Religion - Part 3

I don't get it.

I was raised in a religious family. As far back as I can remember I was made to attend church with my mother and father every Sunday. Early on, you never asked why, you just went. I have a few early memories of our first church. One is a memory of everyone standing and shouting praises. I remember thinking that Jesus himself was there though when I later asked my mother about it this was not the case. Another memory was of a time in what may have been a Sunday School for small children, I was maybe 5 or 6. My brother who was 18 months old or so was there as well. And older boy (he seemed big to me then, but was probably only 10 or so) who realized we were brothers came up to me and asked me "Is that your brother over there?". When I responded in the affirmative he told me "OK, I'm going to beat his brains in". Of course I was scared and on the verge of tears before I realized the boy had no intention of following through on his threat. It still had an effect on me - I still remember it and it's one of the few memories I have of my early days in church.

As I got older my dislike of the church grew. My parents divorce in 1980, and my mother started attending a new church. I don't have much in the way of memories between 1980 and 1985. There was bible school in my grandmother's church in Waco Texas that I enjoyed during that period, but not much else. In 1986-87 I was in confirmation class where I started to note distinct cliques forming in Sunday School and UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship). Those who weren't in the cliques tended to be excluded. I attended lock-ins in the church that seemed to go well and drove down the walls between us. But then there was the Church Summer Camp in 1987 or 88. By this time I had been attending Summer camp at YMCA Camp Kern for 3 years or so, and Boy scout Camp at least once. Both of these represent some of my fondest memories from my childhood. At the time I thought it might be a great bonding opportunity.

It was exactly the opposite.

It started off well. They had ping pong tables there and I loved ping pong. As it turned out that was about the only thing I liked about that week. First was the "warm fuzzies" necklaces. These were necklaces that were supposed to be given to people you cared about; along with an affirmation of that person and why you cared. Until you received one you could not give one, and once received you were supposed to give them away ASAP. I don't quite recall how they were started, but it took until Wednesday of a Sunday to Friday camp for me to finally receive one from one of the camp counselors.

Of course, I cherished it, and had no intention of giving it away. I mean most people had more than one at any given time, and many people had 10-15 of them. Of course, by the next day other campers started noticing that I had not yet given it away to anyone. They started to tear me apart for still having it. Finally, Thursday night I threw it in the trash. I had no one there that I felt comfortable giving it to at that point, for obvious reasons which will follow.

Speaking of Thursday night. That was the night of the "dance".

I was an awkward teenager. Well, maybe more so. I was a dweeb, I guess you could say. With rare exceptions I never had the courage to talk to girls, much less ask them to dance. I didn't obtain that ability until after I graduated from high school - I was a late bloomer so to speak. That might explain why I only attended one homecoming and never went to either of my high school proms. However, this "dance" at least at first wasn't about girls. It was about camaraderie and it was supposed to be fun and inclusive.

Each night all the campers gathered for a presentation or sermon if you will. It generally included a run down of the day and what was going on the next day. Thursday's was different in that when we came in all the chairs were in a big circle. Everyone knew the dance was directly after the presentation, so obviously, my stomach was churning. I was nervous as hell. When the presentation was done the speaker said that this year's dance would be different. To dance, he said, you must first be asked. Guy or girl it didn't matter, you were just supposed to be asked, but until you were asked you couldn't get up. Well, this was good news for me. I was safe, I could ask the guy sitting next to me as soon as I was asked. So the speaker asked one person to dance, and they got up and danced for a few seconds then the two of them asked two more people, and so on.

Slowly the people around me were asked. One by one everyone was standing. Except for me. No one asked me to dance. Not one person. Minute by minute I watched as the people sitting dwindled and the people dancing increased. At some point I was the only person sitting down. I continued to sit for a few minutes in disbelief. This "inclusive" activity had managed to exclude me. At some point I got up and exited through a side door. This was the point at which I threw my "warm fuzzy" into the trash. I walked far enough away from the building to where I could be sure my inevitable crying would not be heard, sat down and started to sob quietly. Apparently one of the counselors had seen me leaving and I soon felt someone touch my shoulder. I don't remember who it was, but it wasn't anyone associated with my group or me. Of course he wanted to know why I was upset.
"No one would dance with me" was about all I could push out.
"Oh, come now, we can find someone to dance with you, come on back with me." the person replied.
"No, I'm done. No one ever asked me to dance to begin with," I said matter of factly, "and I have enough pride that I'm not going to be led into a sympathy dance with someone who's only doing it because they pity me."
"Fair enough" was the answer, and the person left me alone to feel sorry for myself.

Clearly it's not the religion's fault that I was a shy teenager and no one at the camp really attempted to reach out to me. The thing that opened my eyes the most however, was how completely opposite this religious camp was from all the other camps I had attended. Specifically speaking, I spent many years at Camp Kern. I never felt like an outcast. One year I was given the "Most Flirtatious" award. Another year I actually met a girl and spent the King's Island Saturday with her. At Camp Kern, everyone was included in everything. There were no cliques, no competition, no feelings of not measuring up.

