Another Rant

Yup, I'm ranting again.  This time it isn't a personal issue.  (As I predicted, I don't care about that anymore.)

Sexuality isn't something that should be repressed!

Any time something has overtly sexual content, some repressed advocate stands up and says it is obscene and not natural or children should be shielded from it.  I'm sorry but I disagree.

Now if something violent comes out, the protests still happen, but they are ignored or quietly go away eventually.  Look at the evening line of television and on every station you will find at least one show that revolves around the perpetration of violence.  (Yes you will find equally sexual emphasis but only in the later time slots.)

I understand that one could potentially go their entire lives without either sex or violence.  It would be extremely difficult but it is possible.  But I want to point out that of the two sex is much more "natural" than violence.  Every human being has sexual feelings, especially during puberty.  While it could be said that most human experience violent feelings as well it is, for the most part, not nearly as constant or extreme as those sexual feelings.  Sex is natural.  It is what continues the human race.  And we have been repressing it for centuries.

I listen to a radio show where one of the hosts will gladly allow his child to watch a violent movie yet frantically shield them from any and all sexual content.  This makes no sense to me.  I understand that both sex and violence are a part of life but extreme repression of sex over violence puzzles me.  As a society it should be the other way around.

Anger Management

I'm pissed off.  It was a minor incident.  No yelling, name calling, or questioning the virtue of our mothers.  But it has sent me reeling, constantly reliving the incident in my mind.  Every time I bristle and try to think of something else, it pops up again and the process starts anew.  In the grand scheme of things this is nothing.  In six months I will not care and it won't bother me at all.  More than likely sooner than that.

But now I do care.  I am unable to go into details. (Don't you hate when people do that, bring up a juicy piece of the human experience only to cop out with "I can't go into details."  I hate it too but my hand is forced.)  An acquaintance and I had an exchange the other night that initially was nothing, and was only a slight bother.  What sent me into a rage was that the acquaintance proceeded to use that exchange for an example for others not to do what I did.  In front of me and everyone else involved in this little "event" we are all working on.  This was done right after the initial exchange.  So there is no doubt in anyone's mind that it was my "transgression" that prompted this little pow wow.  Whether or not I was wrong in the initial exchange doesn't matter to me.  It was how this person handled the aftermath and humiliated me.  That is what angers me.

What further infuriates me is the fact that normally I am a patient person.  Very patient.  Like everyone, I have my moments, but overall I am an easy going guy who doesn't get ruffled easily.  I currently work at a company that values that very trait in me and places me in particular groups to specifically calm people down.  But this acquaintance has the knack to bore a whole directly through my cement wall of patience and hit my nerve with a jackhammer.  I have no idea what it is about this person that sends me directly up the wall but every now and then just the way they say something sets me off.  I can't help it.  In the past I have been unable to hold my tongue but this time I'm keeping quiet.  Only my wife knows that I am upset.

One month, and I will no longer have to deal with this group and it will all be over.  (Another annoyance is that I'm helping with this as a personal favor to this person.  They specifically asked me to help and I did so because I knew they needed the help even more so than they let on.)  Unfortunately I cannot walk away because now others are counting on my help.  Not to mention that it would wreck a few friendships that I would not like to lose.

What was this entry supposed to accomplish?  I don't know.  Maybe a mental dump.  I needed to get this out as my wife is tired of hearing about it.  And frankly I'm tired of talking and thinking about it.  My brain is strange in this way.  I will constantly think about this and it will continue to make me angry until one day, my brain will be tired of thinking about it.  And it will be at that point I realize that I don't care anymore.  Unfortunately I can't speed up the process.  I just have to wait for that moment.

Any minute now . . .        

Intolerance is just so intolerable . . .

So I'm perusing the New York Times Online and I come across two articles that I find very interesting.  The first is an article about a student group in Panama City, FL that is atheist.  The article goes on to point out that the group gets along quite well with the other Christian groups in the school and there hasn't been much tension.  This article makes me feel good.  I wish I could say I would have been like that as the head of my High School's Bible Study Group but I cannot.  I was a Bible thumping Jesus humper that was as intolerant of any who questioned the faith.  I would have gone ballistic on this group with many fire and brimstone sermons (I was studying to be a minister, for those that know me now that is a bit amusing) and made a fool of myself.

