atrocities have been committed in this war. I can’t say whether the war was the right thing to do or not.

But here’s what I can say.

I followed my commander’s orders to go to war and my conscience is clear. I did not kill anyone, thank God, but many of my friends did. They had to, they didn’t like it but they did it and I’m proud of them.

I saw Soldiers do incredibly heroic and brave things in the face of danger and I resent cowards like Hinzman who would degrade that heroism and dishonor their bravery.

I never saw innocent Iraqis murdered in the streets.

I saw Soldiers put themselves in harm’s way time and time again to help the Iraqi citizens who needed help.

Massey testified that Soldiers often open-fired on vehicles that refused to stop at checkpoints, killing all the occupants, who were later found to be unarmed.

Well, I hate to say it, but if they were unarmed, they should have stopped at the checkpoint. One of our enemy’s most common tactics is suicide car bombs, as I’m sure Massey knows. Our Soldiers have no choice but to defend themselves against that threat.

Massey himself said it was difficult to tell who was hostile and who was innocent. That’s because our enemy does not fight an honorable war. Our enemy dresses as a civilian, uses a civilian as his shield, plays dead, booby traps the dead, attacks from mosques, hides bombs by the road and murders his own countrymen.

This is an unconventional war and we must fight unconventionally. Those Soldiers out there who have to make those tough decisions are to be loved, supported and prayed for.

They should not be slandered by the likes of Hinzman who first deserted his comrades, then emphasized his cowardice by refusing to take responsibility for his actions.

If that’s the type of guy you want, Canada, well as far as I’m concerned, you can have him.

We must reclaim our dignity

The big story on MSNBC last night was Ivana getting fired from Donald Trump’s reality show ‘The Apprentice.”.

Apparently Ivana felt her opponents in a contest to sell candy bars in New York had an advantage because they were wearing low-cut tops, so she upped the ante in one of the most disgusting and embarrassing ways I can imagine – she offered to drop her skirt and twirl around in her underwear if a patron would pay $20 for a candy bar.

In the board room, Trump appropriately told her he doesn’t hire strippers, and fired her.

What amazed me was an argument by one of the three experts on MSNBC (sorry, I can’t remember her name) who defended this kind of behavior as women being “empowered and entitled” and “expressing ourselves sexually.”

The segment also featured a Miller beer commercial in which two women rip off their clothes and wrestle in the mud, and several Abercrombie and Fitch ads which ingeniously sell clothing by running ads in which the models aren’t wearing any.

I try to believe everything the TV tells me, but strangely I didn’t feel empowered at all when I watched those two women wrestling. I didn’t think to myself, “how wonderful that those women feel free to express themselves sexually. How liberating.”

And I guarantee you that’s not what the men who created the commercial or the men who watched it were thinking either.

In the Army I’ve been in one all-male unit and one predominantly male unit, in which all the females except me live elsewhere. So I get to spend a lot of time around some pretty base males and I’ve become familiar with their thought patterns.

Trust me, women, when you behave like sexual objects, you are not empowering yourself. The men around you are not learning to respect you and treat you as equals. The thoughts they are having have nothing to do with love and respect. They are thinking about the degrading, disgusting things they want to do to you.

Especially since their expectations of what they should see in the bedroom are so perverted by the massive amounts of pornography they watch. They experience a frustrating paradox in which they want us to behave like the women in those videos, while simultaneously losing respect for us when we do.

As another woman on the show, the founder of a Christian women’s organization said, “The future husbands of my daughters are watching that.” She didn’t want those men to think that’s how women should behave.

The same woman on the show who said we were “empowering” ourselves said we were NOT “objectifying” ourselves by behaving that way. I hate to break it to you lady, but men see us as sexual objects.

But because we have the power to inspire lust, to make sleazy men want to have sex with us and to embarrass the faithful men out there, we convince ourselves we are empowered.

