Just venting.

Last night the common council of west bend voted to not approve the mayor's appointments to the library board in direct compliance with few loud, opinionated and censorship minded individuals. They say it only takes about twelve contacts to the alderman in a city to sway them one way or another (and the Maziarka's have shown us maybe it is even less), so let's let them know that we are disappointed in those who voted with Maziarka's and the small minority who think it's the city's job to legislate morality.

Here is the article in the WB News.


Here is what the Maziarkas had to say about last night. (what are these people really asking for anyway? and keep in mind they choose not to follow through with any formal complaint, so what action is the library supposed to take?)

So contact your alderman (you can find them here) or for that matter all five who voted against these appointments, and let them know that we have voices too.


Thanks,

Molly Zuehlke

Ticked-off West Bend Citizen.



FINAL VOTE - APPROVE THE LIBRARY BOARD APPOINTMENTS

AYE
Dobberstein
Carter
Kist

NAY
Turner
Hutchins
Lindbeck
Carter
Vrana

For what it's worth

I missed the deadline for this letter to the editor but for what it's worth, here's what I had to add to our community dialogue.

"In reading all of the recent letters to the editor, you would think that those of us supporting Barack Obama, aren’t faithful, aren’t Christian, or don’t support life. This is simply not true.

The reasons that I support Barack Obama are because I am a believer in Jesus Christ. The Jesus Christ I know and love would consider it his duty to “spread the wealth around.” In fact I think most of who have actually read the New Testament would realize that His main message was and is to take care of the meek, the poor, and the sick. And there is only one candidate who is offering this as government policy and that is Barack Obama. With his tax plans, education plans, health care plans, he is embodying the values to which we as Christians should aspire.

As the mother of an adopted son, the issue of abortion is one that I take very seriously. I also know that the solution to reducing the number of abortions is not in legislating them away. It is through education and access to affordable family planning for women all around the world. Both of which were legislated away by our last administration, policies which would be continued by John McCain. It is through thinking, and praying, and realizing that most of the abortions that are occurring in this country today are minority women who have little no access to affordable family planning (thanks to the Bush administration) and little to no options for adopting their children out (thanks to racism.) Pray on that for a little while.

In closing, I pray that those of us with brains and hearts realize soon that our faith is based on more than just one issue, and that Jesus, more than just being our savior, was a magnificent example of how we as Christians need to take as our number one priority, the care of the sick, the poor, and the needy."

Molly Zuehlke

oh and.....


Go Barack Obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Positivity.

I miss the positive. I miss the optimism. I miss the love.

It's been tempting... with signs down the street from me saying that if I vote for Obama I vote for the Antichrist. It's been tempting when Sarah Palin calls Obama a terrorist, when McCain gets nasty as he debates. It's been tempting when my neighbors talk about his middle name and shouldn't I be worried about his bloodlines. It's been tempting to want to scream, to yell, to spew hateful things about McCain, Palin, the redneck idiots who say such things, but today John showed me this video and reminded me who we are supporting, and why we are supporting him. I needed the love and thought you might like a dose of it too.

School Days

School days...

After all of the hemming and hawing, after years of wondering what we are going to do about school, the time has finally arrived. I have a five day a week, full day, kindergartner. And he loves it. On Saturday and Sunday he asks me when it will be Monday so he can go to school. When he found out he might be missing Friday this week, his devastation was palpable. The kid is hooked. Mrs Wilberg and her "Deal or No Deal" "Easy cheesy" ways have turned him. (She really says that stuff, but we still love her.) He is officially a mini version of me. Totally and wholeheartedly enamored with school. I could not be more happy for him.

Me on the other hand, I miss him so much my heart is breaking. It's getting better but adjusting to this drop off, pick up, homework, follow these rules (we all know how I am about following rules:) has been tough. But you know what, this isn't about me and my "what am I going to be when I grow up" identity crisis. This is about Kohler and what is best for him. And right now that is obviously Fair Park Elementary. Tough stuff being a mother. First we must give up our bodies only to eventually, and incrementally give them over to the world. Transition is the definition of mothering.

I'd tell you how I've coped but then I'd have to kill you. Sufficed to say we're coming out on the other side and as usual, we've lived to tell about it.

I know it's been long, I've been mourning while trying to hide it from my child. Obviously took all the energy I had and I'm sure I still failed miserably. Thanks for your patience and love to you and yours.

