Christian Advice- from Cosmo Magazine!

Wow, props to Cosmo for posting this appropriate, clean article on "The Badmouthing Habit That Could Ruin Your Relationship." The principles included in this article are also found in leading Christian marriage books and the like. It's refreshing to find this in the public media, especially in a magazine like Cosmo. I've copied the article here, but you can also view the link: The Badmouthing Habit That Could Ruin Your Relationship

p.s.- I am not suggesting you start reading Cosmo! I only found the article online because I was googling "man bashing."

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Here at Cosmo, it's no secret that we love men...and we know you do, too. But despite that fact, lately, more and more women seem to have developed a nasty little habit of taking potshots at men—albeit ones that are often disguised as "harmless" jokes.

"In the past few years, it has become widely acceptable in our culture for women to express publicly their dissatisfaction with men," explains Lionel Tiger, PhD, professor of anthropology at Rutgers University and author of The Decline of Males.

Not buying it? Consider this: From sitcoms about oafish husbands to hit songs about cheating boyfriends, men are frequently portrayed as stupid, sex-crazed, or victimizers, says Katherine K. Young, PhD, co-author of Legalizing Misandry. The danger is, negative images that start out in the media have a funny way of working themselves into everyday life, and they can erode your relationship with your man...or a potential suitor.


How We Beat On Boys

Taking jabs at men is so habitual, many chicks don't even notice when they're doing it because it seeps out in insidious ways. For instance, in the early dating stages, you may think you're complimenting a man by gushing that he's sooo not like the jerks and losers you've dated in the past, but you're actually broadcasting that, for the most part, you think dudes suck.

"When you try to make a guy feel special by insulting other men, he's wondering how long it will be before you start making those disparaging assumptions about him," explains licensed marriage and family therapist Seana McGee, co-author of The New Couple. Instead of being excited about getting to know you better, he may wind up feeling defensive before the second date.

Male Bashing on TV

This post was copied from www.popmatters.com and was written by Michael Abernethy.


Warning for our male readers: The following article contains big words and complex sentences. It might be a good idea to have a woman nearby to explain it to you.

It’s been a hard day. Your assistant at work is out with the flu and there is another deadline fast approaching. Your wife is at a business conference, so you have to pick up your son at daycare, make dinner, clean the kitchen, do a load of laundry, and get Junior to bed before you can settle down on the sofa with those reports you still need to go over.

Perhaps a little comedy will make the work more bearable, you think, so you turn on CBS’s Monday night comedies: King of Queens, Yes, Dear, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Still Standing. Over the next two hours, you see four male lead characters who are nothing like you. These men are selfish and lazy, inconsiderate husbands and poor parents.

And the commercials in between aren’t any better. Among them: A feminine hygiene ad: Two women are traveling down a lovely country road, laughing and having a great time. But wait. One of them needs to check the freshness of her mini-pad, and, apparently, the next rest area is six states away. A woman’s voice-over interjects, “It’s obvious that the interstate system was designed by men.”

Pet Poultry... ?

I've seen several hispanic families in this area with pet turkies and ducks, and this week now someone has a rooster. I can hear it crowing all throughout the day, since I teach in a temp/ portable classroom outside. Does anyone know, do they eat the ducks, the turkies? I haven't seen hen houses or anything in the yards, so what's with the roosters? Maybe they make them fight!? Interesting cultural differences...

I have the right to be happy.... wait, what?

I teach at two schools. Each of them opens up the day with the pledge to the American flag, and then their own personal school's pledge. Someone recites it over the loudspeaker, while all the other children say it along with them. Then they move on to the daily announcements. Below is the pledge for one of my schools- we'll call it "Elementary School."

"As an Elementary School student, I have the right to be happy and be treated with kindness in this classroom. This means that no one will laugh at me, ignore me, or deliberately hurt my feelings. I will obey my teachers. I will respect others. I will do my work and make my family and my teachers proud of me. Today, I will be a good Elementary School student."

It sounds all fine and good at first... the last half is great! The opening line, though... "I have the RIGHT to be happy"... wait, what?

The stuff they DON'T tell you about missions...

::sigh:: Soo, this is the big post about Mozambique I've been putting off writing. Keep in mind, this is only from my perspective. In no way am I dissuading anyone from being a missionary! I certainly haven't written it off even for myself! But, I have to say, there were a few things I wasn't prepared for, even in my short 3.5 week trip to east Africa.

