Zombie Shrimp? and Yet another reason I don't eat seafood

Just read a story via Good Morning America and Yahoo News:
https://gma.yahoo.com/terrifying-parasites-turn-shrimp-zombies-eat-young-210355210--abc-news-health.html


(The picture is from the above website link via ABC News.)

This is a species of Irish shrimp, Gammarus duebeni. An article abstract I found stated that these little buggers have a tendency towards cannibalism. Awesome.....unless you're another G. duebeni. (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1660?sid=21106162206183&uid=2&uid=4&uid=2129&uid=70)

According to the article via the first link above, these guys get infected with a parasite that causes them to go nuts and eat their babies.

Now, a brief detour......
I don't eat any seafood. None. Zip. Zilch. I can't stand the smell or texture. I don't mind, however, working doing food prep for an aquarium (did that, really). I never can understand why eating these little buggers (or their 'brethren' at any rate) is so appealing. Shrimp eat basically whatever they can find - yummy dead fish, yummy dead fish skin, yummy whatever drifts down to the bottom. Yum, yum, yum! Yes, many would say that they are a relatively healthy choice, but when I see people munch straight into them I think, "You realize you're eating their digestive system (ie the poop track)." That's right - that little black slimy line through the middle? That's the digestive tack or the 'poop track'. Yummy right? You should 'de-vein' them (ie remove the poop track) if you're going to enjoy munching on these little buggers.

So back to the eating of their babies.....
I have a degree in Marine Biology. Knowing who's eating whom down in the ocean is like knowing the not so delicious details of a horror movie. Fascinating to know all about the critters under the ocean, but I'll pass on the seafood buffet and the possibility that I'm dining on someone who ate their children. But go ahead, you enjoy!

Peace.

Creepy ads that know you

My absolute favorite heels are made by Born. The style is 'Dollie'.  I have a pair in black, and I love them! I can traverse for several miles in them. I've worn them standing on my feet all day. Next to my hiking boots and dressy winter boots, they are my favorite travel shoes.
Picture is courtesy of Macy's.
http://www1.macys.com/shop/product/born-dollie-shooties?ID=1664032&pla_country=US&CAGPSPN=pla&CAWELAID=120156340000847342&catargetid=120156340001070650&cadevice=c&cm_mmc=Google_Nongender_Shoes_PLA_PLA-_-Nongender+Shoes+Brands_Born-_-65707792623_-_-_mkwid_tmHfcHBg|dc_65707792623%7C-%7CtmHfcHBg


Sorry, picture is kinda grainy but hopefully you get the idea. So I really really wanted the brown ones (called 'Coffee') but couldn't get them via my fave local family owned shoe store where I bought my black ones. So, I went to the internet. I did a search using good 'ol Google, and visited several websites - Born, Macy's, Zappos, Amazon etc... I eventually did find a pair in the color and size I wanted (yeah, me!). But now....the creepy part....

In my email accounts, on my social media accounts, seemingly EVERYWHERE, I have ads popping up in the margins for this exact style/brand/color of shoe! These EXACT shoes are now everywhere I am online! Really? Yes, really.

So, I'm used to ads but not ads so specifically targeted at me. So...of course I 'googled' and found this:
http://www.wired.com/2009/03/googles-new-ad/ Google evidently has a new 'ad network'. Creepy but true.  

I wonder what happens if I search for hemorrhoid cream? Hmmmm..... let's run a test.....

I googled 'hemorrhoid cream' and visited links to several pharmacies including Walgreens and
CVS.  Now I'm getting ads for auto insurance. Does this mean that I'm supposedly spending so much time sitting in my car that I have hemorrhoids? Clearly the big brother of the internet doesn't know everything.  I spend too much time sitting at my computer typing crap that like only 6 people read.

Peace.

Queen Rania of Jordan

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6781160
Great video interview of Queen Rania of Jordan.

Response to 28 Reasons I’m DONE Talking To Most Of My Conservative Friends And Family Members

First, let me post a link to the article I'm referencing:
http://www.liberalamerica.org/2015/02/11/28-reasons-im-done-talking-to-most-of-my-conservative-friends-and-family-members/

I commented via a social media site on a comment posted by someone else who was referencing the above article. (Whew, that's a confusing sentence....)

