During the Thanksgiving holidays, we get unwanted self-righteous tirades about how we fat pig Americans celebrate the genesis of white-man’s dominance of the Native Citizens.  Some overly self-involved people bemoan the fact that the hierarchs of their families force them to eat a gluttonous feast on the backs of the indigenous.  This is of course, absurd, seeing as how it was the later generations of the white man that decimated the population of native peoples.  It’s similar to how the Greatest Generation in America produced the Worst Generation.

When Christmas comes around, the atheists become inspired by the secular spirit of the season and erect numerous counter displays juxtaposed to religious decorations.  Oddly enough, mainstream atheists have not evolved the courage to demonstrate during Ramadan.  These types figured they could appear brave by speaking “truth to power” to a bunch of people clothed in tacky sweaters.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have the counter-culture Jesus types who have had just enough of the oppressiveness of the Family Bookstore leaders ruining Christianity.  They beat their chests and announce to the masses that they themselves know the TRUE meaning of Christmas.  You know the types; Christians who have a neurotic desire to advertise that they have completed their first semester of seminary and that the 25th of December was co-opted in order to ease the transition from paganism to Christianity.  It never occurs to these types that they could have saved thousands in tuition dollars, logged onto Wikipedia and absorbed this information for free.  They decry the fact that the Christmas tree is a pagan idle which is the complete opposite of what I thought was the meaning of the Christmas Tree: a flimsy excuse to impale an androgynous angel on top of a tree so he/she can guard the physical representations of our pointless consumer driven lives.

Having gone off on those two tangents, Halloween appears to be a debate between Christians because its roots are deeply held in Celtic culture.  So the major rift between we believers is whether or not to participate in any kind of celebration that hovers around October 31st.

A THOUGHT OCCURS: 

Personally, I like creativity and as long as it is done in a tasteful way, I don’t see the problem with “dressing up” for Halloween.  I think it is a perfect opportunity to harness some of that dwindling imagination and come up with ideas like these…

Costumes Do’s and Don’ts:

In defense of dressing up, I think one explanation is that I [Along with millions of others] am a nerd/geek and nerds/geeks have to fight the urge to dress up the other 364 days of the  year.  I will admit freely that I secretly yearn to own a Jedi Knight robe but I am in a quandary as to whether or not to own a brown or a black one.  I wish I had in my possession Gandalf the Grey’s staff (Not Gandalf the White staff!  That one was a girl’s staff).  I wish I had Aragon’s sword.  You see where this is going.  October 31st is the one day where nerds/geeks can use the excuse to dress up like morons and be a kid again.  If we did this any other day, or outside of Comic Con Conventions, you would have us committed.

However, I also have a clear understanding that some costumes tread a fine line in being either demonic or risqué.  When I was a young lad, I remember my mom being hesitant when I wanted to be the Devil for Halloween and rightly so.  But the costume I was wearing would have opened me up for demonic attack only because the costume was an affront to all demons.  I looked more like the acceptable version of the Valentine Devil than anything else.  Having said that, it is one thing to dress up like the stereotypical witch (Pointy hat, big nose, and missing teeth) and another to have on an outfit that Satan worshippers would give you a fist bump for wearing.

There are some outfits that bring out the inner harlot/gigolo in some people.  I have seen some costumes that would compel Howard Stern to say, “Hey put some clothes on.”  Contrary to what you may have heard, but being a prostitute is not an occupation of high status or morality so if your costume leads people inquire how much your company is for an hour or  to grope you in areas that would be covered during the daylight hours, then I think you are going down an unwise path.  It’s one thing to be provocative (lower case ‘p’rovocative] it’s quite another to be obscene.

Rituals, Sacrifices and Séances Oh My!!!!

Growing up, my family would engage in a profound and powerful ritual before going Trick-or-Treating.  It would involve frying ground up cattle and combining it with the beans of a kidney, tomato based spices and sauces… we would eat chili and rice before going out to collect candy and other goodness.

Engaging in the supernatural outside of Christ is not a good idea during the year so October 31^st is no exception.  If you sacrifice raw eggs to your annoying neighbor’s house, though funny, then you are not only morally in the wrong but you will probably attract the forces of the police.  If you mess around with Ouija boards or play Bloody Mary, not only are you morally in the wrong, but you might attract something far more destructive than a misdemeanor or lawsuit.  Dressing up like Casper is one thing but trying to contact him, even as a festivus activity, is opening yourself up to forces you cannot control.

Gluttony

I don’t think this is a sin that is unique only to Halloween.  While I have already gorged myself on candy corn and pumpkins this month, there is no difference between me eating my weight in Deviled Eggs on Thanksgiving or eating an entire cream cheese pie during Christmas.  I’d say let your kids eat a good amount of candy the first night and locked up the rest so that you can bribe your kids to do their homework or chores throughout the year.  Don’t you realize how much money you have just saved on positive reinforcement?!

