Over-application of the Mary Sue

Warning: This contains spoilers about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Be warned before reading this.

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My warning is going to look really silly when I come back to read this post in five years from now.

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So let's talk about 'Mary Sue'. There have been people online who are claiming that the new heroine in the seventh Star Wars movie, Rey, is in some way far more of an unrealistic 'everything goes right and everyone loves her immediately' figure than, say, Luke Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker in the prequels.

I contest this, and want to present a comparison of Luke Skywalker in the very first Star Wars movie to Rey of Star Wars 7 as proof.

• Luke started out as a sheltered farm boy, his uncle trying to keep him from all notions of adventure and struggle, hoping to make him want to stay on the farm forever.
• Rey started out scavenging for a subsistence living. She had to defend herself, she had to make her own living space, and she had to deal with a rough crowd. She protested at what little she got for the stuff she brought in, but she had no ability to negotiate, and her feeble attempt was easily rebuffed. 

• When Luke found out that he was Force-sensitive and that the only parental figures he'd ever known were murdered and his home destroyed, he took a moment in grief and sadness and then chose to go with Kenobi and learn to be a Jedi.
• When Rey found out that she was Force-sensitive and was confronted with the knowledge that her family would never come back for her, she burst into tears and ran away.

• Luke got given a one-handed blaster - granted, we know he already knew how to use some sort of two-handed desert rifle thingy. He immediately got a near-perfect hit score with it from the start, and picked off stormtroopers and other targets with ease. He had no experience with a lightsaber or anything like it, yet he was passable with it from the start and, upon one iteration of Obi-Wan telling him to 'stretch out with his feelings', was able to pull a complex move out of nothingness (the Force) and could 'almost see the remote' despite fighting blind. He also picked up the Falcon ship guns remarkably quickly.
• Rey got given a blaster, had to be taught how to use it, forgot to take the safety off when she first tried, her first shots were laughably bad, and it took her several encounters of fighting for her life before she started managing some sort of accuracy with the thing. When she got the lightsaber, she tried to use it like a spear/staff, and was finally able to pull a complex move out of nothingness (the Force) when upon the very point of death. She managed, *barely*, to temporarily take down an already doubly-wounded foe once before they were separated by explodium.

• Luke was able, within hours of spending time with Kenobi, to utterly master the "hearing the voice of your mentor from beyond the grave" knack, which was something Yoda had given Kenobi to study and learn how to do over the eighteen or so years that he was going to spend in near-complete isolation on Tatooine. Never mind simply reaching to the Force; Luke was receiving instruction straight from his master. He was the one who took out the Death Star with one Force-placed shot.
• After a period of time of direct Force manipulation on her brain (not verbal instructions trying to describe a very subjective task), Rey was able to learn-while-doing how to pull back and catch Ren unawares. After that, she managed after something like *three or four* totally unsuccessful tries to turn a Stormtrooper - the very definition of the 'weak-minded' and basically the easiest possible prey - into doing her will for about half a minute. Look at her face when she's trying to escape and when she runs into her friends. She was terrified that her tenuous grasp on the situation would fail at any time. She had nothing to do with the destruction of the Starkiller. She didn't even know it was something to be destroyed.

• Luke was able to ferry Leia across a chasm with a fancy belt grapple. 
• Rey couldn't even carry Finn back to the ship; she had to get Chewbacca to do it.

• Luke climbed into an X-Wing with nothing but planet-based bush pilot experience and Force sensitivity and mastered it immediately. He already knew how to clean and fix up droids, and was giving R2 instructions on the fly on how to keep the damaged X-Wing going.
• Rey ran into the Falcon, which she had obviously worked with and worked on in the past, with planet-based bush pilot experience and Force sensitivity, and made several very rough starts and mistakes before getting a handle on how to maneuver the darn thing, while complaining about the lack of copilot. Then, on Solo's ship, she shorted out the *wrong* group of circuits and set the xenomorph-like creatures all loose. Whoops.

• Luke's very first encounter with the Bad Guys resulted in him making a plan to rescue the Princess, coaxing a reluctant smuggler to help, and pulling it off more or less.
• Rey's very first encounter meant managing to temporarily successfully run away, nearly getting the ship destroyed in the process. Then she was instantly utterly helpless in the face of Kylo Ren, who held her in place and then dropped her *easily*. Finally, she barely managed to escape with the help of her friends.

And yet she's the Mary Sue.

(By the way, do you want to know where the inspiration for Rey's outfit came from? There was a time when Lucas considered making Luke into a girl. The concept sketches were reused for Rey, just as a set of rejected concept sketches for R2D2 were used for BB8.)

I'm tired of female characters constantly having to ride that line between Helpless Flower and Mary Sue. Padme wasn't a Mary Sue? What about Uhura? Zoe? Delenn? Susan Ivanova? Andromeda Ascendant? Cortana? For that matter, what about Galadriel? Amalthea? Kira?

I was watching the CinemaSins "Everything Wrong With" videos for a while, until I got sick and tired of a consistent theme. They 'sin' a movie for a coincidence that makes the movie possible, and then they 'sin' the movie again for making an attempt fail until it succeeds. Folks, there are a million alternate universes where She walks into any coffee shop but His... but the one in which She walked into His is the one in which the story exists. There were no doubt dozens of girls who tried to grow up as scavengers on a desert planet and died young; this is the story about the one who lived. No doubt many women joined the Resistance and died in their first firefight; this is about the one who didn't. There are plenty of Force-sensitive people who cannot adapt to danger quickly enough and are snuffed out early; this is about the one who made it.

That's what stories *are*!

A Christian Nation when it suits us...

Back in the dark days before science and progress and all the things we prize so much, humanity was ruled mostly by a series of tribes led by a leader who claimed either direct godhood or speakership with godhood. 'For some strange reason', it seemed that the god particularly favored the leader in that it invariably gave orders resulting in the leader having whichever property, goods, and women he wanted. These ancient 'gods' also had a tendency to value peace while the tribe was doing well and then suddenly demand war when the leader wanted to expand his territory or saw another tribe as a threat. There is no doubt that this convenience had been noticed by other tribal members, but that little seed of doubt would remain... Human leaders can be toppled, but gods are quite a different story.

One of the radical innovations brought into the world by Judaism and then Christianity was a knowable God whose precepts did not change, and to whom every man, especially leaders, were answerable. King David was punished by God for exercising his 'divine leadership' in order to take Uriah's wife for himself; King Ahab was punished by God for taking Naboth's vineyard. Under God, a leader cannot claim divine right to what he pleases. This goes on to modern times... when religion has gone wrong, even Christianity during some historical ages and in some parts of the globe, at the center you can often find a human being using it in order to gain personal power.

Socialism, whether its pretend-private form (fascism) or outright state-control form (Communism), by necessity sees Christianity as a threat. Socialism, especially liberal socialism, teaches that the world can be made a paradise as long as everybody agrees to follow the rules laid down by the human beings who created it. This devotion to the State (and hence, they argue, to the community - though the State, which speaks for the 'god' of the community, seems to deliver edicts that benefit the State more than the people... how about that?) must be paramount, and any secondary devotion to the family or another god must be suborned or destroyed. This was touted as a brand new thing, a non-religious (and therefore, somehow, pure) type of government meant to bring us into a new age, but scratch the surface and you will find the same old pagan tribalism as before.

That brings us to today.

