Lee Habeeb at NRO uncovers the funny yet very serious problem of "disability" in America:
It happens all the time. I head out to the nearest mall to work through my weekly honey-do list. After spending five minutes securing a parking spot, I walk to my destination. As I pass the handicapped parking spaces located a hop and a skip from the entrance — the spaces reserved for people in wheelchairs, or really old people with walkers, or other genuinely handicapped people — I notice a car pull into one. It’s one of those Seinfeld moments, and I turn into George Costanza. Almost.
The first thing I do is stop and take a look at the license plate. And then I wait. And it happens like clockwork. Perfectly healthy human beings with handicapped-parking decals spring out of their cars and happily stroll right by me.
Of course they’re happy — they get the best parking spaces, and suffer no consequences.
Habeeb continues:
With regularity, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, airport employees witness people who falsely claim to be handicapped when they arrive at the airport. Having successfully cut to the front of the long security lines, these parasites jump out of their chairs the moment they’re through the screening process and race to their gates, bags in tow. Airport security sardonically calls these occurrences “airport miracles,” because the body scanners seem to possess mysterious healing powers.
Totalitarianism even with his eyes shut.
Sexualizing sports and our kids...
I just read this exceptional piece by "Courtney" titled "Having Babies {In Opposite World}" and feel she hits on something that I call the "Child-Hating Culture Epidemic." Here's how she begins:
I was scrolling through my facebook feed recently when a friend’s status hit me in the gut. Melanie, a beautiful young wife, from my church wrote:
Aside from my close friends and family…
How is it that 9 out of 10 people who talk to me about my pregnancy have negative things to say?? The comments are endless and quite creative in their effort to convince me that I should not be as thrilled as I am. It is usually prefaced by “JUST WAIT……(insert: miserable experience/undesirable life change)” Although they have me well prepared for “impending doom,” for now I will continue to be convinced that this is the most beautiful experience of my life thus far!
And now I will bask in all the flip-flopping glory that is happening inside my tummy right now. You can kick this mama all night long sweet little one:)
Enter my GASP! How is it that this young wife, who is pregnant for the first time, is encountering such negativity about her pregnancy?
And then I remembered back to my early 20′s and the prevailing culture that said – get your college degree before you have babies, travel a little before you have babies, your body is going to completely change after you have babies, have fun and live it up before you have babies, get yourself financially secure before you have babies. Be a responsible adult and wait wait wait to have those children…
This hit home with me because what I've been experiencing during my wife's third pregnancy is that having babies (AND preserving your virginity) seems to be the two subjects that get universally attacked, mocked, and to put it more softly, are not appreciated by most people in our society. My wife often provides this illustration:
Adding to Courtney's "JUST WAIT" list is this one I get often: "Oh, you got 3 girls, just wait in 10 more years...." So even after having children we can look forward to the constant chants from the worldly-wisemen cynics.
We live in a world that hates children. Children are the ONLY blessing from God we want to put limits on: "Sorry God, we only want two of your wonderful blessings." The post-modern mantra for having children should be: "A boy for me and a girl for you, thank God we're through."
Allow me a rough transition: Actions do speak louder than words and when you consider the age in which fathers allow their daughters to date unsupervised without even sitting down to get to know the boy let alone (God forbid) even want to get know his family--then consider what kind of process (if any at all) there would be if said father owned a Ferrari and said boy wanted to take it for a spin. Would the father want to meet the boy before tossing him the keys? Me thinks that the meet-and-greet would be only the beginning of the process.
Let me say it again: We love things more than our own kids!
Our actions say how much more we value things than our own kids. The Gosnell story is simply a small and terribly evil anecdocte highlighting our true feelings towards God's very precious gift.
With these kinds of blessings, God would have no need for cursings.
Note that Obama's speech at Planned Parenthood's national conference in Washington, D.C. today makes him the first sitting president to speak to Planned Parenthood.
UPDATE: I missed this the first viewing, but in the last minute Obama praises PP for "the lives you've saved."
I'm guessing Planned Parenthood would classify this as an "honor killing."
The video sets the mood for Obama's up-and-coming Friday morning speech at the annual gala for Planned Parenthood where he was originally set to be the key note speaker, but only recently decided to back out.
Planned Parenthood lobbyist, Alisa LaPolt [say it with me: where's my hyphen?] Snow appeared before the Florida State House and candidly answered this question posed to her from Rep. Jim Boyd (R). "If a baby is born on a table as part of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child struggling for life?"
Snow's response: "We believe that any decision that's made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician."
FL Rep. Jose Oliva's (R) response to Snow: "I think that at that point the patient would be the child struggling on the table."
FAIL.
Continuing on the "5" theme, here's a must-include UPDATE from the WSJ:
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is the fifth person since 9/11 who has participated in terror attacks after questioning by the FBI [emphasis added]. He was preceded by Nidal Hasan; drone casualty Anwar al Awlaki; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (born Carlos Leon Bledsoe), who murdered an Army recruit in Little Rock in June 2009; and David Coleman Headley, who provided intelligence to the perpetrators of the Mumbai massacre in 2008. That doesn't count Abdulmutallab, who was the subject of warnings to the CIA that he was a potential terrorist.
"Wow!" is right.
