Words of the Wise (aka: not me)

I'm not much of an insightful person....there, I said it. I don't really get into religious tizzies, and I particularly hate those that go on and one about being "one" with nature, God, their hobbies....etc. It always seems either (a) fake, (b) overdone, or (c) like they are trying to mask their inner misery by making everyone else feel out of touch with Zen. I do, however, love a good quote...particularly when it's funny and inspiring. So, ladies and gentlemen, here are some good quotes to light up your morning:

1) I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they are going to feel all day. (Frank Sinatra)

2) I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way. (Carl Sandburg)

3) Be curteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. (George Washington)

4) A good lawyer is a bad Christian. (John Lothrop Motley)

5) Creationists make it sound like a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. (Isaac Asimov)

6) Question with boldness even the existence of a God; becaue, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. (Thomas Jefferson)

7) A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles. (Mignon McLaughlin)

8) Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn susets exquisitely dying. (Langston Hughes)

9) Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures. (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

10) People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds...it is something one creates. (Thomas Szasz)

I hope y'all have a great day. I, on the other hand, will not profess to find myself or preach from a mountaintop....there are far too many superior quotes out there for that.

The Kingdom: The Danish Miniseries From the Twilight Zone

The Kingdom is a Danish mini-series that aired about seven years ago.   The show begins with a rather poetic introduction about a marshland riddled with the dead. Time has passed and a hospital as been built on the marshland.  It has become the epiphany of all things scientific and is filled with the most respected scientific minds in the field.  Maybe it is because of their hubris, or maybe because of their utter lack of faith in he spiritual, but the gateway between this world and the kingdom has begun to open again beneath the hospital that is most appropriately named,  The Kingdom.

This strange miniseries begins slowly introducing all the doctors and characters.   One o the characters is a ghost hunter who fakes new illnesses on a regular basis to be admitted to the hospital and chase the hospital's mysterious ghosts deeper and deeper into the dark core of the the kingdom.  The show features child ghosts, dog ghosts, phantom ambulances, zombies, evil neurosurgeons, and ghostly pregnancies.

Although The Kingdom is not a movie,  it is listed on 1001 Movies You Need to See Before You Die.  Steven King saw it and produced an American version called Kingdom Hospital that was set in Main.   This bizarre Danish film is a must see for anyone who loves the strange or the haunted and it is available on Netflix Stream. 

The Ghost of Six Flags

 

Everyone has heard of six flags.  Throughout the country,  these parks are known for there thrilling rides that become increasingly more terrifying and death defying.  This year when we went to Six Flags in Atlanta,  we found a roller coaster that goes straight up at a 90 degree angle and descends at the same nauseating angle.  There was a roller coaster that puts you on your stomach, like superman, and twirls you around.  There is ever manner of terrifying ride, but the rides are not the only horrifying thing at Six Flags, Atlanta.

Just a little bit of research into the Six Flag theme parks reveals that death seems to linger around these amusement park like a grim specter.   Here are a few examples of some of the deaths and injuries that occurred at Six Flags:
*On May 11, 1984, eight teenage visitors were trapped and killed when the Haunted Castle attraction was destroyed by fire.
*On June 17, 1987, a 19-year-old woman died after falling from the Lightnin' Loops shuttle loop roller coaster.
*On June 28, 2008, a 17-year-old male was decapitated  by a passing train  of Batman the Ride in Atlanta after he hopped two six-foot fences and entered a restricted area. Initial reports said that the victim was allegedly trying to grab the feet of a rider as the train went by; later reports said that the victim was merely trying to retrieve a hat.
*On July 18, 1989, an 11-year-old boy became unconscious while riding Z-Force. Park staff performed CPR, but the victim was pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital.

If you enjoy these stories, wikipedia has an entire page dedicated to deaths and injuries at the Six Flag amusement parks.  Some are clearly caused by the stupidity of the guests, others are caused by park problems, but the sheer volume of them makes them an interesting read.

Strangely, the ghost of Six Flags in Atlanta doesn't have an origin story.   Most haunted amusement park ghosts have a back story.  The Disney ghosts all died somewhere near the ride they haunt and you would expect the same of Six Flags.   However, the ghost of Six Flags is just a little girl.   She is said to wander the park looking for the lost and lonely.  She picks them out of the crowd and asks for help.   The hapless victim inevitably tries to help the little girl.   She leads them into the woods around the park and when the victim turns the girl vanishes leaving the victim somewhat lost and completely confused. 

