Well, would you look at that?

Seems the VA Supreme Court actually upheld the law.

Raise your hand if you didn't think that was actually going to happen. (Because a lot of the VA SC are there because of Democrat Governors. So I figured they'd be like, "It's fine. What chu talkin' bout Willis?")

Of course, the VA Gerrymanderers are yelling about taking it to SCOTUS, because why should laws apply to democrats, after all? And the idiots on Faceplant are whining about "They took away my vote!" Yeah, the vote you shouldn't have had b/c they didn't follow the law to give it to you? That vote? Plus the fans of "Well Republicans do it in other states."

And you know what? They shouldn't be able to. NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO GERRYMANDER.

Period.

End of sentence.

Now, I suspect everyone has different visions of what gerrymandering actually is, so it's something states need to figure out what their population feels and make some rules (no, the federal government should not do this. The federal government is too big already. They need to just get over themselves.)

While we're at it, can we go back to Senators being elected by the state legislatures? Please?

Anyway. A small win. Possibly a temporary one. But it was a teensy ray of hope.

Paging Dr. Mandering, Dr. Gerry Mandering.

Whelp. It comes as no surprise to my pessimistic little self that the People's Republic of Northern Virginia managed to browbeat the rest of the state into disenfranchising 90% of the state in the name of "fairness."

Yes, folks, that's right, going from a rough split of 6 - 5 to 10 - 1 is obviously more fair.

I guess I should choose a child and make sure they get 90% of everything and the other only 10% and just remind them that that's what fair means now.

Freaking ridiculous.

My uncle (who was staying with us until this morning) asked if he thought it would be appealed. I'm not sure that's a do-able thing since it's a vote not just a law that got passed. I suppose I could google the idea and see, but really, I don't have any faith that it would succeed if it did since prior D presidents have packed the courts with judges who don't seem to understand being unbiased, merit, or any of those "justice-based" ideas.

Besides, this was all in the name of fairness!

And it's temporary!

Because the government is totally in the habit of grabbing power temporarily and then giving it back. Yeah. That'll happen.

My hope, at this point, though it does me personally no good, is that the disenfranchised counties all along the WVa and KY border will figure out a way to go join WVa (my understanding is that for at least some of them this is a possibility, and maybe WVa would take pity on the rest. Of course, that implies that the White Witch* allows it to happen.) At least then they'd actually have a voice and, bonus, could strengthen the voice of a state that seems to be a tad more sane than whatever the hell Virginia is these days. (Insane doesn't feel strong enough.)

Freaking ridiculous.

*Props to Robbo for the nickname.

Everything is Just a Little Overwhelming

Whelp. As someone who has read through the Bible more than once in her life, I feel like it's currently some very interesting times. Of course, whenever I get too wrapped up in that, I think of my mom telling me (I believe around the time the first Gulf War started and I was a senior in high school) that this happens and will keep happening. She then went on to tell me of the mania about Revelation when Israel was reestablished in the 50s.

It's a good grain of salt.

And I know, ultimately, God's in control whether or not this is the big end or just another series of steps in the gradual slide thereto.

But I can't say there haven't been some prolonged periods of reminding myself of that lately.

It doesn't help that eldest is a senior, and as we creep closer to the end of his school year (he has only 5 weeks left in his final classes) I want to pull him on my lap and pretend he's the three year old who loved to snuggle. (He is neither three (obviously) nor does he like to snuggle any more. In fact, if I can coerce him into allowing me to hug him once a week, I consider it a win.) (I don't coerce. I ask. Sometimes he says yes.) He's headed to what will be prom for him this weekend (a local Christian group that does dances) and just...all the feels. But I am excited about what lies ahead for him. So there's that, too.

Throw in that Dad is now firmly settled here and his old house is empty, buffed and polished, and officially on the market and it's all just a lot of change.

Change is fun? Or something.

But right now, I'm calling that the reason for the dearth of posts. Lots going on. Not a lot of time to ponder and process any of it, let alone blog about it. (Plus, I question if it's interesting to anyone other than me. Which, to be fair, hasn't stopped me in the past. But sometimes I think I should care more about that than I do.)

Baking Bread While the World Burns

There may be a connection between sourdough baking and sanity.

Or so it seems to me these days.

While Israel defends herself, as she should, I can't help but notice the silence from my local congress critters. These men are ridiculously liberal, so it shouldn't be a surprise, I guess. And yet it is.

They're so quick to send out an email when there's a way to toot their horn for whatever liberal policy they're pushing. Or when they have a "gimme" way to slam conservatives.

But here, in a situation that is not political (or, at least, should not be political) they sit in silence like the cowards they really are. Because they know they can't come out and support Israel. But they also know if they join the deranged minority that somehow thinks Hamas is anything other than a group of terrorist thugs that it's not going to end well for them in the polls.

