First, the good stuff - I'm making a loaf of "Grandmother Bread" according to the recipe found here on Suzanne's "Chickens in the Road" blog. I didn't link to the actual recipe because I am not making it by hand, but using a bread machine, and so I'm using this "converted" recipe found on Suzanne's forum. It is contained in the fourth comment down. My sister-in-law sent us some home made wild plum preserves and some blueberry marmalade that I'm going to try on a fresh toasted and buttered slice of this bread when it's cooked and cooled a bit.
Second, an article I read here on Baldilocks blog. It addressed something I've believed since Obama "won" the election. I don't believe he won the election - I believe his "win" was perpetrated by unmitigated voter fraud. The article I am referring to explains that the reason our "representatives" in Congress no longer even try to put on a facade of caring what the voters want is because they're not afraid of losing their seats. Voter fraud will make sure they all retain power and the power of the people is gone. This is the first article I've seen where someone comes out and says what I've believed for over a year. I've seen plenty of blog posts where the person says, "wait until 2010", or some such thing, but it seems there are others who think along the same lines I do. It's rather frightening and very sad - and perhaps the Tea Party movement will amount to something bigger after all. Read the whole article - and weep.
Third - in a previous post I expressed the lack of knowledge of the stand on slavery of one of the two southern antebellum theologians named James Henley Thornwell. I read this speech given on the dedication of a church for use by black people in 1850 - and I certainly know now that he defended slavery. I could not finish reading it, it was so anathema to my way of thinking. In one sentence Thornwell declares that all believers are equal in the sight of God as far as salvation - both black and white. In the next sentences he is defending the right of slave owners to keep their "property". Just too bizarre for me, but interesting nonetheless. It's almost like the SS in WWII convincing themselves that Jews were less than people in order to remove them from the earth. In other words, you can use words and Bible verses to back up whatever the heck you want to believe, and you can even convince yourself that you are right. Frightening to think that Christians, even theologians, men who spent their lives studying the Word of God, could defend the practice of slavery. At one point in the speech, he talks about removing all trace of vice from the personal practices of Southerners in order to stay in God's good graces so that He would guarantee that they come out ahead in the contest for power with the North that even at that time was brewing. He must have had his head buried in Southern soil, for most slave owners had access to a whole bevy of female slaves who had no recourse to law or protection, and who became bearers of their bastard children. You just can't put a nice front on that - it happened and men - any men - who have unlimited power in any sphere are very likely to abuse that power - it is the sin nature of man. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No matter how Christian the behavior and belief of the slave owner, no matter how compassionate to their slaves, I've not read of one who allowed them to learn to read. Perhaps there was one or two somewhere who allowed this - but they knew that if the slaves learned to read, they would no longer be ignorant and easily mastered. The other thing that amazes me is the statement in so much antebellum southern writing that "the slaves are happy" because they made statements to that effect. Well, of course they did. Masters who believed that they knew what their slaves were REALLY thinking at any time were fooled into a false sense of thinking of themselves benevolently. In any case, I wanted to set the record straight on some of my southern reading. While I absolutely do believe that the South had the right to secede constitutionally, I also absolutely believe that allowing slavery in this country right from the beginning was the Great Flaw in our governmental design and the great experiment that America represented to the world. I'm always looking back, especially in these times of governmental abuse and tumult, to the Founding Fathers to see how perfect it was then. And it WAS good, but the Great Flaw was allowing slavery - they left Pandora's box cracked open when they left slavery in.
Third - in a previous post I expressed the lack of knowledge of the stand on slavery of one of the two southern antebellum theologians named James Henley Thornwell. I read this speech given on the dedication of a church for use by black people in 1850 - and I certainly know now that he defended slavery. I could not finish reading it, it was so anathema to my way of thinking. In one sentence Thornwell declares that all believers are equal in the sight of God as far as salvation - both black and white. In the next sentences he is defending the right of slave owners to keep their "property". Just too bizarre for me, but interesting nonetheless. It's almost like the SS in WWII convincing themselves that Jews were less than people in order to remove them from the earth. In other words, you can use words and Bible verses to back up whatever the heck you want to believe, and you can even convince yourself that you are right. Frightening to think that Christians, even theologians, men who spent their lives studying the Word of God, could defend the practice of slavery. At one point in the speech, he talks about removing all trace of vice from the personal practices of Southerners in order to stay in God's good graces so that He would guarantee that they come out ahead in the contest for power with the North that even at that time was brewing. He must have had his head buried in Southern soil, for most slave owners had access to a whole bevy of female slaves who had no recourse to law or protection, and who became bearers of their bastard children. You just can't put a nice front on that - it happened and men - any men - who have unlimited power in any sphere are very likely to abuse that power - it is the sin nature of man. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No matter how Christian the behavior and belief of the slave owner, no matter how compassionate to their slaves, I've not read of one who allowed them to learn to read. Perhaps there was one or two somewhere who allowed this - but they knew that if the slaves learned to read, they would no longer be ignorant and easily mastered. The other thing that amazes me is the statement in so much antebellum southern writing that "the slaves are happy" because they made statements to that effect. Well, of course they did. Masters who believed that they knew what their slaves were REALLY thinking at any time were fooled into a false sense of thinking of themselves benevolently. In any case, I wanted to set the record straight on some of my southern reading. While I absolutely do believe that the South had the right to secede constitutionally, I also absolutely believe that allowing slavery in this country right from the beginning was the Great Flaw in our governmental design and the great experiment that America represented to the world. I'm always looking back, especially in these times of governmental abuse and tumult, to the Founding Fathers to see how perfect it was then. And it WAS good, but the Great Flaw was allowing slavery - they left Pandora's box cracked open when they left slavery in.
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