I’ve neglected this blog… so much has been going on… I want to start over… fresh and new…
so I shall: http://delightwithintheveil.wordpress.com/
©PortCityPrincess 2009
All Rights Reserved
How fun and thought provoking is THIS (it’s the Foreword from a book that I’m buying tomorrow, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman):
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
Woot! Can hardly wait to dive in! Have you read it? I’ve missed y’all… but have been having a great time, learning TONS of fun and inspiring “stuff”!!!
♥
©PortCityPrincess 2008
All Rights Reserved
“God is not an elusive dream or a phantom to chase, but a divine person to know. He does not avoid us, but seeks us. When we seek Him, the contact is instantaneous.”
The God of the universe– the One who created everything and holds it all in His hand– created each of us in His image, to bear His likeness, His imprint. it is only when Christ dwells within our hearts, radiating the pure light of His love through our humanity that we discover who we are and what we were intended to be.
“In the very beginning it was God who formed us by His Word. He made us in His own image. God was spirit and He gave us a spirit so that He could come into us and mingle His own life with our life. ” ~Madame Jeanne Guyon
“Made in His image, we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge through what He has communicated to us.” ~Francis Schaeffer
“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete.” Colossians 2:9 (NASB)
©PortCityPrincess 2008
All Rights Reserved
We made a fun family memory the other night thanks to Sci-Port and Duane “Digger” Carey!!!
We had the BEST time and Digger Carey and his wife were absolutely precious!
Lydia takes advantage of Noah’s love of ice-cream and captures the conversation!
Talking shop.
Mr. Digger sharing the secrets of bodily functions in space!
Lydi-Lou doesn’t want or need help making paper airplanes ANYMORE! She can follow directions all by herself! She’s so BIG!!!
Ta-da!!!
Learning about galaxies.
Making a spiral galaxy.
Learning about galactic bulges.
What fun!
Digger pretending to scribble all over Noah’s back, after signing his NASA hat.
Noah can’t be fooled! 🙂
©PortCityPrincess 2008
All Rights Reserved
My King is on His throne, and perfect love casts out fear. I am not afraid, yet I will fight and be responsible. Resting in Christ is not synonymous with political complacency… or complacency of any sort.
While Charles consistently reads Romans 13 to me, to keep my heart in check (it can be quite funny to see him following me around with his bible, while I’m fuming), we are agreed that when it comes to the government passing out laws and policies that are expressly against the law of God, we will NOT submit. We may have to move, but we will not submit. Of course, with a one world government looming, I’m not sure where we’ll move… perhaps a houseboat. I should start stockpiling Dramamine.
I am not a 9/11 “truther” I confess, I’ve not done the research. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, either. Not in any way, shape, or form. I am a Christian. I am a wife, and a mom. I want to be responsible and diligent. I want to do what I can to keep my children safe and secure. I am happy that God put me in America. I think of something Ayaan Hirsi Ali said, “I know that there are many things wrong with America, and I know there are many things wrong with Americans, but I still believe it’s the best nation in the world.” And I agree… as messed up as America has become, we are still the greatest nation in the world. I am happy, though, that my hope is not in America. My hope is not in Ron Paul and what he can do for America (though he is a practical tool in our call to diligence and good stewardship). My hope is in Christ and His finished work. He is my King and His is my Kingdom. I am an alien… a foreigner, just passing through. But I want to be a good steward with this gift that God has given me.
Oh my!!! In any case, I ramble… all of this to introduce a video. I think it’s worth your nine minutes… not to make you afraid… but to keep you informed and vigilant.
While you’re watching/listening, keep in mind… there are MANY things you probably don’t know much about. For instance… do you know anything about the Merida Initiative? The U.S. is giving $1.4 BILLION… yes… that is with a B… $1.4 BILLION of YOUR tax dollars to MEXICO to secure THEIR southern border. Oh! You didn’t know?!?
For crying out loud, I could rant forever, but I’ve loads to do today… I have other responsibilities! Laundry… reading to babies… etc, etc, etc.
Just watch this video and think… while it’s still legal for you to do so.
I have GOT TO GO!!!
But before I do… think about our good and loving God:
“The beloved of the LORD dwells in safety.The High God surrounds him all day long,
and dwells between his shoulders.”
Pretty hard to be afraid, isn’t it?!?
Okay! I’m really going now! Sorry about the rambling… It’s difficult to write with two adorable munchkins climbing on me and kissing me and begging for me to put together their kites! 🙂
©PortCityPrincess 2008
All Rights Reserved
I did! It was fairly fast and lots of fun!
I wouldn’t have said I was a “radical libertarian”… but this test is pretty darn accurate!