It's ridiculous.

And it does hideous things to my blood pressure.

So I bake.

I've been in the habit of 2 loaves of sourdough a week. Generally, they last until the next baking day. Or closely enough that it hasn't been a huge sadness that we're out. But this week, not only have both loaves disappeared with haste, but I've been playing with other sourdough recipes. 

Today it's dinner rolls.

Tomorrow, if the pages of Revelation don't flip in fast forward overnight, perhaps I'll make sourdough waffles.

What IS the definition of "is"?

So I see the CDC, in their never ending quest to make sure we all just do whatever they say because, like Mom, they said so, has decided to change up the definition of "vaccine."

Of course, this is because, as anyone with a brain has noticed, the current "vaccine" in question is not, actually, a vaccine under the traditional (read: Webster) definition. [ed - DOH! I hit up ol Webster to check and the online version has already been brought into compliance with the new regime.] It's gene therapy. It's always been gene therapy. They actually messed up in the beginning and mentioned that aloud, then quickly started talking "vaccine" because gene therapy is scary.

But also, said "vaccine" is really a prophylactic. Or as we call it here in this house, "the covid condom."

Of course, rather than just being up front and saying, "Hey, y'all, this is still (to us) worth doing because it will help prevent you DYING from the covids even though it doesn't stop you from getting or transmitting it. So here. Want a free poke in the arm?" we're instead going to re-write the dictionary so that we can call it a vaccine. Dammit.

Now, however, I am going to be calling my vitamins vaccines as well. Under the new definition ("provides protection against disease") they totally qualify.

Here, child, take your Flintstones vaccines. Chew 'em up. 

Mmm. Daily vaccines.

I weep for the world.

Y'all.

 I literally can't even.

Leaves, Trees, and Madness

 Today we had some tree cleanup done by the tree guy who comes by now and again. We'd had some broken branches that never fell, a dead tree, some branches on a different tree that were on the roof of the garage.

In all, good cleanup that needed to be done. And, bonus, it helped more of the leaves give up the ghost so we can blow them into piles and bag them up. The boys are enjoying doing that this year, which is lovely. I only have to suggest that it's time to do more and off they go. It helps, I imagine, that we're paying them.

I spend entirely too much time clenching my fists and/or shaking them at the sky these days. I just want to remind people that Al Gore got his 38 days, legal challenges, recounts, etc. It seems only right that Trump get his shot as well.

And I might well haul off and slug anyone who next uses the word "mandate" - because no matter who wins this stupidity, there's no mandate on the table. It's time for the government to suck it up and start acting like adults -- on both sides of the aisle -- and learn to work together.

Blergh.

Struggling to be positive

 Tomorrow. Y'all. I don't think I fully understood the idea of existential dread until this year.

I'd like to just skip ahead a bit (Brother Maynard) to maybe, say, January. I figure maybe some of whatever massive kerfuffle gets kicked off when polls close tomorrow might be sort of over by then.

My sister's at the midpoint of her chemo. They'll do another PET scan this week? Maybe next week. Soon. I am struggling to believe that it's actually possible that the scan will show that the cancer is getting battled back. I know it's theoretically possible. I also know that her journey so far has been on the low side of any statistic ranges they give.

Youngest. Reading. Ugh.

I frankly don't know what to do. I mean I have some ideas from a friend who's a reading specialist. So we'll try those. But again. Struggling to believe they're going to do any good.

Eldest is a tween. Nearly a teen. And his attitude is definitely testing his limits. Or my limits. Or maybe everyone's. And I'm struggling to believe it's going to get better. I know, again in theory, it absolutely will. Whether or not we live through it is, I guess, a question.

Anyway. 

I know there's no point in borrowing trouble. I know this. 

I just can't seem to help myself. 

Lunchtime History

 Our usual homeschool schedule involves history at lunchtime. Meaning, while the boys eat, I read our chapter aloud and we talk about it.

This year we're doing part 2 of an American History 2-part book series and I like it well enough as an overview. We'll need to go back and explore some things more closely, but it's still been very interesting and timely.

Today, we hit the 60s and 70s initial overview with a focus on the Presidents of those years and their major achievements / the situation in the world during their term.

And when we got to Carter losing in 1980 it sparked off a long, really interesting discussion about the Electoral College that isn't in the book, but that by golly I'm going to do my part to make sure my kids understand.

It was a fun discussion - and eldest went from "That's stupid, we should just count votes." to actually understand what the would do to cause massive levels of disenfranchisement. And when we stopped, before moving on, he looked at me thoughtfully and said:

Him: "So, if we moved to a popular vote, and all those people in the middle stopped having any ability to influence the elections, then it would sort of be like why the American Colonies got together to revolt against the British, right?"