First of all, it was harder to deal with the dirt & the disease than I thought it would be. I'm kind of ashamed of this, because I thought I was so easy going and adaptive! Well, the dirt in Moz is actually red sand, and it gets EVERYWHERE. It was in my scalp, my ears, my nose, my bed- even in my food! (It was amazing that my digestion was ok all month, considering all the sand I ate!) By the end of the first week, it was engrained into the skin on my feet. I could never get truly clean. Even with running water showers on the base, there was sand and mud and clods of hair in the stalls, wet red sand everywhere, so if I lifted up my foot to wash it, the second I put it back down on the floor, it was dirty again. All the buildings are open to the outside air (thank God for the nice weather!), so that also didn't help to block the sand from blowing in or being tracked in. Also, the people in the area suffer from a lot of diseases that were nagging at me in the back of my mind, as hard as I tried to ignore it and not worry. God is our healer, right!? But especially when I saw kids with bloated bellies from worms, and ringworm and scabies on their bodies, I got nervous that I was going to catch something.

Secondly, I had somewhat of a feeling of chlostrophobia, like I was going to be stuck in Africa forever. This only happened after the rest of my team left and I was by myself. And really, it only happened at night when I was trying to sleep. It was probably a demonic attack. Whatever it was, it was scary. Maybe I was just experiencing heightened culture shock.

The last and biggest thing I dealt with in Moz, though, I REALLY had a tough time with. All along, I had been picturing the African orphans as these poor little adorable children, who just needed someone to feed them and play with them and hug them, and tell them that they were God's precious treasures. While that's all still true, what I wasn't prepared for was their response to us trying to do that. The whole area I visited is under seige by a spirit of poverty. What I've learned is that a spirit of ENTITLEMENT goes along with a spirit of poverty. These kids were picked off the street, given beds, clothes, daily food, even toys, field trips, school supplies, and surrounded by people who care for them. Many of them though, are not grateful for what they've received, but rather demand more.

I'll give you a few examples.

Gildo

This is Gildo. He's about 10 years old, and he lives on the Iris base in the boys' home.

One day I went to hang out with the boys on their playground, and Gildo came and sat on my lap. He drew the letters of the alphabet in the dirt for me one at a time, very slowly. After he drew each one he'd look up at me to see if it was right or not. Most of the time he was, but sometimes he skipped a letter or didn't draw it quite right. It was very endearing, but at the same time I was kind of surprised that a 10 year old didn't know the alphabet yet.

While other states have the DMV, or Department of Motor Vehicles, Maryland decided that was too ordinary sounding, so they created the MVA, or Motor Vehicle Administration.

After my recent unpleasant dealings with the MVA, it's no surprise that other meanings for MVA include:

Motor Vehicle or Multi Vehicle Accident
Manual Vacuum Aspiration (a type of abortion!)
Malignant Ventricular Arrhythmia
Merverdiavgift (Norwegian taxes)

So, here's the deal.

I am appalled at this Planned Parenthood center in NJ. I hope to God that there aren't many more like this one. This video was taken by a guy & girl posing as a pimp & a prostitute. The "pimp" reveals to a Planned Parenthood manager that he does "sex work" and manages several underage girls who may have STDs and need birth control or abortions. AFTER he reveals this information to the manager, she goes on to recommend that the child prostitues lie about their age, say they're students so they'll get a discount on birth control, and to withhold as much information as possible to make it look "legit." Ugh.




For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.

Mark 4:22

Jane

This is Jane and I in the bush. I would guess that she's about twelve years old. Even though we couldn't communicate with words I could tell that Jane was a very responsible, sweet girl.

In the Bush Bush

After being on the Iris base for about a week, my team went out to the "bush bush" with several Mozambiquan pastors and translators for two nights and three days. I brought a tent, sleeping bag, water bottle, malaria medication and bug repellant, and a clean shirt. We piled onto two cameons (open flatbed trucks) and rode about two hours to a very small village. They were miles from any town, and had no water supply.

Nuru

This is Nuru. At least, that's how I'm guessing you spell his name. The "r" is rolled, so it almost sounds like "Noodle" (which is what some of us called him). :) He lives at the boys' home on the Iris Ministries base where we stayed in Pemba, Mozambique. He's about 7 years old. He loves to sit on your lap, and he's funny. He's always making faces & being silly. One day I came down to the boys' home to just hang out with the boys on their playground.

Johannesburg, South Africa

We stayed in Joburg for 3 days before going to Mozambique, at the Southern Sun Garden Court Hotel (which was very nice, and has a great restaurant in the lobby!). Joburg is a pretty large, westernized city, with all the amenities that we would have in the US. It was a nice period of rest to get used to the time change. This amusing sign was in the hall the day we checked in: