Author Archives: jtjim

Recipe for Families

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

June 13, 2005

Growing up as a city kid, I lived on dreams of life on a farm.  Those farm kids were the luckiest.  They had everything!

Not until my thirties did I have a chance to learn about farm life from an expert.  Pauline, my co-teacher, had grown up on the picture-perfect Iowa farm.  Her strawberry blond hair was set in tight curls that bounced when she laughed.  And she was always laughing.

I loved to hear about cows covered in snow and five brothers always up to mischief.  But the best talk of all was food talk.  Her mother was the proverbial “best cook.”  We always looked forward to Mom’s treats arriving with Pauline on Monday mornings.

Pauline had had it all, living on a farm.  But, I soon learned that the trick of having it all was figuring out how to do without…when you didn’t have it all.  Living miles away from town, if you ran out of buttermilk, it was no quick trip to the store.

Smart cooks knew how to grab a lemon and squirt it into milk.  Or if no lemon was on hand…then vinegar.  If no vinegar…then cream of tartar.  And if no vinegar…well, maybe there would be a box of yogurt tucked in the back of the refrigerator.

It turned out that the best farm cooks knew how to make everything out of anything.  If you didn’t have it…then find something else…and substitute.  There was no end to what Pauline’s mom could create.  “Yeah,” Pauline laughed.  “She can even make apple pie without the apples!”

Apple pie without apples?  Pauline shared the secret with me over twenty years ago.  And I still can’t believe it possible.

Sure, I love Ritz Crackers.  The commercials are right, “Everything tastes good on a Ritz.”  But I would never grab a Ritz when I had a craving for an apple.

But, yes, there it is.  Online at AllRecipes, there they are…recipes of crackers, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  Apple pie?

Now I can truly understand how a lot of sugar and cinnamon held together by wet crackers and baked hot on a cold winter night could taste good in the middle of Iowa.  And I can truly understand how a mother could dream up a quick answer for six children, when Dad asks, “What is this?”

Mom could tell them the truth, “These are cracker crumbs buried in sugar…Cracker Pie.”  And the kids would still probably eat Cracker Pie.  But oh, the creativity of that brilliant farm mother who looked at the row of eyes staring up at her and elevated the simple cracker.  Maybe her strawberry blond curls bounced and most likely her eyes twinkled as she answered Dad.  “This is Mock Apple Pie.”

Recipes give us what we want.  But no matter how close to apples one gets with 30 round crackers, if I want an apple pie, I will make it with apples.

Substitutes are good when we need them.  But they are still substitutes.  A serving of five-star Mock Apple Pie has 503 calories, 24 grams of fat, and 448 mg of salt.  That is a poor substitute for 255 calories, 9 grams of fat, and 132 mg of salt contained in a hot steaming slice of five-star real apple pie.

Substitutes may be just what we need to make it through the tough times.  But if we want a recipe for success, the best way to get apple pie is to buy apples.

Another Father’s Day is here.  I think of how important my own father was in shaping our home.  I am grateful for my husband’s part in guiding our children through the hard times and laughing with them in the crazy times.

Most of all, I pray for my son and daughter, that they will value the role of a father enough to build their own families with Dad in the recipe.  There is no substitute like the real thing.

Happy Father’s Day!

 

Mock Apple Pie:   http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Mock-Apple-Pie-III/Detail.aspx

Apple Pie:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Pie-by-Grandma-Ople/Detail.aspx

June 18, 2004:   Me Jane…You Tarzan

Planned Parenthood’s War Against Choice

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

June 6, 2005

Choice:  option, alternative, preference, selection, election: suggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely

American children are raised on choice.  They cut their teeth on choice.

Stores live or die based on their ability to offer consumers a myriad of choices.  Hotel conglomerates buy up competitors just so they can offer travelers a range of overnight comfort.  Marriott is not just Marriott.  It is Fairfield, Courtyard, Springhill…well, you get the picture.

It’s no wonder that Choice became the mantra of Planned Parenthood.  In their own Encyclopedia of Women’s Health, they list out the reasons “a woman may choose an abortion,” much like you would list the reasons why a girl might choose a pizza.

Choice is captivating.  Marrying choice to freedom, we elevate the power to choose to an inalienable right.  Thus, the sexual revolution was born on the wings of freedom and choice with its emphasis on an array of sexual behaviors from which any man or woman, girl or boy, could simply choose.