I didn't see any ghosts when I went to Six Flags, nor did I see any death or mayhem.  All I saw was happiness and sunshine and several teens vomiting in the trashcan after a particularly nauseating ride.  It is interesting to think, however, that behind the screaming crowds a little girl ghost wanders forever searching for her next victim.

The Remains of American Adventures

One of my favorite blogs is Above the Norm, http://above-the-norm.blogspot.com/.  This blog features many photos of forgotten and abandoned places.  They are both beautiful and haunting.  I thought of this blog when I went to White Water in Atlanta with my children this weekend.  Oddly, the entire water park seems to be surrounded by an abandoned amusement park.  Old rides, thick with ivy, surround the park.   Abandoned buildings sit in the parking lot speaking of forgotten places with sad stories.  It seemed to me an odd place to have a water park, next to the skeletal remains of a dead amusement park, but the story is simpler than it seems.

Wikipedia described the history of this dead park in one brief paragraph:   "First opened in 1990, the American Adventures family entertainment center operated next door to White Water, even using the same parking lot. This facility included a number of common carnival rides and other attractions geared towards families with small children. While the park was a separate gate from White Water, the two promoted each other often, to the point of having a connecting pathway between the two park entrances. When Six Flags acquired White Water in 1999, American Adventures was included in the purchase, and the park was considered one of Six Flags' minor parks. However, in May 2008, the park was leased to a new operator, Zuma Holdings, which no longer co-branded the park with Six Flags White Water. In 2010, American Adventures closed its doors for good, citing "circumstances beyond our control."

As Miss California USA likes to define it: gay marriage v. "opposite" marriage

I promised you conflicting views regarding my thoughts on marriage. I've shown  you I'm quite conservative with regard to my thoughts of the actual institution of marriage....but I'm completely and utterly liberal when it comes to the applicability. You see, I don't see how being gay makes any difference when it comes to honoring marriage vows. I don't see how offering them the same rights as us people wanting to engage in "opposite marriage" would degrade the institution at all--our divorce rate is already 50% and I'm pretty sure gay people are just as capable as the straights as having loving, monogamous, life-long marriages. So, why do I think the whole gay marriage argument is a drain on our resources when we could be focusing our considerable energies elsewhere? Let me explain....

First and foremost, marriage is not strictly a religious commitment. A wedding can be a religious ceremony, but people have been getting married far before the dawn of Christianity ever presumed to classify marriage as having religious ties. Marriage has a colorful and sometimes ridiculous history, and much of it is inapplicable today. It used to be people married for economic reasons. In many cultures, women were treated as chattel, and were often given to the highest bidder or the person with the most beneficial familial ties. Apparently, though, (from my hurried reading on the subject) the engagement ring seems to present across the board--from as far back as ancient Rome, it was thought that the roundness symbolized eternity, or a union that would last forever. It was also thought that the left finger (the "ring finger") had a vein that ran directly to the heart. Perhaps most significant, and what I think renders the religious fundamentalists' arguments moot, is the fact that even if people are married in a church, they still are not recognized as married by the state until they fill out the paperwork and make it official. The eyes of God and the eyes of the law are completely different beasts, people.

Apparently, same-sex unions do have a long history, and it is believed that such unions were celebrated in ancient Greece and Rome, some regions of China, and ancient Europe. According to Wiki (my favoritest source, y'all), "The first documented same-sex marriage was between the two men Pedro Díaz and Muño Vandilaz in the Galician municipality of Rairiz de Veiga in Spain on April 16, 1061. They were married by a priest at a small chapel. The historic documents about the church wedding were found at Monastery of San Salvador de Celanova.^[60]"

 Many people compare denying gay people the right to marry to the now antiquated (and thankfully so) taboo that used to be associated with interracial marriage. It's true: many of the same arguments the anti-gay marriage movement is using are the same arguments advanced two hundred and fifty years ago...and even less than fifty years ago regarding interracial marriage.  "The children stand to lose" or "the Bible says it is abominable" or "it's unnatural" or (my personal favorite) "it's against the law." Now, with one in every 15 marriages deemed as interracial, a lot of people have forgotten these arguments. I, unfortunately, have heard them as recently as a few years ago, because I come from a small town of often uneducated people.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I sincerely hope that the Supreme Court of the United States holds laws against gay marriage as unconstitutional. Arkansas has already gone a step in the right direction when it held that the laws regarding gay people adopting were unconstitutional. I'm hoping I can one day tell my children how gay people were refused this right, and they be shocked and disbelieving. I hope for a future people are allowed to marry the person they love, regardless of whether they are the same sex as them.

