I Tried To Watch It All The Way Through

I turned on the Democratic convention this evening to catch Obama’s acceptance speech.

Hmmmm.  I thought this man was supposed to be a great orator.  He seemed like an angry man reading a laundry list of complaints.

After watching for awhile I understood why he is always shown with his head sideways, like he’s looking off into the distance.  He is.  He’s looking at the teleprompters stationed on either side of him, with only an occasional head-on glance.  At that, he seemed to skip a line and shift topics in mid-thought at one point.

I think I made it about halfway through, then went into the kitchen to make cookies.  I could take only so much of this angry man berating our country and promising to fix it by spending more of our money.  He says he’s going to raise the money by increasing taxes on businesses, but guess who ends up paying for that tax increase?  You got it – we do.  The businesses just pass the added expense along to the consumers. 

A friend sent me this video last week, and I did some research on it.  You can find the documentation online, as in scanned documents of roll call votes, showing that the accusations made here are, in fact, true.

 

Obama claims he voted against the legislation because it wasn’t needed, that there was already legislation in place to prevent allowing babies born alive to die without care.  If that is true, what would it have hurt to vote for it?  You know, sort of just reinforcing the concept.

I am not a single issue voter, yet this hits close to home for me.  Three of my grandchildren are adopted, all of them sons of single mothers who carried their babies to term and chose to put them up for adoption. 

How did our society get to the place where it is more socially acceptable to abort a baby than to put it up for adoption?

How many other women would be adoptive mothers, if there were babies available to nurture?

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Here a Little, There a Little

One of the interesting things I learned while in Vietnam was that the banks make no personal loans; the only loans they make are to businesses.  If you want to make a purchase, say like buying a house, you must seek many small gifts and loans from everyone you know.

It is an interesting concept.  I’m definitely not saying we should replace our banking system in America with it, but interesting none the less because it is people getting personally involved to help one another. 

Which brings me to the topic of this post.

If you felt lead by the Lord to adopt, and the cost of the adoption was more than half your annual income, how would you raise the money? 

Some friends find themselves in that position.  They have been lead to almost-four-year-old twins from the Ukraine – a boy and a girl.  The boy has cerebral palsy and will be transferred to a mental institution, and almost certain early death, once he turns four – if he has not found a family.  This makes the process more urgent, so they have made the commitment to adopt before identifying how they will fully fund it.

Jill has asked for help, and I was immediately reminded of the extended support system the Vietnamese use to purchase their homes.  If you would care to see pictures of the children, and maybe get involved, here is their donation blog site.  http://www.reecesrainbow.com/sponsorpierce.htm 

Here a little, there a little – it all adds up.

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The Water Puppet Theater

Everyone said we must go to the Water Puppet Theater and see the show.  So last night we went.   Ms. Lam got tickets for us, and the cost was 40,000 dong each.  That is about $3.

It is an easy walk from here, maybe a third of a mile, and this was the first time we had been out walking around after dark.  Hanoi was vibrant and beautiful after dark, even though some of the shops were already shuttered behind metal doors.  And BTW, these are not metal doors to cover the regular doors, they are like overhead garage doors that come down and cover the entire front of the shop.

The traffic was only slightly lighter than during the day, meaning we took our lives into our hands crossing the big intersection to get to the theater.

The show began with musicians dressed in traditional attire playing two numbers and singing, which is nothing like western singing.  I cannot tell you what the instruments were because none of them were anything I recognized.  There were rhythm instruments, a long-necked stringed instrument held like a guitar (probably some sort of lute), a flute of some sort that the musician played vigorously, and other instruments and musicians that were out of my line of vision.  Then there was the dan bau, which was obviously an important part of the ensemble.

Wikipedia refers to the dan bau as a monochord zither.  Whatever it is, it was amplified to be loud and sounded somewhat discordant to my western ears.  The woman playing it was accomplished, and had a great stage presence and grace while playing it.

The puppet show itself is put on in water about knee deep, with an elaborate background setting of a fancybuilding, with bamboo mats as the foundation.  The musicians continued to play and sing during the show, and narrated the action.  In Vietnamese, of course.

The puppets themselves were extended outward on long sticks from behind the bamboo mats.  There were people, dragons, ducks, imaginary birds, etc. in a series of vignettes telling short stories.  It was very different, and it was amazing how they got those puppets to interact on those sticks.  I’m sure we would have enjoyed it more if we could have understood the dialogue and known what was going on.

At the end of the show the puppeteers emerged from behind the bamboo mats, wading out for their applause.  There were ten of them, young men and women.

And Quinn?  He sat quietly through the whole thing, sometimes standing up to watch but usually just sitting happily in Matt’s lap.  He is a very good baby, and this bodes well for the flight home.

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