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Monday, January 24, 2005

Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:38:15 GMT

AN AMERICAN HOLOCAUST AND OTHER THOUGHTS.

This is the weekend that marks the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. This is the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized the "right" to abortion and was the beginning of an ongoing American holocaust. This was a moment in American history when a group of cynical people launched a marketing campaign to convince fair minded Americans that abortion should be "safe and legal". It worked. Millions of BABIES have been aborted. Millions of dollars in obscene profits have been raised by the abortion "industry". Millions of dollars have flowed into the pockets of abortion doctors, Planned Parenthood "clinics" and the political campaigns of "Pro choice" politicians. This is an institutional evil that is difficult to comprehend, especially at a time when moral relativism makes the use of the word "evil" an anachronism. Being "misguided" or "unelightened" is supposed to be a substitute for evil. Make no mistake. If you are/were a doctor who performed abortions YOU ARE EVIL. If you were a "counselor" at an abortion clinic whose only "counsel" to frightened young women was "get an abortion" YOU ARE EVIL. If you are a male who pressured a woman to get an abortion so as to not inconvenience yourself with fatherhood YOU ARE EVIL. The same people who told you that, regardless of the consequence, having unprotected sex without contraception was your "right" ARE EVIL. Evil has become the domain of movies and other forms of fiction. It's been relativized out of the realm of real life. Some have said that as a man I have no voice in the "question" of abortion. "It's a woman's choice" is the mantra. Nonsense. Being a man doesn't disqualify me from having a voice in this issue. Men are no less parents than women. It takes a man and a woman to conceive a child and if the man can be there to plant the seed then he'd better be there to reap what he sows. My own father told me mother to choose between "him and me". Needless to say, she chose me. There is no constitutional right to an abortion. This is why Democrats and their puppeteers in the abortion lobby are so frightened of President Bush's Supreme Court nominees. Notice that abortion is never put to a national vote so that THE PEOPLE can express their opinion on it. The abortionists saw what happened when the question of homosexual marriage was put on the ballot; it was defeated. When Scott Peterson was charged with double homicide for the murder of his pregnant wife and the unborn child, the abortionists had a fit. They understood that if "the fetus" were seen as a human who'd been murdered then then how could they continue to justify the wholesale slaughter of babies? Abortion has always been on shaky legal grounds and it's practitioners have always known it. They have been very good at propagandizing for their cause but the Pro Life movement has made many gains as well. I'll leave with a question: Deep inside of yourself, where the voice of truth resides, ask yourself if it's really okay to kill an unborn baby for birth control or convinience?

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:19:23 GMT

ARE YOU OUTRAGED OR IS IT JUST ME?

Army Sgt. Graner was convicted by courtmartial to 10 years in prison, reduced in rank to private, with all pay forfeited and dishonorably discharged. I didn't follow the Abu Ghirab situation closely because my attention was focused on the presedential election. I do recall very clearly reading and hearing a great deal of outrage from the left and from our "friends" the appeasers, I mean Europeans. Of course, the "Muslim street" was terribly offended and outraged. Mr. Graner claimed in his defense that he was ordered to "soften up" the prisoners for interrogation by others. The military prosecutors countered that Mr. Graner was simply "a sadist". Frankly, I don't who to believe. I want to believe that Graner was following orders,but, I also know that authority has a way of bringing out the inner sadist in some people. What I firmly believe is that this courtmartial and the ones to follow are the US goverment's way of saying to "the world" that we are fighting this war with honor and we will bend over backwards to be fair to our enemies. I detect the foul stench of PC(political correctness) and a massive double standard at work. Does anyone still remember Daniel Pearl? Nick Berg? Paul Johnson? Margaret Hassan? Where the hell is the outrage about AMERICANS BEING TORTURED AND BEHEADED BY OUR ENEMIES? Where were the "moderate muslims" in our country on this one? What did the "Arab street" have to say about this? Has the media kept in touch with the families of these people? Or is everyone too busy discussing the sociological implications of "Desperate Housewives" ? WE ARE AT WAR WITH A WORLDWIDE ORGANIZATION THAT HAS ONE GOAL: CONVERT OR KILL. In George Orwell's 1984 O' Brien, while torturing the novel's protagonist Winston Smith, says: "...We convert him,we capture his inner mind,we reshape him. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. We make the brain perfect before we blow it out." The "We" in the preceeding quote was "The Party" but try substituting Islam for "Party" and it would read like this: " Islam converts him, it captures his inner mind and it reshapes him. Islam makes him one of us before we tell him to kill someone. Islam makes his brain perfect before he blows someone else's out." Maybe it's the Brooklyn in me,but, we've been far too kind in the way we've fought this war. You fight to win. You wage war to make lasting peace. If your enemy cannot make war against you then that is true peace. Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the realization on the part of your enemies that an act of war against you would be an act of self destruction for them. "Winning hearts and minds" is a waste of time. Let the Iraqis and Iranians fight for democracy if that's what they want. Not one American life should have been sacrificed for the goal of a "free and democratic Iraq". WE OWE THEM NOTHING. They behead innocent civilians but we destroy a Mr. Graner to show "them" that we're not as bad as "they" think we are. "They" must be laughing their asses off at us. Cold comfort for Mr. Graner and his family.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:58:22 GMT