Now the role of homosexuality in our society and our attitude towards refugees from the Middle East are really separate issues, and I do honestly believe that those on both sides of both issues should be wary of this argument being produced and spread by liberal Democrats. Have I been the only one to notice that, when 'gay marriage' is being discussed, we are a 'secular nation', yet when Syrian refugees unwittingly harbor terrorists, we suddenly have a 'Christian duty' to let them in with current vetting (or lack thereof) procedures?

Never mind your feelings about gay sex or Muslim terrorists for the moment. Ask yourself this. Are we a Christian nation, required to follow Christian edicts on aiding the needy equally with Christian edicts on forbidding sexual immorality? Are we a nation which, for cultural effect even among those who do not follow Christianity, has public schools offer prayers to the Christian God? Are we a nation that imposes a religious litmus test for leadership?

Or are we a secular nation? Do we follow the desires of our Christian forefathers to make this a country in which, as Christianity does demand, we permit only voluntary conversion? Is this a place where an atheist can have equal access to government programs and justice? Is this a nation which does not ban practices which, though they may offend God, do not cause imminent harm to innocent bystanders? Do we approach national security and response to violence, not directly as followers of a Lamb to the sacrifice, but with a no-nonsense desire to safeguard our borders first? Do we examine social welfare programs based on their cost, their merit, and their effect on our freedom, rather than enshrining a religious zeal in government procedure?

If the Democrats do not want this to be a Christian Nation, then they cannot appeal to Christian duty when trying to push for open borders or social welfare programs. If the Democrats do want this to be a Christian Nation, then they cannot use the government to force people to accept gay sex as identical to marriage, or to refer to decorated trees on public property at Christmastime as "mitten trees", or to ever, in any context (even the correct one), make reference to the "separation of Church and State".

When Democrats vie for a "secular state" in permitting the social issues they wish to promote, and then turn around and demand our "Christian duty" in government-controlled, government-mandated practices they wish to demand, they are the same as the leaders of the ancient tribalism, declaring themselves to be God (or God's direct servant) and using claims of divine power in order to force us all to follow flawed human beings as if they were perfect.

The INTJ in Star Wars

The Meyers-Briggs personality sorter test is one of the most popular personality tests out there, such that it is even trusted in the educational and corporate world. Given that, it should come as no surprise that people have enjoyed illustrating the sixteen personality types in 'prayers', in soundbytes, and even in depictions of popular culture, which brings me to today's complaint. I am one of the rarest Meyers-Briggs types in existence, the female INTJ, and somehow I find that people never look past the word "mastermind" when trying to figure out which Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Twilight, or other such character fits the INTJ archetype. Somehow, for some reason, we are relentlessly typecast as the villain, even when the villain very clearly shows anti-INTJ traits!

Most Star Wars diagrams, for instance, claim that Emperor Palpatine is the INTJ in the series. There are several things severely wrong with this supposition. The INTJ does not seek power, and will only take it reluctantly if nobody else steps up to lead. Palpatine, on the other hand, actively disrupted existing systems in order to grab power. The INTJ, once in power, views his situation objectively and seeks efficiency, dwelling not on blame and punishment for mistakes, but merely on correcting the mistake and moving on. The INTJ is always making contingency plans, and is quick to change plans once he sees a problem with the status quo. Palpatine appears to lead by intimidation. The lead for the second Death Star's construction, if Palpatine had been an INTJ, would be glad to, as Vader put it, "explain it to the Emperor when he arrives" that they simply need more men to stay on schedule. The INTJ would evaluate the request, see if it seemed reasonable, and render an objective decision. Palpatine tended to slowly set up complicated plans, but he did not divert readily from them, even when they were beginning to go wrong. Finally, his very status as a Sith Lord casts the "T" and the "N" of his code into doubt, as the Dark Side of the Force is quicker and more easily accessed through anger, aggression, fear, and a desire for power.

Now, I am a properly-functioning INTJ. If the "bad guy" tended to be the INTJ, I would accept it, even though I do not like to think of myself as a "bad guy". In this case, though, as in most cases (Draco Malfoy is also often listed as an 'INTJ' even though he craves the approval of classmates who can barely speak and boasts about any rise in status that he might have been accorded), the shoe simply does not fit!

So who is the INTJ in Star Wars? The answer is not immediately obvious, until you look past the surface of each of these well-developed characters. The INTJ in Star Wars is Lando Calrissian.

Lando shows all of the traits of an INTJ through the two movies in which he participates. He cooperates reluctantly with Vader when it seems to be the best way to safeguard his people, but when he has had enough of cooperation, he clearly has already put a contingency plan into place. That plan is quickly and easily altered to meet the changing situation. Later, when he joins the Rebellion, he seems embarrassed about having been given the title of "General". He is not seeking power, but when it is thrust upon him, he takes his responsibility seriously. When he finds himself leading the Fleet into a trap, he figures it out first, and within a few minutes he has adjusted his strategy accordingly.

The INTJ action that impressed me the most, however, as an INTJ, was during his escape from Cloud City. He pulled out a microphone into the PA system, told his people that the Empire had taken direct control of the station, and urged them to leave before more Imperial troops arrive. This was not, in fact, a benevolent gesture, nor was it an evil action. He knew that the stormtroopers were uninterested in shooting civilians and would probably get into deep trouble if they did so. The Empire, reeling from the loss of the first Death Star, did not need news of an Imperial massacre to further encourage their enemies and risk increasing the forces of the Rebellion. So what did he do, when he sent that message? He filled the corridors with panicking families, making the stormtroopers work harder to find and safely target him and his companions, and giving himself the cover he needed to slip out a little more quietly. That level of quick-thinking and manipulation, able to dispassionately judge the level of danger and continuously change his plan in order to fit reality, is what makes an INTJ.

I have not yet found the INTJ in Star Wars or in Harry Potter. I can tell you for sure that neither Draco Malfoy nor Spock fit the bill.

Why should this be a Christian nation?

Talk about a hot topic, especially today. What does it mean, to be a Christian nation? Is this a Christian nation? We can run the gamut, from those who believe that everyone in this nation should be taught Christianity and Christian morality in public school, and that laws should be made to enforce Christian morality, to those who believe that the Founding Fathers weren't really Christians at all, and that the most important thing is to never make any law that supports any other religion's morality at all. (Unless it happens to also support the morality held by the person who is arguing the point, of course.)

Forget all of that for a moment.

There are a few very important things that Christianity in particular, more than any other religion, brings to the philosophy that created this nation and this nation's government. They won't be found simply by attending the right kind of church for the right number of years, or swearing your oath on a Bible instead of a Koran, or even being able to quote Bible verses without sticking your foot so far down your throat that you can kick your own a-.........butt. These are principles that are simple and easily observable in the Real World, yet, in the U.S. political party which has basically repudiated God altogether, at least one of the most important is being forgotten.

Human beings are corruptible.
Government is made of human beings.
Thus, government is corruptible.

I'm going to pick on Bernie Sanders again, because he represents the epitome of this claim. Business owners, he argues, can be corruptible, because their mission is greed. (It isn't. But that's another topic.) The government, on the other hand, can be safely trusted with any amount of power.

Let me give you an invaluable little tip about socialism. When socialists, even purveyors of "democratic socialism", use the term "the people", what they really mean is the government. This makes sense, actually, doesn't it? If the government officials are elected by the people, that means that they speak for the people, right? Therefore, they practically *are* 'the people'. What's good for them is what's good for us, because they are us.

The reason why this mindset becomes a problem, the reason why socialism in all its forms has never yet worked, is because it assumes that government representatives are able to represent The People purely and perfectly. However, each representative is his or her own human being, and human beings are corruptible.

