Bad Mothers

I saw the movie Precious this past Thursday with Nick. I came out of the theatre sobbing and when I calmed down enough to tell Nick that yes, the performances were stunning and powerful, but it was my resemblance to Precious, the wounded child, that made me so sad, my experience of childhood in an upper middle class white family of extremely attractive people, where I was a sexual object at six for my mother's husband, my adoptive father, son of a well known surgeon, member of the Country Club, where no one saw the pain, the isolation, the destruction going on in full view of everyone. Nothing ever disturbed my families picture perfect outward appearance, but my parents pathology certainly did create madness in me. They did pass it on. I was not impregnated by my father, but if I had been, my grandfather would have quietly made that little problem go away. It was an educational opportunity that got me out of my family home when I was seventeen, a bit like Precious, only I got to skip my senior year of high school and go to the University of Utah and live in the dorms. Otherwise I'd have probably been a run-away living on the streets of San Francisco.

A lot of men think the stories of my childhood are hyperbolic and too lurid to be believable. I promise you that when I was in group therapy in Santa Barbara in a group of fifteen women who all had been sexually abused as children, some of us had children who had also been sexually abused, we were all white. Some of us were the well educated progeny of well off parents, but the cost to each of us had been sanity, safety, any sence of security, a profound saddness, and a series of suicide attempts. Many of these women had lives far more brutal than mine, yet we all felt worthless.

I'm writing a novel about the life of one such woman. You know what they say: write about what you know. So that's what I'm doing. If writing my story makes only one woman feel less alone, I'll feel like a success.

A woman I greatly admire, Melissa Harris Lacewell, has written an article for The Nation called Bad Black Mothers. I think it's important to our understanding of each other that we pay close attention to all these stories. The one thing they all have in common is the bad or absent father who is never mentioned, never blamed for the aftermath, never suffers the real consequences for the destruction he causes. No, we as a society blame the mother and/or the child. More of our famous Family Values.

Family Values

Every time I hear someone on the Right claim that their political party is all about “Family Values,” I want to scream, “Whose Family?” Certainly not mine. Family Values is “Christian” code for “Exclusion.” Like “Pro-Life” is code for “Anti-Choice.” Embedded in the code of “Family Values” is the idea that there is only one “right” kind of family.

Since the 1950’s the family has undergone radical change. We are mobile and very often live far from extended families. There are now blended families, which have evolved over the past fifty some years, and now children may have more than one “mother” or “father.” Children today may have more than two sets of grandparents. They may have aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews from marriages that ended in divorce and began anew with new marriages to people who already had children from their past marriages. It is a little like the polygamist marriages so common in Mormonism. After awhile it becomes difficult to sort out who is a cousin or an aunt or a niece to whom. And so it seems to me that “Family Values” is a meaningless term, merely code for “no marriage benefits for gay couples.” I don’t know a single family today, with it’s multiple marriages, and all the children raised in these temporary marriages, that does not have at least one gay child within it. This fact implies that we don’t love all our children equally. That some of our children do not deserve the legal rights and privileges that our other children deserve. And this is a Christian value? If it is, then Christianity has undergone the same kind of radical shift in “values” that is apparent in all families.

Fundamentalist Christians believe the word of God, as set down in the Bible, is absolutely the “Truth.” If this line of thinking is taken to it’s logical conclusion, we would be stoning adulterers, we would be literally taking an eye for an eye. I would be able to say to any “Christian” who complains about the content of our mass media, “If thine eyes offend thee, pluck them out,” and would have a reasonable expectation that there would be a lot of one eyed “Christians” walking around out there. Women are exhorted from almost every pulpit in the land to “obey” their husbands, who are the moral authority, the rulers of their families. They seem to believe that it is their right (these old white men) to take away my rights as well a the legal rights of every female and gay person. They are about to strip our reproductive rights in the guise of Healthcare Reform. The Stupak Amendment and the Nelson Amendment are designed to make it impossible for women to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy. This has been a legal right since Roe versus Wade. If they succeed in taking away my rights as a woman, then they can take away your rights as an African American, and your rights as a Latin American, and your rights as a………. Where will this end? It will end in fascism. We will have no rights at all.