I hope for a future where "gay marriage" and "opposite marriage" don't exist....just marriage does.

Til Death (or Divorce) Do We Part....

Subject of the week next two days: marriage. I've never been married, so I make these observations looking in the window from the outside, although it does not make my complaints/observations/points any less valid. I say the next two days because I wanted to counter my two different views of this noble institution regarding both my conservative and liberal ideas on the matter. Tomorrow, you get to see me address the exciting issue of gay marriage. Today, we'll just discuss the overall idea of marriage.

I've read several articles recently regarding marriage; apparently it's all the craze to think nowadays that marriage is antiquated and a broken institution. Stars have been quoted as saying so, so it must be right, right guys? The newly divorced Scarlett Johansson possibly foreshadowed her tragic breakup with the delicious Ryan Reynolds a couple years ago when she discussed how people were not inherently monogamous animals and it was ridiculous to think we should be. Brad Pitt and the husband-stealing, obvious-marriage-hating Angelina Jolie are happily raising a brood of children outside the constraints of marriage. Eva Mendes thinks "the husband and wife thing" are "unsexy." Cameron Diaz apparently views marriage as a set of traditions that don't apply to our world any longer (although she apparently loves men...apparently a lot of men). Gold Hawn has been quoted as saying "I wake up every day knowing I can walk out at any moment. It's [that knowledge] that keeps things fresh."

OH THE CRAZINESS!!!! WHERE TO START, PEOPLE? WHERE TO START............

Let's define marriage for a second. It's not a wedding; it's not necessarily a religious gesture; it's not even about the damn benefits that are associated with the institution. Hell, it's not even a damn institution. IT'S A COMMITMENT. The biggest problem I've seen nowadays is that people approach the subject of marriage as something that is tenuous at best--if it doesn't work out, we can always get a divorce. People view it like a dinner you buy at a restaurant that you can send back if you don't like how it tastes. People go to Vegas to get hitched; they marry after two months of dating; they sometimes have shotgun weddings; and sometimes, they do it because they have been together so long that it seems to be the logical thing to do. 

Let me clarify: those reasons all suck ass. If you are going to get married because you are drunk in Vegas, then you should walk in front of a train. Seriously. Just do it and save us the future ramifications of all your bad decisions you will almost certainly be making. If you get married because you're too damn chickenshit to hurt someone's feelings, you are failing at life. If you get married for ANY REASON other than wanting to spend a lifetime committed to one other human being, a decision upon which you've reflected, and which you understand comes with the good and the bad, then you ARE THE PROBLEM WITH THE "INSTITUTION" OF MARRIAGE. It ain't marriage that's broke, it's the fucktards that are arbitrarily getting married that have fucked over this system beyond recognition.

Understand I don't premise these harsh statements based upon my religious beliefs (or lack thereof for that matter). It's good common sense and a sense of self-preservation that leads me to make these judgments. I also don't think divorce should never be utilized (I am a future lawyer after all)--but at the same time, it shouldn't be the option to your marriage not working. It should be an option after counseling, after trying, and after talking to your spouse. It shouldn't be your safety hatch. It shouldn't be your "out." It shouldn't be the norm!

Case in point: when I was younger and dating an asshole for a long while, a lot of people asked me when I was getting married. I was 21, but again, I'm from the south, where you're considered an old maid at the tender age of 23. I actually had a girl ask me when I was getting married, and when I told her I wanted to graduate from undergrad, then law school, and get a job before I ever considered marriage, she asked me whether I wanted to have kids.  Me: your ovaries don't fall off at 26!!!!!!!!!!!! (This is an entirely different problem, but I'm not going to go there right now.) I seemed opposed to marriage, and even got a comment from the asshole at the time about how I was "fundamentally opposed to marriage." CLARIFICATION: I was opposed to marriage with him. Yes, I stayed in the relationship because I was lazy and because it was easier than "hurting his feelings" (aka: chickenshit), but there was no fucking way in hell I was marrying the dude. Self-preservation, y'all. 

