Resorting To Sneaky Underhanded Tactics

Have you ever noticed that conservative commentators and religious extremists often resort to trickery to try and convince their sheep?

E-Mail Spam
My brother sent me the following e-mail, which for the most part expressed many of my own sentiments:

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because . WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING !!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down
the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer s, no Internet or chat rooms.......WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,

made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang
the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.

They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as
kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

Then comes the catch. Despite the misspellings, and the ridiculous nature of trying to compare the times while I grew up with today's world, I like some of the sentiment of this chain e-mail spam. But then the author ended it with this.

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks,"Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us....go ahead and delete this. For the rest of us....pass this on.

To me, these two sections of the e-mail relate to each other...not at all. It's as if the author is trying to make you sympathetic to his or her ideas, by recalling memories of your growing up years, commiserating about how things have changed, and then zinging you with how it's all because of God...huh? And using a reference to the pledge of allegiance, which only had the words "under God" added in 1954 by Catholic zealots (the Knights of Columbus), makes it even more absurd.

If spirituality, or reverence of God, or religion is so great, why do conservatives often feel like they have to trick you into it, or manipulate into believing what they do? I would imagine this kind of trickery would only work on the weak of mind, but I'm not even too sure about that.

I choose to surround myself with people who think for themselves. Examples of sales techniques like this seem to indicate Christianity is for those that don't.

Current Knitting
I've made it up to the armhole shaping on the back of the dark tweed pullover for Thaddeus.



Since this cone yarn seems to have some machining oil left in it (that washed out when I swatched and scoured it), the yarn is somewhat hard on my hands. But I think forward to what it will be like when all washed up and blocked, and figure it will all be worth it.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Regarding my current spinning, Geraldine asks, "May I ask, how are you going to ply the 3ply merino, three singles or Navajo-ply?"

I am finishing my third bobbin of singles, and will ply all three together. I've attempted Navajo plying, but I'm not very good at it. It's the first area of spinning where I think a one-on-one lesson would help me out significantly.

Geraldine also asks, "Does anyone know where one can get Nancy Wiseman's finishing techniques book?"

Amazon's site is always my favorite for ordering books. That's where I recently ordered mine after it was suggested.