Oh...God...

Okay... I am becoming rather concerned about this;

A week or so ago I received this chain mail from my Aunt (Whom I love dearly... This needs to be said because I think I reacted rather strongly in my reply and I don't want her to think I hate her in any way...)

Anyway, here we go:

U. S. "no longer a Christian Nation"

Please send this on to your friends, spend time each day in prayer for our country, and get out and vote in November.

Dear Friends,

As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . ."we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!

Please pray for our nation!

-----

First of all, (And I'm not reaching into that "old tired bag") The First Ammendment protects freedom of religion for a reason. Britian wanted everyone to be one religion, everyone paid taxes to the church and the church had POWER. A lot of power.

Anyway, Thomas Jefferson was a Deist, George Washington excised religion from the government. We aren't a Christian nation. In fact, 25% of us are Non-Christian. And that number increases every year. We should never be thought of as Christian. It's not fair to the non-Christian community.

Now, according to CNN there will be Muslim ads running on busses. This is cool. But... um... hey there are protests? Why? Jesus Saves? Why can't we hear a little about what Mohammed did?

I know, the claim is that the man behind it is a terror suspect... but good gracious, guys EVERYONE is a terror suspect these days! You guys are searching and detaining your own government officials at the airport and strip searching them. You don't know who is a terror suspect anymore. Heck, in writing this blog, I'll become a terror suspect (When I won't even kill a fly in my apartment... but, heck, I have nothing better to do than be interrogated after a 15 hour flight... come to think of it, that's got to be much more effective than Chinese Water Torture...).

Naw, this is more "If you aren't Christian, you are bad." Beeswax.

By the way, Nation of Islam, you're not doing much better, here. I encourage learning about all religions... but simply having the word "Infadel" means there is something majorly wrong with your dietical logic.

Consider: You have two sons. You leave cryptic post-it notes on the fridge about what the boys should do. Sometimes you leave the post-its in their rooms, disguising your handwriting so it isn't clear who wrote it. Then you stand back and watch as they knife each other to death?

That's not my idea of God. And it shouldn't be the world's view, either. I'm not sure why it seems to be.

Anyway, again; get your facts straight guys, stop painting the other guy as bad because even though he's a pretty hard-core Christian he is not Christian enough because he doesn't hate Muslims.

Yes, we are a nation of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Wicca and Athiests and Agnostics and Native Americans and all kinds of varied and differing opinions.

And, trust me, unless you guys really want a Holy War the likes of which you can never imagine, then you probably want it to stay that way.

God's Children knifing it out over whom Dad likes best...

Einstein said; "I don't know what World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

The world is a religious powderkeg, guys... It's dangerous mixing politics and religion...

Spam humor

We are all getting it... and I seem to be doomed to get it badly... between my two email accounts I receive about 350 spams a day... Add my two forums and that doubles.

Anyway, the only thing I can do is derive some humor from it... today I'm cleaning out my Hotmail account and I come across this gem:

Stoptheringing@Stoptheringing.com: Do you have ringing in your ears?

Two days later I get:

Stoptheringing@Stoptheringing.com : DO YOU HAVE RINGING IN YOUR EARS?

This made me chuckle for a long time... :D

--Humored

I Must remember this...

(No, this has nothing to do with kisses :D)

I went for my weekly night with "the Boys" at the local Ramen shop (run by a really nice fellow who has been running this litteral hole-in-the-wall for nearly 20 years now) last night.

My neighbor and fellow teacher from Britian is leaving at the end of the week and returning home, so I figured, naturally, that everyone and their uncle that this rather charming, kind person has met (And there are quite a few folks we are talking about here) would be there. This place is pretty small, and I thought that it would definitely fill up quickly... I figured if I brought my own car I could leave early if I needed to.

Anyway, I drop in before anyone else, but the shop master is there and there are two other guys at the bar as well (Ramen shops have bars and, well, in the case of this one, one table... but the table is Japanese-style, which means you sit cross legged or seiza... not for me) I sit down and immediately after the guys at the bar realize I can speak Japanese, they are suddenly friendly and chatting with me and everything. We are having a grand old time talking about all kinds of things.

