Wednesday, March 31, 2010

De Mortalis

What words does one say when one comes face to face with death?

For once, I am at a loss. As you all know, I have an opinion on most things. Now... well, I guess the cold, rational side of me has been taken over by my lesser-known emotional side. My rational side says that death is a part of life and therefore inevitable. My emotional side is screaming "NO!!"

You see, I just learned that my great-grandmother passed away. I wasn't super-close to her, but I was close enough to care about her. My family has known for a while that her body was slowly shutting down, but that doesn't make the actual death any easier to swallow. It would be one thing if we knew she was a Christian, but we don't.

(I keep saying "we." I mean "I." When I talk about touchy subjects, I tend to revert to collective pronouns.)

Oh, I'm not used to this. Typically, I'm so unemotional that I could pass for a Vulcan. "Pain is weakness leaving the body..." yada, yada, yada. (Yeah, I know that's not a Vulcan quote.) But now, my emotions are all over the place. Grief, like physical pain, comes in waves, I suppose.

I was going to make this a pseudo-deep musing on the brevity of human life--hence the Latin title, which is a somewhat morbid play on the Roman expression, "Di Immortales" (lit. "Immortal Gods"--kind of like "Oh my goodness"). But now that I'm writing (attempting to write), my thoughts are more like a pit of quicksand than a clear well. Obviously, I'm in no state to be writing anything, least of all "articles" with any sort of depth or lucidity. So I'll leave depth to David and Solomon.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my Shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For you are with me.
Your rod and your staff comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

And finally, from a good friend of mine...
Psalm 73:28
But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have put my trust in the Lord GOD,
That I may declare all Your works.

So with that, I'll put my trust in God and stop yapping.



(P.S. Forgive me if I sounded gothic. I'm not obsessed with death [although I did go through a slightly questionable phase during junior high/early high school]. I've just never seen "Azrael" this close before.)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

I got tagged by Ellie at The Random Saga of an Author and her Books!

The way I like to say hello:
Hi, Hello, or Hola! Como esta usted?

Once Upon A Time...(finish the sentence):
...in a land far away, there was an old, rusted-out Cadillac sitting in a field of solid-gold poppies.

When I was five my favorite item was:
Paper and pens... they count as one item IMO.

What I like between two pieces of bread best is:
Anything but peanut butter.

When I grow up I want to be a/an:
International human rights lawyer (and author on the side, perhaps).

I like:
Books. And the occasional action movie (of The Matrix or Bourne variety). And rock music. And... well, why don't you just read my profile page...?

I really, really want:
My room to magically clean itself...

I desperately need:
Jesus

If I could color my hair any color I would color it:
It's already colored the color I want it... brown with blond streaks.

People often call me:
Not really. They usually text me. (You didn't think I was going to tell you my name, did you?)

I'm terrified of:
Terrified? Nothing. I mean, I don't like spiders and I'd rather not run into someone who's been in the slammer for assault or what have you, but I'm not terrified of stuff.

The way I like to say goodbye:
Bye, See ya, or Adios

The only rule for this tag (which is originally Bleah's) is that you have to make your own tag and slap it on the end. So I guess I'll give it a shot...

I'm currently reading:
Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style by Mark Garvey

My favorite website (other than Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is:
I Can Has Cheezburger?

My favorite word and its definition are:
exiguous, meaning scanty

My favorite quote is:
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." ~Jim Elliot

The reason I blog is...
I thought there weren't enough youngish bloggers. *sarcasm* Actually, I got invited to the Jabberings blog, so my reason was posting fiction. Now... I blog because I want to encourage other people to search for truth through nonfiction articles and various fiction. And it's fun. =D

If I could live in any other time period and place, it would be:
Ancient Athens. Other than present-day America, Athens was the best time/place to be a woman.

My least favorite food item is:
Sushi. Hands down.

My main goals in life are:
To go into other countries--mainly Eastern European, since I've got a lot of Eastern European in me--and work with international human rights organizations to crack down on human traffickers and the like. After that, I want to become President. (Like that'll happen. =P)

The weather outside is:
Too cold for me. I want to live in California.