The truth is deep down we know we are being degraded. Otherwise we wouldn’t get so upset at men for treating us the way our dress and behavior implies we should be treated.

When I was a teenager (and thinner), I used to dress somewhat scantily myself. Yet every time I was walking down the road and some guy whistled out his window or shouted some banal remark, I got offended. How dare he?

You see it in movies all the time. The tough woman of the world with her breasts hanging out, demanding that the poor slobs “look at my eyes, not my chest.” What were you expecting him to look at? Why are they out if you didn’t want them looked at?

When I did dress that way it wasn’t because I was expressing myself sexually. It was because I didn’t have the self-worth to believe I was beautiful unless men confirmed it for me. How is that liberating?

Where is the empowerment in losing all your dignity? Where has the mystery gone?

Walking by an Abercrombie and Fitch store the other day I saw a shirtless guy who looked like he’d been airbrushed a stick-thin girl standing there modeling a very small number of the store’s clothes. Whatever natural beauty and innocence the girl had once possessed was gone, or covered with three inches of makeup. Walking by a second time I saw her draped over the male model, explaining to a couple of 12-year-olds that this was “hot.”

The TV is dominated by role models like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who prove that “you don’t have to be poor to be white trash.” When I hear men talk about Paris Hilton they don’t say, “Gee, I’d like to marry that smart, sexy girl.” They say, “No, man, I wouldn’t date her, but I’d do her in a heartbeat.” And that’s toned down.

I heard a radio host belittle a woman who said she was staying a virgin until she met the right one. He told her she’d never find a man who would date her if she didn’t “give it up.” The concept of a man loving a woman who refused to have sex with him on the second date was so foreign to him it was laughable. Wow, I feel empowered now.

I’m not saying we should go back to the days when women couldn’t ride bicycles for fear of showing their ankles, but we have to stop pretending. There is something to be said for leaving a thing or two to the imagination.

I’m pretty sure most prostitutes don’t feel empowered by their ability to get men to pay them for sex. They feel broken, betrayed and filthy.

And it is not creative to strip for passersby. That’s not how you get a slot in a billion-dollar corporation.

We wonder why the guys refer to each other’s girlfriends and wives as “your bitch.” And why the guys they’re talking to no longer get offended or protective of the women in their lives.

I heard a friend of mine giving advice on girls the other day. “They like you to treat them like crap,” he said. “They won’t say they like it, but they do.”

Sadly, that’s true. We must put our clothes back on and prove we respect ourselves or no one will ever respect us. We must reclaim our dignity.

If only my uncle didn't live there ...

A poll conducted this morning showed that 100 percent of people who are me think Florida should secede from the union and become its own insane country.

They could dig a channel around the state and elect John Kerry president.

Since we hardly need to go into the 2000 election debacle, in which Florida residents who couldn’t figure out how to draw a line next to “Al Gore” simply scribbled on their ballots in blue crayon, I have compiled a list of other reasons the United States shouldn’t have to acknowledge Florida.

1. According to the Boca Raton News, the American Health Association is offering free group therapy sessions for Kerry supporters suffering from Post Election Selection Trauma. PEST is a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-type condition that has caused people who voted for Kerry to tremble, have nightmares, give up on democracy, turn red anytime the word “religion” is mentioned in their presence and threaten to leave the country, among other things. The news story also mentioned Douglas Schooler, a Florida psychologist whom colleagues criticized for administering hypnotherapy to Kerry supporters and charging for it. In his defense, Schooler said his patients had complained of severe mental issues even before losing the election. Well there’s a shocker. Some Kerry supporters had severe mental issues. You don’t have to be the head cashier at Wal-Mart to figure that out.

2. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say the drug has no more adverse effects then smoking cigarettes. So I guess it was just natural stupidity that caused a Florida couple to call the police and report their weed stolen, stating they needed it back so they could sell it later. Police arrested 18-year-old John Douglas Sheetz and 17-year-old Misty Ann Holmes and charged them with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to Florida news station WFTV News.

