Every once in awhile, somebody asks the question “Why blog?”  Today is one of the days when I have a perfect answer to that question.  I had two experiences this morning that were strong reminders that it’s nice to have a blog to turn to when you really need to rant and there is either nobody around to rant to or the one person who is available (Dan) agrees with you, so yelling at that person is no fun.

On Sunday mornings, it’s my habit to watch the CBS Sunday Morning Show and Face the Nation as I am getting up and ready for church.  Face the Nation this morning focused on the Republican National Convention which takes place this week.  Bob Schieffer interviewed Marco Rubio.  Now,  I tend to like Marco Rubio.  He’s a modern example of the American Dream.  He’s a first generation son of Cuban immigrants who has risen to serve in the U.S. Senate.  He’s young, good looking, well spoken, and appears to have a very nice family.  He makes a very good impression.

Part of the interview was devoted to the topic of taxes, always a popular topic in an election year.  Mr. Rubio was talking the Republican line about how the Democrats want to raise taxes and how that prevents the development of small businesses which create jobs.  I have a hard time understanding how people can buy into that argument.  For one thing, the proposed tax increases are on personal income, not on businesses.  For another, the proposed tax increases are on the wealthiest 2% of the population.  Those folks are not starting small businesses.  I can pretty much guarantee that Bill Gates is not going to start a corner hardware store or a family drugstore in your neighborhood.  The Democratic proposal is continued tax relief for the middle class and increasing taxes on the very wealthy to help pick  up the slack.  It’s the middle class who start small businesses.  They aren’t going to have increased taxes.  I don’t understand why that discrepancy is not clear.  The fact of the matter is that the Republican party feels that the middle class should carry most of the weight of supporting the government and that the very wealthy should have tax breaks.

After I watched Face the Nation,  Dan and I went to church.  We are lifelong Roman Catholics and participate actively in our parish.  We have been unhappy with the Church recently, though.  At least in Minnesota, the Catholic Church has become very politically active.  I am a little worried when any church, even my own, begins campaigning for the passage of laws that require everyone to live by the beliefs of that church.  At least in Minnesota, the Catholic Church has become very active in trying to get the vote out to pass an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman.  They have poured a lot of money into that effort.  Both Dan and I have a problem with that.

We are not really gay right activists, and to our knowledge, we do not have close friends who are gay.  We are, however, in favor of equal civil rights for all citizens and this is a civil rights issue.  We cannot see a reason for not allowing gay people to be married under civil law.  We aren’t really sure why a man would want to marry a man or a woman would want to marry a woman, but that is because we are not gay.  We do think that all citizens should have equal rights under the law.

We understand that the Catholic Church has the right to refuse to perform gay marriages if it chooses to do that.  We do not necessarily agree with that, but we understand that the Church is not a democracy and that it has the right to decide who is eligible to receive its sacraments.  Our problem comes from the opposition to allowing gays to be married under civil law.  The Church does not recognize civil marriage anyway.  It considers the marriages of heterosexual couples who are married in civil ceremonies to be invalid and does not allow those couples to receive the sacraments of the Church.  It seems contradictory to campaign to prevent people from entering into a civil contract that the Church considers invalid anyway.  If people married in civil ceremonies are not really married, what difference does it make to the Church if gay people participate in civil ceremonies?  How can an organization spend time and money opposing something that it does not recognize anyway?

This morning, our priest began his sermon by defining marriage as between a man and a woman.  When he said that, Dan stood up and walked out.  I followed him.  The priest may have been going to address only the sacrament of marriage.  We don’t know because we did not stay to hear.  Dan is really angry.  He wants to call the parish office tomorrow and tell them to take our names off all lists.  I am trying to get him to wait to do that until he has cooled off.  He can always do it then if it still seems like a good idea.  Anyway, it looks like we may be church shopping.

So, it’s been an interesting and upsetting day and the day is still young.

I thought I would fill you in on some of the things that happened while I was not blogging.  One of the significant (surprisingly significant!) changes in my life was the loss of these two:

The orange cat is Tigger and the black one is Hobbes.  It was difficult to get a good picture of Hobbes because he was a really, really black cat, so he just kind of faded into himself in photos.  Tigger died on St. Patrick’s Day 2010 and Hobbes died about a year and a half before that.  Both of them were cremated.  Hobbes sat in a container on the counter in the kitchen for about a year and then we sprinkled him over the grave of Herbie, one of our previous cats.  Herbie raised Hobbes (and Tigger).  Tigger is still sitting on the counter.  I am not ready to let go of him yet, but eventually he will join Herbie and Hobbes.

Sam was picked up as a stray, so we don’t know exactly how old he is.  The vet who examined him when he was taken into the rescue program estimated his age as about 5 years.  That was in January 2010 and then he sat in a cage until October 2 when we adopted him and took him home.

This is my grandson Jake.  He is 9.  Do you think he will be the next rap superstar?

I got up and read my classes early today because we are going into the Cities (That’s Minneapolis/St. Paul if you are not from Minnesota) to look at light fixtures and hardwood flooring.  We are just in the planning stages now.  Our main goal is to get an approximation of cost so that we can figure out how we are going to pay for what we want to do.  We did some minor redecorating (replaced the couch and a chair) and now we want to put hardwood through the living room, dining room, kitchen and hallway.  If we can afford it, I would like to do our bedroom, too, even though we just replaced the carpet in there a couple of years ago.

I have always loved hardwood, but when we built our house carpet was the big thing.  We have talked off and on over the years about adding hardwood to certain rooms because we have antiques and it would complete the look.  Lately, I have been watching HGTV quite a bit because you don’t have to pay attention to it so it works well while I am working on my classes.  There’s also not much on the other channels that really appeals to me anymore, so I often have the Food Network or HGTV on.  Anyway, all the home renovations on HGTV seem to include installing hardwood floors and it seems to be something that all young home buyers want now, so we have decided to make serious plans to add it to our home.

I am thinking that I want a wider plank and that it is going to need to be fairly light since we have dark woodwork, but I am hoping that I can find something with a bit of darker grain in it.  We shall see.

Here’s the new couch and chair.  Don’t you think they would look great sitting on a hardwood floor?