Al Frankin Schools Senator Thune on Healthcare Reform

Who Are We

Identity is a complex process of often painful evolution. But we have developed over the short span of eight years an identity, as a nation in a world of other nations, as bullies and thugs. That is a big part of the Bush Legacy. Thank you Carl Rove, thank you Vice President Chenney, thank you Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales. I could go on and on with the kudos, but if you’d been paying the slightest attention over the eight long Bush years, you know the cast of characters. Second raters, one and all. Mean and greedy. It’s hard for me to believe that these people all had reasonable credentials—good schools, a history of public service, business, law. What happened along the way that made them all so cynical and mean and greedy? What was in it for them besides wealth? Is wealth enough of an incentive to work so hard to wreck a country? Did they plan the economic collapse when it seemed a woman or a black man would be taking over to lead the sinking ship of state? Was the banking collapse a well improvised explosive devise planted to sabotage and guarantee failure for their successor? And did Dick Chenney always plan to stick around and needle the next administration?

We are learning things about ourselves and our government that are horrifying to me. That C Street has been doing its subversive secret work since the 1930s directing the legislative agenda of Congressmen, both Democrat and Republican, is only now becoming widely known. That we became torturers and that conservatives (both Republican and Democrat) believe this is a good thing is profoundly depressing. That lobbyists for corporate America are driving the agenda and funding the conservatives of both parties to stop reform of our Healthcare and Financial Industries and just might well succeed, and indeed have succeeded in keeping reform from happening at all, makes me want to leave this country and live in a country less enamored of greed and repression, less invested in fundamentalist religious doctrines, less willing to strip women of rights long ago fought for and won.

The Christmas Nazi

Mom met Andrew in 1981 when he came to pick me up for our blind date. Her pronouncement on him later that night, after he'd delivered me to my door was, "What an arrogant son-of-a-bitch."

The first time he came to pick me up, when his kids were visiting for that first summer, she made a point of saying, "Good thing you've got girls. I can't stand little boys." Thank God, he'd left the girls in the car. We were utterly speechless, and simply left. The girls liked me, and after dinner and the movie, the girls invited me to come home with them and sleep over. I accepted. When I called Mom from Andrew's to tell her not to worry, I was sleeping over, she said, "I thought you were both very rude to me when you left. You didn't even say goodbye."
"I guess we didn't know what to say to your comment about little boys. Andrew does have a son. He lives with his mother, Andrew's first wife."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"Sorry. I'll see you sometime tomorrow."
"What time?"
"Don't worry about it. I have a key."

She complained as time went on and I spent more and more time living with Andrew and the girls, about our never giving her an invitation--like his family got. So next time we had a family get together she was included. She walked up to Andrew's youngest brother Curt and asked, "Have you ever had sex with an animal? I'm taking an informal survey, and want to know if it feels any different than sex with a human." Curt, who was an investment banker, newly married with a pregnant wife, stared expressionlessly at her face and then said, perfectly deadpan, "No, have you?" When Mom was out on the deck, feeding peanuts to the squirrels with the grandparents and the girls, Curt looked at Andrew and cocked one eyebrow. Then he raised his glass to Andrew and said, "Good luck. You're going to need it."

When I was invited to my first family Christmas Eve celebration hosted by Curt and his wife Amy, I was conflicted. It was my mother's family's tradition to celebrate Christmas very late on Christmas Eve. Sleeping in on Christmas day was the motivation for that ritual I'm sure. But I felt guilty about telling my mother I was choosing to spend the night with Andrew's family. I asked him if he thought Curt would mind inviting her.

"Do you think she can behave herself? There might be little boys there."
"I'll ask her to be nice."
"Won't that be like waving a cape in front of a bull? My father's a Republican and I'll bet she knows it."
"I'll tell her she can't talk politics."
"In your dreams."
"It's Christmas for Christ's sake. How can I abandon her? Please."
"Merry Christmas."

The Hoffman Christmas tradition was a crab-leg feast. The house was beautifully decorated. There was a big traditional tree, a fire in the fireplace, and one of the grandchildren (a boy) was banging out Silent Night on the piano. Andrew's older sister and her husband were there with their teenaged son. Helen, Curt's pregnant wife's family was in attendance. It was a big party. Their large dining room table was close quarters.

There were lots of plates and hot pots of melted butter, many wine glasses. Baskets of bread at both ends of the table, red sauce here and there, a huge salad bowl. But the thing that dominated the table were the two huge platters heaping with big steaming crab legs. I had never seen so many at one time. Chairs were crammed so tight around the table there would be no elbowroom.

