Heh

I hate to admit it, but I've done this before:

(Courtesy of xkcd)

I'm not so sure it's that accurate a measure, but....

Here are my responses to the Class questionnaire that's been going around:

Father went to college (for years and years, part time at night, while working days...)
Father finished college   (when he was in his 50's and I was in college myself)
Mother went to college
Mother finished college 
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (my great grand uncle was a physician in Sweden in the late 19th/early 20th century, before he came to the United States)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers  (probably the same as some of them. Not higher than any of them.)
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 (piano - 6 mos., art - 6 mos., voice - 2yrs, paid for by my grandparents)
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels (Sometimes. We didn't go on many vacations, though. I think I remember three that involved hotels or motels.)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (Believe it or not, no. Even though I was an only child, I got hand-me-downs from a couple of neighbor families with kids just a bit bigger than me. And I was happy to have them, because they were good clothes.)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child (My mother sketched and painted, and my parents also bought a couple of paintings at "starving artist" sales.)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home 
You had your own room as a child (Well, I'm an only child, and my parents did own a whole house)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (Mom and I accompanied Dad on a business trip to California when I was 14, and took a loan on an insurance policy to be able to do so)
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (Museums, anyway)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (I only knew it was expensive, but nothing more specific than that)

(This exercise comes from here.)

This is just wrong!

UN Peacekeepers Deface Ancient Cultural Site

WTF is wrong with some people?!?!?!?!

Why do people INSIST on public displays of ignorance?

Honestly, you'd think they would know better. A good friend of mine got the following email, and blithely fowarded it on to a group of his friends, with me being one of the recipients. I've seen this kind of crap before (the original email message has been floating around cypberspace for a while now), and I finally got fed up and had to respond. Allow me to share with you here both the email I received, and the response I sent back. I received:

"CAN MUSLIMS BE GOOD AMERICANS?

This is very interesting! We all need to read it from start to finish......... and send it on to anyone who will read it. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are so quiet and not speaking out about any atrocities.

Can a good Muslim be a good American? This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply: Theologically - no. . . . Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon God of Arabia.

Religiously - no. . . . Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256) (Koran).

Scripturally - no. . . Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of Islam and the Quran.

Geographically - no. . . . Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially - no. . . . Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically - no. . . . Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America , the great Satan.

Domestically - no. . . . Because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Intellectually - no. . . . Because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles, and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically - no. . . . Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Spiritually - no. . . . Because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99 excellent names.

Therefore after much study and deliberation, perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both "good" Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish; it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future. The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.

And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our President? You HAVE to be kidding?! Wake up America ! Obama even says if he wins the election, he will be sworn in on the Quran (Koran)---not the Bible!

PLEASE, please pass this to all in your address book."

After I finished bleaching my brain, I crafted the following response, and sent it out as a "Reply All" - and those of you who know me well know that I NEVER touch "Reply All" without a damn good reason. My response, as sent to the email list:

Where to begin? This is not only highly inaccurate, but also wrong on so MANY levels. This is a screwed-up world we're living in, for sure, but perpetuating false information and feeding erroneous views based on racism and religious prejudice certainly isn't going to do anything to solve the problems. And since I was raised to believe that failing to at least attempt to be part of the solution is a sure way to be part of the problem, I have to say something here. I'm sorry, but PLEASE don't disseminate crap like the anti-Obama email you forwarded. It does neither you, nor anyone else, any credit. You're way smarter than this, my friend. Here, with source links, are ten things that are wrong with the anti-Obama, anti-Muslim diatribe I found in my email box:

1. Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim. He is a Christian, a worshipper at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, where he has been a member for twenty years. [1] The UCC is not and has never been a Muslim group. But since we already have at least one Muslim that I'm aware of in the House of Representatives (Keith Ellison, representing Minnesota's 5th District) and plenty of Muslim Americans living in this country, I feel it is important to make the following points:

2. "Allah" is the Arabic name for the deity the Old Testament Jews referred to by "YHWH". [2] The same one that Christians call simply, "God". In fact, Arabic-speaking Christians call God "Allah". [3] There's no moon-god involved. Also, if a Christian's first allegiance is to God, then by the same logic used herein to suggest that Muslims cannot be good Americans, NEITHER CAN CHRISTIANS. Which, of course, is BS, pure and simple. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Soviet Russia and Communist China who suggested that a citizen's first and only allegiance ought to be to the state, rather than to any other entity including religious figures? Since when do we make the same demand in America?

3. Nothing in Islam forbids friendship with Christians or Jews. [4] Indeed, Islam in its classical form regards both Christians and Jews as fellow believers in the same Abrahamic God worshipped by Muslims. They are referred to as "People of the Book" - that book being the sacred writings known to Christians as the Old Testament and to Jews as the Torah. [5] Guess what? Muslims believe in the Old Testament too, and consider Abraham a spiritual forefather.