Me - inwardly bursting with pride: "Why do you say that?"

Him: "Well, it's be taxation without representation, effectively, right?"

Me: "Yes. Yes it would."

Him: "The electoral college sounds dumb at first, but it's really pretty smart."

Yes. Yes it is. 

Some days, I finish school thinking that maybe, at least today, they learned.

Is there a way out of this that doesn't involve rioting?

 Y'all.

I'm seriously worried about the US. With the election creeping up on us, it seems like we've firmly established ourselves right in the middle of the Kobayashi Maru and there's no way out.

If Biden/Harris win, it seems like:

• The right is going to riot
• Trump may not actually transfer power
• Biden will "mysteriously" be rendered unfit and leave us with Harris/Pelosi
• At which point everyone should just present themselves for their barcode and/or internment

If Trump/Pence win, it seems like:

• The left is going to burn it all down
• It will basically become the Thunderdome 
• There will be no enforceable rule of law

So...are we legitimately looking at another Civil War? Has the United States gotten too big to govern as a single nation? (or, more to my way of thinking, since the Federal government has gotten so big and is trying to run everything instead of the states being independent as they were originally designed to be, have we simply proven that as an untenable method of governing?)

If there were to be civil war, how many new nations would arise from the ashes? I'm thinking probably four. Roughly regionally set up. 

It's an interesting exercise to divvy up the states and consider how they would be fiscally viable as a new nation when I'm staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night unable to sleep because of crippling anxiety.

I know as a believer I'm not supposed to be terrified of the future, but right now that's stinking hard. And I'm failing at it. Badly.

High School Thoughts

I don't recall if I ever mentioned that I graduated from the STEM magnet high school locally, a billion years ago when STEM wasn't even an acronym that people used.

Regardless, I loved my time at the nerd school. Roaming the nerd halls. Feeling like I'd found people who, if not my actual peeps, were not going to be annoyed with me because I enjoyed studying. I was nowhere near the brightest there and was a solidly slightly better than average student. (I can't remember my GPA. I know it was good enough that I got into college and my report cards never got me in trouble at home. That was enough.)

Anyway.

As the years have gone by, it's gotten harder and harder to get in to said school. It's become (in my opinion) less about the students wanting to go there and much more about the Tiger Parents making sure that their kid has that check mark for their college apps.

When I attended, it was primarily Asian (specifically and primarily Korean and Vietnamese when I was there but they may have diversified some there, I'm not sure) if you were looking to sort things by ethnic demographics. We had 7-10 Black students. (I'm thinking through the names and I know I didn't know everyone but I had two good friends who were Black and knew some of the rest by virtue of association.)

The other-than-Asian-or-white attendance has been plummeting downward every year. And every year there's a bit of an uproar in the alumni groups. And this year, given the world and the fact that the stats just released admitted that there were ZERO Black students in the upcoming freshman class...well, you can imagine.

There's quite a hue and cry within the Alum Faceplant group for the school to be closed down as an abomination and misuse of public funds.

I think that's a bit of an overreach, myself. Because I do think there are students who benefit greatly from the school who wouldn't necessarily flourish as well at their base schools. But I also do agree that they should be doing more for diversity. Because there are students of EVERY background who would benefit greatly from the school who wouldn't necessarily flourish as well at their base schools. And there are many kids who end up there who would do just fine -- and perhaps flourish even more -- at those base schools.

Anyway, my general feeling on how I'd fix it were I to be in charge is this: If an average incoming class if 500 students, and there are 5 primary categories on their racial/ethnic demographic checklist, then each checkbox gets 100 students. 

They can keep running their entrance exam exactly the same way they've been doing, but the top 100 from any checkbox category get accepted. (If there's a serious concern about academic ability that the test is supposed to measure, then establish a "minimum baseline" and take those kids who score over that. But it needs to be a realistic minimum, not one that's inflated to try and game the system.)

I realize this would create probably an even bigger hue and cry from among the 67% ethnic majority at the school (which is not white) - but if we're aiming for fair? Let's be fair. 

The trouble might arise finding 100 kids of every racial/ethnic checkbox who actually want to go through the hassle of taking the test. In that situation? I guess the left over spots could be done as a lottery for kids in other checkboxes who were over the minimum baseline but below the top 100. But I'd say there needs to be a cutoff so that it's not a situation where, for example, only 10 Black kids apply so now we have space for 90 more of other boxes as a lottery. There needs to be something done to encourage application by a large spread of kids (and I haven't looked at the application stats in depth, so it's possible this issue is moot. I just know many of the Black alums have said they've actively discouraged siblings/friends from applying because of their experiences. That's wrong and I hate that it felt like the best course of action for them. That's not the school I went to.)

