What the...

Ok, I've held my tounge long enough. I have to ask, what's up with all the pumpkin patches?! It's like October 1 was some sort of launch date to have parents come from miles around just to drop their babies into the middle of a giant pumpkin patch like Linus on Halloween night. They boldly place the child on, around, under, and amongst all the pumpkins, and then proceed to to take pictures! Every few seconds, another one of my friends and family post these pics to facebook or the blogging world (I think I even saw a sonogram of my unborn nephew/niece sitting atop a pumpkin the other day!). And they come in such variety: pictures of one kid, two kids, kids with parents, kids with other kids, kids with other parents, parents with other parents, you get the idea. It's all very suspicious and I think might be linked to something sinister, but I just can't put my finger on it...

In all seriousness, I think these pictures are actually cute, adorable, and sometimes funny. It's just that I've have never heard of this phenomenon until this year. Is it some sort of overnight sensation, or has it always been going on under my nose and I just never had any friends with kids? (Now that I think about it, I think I saw my nephew caleb sitting in a patch last year, but I just thought it was because my sister in law REALLY likes the Fall). I guess it has been going on more then I've noticed. I mean, I have seen the pumpkin patches around town, I guess I was just in denial.

Anyway, that's all I have to say on the subject. So, when you go to cast your vote on Tuesday, be sure to pick the candidate the supports you and your pumpkin interests. Oh, and here are some cute pics from people I know who have posted them recently...

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Bethany and Landry (Amanda and Raymond Duggan). I like how Bethany is bored out of her mind in one picture and is so ready to leave in the other one! Also notice the different outfits...they had TWO pumpkin picture days:)
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Here's my cute nephew, Caleb (Chris and Stephanie Carroll). He (or maybe it's his mother) absolutely loves that pumpkin shirt :)
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Baby Christopher (Jonathan and Shannon Delcambre). You can't see it in these pics, but he's got a pretty cute widow's peak on his forehead. Shannon's a great photographer, and will come out and take pictures like this for you if you'd like.

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Here's another cute nephew, Colten (Rebecca and Glenn Hardesty). The first picture is so funny...and he reminds me of something, but I can't place it.
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Here's another couple of Bethany and Landry (the Duggan's do have twice as many kids as the others:). Apparenlty the first picture is Landry's happy face. Although the funny thing is that no sound comes out when she does that. And the second one is just too cute to exist :) Oh, and Amanda's sister, Sara, is also a great photographer (although I don't think she took these) who will come out and take pictures for you.
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Anyway, thanks to all of you who share you're lives with Amanda and I through these pictures. We love looking at them, and watching your families grow, even from miles away.

Thanks for listening

-marcus, sgb

"How can you vote for him?"

As we get closer to November 4th, and it becomes more and more likely that Senator Obama will be our next president, I have seen an increase in comments from other Christians questioning how a Christian could vote for Obama. A lot of this concern comes from his staunchly pro-choice opinion on abortion. Many Christians wonder how someone can call themselves a Christian and support a candidate who supports Roe vs. Wade. Since I am pro-life, a Christian, and a supporter of Barack Obama, I thought I would try to explain my vote for him as it pertains to the abortion issue.

First of all, I am very pro-life. I believe life begins at conception. When I discuss this issue I refer to the unborn as a baby, not a fetus. If I was in charge of things I would outlaw abortion in all cases except to preserve the life and health of the mother. (Of course I would change a lot of other stuff too!)

The way I see it, there are 3 approaches to eliminating abortion and/or greatly reducing abortion.

1. Overturn Roe v. Wade making all abortions (with possible exceptions for the life and/or health of the mother, rape, and incest) illegal.

2. Work to prevent unplanned pregnancies through sex education.

3. Work to eliminate the root causes that lead women to choose abortion over adoption/keeping the baby when they are faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

Obviously the first approach is both the most direct and ultimately would be the most successful in eliminating abortion out right. This approach is very consistent with Christianity, and is favored by the religious right and republican politicians.