And with a sexual revolution came sex education.  In 1970, a training in Philadelphia for Planned Parenthood staff concluded with a day-and-a-half marathon of films and discussion.  The goal of these trainings?  “To lead to desensitization of anxieties surrounding sexual behavior…with a resultant development of understanding and tolerance of the range of sexual behavior.”

For over twenty years, this “tolerance” formed the foundation of sex education programs supported by Planned Parenthood.  They were all about choice…a child’s right to choose sex from a “range” of behaviors…given the “tools” of contraception.  And if it didn’t work out, there was always one more choice.

Planned Parenthood has grown up on choice.  It cut its teeth on choice.

Thus, it is either surprising, alarming or amusing to watch them conduct a war against choice.  This war can be traced back to 1980 when U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton won congressional approval of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA).  Designed as an “almost exact mirror alternative” to Planned Parenthood’s Title X funding, AFLA set a new course for sex education.  Program objectives emphasized adoption, parental involvement, abstinence from sexual intercourse, and pro-family education for teenagers.

Well… that was just a little too much choice for Planned Parenthood to handle.  It geared up to undo the harm of excess choice.  In Congress, it fought to limit and ultimately decrease AFLA funding at the same time that it sought increases in Title X funding.  It continued to exploit its own federal funding streams flowing from over 100 different laws.  In the battle between U.S. funding of Planned Parenthood-style programs and abstinence programs, they had a funding advantage by one report of at least 75:1.

Another tactic to eliminate AFLA programs was an attack on the very meaning of the term “abstinence.”  In a March 1987 report written by Marie Haviland-James for the Planned Parenthood Federation, an attack on the abstinence program Sex Respect set out an extensive list of objections including: “many references…to a ‘spiritual’ dimension of sexuality”, “use of the word ‘baby’ for fetus”,  and “unsubstantiated claims” such as “abstinence has future benefits for teens.”

In its battle against choice, Planned Parenthood had no better friend than Senator Edward Kennedy.  In the 101st Congress, he submitted two bills with the intent to subvert the AFLA programs by repealing the focus on adoption and abstinence, requiring abortion counseling, and repealing the mandate for parental involvement.  No wonder, Senator Kennedy received a Planned Parenthood Memo for March 28, 1989, warmly praising his help in crafting legislation to “prevent teenage pregnancy rather than teenage sex.”

Apparently, for Planned Parenthood, choice is worth defending…as long as it is their choice.

Abstinence education is a choice that parents pay for with hard-earned tax dollars.  It is a choice to have medically accurate and complete information presented to their children that helps build understanding of and reinforcement for abstaining from sexual behavior.  It helps teens define future goals, and it is taught by teachers who value teens enough to believe in them and their ability to succeed.

Abstinence education is a choice.  No school district, nor any parent or student, is forced to listen to or believe in the abstinence message.   It is a choice.

Abstinence education is one choice.  Nothing prevents a school from inviting abstinence educators to their campus in October and inviting Planned Parenthood to their campus in February.

But that’s not good enough for Planned Parenthood.  If they are to have their way, we will be paying our taxes to have one choice, and one choice only…theirs.

Choice?  Hey, Planned Parenthood…what about the choice of people who don’t want your choice?

February 21, 2005:  Sex Without Value

April 2, 2004:   Sex Education:  Spinning the Truth

Only Half a Child

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

May 30, 2005

New Mexico is stepping out front of the pack in the national effort to help children retain self-control and delay sex until marriage.  New Mexico health department officials are stepping out with one foot, to teach half a child, to go half the distance…and stop.

New Mexico Health Secretary Michelle Lujan Grisham announced in April her decision to target $500,000 in federal sexual-abstinence education funding toward elementary-school students…students sixth grade and under, generally no older than twelve.

Students twelve and under, you are encouraged to be sexually abstinent.  Students over twelve, you are encouraged to use a condom.  Half of your life you are encouraged to succeed.  The other half of your life, you are told you will probably fail.  In New Mexico.

Grisham has set teens adrift.  Concluding that they are having sex anyway, she will offer them condoms and birth control as their “best option” for a successful future.  Grisham pretends to base her plan on research.  But if you open wide the curtains, there is a bigger picture behind her policies.

In January, 2005, she fired her first attack at abstinence education in a press release challenging the national guidelines for these programs.  She wanted the money for teaching abstinence.  She just didn’t want to teach abstinence.

Parents, legislators, and educators raised the roof against this plan!  But Grisham had at least one friend in her camp.