4. Muslims are no more "required" to submit to religious mullahs than Catholics are "required" to submit to the Pope. Since the Pope is not a member of the United States government, does this mean that Catholics cannot be good Americans?

5. The vast majority of religious leaders in Islam do NOT regard America as "the great Satan" nor do they advocate its destruction. [6] Israel is a slightly trickier item, but even so, the majority of Islamic religous leaders have no desire to see Israel destroyed, either. They'd simply like to see more justice for Israel's Muslim residents and neighbors. Christian leaders the world over call for justice and fairness toward Middle Eastern, African and Asian Christians whenever they deem it necessary to do so; what's the difference?

6. Muslims are NOT "instructed" to marry four women. Islam is interpreted as PERMITTING up to four wives, but does not COMMAND this. [7] Old Testament Judaism also permitted a man to have multiple wives.[8] Also, Muslim men are no more instructed to "beat and scourge" their wives [9] than are some Christian groups which practice so-called "Biblical Literalism" and attempt to adhere to certain hand-picked verses. [10] So, again applying the faulty logic behind the statement in the original message, I guess that means Jews and Christians can't be "good Americans".

7. The United States Constitution is IN NO WAY based upon "Biblical" principles. It is and has always been based upon principles explored in the secular movement known as the Enlightenment, many of which were in turn drawn in large part from ancient Greek and Roman governmental principles. A perusal of the writings of Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and others will show this. [11] Furthermore, Islam does not see the Bible as "corrupt" any more than Christians see the writings of non-Christian religions as "corrupt". Not everyone of one faith places the same value on religious books of another faith as on their own; so what? Good grief, there are even differences in Bibles between Catholic and Protestant, or various versions of the Protestant Bible itself. Pot, meet kettle. And none of this has ANY bearing on the United States government. Remember that pesky First Amendment, the one that guarantees every one of us the right to our own religious beliefs? [12] Unless I've missed a memo again, that amendment is still in force.

8. The Islamic nations of the Middle East were historically among the most highly tolerant of other religions during the Middle Ages (as just one example). Christians and Jews were permitted to live and worship openly in the Ottoman Empire [13], for example, during a time when Catholic Europe was persecuting first its own indigenous pagans and later Protestants (and don't forget that Protestants have persecuted Catholics as well). Granted, the Ottomans weren't exactly tolerant of polytheists, but then again, I've never found evidence that those who spout off about "Christian America" and "the evils of Islam" are terribly tolerant of polytheists, either. You might also want to look up the history of both the Morisco[14] and the Marranos[15] in Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition and its Portuguese counterpart. These were, respectively, Muslims and Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity or lose their lives. Ironically, during much of the al-Andalus period, when Spain was under Muslim control, Christians and Jews were permitted to worship openly. [16] While modern day Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and certain other Middle Eastern nations forbid conversion from Islam to any other faith, this is not true of all nations with Muslim majorities or primarily Islamic cultures. And there certainly are democratic nations today in the Muslim Middle East, places where non-Muslims enjoy religious freedom. Take a look at Kuwait, for example: a modern Muslim nation, with a secular democratic government and laws, where nearly a quarter-million Christians worship openly. 10% of the population of Syria is likewise Christian, and worships freely. And those are just two examples. [17], [18]

9. There are many descriptive titles given to Allah in Islam, just as in Judaism and Christianity. [19] In all three faiths, a great many of these names refer to love and mercy as qualities held by the deity (by whatever name called!). None of the three have a monopoly on the attribution of mercy and love to the Almighty. For that matter, the Christian portrayal of God is so "loving and kind" that some of his purported followers (thankfully, not all, but that just shows how ANY religion can have its share of nutcases, and that we ought not to judge a faith based on the views of the nutcase minority) believe he would condemn children to eternal punishment in Hell for simply never having been exposed to or baptized into Christianity, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for love as a divine attribute. 'Nuff said.

10. In the U.S., no religious book is required for swearing in the President or any other federal official. To require one would violate Article VI, Section 3 of the United States Constititution, which states, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." [20] The decision to utilize a Bible, a Koran, the Torah, any other religious book or even none at all is a personal decision on the part of the person being sworn into office, and has absolutely no bearing on that person's fitness to hold public office under U.S. law. To insist, as the original author of this email appears to do, that the President of the United States must be a Christian, or at the very least, must NOT be a Muslim, is a clear violation of the very document our Founding Fathers spent so much time and trouble to put together to guide the fledgling nation they had birthed, and is a most egregious insult to a core principle which they saw fit to enshrine therein.