The second approach is advocated in different ways. Some support safe-sex sex education, some support abstinence only education, and some support a mixture of the two. Obviously if you can prevent people from having sex at all or from being irresponsible when having sex, you decrease the likelihood of an unplanned pregnancy.

Abstinence only programs also fit in really well with Christian teachings about sex. Recently members of the religious right have succeeded in getting a lot of abstinence only programs off the ground. The findings of the early studies on the effectiveness of abstinence only sex ed are not good.

The third approach recognizes that women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy choose abortion because they believe that abortion is the best option for them. People who advocate this approach want to know why women feel that this is their best choice, and how we as a society can make choosing life the best choice for these women.

On the surface this can seem counter to Christianity because advocates of this approach often do not focus on overturning Roe vs. Wade or working on legislation to make abortions more difficult to attain. (The exception to this would be Crisis Pregnancy Centers who try practical ways to help women choose life and also take a traditional political pro-life stance)

Abortion is a topic that has been widely researched, and social scientists know a lot about why women choose to have an abortion. The leading reasons are economic stress and lack of support. An abortion is much cheaper than prenatal health care, day care, and 18 + years of food, clothing, and shelter. Raising a child also requires a lot more help and support from others than a one hour medical procedure does.

Our society offers very little support for lower income Americans and working mothers, and in many ways our policies make life harder for them. We are one of only 4 nations in the world that does not have paid maternity leave. It is legal in most states to fire a woman for being pregnant as long as the company has fewer than 25 employees. Unlike most European nations, we subsidized pre-school/day care for only a very small number of children. If a father does not pay child support we garnish his wages, put him in jail, or strip him of his business license. If those things don’t work (and they often don’t) the child is just out of luck. If the child’s mother is on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (the welfare program that provides cash for basic expenses), the father’s child support payment goes to the state.

Our support system for lower income citizens is very stingy compared to the rest of the developed world. Citizens are allowed to be on welfare for 5 years total in their lifetime, the average TANF payment is $180, and in order to stay eligible for welfare, one must meet stringent work and/or school requirements. And once a person successfully transitions from welfare to work they are often in worse shape finacially, not because welfare pays so well, but because low skill jobs pay so poorly and typically come with no health benefits.

Our healthcare system, while impressive in research and development, is among the worst in the developed world when it comes to health outcomes. We are the only country in the developed world that does not provide healthcare to all our citizens, even though no other country spends more on healthcare per capita than we do. We also have the highest infant mortality rate and highest percentage of low birth weight babies born in the developed world.

In short, there is a real lack of societal support for women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. That is why they choose abortion. Increasing societal support for lower income Americans is favored by democrats, and although it is often not recognized as such in the U.S., it is very biblical. (American Christians tend to prefer the church helping lower income people rather than the government. That is a whole other issue).

I favor the third approach mainly because I am the type of person who likes to meet people where they are. It doesn’t do any good to talk about why a woman got pregnant when she already is pregnant. Working to change the law, which is a very long term process (Roe vs. Wade was decided 36 years ago), does nothing to help a woman who is pregnant and struggling right now. I also do not see an end to legal battles over the abortion issue. The moment Roe is overturned, pro-choice advocates will begin work to reinstate it, and pro-life advocates will have to work to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Politics would be super easy if all three approaches to reducing/eliminating abortion were advocated by one party, but they are not. Both parties favor sex ed, but take different approaches to it. As I alluded to earlier, abstinence only education is not effective. Republicans have the market cornered on the legal approach to eliminating abortion but……frankly, the laissez faire, trickle down economic approach advocated by republicans is bad for poor people, single mothers, and struggling families, and makes choosing life more difficult. While I believe the out and out elimination of abortion is a correct and biblical goal, I just can’t support a party that focuses only on that aspect while simultaneously advocating social policies that make it more likely that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy will feel that abortion is her best option, and offers her and her child very little support if she does choose life.