Cute Kids in Doggie Costumes

I was just out wogging (jogging meets walking] when I saw a child in a stroller and with his parents.  They stopped in front of a house and helped their child out of the stroller.  It was then that I could get a better glimpse of what their child was wearing.  He was dressed in a little brown doggie costume with long ears.  His costume covered the top part of his face so I couldn’t see him clearly which would explain why his Dad had to help him walk through the yard to get some candy.  Now unless these parents were using their costumed child to summon Damien, the Demonic Lycanthrope, I think I can safely say that the only forces that might descend upon this child are sugar induced rampages and an upset stomach.  How could anyone not look at this kid and gush?

Can Halloween cause trouble?  Well, yes and no.  Like most things it can be used for good or for evil.  So, in the name of Christ, redeem this holiday called Halloween and relax for a second.

Lets call it Thursday, September the 7^th.  I got a call from my beloved father.  He asks me, in a very nonchalant way, something to the effect of, “Hey, look here.  I have an extra ticket to go see Andrea Bochelli in Central Park, would you like to go?”  I can’t quite recall my initial reactions or feelings at the time, but I figured that opportunities like these don’t come around to people like me very often.  So I figured I’d latch onto this train and get a second chance.

I say second chance because when I was 17 years old, my Dad and I went to New York City with my church at the time.  Back then I was a bratty teenage “arse” who thought he had a whole host of problems to deal with.  So, I was both enjoying New York City and wallowing in my overly self-involved drama.  Look back at the photos taken at the time and you’d probably interpret my facial expressions in the pictures as mix between a garden-variety moping emo/gothic teenager {Minus the clothing and makeup} waxing idiotic at a coffee shop or anyone having to forcefully sit through and watch the Halloween Remake {Or any Rob Zombie movie}.  Needless to say, it looked like I was not enjoying myself in New York or being with my Dad.  None were absolutely true despite what my mood portrayed.  None-the-less, I was going to make good use of this trip to the Big Apple and I was going to have a wonderful time with my Dad…

New York, New York

Wednesday Night Until the Wee Hours of Thursday Morning 

Scared to death that a series of unfortunate events would have prevented me from catching my flight from Greenville, South Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina, I decided to TRY to get some sleep at about 9ish on a Wednesday night.  Now keep in mind that my flight left at 6:45am and Greenville is two hours away.  The general rule of thumb when flying is to arrive at the airport two hours before the flight.  So I calculated that I needed to leave the house by 1:30am.  I got out of bed not having slept one minute.  Dreading having to experience the City That Never Sleeps, not having slept myself, I decided to cope with a double quarter meal from McDonalds.

So I arrived at the airport, got my boarding pass and headed to the security checkpoint.  This was my first exciting event of the trip; either the TSA inappropriately touches me or I get photographed to look like a naked T-1000.

I figured I had a once in a lifetime chance of getting touched slightly inappropriately by a complete stranger or posing for a semi-nude photo.  Now let me state for the record, it’s not my life’s ambition to be treated like a piece of meat by the TSA.  If I could have breezed through security to avoid the inconvenience, I would have.  I figured I’d find the silver lining of humor in the situation.  I figured all the celebrities love having compromising photos out there on the net for the world to see.  Or, at the very least, if the TSA searches me, I could feel like a rapper being frisked at the gate by security before entering the Source Hip Hop Awards show.  Sadly, security passed over me and searched the lady in her late 60’s.  It doesn’t do wonders for the self-esteem when a random stranger prefers to touch one of the cast members of the Golden Girls than me.  And it doesn’t help that a Social Security beneficiary looks more of a threat than I do.  Perhaps I should have yelled Allahu Akbar and bolted after I passed security.

So I made it to my gate and popped a squat on one of the connected chairs in the terminal.  I felt led to at least try to get some shuteye so I put on my sunglasses, popped in my headphones and navigated to my “Sleep” play list and attempted to sleep.  Before the first song ended, three voices bled through my nice relaxing music.  I opened my eyes to find the source of the annoyance; 3 gentlemen engaged in idle chitchat.  It’s the kind of banter that people feel compelled to do in awkward situations with strangers.  Amongst the many topics being discussed, one of them was about the movie The Terminal.  It’s a movie about a displaced refugee (Tom Hanks] who cannot leave the “terminal” because his passport is no longer valid due to the overthrow of his country’s government.   Apparently invalid passports are the absolute worst-case scenario in the event your country’s sovereignty is null and void.   I couldn’t help but be annoyed by the fact that these guys choose to pass on the awkward moments of silence to talk about a movie about waiting in an airport… while waiting in an airport.  I know these are small quibbles but I was both extremely exhausted and very excited.  I was hoping that the energy of the Big Apple would invigorate me, compensating for my lack of sleep.  But New York City was 751 miles away and I had to tolerate people making movie-to-real-life connections based on our current surroundings.