And now, I'm in an amazing relationship with Leonidas. I do think about marriage now, but when I imagine it, it's not the wedding I'm considering: it's the commitment. He's someone I'm willing to be committed to: I don't want him to change (girls, if you want a guy to change, dump him, because he ain't gonna and you're wasting your time trying), his good habits outweigh his bad, we always have something to talk about, we're committed to each other, and, oh yeah, we love each other and don't want to be with anyone else. (This means ever, you asshole cheater Arnold types that apparently thinks marriage equates to someone having to have sex with you and sex with other people when your spouse doesn't oblige.)

So Eva, I'm not sure how being someone's wife makes you unsexy, but okay. Cameron, the traditions of marriage seem to be right on point: marry someone you love and want to be with the rest of your life, don't fuck around with someone else, and maintain mutual respect for your spouse while continuing to grow in your relationship. Those seem to be pretty fucking good traditions. Goldie, thinking about how you could leave doesn't keep things fresh--it keeps things uncertain. You can leave if you're married; you can leave if you are not. I don't see how a certificate of marriage makes the difference. Angelina Jolie: you can bite me, you husband-stealing, brother-frenching jerk. And Scarlett, I'm not sure if you or Ryan had a problem with monogamy or not, but for God's sake, if you can't be monogamous with Ryan Renolds and his eight abs and seemingly sweet personality, then maybe you should phone Charlie Sheen and get some advice about dealing with sexual addiction (winning).

All joking aside, I'm conservative in my views on marriage. I don't think people should rush, I don't think they should consider divorce as a reasonable alternative if things aren't all sunshine and roses all the time, and I don't think most people give marriage due consideration before jumping into it headfirst. Perhaps if we did, people wouldn't say it was broken. Perhaps if we would consider our future with that person, rather than the present time, our divorce rate would be lower. Perhaps if people stopped equating marriage with an integral chapter in one's life, they would allow it to happen rather than forcing it to. 

Or perhaps I'm a little old-fashioned. Regardless, I'd rather stay out of divorce court, thank you very much.

Conservative upbringing, liberal application, moderate success

I grew up in the deep south, where most people I know consider "liberal" to be a dirty word (including my father, Danny, although I won't go into that). I was raised in the Baptist church, largely synonymous with Bible-thumping, brimstone preaching, and evangelical savings in the summer. I was dunked in eighth grade, STILL have t-shirts with my 6-year old handprints on it from Vacation Bible School, and drew the line in the sand regarding racism prevalent in our youth group in ninth grade. My parents brought me up in a small town, and I had the same elementary teachers as my father. My hometown, to this day, celebrates a Civil War reenactment once a year where men march for 20 miles to get to the battle field, ride horses while shooting pretend guns, and blow up the pond (rain or shine). I have gotten lost in the woods in my backyard, had poison ivy more times than I could count, and nursed baby animals back to health with my parents' help. I've gotten my ass whooped by my parents (who didn't pretend that this was going to hurt them more than it was going to hurt me), and on occasion, had to pick out Cyd's switch while he picked out mine after particularly nasty rounds of fisticuffs. I grew up with everyone knowing my name, in a tolerant family who didn't use race as a determinative factor of character, and will be the first lawyer in my entire family.

I'm proud of my roots, and I carry a lot of the same views as my parents. However, some of my views are inherently different than theirs, though we try not to hold it against each other. My dad and I, for the sake of not fighting, do not argue about religion or politics, because nothing good will ever come out of it (Danny is a birther, and apparently thinks Obama is from Africa, even after the "fake" birth certificate was released--not going to touch that with a ten foot pole). I didn't vote for Obama...I'm more of a Hillary kind of person, myself, which my dad will never.ever.get. My mother is more liberal than my father, but still drives me crazy because she doesn't believe in donating her organs because they might kill her for her body parts (and always thinks she's right, but again, not going to touch that). Regardless, I'm thankful for them allowing me to make my own decisions and form my own viewpoints, which is more than most kids have going for them.

I began this particular blog to discuss the issue of marriage, but instead, I think I'm going to use it as a prologue for the next couple of days' entries. I'll use it to preface my thoughts regarding a few different topics I believe in, and let it stand as is.

Unlike many moderates/liberals, I'm not ashamed of my conservative background. I may not be jumping on a tea party bandwagon, but I definitely think there's a lot to be learned from either side of the party lines, and am glad I was raised with an open mind and the chance to cut past the partisan bullshit. It's important to have a dialogue in order to grow, and I have the chance to engage in that dialogue every time I go home.

Thanks, Danny and Maxine, even if I sometimes think you're kinda crazy.