As I was pondering this outcome had such a thing happened when I came across an article about this guy.  The poster boy of intolerance today.  This is the yahoo who had a trial and burned the Koran.  I haven't been following the news much lately and I had heard about the protests in Afghanistan but I had no clue it was due to this yutz in Florida.  I felt a little bit better about myself because while my "high school self" would have made a big show and mostly made myself look like an uneducated hick I wouldn't have caused an international incident.  I'm sure this guy's mother is so proud.  (Sadly, if she still is alive she probably is . . .)  But after I mellowed out in college I discovered that I should really learn about the things I'm criticizing.  This lead me to studying religion.  Since then I have studied many religions and I find all of them fascinating.  Not least of which is Islam.  To find that someone is so shortsighted to think that the Koran breeds violence is someone who has not read the Koran.  Extremists are only a very small fraction of the Muslim faith.  Thinking the Koran breeds violence and all Muslims are extremists is like saying that the Bible hates homosexuals and all Christians agree with Westboro Baptist Church.  (Don't even get me started on these guys.  I respect their rights, but I wouldn't mind if the Hell's Angels broke their protective wall and roughed them up a bit.)  I digress.  I am a Christian.  I'm proud to be one, but I also proudly display my Koran and my Torah next to my Bible.  What I find interesting though, they all seem to say the same thing.  Just saying.

I also recognize that I am being intolerant to these people.  The schmuck down in Florida and Westboro, I'm being intolerant of their beliefs.  I understand that they do what they do because they are just as angry toward their objects of derision as I am of them.  I see the hypocrisy of it all.  And it drives me bananas.  It doesn't change the fact that I think they are wrong.  It is my right to think they are wrong.  Am I going to protest one of their funerals because I believe they are wrong?  No.  Will I burn the official church Bible of the schlemiel who burned the Koran?  No.  I voice my opinion, I make my case and I hope I reach someone out there.  That is all I can do.

But it makes me feel really good that there are these school groups in Panama City that are getting along despite their own religious and philosophical beliefs.  Growing up I really took to heart the saying, "You can't really know a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes."  It is very important to me to view all sides of an argument before I make judgement.  Not to mention, as a Christian, I believe it is not my place to make judgement.  That is the Big Man's job, not mine.

Sorry to be all schmaltzy and philosophical in these past few posts.  It's what I think about.  Soon you will probably get a superficial post about the new Captain America movie.  I try and keep it fresh.                

So it has been a few months . . . .

 . . . to say the least.  I have been very busy lately.  Not the best excuse but it is all I have.  It must be something about this time of year I start thinking about mortality.  It could be because of all those I have lost in my life, for the most part, have gone in Spring.  True to form soon after I wrote I Don't Know Why I Can't Help Myself we had to say good-bye to our cat Moe.  He was handicapped and because of this he had a urinary blockage and we didn't catch it in time.  It was very difficult for us, especially me, because I knew something was wrong but I thought it wasn't as bad as it was.  I put off taking him to the vet just one day and I can't help but think it would have made the difference.  The vet said as much.  It was very hard for me to watch him go.

To continue the cheer fest about three weeks ago we had to say good-bye to our puppy Sylvia.  And I don't use the term "puppy" as in a term of endearment.  She was just a year old.  Her kidneys failed.  What made this even more difficult was the fact that she was such a good dog.  Again, I'm not saying this as bias.  While there is some as she was my dog I can honestly say she was the best dog I have ever had.  The vet was crying as she pushed in the poison because she had come to love this dog (through multiple hospitalizations Sylvia was forced to endure due to her condition).  I'm still having a hard time with it.

I know, she was just a dog.  But she was my dog.  When I would come home she would jump in my lap and climb up behind my head, and after licking the back of my head for what seemed like an hour, she would put her head on my shoulder and fall asleep while I watched TV or played a video game.  I miss that.  I miss her putting her paws up on our bed because she wanted help up.  (Then later the same day she would jump from the floor behind the couch directly to the back of the couch like it was nothing.)  And most of all I'm going to miss dancing with her.  I would pick her up and hold her while I would sway.  It was how I would get her to sleep when she was really little.  I could still do it up until the end.

Just a dog.  My dog . . . .