{Upcoming links are to movies that have some language.  I think you can handle it}

Now that I think about it, I should have joined in on the conversation and reminisced about the time I saw the first Final Destination movie in which the star of the movie was going on his senior trip.  While on the tarmac, he has a dream about his plane blowing to pieces soon after takeoff.  He wakes up in a panic and demands that everyone get off the plane.  He only succeeds in getting a hand full of his peers off the plane. One the students gazes upon their former flight taking off and low and behold, the plane explodes and the shockwave shatters the glass of the terminal.  I bet that would have ended all annoying plane-related stories.  Thankfully, none of these guys sat next to me.

Up Next:

Life in the Fast Lane: The Ride from LaGuardia Airport to our Hotel

Northwestern University, then I think fair-minded people from various social persuasions can agree that in contemporary academia, what passes foracademic endeavor is becoming more diluted than the alcohol content of a Natty Light after it’s been upchucked onto the curb outside a college stadium at a Saturday 12pm kickoff.

On Feb. 21, about 100 of the nearly 600 students enrolled in Bailey’s “Human Sexuality” class stayed for an optional seminar by four non-students on kink and fetish. Faith Kroll, a self-described exhibitionist, stripped and was penetrated by a modified version of a reciprocating saw with a phallic attachment in place of the blade.

Kroll previously said she thought the session would just be a discussion with students but was game to demonstrate aspects of female orgasm she didn’t think were fairly portrayed in a film students were watching. Bailey also said the sex demonstration was not planned. When he couldn’t think of a reason why students shouldn’t see it, he agreed to let Kroll and her fiancé Jim Marcus demonstrate, he said.  *

Believe it or not, I think college is a place where any intellectual curiosity could be satisfied… for the right price.  If a professor can get 20 morons to pay for a 5000 level class on Zombie Hookers in Cinematic History, then more power to that professor.  But if we are going to tell people to spend their money elsewhere when they are offended at some of the content that is put on the radio or satellite waves, then the general rule should apply to college courses too.  If college students really want to pay to see a sex demonstration, then they should have them use their own money.  I do not know if this performer was paid with tuition funds or not but the 500 students should not have to subsidize the 100 students who are dying to see an academic peepshow.  College, on the other hand, should be a place where education is built on from high school in the most basic of subjects (Math, Science, Literature, History, and Foreign Languages).  After you pass your core courses, ideally you pursue subjects based on what you want to do as a vocation 2 to 4 years later.  If you want to acquire a PhD in women’s studies, be my guest and pursue your dreams but do not scream “sexual discrimination” when the guy with a masters or PhD in physics or engineering is in a higher tax bracket than you.  The same rule applies back to the shock and awe course offered at colleges (                                                                )

You have the freedom to take an unorthodox course if you want to but do not be offended when the workforce does not take your academic career seriously because you took courses that are normally offered online, taught by Professor Hurts-a-Lot and all that she requires of you is a valid credit card number.

Someone once said, “Going to college does not make you any more enlightened than someone working at Blockbuster.  In fact, if your parents (or H.O.P.E) are footing the bill to put your pansy ass through 4 to 7 years of college, then you have not begun to be enlightened.”

I think this speaks volumes on the academic community as a whole.  College is a place where you pay a great investment to expand your mind with new information, challenge and test preconceived ideas and beliefs, and learn to think and make decisions for yourself.  If this can be achieved, then the world of academia has prepared you for potential success.  But if you have 30 credit hours “under your belt” relating to the Mysteries of Tantric Sex but do not possess the wherewithal to use “There vs. Their;” “To vs. Too;” “It’s vs. Its” appropriately, then you are essentially Anna Nicole Smith with a bachelor’s degree.

And this brings us to the professors themselves.  To say that this is a diverse group of individuals would be the understatement of the year.  Judging by the backgrounds and past grievances of some of these professors, I simply refuse to give audience to the idea that no one in America is given a second chance.  Take Bill Ayers and Bernandine Dohrn for example.  Only in contemporary academia can you be a former leader of a domestic terrorist organization and become tenured professor.  It seems to me that in the world of academia, the sketchier one’s past life was, the less one needs to submit to a background check.  Say, what if we treat domestic terrorists with the same disdain as we treat child predators?  We could build a website of known domestic terrorists, where by the click of an icon, you can know where throw backs from the 60’s revolution now live.  Too bad Tim McVeigh was executed or he could have shared a faculty with Bill Ayers at a prestigious university.

So am I a prude?  I do not think so.  But I think C.S Lewis put it best and I’ll refer you to what he said about the sexual experience:

Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is, “Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.” Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong.  One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong.

But I have other reasons for thinking so. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true that most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.

Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

One critic said that if he found a country in which such strip-tease acts with food were popular, he would conclude that the people of that country were starving. He means, of course, to imply that such things as the strip-tease act resulted not from sexual corruption but from sexual starvation. I agree with him that if, in some strange land, we found that similar acts with mutton chops were popular, one of the possible explanations which would occur to me would be famine. But the next step would be to test our hypothesis by finding out whether, in fact, much or little food was being consumed in that country. If the evidence showed that a good deal was being eaten, then of course we should have to abandon the hypothesis of starvation and try to think of another one. In the same way, before accepting sexual starvation as the cause of the strip-tease, we should have to look for evidence that there is in fact more sexual abstinence in our age than in those ages when things like the strip-tease were unknown. But surely there is no such evidence. Contraceptives have made sexual indulgence far less costly within marriage and far safer outside it than ever before, and public opinion is less hostile to illicit unions and even to perversion than it has been since Pagan times. Nor is the hypothesis of “starvation” the only one we can imagine. Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations.