Our government was set up the way it was in hopes of reducing and decentralizing power, because it was set up by people who understand the Christian notion that man is corruptible. They practically counted on corruption in politics. The reason for separation of powers was the hope that corruption could be cornered and countered, and not given the power it needs to metastasize.

This is similar to the dual-hydraulic system in automotive brakes. You could just have one brake line with one cylinder, to make your brakes work when you press on the pedal. Instead, you have two. Why? If you lose one brake line (this happened to me a few months ago, actually), you will have weak braking power instead of no braking power. The hope is that both lines won't go at the same time, and generally, minus deliberate sabotage, they won't. The Founding Fathers never assumed, as the Democrats do, that they could create a government with no failure points. They simply tried to design a government which could have failure points without destroying the whole.

Bernie Sanders is advocating for simpler, more streamlined systems with higher government control, more centralized, to reduce the number of steps between us and our government. He believes that it will be less expensive and easier to run a country if all citizens must answer to the Federal Government in as many parts of their lives as possible. The Federal Government gives you your health care. The Federal Government handles your college education. His problem is that he really does believe - or at least preach - as if the government is the only human invention that is incorruptible.

He isn't the only one on my hotseat today, as you may have guessed from my allusion to Bible verses. Obama has been using executive orders in an unprecedented way, to circumvent a Congress which he complains is "too slow" and may not believe that his way is the right way. He is basically doing the equivalent of speeding up automobile production and making vehicles less expensive by outlawing the dual-hydraulic system instead of, say, loosening Federal restrictions on which types of extra peripherals a car might contain or, perhaps, ending Federal taxes on auto manufacturing employees.

I'm sure it sounds like a great idea.... until the inevitable corruption hits, and someone has to slam on the brakes.

What makes Christianity important in this nation? One of the most important theological guidelines is, increasingly, one of the most neglected - human beings do not become incorruptible just because they work for the government.

Don't we know that by now?

The Sanders Contract

Free college! Crackdown on the banks! Bernie Sanders is gaining steam quickly, capitalizing on the anger of people who believe (not without reason) that they are being oppressed by the Corporations, the CEO's, the "1%". When the crowds form, though, they don't understand what Sanders truly stands for, and what they are truly signing up for when they support him.

Let's say that you live in a neighborhood with a few lower-income housing areas, a bunch of reasonably nice houses, and this one mansion up at one end. It is owned by a total jerk. He wolf-whistles at women when they try to jog through the neighborhood. He throws loud parties at night. His vehicle's engine has been modified to sound like a roar, and it grates on your nerves every time he drives by. He is making your neighborhood unhappy.

Now, if he were any of you, he would be taken down by noise ordinances and harassment laws. However, the government keeps granting him special privileges and special permissions, because he is rich, and he pays more through taxes than the rest of you combined. He is, to borrow the phrase, "too big to fail".

One day, a Federal agent comes to your door and offers to rid you of this problem. "I can initiate house inspections on his mansion whenever I please, and cite him for the silliest infractions," he says. "I can change the environmental standards to make his car modification illegal. I can even set caps on the size of house he is allowed to own, and change them at will."

Everyone likes this idea. He offers them a contract, and they barely glance through it before signing it. Now they'll finally get rid of the nuisance.

However, the contract contains these clauses. They give the Federal agent the right to initiate house inspections on any house in the neighborhood whenever he pleases. He can change the environmental standards on all cars in the neighborhood. He can set neighborhood-wide caps on the houses that everyone is allowed to own, and change them at will. In short, anything he is allowed to do to this jerk neighbor, he is allowed to do to you. A couple of people notice this and ask him about it. His response: "Oh, I'm sure that you will never have a big enough house or a loud enough car for this to affect you."

Do you trust him?

What is the alternative? Hillary Clinton is the one claiming that the jerk is too big to fail. What about the Republicans? Well, most of them are of one mind on the issue. Picture now a different Federal agent entering the neighborhood.

"Well, if we were to have the power to harass him in his home, we would have the power to harass you in your homes, and I don't think you want to give that away. If we could decide how big his house can be, we would decide how big yours can be. Do you really want to limit your ambitions? What we can do is to remove the government privileges which safeguard him from harassment charges and nuisance fines. No, it probably won't drive him out of the neighborhood altogether, but at least he will know that he has to behave himself, and it'll be better for all of you."

So here's the question, then. Are you so determined to "punish the rich", to hate the "1%", to see to the ruin of another human being (however justifiable it may seem), that you are willing to give the government the power to decide whether or not you will be the next target?

If so, then vote for Bernie Sanders, and may he have mercy upon you.

Search for the Cure

I heard yesterday that the Federal Government has now spent over $3.5 million on an ongoing HHS study on "why lesbians are fat". More specifically, they are trying to find out why nearly three-quarters of lesbians are overweight or obese, while obesity risk doubles in gay men compared to heterosexual men.

The person who advanced the news item had a typical conservative viewpoint on it. How ridiculous, that we should be wasting taxpayer dollars, the money that is paid to the government even by people who struggle to make their own mortgages and food budgets, on fat homosexuals! It is doubly silly from the viewpoint of a conservative Christian, who will naturally believe that the simplest way to solve the problem is to not openly encourage and laud open homosexual behavior, due to the various harms that it already causes on its own, regardless of what it may do to your figure.

I'd like to look at it differently for a moment. The people who should be most up-in-arms about this study are actually the homosexuals themselves, especially the activists. Why? Consider the ramifications of this: What if they found something?

No, really. Think about this for a moment. What if scientists, backed by Federal Government money, found a link? What if they found a chemical imbalance, or even a faulty genetic expression, that increased the chances of both homosexual desire and obesity? What if we could "cure gay" and "cure obesity" at the same time, with a single supplement?

What if they succeeded?

Wouldn't the gay activists all be thrilled? For all these years, they have been painting themselves as the eternal victim. These poor young folk, you see, none of them want to be gay. None of them hope they are gay. They are only now embracing this desire because it's the only way they can feel good about themselves! They are what they are, and there's nothing they can do about it! If they could "not be gay", they'd do it in a heartbeat! They've tried so, so hard, the poor dears!

No doubt there are many of the rank-and-file who would jump at the chance. But would people who have built a livelihood on their victim status, people like Ellen Degeneres or George Takei, would they jump at the chance to take a simple supplement that would make them attracted to the opposite sex?

What if Science proved, for a fact, that homosexual desire was the result of a chemical imbalance?

How would the gay activist groups respond if parents started asking for their children to receive the supplement? What if pediatricians recommended it? What if it was the best possible way to prevent child and adult obesity? Would the government consider this a good thing or a bad thing?

What if the Federal Government issued a mandate through the Department of Health and Human Services - which both funds this study and has unprecedented control over our healthcare system thanks to the "Affordable" Care Act - requiring all Americans to have their sexual desire chemicals balanced in the name of preventing another "Obesity Epidemic"?

Suppose it was confirmed, in a way they could not ignore, that homosexual behavior was the result of something going wrong?

Remember the brouhaha about waterboarding Muslim terrorist suspects at Gitmo? What if the chemical imbalance can be shifted the other way? What if it gets out that American doctors can turn captured Islamists gay? What are the moral implications of that?

