Stupidity and Ignorance
Two examples: One positive and one negative.
The Negative Example:
There is a vegan e-group I belong to. One person, we'll call her Amy, stated that vegans don't eat things which are alive or can feel pain because that would be unethical. A second person, we'll call her Suzi, stated that the first bit of reasoning was irrelevant to those folks who were vegan for non-moral/non-ethical reasons. Suzi also pointed out that by Amy's reasoning eggs would be acceptable to eat since they are unfertilized and not alive, but that vegans still don't eat eggs, so how does that fit her reasoning? Amy went to a separate e-group to brag about how she blasted Suzi for being stupid and not a real vegan since she obviously eats animal products and has no aversion to other people eating animals or animal products. Amy was praised by two other group members for showing such "kindness and compassion". Apparently one is only a true vegan if one is a vegan who is a vegan for moral and ethical reasons. No wonder the public thinks that vegans are nutcases.
I sent e-mail privately to Suzi telling her that she asked a legit question very politely and didn't deserve to be blasted for it. I also sent e-mail to the e-group where Suzi got blasted and tried to point out that if this diatribe was considered "kindness and compassion", I'd hate to see what anger looked like. I also inquired why it is that the moral vegans think they are superior to those who are vegan for other reasons when we are all "on the same side". I expect to get nasty e-mail any minute now.
The Positive Example:
I happened to catch an episode of Hogan Knows Best today. Yes, it's TV to rot your brain, but it's one of the better "reality" shows, in my opinion. Wrestler Hulk Hogan has two teenaged kids and a wife who is not particularly full of common sense. They recently moved to Miami and Mrs. Hogan decided to take home-baked cookies around to all the neighbors as a way of introducing themselves and apologizing for the parking issues caused by their house renovation. The Hogans discovered that several of the neighbors could not accept the cookies because they keep kosher. The Hogans didn't know what that meant, but Terry (Hulk) decided he wanted to find out so he started asking when they went to the grocery store. Mrs. Hogan decided to throw a big neighborhood cookout and sent Terry off to find the right food. While his son stated that they could just feed the neighborhood regular meat and call it kosher, they actually went to a kosher grocery store and asked all about what makes food kosher. They then purchased kosher meats and had the kosher store cater in a bunch of stuff too. A neighborhood rabbi also explained that regular and kosher meat can't be cooked on the same grill and that the grill has to be made kosher or else the meat cooked on it wasn't kosher. Terry said "I screwed up. I'm sorry." The rabbi gave him full points for trying to get it right. Terry pointed out that there was catered food, so he thought everybody would be ok anyway. The rabbi agreed. Everybody had a good time. Nobody felt bad. People even *learned* from each other.
Nobody called anybody stupid for having different beliefs, even when it made for a potentially difficult and embarassing situation. Brooke, Hulk's daughter, even asked the younger rabbi why the older rabbi politely refused to shake her hand. He thanked her for asking and explained it to her, then showed her the "jewish hug" (it's a big air hug). A very positive experience all around.
How hard is it to be a bit tolerant of other people's way of life? I wish folks would stop taking their insecurities out on others and leave off being judgemental and nasty towards folks who aren't exactly like them. If we were all exactly the same life wouldn't be nearly as interesting. You don't learn much from other people when everybody knows and does everything exactly the same. Quit bashing everybody else and look more critically at yourself. Clean up your own act before you start pointing fingers at everybody else.
Painting Progress:
I got my bedroom painted and put a second coat onthe vanity area too. I didn't even make a dent in the living room painting, just cut in along the edges in a few places. You can see in the picture that the previous owners actually painted the living room two different shades of this icky green color. What makes it even better is that the darker shade is semi-gloss while the lighter shade has a satin finish. It wouldn't be so noticeable if the differences were on separate walls, but it's the top 1/4 to 1/3 of each wall where the color/finish change occurs and random spots in the middle too. Maybe next weekend I'll get farther with the LR painting and maybe I won't.
I did finish cutting in the master bathroom. The lighter cream color will really brighten up the room, as you can see in the picture. You can also see where I poked my finger into the ceiling when I discovered the roof leak. I'm not sure I have enough semi-gloss paint left to finish the bathroom though.
I don't know when I'm going to get around to painting the spare room. I have one gallon of lemon yellow paint for it, but as thirsty as the walls are, I don't know if that will be enough.
I have discovered several things about painting. The first is that I'm not very good at getting a nice even coat of paint with a paint roller. I am, however, quite good at not getting paint on things I don't want painted. The second thing I have learned is that the original paint in this house was flat paint put straight over the drywall. The walls just slurp up the paint like a sponge. I must have re-filled my paint tray 8 times when painting my bedroom. I can cut in about 4 inches before having to re-fill the brush or else the paint doesn't cover the area sufficiently. I guess all the painting I've done before was on sealed or previously painted walls. I am very glad I bought a 5 gallon bucket of paint when I first started painting this place.
Baking:
I'll be whipping up lots of cookies today. SCinet setup finishes today. Miss Alyce the desk clerk and Joseph the German student will get more cookies this week. Miss Alyce likes oatmeal raisin and I think Joseph just likes cookies in general. I'll see about shipping out two boxes on Monday. I plan to include oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, chocolate chip and possibly snickerdoodles, but we'll see how far I actually get. I'm going to spend at least part of the evening just relaxing and knitting. (Update: I got oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookies made before I lost interest and it got too late.)