But maybe, knowing that every group was guaranteed 100 spots, then the understanding that the kids who get in are the ones who start test prep when they're 9 would start to be less true. Because it's RIDICULOUS to me that anyone would spend close to five years prepping for an entrance test for high school. 

No kid chooses that. That's something parents choose.

And no high school is so amazing that kids should be forced to go there by overly ambitious parents. The kids who were there because their parents made them go when I was there were miserable.

I can't imagine that's changed.

Why are people surprised?

The super bowl was yesterday. We continued our tradition of not watching, because we don't actually care about football and the commercials seem to have been slipping the past several years as well. (We used to look them up on YouTube just for the fun but...meh.)*

There was the usual hair on fire ranting and raving about the halftime show.

And I find myself giving fellow Christians the side eye. Because seriously, when did we start thinking the super bowl halftime show was a family friendly event? When was it supposed to be? For that matter, professional football games aren't really super family friendly with the scantily clad cheerleaders on the sidelines whose sole purpose that I can see is to titillate. (They're not like actual cheerleaders who cheer and do stunts. Aren't they maybe more like "dancers"? I don't know. I don't see their purpose.)

To me, the event should have been simply a "Yup. There goes popular culture doing its thing." And then you can either choose to watch or not based on your own interests.

I like Shakira's music - but I'll be the first to tell my kids they can't watch her videos. Even the one she made of the recording of the theme for Zootopia is...risque. And that's for a cartoon. Her character IN the cartoon is a cartoon version of her scantily clad self. It's her brand.

JLo's brand is similarly scantily clad.

Pop stars aren't out there dancing around in modest clothes. They just aren't. So why is anyone surprised that for a huge venue like the super bowl they didn't change things suddenly?

I really wish Christians would stop showing their rears with commentary about the culture acting like the culture.

Instead, why don't we get our own house in order and live for Jesus - all across the board, inside and outside the church - and give the culture a reason to look at us and want what we have. That's not going to happen if we're spending all our time wagging our fingers at them.

As for the feminist/Latina/whatever representation deal - I'll leave discussion of that to people who care more than I do.

Oh hey look, it's the weekend again

Life around here continues apace, which is to say it's rolling down hill like a flaming ball of poop. At least it's not all personal insanity these days.

Youngest has decided that he does not like his bed any longer. I don't blame him, overly, as he had the first big boy bed of eldest that was handed down when we got eldest a loft type thing (with desk beneath). Plus the bed in question is rather rickety and missing some slats beneath the mattress. All of which to say, no one is super surprised that he is over it and asking for a change. We managed to talk him into the double bed that had been, until now, residing in our guest room. It is, in fact, the frame that is made when you use the pieces of the old crib, so it's nice that the bed and dresser are reunited in the younger's room. And hey, now he has a decent bed. Everyone is happy and relatively speaking it wasn't a horrible experience to swap them out.

Hubby has been fussing about lately as well, talking about moving his desk into our bedroom so that on the rare occasions he works from home, he has a quiet place to be. (Homeschooling means we are home. All the time. And it is loud. Very, very loud. So working from home is not super conducive to actual work.)

I have been rather stridently anti moving the desk into the bedroom because bedrooms are for sleeping and other relaxing activities. Plus he's was all "We can just shove it in the corner over here" and no. Just no. It would have looked like a confused furniture store vomited in our bedroom.

Just no.

Throw in that I was somewhat nonplussed because - that's right - we used to have a dedicated office space in the basement. That he never used. Because he really never works from home. And thus the whole taking down a wall in the basement to make the playroom larger extravaganza over the summer. (Which I wasn't super on board with before he just dove in and now I'm like GAH.)

Anyway, now that we no longer have a guest bed in the fourth bedroom, we can move his desk in THERE and all is now right with the world again.

At least on the furniture front.

It was a welcome distraction from the insanity of Virginia and the tyrant who occupies the governor's mansion. I'm not super thrilled to see the state self-destructing and would like to say I have hope that we can escape relatively unharmed but...I don't think it's likely. It's ...horrifying. I've been sending emails to my delegate and state senator - but I know they don't actually care, seeing as they gerrymandered my district to make sure that me, and people like me, have no voice.

The Government Does Not Want Public School to be About Learning

A former blog friend now Faceplant friend posted this article today.

Basically, it's a plot to try and make the school day even longer as an assist to parents who work full time and want to have free, government provided childcare under the guise of school. Which just means even more time for indoctrinating.

What those poor kids -- especially the younger boys -- need is LESS school. More moving. More flexibility. More time outside.

Study after study after study talks about how we should have less of a focus on academics as early as we do. How we need to let kids (again -- especially boys!) mature at their own pace. Etc. etc. etc.