Feel free to question me! 🙂 I’d LOVE it!
| Radical Libertarian You scored 84% Personal Liberty and 89% Economic Liberty! |
| A radical libertarian believes in little to no government intervention for both personal and economic matters. A radical libertarian generally believes in one out of these two options: (1) A government that is extremely small and limited to the extent of protecting people’s liberty – this view is known as Minarchism (2) No government at all, in which the private sector takes up all legitimate functions that a government would have – this view is known as Anarcho-Capitalism. Radical Libertarians tend to be strongly opposed to war, police powers, victimless crimes, foreign intervention and what they consider to be a welfare state. Radical Libertarians tend to be inspired by the Austrian school of economics, classical liberalism and 19th century individualist anarchism. Libertarian thought is individualist in nature. They try to protect both personal and economic liberty. Examples of Radical Libertarianism would be Murray Rothbard, H.L. Mencken, Ludwig Von Mises and Lysander Spooner. |
 |
This test tracked 2 variables. How the score compared to the other people’s:
|
Higher than 91% on Personal | ||
|
Higher than 96% on Economic |
| Link: The Politics Test |
I feel violated!
When we left for church this morning, our Ron Paul sign was prominently displayed in the front yard.
When we came home at about 5.30 this afternoon… it was GONE!!!
WHAT ON EARTH?!?
That is STEALING!
Who would DO such a thing?
I know there’s nothing I can do about it, but I’m so angry and irritated, and a bit frightened that someone would STEAL from us and in BROAD DAYLIGHT!!!
I don’t care that it was a Ron Paul sign… What bothers me is that someone WALKED INTO OUR YARD and STOLE something that did not belong to him/her. He/she came onto our private property and STOLE our belongings… our property. The THIEF had no right to do such a thing.
seething and a bit hurt,
Tina
©PortCityPrincess 2008
All Rights Reserved
There used to be an organization for people who believed in a truly limited government — limited taxes, limited spending, limited interference in individual lives and limited intervention in foreign affairs. That organization was known as the Republican Party. But the only one of those beliefs that still motivates the G.O.P. establishment is limited taxes. In 2008, people who still hold all of them joined the Ron Paul Revolution.
But now the revolution is ebbing. Congressman Paul’s new campaign finance report shows that he’s raised nearly $35 million, including more than any other Republican candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007, and he’s inspired remarkable passion among the kind of diehards who hold up campaign signs on highway overpasses and post irate comments on obscure blogs. But the presidency isn’t decided on YouTube or Technorati. Paul didn’t win any Republican primaries, and he recently conceded that “victory in the conventional sense is not available.”
Of course, nothing in Paul’s world is ever done in the conventional sense, so he has refused to drop out of the race and endorse the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Senator John McCain. Instead he argues that all Republicans should have “the right to vote for someone that stands for traditional Republican principles.” And he’s got a point.
The real significance of the Paul campaign is not the ubiquitous bumper stickers and lawn signs or the online fund-raising records ($6 million in one day, plus another $4 million, hilariously, on Guy Fawkes Day) but the mirror Paul held up to the modern Republican Party. When his fellow candidates denounced big government, Paul was there to remind them that President Bush and the G.O.P. Congress had shattered spending records and exploded the deficit. When they hailed freedom, Paul asked why they all supported the Patriot Act and other expansions of executive power. And when they called themselves conservatives, Paul asked what was so conservative about sending thousands of young Americans to try to transform the Middle East.
In some ways, Paul is a throwback to the frugal and isolationist wing of the old Republican Party, the fuddy-duddy GOP of Robert Taft and Calvin Coolidge. His fiscal policies evoke the idealistic Republican revolutionaries who seized control of Congress in 1994; he wants to abolish the IRS, the Departments of Homeland Security, Education and Energy, and most of the federal government. He refuses to vote for unbalanced budgets, and he has opposed spending taxpayer dollars on Congressional Medals of Honor, even for Rosa Parks or Pope John Paul II. Typically, his campaign has reported no debts, and still has more than $5 million in the bank. Meanwhile, Paul’s foreign policies evoke candidate George W. Bush’s call for a “humbler foreign policy” in 2000, although Paul goes much further; not only did he oppose U.S. involvement in Iraq, Kosovo and the war on drugs, he opposes U.S. involvement in the United Nations and NATO.
Under Bush’s leadership, of course, the Republican Party has been anything but frugal and anything but isolationist. The congressional Republican revolutionaries seemed to lose their zeal for shrinking the federal government once they controlled it, which is one reason voters expelled them from power in 2006. And these days, it’s usually Democrats who call for a humbler foreign policy. Paul’s leave-us-alone libertarianism hasn’t fit in with a party anxious to read our e-mail, improve our values, assert American power abroad and subsidize friendly industries at home. The party’s recent mix of “national greatness” neoconservatives, evangelical theoconservatives and K Street careerists has had many goals, but leaving people alone hasn’t been one of them. That’s why Paul was the one getting booed at G.O.P. debates. And that’s one reason why Paul’s fervent followers were banned from the activist Republican website RedState.
