The Past Week in Pictures

Norah had a cold:

Naked Slurpees:

Teeth were brushed:

My beard got even more awesome:

NEWSLETTER ARTICLE!
"You May Be Proud to Be an American, but America May Not Be Proud of You."

I feel like I should probably be honest with you about some things before we get too far into the year and things get awkward. Number one - I don’t really consider the Black Eyed Peas to be talented musicians. At all. In fact, I sort of think of them as, like, anti-musicians. Number two - I’d like to tell you that I am a pillar of sobriety and temperance, but the fact is that I am addicted to something that pulls me in without me being able to resist or fight back. In all honesty, I’d do almost anything for a doughnut. They’re like crack to me. And finally, number three - I think Glenn Beck is a raging lunatic. Like, to the max. That dude is straight crazy.

If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Beck, you really only need to know that he’s a political pundit who has his own TV show which he uses to basically push a political agenda focused on calling Obama a communist. He’s all about tearing down liberals and Democrats while lifting up “truth” and “logic” and the American Way. I don’t really get why he’s so mad. Some people are just like that, I guess.

I don't want to imply that I think Glenn Beck is crazy because he doesn't like Democrats and the President. That's not what this is about. I'm not here to argue for this or that political agenda or to prove any big political point. I just want to talk about Mr. Beck's approach for a moment, and I want to talk about it specifically because I think he's got it almost entirely wrong.

Glenn Beck rarely has anything positive to say. He's a fountain of anger and frustration and has a tendency to erupt whenever he encounters anything even remotely related to the things he doesn’t like. He jumps to conclusions and makes very stark black and white accusations based on selective evidence. He takes things out of context. He yells a lot. He's just not really that nice of a nice guy (I’m guessing, anyway… I’ve never met him personally). Worst of all, he does all of this under the guise of being a good member of society and wanting to help.

I don’t know about you, but I would definitely not be stoked to have Glenn Beck as a resident in the Upper Quad. I wouldn’t want him or anyone like him coming into our community and spouting off all crazy like. He may think that he’s got a lot to say (and that may actually be true), but he’s not really adding much to our social dialogue by erupting the way he does. His criticisms may be valid, but the way he presents them does more harm than good.

So, what can we learn from Glenn Beck? Well, besides the fact that Obama is apparently a socialist traitor who is single-handedly destroying everything pure in America, we can learn a lot about what it means to be a positive community member. If we take the time to look at the UQ, we’ll see a community of 550-ish very different and unique people who are living together under one roof. That’s a wonderful thing, right? What a wonderful opportunity to learn about one another and to develop some great relationships. But a community like this will never be developed or maintained if we communicate poorly and don’t do our best to interact with each other in a positive way.

If you’re upset with your roommate(s), don’t get all pissed off and start calling them names behind their back. If you think your RA isn’t doing their job right or being fair, talk to them (or me) directly. Going around and talking to everyone else about your roommates, floor mates, or the building staff isn’t going to address the problem or do any real good. Doing that makes you no better than Glenn Beck and everyone else like him. We need to be willing to be work with one another to make the UQ a positive community instead of just tearing each other down. Being a community member in the UQ (like in America) means more than just complaining. It means intentionally working together to make things better for everyone who calls this place their home.

Stay Gold!

MMK

For Kelly and Pumpkin Lovers

Do you know what this is?

A piece of Heaven God generously allowed me to create

in a graham cracker crust.

Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Click HERE for recipe.

My alterations included NOT using a springform pan and

instead using two store bought graham cracker crusts.

WAY easier and also allowed us to share with MK's staff

and our church small group.

DELICIOUS!

SPECIAL NOTE - If you decide to use the two pie crusts like I did, the actual baking time will be less (for me, it was roughly 45 min - one hour).

Norah News:

Norah has been SUPER into drawing and painting. It's awesome. Her first painting ever is currently displayed in our bedroom. This sounds ridiculous - but I love waking up and her painting being the first thing I see. She wanted to color so badly today, like wouldn't stop pointing at a pen that was sitting on our table. How could I turn her down? I couldn't help sneaking a few pictures. Too stinkin' cute, and please notice in the second picture how well she is holding the marker!

