Arrogance or ignorance?

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate has become a national debate, due to the recent outbreak of measles that began at D land.  Some parents have not shaken the fear brought on by the now discredited study that linked vaccines to autism, and the anecdotal "evidence " by those whose children have had reactions or what they believe to be damage due to the vaccines they received.  I don't think any logic is going to dissuade those parents. (I know that some children are truly allergic to the vaccines or immune compromised and cannot be vaccinated, and they depend on the rest of us to keep them safe.)

 However, the argument against vaccines that infuriates me to the point of wanting to reach into the newspaper or Internet and shake the perpetrators,  is the one that makes the claim that vaccines are no longer needed, because the diseases involved have been irradicated ....and that the diseases only persist in"third world countries."  What exactly do they think brought us to this point?  Magic? God's will?  Clean living?  How about vaccines and modern medicine?  One mother, even when brought to the facts said that she felt her children were strong enough to survive the illnesses because they were well fed and got plenty of sleep. She preferred to raise them in a more "natural and organic" way. I imagine that there was not a more natural and organic way of life that our early days of family farms.  Yet the infant and toddler mortality rate was far higher than now.  Children died of diphtheria, tetnus, pneumonia, measles, smallpox....all now preventable.

The parents who think that their children are safe enough in our "first world" country are  eroding the very herd immunity that they rely on, and bringing doom to the weaker population like the infants or elderly who cannot survive the disease that their "healthy"child may pass to them as they survive it.

Worse than this misguided way of thinking is the idea that those that can survive the diease will survive due to their strength, health, and good genes, and those who don't fulfill Darwnian theory.  I actually read one man's opinion that you are either immune or you are not.  You die or you don't.  Good God.  The "the hell with the rest of you " theory of living in society.  Like that man, I have several people in my ancestry that lived long lives in times when many died in infancy.  That never caused me to think I was singled out by nature for special consideration.  I cannot believe that if his child stepped in a rusty nail or was bitten by a rabid dog that he would tell them that if they were strong enough that they would survive it.

Willful ignorance or such arrogance is all well and good if you chose only for yourself or (Lord help them) your children.  But choose  to endanger the weaker because you are sure your kids are stronger than any formerly eradicated disease, and it becomes our business.  Unless you intend to home school your children or never take them to a theme park, you are a threat and an invitation to these former scourges of childhood to return with a vengeance.

2015, already? And missing my girls.

First of all, what the hell happened to 2014?  Thanksgiving and Christmas AND New Years has come and gone.  Sheesh!  

I watched a TV show tonight in which the lead character had been at odds with her post college age daughter, and they reconciled in a scene that ended in a hug. The way the Mom hugged her daughter, strongly and at length made me miss my girls and their hugs.  It has been too long.  We talk, and that helps, but just now I miss their physical proximity.  Thank goodness I will see them both in a bit over two months.  A meeting of our three minds to further plans for my eldest's September wedding. I am really looking forward to hugging them at length. I miss my baby girls,

As time goes by

It is nearly October now, so summer is gone, as is our 20th yearly( and possibly last) summer visit to the Del.

Another sign of time passing is the retirement of long time local new anchor Kent Shocknek.  I have been watching him since the 80's when he anchored the early morning news on NBC.  I watched him every morning before work and getting the girls to school. I was watching when he was covering the Challenger launch . I will never forget sharing his so human yet under control reaction when it exploded and the realization sunk in that all were lost .  Likewise his ducking under his desk during an earthquake  and earning a joking nickname after-Shocknek.  Human and relatable.

He always seemed so genuine.  His goodbye tonight (from CBS/KCAL where he has been for the last several years) was humble and heartfelt.   One thing that really got to me was that he is a year and half younger than me!  Oh to be able to retire so young!  Godspeed to him. With him go my best wishes and not a little envy.

July the 4th and where the hell did the year go?

I am telling you, folks, that a sure sign that you are getting well along in years is that the years fly by. It is the 4th of July in less than half an hour, and I swear it was just April five minutes ago.  It is only 6 weeks to my vacation at my beloved Del, and it will be Christmas a  nanosecond later.

Work is very busy, and often fast paced, and complicated, but doable and I seem to be doing ok at it as well.  If being needed and depended on is job security, the secure I am.  The days do not drag, that is for sure.
My tomatoes are in, I just pulled that last avocado  from this year's crop of of the tree, and Wimbledon is nearly to finals weekend. .It is summer full on, and it snuck up on me.

It is another sign of age that you repeat yourself .  Look at my blog of 7/6/11 entitled "Summer already?  "

Ask, and ye shall receive

Just when I  start thinking that my  believing that everything will work out somehow, some day has been stretched to its farthest reach......something happens to bolster my faith.  I have been stressed about work, about being thought inadequate, about expenses coming up, and finding a way to deal with it all without imploding.   For my prayer request, I put down "peace of mind".

Work was a zoo today, but I got what I needed of get done , done.  I worked how to handle at least one of the expenses I was concerned about.  Then, at the end of a very long day, I got an email about an old stock plan from work. It is paying out this week, and it  more than I had hoped. And it will cover the bulk of what I was worried about.  Knock knock, who 's there? . Answer to your prayer, ma'am.

I am going to try to give up worry for Lent.

Happy 2014

Happy New Year.  First let me state that this year will likely be better than the last, in that my job (although altered) is secure for the immediate future.  No more sense of impending doom, and all that. 

However, let me also go on the record as saying that some experiences should be recorded under be careful what you wish for.  And also under never say never. It can come back to bite you in the butt. It isn't fatal, but also not a lot of fun. And being middle-aged doesn't keep you safe from the experience.  Sigh. 

Sometimes real life sucks.  

I guess that happily ever after is the fairy tale that it usually concludes.  There is happily, and there is ever after.  However, ever after will do, as long as it is happily more often than not. 

On being "Godless" and by whose definition.

I work with churches for a living, and so attend many a gathering of same.   I was recently at a pastor's conference, at which a panel of four pastors gave their thoughts and advice to their colleagues.  One firmly espoused that the only right way to teach your flock was to lead them through the Bible from Genesis forward, book by book, chapter by chapter, not by thematically,   but only word for word.   Another dared to suggest , almost apologetically,  that while that was a solid idea, Jesus was a great storyteller, and taught often by example and by story.  The other resisted anything other than a literal word for word slogging through.  He mentioned having recently come from a trip to Australia and New Zealand , and referenced them as being Godless because (spoken in a outraged voice) "they teach evolution as fact!"

I am taken back that God and evolution cannot co-exist, and that only a literal belief in Adam and Eve and a 7 day creation story is considered Christian by this pastor.  My belief that Christ lived and died for me and fellow believers is what I think makes me a Christian. It is what he asked of us in the New Testament. I rather thought that Christ's life and death and resurrection in the New Testament was the point.  I don't recall Jesus spending a lot of time on such details of the Old Testament books. In fact he thought that many  spent way too much time on details of law, as opposed to simply doing what what right, and what he asked of us.  To put  him above all others, and to love our  neighbors as ourselves, feeding the poor.

I am taken back not so much by this pastor's  rejection  of evolution, but his discounting of the Christianity of any who would accept it.   It pains me that many of those who consider themselves the fiercest and most loyal of Christ's followers feel they only can be so by the judging the beliefs of other followers to be less authentic.