Re: OT: STORY - Flag Day and Independence Day

Please describe your 'shamanistic worldview'. I have a sneaky suspicion mine is a close relation.

And reframing a 'problem' into a difference can make it less of a problem, since then your goal can be to communicate your differences from a perspective you validate for youself, instead of letting others treat your differences as a deficiency or a pathology.

Deirdre

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Arondelle :

]Robertson is using his multi-million dollar, tax-exempt TV broadcasting ]network to lobby Washington into backing off its demands that Charles ]Taylor (Liberia's current dictator) leave power. ] ]Why? Because Robertson owns a gold mining interest in Liberia, and he's ]made some kind of deal with Taylor for special favors. If Taylor is ]forced out, Robertson's gold mine goes into the potty.

that doesn't surprise me in the slightest, actually. i EXPECT that kind of thinking from !@#$@# like Robertson. i've seen plenty of it.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Arondelle :

]I also have to watch the government give the Religious Right my tax ]money to do it.

that started the day dubbya started mouthing off about "faith based charities" . . . but only those faiths he considered "real".

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Diana Curtis" :

]I sew, and could make some cloths for an alternative doll, another brand ]of "fashion doll' but oh man.. those itty bitty pieces of fabric make me ]nuts!

i did that for years for my oldest. it wasn't the itty-bitty pieces of fabric that got me. it was the teensy-tiny 1/4" seams!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

Could you see yourself moving back at some point? What are the barriers to it being sooner rather than later?

Deirdre

Wanting to *be* the center of the Universe (rather than being willing to accept a place on a minor speck in a minor star-system) was kinda what the Powers That Be of his time had against Galileo. He brought evidence to refute the idea of an earth-centered universe, and a earthling-centered Creation, and therefore had to be suppressed.

Deirdre

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Deirdre S. :

]Could you see yourself moving back at some point? What are the ]barriers to it being sooner rather than later?

i would LOVE to move back, probably 90% of the time. but it has just become too unaffordable.

my house payment here is $500/month. in sacramento, we couldn't find a house we could afford - and rent would be at least twice my house payment.

no one will hire me. i filed a Workers' Comp case and won. no one told me that if that happened, no one would ever hire me again. in addition to which, no one will hire my age anyway, except at minimum wage. i went from making $13/hr to $8/hr. and trust me, the cost of living has not gone down in the last 8 years.

my son understands those reasons, and understands why i'm pretty much stuck here. he calls me two or three times a day [he's lonely for family, too] and comes to see me when he can. the nice things are the QUIET, living in a forest, the wildlife, the "small town". my work gets more attention here than it would in a "big city", and the lack of population density. it's much easier on my nerves. i just have to learn to cope better, but my "coper" broke when i came so close to a nervous breakdown eight years ago.

i have joined the rock & gem club, which is fun, but weird - NONE of them do anything like what i do, so meetings are interesting.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

'Cuz the clerics in question were minions of the Antichrist in Rome....

By the way-- did you know that more Jesuits have been de-frocked and/or excommunicated than members of any other order? Radical intellectuals that they are, make their superiors just as outraged as fundies get over their ideas..... Kaytee "Simplexities" on

Hawaii has had that choice for many years.... Officially, as well as merely a popular way to describe somebody ("hapa", or "hapa hoali"). The "ideal" person there is an obvious blending of white, Asian, and S. Pacific Islander ancestries-- just as the population is. The most popular local models are tan, with wavy brown hair, big eyes with just a bit of epicanthic fold, and high cheekbones. Pure-breds are the ones who get called "names".... Kaytee "Simplexities" on

McFarlane Toys makes "mixed race" dolls-- there are at least three versions of "Neo", Keanu Reeves' character in "The Matrix" & "...Reloaded" currently available. There was an earlier doll of Keanu Reeves as "Ted" (from the "Bill & Ted" movies)-- and "Ted", as a character, was mixed race, as well as being portrayed by a mixed-race ("hapa") actor. Some other company has come out with a Halle Berry doll-- I think it was her character from the James Bond movie....