Here is a third point. You find very few people who want to eat things that really are not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare. But perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorry to have to go into all these details, but I must. The reason why I must is that you and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not.

They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess. Modern people are always saying, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.” They may mean two things. They may mean “There is nothing to be ashamed of in the fact that the human race reproduces itself in a certain way, nor in the fact that it gives pleasure.” If they mean that, they are right. Christianity says the same. It is not the thing, nor the pleasure, that is the trouble. The old Christian teachers said that if man had never fallen, sexual pleasure, instead of being less than it is now, would actually have been greater. I know some muddle-headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure were bad in themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body—which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, when people say, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of,” they may mean “the state into which the sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of. **

While I do not agree that sex should be hushed, I do think it should be talked about with family and other trusting adults (Counselors, pastors, mentors, etc.).

The end of the matter is this: If one of the human sexuality courses that you are thinking about taking can be rationalized away by one of the following, save your money and take the History of Rock and Roll.

Sexual Enlightenment at college is not academic if:

-                You can pay Las Vegas professionals 49.99/hour to do it to you.

-                You say, “Oh, I saw this technique demonstrated by Sue Johanson on the Sunday Night Sex Show.”

-                You have seen the sexual act in a stealthy sent inappropriate e-mail under the guise of an innocent sounding title.

-                The demo can also be described in great detail or posted on Blogspot.

-                A celebrity has already made a disreputable video tape about it.

-                You have seen said sex act on American Pie.

-                It has reminded you about the time when you found your parent’s self-help book buried in their closet.

-                You can watch a prostate or breast exam video and YouTube and get the gist of it.

-                Have ever watched MTV for more than an hour and thirty-seven minutes.

* http://www.suntimes.com/4150853-417/northwestern-sex-prof-apologizes-for-after-class-sex-demo.htm

** Chapter 5 in Book III (Christian Behaviour) of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Normally when social philosophy from Hollywood is displayed to the public, I usually zone out like when someone starts a political conversation with the words, “Hey, I heard Bill Maher tell a funny and original George W. Bush I.Q joke last night…”  Treating these “pearls of wisdom” with any kind of serious thought usually concludes with a retort that any 9^th grade English student, with a 9^th grade reading level, could come up with.  However, with the political climate heating up out there, I found it necessary to examine this practice of the Hollywood elite to announce on the airwaves that since they are indeed rich and well to do, they do not need tax breaks.

If I were going on assumption, I would deduce from this Twitter posting that Seth MacFarlane is very rich man and he will still be rich man even if his taxes remain where they are.  Already Seth appears mystified because he is getting the term “tax break” confused with “current tax rate extension.”  Although, it goes without saying, that posting mock humility on Twitter will surely guarantee a big splash on the headlines, it won’t stand to one minute of rational scrutiny.

Apparently Seth has been impressed with the United States government’s ability to spend a million dollars that he has decided that they should take a more paternal role in other rich people’s lives.  I will leave it to Seth’s subconscious to explain why he thinks the government can spend his money better than he can, but I have serious doubts that a guy as smart as Seth MacFarlane has trouble competing with the IRS in innovative ways of helping those less fortunate.  Thus, if he is not stupid, then why would he post, “…In an economy where everyone is dead broke, let’s give rich guys like me even MORE tax breaks!”  Perhaps the Jewish accountant from the Family Guy episode, When You Wish Upon a Weinstein, would be able to crunch the numbers on Seth’s W-2′s and inform him that your hard earned money has more power with you than it does with government bureaucrats.

Call me a stickler for efficiency, but writing a check and giving it to the supervisor of a homeless shelter means that most, if not all, of the money goes to running the shelter, where as writing a check to the government in the form of taxes means it is divided up between a government funded postal service, a government funded agent in the IRS mail room, numerous IRS officers and the various other entities that allocate the money.  The homeless shelter down the road from Beverly Hills might be waiting on that money to help run its noble cause, but waiting in line to take a portion out of that money are the various other interest groups that are just dying to be injected with the limitless drug that is public money.  Let’s say that only a ¼ of this money goes to your favorite shelter, where is the rest of the money allocated to?  Well, if you have ever visited a modern art exhibit in the past ten years, surely you have felt the spirit of the almighty radiate through such works as Piss Christ, where a crucifix is submerged in a beaker of urine.  If you have been to the Sensation Exhibit, you might have seen the Virgin Mary’s likeness on a canvas surrounded by pornographic cutouts of vaginas.  And let’s not forget this latest work of art at the Smithsonian where ants are crawling all over a crucifix.  The difference between these contemporary creative uses for crucifixes and the innovative use of a crucifix in the unfortunate scene in the Exorcist is that at least Warner Bros used its own money to fund the project whereas the guy with a successful small business down the road indirectly subsidizes art that cannot compete in the market place without government subsidies.  When your tax check arrives in Washington D.C, it will be pounced on more times than Robert Pattinson at Twilight signing party.  This is not to make assumptions about Seth’s private charitable giving, but the statement in question is more than we who do not earn Fox Incorporated paychecks should have to bear.

