Archive for category Politics & Religion
A quote
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion on November 6, 2008
“The greatest evil is not now done in the sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”
–The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
How Cable Should Be
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion, TV on October 2, 2007
If you’re tired of paying for cable TV networks you don’t watch and find offensive, visit HowCableShouldBe.com – It lets you vote for the networks you watch and are willing to pay for. It tells you how much you could save if we were allowed to choose. It also lets you send your vote to your representatives in Washington so they can help make Cable Choice a reality.
I would certainly welcome this. We’re currently paying for Dish Network’s “America’s Top 200″ package – for one station (Discovery Health). Even the Top 100 package has far more channels than we ever actually watch. And I would just as soon completely get rid of all the sports channels, Bravo, Fuse, MTV, etc.
MoveOn.org Gets Discount Rate for ‘Betray Us’ Advocacy Ad
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion on September 13, 2007
Despite claims of “journalistic integrity”, the fact is that media bias is a reality. You just wouldn’t think an entity as large as the New York Times would be so blatant about it:
Jake Tapper at ABC News reported that MoveOn.org paid $65,000 for its full page anti-war advocacy sliming of General David Petraeus. This figure raised the suspicions of attentive blogger Confederate Yankee whose intuition appears to be correct. While looking up the current New York Times rate book he discovered that MoveOn.org received a $102,000 discount on the standard political advocacy rate that is advertised at $167,157.
For a newspaper that pretends to be objective purveyors of news this discount seems a bit steep for the deep pocketed liberal advocacy group. In fact the amount MoveOn paid is less than any rate listed in the New York Times schedule.
MoveOn.org Gets Discount Rate for “Betray Us” Advocacy Ad
Virginia Tech and the church response
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion, Rants on April 17, 2007
The situation at Virginia Tech is tragic – a horrible thing that shouldn’t have occurred. What disgusts me is how quickly something like this becomes politicized – especially from the church. Take for example, the National Council of Churches (an organization supported by most mainline denominations)… what do you think their main story would be today? Prayers of healing and hope for the victims’ friends and family? Reassuring us that even in the midst of tragedy God is still in control and grieves with us? Nope… it’s “Virgina Tech tragedy demands gun control”.
Of course, they ignore the fact that a) there are already over 30,000 laws on gun restrictions in the US alone, b) Virginia Tech already has a no guns on campus policy, and c) crazy people intent on committing murderous rampages are not particularly concerned with breaking the law in the first place.
The real problem is the twisted heart and total disrespect for human life from the shooter. The fact that firearms were involved is only a symptom of a much bigger, internal problem. It’s not a problem with the laws, it’s a problem of the soul. THAT is what the church needs to be focusing on – not exploiting this evil act in a ham-fisted attempt at playing politics.
Abortion staff ignores baby boy born alive
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion on April 28, 2005
This is a very disturbing article, with heartbreaking photos. But it’s something that must be seen:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43962
His right leg moved. He curled up a bit like he was cold; I screamed for Violene! No one came. I managed to get to the doorway, pants down, blood everywhere and yelled again. I went back to my baby. I heard her say she’d be right there.
I showed her Rowan, told her he was alive and moving and to call 911! She took a quick look, said he’s not moving now and she’d be back to take care of things while walking out. I called her again. I was touching Rowan softly and he moved again. I called her back. Rowan jumped, I think startled by the loud sound of my calling for help. I showed her that he was moving and alive. I begged her to hurry and call 911, now!
She said for me to lie down and she would get her supervisor. No one came.
How such barbarity is not only tolerated, but even encouraged in this society, continues to sicken me. You can take all your arguments about “a woman’s choice” and “reproductive rights” and shove ‘em. The bottom line is, a child is killed every time an abortion is performed. To the tune of 30 million in the past 30 years. Yet we allow this to continue to happen.
Posting for the sake of posting
Posted by Lane in Blogging, Cancer, Health & Fitness, Politics & Religion on March 28, 2005
Well, I haven’t been able to bother with updating the blog lately. I’ve thought about writing about the Terri Schiavo case, but it just makes me so mad I can hardly see straight. My employer’s handling (or lack thereof) has been a big part of my frustration. They give a lot of lip service to how everyone should be treated equally, how all life is valuable, etc… except when it conflicts with their political (i.e. liberal) agenda. Then it’s just a pithy statement about difficult choices that gets buried under much less important news.