So I support Barack Obama, despite his commitment to Roe vs. Wade, because I believe his economic and social policies will make it more likely that women will choose life. So there you go, that is my rather long explanation of how a very pro-life Christian can vote for such a staunchly pro-choice candidate.

Join me in the 21st century, won’t you….

I recently registered my eBay business with the state comptroller’s office so that I can collect sales tax in Texas. Since then I’ve gotten about a million pieces of junk business mail. That is annoying in and of itself, but today I got this letter from a local insurance agent:

He sent that to the wrong West Texas woman. That’s right I am a woman and not a “gentlemen”. (I am also one person) Seriously, when this insurer got my company name it would have been impossible to miss that the company is a sole proprietorship in my name. Amanda is not a gender neutral name.

I don’t know what it is with insurance adjustors in this city, but it is hard to find one who isn’t sexist. The first insurance adjustor we talked to several years ago about term life insurance was the worst. I do the finances in our family, so when Marcus and I were talking with him about our options I was the one asking questions. I would ask him a specific question about the policy and he literally would turn to Marcus and answer the question I asked. Seriously. It was like I was some kind of invisible talking head in the room or something. Unfortunately, there is a lot of this kind of stuff in Abilene.

It is actually more surprising when we don’t encounter this mentality. Marcus and I are repeat buyers from a local Mazda salesman simply because when we were looking at buying our first car, we told him the car was for me and he actually focused on me throughout the rest of the sale. Imagine that. Incidentally when we bought the second car for Marcus, he focused on Marcus (except during the price haggling part because I do that).

Anyway I digress. Since this sexist moron provided me his email address I am working on an email response to him. I’m thinking of including something like “ If I should need insurance for my business, I will choose an insurance adjustor who is aware that we are in the 21st century; you know, a time when a woman can own a business.” What do you think?

Updates

1. I found the picture of a mother at her son's grave in Arlington Cemetary that Colin Powell referenced in his endorsement of Obama for president.



You can read about it here

2. Here is a link to a Christianity Today blog and follow up comments about the Focus on the Family Action 2012 letter. You can join the nonpartisan facebook group protesting this letter here

3. Here is a link to a response to the FOTFA 2012 letter by Jim Wallis, the head of the left leaning Christian evangelical gorup Sojourners.

To Hell in a Hand Basket......

I came across an article on msnbc.com about a recent letter distributed by Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of Focus on the Family. This is an imagined letter written by a Christian from 2012, lamenting all the changes that have taken place because of an Obama presidency. You can read the entire letter here. (Be warned: it is long)

There are way too many negative things to say about this letter, so I'll start with something positive.

1. I did not find a reference to Obama being Muslim or the Antichrist

There is also this statement in the introduction to the letter:

“Of course, there are many evangelical Christians supporting Senator Obama as well as many supporting Senator McCain. Christians on both sides should continue to respect and cherish one another’s friendship as well as the freedom people have in the United States to differ on these issues and to freely speak their opinions about them to one another.”

But since the actual content of the letter strongly chastises any Christian who supports Obama and is obviously an attempt to scare such Christians into not voting for him, the above reads as a typical legal disclaimer that you would find on a McDonald’s hot cup of coffee instead of a sentiment that is actually believed by the authors, therefore I have a hard time seeing it as positive.

Here is an excerpt from the end of the letter. This follows the main body of the letter, which is a point by point analysis of how America went to Hell in a hand basket because Obama and the democrats were elected.

"How did this happen?

When did this all start? Christians share a lot of the
blame. In 2008, many evangelicals thought Senator Obama was an opportunity for a “change,” and they voted for him. They did not realize Obama’s far-Left agenda would take away many of our freedoms, perhaps permanently (it is unlikely the Supreme Court can be changed for perhaps 30 years). Christians did not realize that by electing Barack Obama — rated the most liberal U.S. senator in 2007 — 39 they would allow the law, in the hands of a liberal Congress and Supreme Court, to become a great instrument of oppression.

Many people thought he sounded so thoughtful, so reasonable. And during the campaign, after he had won the Democratic nomination, he seemed to be moving to the center in his speeches, moving away from his far-Left record. No one thought he would enact such a far-Left, extreme liberal agenda.