Perhaps they should consider adding “being idiots in general” to the charge list. There must be a law somewhere against being that dumb.

3. Three teenage brothers in St. Augustine, Fla., accidentally hit a woman’s sport utility vehicle with a golf ball they were bouncing in a parking lot Sunday, according to Local6.com. 14-year-old Isaiah Grayer and his 16-year-old twin step-brothers Jamel and Justin Marshman apologized to Kathy Feaganes Allen, who started to drive away, but changed her mind and ran the boys over instead. Seriously. She turned her car around and went after the boys, running over three medians in the process and ended up with her car in the ditch.

She then got out of her car, calmly lit a cigarette and called her husband, while Jamel, the only uninjured brother, asked her why she would do such a thing.

Perhaps she was on her way to a PEST meeting, or someone had recently stolen her pot.

4. Florida law prohibits women from falling asleep under salon hairdryers or parachuting on Sundays. To be fair, men are prohibited from appearing in public in any type of strapless gown (this law is not enforced). Also citizens may not sing in public places while wearing a swimsuit, and must still pay the parking fee if they tie an elephant to a parking meter.

UPDATE: An anonymous reader (yay, I have a reader!) brings up the extremely valid point that California is equally insane. Also, all states still have stupid laws. If you click on the link to Florida Law, above, it will actually take you to dumblaws.com, which lists them for all states and some other countries. Since I was picking on Florida, I only mentioned theirs.
Fnord is my father, for those of you who don't know.

Why I never answer the phone when you call

I hate talking. I’m no darn good at it.

When I’m writing I can stare at my screen for fifteen minutes while I try to remember the word “potential,” or “blue” but whenever I do that mid-conversation, my companions either assume I’m medicated and take advantage of the opportunity to poke me in the eye, or get bored and wander off.

I especially hate telling coworkers that I have already proof-read a story or article. You see, until this very moment I never thought of using the word “proof.” Mostly I use “edit,” since I was for some time known as the “editor” and that worked fine unless I was forced to use it in past tense.

Picture this. I walk up to one of my staff members and say, “Why did you leave this story on my desk, I’ve already edited it.” But it comes out sounding like “edididid” (try it, you’ll see) and is always followed by a puzzled silence. The staff member adds a subtly cocked eyebrow which means he’s either counting the days until he gets my job, or he’s contemplating poking me in the eye. He stares hard at his screen. I stomp back to my desk and make annoying style changes to his story.

Right now I am saved from these awkward moments by being the lowest person on the staff at my current duty station. In fact, I’m a volunteer. I work here to keep from being bored to the point of numbness and from having to watch endless “Maury” reruns, in which countless young girls discover that Joe Bob is in fact, NOT the father, and run sobbing of the stage, shouting incomprehensibly at stage hands and cameramen.

The one and only downside to being a lowly staff-writer, instead of an editor, is my current editor’s policy of sending all my stories to their subjects for proofing prior to publication.

This is by far the most infuriating and helpful way to practice humility that I know of. I work for a hospital newsletter (not a medical journal. It’s important to note the difference). My job is to interview doctors, then simplify what they say so the average Joe can understand it.

The problem is, doctors are smart and they want people to know it. The fact that they all successfully passed medical school is not enough. If they read the article and are quoted as saying something that makes sense to people with simple master’s or bachelor’s degrees, they can’t stand the humiliation. Even though they actually said it, it looks so wrong on paper. “Oh no,” they think. “My colleagues will not think I’m smart if they read this! This can’t go to print!”

This is the fun part. The doctor immediately sits down and rewrites the article from start to finish. He spends several hours doing this, possibly even canceling a few appointments. It is not easy to change sentences like “We help providers learn how to treat patients well,” to “This division assists clinicians in providing better quality care by instructing them on the basics of patient-provider communication techniques and initiative guidelines that improve healthcare outcomes. Not to mention hyperlipidimia.” Not only does this make no sense, but nobody cares.