It's hard to tell, or even keep up with, all the superhero, GI Joe and other action figures, but probably some are "mixed race", if not "mixed species" or totally "alien". Not that it matters-- it's just important what "super powers" and/or weapons they have. The only time "mixed-race" becomes an issue, is if s/he "inherits" more than one cultural background that defines the character.

Then there are the anime character dolls.... Not all of those are of the human race, and even the ones that are don't particularly look like it, but if you want "ethnicity free" poppets, they would be the way to go: big blue eyes set a-slant in a cafe-au-lait face, with bright red (or green) hair... sometimes pointy, furry ears... maybe a bushy tail.... "Sailor Moon", despite being a blue-eyed blonde, is accepted as being Japanese.

Comic Con's next week... some of the attendees seem to be action figures come to life and real SF-type aliens.... And those are the normal looking ones....

Kaytee "Simplexities" on

That's what is so delightful about the gene pool. The combinations are infinite, and so is the potential for beautiful uniquenesses, rather than 'pure types'.

Deirdre

:-P Typical! Make the stats fit your ideas, instead of changing your ideas based on the stats.

Deirdre

Think of yourself as there to expand their horizons...

And don't give up hope on the possibilities of moving back, if that is what you really, really want. Sometimes there are non-obvious ways around the obvious holes and trenches along your path to something, and you miss them if you keep your eyes on the holes and trenches instead of scanning the side of the road for another path.

Deirdre

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from Deirdre S. :

] Think of yourself as there to expand their horizons...

yeah, **grin** there is that. they don't use beads and only use flat wire, so a couple of them are fascinated by what i come up with. and they ALL subscribe to WAJ.

]And don't give up hope on the possibilities of moving back, if that is ]what you really, really want. Sometimes there are non-obvious ways ]around the obvious holes and trenches along your path to something, ]and you miss them if you keep your eyes on the holes and trenches ]instead of scanning the side of the road for another path.

thanks - i'll keep it in mind!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Bill of Rights - Void where prohibited by Law.Regime Change in 2004 - The life you save may be your own.

Look back at your original joke. There's your answer. For those people, it's NOT a joke.

Celine

I think most of us know that. However, it's also true that the narrow-minded fanatical sects (some of which, like Southern Baptists and Church of Christ, are quite large!) *do* claim to speak for all of Christianity. These are the people who *seriously* say, for example, that Catholics are not Christians. Once you've heard enough of that kind of garbage, it's easy to slip into making the same kind of mistake yourself if you're writing in a hurry.

It also does not help that less-fanatical groups seem strangely reluctant to stand up and say, "We are Christians, and these people do not speak for us." So the weirdos end up *looking* like the spokespeople for all of Christianity by default, because they claim they are and no one else is saying they're not.

Celine

What was his experience impression of how those questions were tallied? Did all the answers count, if people filled in two or more options?

Deirdre

The problem of 'official truth' arises in lots of contexts, not just religious and scientific contexts, when a powerful group uses its authority to promote *what they want to be true*, instead of using the best tools they have to explore and discover what such exploration reveals to be true -- and then are willing to go with what they discover, at least tentatively, until refuting evidence is uncovered

-- whether that new revelation is welcome or unwelcome.

Deirdre

Indeed. Most of my family, on both sides, were Eastern European immigrants from Poland and Prussia, and arrived here circa 1890. That was an era during which mix race marriages were verboten, or at least highly unusual, in the northeast US. Even my paternal grandmother's family (Scots or Scots-Irish) arrived quite late in the 19th Century and not on the Mayflower.

Of course, that doesn't even begin to count all the Italians, Greeks and European Jews and other Europeans who arrived in the cities of the Northeast, and Indians and folks from other Middle Eastern countries, who are also "white."

So, how do you figure that "almost every" white person carries Native American and/or black blood? Maybe among the English, French and Scots-Irish who first colonized North America, but not so much among later arrivals.

Arondelle