In fairness, though, another reason RedState’s directors got tired of the Paulistas was that so many of them seemed — what’s the polite word? — nuts. Paul’s supporters aren’t all black-helicopter paranoiacs, but the black-helicopter paranoiacs sure do support Ron Paul. The controversy over a few racist articles in his old newsletters was probably overblown; there’s no evidence that Paul himself was ever a racist. But he is an extremist — partly in the Barry Goldwater extremism-in-defense-of-liberty-is-no-vice sense of the word, but also in the wacky let’s-relitigate-the-currency-debates-of-the-1820s sense of the word. The late William F. Buckley wanted conservatives to stand athwart history yelling stop; Paul seems to want to slam history into reverse. The guy genuinely wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and start circulating gold again.
Still, even if you set aside Paul’s kookier ideas, there just doesn’t seem to be a road to the White House for any candidate who opposes the war in Iraq as well as higher taxes, the war on drugs as well as higher spending, restrictions on privacy as well as restrictions on guns. That’s a real “freedom agenda,” a true assault on big government, and while it clearly spoke to some angry dudes with high-speed web connections and time on their hands, it’s just as clearly not where America stands today. Paul didn’t have a lot of company on the House floor when he rose recently to complain about government overreach in the investigation of the disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned after revelations that he had been a customer of a high-end prostitution ring.
But even if Paul’s ideological purity is never going to get him to the White House, it does help illuminate the impurities — and sometimes the hypocrisies — of today’s Republicans, just as Ralph Nader can do for the Democrats. The G.O.P. candidates all claimed to defend taxpayers, but Paul was the only one who refused to accept a taxpayer-funded pension or taxpayer-funded junkets. The candidates all talked about shrinking big government, but Paul was the only one who included the Pentagon and NSA wiretaps and petroleum subsidies in his definition. Bush’s approval ratings have been abysmal for years, but Paul was the only Republican who really campaigned for change.
And in doing so Paul illustrated what was so striking about the Republican race. The leading candidates had all strayed from Bush and current orthodoxy in the past — Rudy Giuliani on abortion and gay rights, John McCain on tax cuts, torture, health care and campaign finance, Mitt Romney on just about everything. But while Paul was getting attacked every time he called for a new direction, the rest spent the primaries minimizing and renouncing their previous departures, implicitly promising four more years of Bushism. McCain is lucky he has some time to craft a new message, because that’s not where America stands today, either.
=========================
From the HSLDA E-lert Service…
=========================
Court of Appeal Grants Petition for Re-hearing
On March 25, the California Court of Appeal granted a motion for
rehearing in the ‘In re Rachel L.’ case–the controversial decision
which purported to ban all homeschooling in that state unless the
parents held a teaching license qualifying them to teach in public
schools.
The automatic effect of granting this motion is that the prior opinion
is vacated and is no longer binding on any one, including the parties
in the case.
The Court of Appeal has solicited a number of public school
establishment organizations to submit amicus briefs including the
California Superintendent of Public Instruction, California Department
of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and three
California teacher unions. The court also granted permission to
Sunland Christian School to file an amicus brief. The order also
indicates that it will consider amicus applications from other groups.
Home School Legal Defense Association will seek permission to file
such an amicus brief and will coordinate efforts with a number of
organizations interesting in filing briefs to support the right of
parents to homeschool their children in California.
“This is a great first step,” said Michael Farris, chairman of HSLDA.
“We are very glad that this case will be reheard and that this opinion
has been vacated, but there is no guarantee as to what the ultimate
outcome will be. This case remains our top priority,” he added.
———————————-
-> Extreme makeovers are for extreme circumstances…
Most homeschools don’t need an extreme makeover, but there is
something to be said for attention to detail and recognition of
accomplishments. Watch the media and you’ll soon see that not
everyone wants home educators and homeschooling to look good.
HSLDA works hard to shed light on the good work of home educators
so it’s obvious that we don’t need someone “making-over” our
homeschools. Join HSLDA and help us show the world that we’re fine
as we are . . . thank you!
More reasons to join HSLDA…
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1943
—————————————-
============================
The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of:
Home School Legal Defense Association
P.O. Box 3000
Purcellville, Virginia 20134
Phone: (540) 338-5600
Fax: (540) 338-2733
Email: info@hslda.org
Web: http://www.hslda.org
Delight Within the Veil 
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