Let’s take a Michael Moore approach to investigative journalism to explain a broader point.  Judging by the years and the numbers, the success of Family did not happen until after it was taken off the air.  As you may or may not know, Family Guy started its on air debut on January 31, 1999.  Seth’s big time success came a year after the 2003 tax cuts.  Based on minimal observation, Seth never had a tax cut based off the success of Family Guy due to the fact that it did not return to T.V until 2004.  Of course I do not know the logistics of Seth’s bank account but beyond flagrant self-promotion, self-congratulation and self-advertising, I do not see the point in pawning oneself off as a rich guy-champion extraordinaire for the poor.

For the sake of argument, lets say that Seth MacFarlane did receive a generous tax break for his success, what exactly has he done with the extra money he has earned?  I think it is a fair question to ask coming from a guy who frequently states that he is rich and does not need a tax break.  Here’s just one idea from President Obama:

“I think of Leonard Abess, a bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, “I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn’t feel right getting the money myself.” –President Obama, State of the Union February 24, 2009.

If Seth has all this money collecting dust in a corner, then why does he not spread his wealth amongst his team that help make the Family Guy successful?  From the employees that are right under him, to the custodians that clean up his office after hours, Seth could actually make the money he has earned go a lot farther than a pencil pusher at the IRS.  Even if Seth is convinced that the government is the most efficient enterprise to allocate his earnings, then how much does it take to give back your tax break to the government?  As President Obama stated from his latest State of the Union Address, “Before we take money away from our schools or scholarships from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break.” ~Barack Obama, State of the Union January 25, 2011.

Or, take a lesson from baseball player Gil Meche, “Meche announced last week he will retire, giving up the payday due on the last year of his deal. Meche has always been known for his integrity, according to The New York Times, but this move left the baseball world stunned. Meche said he just didn’t like the idea of not earning his keep.

“When I signed my contract, my main goal was to earn it,” Meche told the paper from his temporary home in Lafayette, La. “Once I started to realize I wasn’t earning my money, I felt bad. I was making a crazy amount of money for not even pitching. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I didn’t want to have those feelings again.”

If President Obama is encouraging millionaires to give up their tax breaks, then surely Seth MacFarlane can evolve on this issue too and get back to posting eloquence such as this:

<- Normally people stop posting these little limericks by their 18th birthday.

The musings of either:

1.  A rebellious pastor’s son

2. An atheist trolling in a Southern-Baptist chat room.

3. A 1990’s Marilyn Manson fan

4. A Christian who has lost his/her faith after a Religious 101 class.

5.  The “rebel” in the youth group.

Someone in Hollywood has the same opinion as Michael Moore!  What is the world coming to?

Then, there are the public pronouncements against the materialism of Christmas.  Usually, you will see postings littered with grim statistics about how much money the greedy WASP’s are spending on Christmas gifts versus how many will go hungry this holiday season.  These freedom fighters for social justice thumb their noses at the long lines, mock people who clutter their floors under the Christmas tree with presents and look down on the parents who just bought the Super Ultra Deluxe Menstrual Cycle Barbie for their daughter.

But unless these vanguards of the proletariat are sitting in a public library, using a public computer and posting on a non-profit blog then I don’t think anyone in America pecking away at a Bluetooth keyboard can be the proper arbiter of what defines materialism.

I realize that in order to rattle some soapboxes, I have to get on one myself.  I do, however, hope to convey a message of practicality, redemption and action; not for the benefit of my Jesus Ego getting stroked but to encourage people to take a breath.

Here are some practical steps to having a fulfilling and modest Christmas:

1.) Help those who are doing without this Christmas

I could post some more grim statistics about how American Christians are the worst kind of Christians for spending money that they don’t have on presents that their children don’t need and buying food for their already fat guts.  I am always cautious when I see Tweets, blog postings and Facebook status updates that try to extract guilt from people for their holiday practices because it has always been my experience that those who truly help the needy during the holidays (and throughout the year) are too busy actually DOING God’s work to post sanctimonious diatribes online.  Believe me, I rarely see someone posting self-righteousness with their Macbook while simultaneously ladling out soup for the homeless.  I know this for a fact because getting soup on your keyboard will void out one’s warranty with Apple Care.  So here’s how you nip this in the bud, go out in your church or your community and do some work.  Simple as that!  Don’t advertise what you are doing but perform God’s work in secret and expect nothing in return.

2.) Too many presents demean the gifts.