Now....here's the comment I posted to social media:
"I'm a very liberal person living in a very not liberal place. (I have not read the article Tom posted, but I'm responding to a comment above). I can't really try to go from empathy to changing someone's mind. I'm deeply hurt when folks, especially in a religious setting, try to change my mind. Therefore, I feel that it is important for me to not try to change their mind. So what do I do? If asked how I feel on a topic, I answer as honestly as possible. But, I also expect others to answer honestly as well. What becomes interesting is in the 'why'. Why do I feel the way I do? Why do you feel the way that you do? When an honest and open discussion of the 'why' happens, then I believe learning (on both sides) can happen. It's in the situations where no one is interested in the 'why' or even hearing the 'what' to begin with that the communication breaks down. I can be very good friends with those who don't feel as I do on certain topics. It's when someone tries to change me that a relationship will dissolve." - Me here at Fish are Friends

I have since read the whole article. Parts of it I think are spot on. Other parts I feel are a stereotype of the conservative side of things. For instance,
"7. You care more about your guns than you do about children." Sorry, but I feel that this is a stereotype. I know lots of people who own lots of guns - duh I live in the South! However, those same people also desperately love their families and do lots of awesome work in their communities AND help others in need. I'm sorry but owning a gun doesn't mean someone cares more about guns then kids. Am I for gun control? Absolutely. But I believe that number 7 is just too broad a statement.

Moving on. #6 on the above article:
"6. You question my faith." This is one of the hardest things for me to deal with as a liberal Christian living in the American South. I couldn't function without my relationship with Jesus. But it blows me away mentally when I have my faith questioned in my own church when I refuse to say that someone of another faith is 'wrong'. I just don't feel it's right for me to think that just because I'm of 'my' faith that everyone else who's of 'their' faith is 'wrong'.  Just because I have amongst my friends people who are not Christian and I don't strive to convert them, please don't accuse me of 'not being Christian'.

#24 on the above article:
"24. You think our religion is the only one." This kinda leads back to my comments from #6. We live in a global society. We won't survive peacefully unless we agree to coexist. It's when we strive to push and shove to make others like 'us' that extremism grows. When someone feels marginalized and without hope, how are they likely to react? In my not so humble opinion, the greatest weapon against religious extremism is tolerance and the understanding that coexistence is vital.

#25 on the above article:
 "25. You are lazy and you refuse to read."  I don't characterize not reading the news as laziness. I do however, think it speaks volumes about the state of education in our country. Someone who's liberal might  say, "Oh, they don't read at least three printed news sources therefore they are lazy." Well, many people see what I read and how much I read and they are amazed. "How do you read that? How do you read ALL of that?" Many Americans don't have a high enough reading level to absorb a lengthy article from say 'Time Magazine' let alone something like 'The Economist'. Many Americans don't have enough understanding of geography to even understand where some major news stories are taking place. It's not always laziness; it's frequently a lack in education.

Being a democracy is hard work. You have to really want it and want it badly. The hardest part is allowing those we disagree with the most the right to their freedom of speech.

Peace.

Refusing service because someone is gay??????

Ok. Let me begin with this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/us/anticipating-nationwide-right-to-same-sex-marriage-states-weigh-religious-exemption-bills.html?_r=0

I do not believe that the US government has the right to march into a church, synagogue, mosque or any other house of worship/prayer and tell people how to believe. I do, however, take issue with discrimination being legislated for.

The kind of legislation being talked about (or enacted) would allow a business to refuse services to someone based on religious grounds. In other words, if you own a florist shop and two women walked in to buy flowers for their wedding, it would be legal to refuse them service because you object to two women marrying based on religious grounds.  Really?  Do people really understand what this can lead to? Not to mention the fact that I personally find it just plain mean.

Let's spin out a possible scenario under the type of legislation discussed above. I belong to religious group A.  Pretend I own a rental hall with beautiful grounds. Now, let's say someone from religious group B wishes to marry someone from religious group A. I object to that on 'religious' grounds because I feel it is against my religious beliefs to allow someone from group A to marry someone from group B.

History is full of folks who couldn't marry between faiths. As I recall, when I lived in the UAE, a Christian woman could marry a Muslim man, but a Christian man couldn't marry a Muslim woman. Do we really want that kind of law in the US? I know that I don't.

Refusing service on religious grounds is a slippery slope. It opens the door wide for all kinds of prejudices to be acted upon, legally. What if I as a married woman walked into a bank and couldn't open a bank account without my husband's permission? Could I be refused because I don't have my husband's permission because I'm supposed to 'submit' to my husband's authority? Slippery slippery slope.