Frankly, it should be the gay activist groups who riot against the Federal Government spending money on a study that has a possibility of "curing gay". And in the grand scheme of things, with Obamacare costing nearly three trillion dollars in ten years, Obama's new environmental regulations costing Americans over 400 billion dollars, and nearly 800 million dollars paid in 'wages' to Federal employees who are on paid leave while awaiting verdicts in disciplinary actions, this particular little study is peanuts. There is so much more that a conservative Christian can work on before we even worry about a government study linking obesity with homosexual identity.

Can the gay activists say the same?

The Ying and the Yang

Does everyone know what a yinyang is? At this point, I would be surprised if you did not, especially among my usual body of readers, who tend to be well-educated. Let me lay out out, just to be sure. A yinyang is that funny symbol with a white swirl and a black swirl meeting each other, in identical sizes and shapes, making up a circle when placed together. The white swirl has a black dot in its largest area, and the black has a white dot in its largest area.

The yinyang is a Traditional Chinese symbol. European mythology has generally contrasted light and dark with good and evil, or with purity and sin. Buddhists don't do this. The yinyang represents, not enemies matching each other with equal power, but two differing and unopposing powers of equal strength, who need each other to survive. The white brings out the black; the black brings out the white. Remove one, and they both suffer. In the excellently-written "Avatar: The Last Airbender" series, the Moon and Ocean spirits are depicted as a black and white fish swimming around each other. The Moon and the Ocean, as mythical creatures as well as scientific entities, act upon each other, but are not considered adversaries.

The element "yin" is female, and the element "yang" is male.

So let's pretend for a moment that you are an old practitioner of Chinese Traditional beliefs. You have a little shop in town, where you sell yinyang pendants, other pendants like the multicolored, five-pointed star, herbs and spices, and about eight different flavors of Pocky. The adults like the spices, the teens like the pendants, which they wear carelessly (but that doesn't bother you), the kids love the Pocky.

One day, a young woman enters your shop, wearing a pendant that depicts a big black spot. Trying to make conversation, you admire her black spot pendant. To your surprise, she screams and curses at you and tells you that it is a yinyang. Puzzled and confused, trying to pull yourself together under her onslaught, you try to explain the concept of the yinyang and why it is not a black spot... why the yang is as important as the yin and the yin as important as the yang. She tells you that you're a racist bigot and an idiot, threatens to burn down your house, and storms out of the shop, leaving you shaken.

Over the next few months, you start seeing this more and more. People enter the shop with black pendants or white pendants and insist that they are yinyangs. You don't really care if they want to wear black or white pendants. You are a bit concerned that they think these are yinyangs, but any attempts to explain otherwise are met with open hostility and, at times, threats. You keep up your shop, you are happy to explain your traditions to those who ask, and you delight in explaining how yinyang equivalents can be found in almost any other culture out there, including their own... but you have learned to tense up and shut up when you see someone wearing a black pendant or a white pendant.

Then the government, one day, declares that since you sell yinyang pendants (to anybody who wants them, as always), you are required to manufacture and sell white dots and black dots to anybody who wants them (which you honestly wouldn't mind doing and have already done a few times), and you are specifically required to label them as "yinyang pendants" (which is the part that bothers you). On that very same day, people come into your shop, screaming insults at you when they realize you haven't decided whether to lie about Traditional Chinese symbols for the sake of your income or close your shop entirely. "Your rights aren't being affected," they insist, "because you are allowed to say that the black and white symbol is a yinyang as long as you do it very quietly in your house while you're engaging in acts of meditation." Then they start mocking you. "The government hasn't redefined yinyang at all, and I bet you can't prove otherwise!" they say, and when you try to explain the history of your people and the yinyang equivalents of other cultures, they tell you that you are stupid and uneducated, and, therefore, nothing you say matters.

But most of all, since you have never objected when they simply wore the black or white dots, and, though you may have been perturbed when they said it was yinyang, you would not have forbidden them through the government from making their claims, you are saddened and perplexed by their insistence that you not only follow their terminology, but sell those black and white dots specifically as yinyangs in your own shop.

And now, in the aftermath of the government's decision, what seems strangest to you is that the people who won, the people who decided to "redefine" your symbol and shut you up with threats of government punishment should you disagree, seem to be the angriest of all the parties once involved in the now-stifled debate of whether a yinyang can exist without the yin or without the yang.

Flags and Issues

On March 19, 1777, Capt. Moses Dunbar was hanged for being a Loyalist. He had not only joined the King's army, but he was caught trying to recruit others to the cause. He was the only man in Connecticut ever hanged for treason. It is said that his own father gave them the rope that made the noose.

His (second) wife gave birth to their youngest son, also named Moses Dunbar, almost exactly nine months later. I am directly descended from that youngest son.

Am I proud of ol' Moses Dunbar? Well, no and yes. I don't support the ideals that he appeared to the patriots to endorse by joining the soldiers who were fighting them. I definitely don't advocate taxation without representation, or other methods by which the monarchy  refused proper governance to its territory in the New World. But honestly, I admire his willingness to stand up for what he believed, and he wrote a fascinating letter which he read at his execution, in which he forgave all involved and asked forgiveness for his own sins from anyone affected by them. He went to his death expressing confidence in God, and that is something to be proud of.

I wonder what the reaction would be if Connecticut insisted upon flying the British Flag from the State Capital in order to proudly declare their deep and abiding appreciation for the old British Colonial Empire. I wonder, furthermore, what we might think if the people who supported this action used the British Flag as a symbol to explain their distate for post-Christian government-forced social issues such as abortion and gay 'marriage'. What should such people say to those who question the wisdom of flying a flag of colonialism while claiming to be the only group in America who are truly interested in freedom?

This is a problem that we are facing now, with the Confederate Flag being flown by people who insist that it is all about "states' rights" and that anybody who is squeamish about Confederate history must be a big-government liberal. I can't help but wonder if, when the Southern States pushed through the Slave Fugitive Act, if they told abolitionists that it didn't have to affect them because "if you don't want to own slaves, just don't buy any slaves - nobody is forcing you to be part of it", while making anything but the whole-hearted pursuing and capturing of fleeing ex-slaves punishable by government action. In short, my point is this: Yes, it is possible to be in favor of deregulation and lowering taxes without flying the "Stars and Bars", and the Southerners would do well to remember that.

This said:

I can't say I like the push to remove the Confederate Flag from Civil War memorials in the South, or ending re-enactments, or basically pushing it 'under the rug' the way that Germany has done with the swastika. I also think that any choice to remove it from a state building should be the decision of the state itself, not the Federal Government, though I also see nothing wrong with The People pushing to make it happen through popular opinion. Granted, I don't think personally that the Confederate Flag belongs with the "Flags of the Present" on government buildings meant to administer the Present - tax collection, license renewal, etc. - but I would be about as 'shocked' at seeing a Confederate Flag at a Southern Civil War memorial as I would be to find a cross in the chapel of a college. (I would, however, encourage all who want to fly the flag personally to read the Reasons for Secession historical documents. You may find the modern perception of the Civil War, as being primarily about "states' rights" or "economics" rather than slavery, challenged... strongly.

And now that I'm on the outs with both sides, let me say what I want most to say about the issue.

This is not as important as keeping the government from imposing further gun control laws upon us. It is not as important as keeping the government from redefining the sexually-dimorphic pair-bond to exclude sexual dimorphism and pair-bonding. Every single Confederate flag in the nation is not worth the life of one baby destined for abortion. And killing Obamacare dead will save many more lives than are affected by that particular piece of cloth.

So debate it all you like, work it out all you like, choose sides... but don't let this issue make Southerner Republicans hate Northerner Republicans. The Democrats are weak. This is our country to win or lose, and breaking out into virulent hatred over this particular issue could leave us with Four More Years... of Clinton, or even worse, Sanders the Full-Out Avowed Socialist.