Planned Parenthood has conducted a ten year campaign against abstinence funding.  In a July 2002 speech, Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt rallied her friends, “We can harness our power to advance our agenda by working together with one vision, one goal, one set of issues, one message spoken by many voices.”

One message, two voices?  Planned Parenthood and New Mexico?

In January, when Grisham heard the public outcry generated against her plan to sabotage abstinence education, she retreated.  But only half way.  Throwing a bone to the crowd, she agreed to promote sexual abstinence to half a child.  But the other half…the part of the child that grows up and needs this message in junior high and high school…well, Grisham figures they are a lost cause at that point.

Perhaps this is because Grisham is reading only half the research.  Could she know that a poll by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy shows that nearly 70% of teens do not believe high school students should have sex and that approximately 65% of sexually experienced young people said they “wish they had waited longer to have sex”?

Did Grisham have time to read the CDC study released December of 2004?  Did she read the half of the study crediting sexual abstinence for part of the drop in the teen pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002?  Did she note the decline in sexual activity among teens…especially among teen boys?

In fact, during the decades when pro-condom sex education flourished without challenge, teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed.  At the highest rates of teen pregnancy in 1990, enterprising parents and educators introduced abstinence education around the country.  Since then, both teen sexual behavior and pregnancy rates have been steadily declining.

Pro-condom education accompanies a rise in teen pregnancies…and Grisham embraces pro-condom education.  Abstinence education accompanies a decline in teen pregnancies…yet Grisham rejects abstinence education for New Mexico teens.

Now, thanks to Grisham, Planned Parenthood and other organizations with access to Title X dollars will be free to carry in their condoms to junior high and high school students with promises of “protected” sex.  Protected from what?

Has Grisham read the research demonstrating the failure of condoms to deliver on “safe sex” promises?  Does the New Mexico health department have any commitment to deliver medically accurate information on condom failure rates?  If so, perhaps they could post their version of condom facts on the Department of Health website for all to see.

With one voice, Planned Parenthood and New Mexico are unified in an ideological rejection of abstinence education that defies medically sound reasons for its message and educationally sound methods for developing successful programs that teach the message.

Just when evidence is building a convincing case that abstinence education is impacting young people, bringing about a decline in teen pregnancies and helping students maintain abstinence until marriage, New Mexico officials have declared war on abstinence.

It’s a sad day for students and parents when the state health system gives up on teaching healthy choices and opts to believe that teens are incapable of restraining sexual urges.

One eye on half the research.  New Mexico has taken the lead in this parade of one foot marching…half a heart in helping half a child.

April 2, 2004:   Sex Education:  Spinning the Truth

March 14, 2005:   Does Abstinence Work?

The Power of a Good Mind

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

May 23, 2005

Their eyes are closed in intense concentration.  Each man has one hand resting lightly on the table, all hands holding onto an invisible handle moving in cadence with the leader’s voice.

Six highly trained men, each of whom commands $28 million dollars of metal and technology are in an empty room, mentally rehearsing the precision movements of a show performed at up to 700 mph, where one misstep will result in immediate death.  They are the Blue Angels.

The selection process for Blue Angel pilots is rigorous.  Each applicant must be a career-oriented, carrier-qualified, active-duty Navy or Marine Corps tactical jet pilot with a minimum of 1,350 flight hours.

Once selected, “Angels” enter into intense training.  At speeds approaching Mach 1, a hesitation of one second can spell disaster.  The squadron focuses stress in a program built around exercise, weight training, cardiovascular health, flexibility training and healthy diet.

It goes without saying that vision is essential to the success of these jet pilots.  Extensive physical exams ensure 20/20 vision that is sustained under intense g-force maneuvers.  But there is another vision required for success as an “Angel.”

Blue Angels, with all the skill, technology, and personnel supporting their own training, must also rely on their individual capacity to sit with eyes closed, visualizing the exact order and movements of their performance, a mental rehearsal of every detail.  Their body can only perform what their mind can envision.

The power of a good mind is central to human success.  Jet pilots “see” their F-18’s speeding through the air before they ever climb into the cockpit.  Mountain climbers fix their eyes on the heights before they ever take the first step.

Vision of success builds success.  It is the ingredient of dreams.  It inspires hope.  It creates endurance through faith built on a picture we see with our mind.