But the record was all there for anyone to see. The agenda of the ACLU, the agenda of liberal activist judges in their dissenting opinions, the agenda of the homosexual activists, the agenda of the environmental activists, the agenda of the National Education Association, the agenda of the global-warming activists, the agenda of the abortion-rights activists, the agenda of the gun-control activists, the agenda of the euthanasia supporters, the agenda of the one-world government pacifists, the agenda of far-Left groups in Canada and Europe – all of these agendas were there in plain sight, and all of these groups provided huge support for Senator Obama.

The liberal agenda was all there. But too many people just didn’t want to see it.Christians didn’t take time to find out who Barack Obama was when they voted for him.Why did they risk our nation’s future on him? It was a mistake that changed the course of history."

Back to the msnbc.com article about the letter….

”Margaret Feinberg, a Denver-area evangelical author, predicted failure. "Young evangelicals are tired — like most people at this point in the election — and rhetoric which is fear-based, strong-arms the listener,and states opinion as fact will only polarize rather than further the informed, balanced discussion that younger voters are hungry for," she said."

I certainly pray that this woman is correct. Frankly, I am tired of all this fear mongering nonsense coming from groups supposedly representing Christians. Commited Christians do disagree about many political issues, and they should do so respectfully. Tactics like this make that hard to do, and further the notion that there is only one way to vote if you are a Christian, implying that you are not a real Christian if you vote the other way, ie for a democrat.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one….

It seems that many others beside myself are grateful to General Colin Powell for his comments on Meet the Press last Sunday. I came across an article on msnbc.com today about how some Muslim Americans have been feeling this election cycle and how happy they were when Powell spoke out against using their religion as a political smear.

what's playing on my ipod monday

Hi everybody,

Amanda has gracously let me steal her What's Playing on my iPod Monday for this week, and I wanted to share with you a song that's not necessarily my favorite, but it is way up there.

One of the reasons why I like the song so much is that it is full of symbolic references to things that surround Memphis. The straightforward references to things like Beale Street, Elvis, Union Avenue are obvious; but there are also more subtle ones as well. Things like "I've got a first-class ticket, but I'm as Blue as a boy could be" (stating that even though he has a lot, he also has the heart of the Blues) and "catfish on the table...gospel in the air" (the dichotomy of the secular and sacred) are what really piqué my delight. The song is full of them. You can see some interpretations on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn from his self-titled album.

Marcus, SGB

Colin Powell is my Hero

Colin Powell went on Meet the Press today and endorsed Obama for president. That’s nice. But what made me really happy is that he said what I have been waiting for someone, anyone, in government to say publicly.

Here is an excerpt from the msnbc article about the interview:

"Stressing that Obama was a lifelong Christian, Powell
denounced Republican tactics that he said were insulting not only to Obama but also to Muslims.

“The really right answer is what if he is?” Powell said,
praising the contributions of millions of Muslim citizens to American society."

Powell even went so far as to criticize the idea that being Muslim should automatically disqualify a person from becoming president (this belief is what the rumor spreading fear mongers are banking on). He called that idea "not American."

Finally!

what's playing on my ipod monday

This week's song is a 1980s classic and a great example of why I love mp3 players. I have no desire to own the entire album that contains this song. I mean did Rick Springfield even have more than one hit? I love that now I can just find and buy a single song that I really enjoy and not have to buy an entire album.

So enjoy "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield.

McCain is better than his campaign

Have you read the news reports about what has been going on at McCain and Palin rallies? In the last few weeks, as Obama has gained in the polls, the McCain campaign has ratcheted up character attacks on Obama in interviews, campaign ads, and at campaign rallies. Palin has said repeatedly that Obama “pals around with terrorists.” McCain has said things like “who is the real Barack Obama?” Basically they are/were trying to scare people or at the very least make people question whether or not they can trust Obama with the presidency, not because of his policies, but because of his character.