Ask yourself this: What means more to you? What do you think will do more damage to this country?

The Stars and Bars?

Or the Hammer and the Sickle?

Better the Stars and Bars in South Carolina than the Hammer and Sickle over all of us. That's my stance on the issue, as a Northerner Conservative Republican who has no love for the Confederate Flag.

Dr. Ruth and the Evil Warnings

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the mildly scandalous sex therapist, now in her mid-80's, has suddenly managed to turn the entire feminist movement against her. Oh dear. What on earth did she manage to say to rattle them so much?

"I know it’s controversial, but for your program, I’m going to stand up and be counted and, like I do in the book, be very honest. I am very worried about college campuses saying that a woman and a man or two men or two women, but I talk right now about woman and man, can be in bed together, and at one time, naked, and at one time, he or she — most of the time they think she can say, I changed my mind. No such thing is possible."

 Aye, that's relatively controversial as stated, However, in subsequent tweets, she clarified what she meant - and didn't mean - to say:

I am 100% against rape. I do say to women if they don't want to have sex with a man, they should not be naked in bed w/him.
That's risky behavior like crossing street against the light. If a driver hits you, he's legally in the wrong but you're in the hospital.

So what's the problem?

Apparently, the naysayers insist that Dr. Ruth is claiming that the man's action is no longer rape and should no longer be prosecuted as such, that the man has no responsibility over his actions whatsoever, and that she is basically placing the full fault of rape on the woman. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be able to refute her position without resorting to the bizarre, possibly because her position is quite reasonable. One commenter on an American Thinker article claimed that "blaming women for the rape", as Dr. Ruth was supposedly doing, was like "saying that if a dog humps your leg, it's your fault for having a leg." Others have brought up the old "asking for it by wearing a skirt that exposes her knees" claim. I find it strange that feminists are so bent on their goals of "free sex" that they cannot bear the thought of a woman engaging in any sort of selective behavior in her sex life without having to come to the bizarre conclusion that men are incapable of being responsible for anything they do.

But that isn't, at the core, what is bothering me about this "controversy".

What the naysayers are doing, at the core, is claiming that a private individual, however notable, cannot give advice to women in order to minimize the chances of them becoming victimized without somehow affecting the legal responsibility of the perpetrator of the crime. The reason this bothers me is because it depends upon the belief that we cannot simply choose how to regulate our own behavior; it must be unregulated entirely or under government control.

It seems that people are losing sight of the excellent "third way" between regulation and deregulation, the way upon which this country was founded. John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Putting aside the question of Christianity and religion in morality for the moment, I would hope that we can all agree that the intent of structuring the Constitution such that the government should not regulate us was to allow us to take up the responsibility of regulating ourselves. If we lose sight of that, we may deserve the tyranny we risk bringing upon ourselves.

Women should have every right to take control over their own sexuality by setting boundaries, starting with the very simplest and easiest to understand: if you don't want to have sex with a man, it will be much, much easier to avoid doing so if you do not climb naked into bed with him.

Everyone knows what I'm talking about

McCall's has a new dress pattern up, called simply "Princess dresses". It doesn't have the Disney mark on it. It does not use the word "Cinderella". Clearly it must be 'not' the dress worn by the live-action Cinderella in the new movie. McCall's has a habit of doing this, and to be honest, it makes me giggle. Last year, we had 'not' Elsa, a dress with a sheer upper bodice and a train that started just under the arms. Before that, we had 'not' Merida, a princess-seamed green dress with white elbow and shoulder puffs.

Well, I'm about to do it to you guys. I am about to make one of those posts where everyone knows what I'm talking about, but I am going to get pretty far before identifying it plainly, and I am not going to delve into the details at all. Frankly, I don't need the details to make my point.

King David, despite being described as a man after God's on heart, did some pretty dreadful things. He lusted after a woman who was not his wife. He sent for her and had sex with her. Then he got her husband killed, when her husband refused to help cover up for her pregnancy. That is arguably pretty dreadful stuff with pretty permanent results. Of course, he did not escape punishment. God sent a prophet to explain why he had done wrong, and the child died. Was this 'enough' punishment? Was it within the statute of limitations? Should God have allowed King David to learn his sin through a prophet he already knew, instead of, say, sending in someone who was unconnected to the King? What about their second son, Solomon? Was God wrong to have given Solomon the kingdom? Was it a sign that David had not 'repented enough'? King David and his son have been dust for thousands of years.

Should we forgive King David? What crime has he committed against us?

There is another man who has been dust for slightly less time. His name was originally Saul of Tarsus, but he was renamed "Paul" after his conversion. He wrote an awful lot of the New Testament and spoke clearly on a variety of sins and evils, including most of the New Testament verses against homosexual behavior. Although he did not engage in homosexual behavior as far as we know, he did hunt down Christians and kill them before his conversion. He considered himself the very best Pharisee of Pharisees at a time when that was basically the most pious thing you could be. He was even celebrated for his piousness. He had to understand that he was doing wrong, and change his ways.

Does Paul's sin make his lessons on sinful behavior irrelevant? Should we take his writings seriously?

Both of these issues are making the rounds in recent days, due to the revelation of actions committed by a young man when he was a teenager. This should indeed be a controversy, but it should be an entirely different kind of controversy than the one I see floating around article comments and chat rooms. This should be a dialog about the problems that lead to inappropriate sinful behavior and the proper criminal justice system response when the perpetrator is underaged. Instead, it has become a two-prong argument, and both prongs seem geared specifically towards targeting Christianity rather than the actual sinner.

The "King David prong" can be summed up as a movement I have seen in recent years geared towards punishing people for the 'sin' of "Not Living Up To Our Expectations". In it, someone is judged, not by whether he acknowledges his sin as wrong or tries to justify it as right, but whether he has dared to hold himself to a standard that he has violated with his behavior. In this 'brave new' situation, you are better off to keep your (and others') expectations low, to ensure that you do not fail, than to aim high and miss your mark - even if your actual shot lands much higher than it ever would have managed were you to keep your expectations small. These are the people who excuse the sin of people like Bill Clinton and Lena Dunham because the perpetrators maintain that they have committed no crime, but do their best to drive out any pastor who has admitted to adultery, acknowledged his error, and asked for forgiveness. This is the exact opposite of what Christianity should be about.

Think about yourself for a moment. Never mind other people's sins. Think about your expectations of yourself. Think about other people's expectations of you. Because I am a Christian and because my sins are generally not severe in modern society and not obvious to a casual onlooker, some people have this notion of me as this perfect sweet excellent woman, and I hate it. If I try to note that I'm not really all that wonderful, they take it as modesty. In this present day, I am downright afraid to have people take that view of me. I never know if they are going to turn virulently upon me, if I should have a sin revealed that actually horrifies them... not for the sin itself (and utterly regardless of my response to it), mind you, but for the new, manufactured 'sin' of "Not Living Up To Their Expectations".

Why do you think God used King David? Why do you think God went after Saul of Tarsus? Why do you think God chose the Israelites, a group of such unruly, stubborn, imperfect people that they kept getting showed up by pagan Romans who had more faith in Christ than the very people who had been awaiting His arrival? Do you think maybe God wanted to teach us that He can make perfect where we stumble? That God can use people who don't "Live Up To Expectations"? Christianity is not about a bunch of perfect people talking about the way we should live. Christianity is about a bunch of sinners finding out that God is patient and loving, and that His laws come from Himself. That leads us into the other prong.

