Thursday, September 09, 2010

The crazy hate brush

     If you blame an entire religion for the single incendiary act of a small, radical contingent of that faith, you might be   Terry Jones. Sadly, you might just as well be someone reacting to Jones by lumping the whole of Christians in with him and his ilk.
Pot, meet kettle.
     Once you take that step...once you say, "Look at what this one church is doing, aren't Christians awful?" you are putting your foot on the same road Jones once put his foot on. You are letting the lunatic fringe define an entire group of people, the vast majority of which are NOT hateful.
     I have a suggestion, a favour, I'd like to ask of my non Christian friends. Next time some bugnut crazy hateful Christian like Jones makes the news, try and stop yourself if your initial reaction is to paint all of us with the crazy hate brush. Bring to mind the Christians you know who are not like that, and say to yourself, "Not only are they as pissed as I am, they're quite mortified." Remember that making sweeping generalizations only breeds more division, which is the last thing humanity needs right now.

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

I am the age I am.

I turned 38 last Friday, and it appears I am reaching the age when it's expected I will start lying about it. If not this year or the next, soon. I have heard quite a few jokes about staying one age or the other for all future birthdays. My own husband insists he wants to stay 42. (He's 43).
This all seems rather silly to me. Not like I think lying about one's age is a "bad" lie- it's pretty innocuous, like fudging the weight on your driver's licence. But, why not tell the truth?
Maybe it's because I look pretty good for my age. A combination of good genes and mostly avoiding aging habits has served me well. (Hint: I look way younger for my age then my friends who took up smoking, for any length of time). Maybe in 20 years I'll eat my words. But right now, I have no problem with how old I am. With the liberal application of sunscreen, water, and black coffee I plan to be pretty joyful about 40.