It may be working too well. Here’s why. Many people were already predisposed to be afraid of Obama without any help from the McCain campaign. He is the first African American with a real shot at being president, he has a “funny” Middle Eastern name, his father was from Kenya and was raised Muslim, he has a pretty liberal voting record in the Senate, his pastor is highly controversial, and he is relatively new on the national stage. Add to that the fact that the far right has been spreading outright lies about him for at least 18 months. (You know, that he is Muslim, doesn’t salute the flag, was sworn in on the Koran, that he is a Manchurian Candidate funded by terrorists and/or communists, blah, blah, blah)

At a rally a couple of days ago, a man stood up and said he was really afraid of an Obama presidency. McCain defended Obama saying he was a decent person and you did not need to be afraid of him. The crowd loudly booed. At the same rally, another woman stood up and said that Obama was an Arab. McCain had to take the mike from her. He corrected her, once again referring to Obama as “decent”.

At a rally the day before a man angrily said Obama was a socialist, McCain did not correct him, but said he understood that Americans were angry. At a rally today, an evangelical preacher gave an invocation in which he called upon God to protect His own reputation by not letting Obama win. Also today, at a Palin rally, someone held up a Curious George doll that had an Obama campaign pin on it. Palin’s rallies have actually been worse than McCain’s with several audience members shouting “terrorist”, “traitor”, “off with his head”, and in one instance “kill him” when she mentioned Obama by name. She has addressed none of that from the podium.

All of this to say, McCain is a better man than the campaign he is running at the moment. Fortunately, I think he is starting to realize that the combination of him slipping in the polls and his new campaign strategy is causing things to get out of hand. He genuinely seemed surprised and dismayed when people wouldn’t stop booing when he called Obama “decent”. Unfortunately, he may have unwittingly stoked a fire that is quickly burning out of his control.

what's playing on my ipod monday

I just happened to catch Alicia Keys performing this song on Oprah a few years ago. That was my introduction to her and now I enjoy most of her songs. I love it when I stumble accross a new artist that I really like.

So, enjoy the first song I ever heard Alicia Keys sing, Fallin' from her album Songs in A Minor.

I take back my prediction…

Governor Palin did incredibly, astronomically, WAY better than anyone expected her to do in last night’s debate. She did not set back women in politics by at least a decade as I had feared. As a friend of mine said, who is also a democrat, “as a woman I breathed a sigh of relief.”

I don’t know how many of you watched Governor Palin’s interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric, but those interviews scared a lot of Americans, including myself, and led to several conservative republican commentators to call for her to step down. Polls taken before the VP debate also showed that 60% of Americans do not believe she is ready for the presidency. So, the stakes were very high for her last night.

I agree with Andrew Romano from Newsweek when he said “For accuracy's sake, we should probably consider referring to tonight's "Showdown in St. Louis" as the "Showdowns in St. Louis." Call it the Tale of Two Debates. In one ring we watched Sarah Palin battling Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin. In the other we saw Joe Biden battling John McCain. They both delivered somewhat uneven performances--but both "won" their individual bouts.”

I doubt that many people who were leaning toward John McCain will be more likely to vote for him based on her performance last night, but I also think those same people won’t be less likely to vote for him either. McCain’s campaign staff has to be feeling pretty good today.

On the other hand, Obama’s campaign staff probably feels good about Biden’s performance too. He was respectful, succinct (for him), refrained from sticking his foot in his mouth (as he is prone to do), and he linked McCain/Palin to Bush/Cheney more times than I can count.

So, in short I was wrong. Her position on the ticket is safe (for now). I will take comfort in my wrongness with the fact that almost every single political pundit, including the very conservatve, were also wrong.

Prediction....

The Vice Presidential Debate is this evening. I predict that by Monday evening one of two things will happen.

1. Governor Palin will no longer be on the republican ticket.

Or

2. Senator McCain will be forced to publicly say that he has no plans to ask Governor Palin to step down.

This race just keeps getting more interesting everyday.