Gifts are usually given to those who have not earned them with the exception of getting your wife a diamond necklace for putting up with you for 60 years.  So go forth and spend wisely on gifts for your friends and loved ones.  But make sure the gifts, for the most part, mean something.  If your 10 year old son has a Playstation 3 and an X-Box 360 he probably doesn’t need a Nintendo Wii.  Instead find out what really makes your son come alive and get him that (within reason).  If your wife has indirectly maimed countless peasants in Africa due to her already extensive diamond collection, I don’t think she’ll be swept off her feet with one more.  Instead, carve out some time and take her on a romantic trip.  If your husband has a 60” LED Mitsubishi TV, an Onkyo stereo receiver, Polk Audio speakers and a Sony Blue Ray player, getting him a recliner/ottoman that vibrates, heats/cools, brews beer and has a catheter connected to your sewage line will not be as meaningful as taking him to see his favorite band in concert.  FYI the detailed electronic medley was my Christmas list.

3.) Gifts can be Needs too!

In my older age, I find myself shoehorning in gifts that I need but would rather not to pay for.  Is it selfish and/or lazy?  Probably, but if I need a laptop battery to continue to post this drivel, then I am using my gift for something as opposed to asking for rims that are worth more than my car.  If your niece needs clothes more than a Dora the Explorer doll, then buy her some clothes.  If your neighbor needs help paying their heating bill, tie some money to a brick and throw it through their window (Minus the brick and window part).  If someone in your church can’t afford to give his or her children a good Christmas, then pitch in.

4.) Catholics have not ruined Jesus.

If Catholics really bother you and those feelings really steal your joy for the season, then you need counseling.  Whatever your theological differences are, give them a rest for a day because chances are, you don’t keep your disdain for Catholics quiet the rest of the 364 days of the year.  Christ’s love makes you hate Catholics!  We get it!

5.) People will shop… let them.

This is something that has been happening for thousands of years now and it will continue to happen.  In fact, people’s purchases benefit you more than you think it does.   The continual purchasing of Apple products gives you a faster and better computer.  Buying Microsoft products actually gave Bill Gates the money to save Apple from financial ruin.  Both of the “greedy” companies made it so pricey to use computers that people invented the free operating system called Linux.  And you can’t post self-righteous guilt-producing comments online without any of these products.  Do Americans spend too much money on material possessions?  Of course they do, but what is your family and your community doing to live modestly?

6.) Jesus, Family and Friends.

Bask in the Light of God’s Glory for sending himself to save people that did not deserve redemption.  Share that reality with your family and friends by spending time with them.  I am excited about getting gifts on Christmas, but you want to know what I am looking forward to?  Drinking pure Kona coffee and eating ham biscuits with my family on Christmas morning.  I am looking forward to seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while.  The gifts are awesome but gifts without God, family and friends won’t keep you warm at night nor fill your arms with hugs during the day.  Hallmark here I come!

7.) Mind your manners in the stores!  Be honest with yourself, you are the moron who woke up at 3am in the morning on Black Friday to march yourself to the store to get a free 2 dollar scanner.  You do not have any extra rights or sympathies just because it’s the holiday season.  If anything, you should be shunned and spat upon for cranking out an attitude because you are exhausted from buying gifts that could have been bought at a more convenient time.  Don’t yell at the people who work in the stores or get your rusty barbed wire thongs in a wad because you waited until 5:59pm on Christmas Eve to buy the Twilight Sage: Eclipse or a Playstation 3.  It’s not the retailer’s fault if you are unable conjure up the mental capacities to understand why Best Buy can’t meet your demands AT FREAKING 5:59 FREAKING PM ON CHRISTMAS FREAKING EVE!

8.) Spike your eggnog.  Eggnog without Kahlua, Bailey’s, etc is just blasphemous.

9.) Your pets, despite what you think, hate Christmas sweaters.

10.) If pagan origins of contemporary holiday practices bother you, then don’t pester the rest of us who refrain from going into neurotic self-righteous seizures.  Find your own symbols to celebrate Christmas if you aren’t totally against the ones we have now.  But putting up a burning cross to shine the light of shame and guilt onto others doesn’t mean you doing God’s work.  It might mean, however, that you are either struggling with the sin of pride or you are a card-carrying KKK member.

God bless us all!

The path is composed of numerous fossilized footprints that serve as concrete reminders of our past shortcomings.  Sure, you may have come to grips with your struggle and God has on numerous times cast your actions into the Sea of Forgetfulness, but every shortcoming forces to mind how far you think you have traveled or how victorious you think you are living.  Every past footstep on this path brings another painful memory.  A footstep over to the right might bring up the fact that at that particular repentance, you swore up and down that this would be the last time you would travel down this path.  Then another footprint reminds you that at that particular time, you knew you needed to experience forgiveness but you felt indifferent towards God’s Grace.

I have long-sensed felt that sin shatters our perception of God.  That’s to say that God is not destroyed by sin, far from it, but what is shattered are parts of your faith; the love you experience from God and God’s promises.  Every time you experience forgiveness, the shattered pieces are glued back together.  The tragedy is that every time we sin, the glued pieces shatter again.  And the constant breaking and coming back together and breaking and coming back together take their toll to where it is almost as if what we constantly destroy becomes irreparable.  The constant shattering has reduced our pieces into sand, which isn’t easily reparable.