They are also unfamiliar with the rules of news-writing, so when I get the story back, I have to spend several hours undoing the changes so my peers in the journalism world will think I am smart.

Comments on holy days

In my last post I mentioned that Christmas had been "westernized" to include a fat guy in a red suit who delivers presents to all the children, merry elves and flying reindeer. Let me clarify.

As my sister pointed out, Christmas was originally a celebration of an adored Catholic saint, Saint Nicholas. His holy day was celebrated Dec. 6, when children would leave their shoes out at night and awaken to find them full of candy. This tradition is still carried on in some places, such as Germany. Martin Luther wanted to ban Saint Nicholas since he had never been canonized, but didn't want to alienate children, he made it a celebration of the birth of Christ. Both Saint Nicholas and Jesus Christ are undeniably religious figures, and Christmas has always been, in one form or another, a religious holiday. The current Santa Claus and his empire at the north pole, however, have little or nothing to do with either the Catholic saint or the world's redeemer. Apparently that's not enough for the separationists.

In addition, Easter originated as a pagan celebration commemorating the goddess of fertility and springtime, Eastre. The holiday has been "Christianized" to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. According to some sources, religious people in the early centuries couldn't safely hold celebrations that didn't coincide with already existing celebrations. Since the spring festival was held very near the Jewish Passover, after which Jesus rose from the grave, Christians chose to celebrate the resurrection at the same time. That's why painting eggs, fluffy bunnies and the story of the Messiah being raised from the dead after taking on the sins of the world are mingled together in this yearly celebration.

Wait until they find out 'holiday' means 'holy day'

A multi-cultural church group is banned from the participating in the Christmas parade in Arvada, Colo. according to an article in the Rocky Mountain News, (which I found on Human Events, a conservative publication that can be viewed at www.humaneventsonline.com).

The rules for the parade include no “direct religious themes” – such as “Merry Christmas” signs – and no traditional Yuletide hymns, said parade spokesman Michael Krikorian. The reason? They don’t want to offend people of other religions who might want to watch the parade.

Did I miss something? First of all, when did “Merry Christmas” become an offensively religious phrase? Second, when did free speech mean, “free speech unless it might possibly offend somebody who disagrees with it”? Third (and I’m sure Faith Bible Chapel pastor George Morrison agrees with me here) how is the Two Spirit Society, which honors gay and lesbian Native Americans as holy people – and which has not been banned from the parade – viewed as less potentially offensive and directly religious than a choir singing “Silent Night?”

This is only one example of “religious tolerance” and the establishment clause of the constitution being liberally (no pun intended) interpreted to mean, “Total intolerance of Christianity and all things related to it, even in the remotest of ways.” Never mind that the nation itself was based on faith and Christian values.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading a portion of David Limbaugh’s Persecution: How liberals are waging a war against Christianity that addressed the very same issue, specifically regarding Christmas and other holidays with religious roots.

Limbaugh documents case after case of intolerance and discrimination practiced against Christians in the struggle to erase God from the public eye entirely.

He names several cases of public displays in schools and other public buildings allowing the display of the Jewish Menorah and symbols celebrating Kwanzaa, while denying Christian symbols such as nativity scenes.

Many places have stopped celebrating Christmas, and instead celebrate “the winter holiday.” As one writer said in Limbaugh’s book said, “I can’t wait until they find out the word ‘holiday’ actually means ‘holy day.’ What to do then?”

So let me see if I understand what I’m being told here. I should not openly celebrate the birth of Christ my savior during a season traditionally dedicated to just such a celebration because it might offend people who don’t celebrate it. But I should not under any circumstances be offended by the open celebration of the winter holiday by people of other religions. That would be the height of bigotry and religious intolerance.

