Poor Harold Camping. Yes, I pity him. He thought he was so right about the beginning of the end. He didn't appear to be in it for money or power. Unlike others in the mass media world of religion, he really appeared to believe what he was saying.

Now what's he going to say to all who believed what he was saying? Sorry, I got it wrong. Sorry that you spent a bunch of your retirement money on billboards, etc now you're up a creek without a paddle until the end really does come.

Religion is one of those quirky things that is based only in faith. Proof is not required or possible. You can't really sue someone over something like this. No contracts, no legally binding documents, just faith. No recourse.

Many followers of Camping put out big bucks for billboards, pamphlets and other forms of advertising to enlighten the non-followers of what was coming. Families divided, college funds and retirement funds were raided and for what? For nothing.

The twist in all of this is that those who spent all their money may very well be looking to those who just kept on with life as usual for help. Non-believers. Maybe even atheists will be tapped for help. You know them, those terrible people who don't believe in god. Those people who live among the religious, day in and day out, doing what needs to be done. They don't do it in the name of some deity, they do it because it needs to be done.

I hope that kindness and compassion are given to the followers who did nothing but show a complete lack of judgment in financial matters and help to fill advertisers pockets. Christ suffered for their sins, and they should have to take responsibility. The bible reminds them that they should worship the only true god. Let Harold Camping be their hard reminder of that law.

Laurapalooza 2012

Look out everyone, my calico flag is up the pole again.

Laurapalooza 2012 is scheduled for July 12-14 of 2012. I don't even know where it will be, but I plan to be there. Have car, will travel. The total joy of being surrounded by others like me. No, I won't be wearing a bonnet or prairie dress. But I will enjoy the fellowship of those who will never question or look sideways at me.

Last night I finished reading The Wilder Life. and I am glad I did. It helped me to understand a lot of things I've thought and felt during my LIW travels and readings. It's helped me to settle. It's helped me reconcile the difference between real and books. I did and do like to think that everything in the books is fact and don't want to deviate from that. But I do know that it's all idealized. Reality can bite some times.

So if you want to attend Laurapalooza, watch here for more information. Or here. 
http://beyondlittlehouse.com/laurapalooza-2012/

Bad chili

Bad chili. Not the kind of bad most would expect. Made a batch of chili last night for a pot luck at work today. It doesn't taste anything like chili. No where, no how. I had to go to Hugo's this morning to get 2 cans of Hormel Chili, no beans. I figure, I live in Minnesota, Hormel is in Minnesota, that makes it homemade.
Note to self, get rid of crappy chili powder you bought at Target.

Laura Ingalls Wilder - May my calico freak flag fly!

I love the evenings when I arrive home to find a box from Amazon.com waiting for me. Tonight's self gift was a book, The Wilder Life, My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure. A shout out to Emily who told me about this new book. I was going to wait until it came out in paperback, but really, why should I do that?

I'm having a wonderful time with this book! The author and I have so much in common! Our childhood ideas of our personal friendship with Laura. Thinking that we alone loved Laura as much as we did. The desire to just slide into her world to experience the life that she lived. We were both true to the books and put absolutely no stock in the TV show. We all know that Pa didn't look anything like Michael Landon and most of what happened on the show never happened at all.

Wendy tells me about remembering the path through her school to where the books were on the library shelves. Same map, different school. But the school names are even similar! She went to Oak Park Elementary and I went to Park Lawn Elementary. We could merge our schools into Oak Park Lawn Elementary! She grew up in Oak Park, IL and I was born there. She lived in the same house her entire childhood. After we left Oak Park I lived on the same street for 16 years.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the book and then lending it out to Twila, a friend who may be even more of a calico-waving freak flag flyer than I am. To all you Laura Ingalls Wilder fans out there, take off your corset, sit in your comfortable chair near the window and have yourselves a good read.

Cheers!

Beauty in the day

What a glorious day it is out there today! When I left work today it was 77 degrees!

Endless blue sky with wisps of clouds
gracing the world above.
Birds flit and fly, riding
air currents.

John Deere,
working his way across
the fields,
turning acres of gray
to black.
Preparing some of the very best soil in
the world.

Anhydrous tanks at fields edge,
Like giant Tic-Tacs on wheels.
Tanks of water sloshing down
the road
on tender trucks.

The season of rebirth
and growth,
Is here, is now, is happiness,
is GLORIOUS!

Little Girls and Beauty Pageants

8-year-old Britney Campbell has been removed from the custody of her mother. Her mother didn't beat her that we know of. She didn't lock her in a cage or starve her. What was her sin? She waxed her 8-year-old's legs and pubic area and injected Botox, that she purchased via a web site, into her face. So she would be pretty. For beauty pageants.

Why would a mother do these things to her 8-year-old daughter? This really isn't about the daughter. It's about the mother. The mother who wants her daughter to be everything that she wasn't. Or isn't. God forbid she just let her daughter be a little girl.

Beauty pageants for little girls are, in effect, an opportunity for moms and dads to act as pimps for their little girls. Beauty pageants are so that little girls can start early knowing that they just don't measure up physically. That their hair could be bigger, their make-up better and their butts tighter. Beauty pageants are so that sexual predators can... I don't even want to go there.

I don't understand what sane parent would even think of entering their little girl in one of these events. Oh. Sane. That's the word.

It's time for these pageants to end. Completely. It's time for churches, child safety advocates, community leaders and everyone who cares about the welfare of children to insist that these sick, sexually abusive pageants are stopped. TLC, are you listening? You need to pull Tiaras for Tots off of the air and destroy the recordings.

So the next time you hear of one of these events in your area, call someone who can do something about it. Get your friends together for a protest and coffee. Write some letters. Make some phone calls. Maybe even contact TLC.

I hope that Britney Campbell comes out of this without too much damage. I hope her mom can get her act together and start just being a mom letting her little girl be exactly what she is. We can only hope.

Bitz of This and That

From the Northwest corner of Minnesota comes a blog with no theme, no preconceived notions about what it will be, other that bits of this and that. 

To all of you who hate phonetic spelling as do I, I would like to apologize now. It's hard to find an address that is available. Frustration led to the z in Bitz. Please do not let it bother you so much that it forces you away from the blog. 

If you have any ideas for the blog or discussions you would like to start, just let me know!

Cheers!