Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
He may very well think that, but the thing I think you're remembering was actually a local program (Dubuque, I think) where a town was trying to "ethnic up." I don't think it was successful. Iowa's just going to be really white for the forseeable future and people are just going to have to deal with it.
If current trends continue, Iowa not be much of anything. Population declining, farmland decreasing. Bobcats and coyotes returning. We may be a wilderness pretty soon! Prepare to meet the challenge of the new frontier.
Well. I still see some shining examples of the dark ages that live on. :-)
Wait Dave, yesterday you insinuated those pedophile priests were not exercising their will:
I don't get where you assume that the sin is "willful.""
So, which is it Dave, were they willfully acting or not? No matter how hard you try you cannot have it both ways.
I forget sometimes, that those I am debating do not have access to the stores of knowledge found in such places as "dictionary.com." Let's examine a definition given for the word "willful," shall we?
1: done by design; "the insult was intentional"; "willful disobedience" [syn: intentional, wilful]
2: habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition [syn: froward, headstrong, self-willed, wilful]
3: by conscious design or purpose; "intentional damage"; "a knowing attempt to defraud"; "a willful waste of time" [syn: deliberate, intentional, knowing, wilful]
It was the idea of doing such things "by design" or "by conscious design or purpose" that I had in mind. Being determined, headstrong to do the acts. I don't think a lot of sinners set out to sin. Many of them end up making choices against their better judgment.
So while they are indeed exercising their "will," I don't see that we can say every choice a person makes is "willful," meaning "by conscious design."
SD
Tongue-splitting ban slices its way through Legislature
Lawmakers have been known to split hairs.
Splitting tongues, they're not so crazy about.
So David Miller, the state representative from Calumet City and a practicing dentist, is serious when he talks about recent legislation he's introduced.
Miller, a Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that would all but ban what has become the latest craze in "body modification"--slicing the tongue in half to create a reptilian appearance.
It's a practice akin to body piercings and tattoos. But detractors like Miller say it carries risks of infection and even death if not performed by licensed medical people and surgeons.
That's why Miller wants to ensure that only physicians perform the procedure, and for sound medical reasons.
If properly done the procedure isn't necessarily harmful, he acknowledges. Still, it's a trend he'd rather not see catch on.
"You know how fads are," he said. "You just never know what's going to happen. We just thought we'd be pro-active."
According to a Web site devoted to the practice, as well as other procedures such as body piercings and tattoos, tongue splitting is the "central bifurcation of the tongue, so as to achieve a 'forked tongue' appearance."
Some people have split their tongue by getting a large number of tongue piercings, stretching them, and then cutting between them, said Shannon Larratt, who runs www.bmezine.com, and had his own tongue split in 1997.
Others have turned to oral surgeons or tattoo parlors. An Albany, N.Y., doctor did his, Larratt said, and he encourages those who want their tongues split to seek a surgeon, too.
But many medical professionals highly discourage the practice.
Among the risks are striking an artery or the tongue becoming so swollen the patient can't breathe. Massive tongue hemorrhage, edema, abscess formation, tetanus and nerve damage are other reported complications, doctors say.
Larratt doesn't deny those risks. In fact, he said, the danger of people seeking poorly done "back alley" jobs are precisely why it should be legal.
"A lot of these laws are worded in ways that make it very difficult for a doctor to do it," he said. "What that means is that the qualified practitioners and doctors don't want to risk losing their licenses. So the only people left doing it are hacks that shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
The bill, also endorsed by state Sen. James T. Meeks and similar to legislation in Michigan, has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
"There's really no reason someone should be splitting his or her tongue," Meeks said. "We are simply trying to keep people from hurting themselves."
Larratt sees it differently. "We don't question a person if they want to go in and get just about every other procedure," he said. "Why target this one in such an extreme fashion?"
LOL. Hey, we're solidly ten years behind the rest of the world. We just elected Slick Eddie and he wants to borrow $2 billion dollars to spend our way into prosperity.
Great drinking songs, however, have always been written in German.
I knew it was someone in Iowa, didn't remember who. How can both the farmland be decreasing and the population decreasing?
SD
Excuse me?
SD
Fewer acres planted. The land is still there, it's just reverting to prairie. People (usually young) move out of the state. The population gets older every year as well as smaller (in numbers, not height - though I swear my grandmother is shrinking).
I cannot attain.
Oh, all right. Might as well be me:
Ya mean, "white man speak with forked tongue"?
SD
Unlike the others mentioned, that problem was easy to solve, once identified.
SD
And once you confess and repent, you never, ever do that same type of sin again?
Never ever.
SD
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