I have trouble sleeping. It began with menopause—I would wake every hour or so and stay awake for an hour or so. Now, I don’t do that any more, but my body has decided that I am hard-wired for night-owl behavior and I can’t drop off to sleep before one or two a.m. This makes rising early difficult. But I have plenty of grist for the mental mill when I toss and turn in the darkness:
(1) Is it only in Texas that a 17 year old girl could be severely battered in her church as part of an exorcism? Is it only in Texas that the state Supreme Court would rule in the church’s favor and not allow her to sue, although the process so traumatized her that she was suicidal afterwards? Pray for Laura Shubert, because the court decided that ruling in her favor would “entangle the court in church doctrine”….does that mean this is the Texan idea of “separation of church and state”? The concurring six justices felt that upholding an earlier court ruling in favor of Shubert would have a “chilling effect” on the practice of religion. Am I a cynic to think that if this had been a case of a Muslim father religiously having his daughter’s clitoris removed, the ruling would have been FAR different? Or if a pagan child complained of abuse in the name of religion? Or, oh, I don’t know, if a soldier said they didn’t think they should be forced to pray and attend religious observances to be promoted? Holding down a 17 year old girl who is being attitudinal, and battering the hell out of her while her parents are out of town…that is ok, though. Hat tip to Blondesense.
(2) Endorsements are good, right? So, it is good that the wizened little Vietnamese who once was John McCain’s jailer in Hanoi thinks he would be a good President, right? Sorry, I am so squicked out by this and the picture of Tran Trong Duyet embracing McCain that I just can’t say anything more about it. Hat tip to “Sadly, No” for this little brain teaser.
(3) If what goes up must come down, then mustn’t whatever goes down come back up? Because, if so, isn’t it like burying a landmine to think that storing carbon dioxide underground in a layer of subterranean salt water will be a lasting solution? Because that is what an ethanol plant in the Midwest wants to do with the 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide they generate annually. Is it the silly inner idealist in me that makes me think finding something not related to wild-assed petroleum products usage would be a better solution? But then, the state of Ohio is in love with the idea of pumping toxic things down into Mother Earth’s bowels: hydrochloric acid from AK Steel in Middleton, chemicals from Ineos in Lima, and deicing fluid and other things from Vickery “Environmental” near Fremont. I am glad I will not be around at some future date to see what Ma Nature REALLY thinks of toxic enemas.
(4) Why are pagans SO reasonable? I mean, yes, some are bitching that Kathy Lee Gifford apologize for a stupid-assed comment about “nasty, evil pagans” on that boring morning show of hers—saying we need to sign a petition demanding her apology; but the majority says “Na-aaaah, no biggee.” I agree, it wasn’t a biggee, she is a twit, that’s all. But, if the twit had said “Nasty evil Christians” some serious shit would have hit fans from here to Jupiter. Is it just plain bitchiness that makes me think that yes, she should get a little cultural broadening of her horizons and a small butt chewing for not having anything more clever and erudite to say? And my personal note to Kathy Lee? Honey, you can call this pagan evil and nasty if you like, just so long as you believe it and stay the heck out of my way!
Yeah, yeah, this is the “drooling idiot on sleep deprivation” post of the week. On the other hand, watching baby and mama black-footed ferrets at a breeding facility on a live cam is very restful indeed: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm
Scroll down a bit, and double click the video for full screen fuzzy animal moments!