Anyway, enough of that. The real reason I meant to post is for a health update. I’m quickly approaching the two year anniversary of my initial cancer diagnosis, and so far so good… the only real issue I’ve had since then was my weight gain. I went from 188 after my first round of chemo, to over 210 at my heaviest earlier this year. Now that’s understandable for a while – chemo really saps your energy, well after the treatments are finished. And the testosterone imbalance I was dealing with this time last year didn’t help things either, not to mention the SSRI anti-depressants I was taking which often cause weight gain.
But at the start of the year, I realized that I no longer could blame any of those things for my newfound girth. Chemo was well in the past, my testosterone was at a good level, and had been off the lexapro for six months. The only thing stopping me from losing weight was me. So about two months ago I started running again, and following the South Beach diet… while I haven’t done either the running or the eating plan very strictly, the weight has come off… I’m now down to about 197 – the first time I’ve been under 200 since the summer of 2003. I seem to have leveled off for the time being, but I’m hoping I can get down to the mid 180s by the time summer rolls around.
Low church attendance? Must be the building!
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion on March 14, 2005
At a commission meeting I went to last month, a woman brought up the issue of the attendance at churches in the Northeastern Conference (read: New England) was dropping dramatically. Her theory was that the churches up there are old, with cathedral ceilings (“Evil”-looking, as she put it), etc. and it was a turn off to young people. That left me dumbfounded… the facility has nothing to do with it. But that always seems to be the proposed solution. Low attendance? Build a new sanctuary/rec center/administrative wing/etc!!!!
Let me suggest another theory as to why the New England United Methodist churches (and the entire UMC outside of Africa, for that matter…) are losing members at an alarming rate:
Tthe attitude among a large part of the United Methodist Church (and many mainline Protestant churches) as a whole is that there are many interpretations of the Bible, many different versions of the Truth. It’s all good… believe what you want to believe, and as long as you’re not a terrible human being, it really doesn’t matter what you do, say, think, or believe. But whatever you do, don’t be “intolerant” (but that’s a rant for a different day…)
The problem with this attitude is this: if all beliefs are permissible, what’s the point of the church? What purpose does it serve? I can get a big heaping helping of “all truths are equally valid” from the secular world. Why would I waste my time at church, when I can hear that same message from every corner of our society?
Newsflash – most people don’t go to church for a wishy-washy feel good message. Some do, but I’d argue that the majority do not. They go to church for Answers – for the Truth. They want to know what God (via the Bible) has to say about life, how to live it, and what to expect after it. You don’t get that in the Methodist church for the most part. I grew up in the Methodist church, sat through hundreds of sermons. And other than the scripture reading from the lectionary before each sermon, that’s about the only time the Bible is directly touched upon. The sermon will usually make some comment in passing on that scripture or some other well-known verse, but as far as in-depth study of scripture? Completely non-existent during the actual church service. There is very little “meat” to the message.
Like the old nursery rhyme says, the church is not the building, the church is not the steeple. A church’s success is not based upon the facility. Some of the fastest growing churches are located in high school auditoriums across the country. The building is irrelevant. The *message* is what draws people into the church, and the lack of a message that *matters* is what will push people away.
Breast Cancer Foe Gives Big $$ to Top Abortion Provider
Posted by Lane in Cancer, Politics & Religion on February 22, 2005
(CNSNews.com)- A foundation that uses events such as the “Race for the Cure” to raise money to fight breast cancer is jeopardizing women’s health by using some of those funds to support local chapters of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, according to a former advisor to the foundation.
Planned Parenthood clinics provide breast cancer screening and education, but the organization is also the nation’s top abortion provider.
“You can’t affirm life with one hand and support an organization that kills people with the other…”
Sad. Read the entire article here: Breast Cancer Foe Gives Big $$ to Top Abortion Provider
Atheism
Posted by Lane in Politics & Religion on February 10, 2005
Atheism: the belief system devoted to the worship of one’s own sense of self-satisfaction.
I’ve often heard the argument from atheists that all religion is inherently evil. But atheism itself is a religion. Religion is, at it’s basest level, the worship of *something* – The Christian religion is worship of Jesus, the Islamic religion is the worship of Allah, etc. And atheism is basically the worship of self… but the quote above expresses that sentiment much better than I ever could 
Fin (Part Three)
Posted by Lane in Cancer, Politics & Religion on September 13, 2004
Vegas
So thankfully, my white blood cell count was back up to normal by the time I left for Las Vegas. Otherwise I would’ve had to inject myself with the Neupogen, and that simply wasn’t going to happen.
But of course, *something* had to come up while I was on the trip… For whatever reason, I started worrying about having cancer on the other side as well. It’s rare, but it does happen – though usually not at the same time. So I spent the better part of the trip constantly worried about that. After consulting with the urologist, he confirmed that they did check during my initial exams, and there were no signs of carcinoma in situ.
All that worrying combined with exhaustion from the chemo, the heat in Vegas (113 degress!), and all the walking we did, *AND* the indigestion I was dealing with, it wasn’t the ideal vacation. But all things considered we had a good time, and I won $80 in one hand of video poker, so I can’t complain too much.
Round Deux
As soon as I got back, I started the second cycle… another week of 6 hour days and liters upon liters of IV drips, followed by three weekly Bleo treatments. They checked my AFP levels for the first time since I started chemo, and it had dropped to 20, which was great news – the drugs were definitely doing their job.
The days all kind of run together in my memory at that point – nothing particularly memorable happened. My white and red blood cell counts were low, but stayed in the safe range, so I didn’t need any more shots. Still, the needles for getting my chemo wasn’t getting any easier. Today, I can deal with needles as long as I’m feeling well, but when I was already queazy, it’s much more difficult getting stuck.
The weekend after the first week of the second and third cycles weren’t as bad as the first, as I knew what to expect and didn’t have the bad indigestion pains like I did the first go-round (Thank you Nexium!)
During the second and third cycles, once they got the IV going, I usually went straight to sleep – at least until they hit me with the diuretic, then it was to the restroom every 20 minutes. I saw a lot of people come and go in the Circle o’ Death, most of whom were much worse off than me. There was the man who came in with his wife and daughter, where I heard that he was stage IV (the worst), and his blood counts were simply too low to handle any more chemo. I don’t know what happened to him, but outside of a miracle, he’s probably dead now. And the guy who not only had cancer, but full blown AIDS as well. And all the lung cancer patients, who will never be cured – they can only hope to extend their lives by a few months or years. In comparison, I had it easy – 12 weeks, and chances are I’m cured for good. While I had my down moments, by and large I just couldn’t feel too sorry for myself. I imagine most of the other people there would trade places with me in a heartbeat.
When I wasn’t getting pumped full of drugs, I spent most of my time at Mom’s house… watched a lot of TV, simply because there wasn’t much else I could do. Using the computer or playing video games made me sick to my stomach after a short while – something about the motion of the screen. But even TV grew old quickly. I watched so much Game Show Network and Learning Channel. And Futurama – lots of Futurama. Entire TV seasons on DVD is the greatest thing ever. Unfortunately this was also around the time that you couldn’t get away from the Affleck/Lopez saga… I swear, you couldn’t go an hour without hearing *something* about them. Yeah, that was one relationship that stood the test of time…
I never really noticed the “metallic” taste in my mouth that chemo patients often experience. But nothing really tasted good either – everything was just bland. I made the mistake of eating a lot of everything in the hopes that *something* would taste good. It rarely did. Unfortunately, the calories still counted, so over the course of my treatment my weight jumped from 188 to over 210 – and I’m still having trouble losing that extra weight.
The third cycle started in early August, and went relatively smoothly. The second cycle of chemo drove my AFP down even further – around 9, if I remember correctly. Still a little bit on the high side, but nothing to be worried about. I was essentially in the clear.
Remission
So September 4th rolled around, and I went in for my final treatment. It was rather anti-climactic, but I was just happy to be done! Of course, that night the chemo side effects were the worst they had been in at least a month, but the next day I was feeling better. No more needles for at least a month, and hopefully no more chemo EVER!