I'm so grateful we homeschool. Even as frustrating as it is right now as we're trying to navigate the special needs littlest has, I know he's better off with me. Where he gets one on one attention. Where we can take breaks. Where we can scaffold where he needs scaffolding.

I know -- I really do believe -- that the public schools would TRY to give him the help he needs. But how do they do that when he's 1 of 30? How do they do that when he's what they'd label disruptive when he gets spun up? He'd be disciplined and separated rather than helped to calm and refocus. Because TIME.

I get it.

And I get that we're blessed to have options.

But adding to the school day isn't the option. If the government wants to help out working parents, then they need to have better, more affordable (or free) after school programs. Programs that are not school and lets kids be kids.

Of course, I'm also wary and concerned with our state going ahead and turning completely blue in this latest election. Democrats don't have a lot of respect for a parent's right to choose education -- at least not in my experience. So I'm going to be keeping a close eye. Because the last thing MY kids need is to be stuffed in an already overfull classroom and told to be still.

On "Concentration Camps"

So even if you live under a rock as I earnestly endeavor to do these days, you'll likely have seen the brouhaha about AOC and her concentration camps comment. Then the hand waving of "no they aren't!" and then the jumping in of Mr. Sulu of "yes they are!" and it rapidly devolved into a Fiddler On The Roof-esque "It was a horse" "It was a mule" yelling match.

I have a few thoughts.

First and foremost, I'm so tired of everyone trying to compare everything they don't like and/or that is bad to Hitler and WWII. Hitler was evil. I think, by and large, the thinking portion of the world all agrees on that. But just because we don't like something or think it's bad doesn't necessarily qualify it for evil on the scale of something Hitler would do. So could we all just stop with the Hitler crap? Because honestly, it diminishes the travesty of his evil to have stupid stuff compared to it.

Next up - how the camps for illegals differ from concentration camps in WWII. (And yes, that's a necessary distinction. Wait a moment and see.)

When someone today says "concentration camp" they are purposefully eliciting a mental picture of the horror and travesty of WWII internment camps. The places where Jews were forcibly shunted to for the sole purpose of torturing and killing them. There is no other meaning to the words "concentration camp" today. History has taken the phrase and branded it, if you will. So if you use that term, that's what you're saying.

So the folks who want to chime in that "Oh sure they are, because a concentration of illegals is being held there, so semantically it is a concentration camp." Just no. You can't semantic your way out of it.

So, the difference?

The people at the border came here voluntarily with the intent to illegally enter the country for the sole purpose of living here illegally and getting aid and funding. If they don't like the conditions at said camps I am reasonably sure they can find someone and say, "I would like to return to my home country and resume my citizenship there." And we would show them the border and say "Have a nice trip home."

We didn't round anyone up. We are not holding them there against their will (in so far as if they want to leave the US they are free to do so. If their will is to continue to illegally enter the country then okay, yes, we are holding them against their will because their will is illegal.) If people don't want to be in these camps, there is a legal process of immigration that they could have chosen to follow. (Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's probably broken. That doesn't mean you get to decide to just ignore it. There are a lot of hard, inconvenient, and/or broken laws. You know what? You still have to obey them.)

Oh but what about refugees? Well, there's a legal process for that, too. And yes I get it, it's not maybe as fast as sneaking through a tunnel in the middle of the night and disappearing into the community, but you're going to piss off a lot less of the population of the country by dealing with the legal process than if you ignore it.

Compare to Hitler's concentration camps. Could the Jews leave? No. Not unless they wanted to be shot. Were they there voluntarily? Again no.

So really, A+ for rhetoric and word pictures. Because "concentration camp" is evocative. But I'm going to go with a D- for truth.

Thoughts on Removing Bias

There's a big brouhaha going on about the recent nominations for the Romance Writers of America (RWA) major yearly awards, the RITA.

I'm not a member, so I have no skin in this game. Except that I think they're falling victim to a problem that EVERY major award of this sort is prone to.

With book awards (the RITA, the Carol, the Christy, etc etc), the books submitted are already published. Which means they have an author name and, generally, photo associated with them. So when the contest judge gets their pile of books to read, they are able to make automatic assumptions. And they do. Whether or not they realize it.

See a name you recognize and read for pleasure? That book is automatically going to rate higher simply because of the author's name on the cover. See a name you've not heard of? Lower. See a name you've heard negative things about? Same goes. Glance at the author photo on the back and don't like what you see? Lower score.

Now I think everyone - EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET - would say they don't/wouldn't do this if they were judging a contest. But it's a lie. Unconscious bias is a thing. So is conscious bias. (There's a reason women who write fantasy and science fiction still more often then not use initials or a pen name.)