Housecleaning/unpacking
I still have to re-assemble my bedroom, do laundry, clean the house and straighten out the guest room. I would much rather watch old movies on TV. I am trying to decide if I want to move the boxes piled inside the house into the garage or if I want to leave the boxes in the house and put the car in the garage. Right now the clutter is starting to get to me and I'm leaning toward boxes in the garage. Need to wax the car if I'm going to do that. Heck, I need to wax the car anyway.
Bluebird: 
I don't know if this is the bluebird of happiness or the bluebird of disgruntlement, but he's been hanging out on my deck for the past couple of weeks. In the spring I'll put up a nesting box. I have seen three or four bluebirds in the yard and lots of blue jays, which I also like, despite the fact that they're noisy and obnoxious. There are also two woodpeckers. I will have to get the birdfeeder set up to keep the birds happy and keep them hanging out in the yard.
The Negative Example:
There is a vegan e-group I belong to. One person, we'll call her Amy, stated that vegans don't eat things which are alive or can feel pain because that would be unethical. A second person, we'll call her Suzi, stated that the first bit of reasoning was irrelevant to those folks who were vegan for non-moral/non-ethical reasons. Suzi also pointed out that by Amy's reasoning eggs would be acceptable to eat since they are unfertilized and not alive, but that vegans still don't eat eggs, so how does that fit her reasoning? Amy went to a separate e-group to brag about how she blasted Suzi for being stupid and not a real vegan since she obviously eats animal products and has no aversion to other people eating animals or animal products. Amy was praised by two other group members for showing such "kindness and compassion". Apparently one is only a true vegan if one is a vegan who is a vegan for moral and ethical reasons. No wonder the public thinks that vegans are nutcases.
I sent e-mail privately to Suzi telling her that she asked a legit question very politely and didn't deserve to be blasted for it. I also sent e-mail to the e-group where Suzi got blasted and tried to point out that if this diatribe was considered "kindness and compassion", I'd hate to see what anger looked like. I also inquired why it is that the moral vegans think they are superior to those who are vegan for other reasons when we are all "on the same side". I expect to get nasty e-mail any minute now.
The Positive Example:
I happened to catch an episode of Hogan Knows Best today. Yes, it's TV to rot your brain, but it's one of the better "reality" shows, in my opinion. Wrestler Hulk Hogan has two teenaged kids and a wife who is not particularly full of common sense. They recently moved to Miami and Mrs. Hogan decided to take home-baked cookies around to all the neighbors as a way of introducing themselves and apologizing for the parking issues caused by their house renovation. The Hogans discovered that several of the neighbors could not accept the cookies because they keep kosher. The Hogans didn't know what that meant, but Terry (Hulk) decided he wanted to find out so he started asking when they went to the grocery store. Mrs. Hogan decided to throw a big neighborhood cookout and sent Terry off to find the right food. While his son stated that they could just feed the neighborhood regular meat and call it kosher, they actually went to a kosher grocery store and asked all about what makes food kosher. They then purchased kosher meats and had the kosher store cater in a bunch of stuff too. A neighborhood rabbi also explained that regular and kosher meat can't be cooked on the same grill and that the grill has to be made kosher or else the meat cooked on it wasn't kosher. Terry said "I screwed up. I'm sorry." The rabbi gave him full points for trying to get it right. Terry pointed out that there was catered food, so he thought everybody would be ok anyway. The rabbi agreed. Everybody had a good time. Nobody felt bad. People even *learned* from each other.
Nobody called anybody stupid for having different beliefs, even when it made for a potentially difficult and embarassing situation. Brooke, Hulk's daughter, even asked the younger rabbi why the older rabbi politely refused to shake her hand. He thanked her for asking and explained it to her, then showed her the "jewish hug" (it's a big air hug). A very positive experience all around.
How hard is it to be a bit tolerant of other people's way of life? I wish folks would stop taking their insecurities out on others and leave off being judgemental and nasty towards folks who aren't exactly like them. If we were all exactly the same life wouldn't be nearly as interesting. You don't learn much from other people when everybody knows and does everything exactly the same. Quit bashing everybody else and look more critically at yourself. Clean up your own act before you start pointing fingers at everybody else.
Painting Progress:
I got my bedroom painted and put a second coat on
I don't know when I'm going to get around to painting the spare room. I have one gallon of lemon yellow paint for it, but as thirsty as the walls are, I don't know if that will be enough.
I have discovered several things about painting. The first is that I'm not very good at getting a nice even coat of paint with a paint roller. I am, however, quite good at not getting paint on things I don't want painted. The second thing I have learned is that the original paint in this house was flat paint put straight over the drywall. The walls just slurp up the paint like a sponge. I must have re-filled my paint tray 8 times when painting my bedroom. I can cut in about 4 inches before having to re-fill the brush or else the paint doesn't cover the area sufficiently. I guess all the painting I've done before was on sealed or previously painted walls. I am very glad I bought a 5 gallon bucket of paint when I first started painting this place.
Baking:
I'll be whipping up lots of cookies today. SCinet setup finishes today. Miss Alyce the desk clerk and Joseph the German student will get more cookies this week. Miss Alyce likes oatmeal raisin and I think Joseph just likes cookies in general. I'll see about shipping out two boxes on Monday.
Housecleaning/unpacking
I still have to re-assemble my bedroom, do laundry, clean the house and straighten out the guest room. I would much rather watch old movies on TV. I am trying to decide if I want to move the boxes piled inside the house into the garage or if I want to leave the boxes in the
Bluebird:
I don't know if this is the bluebird of happiness or the
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