5 Things To Make Your Halloween CompletePosted by Administrator on October 24th, 2009

All Hallows Even, or Halloween, isn’t like any other holiday. Think about it—most holidays are meant to memorialize something sacred or important. Fourth of July commemorates the founding of the United States. Memorial Day commemorates, uh, people who have died. Even St. Patrick’s Day commemorates some guy chasing all of the snakes out of Ireland. But Halloween, ah ha, now there’s a unique one. Halloween celebrates nothing less than the one night of the year when the jaws of hell gape open and the forces of darkness run rampant across the earth

 
This makes Halloween a holiday of pure fun and thrill. Instead of giving gifts or pompous speechifying, we put on costumes, watch scary movies, and run around the neighborhood demanding that our neighbors give us candy—or else. For one night, we put all the high-minded stuff aside and just go crazy.
 
So, to help you celebrate your 31st right, here are 5 things to make your Halloween complete:
 
5. Make a disgusting food dish – Soon enough, you will be pressured to make the perfect turkey or pump out waves of sugar cookies for your friends and family. Before that pressure comes on, make something gross. It’s easy. Fruit punch is renamed ‘blood’. Spaghetti becomes brains or worms. Peeled grapes become eyeballs. You get the point.
 
4. Dress up – For pete’s sake, it’s the one day when you can dress like a complete nutcase and not arouse any suspicions. In fact, if you don’t wear a costume, you put a huge dent in your cool rating. Putting on something funny, scary, or flirty lets you get out of your normal, well, ‘you’ and enjoy the festivities. Do not just sit home wearing those boring khakis and that tired shirt. 
 
3. Scare someone – Halloween isn’t complete until you’ve given someone a fright. And the more elaborate the scare, the better. Scaring 3-year olds is easy. For full points, you’ve got to make a grown adult scream. 
 
2. Watch something scary – In the old days, some old geezer would show up and tell the spookiest story. Since most us are now unable to have our own storytelling old geezer, scary movies are the next best thing. What you choose to watch will depend on age and taste. For teens and up, I recommend Psycho, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, or What Lies Beneath. 
 
1. Eat. Mass. Amounts. Of. Candy. – We are all trying to eat better and keep ourselves fit and living until we’re 150. And I wouldn’t recommend this on any other day. It’s terrible for you. But, by golly, you have one day to go nuts on the Butterfinger bars. Take advantage of it. Then be good the rest of the year.
 
Hope this gets you off to a good start. Note: should you be incarcerated for following this advice, remember you act of your own volition and I cannot be held liable for any damages. Have a fun, crazy, and safe Halloween, everyone!


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Religion creates family solidarityPosted by Administrator on October 19th, 2009

"The family that prays together stays together." So goes the old adage. Over the years, ‘prays’ has been transformed into ‘plays’ as our society has moved gradually away from religion and toward secularism. Increasingly on our favorite TV shows and in movies, religious people are portrayed as extreme nutballs and organized religions as dens of corruption. Mentioning prayer is okay, but just for dramatic impact. Mentioning God is not okay in the Pledge of Allegiance, but it is okay for syrupy, shallow sermons about faith or believing- God and Santa Claus. 

Standing outside the realms of academia and entertainment, however, you find that the majority of America is still religious, still goes to church on Sunday, and still prays on a regular basis. Moreover, religion has been found to be a major factor in family strength.

A few years back, the National Study of Youth and Religion, based out of University of North Carolina, found that teens that participate in religious activities five to seven days a week were more likely to have good relations with their parents, not to run away from home, and to participate in sit-down meals with the family. They were also more likely not to use tobacco, alcohol, or drugs, get speeding tickets, or fight. They tended to have higher self-esteem and more positive views on life.

Families that attended worship services at least once a week were also more likely to have good, supportive parents. 

So it appears the media has some catching up to do on the subject of families and religion. While you may hear some awful examples of religions’ abuses, take into account the positive effect religion has on millions of families worldwide.



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Michelle Obama and How Genealogy Tells Us Who We Really ArePosted by Administrator on October 14th, 2009

The revelation that First Lady Michelle Obama’s family history extends back to a white Georgian slaveowner and a slave returned the national spotlight to genealogy. Indeed, it casts a spotlight on the fact that underneath every celebrity, politician, and average joe is a rich story, a family history. 
 
So often we like to define ourselves and others by occupation. We introduce ourselves, "I’m a banker" or "I’m a soccer mom." Others prefer to define themselves by ethnicity. "I am Korean." "I am a Hungarian Jew." Still others pick neighborhood or socio-economic status as their identifier. But are any of these what really define us? At best, they represent a very short-term, rootless worldview. At worst, they represent a forgetting of our true roots.
 
Study after study has shown that family history has a stronger bearing on one’s development and personality than occupation, location, economic status, or even ethnicity. Not too long ago, people identified themselves as the son or daughter of their father or of the house of a certain family. They understood the link from them back to their ancestors and the value that created. It was social capital, as long as your family was respectable. In our individualist society, however, all traces of this practice are being wiped away and with it our conscious ties to the past.
 
Michelle Obama was known as the First Lady, a fierce legal practitioner, and a community organizer. Thanks to genealogy she is also now known as the successful daughter of black slaves, a symbol of the slow redemption of African Americans from the blight of slavery. What do you think drives her more or shapes her character? I’m willing to bet it’s the latter.


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