Though as soon as I thought I was in the clear, we had a scare after my one month checkup… my AFP levels were up. The normal range for AFP is below 8.5 Mine was close to 11. I didn’t think it was anything to be concerned about (as I had read that anything under 20 was good), but the doctors were worried about it. They admittedly hadn’t had much experience with testicular cancer patients, so they wanted to err on the side of caution. I went to see a specialist at Vanderbilt, who said it wasn’t anything to worry about. As long as it wasn’t moving steadily upward, some fluctuation was normal.
About that time I also developed peripheral neuropathy – a numbness in the feet and hands. It wasn’t too severe, although it made playing guitar somewhat painful. Thankfully it went away after a few months.
In October my hair started growing back – I remember going to a movie one Saturday night, and noticing all these tiny light hairs in the restroom mirror – I missed a good 10 minutes of the movie just admiring my new follicular growth. It came in slowly at first, but by my birthday on the 22nd, you could tell that I actually had a hairline. It was a pretty low-key birthday – just me, Mom, and Molly – but I was happy just to have another one.
My October and November check ups went OK – I was still tired all the time, but I didn’t worry too much about it. I had read of other cancer patients who felt the effects of chemo as much as a year after the fact. In December I started working out again, and by Christmastime, I was starting to feel more like my old self. But that didn’t last very long – in February and March I started feeling more and more run down. I would sleep for a full 12 hours every night, and a lot of my body hair that I had regrown after the chemo was starting to fall out again. Thanks to the Testicular Cancer Resource Center website, I knew that this was a sign of low testosterone. Approximately 1/3rd of all testicular cancer patients deal with this… I had my levels checked, and sure enough, I was running on empty. In April I started on Angrogel, a testosterone supplement. While I still get tired more quickly than I used to, it has helped quite a bit.
After the Fact
So here I am, a year after the fact, but it seems like it was just yesterday. While I am well in remission and probably won’t have a recurrence, I don’t want to use the word “cured”. For example, on the TC listserv I’m on, out of 607 members, five have died from testicular cancer in the past two months. Some lived 20 years after their initial diagnosis, some only a handful of months. Which just goes to show that no matter how effective the treatment is, cancer is a devious, devastating disease which refuses to go away quietly. All things considered, I am incredibly fortunate, but nothing is 100%. I realize that I’ll probably die from cancer – if not testicular cancer, some other form. But I’m OK with that. If I live for another 31 years, I’ll be very happy.
My family was such a source of strength through all this. I can’t imagine having to go through something like this alone. I’m especially grateful for my mom, who not only took care of me, but also took care of her mother during that time *and* taught school during the day. If I were in her place, I don’t think I could have handled it – but she did.
Physically I’m doing OK – I still need to lose a dozen or so pounds which refuse to come off, and I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass compared to where I was last May. But it’ll all come around eventually. I’ve moved closer to work, so I have more time during the day to exercise now. My hair, which grew back in curly, has gone back to it’s regular state.
Mentally and emotionally, it’s a mixed bag. On one hand, I’m over my fear of having cancer. Sure, I worry about it returning, but it’s not the crippling fear I had before. As I said in the first part, it wasn’t dying that scared me – it was the chemo and the needles. And now that I’ve gone through it, I know I can do it again if I have to.
On the other hand, I still worry and get upset about petty things. I get angry a lot quicker than I used to. And that makes me mad You think of cancer being a life-altering event, which it is. It really drives home the point of how fragile life is, and how short our time is here on earth. Yet I spend way too much time worrying about my job, getting mad at the people in traffic, wondering if I’ll always be alone, etc. None of that should matter, but it does. We just fall back into our usual patterns far too quickly.
With all of that being said, the biggest thing I’ve learned is that God is in control. Even if I don’t believe that every moment of every day, or at least behave like I don’t, I know that he is there when we really need him. A few years ago I read somewhere that God will send a storm at 30 so we can handle a hurricane at 60. I’m not sure I want to know what awaits me at 60, but I now know that through Him, I can handle anything.
Whew – well, that’s all folks. Hopefully that is the end of my cancer saga!