Primary day in Ohio is coming up, and the national election looms on the horizon. Vote your consciences, everyone, and vote for whomever you feel will be the best person to be our next President, because no matter who gets elected - regardless of party, gender, race or religion - it's going to be a bumpy ride, I fear. But for everyone's sake, *please* base your votes on real-world qualifications of the candidates and their actual positions on the issues facing this nation, and NOT on prejudice or on the scare tactics used by those who don't know what they're talking about and hope you don't either. The U.S. can either be a nation based on the principles of freedom, equality and progress that its Founders intended, or it can become a nation based on prejudice, fear and ignorance. If we choose to base our votes on these latter three, then we have already lost our birthright as a nation. Please share THIS message, in its entirety, with your friends and acquaintances.

And now for my next trick...

So the broken right ankle is actually bothering me less at this moment than the left knee with the torn meniscus. That's right, the left knee that the same ortho I'm now seeing for the ankle signed off on in late December as being "ready to return to normal activities" is now back to nearly pre-treatment pain levels. Of course, it was only treated via physical therapy (which was fine by me) and what I've been asking of it lately is hardly "normal activity", but yeah, it fucking hurts. Pardon my language, yadda yadda, but this sucks.

Meanwhile, the ankle is 16 days post-break, and I'm 6 days out from my next appointment with the ortho. For those not in the loop, it was a simple break of the fibula, no displacement, no surgery, splinted within a couple hours of the break, and placed in a cast the next day. I'm supposed to not be putting any weight on it, and given that the left knee has its own issues (see above) I've been using a wheelchair. In the house, though, I've mostly been using our office chair and sort of rowing myself around with my left leg, since our place is small and cramped and difficult to maneuver a wheelchair in. And of course, we live on the second floor, so the only way I've been able to manage stairs has been on my butt, pushing myself with the left leg and using my hands on the steps and railing to push/pull myself up and down. I've limited my outings to a couple of times a week - enough to take care of necessary things I have to appear in person to do and to prevent me from succumbing to cabin fever. However, even this has been a lot to ask of the knee, apparently. (If I weighed less, it wouldn't be so much of a problem, but hey, part of how I got in this mess in the first place was as a result of attempting to exercise so as to lose weight, grrrr, and add to that the fact that I broke my ankle as a result of slipping on ice while walking as an attempt not only to lose weight but to strengthen the left leg whose trouble was at least partially a result of earlier exercise... irony, anyone?) Bottom line: I've wound up putting some weight on the broken ankle for a split second or so once in a while despite my best efforts, as I've found myself losing my balance while transferring to the toilet, to bed, etc. The first couple of times that happened, it was excruciating. Now it doesn't hurt much. I'm going to take that as a good sign. I have to be able to take comfort in something, don't I?

So.

I'm now using the wheelchair in the house, since as of last night almost any movement of the left leg results in the same sharp "catching" pain in my left knee as I was getting before the physical therapy brought that leg back to usefulness. I'm debating whether or not it is even worth contemplating attending the barony's Regular Event tomorrow. Sigh. I want to, but it's those damn stairs. I'd have to be carried down them and back up, and I'm not about to ask Dave to do it, because he's having ankle problems of his own (arthritis, it's an old and ongoing problem, a legacy of his HS wrestling days). I don't want anyone getting hurt, and if Dave got hurt then Dad and I would have no one to do things that we can't do for ourselves. If I skip the event, Dave and Mac will attend without me. The choir needs male voices, but can do without mine as there are enough female voices. Someone else can sing my solo... it will be all right, except that I will be enormously bummed. But that's life. Or at least my life. Or something. Ironically, had I skipped meetings and therefore rehearsals the past couple of weeks, I might be okay physically for tomorrow, but I probably wouldn't be too good on the music. Gah.

If by some miracle I do make it to the event, I've already decided against wearing the lovely bliaut I was planning to wear (actually half of a coordinated set for Dave and me) because I can all too easily imagine getting those swoopy sleeves caught in the wheels of my chair. Dave has wisely suggested that we save those outfits for a time when I'm on my feet again, and I agree. So they've been put aside unfinished, and will keep me busy while I continue to heal. And I will look forward to wearing them when I can actually stand up and walk on my own, unaided. It will be more fun that way anyway. So this weekend, Dave will wear the winter tunic I made for him a while back, twin to the one I'm finishing for Mac, only in a different color. And if I show up, it will likely be in my tight-sleeved teal dress, which in any case is warmer than the bliaut I was planning to wear. This being Cleveland in February, that may not be a bad thing.

I've got to get back to some sewing now.