Then the boys show up (At which time the fellows chat with them too). I relay the story to my British friend and he tells me the following story:

"I was down in Yokohama this past Christmas, and I had dropped into a bar. There were two Gaijin sitting at the bar across from me and they were talking about reading in the newspaper about the murder that had occured in MyTown. Naturally, since I'm from MyTown, I perked up as I live in MyTown, so I said, 'Excuse me, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but you are talking about the murder in MyTown, I happen to be from MyTown...' To which I stopped talking because they both were looking at me with a definite look of mistrust and suspicion. I kept thinking 'Mate, I'm not going to ask you to buy me a drink, I don't want any money, I just wanted to talk.' And then it hit me; what a sad state of affairs the US and UK are in; no matter what, if a perfect stranger walks up to you, you naturally assume he wants something from you."

I realized as two rather attractive young women entered the ramen shop, that even the women in Japan are friendly and unassuming.

In America, if you walked up to a random woman and said "Hi, I just want to chat for a second." they'd spray you with mace.

I'm not sure what that says about our respective societies, but I think the first thing it says is that people in the US (Canada) and the UK are becoming so self centered that the only time we approach other people is when we want something from them. It's pretty much a lost cause in the cities, but it's even spreading to the countryside where people used to be really friendly.

Which leads me to the next logical conclusion; when I get home, I'm going to go on a mission. My mission will be to talk to one random person every month (In the beginning, later I'll do it as often as I can), and just chat with them. Learn something new. And ask only one thing in return; that they pass it on (Should they feel so inclined).

So, who is with me? Pick a random person and go up to them and talk to them for just a minute or two, tell them the truth; you think we as a nation have forgotten to be friendly and you want nothing from them but a moment of friendly chat, and maybe if they feel like it, they can pass it along. Tell them you are not representing a political candidate, or a religion (If you are religious, you have to leave that at the door, sorry... unfortunately, Christian hardliners are among those whom "Always want something" and are contributing to the problem here) you don't want money, or a drink (I'd recommend turning one down should you be offered, it sabotoges the cause). Ask them about their life, do they have kids? a family? Where are they from? Do they have an interesting story to tell? Then, thank them for their time, give them a friendly smile, and walk away, knowing you took one step toward making our countries friendly and safe again.

:)

-Me

Fuji through my lens

Everyone has their own take on Mt. Fuji. Mine is... well... very me. :)

Taken at Moriya Station (On the Tsukuba Express Line tracks) just after sunset.

---Me.

Interesting...

So, I was reading an article on cnn about a senetor which is recommending that national speed limits be reimposed on the US... I thought that was an interesting thing...

The national speed limits were repealed in 1995.

The thing I thought was most interesting, though, was the numbers that it spouted;

In 1995, oil was $17 a barrel, and the average gallon of gas was $1.10

today (In America), oil is $145 a barrel, and the average gallon is $4.10

Run the numbers? Oil is 8.5 times the price it was in 1995... but gas is only 3.7 times...

I just paid 4300 yen (About $40) to fill up my 24 liter (6 gallon) tank. Which is almost $7 a gallon. Now, it has been argued that I don't drive as much as Americans... but I am in the boonies, with no train service, and I still cover about 1600km (about 1000 miles) in a month (Of course, Maia does live 20km from here). That's about half what I did in Denver, but it's only half...

When I got my little "Kei" car (It's a 3 cylinder 650cc engine) a year ago (Maia and I lovingly call it the "Piglet"... I'm not entirely sure why...it just fit) I paid 3200 yen to fill up the tank, in a year it has gone up about 30%... Just so you guys don't think you are the only ones suffering... I spend about $250-$300 a month on gas... and I have little more than a glorified motorcycle...

Sometimes I wonder if Americans are aware of how good they have had it?

in 1995 gas here was about the same as over there, about 100 yen to the gallon (roughly a dollar to the gallon), now it's 700 yen to the gallon... about 7 times as expensive... which means that you can argue that America is reliant on foreign oil, but not half as much as the rest of the world. America is getting it's oil domestically somehow... because Japan and Europe have watched the gas prices stay pretty close to the average cost per barrel of oil.

Japan has done something about it (Case in point: The Piglet, I mean, 30% of all vehicles here are the same class as the Geo Metro... and have been for nearly a decade). I'm wondering when I get home, how I'm going to find a Piglet that I can drive... because honestly, I don't need a 27 cylinder 9.4 liter engine anymore... I'm kinda comfortable driving this Kei car...

I think Americans could be, too.