Other than blogging, my three favorite things to do are:
1. Read
2. Write
3. Draw/paint

It took me ______ to make this tag.
All day. Admittedly, I did homework and some other stuff, but I'm really bad at thinking of this type of questions.

So... I hope that worked. =P

I tag anybody who feels like doing this. =D

Friday, March 26, 2010

Obviously, I've made a few changes...

So... I was goofing around with Blogger in Draft today and got into the template designer.

That was pretty much one of the best moments of my day.

Since the only computer language I've ever learned--or, more accurately, tried to learn--was for Blender, I stink at HTML. So whenever I would try to play with making my own templates in Blogger, I ended up getting error messages all the time, which definitely put a damper on my creativity.

So now that I use Oxi-Clean... wait, wrong sales spiel. (I don't actually use Oxi-Clean. And it's completely unrelated to blogging. Sorry.) Yeah, I know, I sound like one of those TV testimonials. "Blogger in Draft has changed my life..." or not. But it is cool! =D

If you don't mind, I'd like some feedback... I'm not sure how well the text color and the background image like each other. Other sets of perhaps less burned-out eyes than mine could probably make a better assessment at this point. =P

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

On a lighter note...

...I've been tagged by Bleah at ~With Love And Kisses~! So... here goes...

List 3 of your favorite books (not including the Bible):

Like last time, these aren't in order. And they're just my favorite books at this moment. That may change within the next 5 minutes. =P

1. Sahara by Clive Cussler (Weird, I know... but it has such a wonderfully--maybe overly--intricate plot.)

2. Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney

3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

List how many followers you have:

5--I'm a relatively new blogger. =P

List your favorite Bible verse you've learned:

"But God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. 5:8

List 4 of your favorite bands that are CHRISTIAN:

(I'm supposing that Christian means comprised of Christians but not necessarily under a Christian record label.)

1. Fireflight

2. Flyleaf

3. Decyfer Down

4. Newsboys

=D Thanks, Bleah! That was fun.

I tag...

Ellie

Phillies Phan

Ashley

Joshua

(so basically, all of my followers except Bleah, who tagged me... lol)

Monday, March 22, 2010

General Welfare

Last night, an historic bill was passed in the House of Representatives in the name of "protecting the General Welfare." I think that anyone who reads this blog is probably somewhat acquainted with my views on that subject, but I thought I'd put in my two cents anyway, partially because I'm really upset with the "blue dog" Dems and the government in general and partially because I just did a post on promoting the general welfare that I would now like to amend.

For the record, I don't believe that it's the government's responsibility to make everybody happy. However, the government should at least try to keep most of its citizenry happy. It's quite apparent if you look here that most people don't want this particular species of healthcare reform. (Obviously, the vote on the page is mine.) Therefore, by passing this bill, the House of Representatives was actually destroying the general welfare. The general welfare is what the people want, not what the government says the people should want.

Also, general welfare is not entitlement. We as a people are not entitled to a posh life. The government was not put in place to make everybody successful. The government's job is to protect the constitutional rights of the people, which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This is a far cry from the feeling of entitlement that is so prevalent today. (See Equality, Parts I, II, and III.) Don't be deceived, people; the government knows about this feeling and is using it to twist the American people into complicity with a scheme that can only ruin the nation. We've seen what "healthcare reform" does in Canada and the UK and other countries, and we don't need that horrid muddle here.

Just because everybody who's anybody in the world has a socialized healthcare system doesn't mean that America has to as well. We are America, the Land of the Free... not the Land of the Entitled. We do not follow. We lead. So following all the other civilized nations, lemming-like, in their descent into mayhem is not acceptable no matter how the government spins it.

There's still hope; this snafu of a bill isn't law yet. It has to get through the Senate first and then across the President's desk. And even if (when) this bill does get rammed through, it won't be the end of the world. God has something lined out for us. It will be hard. It will probably involve chastening, so to speak. But in the end, it will be worked out for good, at least for those of us who are Christians (Rom. 8:28-29). So let that be our hope. Someday, somehow, everything will get better... even if we have to wait until the other side of eternity to see it.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Libertarianism, Hedonism, and a few other Isms

I haven't done a substantial post recently (sorry), so I was going through some "articles" I'd written a bit ago. I came up with this. Hopefully I'll get up the nerve to do a post on the healthcare bill soon, but until then, this will have to do.

