Camping Trip, Part 1

So Becca and I went camping Tuesday night to Mt. Charleston. It was really fun. I drove and Becca tried to dump water out of the passenger side window and sprayed the window and herself. That made the trip more fun.

Then we set up camp. It looked real official. We took our dumb dog but she was miserably afraid of the fire, so we had to tie her to the grill. I felt a little bad but that wore off after an hour of incessant whining.

We were all kinds of excited to prove that we could build a fire and cook a dinner and survive like real women. It took a little while to recall all that junk they forced us to learn from Church-mandated girls' camp, but we got that fire going. I made Becca call me lord of the flame for the rest of the evening.

She had to use my dad's extraordinarily dull hatchet to chop up some of the firewood we bought and make kindling. Then I made fire like a pro. We were totally awesome.

Then we cooked dinner, which was hot dogs and beans. We even boiled water to make hot chocolate. It was the quaintest campsite ever. I made Becca take a picture of my pie tin and I photographed the hot dogs being turned into dinner.

Then we tried to make s'mores, but our hershey bars had melted during the incredibly hot car ride up the mountain, so we stuck then in the cooler and they froze all funny and by then we were too tired to make them anyway. It was a great night.

Later that night we used Indy as a space heater in our tent while we watched Prince of Persia on my laptop. Aside from a midnight visit to the pitch-black, non-flushing toilets (where Latrine Man lives), it was an uneventful night. Breakfast is always harder to make than dinner, so I won't go into that whole affair, but we got home safe and sound and made ready for our desert camping trip that next night.

It's Not About The Religion

"My major concern with moving it [the location of the Muslim center] is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America, this will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment, this will put our people — our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens — under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fueled terrorism," he said.

This was the response Imam Rauf gave to the idea of moving the Muslim center farther away from the location of the 9/11 terrorist attack. I found his words mildly threatening and don't much appreciate him saying that he has to keep the center in a controversial location to prevent Muslim extremists from attacking Americans out of rage. This IS America, right? We have the freedom and intelligence to believe, think, act, and feel the way we want without fear of vicious attack from those who would impose a different belief on us. This is not a struggling country, or one mired by a regime. We are strong and independent and accepting of ALL religions--Christianity included--and not just the religions that are currently the most politically correct. So whether you agree or disagree about the current location of the planned center, everyone can agree that cowing under a threat of attack is not something Americans did in the past or believe in today.

We should be welcoming to other religions, yet strong in our Christian beliefs. We should do away with the ignorant fear of the Muslim religion in our country as it does no one any good and is a danger to many. But we should also make darn sure we are not so "understanding and open to new ideas" that we forget the ideals on which we used to stand firm. We built this country on righteous principles, and those principles ring true today and forever, if we could only remember and keep them. It's one thing to love our Muslim brethren, and another thing to throw away our own beliefs and embrace Islam.

What I see happening today where religion and political correctness are concerned is the same kind of reverse discrimination that we've all endured before. Women were not equal in the workplace, so now they get all kinds of advancements and benefits in the name of forced equality. Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and any number of other ethnic groups and minorities were discriminated against so now they have an easier time of it when they apply for promotions, scholarships, and grants. That is not equality. And neither is America bowing to the Muslim religion or any smaller, extremist faction of that religion. We do not back down on our principles to appease angry, threatening people. We do not allow them to scare us into submission the way the extremists do in their own countries. We know how great our country is, and it's high time we stop apologizing for it. You hear that, President? Stop bowing to other princes and apologizing for our capitalism or democracy. We're amazing!

That nutjob pastor and his 50 parishioners are simply wrong in their threat to have a burn-a-Koran day. We all know that. But I'm certain that many people, myself included, feel the way they do: that America has done enough to tiptoe around sensitive religions and that maybe our viewpoints should be respected first in this country. Those crazy Floridians are frustrated, and I am too, but our frustration is not at the teachings of the Koran--it's not about the religion--but at the leaders in this country who do not put America first in their policies and actions, and at those in other countries who try to force us to our knees with political correctness. We cannot allow America to become mockable or disrespected. We have a legacy to uphold, after all.