We could call the second prong the "Saul of Tarsus prong". In this particular case, it centers around homosexual behavior, but it could really be used for any convenient sin. Unlike the "King David Prong", this one primarily springs from non-Christians, and it, too, misunderstands what Christianity is for.

Paul's writings show that he was very aware of his own sins and failings. Despite that, he wrote an awful lot about what was sinful and what wasn't, and what was proper behavior for a Christian and what wasn't. Did anybody ever question the appropriateness of a man who used to drag off Christians to their death in saying that the 'stronger brother' should not burden the 'weaker brother' and the 'weaker brother' should not condemn the 'stronger brother'? Why would anybody listen to someone with a "thorn in his flesh" when he says that all have sinned and that eternal life comes through the grace of God? We certainly hold people up to a similar standard today. Should a man who committed adultery (and repented of his sin) be allowed to teach about marriage? Should a woman who had an abortion be allowed to run a pro-life organization? Should a teen who got out of a gang be allowed to tell other teens how to stay out of gangs?

The whole point of being a Christian is that you are holding yourself to God's standard. You are failing to live up to God's standard. You are repenting and receiving forgiveness for your sins against God's standard. Here's another way of putting it. Would you go to a dentist who has cavities? Well, perhaps instead of looking at his mouth, you should listen to his words. If he tells you that the American Dental Association recommends that you brush twice a day, should you decide that the American Dental Association is wrong because he doesn't brush twice a day and he has gingivitis? Of course not! In fact, making that conclusion is, in debate, called "ad hominem" - it is what happens when you attack the bearer of news rather than the originator. So should someone who has engaged in sexual sin and repented of it be allowed to become the bearer of God's news about homosexual behavior? Of course! (And here I finally drop the name.) Josh Duggar does not speak against gay 'marriage' according to Josh Duggar's authority. Josh Duggar speaks against gay 'marriage' according to God's authority. Of course, it's so much easier to pound Josh Duggar into the ground than to go up against God... but you must be aware that Christianity is a place for sinners who repent, for people who miss the mark and wish they hadn't, for people who know that they are sick and are seeking out the Physician. If you want a religion of "perfect people" who are telling you "how to turn yourself perfect", go seek out Scientology. God's Law is about what works. Christianity is about what happens to you when you realize that you can't do it by your own power.

And eventually, when you stand before God and He says, "Why didn't you listen to me?" it will do you no good to say, "Because I didn't like the looks of the bearer of Your message."

Get out of the way and let us work

Let's talk about washing machines for just a moment. What kind of features do washing machines have? They let you choose your cycle. They let you customize your cycle if necessary. Then you start 'em up and off they go. Many washing machines are advertised as being "quiet". The quietest machines tend to draw the most interest. Imagine if someone tried to market a washing machine that sent alerts to your phone and beeped a tone for each part of the cycle, so that it notified you when it was rinsing, spinning, agitating, rinsing, spinning... How many people would buy it?

I don't want my washing machine to tell me what it's doing! I use a washing machine so that I can freakin' dump in my load and press two buttons and walk away! It tells me when it's done, but since my laundry area is down in the basement, I usually don't even hear it. My washing machine is my servant. I want it to shut up and do its job so that I don't have to.

How about operating systems? I'm a definite computer geek (used to work as a software engineer, actually), so I know operating systems. One of the biggest mistakes that Microsoft made at one point was integrating Internet Explorer too deeply into Windows. It complicated the use of the machine and hurt people who wanted to choose a different web browser. Microsoft had to back off and understand what an operating system is for. Users don't want to have to think about their operating system. They don't want to have to fiddle with it. They don't want it distracting them from their work. They don't want it choosing their productivity applications for them and penalizing the applications it doesn't think you should be using. We just want the darn thing to work - quietly - in the background - and leave us be.

Our government could take a lesson from the appliance and operating system markets.

This morning, I read an article talking about "what women want" in the context of government programs and government issues. What do women want from government? "Equal pay" for "equal work"? Free daycare programs? Free contraception? What do they want? One of my favorite webcomic authors, RH Junior, explains 'what women want' exceedingly well in a comic featuring a feminist character who is fed up with all of the expectations placed on her. "What you want ain't complicated. You want what everyone wants, male or female -- to be treated decent."

When I hear the question of what women want from government, the question I actually hear is, "What's your price?" It seems that liberal Democrats particularly are simply interested in more and bigger government, in bigger government regulation, in higher government taxation, in more control over our lives. That's why they bother to ask what "women" want from the government, rather than simply seeing us as people. What do blacks want from government? What do Hispanics want from government? What do parents want from government? What do the poor want from government? What do all of us have in common? We just want to be 'treated decent'.

In short, they aren't asking, "What do you want?" They are asking, "What can we give you to convince you to let us control your life?"

What we want is for the government to not have so much control over our lives that we could possibly need it to treat groups of people differently from each other. What we want is what we want from our operating system and our washing machine. We want a government that operates in the background and keeps an environment for us in which we can choose what we want in life and make our best try for it. We want a government that we don't have to deal with on a regular basis. We want a government that gets out of our way and does its job. We don't want pop-ups, we don't want "app suggestions", we don't want integrated crap that gets in the way of the programs we like to use... we just want it to be background, uncomplicated, and working properly.

Remember this as we launch headlong into this election year, and people start asking you what you want the government to give you in exchange for running your life for you.

Who keeps your brother?

So the news is buzzing about Obama's dealings with this organization called "My Brother's Keeper", which has something to do with tutoring black teenagers. The phrase was used by Obama himself in a call for the government to interfere in our lives as much as possible 'for our own good'.

Of course, his use of this phrase and his support of this group is horribly funny for several reasons.

1. The very phrase "my brother's keeper", as Obama pointed out as a misguided attempt to justify his point, was spoken by Cain to God when God asked Cain where his brother Abel was. Of course, Cain had ample reason to know where Abel was, having just killed him in anger. However, all that aside, assuming as Cain did that God did not know about the murder, it could have been a valid question.

"Am I my brother's keeper?"

What he meant by it was this: My brother is a grown man, an adult. He doesn't need someone to hold his hand. He doesn't need me to always know where he is and what he's doing. He doesn't need someone else making all his decisions for him as if he was a child. My brother doesn't need a 'keeper'. In short, "my brother's keeper" was a sarcastic barb meant to make the point that adults don't need other people living their lives for them - the exact opposite of the way Obama used the phrase.

Shorter version: Obama took seriously a sarcastic phrase spoken by a liar and murderer.

2. Obama hasn't been his own brother's keeper. Barack Obama still has a half-brother in Kenya who still lives in a hut made of garbage because it's the best he's got. Despite the fact that the average monthly salary in Kenya is 1% of Obama's presidential salary, Obama can't seem to spare a single dollar for his own family. Of course, that's just his half-brother. He also has an aunt living on government welfare funds in Massachusetts, despite being an illegal immigrant.

Even if we play the sarcastic phrase straight, as Obama did, isn't it telling that he cares more about making other people help strangers than about helping his own family with his own money?

3. Obama doesn't treat black tutors very well when they don't fit into his political agenda. Now, my first two points may make it seem as if I object to people tutoring black teens. Far from it. I've done it myself (I am willing to tutor those in need and many of them have been black and teenaged), and I think it is a solidly good idea to do what we can, as a personal and Christian care for those in need rather than a government program or presidential guilt-trip, to alleviate some of the burdens caused by the rampant fatherlessness in the black communities.

