So She Shot Him

A family story that gets trotted out from time to time (mostly at the drunken reunion moments by the pool so looked forward to by everyone all year) tells of my great-great grandmother shooting one of my great uncles (relax, it was only a small gun) because he dared to question her judgment on something relatively minor. Now, she wasn't an academically educated lady (and they all prefer that term, believe me), but she read all the time and could quote the Bible (and poetry) nonstop in the service of leading her family along the path of righteousness. So she knew the morality quotient of her act, and yet that didn't stop her. There's something about that story that resonates with me from somewhere deep, and although I don't condone anyone shooting anyone (ever - yes, I'm a pacifist but I would defend dear ones if forced), it was actually something done with some type of love for the victim - to stop him from straying from the prescribed path - at least the path thought of as leading to a good life of right-living in the South. (Hey, don't blame me - I was reared by these people and remember every word (although I ran away to a very different future as fast as my tiny feet would take me)). Our mentor darkblack has an exquisite take on the latest round of Christian "love" shots.

Never expect anything but antisocial mayhem from humanoids who freely and eagerly break one of the fundamental tenets of their own faith, and then justify it by invoking the 'will of their creator' (the one who supposedly wrote those tenets), a will that they presume to have intimate details of...Do you see the disconnect? Apparently, they are unwilling or mentally incapable of doing so. This sort of cognitively dissonant zealotry, however expressed and irrespective of sources and icons, is a clear and present danger to the advancement of civilization. Far from being honest religious obedience, such acts are delusional, sociopathic behavior, and all who subscribe to and condone them are naught but criminals and terrorists who, in spite of their redemptive fantasies, will find Heaven's doors closed to their shades forevermore and their meager souls forsaken to the fiery lakes within their imaginations, as the infirm vessels that they have become . . . and perhaps always were.

No one says it better. Suzan ______________

Enjoy Yourself! It's Blogroll Amnesty Day!

As Driftglass (h/t for the truly patriotic graphic!) reports for those of us new to the celebration of Blogroll Amnesty Day:

Blogging is about writing and community. It is the oldest of wines in the newest of skins, so whether you want to sell soup or change the world, you'd better be able to do more than shout "Buy My SOOP!" or "Fuck You!" into a box canyon. You'd better be able to build a clean, compelling narrative about the world as it is, as it should be, and how to get from here to there. You'd better be able to find or make a community that shares your vision. And you'd better be able to stock an armory with vision and vocabulary sufficiently clear and powerful that any fellow traveler can pick them up, point them in the right direction and not blow their toes off. Blogging is about crafting the word and passing the word using a medium seemingly designed by God Almighty to insure maximum inclusion and democratization, which is why when a cartel of some of the Left's most prominent A-List bloggers who had built their name and modest fortunes pushing the highly we're-all-in-this-together message of "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" decided to purge their rolls of all us icky little low-traffic ankle-biters, the general reaction was "WTF!?" It still is. Because if blogging is about writing and community, then the very last thing a real blogger would ever do is "bind the mouths of the kine that tread the grain".

Drifty has a dynamite list of smaller blogs at his site (as does Blue Gal), which you should click on over and take a stroll with when you have time. My picks (and I do not guarantee the size of these mighty blogs) are: darkblack distributor Cap NY Rawrahs Urantian Sojourn Comrade Physioprof That's Why So kick back and give a little luv to the links of smaller blogs. Suzan _____________________________