So how do you fix something like this? How do you ensure books are judged solely on their writing merit (if that's what you say you're going for)?

You make entries anonymous.

To enter, authors would have to provide a PDF that's been generated from a document where all identifying information has been stripped. Maybe even the book title (because if something has been insanely popular, we all know the title and it's going to tip us to the author and invoke that bias again.) Additionally? Judges might have to submit a list of authors and books they've read so they can't accidentally be given a book to judge that they've read (or if they get one, they have to recuse themselves from that title.) There's a tiny bit of honor system required there, but I'm not sure how to get around that.

Which is part of the problem. In a situation like this, bias can't be completely removed. It simply can't. Steps can be taken to lessen it, but absolute eradication? Nope.

It's a sad situation to watch and I hope they can find a solution before the animosity flying around on Twitter from every sector tears the organization apart.

"Slipper socks. Medium."*

So. NASA apparently doesn't stock enough space suits in various sizes and suddenly this is a demonstration of the patriarchy at work.

I'll admit that I haven't done extensive reading on what happened, I got distracted by all the females running around with their hands in the air screaming about how awful the world was and how NASA was a bunch of big meanies.

To me it just seems like bad planning.

I mean, if you have three women up on the space station (or any number -- pick a number), every one of them should have a space suit that fits them available. Same would go for men (I know, I know, I'm being too fair. Men should have to share.)

Seriously. I'm not going into space without knowing I have a space suit that fits me available.

The longest rant I read most of (before my eyes glazed over because I just have very little tolerance for feminism when it gets militant and full of snark about how horrible men are) went on to say that manufacturers assume an average male size when making specialty gear like space suits and body armor and how horrible that is.

Well no. That's economics and looking at averages. If you happen to wear plus sizes, you're going to be familiar with this problem that strikes all kinds of people.

I imagine it runs a lot like this:

Let's say I manufacture space suits. I'm going to look at the space industry world wide and take a poll on the number of men vs women employed who will potentially need my product. I'm going to take a WILD guess and say the number of men approved as honest-to-God spacefaring astronauts is considerably higher than the number of women. I am then going to look at what size will fit the largest number of that larger population and that is going to be the "stock" size I provide.

Now let's say I run a space agency. I'm going to do the same thing when I'm ordering. Oh sure, I may order one or two outliers--grab an XL and a M or S just in case. But most of what I buy? It's going to fit the majority of the people who are going to need or want to wear it.

The fact that that happens to be men in this instance is not a sexism issue.

Why not? Let's look at your average department store. Go on into the women's clothing area and look at what sizes are most available. Which ones? Oh, that's right, they're the sizes that the average woman in the area is going to wear, determined by census and careful tracking of what has been selling. You know what they don't stock a lot of? Sizes for outliers.

So if you, like me, are a larger-than-average size, well good luck finding something on the rack. Your choices are going to be limited. And it's not a sexism thing (or even a sizeism one) - it's economics.

Same thing applies if you're super petite or extra tall -- if you're an outlier in size or, in the case of an industry, gender, then there may not be as ample resources available to you "off the rack" as it were. It's not an institutionalized "ism."

Now, if you want to discuss why there are fewer women in science who are then on the astronaut career trajectory, we probably can uncover some isms. I'm not saying gender discrimination doesn't happen.

I just don't think in this particular case of space suit gate that's what we're looking at.

*spot the quote

It's Never as Simplistic as You Want to Make It

With all the recent extreme abortion legislation flying around lately, it's been fascinating to watch the political posturing on Facesplat from the pro-abortion 'scuse me, "pro-choice" crowd and how they like to do flying leaps a la some kind of WWE champion onto the unsuspecting who dares to express an honest desire to do more to help stop this kind of madness from becoming the law of the land.

The most egregious of these came in the form of this oh-so-helpful list posted in the comments one one friend's "Hey, how can I get involved in supporting pro-life things" posts.

Let me walk you through why this is unhelpful.

Suggestions from the pro-abortion pro-choice about how to help:

• Fight for access to affordable, available birth control options.

There is a fail-safe, 100% free birth control option available to EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the world. It's called abstinence. It's a simple concept: don't have sex unless you're ready to entertain the possibility of procreation. Yes, yes, that's old fashioned and unrealistic. Except it isn't. It does require a return to valuing marriage and choosing to see sex as a scared covenant created by God for use inside of the marriage covenant. Which means undoing years of the pro-choice feminist lobby to convince everyone that free sex is awesome and can be had with no strings.  And of course, no one wants to let go of that brainwashing.

