Damn That's Sweet

Universal Truth: The smaller the monkey, the more it looks like it would kill you at the first given chance.

So yesterday I took the boys over to mimi and grand-daddy's house to play outside and the littlest goober (3yrs... almost 4) stripped naked to play one last time in the kiddy pool.

Next thing I know He is standing on top of the dog house (still stark naked) singing the Chimney Sweep Song from Marry Poppins... but he can't speak well still so it was more like "Tim Timmowee... chim- timmowee Too-woo..."

I just got an email containing a slide show and a song called "In God we still trust". Basically its about how America is still a "Christian" country (what ever that means) and we love our country more than anything else in the world *teary eye*.

I kid you not, less than two seconds into it I was twitching (husband thought this was hilarious and was threatening to set it as my Laptops startup sound). What may surprise you guys though is that it wasn't all the trivial issues (like the assumption that the majority of Americans are Christian... when several polls show otherwise, or that the pictures shown elicit a learned emotional reaction therefor manipulating the person watching. Seriously, people get all teary looking at a photo with a soldier touching a wall that reflects the US flag... but would they get just as teary if it were a Brazilian soldier and Flag, or a Iraqi soldier and flag! I think not. But I digress...). It was more the knee jerk childlike patriotism it was promoting underneath it all.

A friend of mine said it well...

He said that he loves his country, but not "like a four-year-old loves his mommy." What I think he meant by that is that he has decided to have an informed, thoughtful, and reflective patriotism--not a knee-jerk, child-like patriotism that is all emotion, no thought, and utterly incurious about facts that don't fit one's preferred perspective. He's mature enough to know--and honest enough to admit--that not everything this country does is on the up and up, and believes that saying so doesn't mean he's a commie, pinko, lefty, America-hating, tree-hugging liberal.

Seriously, this county does a lot of really crappy stuff, but if I said that out loud to some people I would be told I was an ungrateful bleep and to move to China if I don't like it so much. And emails like I just got just promote that kind of emotional, childish thinking.

Never mind the incredible irony that even though the song lyrics were about trusting God, everything else about it (subtle implications as well as blatant) were more about trusting our country and not God.

End rant.