I don’t get it. It doesn’t bother me that Adam Sandler probably wants to celebrate Hanukah instead of Christmas, and it doesn’t bother me that my friend A.J. probably wants to celebrate Kwanzaa, and I’m certain neither of them lose a wink of sleep over the fact that I might sing “God bless ye merry gentlemen” on Dec. 25. So what’s everybody freaking out about?

Christmas has already been “westernized” to include a fat guy in a red suit who delivers presents to all the good children, merry elves and flying reindeer, and you haven’t heard us Christians screaming religious intolerance. Easter, likewise, combines celebrating Christ’s resurrection with pink bunnies and colorful eggs. Again no protests. And I don’t hear anyone out there indignantly shouting that Halloween (originally ‘All Hallowed Eve’) should not be celebrated because it might offend non-witches.

I urge Americans of all faiths to pray to whomever you choose for a country that touts tolerance as its highest virtue while practicing such outright discrimination.

p.s. I would like to respond to some comments from my anonymous reader from a few columns ago. 1. “You are right about everything and everyone else is wrong.” Thank you, reader. You complete me, whoever you are. 2. All those points you made about pro-lifers. I agree with you. Abortion is not a strictly religious issue, and the Pro-life viewpoint is not, as it is portrayed, synonymous with religion. Non-religious people are also allowed to believe that babies should not be murdered, and many of them do. My point was simply that my beliefs are strongly connected to my faith, but when I was not a Christian, I was still a pro-lifer. 3. Perhaps you are wrong about my “ambiguously spiritual” friend, and perhaps not. I don’t think she is married at this point. Thank you for your comments, I enjoyed reading them.

I will call you squishy. And you will be mine. And you will be my squishy.

You learn a new and totally irrelevant fact every day.

This morning I learned why our eyebrows don’t grow as long as the rest of our hair. According to a Seattle news station and a doctor they interviewed (sorry, I didn’t pay enough attention to attribute this correctly. I am not a good journalist, apparently, but I will address that later) hair has two phases of growth – growing and resting.

The hair on a person’s head grows for three years, and then rests for three months before falling out to be replaced by new hair.

The hair of the eyebrows only grows for four short months, and then rests for nine before falling out. That means no matter how long you let them go untrimmed, your eyebrows will never grow out to the length of the hair on your head.

You can, however, achieve an impressive unibrow, such as the one I saw at a diner in Lakewood, Washington, which goes nearly halfway down its wearer’s nose on both sides. It’s like an extra set of sideburns.

In other news, a very nice woman insulted me today. I’m not sure how to handle this. If she had been rude, uneducated, ugly or emitting an offensive smell, I probably would have taken it with a grain of salt. Unfortunately, she is a beautiful, smart doctor who spends her days saving the lives of leukemia patients (to include a good friend of mine who would have died had it not been for her efforts) and probably gives soup and blankets to homeless people in her spare time.

She told my supervisor (not me) that I am a bad writer – so bad, in fact, that she cannot even rewrite an article for me, because she “cannot write at a 10th grade level.” I can only assume from context that she meant she is above 10th grade level, although the sentence itself implies otherwise.

Until she brought this to my attention, I was unaware that my news-writing was equivalent to that of a 10th-grader. This means two things: first that I am not doing my job well, since I am required to write at a fourth-grade level so that my target audience can understand me, and second that high-school sophomores have gotten smarter. When I was in 10th grade, trying to get a fellow student to read the sentence “eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it,” aloud and with fewer than three mispronounced words was as much an exercise in futility as trying to get a democrat to acknowledge they lost the election.

Seriously guys, let it go. There was no scandal, no thievery no cheating. You lost because your candidate was weak and because God still loves America despite America’s desperate attempts to disown God.

My next project: learn to tighten my focus to one or two subjects per article. My topic-jumping is reminiscent of John Kerry taking a position on ... well, anything really.

