Blogging a story

Occasionally, I will stumble across a blog where the writer tells a multi-part story. The difficulty of this is that if you are not a constant, daily reader of said story-blog, you have to read the chapters in reverse or page down to the beginning. The temptation being great to read the ending before you find the beginning, the wonder of the blog story is often ruined.

So why not write it backward? Start with the conclusion of the story and then work back to the beginning. Almost like Star wars but hopefully with better dialog. http://rumandmonkey.com/articles/289/

I think I'll try it. Yawhahahaha!

But first, I'm going on vacation. When I return, I will have a complete outline and character bios to begin the task of the blog-style story.

20 questions?

Stolen unashamedly from Gemmak. Feel free to compound my theft.

As a child.... Did you ever...?

(x) sneak out of the house
( ) get lost in your own neighborhood
(x) see a shooting star
(x) get into a fist fight
(x) laugh so hard you had milk/coke come down your nose
( ) have an imaginary friend or pet
(x) push all the buttons on an elevator
(x) skip school
( ) gotten stitches
(x) gotten the chicken pox
( ) done the splits
( ) played spin the bottle
(x) cheat on a test or exam
( ) deliberately ignore your curfew
( ) go out in public in your pajamas (at least not that I remember)
(x) shoplift
( ) have a crush on a teacher

As an adult ....Have you ever...?
(x) been to any other countries.
(x) had a serious surgery
( ) kissed a stranger
(x) hugged a stranger
( ) been arrested
(x) skipped work
(x) been in love
(x) been to a casino
( ) been skydiving
( ) skinny dipped
( ) scuba dived
( ) been fired
( ) had a crush on someone of the same sex
(x) had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back
( ) gone on a blind date
(x) lied to a friend
(x) lied to a significant other/spouse
( ) celebrated Mardigrasss in New Orleans
(x) been married
( ) gotten divorced
(x) had children
( ) seen someone die
( ) had a close friend die
(x) driven over 400 miles in one day
(x) been on a plane
(x) seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) met someone in person from the internet
(x) lost a child
(x) gone to college/university
(x) graduated college/university
(x) fired a gun

Back in Texas

Thanks Cecily for the link to this one. Texas is at it again. The state motto should be barefoot and pregnant and when will our nation start enforcing Roe V. Wade with this group. Remember that Roe v. Wade was allowed in front of the supreme court because Texas decided to ignore the state 3 judge ruling on abortion. So now, they are ignoring Roe v. Wade and putting restrictions on abortion.

Let's think about this. On the surface, it seems that a child should not be able to get an abortion without their parents knowing about it. We define a child as a male or female under the age of 18 (except in cases of alcohol use where they have to be 21). Would you or I be happy if we found out that our precious child had gone and had a pretty serious medical procedure without our knowing it?

The problem is, the parents of these children have already neglected their parenting responsibility. Maybe they should not have a say. Maybe the state should be looking into taking custody of these kids. A bit harsh I know, but the whole reason why we don't require notification is because of the consequences to the girl. How many of these girls would end up being beaten, verbally abused, kicked onto the streets or maybe even worse if daddy and mommy found out.

And more, are the parents who can't keep their teen from having sex, appropriate family for a newborn? This is one of the great arguments agains the best thing for a child is a father and a mother. Even with a father and a mother, kids can still get messed up and when the pregnancy is the result of incest, boy we have a wonderful reason to bring that baby into the world and even have it grow up with Grandpa/Daddy what every you want to call him.

Let's talk about the state of the world since abortion became protected. Instead of burying our heads in the sand and believing that if abortion were illegal, no one would have premarital sex, we now try to stop abortion by making it unnecessary. We now know that incest occurs and the rate at which it happens. We now know that a teen who gets herself pregnant is not just willing to give that child up blindly to some middle class couple who she knows nothing about. We now know that with support and education, that teen can become a pretty good mother (even if the father isn't around). We now know why the fathers are so often not present. We now know that to ignore the reality of teens having sex means more pregnancies whereas to educate teens on the implications of sex and the protection that they need to use saves us money. We may not like the choice, but the choice for protected sex is far superior to the choice of unprotected sex both in terms of pregnancy and socially transmitted disease. We now know that men are as responsible for pregnancy as women. Imagine that! We now know that choice includes not only abortion, but also adoption and also keeping a baby.

