Meet Peet!

We just brought him home from the shelter this evening!

He's a feisty little fellow, only 9 weeks old. Lhasa Apso, Poodle, and Terrier mix I believe.

He likes to perch on people
And he's already trying to establish dominance, stealing the bone right out of Sammy's mouth!

And he came home from the shelter kinda filthy so he got a bath!





Isn't he just adowable!!!

committee for "truth" in politics

Kinda hilarious, in a really sad way.

The Committee for Truth in Politics ran this ad accusing Obama of voting for the early release of sexual predators. While this may technically be true, it's a blatant misrepresentation of what really happened at the Illinois senate vote in 1999:

Presiding officer: Take the record. On that question, there are 54 Ayes, one Nay, and two voting Present. Senate Bill 485, having received the required constitutional majority, is declared passed. Bottom of page — Senator Obama, what purpose do you rise?

Obama: For purpose of correction. I pressed the wrong bottom [sic] on that. I wanted to vote Yes.

Presiding officer: Record shall reflect your intent, Senator Obama.

Wow. Bad time to push the wrong button I guess. Apparently the record doesn't actually reflect his intent after all...oops! (I read about this at factcheck.org)


And this same group has run another ad about Obama's voting record on late-term abortion




What they fail to mention in this ad is that the reason he voted against those bills was because they didn't include a provision to protect the mother's health . . . well, I'll just let you read what Obama has to say about it:

On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I've said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn't have that.

Part of the reason they didn't have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.

As president, my goal is to bring people together, to listen to them, and I don't think that's any Republican out there who I've worked with who would say that I don't listen to them, I don't respect their ideas, I don't understand their perspective. And my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we're always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done.

(from ontheissues.org)

Isn't it fun sorting out all these "facts"? And they call us "undecideds" the Stupid Vote!

political confusion and navel-gazing

Last night at work I was telling Doug (a coworker) about my political confusion, and something he helped me realize is that I need to do my own thinking and soul searching and research, and not be worried or influenced by what others think (or think I should think). The main thing that holds me back (I think) from actually doing my own thinking about it is that I have a feeling that I may be a bit (or a lot?) more liberal in my thinking than Corey, and that makes me uncomfortable, especially because he's so vociferous in his dislike of liberals, so I'd rather just remain ignorant and not have to choose a position rather than risk being on the other side from him (and my mom). Also, as I was telling Doug, I think a large part of my problem is that I'm lazy. I'd rather just go along with someone who I trust and who is intelligent and has thought things through than actually have to think things through myself....just make them do all the work. And I largely haven't been paying attention to the political scene (like my whole life), so when people throw out things about the Clinton administration or the Bush or Regan administration I just have to trust that they're right, since I don't know the facts myself. And how can I argue about what's good or bad about what has happened if I don't even know what's happened? So yeah, I'm uninformed and too lazy to go inform myself.

That aside, I'm discovering that I've been letting my non-confrontational/people-pleasing nature hold me back. I'm scared to argue or debate with others, but I think it's mostly because I haven't exercised my thinking-on-my-feet-in-difficult-situations muscles, and that is a definite area of weakness in me. Doug may be right that I don't give myself enough credit in the area of my own intelligence. Because I can think/argue/articulate points just fine by myself in the comfort of my own living room, but I'm always scared to speak up in public if what I think might be controversial (I often find myself not speaking up at work). I'm starting to think that my keeping quiet when I disagree with people might be a fault in certain situations (not all, of course) because it keeps me from fully engaging in the world around me. I'm not able to argue what good points I have, or have my thinking refined by others, or fall flat on my face, which is also good for me. I think when I keep quiet I do myself (and sometimes others) a disservice, so that's my new goal - to engage in dialogue/debate when I'm scared and would normally keep quiet. We'll see how it goes.

I will change my name to Paul. I am Paul the missionary!!!

I love our new theatrical teammate for kids church! Corey and I have been volunteering to help out with kids church (they meet in small, age-clumped groups, but all the school age small groups come together for worship and a bible story, and that's the part Corey and I do). Anyway, it's been OK with the two of us, but I'm so psyched about our new teammate. She has a theater background, and she's also a Spanish teacher, so she really knows how to engage kids (and did I mention be crazy?) She completely rewrote the pretty pathetic script we were given about Paul's determination, and made it awesome....the title of this post is what she (as Paul) declared at her conversion. I just love being around crazy silliness...

I also discovered a fun new tasty snack that was in my "Wok & Stir-Fry" cookbook. It's deep-fried collard greens. I would have posted a picture, but we ate them all already. oops. I saw a week-old baby tonight. Mary and I made food for her parents (yes, including the fried greens) and took it to them. And I decided maybe I'll volunteer to make food for people more often, whether I know them or not, and use it as a way to get to know more people from church. Maybe. We'll see.

In other news, I'm really proud of Corey! We already knew he was a phenomenal teacher from his experience teaching at Boxford Academy in MA, and from the summer reading program (IRD), but now we know he's great with college kids too! He's already had two kids ask to transfer to his Latin class from another one cause they like his teaching style better (OSU is on the quarter system, so classes have only been going a week or so). One of 'em sat in on his class, and the other one had him for their mythology TA last year, and liked him so much from that they wanted to take Latin from him as well. YAY - go Corey!