So let's push that aside. I'm pretty sure schools give out condoms still. They did when I was in school and that was a million years ago. There are easy ways to look up online how to understand your body as a woman and pinpoint the, let's say five to be generous, days each month when you're actually fertile (of course that implies that you can manage to abstain for a short period of time each month so maybe that's horrible of me to suggest?) Bonus: knowing how your body works and what the signs of that working are can tell you even more than how not to get pregnant. Let's teach THAT to girls who are getting ready to start their cycles for the first time.

Beyond that? Birth control isn't all that expensive unless you're sneaking around and not wanting to use your parents' insurance to get it. Isn't it also included with Obamacare? So with that, doesn't everyone have access to this if they want it? Thus? This is a moot point and all you're doing when you're saying it is that you consider killing babies an acceptable form of birth control.

Abortion is not birth control. It's killing a child. If we've gotten to the point as a culture that we are seriously trying to convince men and women that murder is a means of family planning, we have failed more than is probably recoverable.

• Support science-based, thorough sex ed.

So here's another jab against abstinence education. But hey, I can scientifically prove to you that if you never have sex, you will not get pregnant. And if you want to include the scientifically based natural family planning methods that I mentioned above? Heck yeah, do it. Girls should know how to chart their temperatures to understand what their bodies are doing before, during, and after ovulation. They should know how their bodies produce varying levels of fluid based on what's happening with their hormonal fluctuations. All of that? Science.

You know what's not science? "This is a clump of cells not a person." Cause 12 days in it's got a beating heart. Show me a clump of cells with a beating heart that, were it not human, would NOT be classified as a living being by science.

I'm all for science based sex ed, but let's go ahead and make sure it's actually that, not some propaganda to push abortion as health care.

• Adopt

Sure. Cause it's that easy. Just take yourself on down to the adoption store and get yourself another child. There are more couples willing to adopt--particular if we're talking newborns--than there are babies available. There are people willing to adopt from foster care, too. But there are a lot of kids in foster care whose biological parents won't release them for adoption. And the foster care system (you could argue that it's correct) seeks reunification above all else. They want these kids to go back to the biological family whenever possible. If the biological parents aren't going to step up, they need to relinquish parental rights immediately and let their children be adopted, not dick around with the foster system, dragging out the process until the courts are forced to sever and the kids are close to aging out anyway. There are a lot of men who won't let their babymama choose adoption and force her to either parent or abort (and then generally they aren't there paying child support for 18 years like they ought to, nor are they stepping up to marry the woman and make a family.)

Pro-life Christians are standing on the sidelines willing and waiting to adopt. Our culture has attached more stigma to adoption than to any other choice a young woman can make today. You want pro-life Christians to adopt? Then you - the pro-abortion talking heads - need to be willing to tell women that hey, here's another option, have you considered it? There's nothing wrong with making that choice and it's actually better for your body than terminating a pregnancy. (But of course, they don't want to talk about the harm abortion does to the woman's body. Because they're all about safe and legal.)

• Treat mothers and post-abortive women with the same love you have for their babies and destigmatize being an unwed mother.

Honestly? I don't know what circles this poster hangs out in, but it's clearly not the pro-life Christian circles I'm in. Because we do all of that. More than all of that. Yeah, it's a great talking point to say "Oh, they're going to shame you. Blah blah blah." No we aren't. No we don't. Go to a pregnancy resource center and I can pretty much guarantee you they're going to help you learn how to be a better parent, help you get diapers and clothes and cribs and affordable childcare so you can work. Because that's what they do. It's never been about saving a baby and dumping the mother. Ever.

• Hold men accountable

You know the best way to do this? Don't make abortion cheap and easy.

Also? Circle back to that stuff above about marriage and family mattering.

There were a few more points after that, but they weren't specific to anything pro-life so much as it was a liberal platform for government-provided everything.

It's fun to post stuff like this and act like you're being kind and caring for fighting for abortion, because look how easy it is and you pro-lifers just don't step up. But the thing is, we do. We are. We will.

If you truly want to make a life-affirming choice and give birth to your child? There are people who want to help you do that and make the best choice for you and the child going forward. Because that best choice is never going to be death for the child and the physical and emotional trauma of that death for the woman.

Thoughts On Sexual Harassment, MeToo, and Definitions

So, yesterday, Publisher's Weekly posted this article describing sexual harassment within the Christian publishing industry. As you can probably imagine, with the world of Christian authors, it has set heads spinning and is just about all many of the industry-focused groups can talk about.