Iraqis grateful to U.S. "Invaders"

After overwhelming requests from my reader (dad), I am compelled to post the commentary that preceded my most recent post. Why I didn't do so to begin with I have no idea. Also after a comment from a fellow blogger (whose blog is suspiciously blank, and who writes a lot like ... well, dad) I will try to improve the formatting of the paragraphs. So here it is.

Last time I was home on leave an 11-year-old girl bitterly accused me of invading a country for no reason. Those were her words. I was curious about how this girl formed her opinion. She’s 11. There’s always the possibility that she went online and researched the subject, asked teachers hard, probing questions and delved into the deep political issues surrounding the war in Iraq, but that seems unlikely.

Later it all became clear when the girl’s mother told me how she had talked to an (a, one) Iraqi citizen, now in America, who had said he would never go back to Iraq after we “bombed the heck” out of it.

That’s interesting, I thought. This woman, an old friend of mine, obviously thought she had presented a piercing and inescapable point that would make me squirm.

Normally I shy away from political conversations, feeling that I am not nearly well enough informed to debate most issues. (In fact, most people with strong opinions are equally uninformed, I’ve found). The same holds true for the war. I didn’t fight in it because I thought it was right, but because that’s my job. People don’t get to enlist in the Army on the condition that they will only have to fight in wars they agree with.

But having had the unique opportunity to actually go to war, and as an Army journalist no less, I felt I had at least a slight advantage when it came to having interviewed Iraqis.

I interviewed hundreds of Iraqis from Nasiriyah and Karbala to Baghdad and Fallujah in the time I spent in Iraq. Some of them were admittedly bitter against the “invading Americans.” But most were thankful to the point of tears.

Keeping in mind that Iraq had two government controlled television stations and few newspapers before the war, that internet and cell phones were outlawed and international newspapers had to be smuggled in, I was actually surprised at the number of Iraqis who were not bitter. Until our tanks rolled across the border, the average family had no idea what was happening outside Iraq. Yet they still greeted us with cheers of joy.

They’d been waiting for us for 12 years.

Janan Dakak, an Iraqi-American citizen, said the predominant feeling among Iraqis is, “what took you so long?”

But turn on your TV any day of the week, and all you see is the “quagmire” in Iraq, and how the reconstruction is “failing.” You’ll see burning bodies in humvees, car bombs and attacks on police stations. You’ll hear about “insurgents,” and “Saddam loyalists.” If it bleeds, it leads in the press.

What you won’t see is the majority of what’s actually happening there. You won’t see the reforms in all the government ministries at every level. You won’t see people getting sent to countries all over the world to expand their educations. You won’t see the women who are finally free to leave the country without a male family member. You won’t see the young men lined up outside the police station to sign up for service before the dust of the most recent car bomb has settled.

I didn’t see all of these things myself, since I left Iraq more than a year ago. But Maysaa Mahmood, who came to the United States from Baghdad less than three months ago, saw them. Traveling outside the country for the first time to get her masters in pharmaceutical economics, Mahmood spoke recently at the post where I am currently stationed, along with Dakak. In two and a half months, she has already become disheartened with the American media, where she has yet to see an accurate picture of what is happening in her country.

I did see the reconstruction of schools and orphanages, the delivery of medical supplies, ceiling fans and water pumps, the rebuilding of power plants and Soldiers providing medical care for children.

I also saw the media from the inside. I worked as a liaison between them and the military. I set up their patrols. I saw the ratio of stories they covered versus stories that actually aired. I seriously considered finding a new career when I rejoin the civilian world, so I don’t have to be part of that.

I didn’t see any weapons of mass destruction. Neither, apparently, did anyone else … at least not from this side of the world.

“We all know for a fact that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction because he used them to kill our people,” Mahmood said. “Every Iraqi knows that.”

“The link to terrorism was there,” Dakak said. “It has been there for years. We know Saddam was paying $25,000 to (the family of) anyone who blew himself up in Israel. If that’s not a link to terrorism I don’t know what is.”

I couldn’t agree more, Janan.