However, one of the men well-known in his community for tutoring black teens in need as part of his many contributions to society was nearly killed by a criminal whom Obama identified as a metaphorical son. Protecting tutors of black teens seems to mean nothing to Obama when he can use an incident to inflame racial tensions and ensure that the only people able to safely tutor black teens are blacks who have not "gone white", "turned Oreo", or "become Uncle Toms" (I'll spare you the Uncle Tom pet peeve today), and therefore are likely even less qualified to aid these people than the people they are supposed to be aiding.

Then again, with Common Core coming into full swing especially in the big cities where underprivileged black teens tend to live, who will know how to tutor them anymore?

Religious Freedom leading to higher costs for nonbelievers?

My husband and I were discussing our health insurance situation this morning. We are on that very uncomfortable line in which we may possibly see only a very small increase in income, and it will be enough to make health insurance vastly more expensive under the ACA. I listed the alternatives I'd been considering. Chief among them was a Christian medi-share program, which has held costs down by refusing to cover 'vices' (birth control, abortion, sex-change surgery, etc.) and by not being subject to all the vagueries and bizarrities of the ACA which is driving up costs all over the country.

(Aren't costs coming down? Sort of. The cost of care is rising. The amount of money spent on care is falling. How does that work? A recent study shows that 25% of insured Americans are now putting off needed care because they cannot afford it!)

This is actually not my topic for the day.

As I explained our options, I suddenly realized something strange. "The situation is crazy," I told my husband as I put dishes into the dishwasher (yes, I leave supper dishes until the next morning), "but between our intelligence and our easily-proven adherence to our faith, we should be able to get by."

The original intent of the First Amendment statement on religion was to prevent the Federal Government from interfering in the free expression of religion. Among the first and most common practices defeated by application of the First Amendment were mandates and 'taxes' requiring everyone, whether a member or not, to contribute to the state-sanctioned church. In short, one of the biggest fears the Democrats plant in our minds regarding religion is that we may, if it is not suppressed, be forced to pay extra money to the government simply for the 'crime' of not adhering to the government-approved religion.

Curiously, a twisted version of this is now happening, and the Democrats are the ones responsible.

Now that the government has been reaching deeper and deeper into our personal lives, to the point where it not only can order us to purchase medical insurance, but also decide how much we should pay, what coverages we should receive, and how our doctors should be allowed to treat our ailments, it must satisfy the First Amendment by permitting religious organizations to take an exemption. This is especially true due to the Contraception Mandate, which I've spoken of before.

Now this is the fascinating result. Since people are increasingly being pidgeonholed into expensive, inefficient government programs and not being permitted by law to solve their problems through simpler measures that work well, only the religious folk are capable of living well with less income by taking advantage of the religious exemption. By all of my research, if we get bumped just barely into that higher ACA cost level, being Christians instead of atheists is going to save us at least an estimated $5,000 per year.

I know this isn't a very new thing. The Amish, for instance, are allowed to exempt themselves from Social Security taxes, and the Social Security program is certainly problematic. However, the ACA is now kicking this disparity into high gear.

From here, we have two alternatives. The Democrats would weaken these religious exemptions, damage the First Amendment if it could not be reworded into uselessness completely, ushering in a new era of religious persecution as people of faith are forced to openly celebrate and directly fund evil of various sorts. The Republicans would reduce government reach and control until an atheist could once again receive equal treatment from the government, and the lifestyles of people of faith would not have to conflict with theirs.

Back to the Fathers

The year is 2015. The pictures and quotes have been flying all over Facebook. In 1985, we were treated to the first part of one of the most excellent trilogies ever made... Back To The Future.

In the first movie, our protagonist starts out in 1985, a beautiful, perfect 1985 that now evokes nostalgia in everyone who was born before 1990. He gets dropped into 1955 in the first movie. In the second, he travels to 2015. In the third, he winds up in 1885. The year now is 2015, and we are finding that "the future" is sadly lacking in some areas, such as hoverboards and flying cars, but surprisingly similar in others, as the writers cleverly repeated trends as has always happened in the past and seems likely to continue into the future.

What I'd like to talk about, though, is the psychology and the sociology of the show. They hit upon one solid, repeatable truth, and gave us many excellent examples of it. A father's influence is vital within his entire family.

Note: If you have not seen the trilogy, stop now. Watch it through. Then read the rest of this post.

In the first movie, Marty McFly's father is not exactly an inspiring fellow. He is harried, submissive, and detached from other people. This deficit in his own behavior shows in his entire family. His wife drinks a little too much. (That point is subtle and takes some attention to detail.) His eldest struggles along as a night worker at a fast food restaurant, and his daughter is frumpy and consistently griping about her unpopularity. Marty himself is keeping himself from a potential career (or, at least, ten minutes of fame) as a musician by his crippling insecurity. During the course of the movie, George McFly learns how to be both assertive and connected, and his entire family benefits. His wife at the movie's end is healthier and happier, and their children are all progressing slowly towards successful lives of their own.

One instance, though, does not a trend make. In the second movie, Doc notes that Marty's family falls apart and traces the origin of the problem to his son's and daughter's arrest when his son gets browbeat into participating in criminal activity. As we see a night around the McFly table, however, we know that Doc is no expert in family sociology. (Did we expect him to be?) Marty is a manipulated blowhard. His wife married him for pity (not unlike his father's wife in the beginning of the first movie) and often goes out on long trips after work without letting him know where she has gone. His children have no respect for him. They are living in a neighborhood where the cops do not like to travel after dark. We do not see the end result when Marty changes his ways, but we clearly see how his wife and children's welfare depend heavily on his own behavior.

Families need their fathers.

In the same movie, we see that the antagonist Biff appears to have an absent mother and absent father. He is raised by his grandmother. We have no idea what happened to his parents. We do see his internal frustration with his grandmother and the way he takes it out on everyone else.

When Marty returns to 1985, or, rather, the problematic 1985A in which his father is dead and Biff has married his mother, we see the effects of Biff as a father once again spreading through the entire family. His mother is so beaten down that she justifies the abuse she suffers at his hands. Marty's older brother is on parole, and his sister can't seem to handle her money at all, as she has a dangerous amount of credit card debt. Marty himself apparently keeps getting thrown out of boarding schools. You almost can't blame Biff for griping about the "perfectly good money" he wastes on these "worthless kids".

Of course, the best movie isn't a hammer meant to drive a lesson deep into your head. The series has always been primarily about how you can improve your future by what you do today. In addition, the series is smart enough to not make a good father a guarantee of good children; Marty has his own problems even under the influence of his changed father, and one of the children of Lorraine's traditional 1950's father winds up in jail. Still, the message is clear, even if it is an unintentional result of a carefully-crafted series that pursues every thread to its most logical conclusion (flying cars aside)...

Families need their fathers. Of course, not everything relies wholly upon the father. However, he definitely has a profound effect on every member of his family.

We would do well to remember this.

A Primer for Handling Anxiety Attacks

As part of my unfortunate, perpetually-undiagnosed "female complaint", each month at PMS time I do what I call "reaching into the grab bag". The "grab bag" is a hypothetical place filled with the entire list of possible PMS symptoms, which can be found on just about any medical website. I "reach into the grab bag" and I pull out three symptoms more or less at random. Those are the ones I have to deal with for that given month. The symptoms are discarded within a day or two of actual onset of menstruation, and next month I reach in for another three, at random.

This month, I happen to have picked out "anxiety attacks".