GO NORAH! Definitely a milestone!

Welfare and Privilege

Here's another article I wrote for one of my hall newsletters last year. It seems people enjoy that I'm posting these now. I'm good like that.

----------

I like Facebook. I use it a lot to keep up with friends and family back home, as well as for less useful and practical purposes (i.e. killing time and creepin’). It’s a great tool and one which I’m glad I can access. But it’s slowly becoming a stink-hole, isn't it? I can’t believe some of the crap I’ve seen come through my status feed. And it’s not just random junk generated by the ads, but junk which my friends seem to think is worthwhile. To wit: There are currently over 2.2 million people who are fans of the “Making Drug Tests required to Get Welfare” page. That’s nearly 200,000 more people than the largest “Support Same Sex Marriage” group. Awesome, right? Never underestimate the willingness of large groups of people to use their power in the worst ways.

I wonder — did it ever occur to these welfare-hating people that their whole argument is based on the one, flimsy, illogical assumption that all poor people are coked out of their minds as they stumble to their mailboxes to collect the free money handed to them by the government? Let’s forget that the vast majority of people choose not to use narcotics. Let’s also ignore the fact that drug tests don’t test for drugs like alcohol and tobacco (which cause more health and social issues across every class of person than do heavy narcotics). And finally, let’s choose to ignore the fact that the use of narcotics is a problem which transcends common definitions of social class. I’m sure that those of you who came here from “wealthy” private schools saw just as much drug use within your class as those of you who came from less affluent public schools.

The issue here is not that some (i.e. very few) drug users get free money... The real issue is that over two million people think it’s okay to discriminate against a whole class of people in our country simply because those people share the common, non-drug related characteristic of being poor. WTF?! “Well, Jim gets welfare so he must be super poor. And, don't you know, all poor people love shooting heroin all day long. I learned that from Fox News and the TV.” Meanwhile, your gramps and grams receive monthly Social Security and Medicare checks from the government (aka “welfare”) without having you join Facebook groups about them being likewise tested for drugs. And I guarantee you they take more pills everyday than do most moderate narcotic drug users. How else are they going to keep their diabetes in check, their hearts pumping, and their sex organs functional? The only difference, of course, is that we love our grandparents and wouldn't dare question their honesty and integrity when it comes to their consumption of the public dollar. Why can’t we seem to bring ourselves to have the same trusting care in the honesty and integrity of others who are going through tough times?

I don’t think the over two-million people who became fans of the drug-testing page are actually bad people who really, really hate poor people (though I’m sure some of them do). Rather, I think that they’re probably just people who haven’t taken the time to really think about their own social status deeply enough to realize that they’re more than likely privileged in one way or another. It’s easy to point the finger and make demands of welfare recipients when you yourself have never had to wonder how you were going to keep food on the table each month. It’s easy to demand drug tests of others when you know that you’ll never be in the position to have the same asked of you.

We make harmful generalizations about others when we haven’t yet taken the time to understand ourselves in relation to them. We need to be less willing to see the world solely through our individual experiences and opinions, and be more willing to see the world through the experiences of others. Walk a mile in their shoes, you know? We need to realize that sometimes we have privileges we haven’t earned and that we can’t expect others to pay a social cost simply because they haven't been so privileged.

-----------

Stay Gold!

MMK

Droppin' Some Knowledge

I can't remember if we've ever posted a video of Norah showing off some of the words she knows. She's pretty with it when it comes to knowing what words mean and what different things are, but she's not quite there with articulating most things. She's getting there, though. I feel like any day she'll just bust out with full sentences and start saying words left and right.

Anyway. This is this afternoon after she woke up from her nap.



Sorry it's sort of blurry in some places. We're still figuring out our new camera.

Stay Gold!

MMK

For Great Aunt M

Great Aunt M -

thank you SO much

for the beautiful sweaters

you made for Norah!!!

We love and miss you!