Can we out sin God?  Can we water down the Savior’s Blood?  Can we exhaust Grace?  I don’t think so but at what point do our chains wear sores down to the bone?  Worse yet, at what point do we become accustomed to the bars that sin places us in?  We are far from accepting sin as natural or justifying it like careless apostates but we have dulled our senses to the point where we have forgotten what Grace and Forgiveness feel like.

Hebrews 4

14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,^[e^] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

While you can’t out sin God, you can’t shock God either.  There are times when my repentance goes far beyond my inability to hit the mark.  I need to be honest with myself and with God that there are times that I don’t feel remorse or repentant.  There are times when I think that my particular Sea of Forgetfulness has become too polluted for God NOT to remember my sin.  We need to be honest with ourselves that while God’s Grace is limitless; our own ability in comprehending forgiveness and the Father’s Love is not beyond warping and staining.  May we never get to the point in our walks where we equate forgiveness with lack of consequence because the consequence of sin is the slow erosion of our faith to where we may even tome to doubt God’s Love for us.  Worst yet, we might even start to project onto God our feelings and perspectives about ourselves and think He honestly believes the awful things we believe in ourselves.

Judy, my step-mother, knelt down a couple of feet from two puppies.  She had driven past them once already down this back road but she could no longer ignore the them because they were now dangerously close to the road.  In a soft voice, Judy called to the puppies and the one who answered the call would later be known as Grace.

I arrived home from school to find a sandy-colored 4 legged cotton ball sitting on top of the hearth. Judy told me that “he” was too close to the road and that she had to do something.  I picked “him” up in the palm of my hand and I was struck to the bone with happiness.  It had been a year or so since Maxx, my first dog, had passed and I had not really thought about getting another dog since then, though the underpinning desire to get another dog had never fully subsided.  That first night with the new “male” puppy was a rough one… on my Dad.  “He” (the pup) was enclosed in our den and was kept at bay by our wrap around couch and a makeshift barricade.  “He” managed to slip under the couch and make “his” way to the hallway door.  “He” would scratch and whine at the door until my Dad was forced to sleep in the den with “him.”

The montage of Grace’s life are as follows:

• After some brilliant detective work, or what some might call minor observational skills, by my Granddaddy deduced that “he” was in fact a “she.”  Apparently male dogs don’t learn to hike their legs up when they pee until later on down the road.  However, male dogs rarely, if ever, squat down to pee when they are puppies and this “she” was definitely a squatter.
• Judy thought that our home needed more “Grace” thus she decided that her name would be Grace.
• Judy and the rest of us were under the impression that Grace, at the time still a puppy, was a pure-blooded Keeshond.  But after a couple of months of growth, we couldn’t help but notice that Grace’s nose and ears had started to elongate and was starting to look more like a long-haired dingo than a Keeshond. Looking back, the odds of someone dumping a purebred dog on the side of the road was pretty remote.

After botching the reading of those two tea leaves, one wouldn’t think we were ever capable of raising a dog but what we lacked in basic observational skills, we made up for with a 14 year adventure.

• Two boys alone and bored with a naïve young dog is never a good thing.  Scott (my brother) and I thought it would be a hoot to put Tabasco sauce in Grace’s water bowl.  Needless to say, Grace did NOT find this funny. Up until this day, if you brought something spicy and placed it in front of her, she would naturally turn way from it.
• Scott was, and still is, a heavy sleeper.  My father had to contend with this fact every school day.  So, instead of wasting precious energy waking my lethargic brother, my Dad would simply open the door and Grace, without a moments hesitation, would rush in and pounce on my sleeping brother and proceed to lick him has if he were covered with bacon grease.  My brother would respond by pulling the sheets over his face but Grace would continue her assault by play biting anything that moved under the sheets.  Grace would always win.
• Whenever my brother and I would play with Grace, our goal was to make her curl her teeth and growl at us.  One of us would grab the fur on each side of her face and proceed to shake her like she were a can of spray paint.  Grace’s response to this mild form of torture was to growl and curl her lips over her teeth as if she was ready to fight. Then, we’d let her go and give her a rough pet on the head or a kiss and she would gladly reciprocate.
• When she was young, there really wasn’t a pants leg or shoe safe from Grace’s jaws.  True, dogs tend to chew inanimate objects (usually the more expensive the better like nice shoes, linoleum flooring, cables, etc) but Grace preferred legs and feet in her chew toys.

