Pray To End Abortion

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I said in an earlier post that, “[r]ather than discard it, we should seek to strive for the ideal.” Thus,  Republicans, after first having sought to end slavery, seek now to end abortion. Meanwhile, the Democrats, after first having been the party of slavery, are now the party of abortion.

And yet the Democrats, in their guilt, must over-compensate—in the case of slavery, with the doctrine of Affirmative Action, which does nothing but to perpetuate what President Bush has called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” and in the case of abortion, with the push to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, requiring countries to “act in the best interest of the child” (an irony considering that they see no rights for the unborn).

The right to life enshrined in the Declaration of Independence should extend to the unborn; adults have a responsibility to defend the defenseless.

Life is Weird

My recently-graduated-from-college 2nd daughter just officially got engaged. She and her betrothed met at school on the other side of the state (4‐5 hours away) but he and his family live only 1½ hours away from us; we’ve been to his parents’ house and his parents have been to our house. His parents already seem like my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, which feels odd since my mother and my mother-in-law first met on my wedding day and hardly ever saw each other.

When I left home at seventeen, I did not even consider staying close to home—or returning close to home or even living near any of my siblings; it wasn’t until 8‐10 years later, after I’d become a father, that I realized the, um, shall we say, babysitting benefits of living close to family members; I’d be willing to bet that my daughter and her future family will live at least somewhat close to one set of in-laws. What’s more, in this age of e-mail and Facebook, it’s comforting to know that my daughter should also be able to stay in touch with friends from school—something else that at her age I hadn’t really considered important.

Aw, well; at least I can take some comfort from the fact that my daughter does not seem to be repeating all my mistakes.

Best wishes to her.

Esoteric Things My Father Taught Me

OK, just one esoteric thing my father taught me:

When you’re looking for something you dropped on the floor, get down and look across the floor rather than just standing there looking down at the floor.