"Real Life"

Over scheduled. One of the best parts of being a stay-at-home parent is that you get to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. Now I know, that doesn't apply to taking showers, or peeing, but it does sort of apply to where you want to go, when you want to go there. It's a trade off but after 5 years you get kind of used to it. Now enter in the industrialized world. Kohler, Tate, and John are all starting school this week. John today, and Kohler and Tate next Tuesday. You should see my calendar. This meeting, followed by this open house, hey wait I wanted to go for a bike ride, followed by a La Leche League (I'm on the national hotline now, that's a whole different post) followed by this and that, and on and on. I'm missing the fly by the seat of our pants, let's go to Mauthe lake today, oh we're slow getting up let's not, attitude. Welcome to the real world Molly. Or at least the world as it's been created today. Welcome to over scheduled.

I can't wait for my babies to get out from under feet for a little bit but I'm not one of those moms who can't wait for summer to be over. Not yet at least. I'm going to miss all three of them. Good luck boys with all of your endeavors. And much love from me.

Going back to our roots

The other day I saw a girlfriend at the beach, latch-on our other girlfriends baby. Mercy (12 months) was sleeping, and Kat, my girlfriend had to tend to her Eli, her 3 year old. She quietly passed Mercy over to Lisa, and the two of them just moved right along. Weirded out Jason, the only dad who was hanging out that day (poor Jason:) but he survived. Think about it, how did babies survive before we had powdered milk from cows, fortified with corn syrup solids? Many of them were nursed by women other than their mothers. Sometimes exclusively. I know in the moments when I thought "huh, here I am nursing another woman's chocolaty son" more than I felt strange I felt connected. I felt connected to all the of the women past and present, who have nourished a child that was not grown inside of them, with milk that was just that. The perfect solution when your first mom can't be around. Human milk for human babies. Makes sense doesn't it.

Thought it was interesting that ABC News actually picked up on the trend.

"I think that it's just not been our social norm," said Morgan McFarland, who has been breast-feeding her friend Sarah Griffith's son since he was just 3 months old. "In some cultures, it is, and you would think nothing of, you know, nursing your neighbor's child if something happened, or nursing your sister's baby if she has to go to work."

To Lisa Moran, editor in chief of Babytalk magazine, the rising trend is not surprising.

"Cross-nursing is the logical extension to the rise in breast-feeding rates that we've seen in the past 15 years," she told "Good Morning America." "Moms are really committed to breast-feeding exclusively and finding new ways to do that. Cross-feeding, cross-nursing is one of those."

Go Kat, Go Lisa. Go lactating moms everywhere. Here's to setting trends that actually matter.

Can't have it both ways

I came across some political discussion of Barack Obama's faith and how it will guide his policy. When asked which passages of the Bible will instruct him in his presidency he answered intelligently and passionately, as someone who has examined their faith, and what it means to him as a man and a leader. James Dobson showed the Evangelical's tragic and flawed attempt to have it both ways. Not going to work people. Not going to work.

From www.streetprophets.com (Read this article if you can. It's scathing but informative.)

"Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, "a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application."

"Folks haven't been reading their Bibles," Obama said.

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus' teachings in the New Testament.

"I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology," Dobson said.

"... He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter."

From nonagnostic.blogspot.com

"Obama has higher theological ground here because he's saying "honestly, let's take the Bible as a whole seriously, then let's figure out how to conduct ourselves publicly, plurally." Dobson's position is necessarily more weak, because he must at once defend the passages in the Torah which condemn homosexuality, but he then must say that taking the other legalistic passages as seriously as Obama suggests we must is bad form. Dobson's position is clearly the more confused of the two."

This really is the cruxt of the argument. Why tons of loving, passionate people I know wouldn't go near a Christian church with a "ten foot pole."

Why isn't slavery ok, or why don't we follow the dietary rules of the Old Testament? A fundamentalist (Bible follower as opposed to Christ Follower) would say that now we have a New Covenant (the New Testament) and when Jesus came, he erased the need to follow all those rules. Except the rules about homosexuality right? Or abortion? So we follow the ones your leaders tell you to follow, but not the others. Weak people, weak. You can't have it both ways. Gotta take it all literally (and I've seen you eat shellfish) or not.

As an aside. I'd like you to notice I'm not dismissing faith at all. Only the more hateful and exclusionary parts of religions. I in fact, think that faith is of the utmost importance. And that is why it's so disheartening when people use "God" to propogate hate. Please stop that people. Please. I'm begging you. And in the meantime I'm praying that in the end, Jesus and the love he preached, really will win out. (I know, I'll work on my pissed of nature as well. Thanks for the reminder.)

"Faith is, shortly, the reaction of the human soul ot the presence of God."