As Grace’s life draws to an end, my greatest fear is on the forefront of my mind… The End of All Good Things.  At 15 years of age, a mass has been found Grace’s upper abdomen and the odds are not in her favor. I could put down a large sum of money but it’s not a guarantee that the surgery would save her life.  So, I am putting her to sleep.  As I write this, she lies at the foot of my bed like so many times before.  I won’t be able to give her a swift kick off the bed because she, at times, made me hot in the middle of the night.  She won’t be able to charm people anymore to pet her.  She won’t plop down on the floor with her front paws crossed so elegantly anymore.  She won’t be my patient and unconditional companion anymore.  Will she forgive me? Will she forgive my lack of financial resources to save her?  Will her eyes say, “Why are you doing this to me? “ I honestly don’t have the answers to these questions that my mind poses to me… she’s a dog.  And what do dogs know?  I can’t answer that either.  But what I do know is that a connection is made between a dog and his or her owner.  It is a connection of unconditional love, companionship, warmth and security.  It is a connection not necessarily made in the moments of utmost joy and happiness, but when there is no one around but you and your dog.  A connection is made when all your hard “NO SITTING ON THE COUCH” training is thrown out the window when you realize that you have just conditioned her to only sit on the couch when you are not at home.  It’s there when you scold her a little too harshly and you swiftly comfort her afterward and your she is only too quick to love and forget.   It’s there when you have to tell her three times to stop begging for food before she actually stops.

And my fear is The End of All Good things but instead of these Good Things ending on their own, I am having a direct hand in ending them.  Perhaps it’s the growth inside her that took away my companion long before I knew her life was fading, but as her protector and master, I am putting her asleep and sending her away from this world and away from me.  Maybe if my job paid more, I could give her a fighting chance so I could selfishly hang on to her for just a couple more moments but my lot is such that the choices set before me will leave me no solace regardless of the outcome.  The End of All Good Things has won again and I, once again, am losing my friend.

There is a hurt inside that is only reserved for loss.  She won’t know what’s happening to her but the small part of ME she possesses and the small part of her I possess will.  Grace will never know the void she will be leaving in my heart or the pain I’ll feel in her absence.  I can only hope she thinks she is going to sleep and when she wakes up, all will be right with the world, as it always was when she was with me.

If there is one constant in a young student’s life, it is their love for movies, music videos and YouTube.  With such a constant consumption of multimedia, both good and bad, it is a natural consequence that students will mirror the behavior they observe. Unfortunately, the behavior that students tend to imitate is not the behavior that is appropriate inside or outside the classroom.  Bearing this mind, I thought it would be of therapeutic benefit for students to watch the very videos that they enjoy but through the point of view of the Boys Town Social Skills Model.  Here at Project Grow, we teach students basic social skills that will increase their opportunity of success in their future endeavors.  I noticed that movies are saturated with basic, intermediate and advanced social skills!  I took it upon myself to show the clips from some the more appropriate movies to students so that they could see practical examples of appropriate and inappropriate social skills and see some of their own negative behaviors acted out by their favorite actors and actresses.

Each video clip focuses on a specific social skill or a plethora of minor social skills and is anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes long.  When the clip begins, students are introduced to a portion of the movie in its uninterrupted form.  During this portion of the clip, the students are instructed to pay close attention to the movie but also to sit back and enjoy the movie just as if they were sitting quietly in a movie theater.  After the clip is finished, the video asks the students what they have just witnessed and if there were any social skills that were or were not followed.  Then the video reviews the clip that they just watched but within this portion of the video are purposefully edited questions that the students are to answer aloud.

One clip that is shown is from Tyler Perry’s, Madea Goes to Jail.  In the clip, Madea is on house arrest but really needs to go to the grocery store.  Her ride to the store is not available and Madea’s brother is giving her a hard time about her predicament.  Hot and flustered, she eventually decides to break the law and go to the store herself.  While in the parking lot of the store, a woman steals Madea’s parking spot just as she is about to pull into it.  Madea tries to calm down but instead destroys the woman’s car in retaliation.  While the students witness Madea’s downfall into discontent, the video asks the students questions like, “What social skill is Madea not following?”  The students answer the question aloud and the video then shows them the steps to the social skill that Madea is breaking.  Next the video asks them how Madea could have handled the situation better.

Another social skill that was highlighted was Following Instruction.  We viewed a clip from the Karate Kid where Daniel, the student, was being taught Karate by Mr. Miyagi, the teacher.  Daniel had in mind that he would be breaking boards with his hands and kicking practice dummies.  Instead, Mr. Miyagi had Daniel do menial chores around Mr. Miyagi’s house for days on end.  Daniel finally became tired of these tedious instructions but little did Daniel know that Mr. Miyagi was teaching Daniel basic Karate defense moves as Daniel sanded the floors and painted the house and fence.  As the clip was playing, the students were becoming just as frustrated as Daniel but by the end of the clip, the students were just as shocked and amazed as Daniel was.  While the clip played, the video constantly prompted students on the steps to Following Instructions, Staying on Task, Accepting Decisions of Authority, Accepting Criticism, Using an Appropriate Voice Tone and many others.

The students’ reactions to these videos have been way beyond what I could have expected.  They really enjoy watching the movies that they love and learning from them.  Throughout the days, these students are taught, without ceasing, the value and the importance of social skills.  But when these social skills are given life and practicality on the sliver screen, they become engrossed in the subject matter and are more open to learning these social skills.