Mom was seated between Andrew's mother, Marta, and his sister-in-law, Helen. We were across the table. Andrew's father was at one end and his brother, Curt, the host of the party, was at the other. Right there we had the possibility that Mom would start some sort of patriarchal diatribe concerning the archaic seating that placed men in those arbitrary positions. But Mom looked innocent and was behaving herself, so far. I began to breath again.

There was a lot of chatter as people began to pass platters and baskets. Wine bottles went the rounds and toasts were made. My mother raised her glass (I held my breath) but she only thanked everyone for inviting her. Again I could breathe. I was beginning to shiver and tried to concentrate on eating. I love sweet crabmeat dipped in melted butter.

Things went along pretty well and the meal was almost over. There was still dessert and coffee, but I was beginning to relax. I even left the room to help the older children clear dinner dishes from the table in preparation for dessert and exchange dirty wine glasses for coffee cups and brandy snifters. But by the time I got back to the table, Andrew's mother was leaning away from my mother and saying to Henry, her husband , "What is she talking about? Is this all right for the children to hear? I mean, isn't she talking about artificial insemination?" The last sentence is delivered in a loud stage whisper but I was just setting Harvey's coffee cup in front of him and I couldn't help overhearing. Oh shit. I'm in trouble now. She's off and running and there will be no stopping her.

I look down the table scanning for damage. Mom has her arm around Helen's brother's chair, leaning in front of Andrew's youngest daughter who is six. Mom is tugging on the sleeve of the the other brother-in-law sitting next to Andrew's oldest daughter who is nine. Helen's brother looks puzzled, but not horrified. But the man next to him is getting red in the face. I can hear Mom when she leans in front of Helen's brother to continue her conversation with the red-faced man. "You're a lawyer, you must at least have a legal opinion if you can't form an ethical or political opinion." Wap! The sound of the gauntlet being thrown.

"Mother, what are you talking about?"
"Artificial insemination. There was a very interesting article in Ms. Magazine this month. It's about the moral question concerning the rights of the children of sperm donors to know their genetic heritage versus the right to privacy of the donor."
"It's Christmas, and there are children at the table. Could we talk about something else, please?" "No one else is complaining. Who are you, the Christmas Nazi?" As I was about to respond, she turned back to the red-faced man and said, "Well?!"

Andrew's father, Harvey, stood and called for less conversation and said, "Could we please sing some carols? How about Deck the Halls?" Mom rolled her eyes and then pinned me with a withering look. I had spoiled her fun.

She never got another invitation to Curt's Christmas party.

When it came up the next year I told her why she hadn't been included. "You insisted on discussing a controversial topic that's inappropriate for children. We were eating dinner and artificial insemination seemed tasteless. Nobody wanted to talk about it. You were trying to start an argument. I don't understand why you'd want to do that, but it was embarrassing to me."

"Oh, so now I embarrass you. That's rich. They were so boring, so stuffy and dull. I was just trying to keep from dying of boredom. Well, if that's where you want to spend Christmas Eve, go. I'll have more fun alone. I won't have to spend the evening with the Christmas Nazi"

Love Ridden

A Few Words In Defense of Our Country

January 2007 performance. Features full lyrics. Abridged lyrics ran as a New York Times Op-Ed piece on 1/24/07

I Got Nothin', But Bob Cesca's Got Awesome

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog is awesome and this post is called "Guns, Butter, and Suck."
Do yourself a favor and go read it.

It's Prostate, Not Prostrate

Men have quite complicated plumbing. Some men get breast cancer. Yes, I know. It seems so unfair that your flabby little man boobs can have all the same bad things happen to them as your wife/girlfriend's lovely plump breasts, but bad things can happen to man boobs too. Then think of all the complicated parts of a penis. What about your prostate? Ignore your throbbing prostate and you may end up prostrate. How are your Seminal Vesicles? I capitalize that because if those puppies go south you'll be in a world of hurt. I know. I was married to a man who had seminal vesicle problems. He was constantly in the hospital in agonizing pain. Men have a trickier relationship with their colons than women, statistically speaking, and they tend to wait longer than women to go to a doctor when they do have problems. Men are touchy about their nether-regions and not in a good way. I've known a lot of men and they all had a horror of having their bummy holes looked at. Just saying.