I'm a single dad. I was raised by a single mom who was raised by a single mom. It seems to run in the family. I became a single dad when my former spouse left on a two week vacation and never returned. She was kind enough to call me two months later to tell me that she was with another man, wasn't coming back(well, duh) and could I send money? At the divorce I was granted sole custody with visitation at my discretion. I would like to think that the judge ruled that way because he saw that I was a dedicated dad and a pretty decent chap. I suspect I received custody largely because my former spouse didn't show up for the divorce. It's an open secret that the family court is slanted in favor of women, especially in custody cases. A lawyer once told me that the mother of a child could be a drug addicted prostitute but could always be rehabilitated. A man, on the other hand, has to walk on water and not get his pant cuffs wet. Yes, I know there are many deadbeat "dads" out there who don't give a damn about the kids they engendered. My own father is one of these "dads". I also have met many men who suffer because a spiteful ex lover/spouse interferes with their visitation. We're not all dogs ladies. Becoming a father was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. When I saw my son for the first time, moments after he was born, I knew my life would be totally different. It felt like the closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new and exciting chapter. I never knew I had so much love in me. I don't consider single parenthood to be a burden. My days are LONG with a full time blue collar job, cooking, cleaning, laundry and endless trips to the supermarket. I wouldn't change it for all the money in the world or Bill Gates' ATM card. Shakespeare once wrote: " The child is father to the man". I understand that more each passing day. I've grown up with my son. I never had my father in my life or a decent substitute for one. When I do things with my son, I experience them in a dual way: As a father and as the boy who still lives somewhere within this man's body. I've always been a homebody. I don't drink or touch dope or keep any porno in our apartment. I've never been a bar hopper either.(boy don't I sound boring?) I don't have a parade of women coming through here because that's no example for my boy and I believe in leadership by example. So much of parenthood is the act of BEING THERE. I compare parenting to great Jazz music: there's a structure but also a lot of improvising. You have to accept certain painful truths: with each passing year your child needs you to do less for them than the previous year, your child will sometimes hate you and at times your kids can make you feel OLD. When I talk to single moms and I tell them I'm a single parent as well I get the same reaction: suprise and praise for "stepping up to the plate". I know they mean well. There just can't be that many guys who don't "step up to the plate" can there? Being my son's father is like breathing; a natural, instinctive action I don't have to think about. I've learned another valuable lesson as a father: getting to know the person behind the title " my mother". We tend to judge our parents harshly for the mistakes they made during our formative years. Now that I've been a father for the past 13 years(single dad for almost three) I see that my mother did her level best. It can difficult to learn how to see the men or women behind the titles of "father and mother". The word "parent(s)" conjures up different emotions in each of us. Guilt, resentment, unfinished conversations, things you said that you wished you hadn't and things unsaid that shoud have been voiced. If it's at all possible for you, make the peace with the folks and try to understand where they were coming from. Chances are they were just trying to do the best they could just as we're trying our level best.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:52:54 GMT

MY HAPPY CHILDHOOD.

