ryansutter·net

• wondering what it all means #
• Recent Reads: Watchmen, My Story by JDZ Current Read: Crime and Punishment #
• wish I knew where my phone was… #
• Recently watched: Teeth, Blade Runner (Final Cut), Be Kind Rewind, Batman (1989) #

Today I read this article and was greatly disturbed. In it, Barack Obama indicates his desire to not only continue President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives, but to expand the program.

This is something I absolutely, positively, cannot support.

I decided to write Senator Obama and I sent him the following letter:

Senator Obama,

Your campaign for the presidency has engendered a lot of firsts in my life. You are the first politician I have ever donated money to, the first politician I have promoted to my friends, family and acquaintances, the first politician I have ever written to and the first politician in my lifetime who I have felt a connection to on any level. As a middle class 34-year-old, the nations leading politicians often seem to me to be out of touch with both my station in life and my generation. You, however, seemed to be the first politician I could really place my confidence in.

I’d like to believe that is still the case, but your recent statements regarding the expansion of “faith-based” initiatives have severely shaken that confidence. While I can respect your statement that the problems we face are too big for the government to handle alone, and the fact that in your personal experience Christianity has motivated you to attempt to enact positive social change, I am a secular American who respects the secular nature of our constitution because it protects believers and non-believers alike. The use of federal funds to finance religious organizations sets an extremely disturbing and dangerous precedent that, if history is any indicator, will eventually erode the secular nature of the government with negative results for all. It may seem useful in the short-run to put the manpower of religious groups to use on behalf of the government, but it is a long-term loss for religious liberty when church and state become entwined. In the eyes of most of the secular Americans I know, this is one of President Bush’s more egregious violations of the principles in the Constitution. The idea that you would not only continue but expand upon such a policy is, frankly, shocking.

Please, I beg you, to reconsider taking us further down the path of a religiously-entangled Federal government. This is the kind of issue that has myself and many I know reconsidering whether or not they would even vote for you. I would never vote for McCain, but if you’re going to continue laying the groundwork for a State in which secular free thinkers such as myself will not be welcome, then I cannot support your candidacy either. You may be the type of inclusive, lucid, intelligent Christian that reflects well of your faith, but for every one of you, there are ten who would happily consign me to hell or strip me of my rights as a human due to my failure to accept their belief system. Financing the activities of religious organizations strengthens them and ultimately helps promote intolerance of non-believers.

Again, I beg you, please reconsider this unnecessary and potentially very destructive stance.

Sincerely,

Ryan Sutter

• workin’ at Jostens, writin’ code and drinkin’ decaf #

In case you have never had the pleasure of meeting or speaking with my mother’s husband Chris (who, if you haven’t guessed, is NOT my father) you probably would have no way of knowing just what he’s like as a person.

Well, you no longer have to wonder because he apparently has a clone out there somewhere. I just heard the following recording that some guy named Dimitri left on the voice mail of a woman somewhere and all I could think was, “Oh. My. God. It’s Chris’s long lost twin brother…”

This is NOT a recording of my mom’s husband, but if you can picture this guy, you can picture Chris…

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/dimitri.mp3

Tonight, up too late and feeling strange, I had devoured all of the articles in my Google Reader feeds and most of my Chicken in a Biskit crackers and found myself casting about for something to read in cyberspace. On a whim, I googled the word “love”.

Happily, the results that were returned were not all about online dating services. One was a link to a website called wikiHow, a repository of advice on how to do things. The article was entitled “How To Love“. I read it with interest and was arrested by the following sentence:

Love is the continual act of unconditionally putting the needs of others before your own.

This is likely the best definition of the word I have ever seen. I’m tempted to go on a rant about how, by this definition, nobody in the family I was raised in loves me. Not my mother or father or brother or sister. But, that’s not the direction I want to focus my thoughts in, true though it sadly is.

No, the thing that moved me to tears earlier tonight (and yes, I’m a little emotional tonight, I admit that) was the “I Love the Whole World” video that was, of all things, a commercial for Discovery Channel. I had read the latest XKCD comic and it moved me to watch and re-watch the little video and the next thing I knew, I had tears streaming down my face as I felt this amazing love for life, the universe and everything, all of you out there in cyberspace, and I just had to write something about it.

If I couldn’t love, I couldn’t live. It’s gotten me through the end of my life and the end of my brother’s life. Love is beyond powerful, it’s staggering. It’s all I can feel right now. It’s all I want to feel.

• Watching Josh eat pita and hummus con cucumber #

• eating gigantic cookie #

Today is Friday and it’s our last day up north at the cabin. It’s been a great week with rarely any functioning cell phone coverage and very little time spent on computers. I brought my Palm Tungsten to read ebooks and right now I’m blogging on it, but despite the availability of wifi here at the cabin I’ve spent most of my time on the lake with the boys or relaxing on the porch with Es. Tomorrow we return to civilization. Sigh… I can’t wait until next year….

Today is Friday and it’s our last day up north at the cabin. It’s been a great week with rarely any functioning cell phone coverage and very little time spent on computers. I brought my Palm Tungsten to read ebooks and right now I’m blogging on it, but despite the availability of wifi here at the cabin I’ve spent most of my time on the lake with the boys or relaxing on the porch with Es. Tomorrow we return to civilization. Sigh… I can’t wait until next year….

• @jdbartlett I suppose those are alright, you know, if you’re into that sort of thing… (but mine are better) #