Remember When Komen Caved on Planned Parenthood...

...and PP SWORE (pinky finger swear!) that they would INCREASE the number of mammograms they offered?

Yeah.

That happened...NOT!

I'm Feeling So Blessed

My daughter just posted on Facebook - her husband's cancer scan came out clean - he's still free of cancer.

After a rocky spring last year, chemo treatments in the summer and fall, and having to stop treatments because of the side effects (nerve damage), this is GREAT news!

 

To Live Together, or NOT?

Mona Charen wrote about The Marriage Divide - the fact that the lower classes, and, increasingly, the lower middle classes are choosing to build their families without marriage.  She, and I, think that's a bad thing - for reasons that she makes clear in her post.

Mona cites the advice of Carolyn Hax to a young woman asking when she should think about moving in with her boyfriend (of 5 months).  Carolyn sneers at the mom's advice.  I started to reply on the site, but didn't want to bother with registration.

My take:

The mother is sensible - she suggests that the girl wait until it appears that marriage is seriously considered. The girl ties her arguments to what married people have advised; clearly, she is NOT just looking for a wild time. She is serious about her personal feelings; she at least envisions marriage as a possibility.

There is NO indication that the boy in the scenario is anticipating marriage in any serious way.

Like it or not, women have a "sell-by date" - the tick of the biological clock makes their time precious, and short. If, as many women do, she wants to have a family, it makes sense to hedge her bets until at least a ring is offered (Not that I'm all that crazy about a hunk of pressurized carbon. I think it's ridiculous to spend several months gross salary on a piece of jewelry. But, it does put some financial legs into a vague promise of a future together).

[I wrote that above, realizing that there are some women who will use that phrase "sell-by date" as an excuse to trash the whole argument.  I'm simply suggesting that biological fertility is a perishable item.

Men, not having biological pressures, tend to let time slip by. It makes for an uneasy situation, where one is more and more pressured to marry by the clock, and the other lazily resists a final step, because - well, he CAN.

Nothing to do with cows and milk. The mother isn't suggesting that the girl stay a virgin until the day of the wedding (Although, it's not, as you suggest, a bad start to a marriage. At the least, you're limiting the spread of diseases that antibiotics and modern medicine are reaching the end of their ability to curb.)

The mom is just stating the obvious - by staying in her own place, the girl retains a lot more power in the relationship - including the option to break it off without a hassle, date others, if desired, and occupy herself how she likes without worrying about what her boyfriend will think. It may well be the TRUE liberated woman's solution to single life.

Some Disturbing Information About "What Muslims Believe"

I was taking a break from housework (yes, I do it - no, I don't like it), and found a link - I'm glad I followed it.  It's a fairly comprehensive examination of Muslim writings that are often misinterpreted by non-Muslims.

Just one part, about how the Crusades were an "unjustified invasion and slaughter of innocent Muslims".

Really?

The Facts:

The first Crusade began in 1095… 460 years after the first Christian city was overrun by Muslim armies, 457 years after Jerusalem was conquered by Muslim armies, 453 years after Egypt was taken by Muslim armies, 443 after Muslims first plundered Italy, 427 years after Muslim armies first laid siege to the Christian capital of Constantinople, 380 years after Spain was conquered by Muslim armies, 363 years after France was first attacked by Muslim armies, 249 years after the capital of the Christian world, Rome itself, was sacked by a Muslim army, and only after centuries of church burnings, killings, enslavement and forced conversions of Christians.

By the time the Crusades finally began, Muslim armies had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.

Europe had been harassed by Muslims since the first few years following Muhammad’s death.  As early as 652, Muhammad’s followers launched raids on the island of Sicily, waging a full-scale occupation 200 years later that lasted almost a century and was punctuated by massacres, such as that at the town of Castrogiovanni, in which 8,000 Christians were put to death.  In 1084, ten yearsbefore the first crusade, Muslims staged another devastating Sicilian raid, burning churches in Reggio, enslaving monks and raping an abbey of nuns before carrying them into captivity.

In 1095, Byzantine Emperor, Alexius I Comneus began begging the pope in Rome for help in turning back the Muslim armies which were overrunning what is now Turkey, grabbing property as they went and turning churches into mosques.   Several hundred thousand Christians had been killed in Anatolia alone in the decades following 1050 by Seljuk invaders interested in ‘converting’ the survivors to Islam.

Read the whole thing - it's worth the time.