A lot of what I'm seeing is shock and horror that this could take place within a Christian setting. And while, yes, it's sad and heartbreaking, because Christians should behave better than those who don't believe, I think it's imperative that people remember that Christians are still broken, fallen human beings, full of sin. The only difference is a commitment to trying to walk as Jesus would have us walk and, when we fail, repenting and seeking the Lord's help to do better. This is the heart of the Gospel, that everyone needs Jesus to forgive their sins -- and it's not a one and done situation. (Would that it were so.) So while yes, it's heartbreaking that this has happened, the fact that it happened in a Christian setting shouldn't be as big a surprise as it seems to be (reference the problems within the Catholic church and/or at Willowcreek for two recent examples of fallen humans who love Jesus doing very very badly by their fellow humans.)

But the whole thing has spun my mind round again to something that plagues me as the mother of boys: what exactly constitutes sexual harassment?

When I look at some of the stories of women who feel they have been harassed, I see them talking about how they were made to feel uncomfortable. And I stop and ask myself, "Really? Is all it takes to ruin someone's livelihood the fact that you were uncomfortable?" Because I'm uncomfortable a lot. Women seem determined to discuss their monthly cycles with me. This makes me more uncomfortable than I can possibly explain. Are they sexually harassing me? Of course not. (I also have a couple of pairs of jeans that make me uncomfortable. Sadly, I can't sue them for sexual harassment either.)

Being made uncomfortable isn't enough, in my opinion, to start throwing around allegations. To me, if you're a woman and you're uncomfortable, you should a) say, "Hey, you know what, this seems inappropriate and I am uncomfortable. Can we change the subject?" and, if that fails, b) go elsewhere.

I can see how, if you do a and nothing changes -- or if in fact the behavior intensifies -- and you're not in a situation where b is possible then okay, yes, lines have been crossed. But again I wonder, is it really sexual harassment?

Then there's the matter of inappropriate. Is inappropriate automatically sexual harassment? I've been guilty of being inappropriate. I've hung around with coworkers (generally male, seeing as they were also software engineers and that is, largely, a male-dominated environment) where talk has turned bawdy. I have made an off-color joke or two. And I have been in situations where jokes crossed the line into uncomfortable and inappropriate and I have, in those situations, made a way to remove myself from it. I don't feel that I've ever experienced sexual harassment. (Discrimination? Yes. But that's a noodle for another day.)

And so I circle back to why I worry about raising boys in the MeToo culture that we currently have. Right now, it feels as if a well-intentioned comment along the lines of, "Wow, you look great today." Can, should the woman on the other end of said comment decide, be turned into a sexual harassment witch hunt. Or trying to squeeze past someone in a crowded room (because honestly, if you want inappropriate and unwanted sexual touching, ride the Metro at rush hour sometime.) But there's no intent there. And that's what I feel like we're not wrapping our heads around. Sexual harassment has to have some level of intent on the part of the perpetrator. But at the same time, "Oh, I didn't mean it." is also not a valid excuse.

I don't really have any solutions. It's a serious problem and needs serious attention. It needs to stop. At the same time, we need to stop looking for it behind every bush and in every shadowed doorway. We need to find a way to determine the true cases from the women (and men) who see it as a way to punish or get revenge on someone. Because that happens, too. But right now, in today's climate, there doesn't seem to be a way to say, "Hey, I take your allegation seriously, but I need to look at both sides and find the truth." without being called a victim shamer. Yes, absolutely, the pendulum used to swing too far on the side of protecting the perpetrator, but swinging too hard to the other side where allegations aren't verified before someone's life is ruined is not the correct response.

It's murky. And hard. And I'm doing everything I can to raise my boys to avoid situations where it'll even be a question. But I worry. And I pray. Because this world? It needs Jesus. Even the people inside the church.

I Would Never Want to be a Weatherperson

With hurricane Florence barrelling toward the east coast, I've spent entirely too much time this week trying to get prepared (in so far as we need to where we are -- we were never in the direct path.) Of course, how much preparation to do has been up in the air. On Monday, it looked like it was headed for the NC/VA border area and so we could expect upwards of 10 inches of rain. On our already sodden ground. There would be flooding in places and probably some trees that simply couldn't stay upright in the loose muck.

Would we lose power? I found the flashlights and batteries. We have food and water. We we're probably good.

But since then, the dang predictions keep moving around. South. North. Back to the South. Hit in the south then go straight west. No, it'll turn north after it hits.

No. One. Has. Any. Clue.

That is my takeaway. I have long called them weather guessers, around here at least they seem to be wrong more than they're right.

That said, if Florence is headed your way - or might be (which basically means you live in the mid Atlantic at this point), be sure to listen to your local authorities. And seriously, if you're told to evacuate, do it. If it's suggested, do it.

Beyond that? If you're watching and waiting, try to avoid stirring up panic. There are helpful ways to encourage people to prepare and there are panic inducing ones. Don't let previous experiences with storms make you the latter. It's counter productive (I have a handful of people on ye olde FB who are what I consider panic mongers right now. Don't be Chicken Little.)