Major Mike’s Musings

An article on Fox News reports that PETA is asking AP to quit referring to animals as “it.”

Fido’s a “he,” not an “it.”¹

The organization, known worldwide for championing animal rights, is now taking its campaign to the written word, calling on Norm Goldstein, editor of The Associated Press Stylebook, to revise its guidelines, which currently characterize animals as inanimate objects.

In a letter written to Goldstein, the animal activists ask the AP to “take a progressive step and give animals the respect that they deserve by revising AP style guidelines to reflect the usage of personal pronouns for all animals.”

So, here’s my question: Which dogs and cats read the newspaper and can tell the difference if they’re being called he, she, or it?

1. UPDATE: According to the current Associated Press Stylebook, if an animal’s sex is known or the animal has a name, “it” is to be referred to as “he” or “she” as appropriate. [↩]

In case you missed it, the ACLU is suing the State of Indiana on behalf of Mark Studler because Indiana is not charging a $15.oo fee for the popular “In God We Trust” license plates. Rather than recap the entire “adventure” here, I’ll point you to two blogs that disagree on the reason for the lawsuit.

John at The Daily Detour says it’s about God.

Gary Varvel¹ says it isn’t.

Both think it’s ridiculous; so do I.

1. link no longer valid [↩]

Have you ever noticed how some people always use certain adjectives with particular nouns? TV and TV news is famous for this practice, but we all do it. Here’s a partial list to get you started. How many can you come up with?

1. Innocent children. Why is it that children are always innocent? If you’ve ever had kids, you’ll know that this prase is entirely erroneous. Innocent victims is in the same category. To be fair, the “innocent” usually doesn’t refer to the child’s or victim’s moral or legal culpability. I usually means they didn’t deserve what happened to them
2. Nice cup of tea. As in, “Here, let me fix you a nice cup of tea.” This is mostly used in British novels and TV programs, but we Americans use it too. Why not just say, “A cup of tea?”
3. Good money. As in, “I gave good money for that truck and now it’s broke.” I don’t know how money can have moral character.
4. All new. This usually refers to episodes of programs on TV. It has a clever ring to it. It sounds better than, “New.” I guess they’re implying that the episode is 100% new as opposed to 25% new. What producer would only change 25% of a previous episode, anyway. Oh yeah, I forgot Lost.
5. Senseless violence. What violence makes sense anyway? Sheesh.
6. Random act of violence. Like the person committing the violence is committing it randomly. Even the shooter in the Jerk picked the name out of a phone book. Violence happens on purpose, folks, not randomly.

Ok, now it’s your turn. How many of these silly phrases can you come up with?

Has anyone else noticed that when the government raises taxes, it’s on the “rich” but when the government reduces taxes it’s on everybody who pays them? Then when the government gives everyone the same-percentage tax cut, the folks who pay little taxes complain that the “rich” got a bigger tax cut.

Here is some disturbing news from the Ivy Jungle:

The Dual Life Trend: At Urbana and two state youth conventions, the Youth Transition Network met with more than 500 high school students asking them why so many students fall away from church when they go off to college. One of the consistent top reasons among the two dozen given was hypocrisy among youth group members. Students said that many live an “intentionally deceptive” “dual life”. They believe that between 75% and 95% of the students in their groups lead such dual lives. (YTN Memo April 17, 2007)

This is especially disturbing to me. Charlene and I work with youth in our church and have worked with youth for around 20 years. We know hypocracy exists in the church youth community–just as it exists in the whole church body–but the notion that church youth are leading “intentionally deceptive” “dual lives” at the rate of 75-95% is hard to believe.

Really. Teens gravitate to people who are “real” in their walk with God. Most of the teens I have mentored are struggling with sin, just like I do. But to be intentionally leading a dual life deceptively is a rare occurance to me. I can think of several reasons for the survey results:

1. I’ve been completely fooled by all the youth I’ve mentored over 20 years and they really are leading intentionally deceptive, dual lives.
2. The youth surveyed have misinterpreted others’ struggles trying to reconcile their sin on the one hand with their desire to lead a life pleasing to God on the other. (I think all Christians struggle with their desired walk conflicting with their actual walk. Can someone really desire to act one way but actually act another? Absolutely!)
3. Maybe I’ve gravitated to the teens who are the 5 to 25% of teens who do not live “intentionally deceptive” “dual lives”.

Regardless, the survey tells us that teens are human. We all want to protect our darkest secrets from the people whom we respect and admire. Thus, our focus in youth ministry–indeed any ministry–needs to be on God’s grace rather than God’s judgement. God’s grace, as disbursed through His ambassadors, allows people to shed their facade; reject their dual lives; live in the Light. When the threat of judgment is removed, people can become brutally honest.

I believe we spend too much time in ministry trying to “disciple” folks into a set of rules instead of encouraging people into a loving realtionship with God. God want’s to forgive. God wants to wrap His arms around everyone and give them love and peace. God wants to accept people the way they are.

When we communicate judgment, we force people to hide their real selves from us and try to hide their real selves from God. When we communicate grace, people are free to be themselves and to allow God to work in their lives…

From the Ivy Jungle newsletter:

Millennials Differ From Previous Generations: Having grown up in a digital world of constantly evolving technology, researchers say the millennial generation differs from all of its predecessors. The second largest generation in US history, they thrive on choice and instant results. The economy is just one sphere of their influence where the average US teen spends just over $100 a week on discretionary items. Recognized as trendsetters in the population, marketers have taken a keen interest in them. They have proven very adaptable – especially with regard to technology. They have moved from email to IM to MySpace in the course of almost literally months. They have left cd players far behind as they took up iPods. They constantly want choices – even in education. At the college level, researchers say it is not uncommon for them to be simultaneously enrolled in both traditional on campus courses and online classes – through their own university or another somewhere else in the world. On a standard personality test, Millenials outscore their GenX predecessors in warmth, abstract reasoning, emotional stability, social boldness, sensitivity, openness to change, and perfectionism. GenXers scored much higher in self reliance. Their driving value seems to be choice and finding ways to make something their own. (Seattle Post Intelligencer March 13, 2007)

Here’s a slug I got on my newsreader¹ from Fox news:

Smoke Break May Have Saved Woman’s Life

Brenda Comer had just finished washing dishes Monday and stepped outside to smoke a cigarette when an 80-foot oak tree crashed through her roof, landing across the sink where she had been standing, splitting her house in two.

Two observations: (1) What was she doing splitting her house in two? And (2) thank heavens for cigarettes.

1. The actual article didn’t read like this [↩]