But aw shucks, it takes some work. We need to help these girls raise their family. We need to spend money teaching them how to take care of themselves before they can take care of a kid. Wouldn't it just be easier if we made a law that no one could have sex unless they were married -- To someone of the opposite sex of course?

Just when I think I have no time to think about choice

So much going on in the news this week. Between the Westboro Bible Church and Cecily's Blog entry on Snowflake Babies. I just can't stop thinking about the difficulty of the ethical question of choice.

please take a look and remember that these are not simple questions with simple answers. The further we travel into science and learn to do things previously thought of as God's powers the deeper the ethical questions run. While it is easy to try to boil it down to one absolute and apply the 10 commandments to that absolute, life just doesn't work like that. God didn't give us this ability to choose without giving us a challenge.

According to my conservative husband, Republicans want less government interference. They feel that the government's interference in our lives costs money and limits freedom? So why are the conservatives taking over the Republican Party and trying to take away our freedoms?

http://www.nightlight.org/snowflakeslanding.asp

Is a Christian organization? So why is the President of the United states backing them in such an obvious way? Read on. Their FAQ states that they do not reject single mothers, but most of their clients do. Read between the lines there. They also state that adopting families do not need to be Christian. I wonder how many of their genetic families would take a Pagan family.

Bottom line, let's stop letting Christian organizations be the only ones to set moral code here. The decision to adopt out embryo should be up to the genetic couple. And while we are on the subject of the adoption of embryo and this Nightlight organization using existing adoption law to place embryo, how does that affect abortion law? One of the arguments in Roe V. Wade was that no existing laws in the US recognized a fetus as being a life. A fetus is not granted any rights or privileges or protections under our law.

Thank you to those men out there who decided to kill their pregnant wives. Now the conservatives have decided to protect the life of the fetus by stating that an act of murder against a pregnant woman could be tried as two counts of murder. One against the mother and the other against the fetus. I'm frankly surprised that Scott Peterson has not argued against this using Roe v. Wade.

When this law was first introduced in various states, my reaction was -- good. An additional punishment against wife abusers. But now, I'm wondering if this is all just another way to erode the strength of Roe v. Wade.

So moving on to further conservative hate propaganda.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/06/05/antigay_pickets_raise_ire/?page=2
http://www.boston.com/news/necn/New_England/ They strike again in Dracut, Lexington and Bedford.

The Westboro Bible church brought their knuckle-dragers to the Northeast today to protest in front of children. With signs that read America deserved 9/11 and God Hates Gays, they made total fools of themselves in Lexington as parishioners arrived for mass at a local Catholic church.

I am ever so proud at the intelligent thoughtful response of the citizens of Lexington. They stood in a chain opposite the protesters and turned their backs on the protest and its hate-filled signs. Each citizen sported a piece of paper with the name of their church/temple on their backs in a sign of solidarity.

Maybe, just maybe, the mass of citizens standing there with their backs to the protesters blocked the sight of those signs from some child who is just too young to be pulled into this war and exposed to such extreme vitriol.

Sort of makes you think. WWJD? Something tells me that he wouldn't be holding the sign that says "God Hates Gays."

And in the meantime, the father in Lexington that got upset that his child brought home a book about different families denies that he supports this protest by the Kansas "church." Hello? Is your hate and fear of people who are different from you any nicer because you don't use nasty language to express it? The book was a great way to explain to your child that she won't always see families like her own. It in no way challenged your belief system or taught her to be gay. I'm sure that living in Lexington, MA your child will eventually make friends with someone who has two fathers or two mothers or just one of either. Her reaction to that reality will have a profound impact on her friend. Please get your head out of the sand and begin to parent your child. Don't teach her hate and fear. We've got more than enough of that in this world already. By allowing hate and fear to dictate your actions you have indeed opened the door to the Kansas "church." Where they see a crack, they will enter. You have let them in. I certainly hope this has been a learning experience for you.

It has been one for me.