Peace.

 

Marriage is way more then sex

I was just reading a newsstory on same sex marriage in Alabama. http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2015/All-marriages-halted-in-1-of-Alabama-s-largest-cities-after-state-high-court-bans-gay-weddings/id-9502a1bfd539498da39c15ebaef5f1c1

I find it fascinating in these types of articles how there are individuals who believe that somehow same sex marriages are a threat to American families. Homosexuality is not a contagious disease. It's not like a family with two moms or a family with two dads is going to start roaming neighborhoods physically ripping other families apart. Same sex marriage, to me, is about giving all the people in our society the same rights.

To pull a quote from the article from Alabama Elmore County Probate Judge John Enslen, "Gay marriage could never be equal to straight marriage because of simple human anatomy.". I chose this quote because I believe it gets straight to the root of the problem. We humans fear that which we don't understand. I believe that the average heterosexual probably thinks, "Why would someone be attracted to the same sex? How could someone be attracted to someone of the same sex?" We don't understand. 'That' kind of sex freaks us out. But, at the end of the day, a marriage, a lifelong partnership, is so much more then sex. It's helping each other through daily life. It's sharing the grocery shopping and the housework. It's paying the bills together. It's watching a fun movie on the sofa after a long day. It's dreaming about the future together. It's about spending the last moments of life on this earth together. What a sad definition of marriage if it's all about the sex.

Peace.

How much damage do we cause? The church, youth and sex

I have not sat down to write for quite some time now, obviously. But, I've been doing some reading, and I've been in some discussions lately that spurred me towards my keyboard.

Back when my daughter was going through confirmation, the confirmation class was asked to sign 'purity pledges'. To be clear, the purity pledges are not just about abstaining from sex until you are married, but they are also about not polluting one's self with booze, tobacco, and drugs. Yes, these are all things you don't want to see kids partaking of.  But let's talk about that pledge.....

The take-away for our family from the whole 'purity pledge' experience was that God doesn't need us to sign a card or wear a ring to make a promise. And, there is tremendous social pressure on a kid to sign that card.

So.....which brings up a few sticky bits....

How does an intelligent young adult deal with the likely-hood of not getting married until they are in their late 20's? I know in our family, we all hope that the kids finish college first before getting married. However, my husband and I broke that 'rule'. We were so sick of the chaos of living in the dorms, and the chaos of roommate changes that we looked at each other and thought, "Perfect roomy is right here! And we're gonna get married anyway! Weddings just take forever to plan." But, by breaking the rules, so to speak, my grades went up, I got an awesome roommate, and I no longer had to deal with being around all the drinking/partying etc..that was all part of dormitory life. And, I'm happily married to that same roommate now 20 years later. How would I have felt had I been made to sign a purity pledge? I don't know, but I can imagine it wouldn't have been good. And if I hadn't gotten off that college campus, I don't know if I would have graduated in my chosen major, Marine Biology.

So for me, a heterosexual female, I did feel weird around more conservative Christian folks because of my chosen living situation back in those days as we planned our wedding. Which, I think, is sad. Because I was trying to keep myself as far away from the college party scene as I could get, but I was afraid I was going to be judged badly. And in some cases, I was judged. Darned if you do and darned if you don't.

So what does a homosexual student go through? When a homosexual student is pressured into signing a purity pledge, how does that affect them? Not only do many states not allow them to marry, but even in cases where the state allows it, their church may not allow them to marry. So are they condemned to living their lives totally alone without the lifelong companionship of a spouse? It's gotta be like getting hit with a double whammy. Darned if you do and darned if you don't.

Moving on...I was reading some pretty horrifying statistics on the number of people in American society who have been sexually abused or are currently being sexually abused. Because of the dynamics of abuse, I can't fathom how a kid who is being sexually abused might feel being pressured into signing a purity pledge.

So how do we deal with sex as a church? Right now, we deal with it badly most of the time. It is just so much easier to say 'DON'T' and leave it at that. However, the realities of life call for us to look at a deeper form of ministry if we are really going to be of use to the young people in our congregations. We can't shy away from the tough topics. We have to be bold faced honest in our conversations. We have to admit that reality happens and that a flat 'DON'T' just doesn't cut it. We need to broaden the conversation rather then just barking an order.

Peace.