Cyrus Has a Big Problem

This is the second of these sores. The first one was almost this big and you can now see it closer to his nose, as a small red spot. It's opening up a bit with the constant licking and rubbing. I started treating this one earlier than the first and had made progress, ran out of antibiotics as the holiday happened. Started this round the day after Thanksgiving, only now it's a bigger dose. There is no way to keep a dog from licking his lips, so it's impossible to keep this sore clean and dry. So far neither of these sores has dulled his apatite. His bowel seems normal. I'm about at my wit's end.

He does not want to let me clean it or take its picture. So, this is a blurry and badly lit picture, but you can see how deep it is and how big in diameter--bigger than a quarter for sure.

Things I Should Be Doing

I have put so much on hold I now have a to-do list almost as long as the book I'm taking forever to edit/rewrite/re-edit/submit. This list is so overwhelming I just glance at it now and then, feel guilty, and then go back to bed to watch an old movie or read a few pages of the Ann Tyler novel I've been reading for a month now. I know. A month? What happened to me as the woman who gobbled books? I got an Imac and stopped reading. What's up with that? Has twitter stolen my brain? Is a piddling blog post all I can accomplish in a day?

I used to spend at least a couple of hours a day visiting other bloggers. But when my to-do list grew to epic length, I gave up going anywhere but twitter and the grocery store. And like all bloggers, once I stopped visiting blogger friends, they stopped visiting me. You have to give a little to get a little. It is a two way street.

So, this morning I did a couple of things on this long overdue list. After checking in on twitter (not on the list) I gave myself a haircut. The hair that fell on the bathroom floor made me get the vacuum out and actually turn it on. I've had the vacuum out as a symbol of my need to use it, but it just sat there until I eventually got sick of looking at it and put it away. So now I have one cleanish floor which now needs to be scrubbed.

I could just print the damn to-do list here and check things off as I get them done, but more than likely, I'd write a new blog post and never look back, never check anything off the list. I have excuses for this neglect of domesticity. We know what they are. But maybe I'd actually feel better, more optimistic, more likely to edit a new chapter every day if I got the damned to-do list done.

I do change my bedding every week. I'm obsessive about clean bed linens, for me and for the dogs. Especially now, since Cyrus has developed this plague of flesh eating abscesses around his mouth. Clean beds and clean bowels. So today I will change our beds. I do clean up my kitchen area everyday. I cook; I clean up after cooking. But the dusting and such is just not a big priority these last weeks, months. I don't really know how long I've been letting things slide.

Even without extenuating circumstances I have a tendency to grow depressed during the holidays and it only turns around when the days begin to grow longer. This year there are extenuating circumstances. My best friend died six months after her diagnosis of small cell squamous lung cancer. She was a non-smoker. I'm sure not going to quit smoking now. So that's not on my to-do list.

Maybe today is the day I can get one more thing checked off that list. Maybe I'll vacuum the whole 500 square feet of floor space. It would be nice to check that one off my to-do list.

And for those of you with suggestions about ointments for Cyrus's lip... Dr Bodely and I have discussed this. On the first sore, the one that was closest to his nose, higher on his upper lip, I tried cleaning it with hydrogen peroxide and coating it with antibacterial ointment, but this only seemed to make it worse. It was obviously painful and irritating to Cyrus and resulted in a more vigorous attempt on his part to lick and rub the stinky ointment off. It sure did not seem to help.

When the first sore erupted like an outerspace alien life force that started as a sore and then became a hard swelling along with the otherworldly sore turning into an exotic cauliflower looking thing in shades of red from pale pink to deep burgundy right beside his nose, Dr Bodley thought it might be a cancer tumor that would signal the beginning of a sudden end to Cyrus's life since is was in a position that would make surgery impossible. I took comfort when the antibiotics started to work and the swelling went down. It took three rounds of antibiotics to cure that first sore. We had a couple weeks of relatively good health but then the next sore began it's eruption. It's like a pox, a plague, an invasion of something like nothing Dr. Bodley's ever seen.

I know that there are no new plants in the area of the yard Cyrus visits three times a day for his brief sojourns outside. I've wondered if he was being bitten by a brown recluse spider. But if so, why only Cyrus, and why only on that one side of his muzzle? It's a mystery that might be solved if I had unlimited resources and Cyrus didn't outweigh me by forty or fifty pounds. He will not leave the yard to venture beyond the fence. He will only go out into the yard first thing in the morning, late afternoon, and just before we go to sleep. I have tried many times to force the issue, to attempt to drag him off his bed and out of the house, but he will trample me to get back onto his bed if he has to. So, like a good caretaker of an invalid of any sort, I do my best to keep him well and comfortable. He's a good dog, and I love him. Like the rest of you, I'm just doing the best I can.

