preview of chapter 9

Well, this is the last chapter I have finished so, unless I get some time to write today or this week, I won't have any more sneak peeks.  :(

Maybe I'll go back and do some editing of the first chapters and send them to beta.  I can't decide if the pace is good; it's been so long since I've written a long fic.  I'm on chapter 10 and already at 11,000.  I'm planning on 5 parts to the story (I'm on part 1 and I see at least 4 more chapters, probably more in this part).  This is going to be long.  So excited.

peek of the prologue can be found here.
peek of chapter 1 can be found here.
peek of chapter 2 can be found here.
peek of chapter 3 can be found here.
peek of chapter 4 can be found here.
peek of chapter 5 can be found here.
peek of chapter 6 can be found here.
peek of chapter 7 can be found here.
peek of chapter 8 can be found here.

Sam tried to ignore the way his eyes raked over her body, never looking her in the eye, though. Maybe he'd sensed her fidgeting. Despite her remaining irritation with him she flexed all her muscles and tested joints as inconspicuously as she could. Then she shook her head, her gaze landing on what was left of her arm. She quickly looked away. The colonel must have sensed her unease because he shifted again, his face turned to the opening as if to keep watch. Sam knew better, though, he just couldn't look at her.

[9] 100 Reasons to Keep Living [9]

[9]




scene from my back yard last month.  I've never seen such a complete and brilliant rainbow before in my life.  From the front yard it was so bright and huge and you could see it going all the way to the ground (well, behind some houses by the park down the street).  Actually it was a double rainbow but the 2nd one faded by the time I got the camera.


(from the front yard)

As the little guys in Pocket God say, "Oh my gosh, double rainbow all the way across the sky!"
(that game cracks me up)

The Catholic Church is so out of touch with reality

I don't normally speak a lot about religion or my atheism.  Honestly, religion and spirituality don't interest me much.  But sometimes I read something so... infuriating (although this is pretty mild compared to some nuttery I've seen) I can't help but feel my blood pressure rise.

So I saw this on fstdt.com (should definitely be avoided if you are very religious, they intend to be insulting):

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana teacher who says she was fired from a Roman Catholic school for using in vitro fertilization to try to get pregnant is suing in a case that could set up a legal showdown over reproductive and religious rights.

Emily Herx's lawsuit accuses the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and St. Vincent de Paul school in Fort Wayne of discrimination for her firing last June. Herx, 31, of Hoagland, Ind., says that the church pastor told her she was a "grave, immoral sinner" and that a scandal would erupt if anyone learned she had undergone in vitro fertilization, or IVF.

The Roman Catholic Church shuns IVF, which involves mixing egg and sperm in a laboratory dish and transferring a resulting embryo into the womb. Herx said she was fired despite exemplary performance reviews in her eight years as a language arts teacher.

Legal experts say Herx's case illustrates a murky area in the debate over separation of church and state that even the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to clearly address.

Diocese officials said in a statement issued to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the lawsuit challenges its rights as a religious institution "to make religious based decisions consistent with its religious standards on an impartial basis."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in January that religious workers can't sue their employers for job discrimination because anti-discrimination laws allow for a "ministerial exception." But the justices failed to define who was and who wasn't a religious employee.

"The Supreme Court didn't give us a kind of neat little on-off test as to who's a minister and who isn't," said Rick Garnett, associate dean and professor of law at Notre Dame Law School.

In a similar case in Ohio, a federal judge last month gave the go-ahead for a trial in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Cincinnati by a parochial school teacher who was fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination, which the church is also against. The archdiocese fired Christa Dias in 2010, saying the single woman violated church doctrine.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel said in his March 29 ruling that the ministerial exception did not apply because Dias was a non-Catholic computer teacher with no role in ministering or teaching Catholic doctrine.
(to see comments at fstdt go here)

It just makes me shake my head.  Now, I'm the kind of person that would fight for the rights given by the law for any group of people.  I'll even defend the KKK's or WBC's right to spew their hatred.  If they want to use their First Amendment Rights to be asshats that's their prerogative.  Likewise if the teacher in the above case signed a contract (which I assume she did) stating that she couldn't use artificial means to get pregnant, etc, then the schools has grounds to fire her for breach of contract.  I absolutely don't agree with the school but they would have that right.

That's not really what this post is about because I'm not at all into law and politics (which this kind of thing is really about).  It's more about how completely irrational the Catholic Church sounds because of this crap.  It just baffles me that they can't step out of the Dark Ages.  Now I went to Catholic school in Chicago (which is about 2 hours from South Bend) for all of my schooling.  I lived in very Catholic neighborhoods growing up.  My friends were all Catholic, so were most of our neighbors.  My dad's family is all Catholic.

The one thing just about all these people have in common besides their religion: they all believed in birth control, women's rights and freedom for people to make their own decisions.  Abortion is a pretty split decision but a lot of the women in my life are pro-choice (not that I discuss this stuff with them).  And just about all of them think the Catholic Church is crazy.  I've been saying for years (since high school) that eventually the more liberal minded Catholics will have to split from the Roman Catholic Church because their beliefs are so far from what the RCC preaches it would be laughable to call themselves Roman Catholics.  I doubt that happens in my lifetime but it's going to happen if the Church doesn't start moving into the 21st century.

I keep thinking of when I was in school and I can't imagine any of the other teachers, nuns or priests would have looked down upon a woman for using IVF.  Pregnancy outside of marriage... they'd have a problem with that.  But IVF?  I've never heard of that one being against the rules before.  At least the couple is married and the baby is wanted.

Like someone commented at fstdt: The Church really just wants to control women.  Well, control everyone, but especially women.  Usually I don't much care because they always seemed to keep it in their religion, only wanting to control Catholic women.  But lately I've seen more and more quotes from Catholic Bishops and Cardinals wanting all women (no matter their religion or lack of) to follow Catholic doctrine which is aggravating to say the least.

That's usually where I start having problems with religions.  I believe in freedom of religion.  If you want to follow some doctrine that's great.  I just don't want religious people to expect everyone to follow their belief which always happens.  It's happening now in the US.  The fact that fstdt exists is proof up the crazy out there.  People who want the United States to be "Jesusland", they insist the Constitution was meant to give Christians control of this country and the Founding Fathers meant that they were to merely tolerate other religions. 

I know many of my flist are religious to varying degrees.  I think that's great.  None of this post is meant to be a slight against you or your religion.  You wouldn't be on my flist if you were the kind of religious person I despise because I just can't be friends with those kind of people.

Like the two Mormon boys that accosted me on a walk last year.  They followed me for several blocks demanding I take their leaflet and hear their message despite me saying several times I wasn't interested.  I wish people would mind their own fucking business.

In the end the school will probably win any lawsuit using claims of religious freedom.  Which I think is plain crappy of them.  But I'm not Catholic so I stay out of it.  It was hard enough having my kids in Catholic school for three years, trying to balance what I want my kids to actually learn and the religious stuff they had to learn for school.  And I had no issues with Catholic school when I was growing up.  I loved my high school and learned a lot (although I almost failed Theology class several times because I just didn't give a flying fuck about what any of it).

/end random religious rant