Visions give us dreams.  Lifting her lamp beside the golden door, the Statue of Liberty welcomes the tired and poor of the world to America.  But they arrive on our shore long before their ships set sail.  They arrive first in their dreams and visions of what life might be in a distant land.

What dreams and visions do we inspire in our children?

“We would teach abstinence,” some tell us, “but we know kids are going to have sex anyway.”  A vision of failure is planted.  It is nurtured.  It is cultivated with thoughts of eventual failure.

Looking below, seeing the possibility of eventual failure, picturing ourselves falling off the mountain, what good does that do?  Yet, that is what some would have us believe about our kids.

People came to America inspired by a vision.  Pilots train with a vision.  Yes, visions must be chased and caught.  They require something of your own blood sweat and tears.  But they give us the picture of heaven on earth, a target, a place to aim our aspirations.

Beware of people who expect us to fail.  Listen for words predicting disaster.  As we speak, so shall we think.  And as we think, so shall we do.

The best educational program begins not with books and lessons and charts and graphs.  It begins in the mind of a person who has captured the vision of success.

And the best teachers are those who can inspire the vision in others, who can train the eyes upward for the climb and paint a picture of what it will be like when you mount the peak, plant your flag and claim success.

March 14, 2005:  Does Abstinence Work?

October 29, 2004:   Food for the Brain

Liberty or Libertine?

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

May 16, 2005

Give me liberty, or give me death!

Fifth grade is the year for American history, when the Constitution is broken into three branches of government, the Bill of Rights is memorized, and famous patriots stir our imagination.  American children grow up, nurtured on the ideals of independence and freedom.

Patrick Henry lives on today at Colonial Williamsburg, America’s largest living history museum.  In body and voice, Richard Shumann recreates Henry and the words he used to stir colonists to battle.

In March 1775, Patrick Henry urged his fellow Virginians to arm in self-defense, closing his appeal (uttered at St. John’s Church in Richmond, where the legislature was meeting) with the immortal words:  Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!

Henry, “a Quaker in religion but the very devil in politics,” mobilized the militia only a few hours after the British march on Concord. His words are said to mark the beginning of the American Revolution in Virginia.

Liberty, the cause of the American Revolution, burns bright in the minds of Americans as the ultimate cause worth defending.  We want our freedom.  Independence.  Liberty.  No one is going to bar our way, get in our face, tell us what to do.  America is the land of the free.

But there is another Henry.  And another quote.  This Henry speaks of liberty, too.  But more to the point, he speaks about the purest essence of liberty, the distillation of what our freedom must be in order to allow us to be free.

Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.  –Henry M. Robert

 So, who is this Henry?  Henry Martyn Robert was born May 2, 1837, in Robertsville, South Carolina.  Active in his community, he was chosen to chair a committee and was embarrassed by his inability to handle their meetings effectively.

Henry’s work in the army allowed him to travel and study the different systems used in various communities to order their meetings.  He envisioned a uniform set of rules used by all people that would allow people from different towns to work together effectively.

Encouraged by friends, Henry wrote a book and finally found a publisher willing to gamble on a printing of 4,000, enough copies to last a couple of years.  Instead, the first copies of Robert’s Rules sold out in a few months.

Henry M. Robert died in 1923 in New York, leaving us an important lesson about liberty.  Unfettered and unrestrained, liberty is a freedom that will enslave us.  Order, rules, and governance are the friends of freedom that protect us from ourselves.

Too much liberty corrupts us all.  –Terence (185 BC – 159 BC)

Liberty:  Defined in simple terms, it is the power to do as one pleases.  But if one is thorough in reading to the end of the definition, the reins on freedom are spelled out:  permission especially to go freely within specified limits.

Libertine:  A word no longer needed in America where everything goes, it has a lesson to teach.  A person who is unrestrained by convention or morality; specifically : one leading a dissolute life…a life dissolving through unrestrained liberties?

Dissolute:  lacking restraint; especially : marked by indulgence in things (as drink or promiscuous sex) deemed vices <the dissolute and degrading aspects of human nature.  Is this a concept Americans are able to…even willing to…understand?

As we work to teach our children the value of saving sex until marriage, we must look ourselves full face in the mirror.  We must admit that our culture has used our love affair with liberty to enslave us to our passions.

In a culture that celebrates excess, we must restore the truth about liberty. Give us liberty.  Yes.  But give us also the courage and character to submit our liberty to restraint.

Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.

–Will Durant (1885-1981)

 Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.

–Archbishop Ireland