My Dog's Got A Problem

Big Cyrus has an abscess. This is the second one. The first was just below his right nostril. The first time it started as a hard swelling that I didn't notice until it opened into a big round red sore. It opened with a round red sore the size of a nickle. The minute I noticed it I called The House Call Vet. He called my pharmacy with a Rx for antibiotics, so I got Cyrus treated before Dr Bodley could free up his schedule to see Cyrus. It took three rounds of antibiotics to cure the first absess. Now there is another one. This one is on his upper lip, same side as the first, just a slightly different position. I got him started right away on antibiotics, since Dr. Bodley's given me a refill for just this kind of recurrence. It looked like it was getting better and when Dr Bodley saw him just before he left town for the holiday, it looked like Cyrus was going to heal. But the day after his last pill three days ago, it started to swell and the sore has grown to quarter size at an alarming rate. I called Dr. Bodley and left a message that Cyrus was in need of more antibiotics and he called me back this morning early. So I just got back from the pharmacy with a second round of antibiotics and now instead of two pills twice a day, he's on two pills three times a day.

Dr Bodely has been my pet's Vet for 15 years or more. I think I was the last client he took, and I'm so grateful for him. He's seen me through the death of two dogs and one cat.

Now I have crazy old Cyrus, my 170 pound Rottie/Mastif mix with agoraphobia and blown knees, and a tendancy to get abscesses. Cyrus was shell shocked when I got him two and a half years ago. He'd spent nine years in the hands of a animal hoarder who called herself a shelter. She was alone with her 180+ animals in the desert outside of Tuscon, with no help and then she died. No one knows how long her animals went unattended, but by the time someone found her, the animals were in extreme distress. Cyrus appeared to have never seen a Vet. Best Friends took all the animals they could save, got them medical care and then started trying to find homes for them.

Cyrus has a double layered dog bed beside my bed. He never moves from there except to be coaxed out three times a day to pee and poo. Loud noises terrify him, so during those times of the year idiots are setting off fireworks, I can only get him out only once a day. The guy has great bladder/bowel control. He's a sweet soul and I love him madly, but getting him to a Vet Hospital is impossible. He out-weighs me by thirty pounds and if he doesn't want to go out, he won't budge. So whatever medical care Cyrus gets, he gets at home. When we can no longer treat him at home, it will be time to euthanize him. So I worry that these recurring abscesses are the beginning of the end. I'm praying to the God I don't believe in that Cryus survives the holidays.

Antonio Vivaldi, Winter

Happy Thanksgiving my darlings.

Blame It On Santa

When I was a kid I looked forward to the holidays, ever hopeful that this year it would be different. I was at least twelve before I realized that it was never going to be anything but a disappointment.

My parents would ask me what I wanted to eat on Thanksgiving and I'd say I wanted the traditional turkey, stuffing, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, Brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, Waldorf salad, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. My mother always ended up doing something wildly hinky like trying to make oyster stuffing or Cornish game hens. She didn't approve of mashed potatoes and couldn't/wouldn't make gravy. She refused to do anything fancier to a yam than bake it.

When we had Thanksgiving with my dad's parents his mother always came close to the perfect meal, but his dad seemed intent on putting us all on a diet right as he was carving the turkey, dishing out the stuffing. His slices of turkey were paper thin and the thimbleful of stuffing was just a tease of a taste. I could have eaten fifty of those servings but never was allowed to ask for more than three. My grandmother's pumpkin pie and whipped cream was perfection but the pie, once sliced into slivers, could have served at least twenty~there were only five of us. I gave up caring, hoping. I gave up falling for the promise the questions implied. "What do you want?" implied someone cared.

The first Christmas I remember, I was maybe three. Most people can't remember that far back. I can't remember yesterday, but I can remember my third year in shockingly vivid detail. I remember being coaxed and helped to write a letter to Santa. I wanted a tricycle. Just that one thing. Santa came and left me a letter telling why I couldn't have a tricycle. Santa always seemed to think I'd asked for the wrong thing. I gave up on Santa. When I was six I discovered that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were a fiction adults told children. I figured they did that so they didn't have to tell you that they weren't going to get you what you'd asked for. Blame it on Santa.