The religious camp was the exact opposite. If you didn't express certain feelings or beliefs you were automatically excluded. On a nightly basis people were "overcome" by the spirit and spent an hour crying for their past "sins" and swearing they were born again. They would get up and witness about the bad things they'd done and how because of the camp, their life was renewed and they felt closer to Jesus than ever. I can honestly say if I ever in my life felt "close to Jesus" that religious summer camp would have been the last place it could have been.

To the American Auto Industry

The US auto industry is whining for me to "buy American" and purchase the junk they sell. So I'd like to make a proposal to the American Auto Industry. When you decide to reimburse me for the thousands of dollars I spent repairing the last two piece of crap American cars I've owned, then I will consider buying another American made car. Until then I will continue to buy Japanese owned-American made vehicles.

Today's Sports Coaches: an Open Letter

I read with interest the story about the Girls High School basketball coach - Micah Grimes - who "cheered wildly" as his team closed in on 100 points (while holding their opponents to 0). He further pressed his players even into the fourth quarter.

I am not going to assassinate Grimes' character as that is not fair I do not know him. However, all around me I see him. His actions mimic coaches I see everyday at all levels of recreational and club sports teams. For some reason the mentality that the New England Patriots ran by in 2007 - which is fine in the NFL - has filtered down to grade school level sports.

Case in point. My son plays indoor soccer. Recently we moved from one facility to another. At the previous facility, teams were generally juggled and evenly matched. At the new facility there appear to be 7 year old club teams. Nick, not being on a club team because I don't deem it necessary at 6 to be that devoted to any one sport, got put on a team with some new and some mildly experienced players. This would be fine except for the fact that they're playing against teams that have been together since they were 4 and have excellent soccer skills for 7 year olds.

I am happy for the challenge posed by this. You always learn more playing against more talented players than less talented. What makes me sick is the way the coaches have allowed their players to play against Nick's team. Most of the time they spend pressing. Even in the fourth quarter after the team has scored 30+ goals in a 30 minute game, they are still pressing their offense and cheering on the goals.

Give me a break.

This past week I got the joy of listening to a parent run down the number of goals each player scored. Oh and "that one girl even scored a goal!". Yay. So not only does the coach condone it, the parents love it too. Well, congratulations. Your team is capable of beating a completely over matched team by 35 goals. I hope you're happy about that.

If I was a parent of a child on that team he'd have been off the team before the game was over. I would be thoroughly embarrassed by the boorish behavior of the coach, and not ever want Nick to be involved with such poor sportsmanship again.

So all you Micah Grimes and those of you defending him, you can have your lopsided wins. And you can speak all you want about how you did nothing wrong and you can continue to believe that mercilessly pounding an over matched opponent is "[playing] with honor and integrity and [showing] respect" for your opponents. Yep, go on ahead believing that. Hopefully it comforts you and helps inflate your tiny ego. Because clearly you need something that your life is not currently providing.

Teens and technology

OK, so I ran across the following website:

http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/

that has a study of people ages 13-26. It made all sorts of fascinating findings about how many of these people had posted or IMed nude images (or sexually suggestive text) of themselves to others.

I'm not going to claim that it doesn't happen but I'm going to explain my own personal experience with these surveys.

I filled out all sorts of surveys in middle school and high school. I would claim all sorts of crazy crap about myself. I did drugs daily (never touched them). I would drink and drive (didn't drink). I had sex with a different person at least once a week (I was a virgin). Etc, etc. None of it was true, I just thought it was funny.

Looking back I probably should have been honest. But really who cares?

So how many of these kids are being honest? Doesn't really matter. Just make sure you teach your kids about the perils of doing stupid stuff and hope they listen to you. It's the best you can do.

The Wal-Mart Stampede

Sickened.

That's the best description I have for how I felt when I heard about this. I was watching the news Friday with my family. My dad and I ended up in an argument about who should be sued/punished. I argued that the shoppers should all be brought up on murder charges. He argued that Wal-Mart should be held responsible for creating the mob with its "deals", and not providing enough security. Obviously, out of the thousands of Wal-Marts in the country the only one stampeded was this one, so I held my ground.

Later I got more information on the story. Still no pictures, but more information - the crowd busted the doors down and actually walked over and around the dieing man lying on the floor so they could get to spend their money on their precious stuff. When asked to leave angry shoppers refused citing how long they'd waited in line, callously ignoring the death of an employee because they needed to get their stuff. Someone else's life is far less important than MY stuff!