I was born in Brooklyn, NY in September of 1965. My parents were married but I've never met my father. Shortly before my birth he told my mother to "choose between him or me". Needless to say she chose me . My parents divorced and my father disappeared, presumably to start over elsewhere. He never paid child support nor did he ever write or call. My mother was born and raised in the backwoods of Puerto Rico in poverty, ignorance and abuse. Her biological father never acknowledged his paternity until years later. Along with her mother and her mother's boyfriend she moved to Brooklyn, NY in the 50's. Although my mother's upbringing was harsh she never inflicted anything like it on me. However, it left her with scars. During my childhood and adolescence my mom was a drug user and in several abusive relationships. Drug use was a fact of life in my home and in the homes of many of my peers. We lived in a somewhat more honest time when a ghetto was still a ghetto and not an urban center. I grew up in the Brownsville and Bushwick neighborhoods of Brooklyn. I went to high school in Harlem. I regularly purchased "grass" from Jamaican dealers for my mom. I also purchased and transported, in my school back pack, "black beauties" for my mother and her friends. Cocaine was called "the rich man's drug" and I bought it for my mom in ten dollar quantities tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. All of the above may strike you as a horrendous example of parental neglect on my mother's part. My mother loved me, fed me, cooked and washed for me and taught me many good things. My mother taught me a love for reading and art. My mother, perhaps as a result of her own overly strict and abusive upbringing, gave me the space to be myself. She taught me how to survive and how to deal with sexual predators. Yes, my mom was a drug user but she was my mother. Try to understand that all of the drug use by my mom and her friends was just a part of the landscape. I never thought about it. My peers parents, for the most part, were doing the same thing. We never talked about it. It was...normal. A trip to the Jamaican dealers for "grass" was as prosaic to me as a trip to the grocery store. Many of the adults in my neighborhood were welfare cheats, scammers, con artists, house burglars, small time dope dealers,pimps,prostitutes and petty criminals. The local park was an open air drug market and a hunting ground for homosexual predators looking for young guys. (I know it's not PC but that's the truth.) Violence was one offhand remark, one lingering stare away. This was my childhood. One of the defining conditions of childhood is powerlessness. This is why so many fantasies are about kids who gain access to power. Comic books, horror and science fiction films, novels and art were the only constants in my formative years. My mind soared above and beyond the grimy streets of my youth. It's funny in retrospect but we didn't think of ourselves as "poor people". We were just who we were and nothing more. Politics and world events happened to other people in another part of American society. The ghetto is a world unto itself and like a foreign country, they did things differently there. If you're still with me then I'll leave you with this: my childhood was a happy one. My teenage years are a tale for another day.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:48:48 GMT

Okay. This is my first post on my first ever blog. I'm not a college graduate. I'm neither a journalist nor an academic. I'm a single dad trying to make ends meet every month with a Blue Collar job. I am a janitor/laborer for a government agency that knows where everyone lives. In short I'm an "average guy". Just another taxpayer toiling away in anonymity. One of "the people". No one ever asks "us" what we think of any currently extant issue. Once in a while, you will see "a man on the street" segment on some show where the host will unerringly find the DUMBEST "man(or woman) on the street". It makes me cringe. The stereotype of "the average guy" is that he's anesthetized by 300+ channels of television, a 24-7 sports news cycle and Maxim magazine. There's not nothing wrong with any of those entertainments. I like Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts and Maxim can be amusing, although the girls are far too skinny for my taste which is a whole other topic. My point is that "average guys" are viewed as a complacent herd with no taste for intellectual "heavy lifting". Sadly, this characterization is not entirely the creation of the elitist cadres of the west and east coast. It does have some truth to it. However, there are those of "us" who think, read, listen and have informed opinions on the issues of our times. Some of "us" are conservatives, libertarians, centrists and liberals. "We" vote in local and national elections. Having an "average job" or an "average lifestyle" doesn't mean you have an average mind. This blog is a place where a "know it all" like me will finally have someone to tell it to. Part editorial, part confessional,entirely sincere and above "average".