I love my neighborhood. We chose it because it very much suits us. Our house is 85 years old and nestled in the middle of a neighborhood in which most houses are even older. Every early evening in the summer, I take little Paris, our pug mascot on a walk and every early evening I am reminded that I just never learn. Every neighborhood has “that house”. The house you avoid. Why don’t I avoid? Morbid fascination perhaps?

Still, I like my little trek, and it’s foolish to avoid a house because of a bunch of children, even if they are strange. The house where quiver full of peasant dress wearin’, speech impediment talkin’, flower frolickin’, 1900 House livin’, Quaker vibe projecting children of the corn reside. It’s riduclous that I would have to change my favorite route just to avoid their non-television viewin’ asses. So, I start out in hopes that I might get lucky and they aren’t playing with wooden trucks and handmade dolls in their yard as they often are, complete with their uneven, home manicured haircuts.

No such luck.

Out they run and ask me the same thing, “Can I pet your dog? What kind of dog is that? Does she always look sad?”

“Just pet the damn dog,” I think to myself, “We’ve been over these questions over and over during the last year and the answers are still all the same.”

I have perfectd the in-and-out with these strange kids, so long as the Little House on the Prairie mother doesn’t come out and decide to make my stroll a homeschooling lesson. I say quickly, “Okay, you pet her already. Bye.”

Today was different though. It was Sunday, and instead of their cotton, flowery, ankle length dresses, they were wearing long velvet dresses and the boys were not with the girls today. As I scurried off and turned the corner, I hear the tapping of patent leather shoes behind me. I turn around and it’s one of the younger girls. A basket of petals in one hand, a basket of pamphlets in the other.

“Oh, shit,” I say to myself, “Don’t tell me…”.

The little girl, blonde hair and blue eyes says in her sweet little munchkin voice, “I have something for you. We want you to go to heaven.” She hands me the pamphlet and says, “God bless you. I really want you to go to heaven.”

I open the pamphlet and it reads…

There are four things you must believe:

I. You have sinned

II. The penalty for sin is death & hell

(Great. Why the hell should I go any further??? Garbage can anyone?)

III. Jesus died to pay for our sins

(Okay, drumroll please….)

IV. Jesus invites you to be saved today!

Then, get this, there is a little place for your name, address and phone number in which declare yourself as accepting that Jesus died for your sins and you’re now born again.

Shit. My neighborhood rules! How many suburban neighborhoods can you get accosted by God’s children in prairie dresses?? They will for sure grow up knowing how to make a good meal for their man, and I’m quite certain they are already in training on how to keep several steps behind the men in their lives.

And I was missin’ city life. Ha!

Okay, tomorrow, I have to find another route.

Two of our contests are ending very soon, so this is your last chance to enter! First, we’re giving away ten copies of Leigh Nash’s new CD, “Blue on Blue” (Ms. Nash was the singer of the now defunct Sixpence None the Richer). Also, we have 10 “How to Eat Fried Worms” prize packs to give away. Here’s where to enter:

Leigh Nash CD Giveaway (ends 11:59 p.m. August 31, 2006)

How to Eat Fried Worms Giveaway (ends 11:59 p.m. September 1, 2006)

I thought for sure this news report was coming out of California or Washington State, but no, this latest bit on the squashing of free enterprise comes from across the pond. The Guardian Unlimited in the UK reports, ”health charities today renewed calls for a ban on the advertising of junk food to children as new government research predicted rising obesity in the next few years.” Of course, that makes total sense! Parents are helpless when their children are being brainwashed by the commercials on television. I mean, really, what’s a parent to do when their kid incessantly demands McDonald’s for dinner — say NO? Cut down on their TV viewing to decrease the advertising bombardment? Preposterous!! 