So today I finally found some pictures of the incident here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/money/galleries/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures/walmart_stampede_captured_in_pictures.html

I was immediately struck by the ethnic race of the crowd. Obviously being a white male, I would have felt out of place there. My initial reaction - and I'm ashamed to say this - was "of course! They're black/hispanic. That explains it." We always tend to look for order and reason when something tragic like this happens. I realized what I'd done was essentially say "I would never do such a thing! I'm white!" This is wrong and - again - I'm ashamed at my initial reaction. However, upon thinking about this more, it really has nothing to do with color. Clearly this could happen to any race/ethnicity with equivalent values.

People in this country have lost sight of what truly matters. So much of our economy is based on the fact that everyone wants newer and better stuff. It's what Christmas is about, right? Getting new stuff, giving new stuff, shopping, buying new stuff. Yay!

It's gotta end folks. We're in the midst of the worst recession in decades and people are spending money like there's no tomorrow. And all because Wal-Mart is advertising 50% off on a television? A $2000 TV is marked down to $1000 and people rush out to buy it forgetting that they're spending ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS on a television! It's insane. And it's greed. Pure and simple greed.

One last word on the stampede. Even though this one occurred in a black/hispanic area, this could happen at any Wal-Mart. My wife refuses to shop there because most of the patrons (not all, just most) are mean and nasty, and this is a prime example. It's got nothing to do with race and everything to do with values. As a country we need to get back to what's important and get away from the "me and my stuff first" mentality.

These people need to go to jail

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_go_co/meltdown_lehman

All top executives at any banking corporation that failed need to do hard time. ALL OF THEM. A message needs to be sent to this greedy, corrupt disgusting people that we won't stand for it anymore. And don't think your Republicrats or Democans will do anything about it. They are part of the problem.

Please, PLEASE vote third party this election. This has got to change.

Our Wonderful, Wasteful IRS

OK, so the IRS spent $42 million this year to notify tax payers that they needed to file a tax return to get their income redistribution payment from Uncle Sam. Fine.

So in June this year the IRS notified me that my 2006 Tax Return was being examined. I had claimed $7000 in 1099-misc income as Hobby Income. The IRS claims that it's not a hobby based on the fact that the income was in box 7, and since it was in box 7 it was subject to Self Employment Tax (more commonly known as Social Security). For those of you who have never worked for yourself, the government takes almost 15% of Self-Employment income right off the top for Social Security and Medicare. When you work for someone else, you only pay half of this and your employer pays the other half. However income from a hobby is not considered Self-Employment income, and therefore not subject to Self Employment Tax.

So this is where my beef with the IRS lies. Is my work for a Hobby (not subject to Self Employment tax) or is it a For Profit Business (subject to Self Employment tax)?

I thought long and hard about this because more often than not the IRS forces people running businesses to file as hobbies. The following was my response to the IRS:

Dear Ms. Lunnon:

With respect to our enclosed examination, the IRS contends that my Not For Profit Activity (otherwise known as a Hobby) was actually a For Profit Business, i.e. that I am self employed. This was due to income reported on line 7 of a 1099-MISC form for the Tax Year 2006. It is my contention that the issue boils down to whether or not the Activity I was engaged in was done For Profit. On our 2006 return I claimed it was a Not For Profit Activity (Hobby), and I stand by this assertion. I put a lot of thought into this and I did so based solely on the IRS’s own information about how to distinguish between an Activity done For Profit (Business) and an Activity done Not For Profit (Hobby). I know the IRS often looks into whether or not an Activity claimed as For Profit is really a Not For Profit Activity, so I paid particular attention to this information.

Firstly, I would like to note that the key difference between Hobby income and Business income is the intent to make a profit; not whether a profit was made. Just because I make money from a Hobby does not mean that I am self-employed or that I am running a Business, regardless of how said income is reported to the IRS. Further, Self Employment Tax is only required if the Activity is carried on as a trade or Business. In my case it is not, my Activity is carried on as a Hobby.

Secondly, I would like to make clear the following points:
I am not a contractor - there are no written contracts involved.
I do it for fun and enjoyment with no profit motive.
I don't do any advertising or marketing - I don't even have a Business card.
I do similar work for free, just for fun.I don't run my Hobby as a Business.
I spend between 60 and 120 hours a year on my Hobby; sometimes maybe a bit more and sometimes less.
The amount of money I receive is not a significant part of my income and I am not trying to increase or maximize it. I can stop it at any time with no significant financial impact.

In summary, it is quite clear that this Activity is engaged in for recreation and is not engaged in For Profit – even though a profit was made. Since this is the case I argue that my income is a result of my Hobby and should be treated and taxed as a Not For Profit Activity. I therefore am not liable for, nor should I be required to pay, Self Employment tax.

The IRS finally responded last week in classic fashion - they sent me FOUR copies of the same letter in TWO different envelopes stating that they would get back to me by Sept 27th. We'll see how this pans out. I feel my argument is solid and I feel I could win with a good lawyer, but it wouldn't be worth it for me to pay to go to court. If at some point that's my only recourse, I'll simply pay the SE tax and move on. Sadly, that's how this government works. Taxpayers have little recourse against a wasteful, erroneous IRS.