Now this is not terribly new for me. I have been officially diagnosed with "Generalized Anxiety Disorder", which basically means that I may get anxiety attacks sometimes for no particular reason. Oh, we are sure that there is a reason. Perhaps there is a hormone drop, or surge, or a neurotransmitter glitch. The problem with finding an intermittent error in any system, as I'm finding with a really bizarre personal computer problem involving a disappearing hard drive, is that if you don't catch the problem in the middle of happening, the diagnostics all check out as normal. Suffice to say that I have identified a few triggers, but have no hopes of catching all of them.

So I have decided to take a moment and create a primer, for family, friends, and whoever might benefit from the information, on how to identify and treat an anxiety attack from the perspective of the sufferer's family member, friend, or whoever happens to be accompanying her when it happens. I am doubly encouraged by a scene the Disney movie Frozen. Anxiety sufferers cringe at the reprise to "For the First Time In Forever", in which Elsa very clearly displays every sign of a physical anxiety attack, and Anna does everything wrong in trying, with an open heart and honest desire to help, to make things better. I know you guys want to help your friend. I'm going to help you figure out how.

Step 1: Identifying an anxiety attack

Anxiety attacks often start with a surge of panic. At this point, I know the feeling well enough that I don't actually feel "afraid", so I could dispassionately describe it as an adrenaline surge. It's the same feeling you get when you are driving down a snowy road, you turn the wheel, and nothing happens. In fact, the entire anxiety attack pretty much follows your physical symptoms after you do something like that. The person may start trembling, sweating, or shivering, may rest her hand near her neck to feel her heart pounding, may blink rapidly, and her breathing will change. If she's a pro at dealing with the attacks, her breathing may become deeper, slower, and more deliberate. If she doesn't have a handle on it, her breathing may become shorter, faster, and shallower. If the attack is severe or she doesn't know how to identify or manage it, she might even start to cry.

There may be no obvious trigger, and anxiety often builds to an attack (secretly and in the background) rather than hitting the rapid onset that you would feel if you had just entered a genuinely dangerous situation. She may have been mall-walking for an hour and a half and suddenly get hit with a full-fledged attack while doing nothing in particular. Even when you have been having anxiety attacks for years and are pretty well used to them, the opening surge still blindsides you.

Step 2: Shift your focus

In the scene from Frozen, the first mistake Anna makes is to assume that Elsa is "afraid", and that figuring out what is frightening her and easing her fears will make her reaction go away. This is actually 100% wrong. Whether the trigger is emotional or physical, the anxiety attack response is utterly and fully physical, and "solving the problem" will do absolutely nothing for the symptoms. In fact, attempting to "solve the problem" will be useless on two fronts: you are repeatedly applying a potential (probably a likely) trigger for the attack, and she is not going to be able to deal with any underlying emotional state in a reasonable manner. If she had an attack of leg cramps, you wouldn't push her to keep jogging while telling her that she can 'get through this'. You'd let her stop until the cramps ease and help her work them out of her leg. You need to do the same thing here.

So the wrong thing to say is, "Are you scared?" or "What are you afraid of?" or "How are things going at home?" The right thing to say is, "Are you having an anxiety attack?"

Now that isn't to say that being a counselor is the wrong thing to do overall. There is obviously an underlying stressor causing the problem, and you might want to talk to her later on and find out if it's emotional. Never do it during the attack, or even in the immediate aftermath. You want to be in "nurse mode" with your friend right now, not "counselor/psychologist mode".

You may have noticed by now that I keep using the phrase "anxiety attack" instead of "panic attack". I almost wish I could invent another word for it. When I have an attack, I am not "panicking". In fact, I'm probably completely calm to all outward appearances. I am having a physical reaction, like cramps or hives. (I am not entirely typical. Usually the person having an anxiety attack will have an emotional reaction as well. In that case... it is still merely a physical, chemical reaction and ought to be treated as one.)

Step 3: Managing an attack

Now that you know that you're dealing with a physical/medical event, you will find it much easier to learn how to treat the attack. The first and best thing to do, especially with someone who has a history of anxiety attacks, is to ask, "What can I do?" and "What do you need?" Then listen. That seems obvious, but in that Frozen scene, it is one thing that Anna does not do. Her sister puts out very clear "back away" signals and even states clearly that she is making it worse, but she just keeps persisting, certain that the Power of Friendship will solve the issue. Some people may feel better if you hold hands, or give a hug, but some will not, and it is neither your fault nor a rejection of you as a friend.

Because I am sensitive in a number of ways I don't understand, I perceive people as if they have 'zones of influence' or 'zones of personality' (commonly called 'auras', mostly in spiritual circles to which I do not belong) extending for a short distance around them. When I am dealing with an anxiety attack, I am managing my own 'aura', doing a balancing act. I do not need your 'aura' getting into my zone and throwing off all my readings. Now that's my personal experience. Frequent sufferers generally already know what works and can tell you what you can do, or just communicate whether they need closeness or space. If you are going to hug or hold hands, for heaven's sake keep yourself calm, because they might be feeding off your mood in hopes of stabilizing theirs.

There are several medical/physical steps that can shorten an anxiety attack. Forcing yourself to breathe deeply and slowly will slow the heartbeat and help kick the body off of its adrenaline surge. Massaging the vagus nerves (roughly where the jawbone meets the ear and just behind it) will also help. You could give your friend a drink and encourage her to sip it slowly once the initial surge starts to recede. Do not give her anything with caffeine in it. She should probably avoid caffeine completely for the rest of the day. Visualization also helps, but it has to be a place that she finds relaxing, not a place that you find relaxing. Though the two may coincide, don't depend on it!

If your friend has a chronic problem, she may have been prescribed medication. Alprazolam (Xanax) is a fairly common "take-as-needed" medication for anxiety attacks. Check the bottle and do her a favor - offer to drive home. Most anti-anxiety medications cause mild or marked drowsiness.

Anxiety attacks typically peak within the first ten minutes and take about a half hour to really resolve. Serious problems like allergic reactions and cardiac difficulties (she might mistake an anxiety attack for either of these, and might even be convincing to bystanders and helpful medical staff) will continue or get worse.

Step 4: Aftermath

Anxiety attacks are like earthquakes. They tire people out, and the larger ones commonly have 'aftershocks'. Your friend might need to cut your trip/visit short, eliminate an event from her schedule, or simply needs to go right home as soon as the symptoms subside. If she decides to power through the rest of the day (whether she powers through or goes home, she is just as frustrated with cutting it short as you are), just keep an eye out and be aware that the attack will have sapped her energy and lowered her ability to cope with stress triggers. If you leave the mall to find that your planned dinner spot is crammed full of noise and bright light, feel free to suggest a different spot!

Basically, just be aware that it is possible to have multiple anxiety attacks in a day, and each one weakens her resistance to the next. If the attack was severe, she might need a couple of days to fully recover.

When the physical effects of the attack have faded away, it may be a good time to encourage your friend to check on her stressors and triggers. Now is the time to find out if she has been facing a bad situation at work, or whether she is just at a bad point in her hormonal cycle. Dealing with the triggers ahead of time will prevent or at least lessen future attacks.

Be patient... anxiety disorders often require lifelong management, like diabetes or Crohn's, and it may be decades in the future (or longer!) before we can even identify the underlying problem, never mind finding a full-out cure. A person with an anxiety disorder can still lead a perfectly fine, happy, fun, fulfilling life, as long as her family and friends can patiently deal with the attacks and move on to the good stuff.