And now back to our regularly scheduled religious themes, which tend to be more Catholic on this blog. Today's Lenten reflection is on alms again, this time on the idea that when we give, it is more important to focus on what the receivers really need rather than on what we want them to have or what is convenient for us to give. For example, my family was always receiving odd cans and boxes of "food" from the food pantry that we had no intention of eating, so we just gave them back during food drives. Here is a more extreme example: imagine you are a woman in a Third World country, and you have had three children die before the age of two. Then some pale people from a wealthy country come to help you. What would you like them to help you with? That your next child survives to adulthood, of course. What do they really offer? In many cases, how to prevent pregnancy or, if that doesn't work, how to terminate pregnancy. Are you interested in limiting the number of children you have when you have no reason to expect more than one in five to reach adulthood? Would you see this as kindness on the part of the pale, rich people, or would you see it as bullying on their part? You would probably assume they want to minimize the number of poor, dark people in the world. If we REALLY want to help others, we should find out what they want help with rather than assuming or, worse, imposing our views on them. We should help their children survive before telling them they should not have so many!
So now that I have addressed Favorite Topic #1 (Abortion Is Evil), I will address Favorite Topic #2 (My Pets Are Cute). Last night I discovered that one of my little darlings had pulled my tradescantia (commonly known by the un-PC name of "wandering Jew") partway off the shelf and consumed most of it. I am not sure who the culprit was; Charlie is not athletic enough to have gotten to this plant, and Cashmere generally eschews fresh produce. My guess is it was Cashmere, but neither rabbit seems to have suffered any ill effects, and the plant got quite a trim but should be just fine, so no harm, no foul. Still, I am going to have to revisit my supposedly rabbit-proof Plant World setup... After all, many of my plants are allegedly quite toxic, although I once watched Charlie eat a poinsettia leaf before I could get to him to stop him, and he's still alive and hopping. Maybe I have Dread Pirate Roberts rabbits who have built up immunities to iocane and all sorts of nasty substances!
And now, a very un-Lenten answer to that burning age-old question: can you scan chocolate? At the behest of my officemate, I scanned the four types of chocolate we currently have available in our office. I did not, however, subsequently eat them, so I cannot say if post-scanned chocolate can be safely consumed.
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