It’s much easier, apparently, to pass a law and smack the hand of the nasty corporations at the root of all evil. People are fat? Corporations fault! High fuel prices? Corporations! War in Iraq? Corporations! Poor education? You guessed it, corporations! Left-wing liberals that bristle at the label ”communist” or “socialist”, should perhaps, then, tone down the championing of doing away with pure capitalism and a free market society… Fortunately the UK health secretary has a shred of common sense:

However, the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, indicated today that the government would not be pushing strongly for curbs on advertising. She argued about the importance of personal responsibility in the battle against obesity.

Ms Hewitt said lifestyle was important and spoke about the importance of exercise. Fast food firms such as McDonald’s who oppose curbs on advertising have long made similar arguments.

Ms Hewitt said Ofcom and the government would have to assess how far advertising actually influenced the choices children made.

Read the whole story… 

Ask yourself, if an illegal immigrant is willing to sacrifice a child to come to America, is that really the desired dominant culture you wish our society to become? That is what almost happened when a group of illegal aliens crossed our border and the cries of a toddler became too much of a liability. The toddler was left for dead as the man that was with her fled to get away from her cries and was thought to potentially blow his cover.

Of course, I can’t exclusively brand illegal invaders as exclusively deviant or abusive to children because we have plenty of natural born Americans who abuse children, but what’s even more concerning is that the jury pool might have been sympathetic to this individual. By way of sheer numbers, the more illegal crossings, the more influx of a specific nationality, the more of a reality it becomes that American citizens will lose their voice and then we will be completely screwed. If we allow the continued infiltration of illegal immigrants, legal American citizens won’t have enough people to represent their grievances and it doesn’t even have to be but a few more states in which illegal aliens will dominate. It’s all about state policy and law and on the national level, the electoral college. In the near future, certain states will be home to more illegals than Americans and when that happens, American citizens will have little influence in this country. The country will be driven by the desires of illegal immigrants and the culture and crime that comes with it. Americans will then need to assimilate to Hispanic culture, and like it too. America is very close to being one gigantic Mexico.

Ask yourself, can you live with that?

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. — An illegal immigrant who abandoned a 16-month-old girl under a mesquite bush as Border Patrol agents closed in was convicted of child abuse, but a jury rejected a more serious charge that could have led to a 24-year prison sentence.
Juan Cayetano Rosas, 24, faces 2 1/2 years in prison for Friday’s conviction on a negligent child abuse charge.

Cayetano, from Huachinango in the Mexican state of Puebla, was among a group who crossed the border on July 5, 2005. He testified at his trial in Bisbee that he had just squeezed through a fence into the U.S. when the migrant smuggler leading his group told a woman to hand him her baby.

When Border Patrol vehicles suddenly appeared, Cayetano said the smuggler told the group to run. He ran with the baby and the mother went the other way.

Cayetano said he lay on the desert floor with the child for about two hours before the girl started crying. Thinking the cries would attract nearby agents, he ran away.

The woman was caught and told agents about the missing baby, and they caught Cayetano about an hour later. He eventually led agents to her hiding place.

The child was scratched and covered with ants, but otherwise unharmed.
The Cochise County Attorney charged Cayetano with aggravated abuse of a child under 15, which carries the 24-year prison term.

A juror who spoke with the Bisbee Review newspaper on the condition of anonymity said a key issue during deliberations was whether Cayetano had left the child in a situation likely to cause death or serious injury, as prosecutors alleged. Read the rest…

While most seem to be railing on the media for jumping all over what is now an apparently false confession by John Mark Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey case, Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune says that the media doesn’t owe anyone an apology, and reminds people how we got into this mess in the first place:

True, the media went overboard with the rerunning of the kiddie pageant photos and videos that made the story such a sensation from the start. But, no matter what readers and viewers claim about being repulsed, bored or ambivalent, the media make their money by responding to what the public is interested in, as well as what’s in the public interest.

Let’s not forget, it was also the media that reported complications such as Karr’s ex-wife saying the guy was nowhere near Boulder, Colo., on the night of the crime and how DNA tests would be needed to sew up the case. Read the rest… (registration required)