And for those of you who were wondering, yes, I do write out nearly all my "real" posts well before I actually post them. =P

---

I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged a few months ago, and I was discussing it and the libertarian movement with my mom recently. Basically, we came to the conclusion that hedonism is equal to Objectivism (Rand’s espoused philosophy), which in turn is approximately equal to libertarianism. Thus, by the substitution property of equality, hedonism is approximately equal to libertarianism.

Yes, I just said what you thought I said.

Why? Well, let’s begin with a few definitions. Libertarianism, in its essence, is basically state-condoned anarchy, which necessarily allows the people to do whatever they want. Hedonism is the pursuit of personal pleasure at all cost. Objectivism is, according to Rand, “[The] concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

Now with those definitions, it should be pretty clear that hedonism and libertarianism are both pretty nearly equal to Objectivism, and thus pretty nearly equal to each other.

If you’re a Bible-believing Christian, or at least a Constitution-loving American, this is a problem. If people are allowed to do whatever they want, and doing whatever they want involves hurting someone else, isn’t that sort of a violation of the constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? On the flip side, if the government restricts the people’s ability to hurt other people, even if it makes them happy, isn’t that also violating their rights?

This is where “promoting the General Welfare” comes into play. By necessity, to promote the welfare of the people as a whole, the government must violate the rights of a few people. This seems uncomfortable at first glance; however, when people decide to use their rights as license rather than as liberty, they must forfeit their rights. Rights are not right when used to harm other people.

So should everyone give up their rights in the name of General Welfare? No. That would be swinging the pendulum too far in the direction of totalitarianism. If the people give up all their rights, welfare isn’t general anymore. The government would be the only thing left to protect the people, and we’ve all seen what happens when that’s the case. Thus, rights are necessary.

What am I advocating, then? Conservatism? Liberalism? Constitutionalism?

None of the above. I’ll do another post sometime on the subject of political parties. This isn't the post for such a discussion. So I’ll leave you with a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

Never mind

I found a new counter. It seems less wonky than the old one. And it looks cooler. =D

Pay no attention to the counter at the bottom of the page

It died. Sorry. I'm working on finding a new one that doesn't randomly reset to 62 when I'm not looking.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Fine. I'll just post the URL.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DW9beVhGlBg/S5ZZ12A-dGI/AAAAAAAAAkY/8rM1PAgWJlw/s1600-h/beyondyourimaginationaward.jpg

Okay... something isn't working here

I think Blogger is kinda wonky right now. I'll have to try again later.

Okay, that didn't work

Let's try that again...

I got an award!

Thanks, Ellie!

[beyondyourimaginationaward.jpg]

Not sure how that pic is going to work... I've never really posted pics before.

The Rules (copied directly from Ellie =D):

1. List 8 stories or books that you would like to live in.
2. List 8 other bloggers who deserve this award.
3. Comment on their blog and tell them they won an award.

8 books... in the order I thought of them (i.e., no particular order)

1. Beowulf
2. The Pendragon Cycle (NOT The Pendragon Series--this is totally different)
3. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
4. LotR (even though that answer is really hackneyed by now)
5. The Bible (esp. Genesis and the Gospels)
6. Till We Have Faces
7. The Hound of the Baskervilles
8. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

8 bloggers who deserve this award... Ellie got some of the people I was going to do. Oh well. Guess they can get the same award twice... lol.

The numbers mean nothing. I'm not ranking people here. It's just so I can keep track of how many people I've put down without counting all the time. =D

1. Ashley http://imabitrandom.blogspot.com/
2. Bleah http://blonde4christ.blogspot.com/
3. Madeline http://steppingheavenward-myjourney.blogspot.com/
4. Kelly http://kellymarple.blogspot.com
5. Phillies Phan http://godissoveriegn.blogspot.com

I need to follow more blogs or something. This shouldn't be so hard.

I hope this isn't a girly award, because my next three "recipients" are guys... =$

6. Spencer http://drpaleophd.blogspot.com
7. Joshua http://awarriorsheartj.blogspot.com
8. B.L.S. http://leemac5.blogspot.com

Okay, now to comment on the blogs of people I don't really know...