Now that I'm old and bipolar, I'm aware of all the reasons the holidays are hard. I, like so many, have SAD, so as the days get shorter I get sad. I wouldn't mind winter so much if it weren't for short days and snow. If I had the money and liked people better I'd head toward the equator in the winter. Instead I just hibernate. The only problem with being a sort of semi-shut-in, is that well meaning people invite me to spend those two days, Thanksgiving and Christmas, with them and their crazyass friends and family. Really, I was sure my very small extended family (I'm the only child of my mother's family, and my father's family wants nothing to do with me since I refuse to keep the family secrets secret) was the worse family on earth. But now, I realize everybody has a crazy relative, there is at least one alcoholic in every family, and you all have one sister-in-law you loathe, so the stress level at the dinner table will be guaranteed to give everyone indigestion, if not a full blown screaming food fight. Sibling rivalry seems to revive at the holiday table. It now amazes me that there aren't more stabbings at holiday dinners.

Now if you ask me what I want to do on Thanksgiving, I'll tell you I want to stay home, read, nap, and when I get really hungry I want a neighbor to send one of the kids with a plate piled high with turkey and all the fixins.

Happy Thanksgiving darlings! Don't stab your alcoholic brother at the table. I'd hate to see you miss Christmas because you were in the pokey.

For My Friend Zelita

Zelita Ann Biesele
11/06/1943 ~ 11/18/2009

Zelita was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, November 6th 1944, into a family whose love always sustained her. She died of cancer November 18th, 2009, in San Diego, California, at her oldest son's home surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Prior to her death, she made arrangements to have her body donated to the U.C.S.D. Medical School, setting a wonderful example for her friends and family.

Zelita was a lovely, kind, generous woman who made friends easily and kept them a lifetime. She was gifted in many ways, but friendship was an art at which she excelled; it was perhaps her greatest talent. We, who were lucky enough to say she was our friend, will never know another like her.

She was an early admissions student at the University of Utah where she was a Ballet Major. She had been a dancer in the Virginia Tanner Children's Theatre, with the University of Utah's famed Ballet School under the direction of W.F. Christensen, and then on to dance with the San Francisco Ballet Company. Zelita always retained that luminous grace, that lovely good posture, and the elegant willowy movement of a born dancer.

Zelita was also a visual artist who worked in oil paint, batik, silkscreen. She was a fashion and textile designer, a pianist. She could make anything including sails, she could reupholster a chair or build a deck. She could design as well as create. She was brave enough to tackle any job, hands on.

Zelita went to India in 1968 on a spiritual quest where she found her Guru, Master Maraji Charan Singh. She was a member of the spiritual community known as Science of the Soul. She spoke fondly its members and will be missed by this community.

She lived in New York for a time and then Hawaii and California for much of her adult life. She was a lifelong vegetarian, born into interesting times and she lived an interesting life always filled with love for her family and friends.

She is preceded in death by her parents, Mildred and Ferdinand C Biesele. She is survived by her Brothers Charles and William, her daughter, Aviva, her sons, Gabe, Angelo and Tobey, and seven grandchildren.

It was the love and support of her children and grandchildren which most enriched her life. She will be greatly missed by her lifelong friends, Martha and James Wolfe.

For Zelita

I'm Writing an Obituary Today

Thought's On My Own Obituary

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Hard Times, Come Again No More

In memory of my friend Zelita who died this morning. And for Esther, who taught me this song. We're having some hard times, aren't we?

It's In the Bible

This is one of the smartest letters to the editor I've ever read and that includes my own. It was in last Saturdays Salt Lake Tribune. The letter speaks very eloquently for itself:

I appreciate those who quote the Bible to stave off same-sex marriage, such as Leviticus 18:22, which states it is an "abomination" to "lie with a man as one lies with a woman." I now need advice on how to follow some other Bible laws.

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. What would be a fair price?

My neighbor insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

Leviticus 25:44 states that I may own slaves, male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend claims that this applies to Mexicans but not to Canadians. Why can't I own Canadians?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus 19:27. How should they die?

I have so many more things I'm unclear on. I'm thankful, though, that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Lynn Johnson

Salt Lake City