Sculpting challenge: Day nine! Also, my birthday. :3

Ok, so I'm posting this a day off. n_n' I was on the Windows side of my computer because I was playing Minecraft part of the day, and didn't log back onto the Linux side to post. I know I could have posted from the Windows side but I really hate doing anything there except play games and log into stupid job websites that require Internet Exploder.

Anyway! I did some sculpting on the seal head the other day. The Super Sculpey/Fimo Soft blend isn't my favourite thing to work with, I have to say. It doesn't blend particularly well, but it seems a bit softer. So it's easier to push out of shape but takes more effort to blend. Not really the best characteristics. Still, I blended the stuff together so I'm going to use it.

I came back and looked at the bunny after a couple of days, and I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out! I did really like it at the time, but after a break it seems surprising that I made it. lol

One interesting thing with the bunny is that I baked it for a little longer than the package indicated because I was baking it at a lower temperature than the recommended temp. I didn't want to underbake the bunny so I just left it in a little longer. Super Sculpey has kind of a flesh tone colour (if you're not familiar with it), and it's supposed to stay that approximate colour after baking. The bunny though had a kind of an orangey colour on the ears after baking, which made sense because that was the thinnest part of the sculpt. I left the bunny to cool overnight, and the next morning pretty much the entire bunny was the golden orange colour! It'll certainly make the bunny easier to paint. lol

I want to cast them too, I'm just not sure how to cast the bunny since there are a lot of parts that are kind of odd.

Today we bought some latex rubber molding material, and we're going to pick up some plaster of paris soon.

I didn't get to sculpt today because I had to go out to do a pre-interview typing test for a job I applied for (which I really hope that I get!), and then since it was my birthday me and the hubby stayed out for a bit. He is so amazing! :3 He surprised me with a little crystal Scottie dog necklace, got me a Disney princess outfit for my BJD (and it fits! I am so excited), a little crab robot, and snagged the Alice: Madness Returns PS3 game. He also got me a Kindle Fire for my birthday, but he didn't wait to give me that. hehe

Tomorrow he's going to make me a cake! He was still going to make the cake today but we played Alice and played around starting a mold for a BJD sized hanger and it got kind of late for that.

You sure you want to toss money in that red kettle?

Salvation Army Lobbies for Religious Discrimination

It’s almost time for those red kettles to go up in front of grocery stores across America, and all across America, people get all rosy cheeked just thinking about doing good… forgetting about all the organisations that do as much good without making such a big show about it… without thinking about where the money that goes into the red kettle really goes to.

Among other things, the money people give to the Salvation Army goes to pay the salaries of lobbyists in Washington D.C. What, oh what, do those Salvation Army lobbyists lobby for? The Salvation Army lobbies in favour of the political agenda of the Religious Right.

There’s the time, for example, when the Salvation Army leaders met behind closed doors with the Bush White House to come up with a strategy for passing a law that would allow government-funded groups to fire people for refusing to join the religions of their bosses. Convert and praise Jesus or lose your job, the Salvation Army law said. That was a practice that the Salvation Army was already engaging in, giving religious tests to employees and telling them to take a hike if the responses were not theologically correct, taking government money all the while. The Salvation Army spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of red kettle money on that political project alone.

What else does your red kettle donation pay for? Political organising against same-sex marriage, for one thing. The Salvation Army uses its organisation to promote opposition to equal marriage rights for same sex-sex couples. The web site of the Salvation Army states, “The Salvation Army believes, therefore, that Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life. There is no scriptural support for same-sex unions as equal to, or as an alternative to, heterosexual marriage.” Catch that other part too - the only good homosexual is a homosexual who decides not to have sex for the rest of his or her life.

There’s also the Salvation Army’s history of rescinding benefits to same-sex domestic partners. Said the Human Rights Campaign, “We’re talking about health care, about providing health benefits, and what the Salvation Army has decided to do is prevent certain families from getting health care, and that’s just mean.” Salvation Army supporters responded to Portland’s request that it adhere to the city’s ordinance requiring organisations receiving money from the city government to provide benefits to same-sex domestic partners by sending hate mail with messages such as “You are a sick person who doesn’t deserve to be mayor.” Compassion?

Still want to put that money in the red kettle?

Consider the Salvation Army’s decision to put its religion ahead of the needs of homeless people in Wisconsin. When the Janesville City Council asked the Salvation Army to stop trying to convert people to evangelical Christianity with government money provided through the city government, the Salvation Army said no. The Salvation Army decided that it was more important to keep trying to convert people to Christianity than to help people in need, so it decided to stop work on a homeless shelter until the local government relented and allowed proselytization with government funds. A spokesman said that stopping its religious activities as part of government-funded programs that it administrates would stop the Salvation Army from fulfilling its mission “to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ”. The Salvation Army would let the homeless freeze outside in the Wisconsin winter weather rather than just stop telling people to worship Jesus.

Yes, government funds. The Salvation Army gets a huge amount of praise for helping people in need, but the truth is that a huge amount of the money that the Salvation Army spends comes directly from federal, state, and local government. We, the taxpayers of America, make the sacrifice, but the Salvation Army gets the credit with none of the oversight and accountability that ordinarily goes along with government programs. In 2005, for example, 95 percent of the Salvation Army’s budget for children services came from the federal government, and was used, among other things, to conduct an anti-gay witch hunt in which employees were told to look for signs of homosexual activity in their colleagues, and to expose those colleagues so that they could be fired.

The plain fact is that the Salvation Army would only conduct a tiny fraction of its charitable works if it did not receive billions of dollars of government money. Much of the red kettle money goes toward building and maintaining Salvation Army churches, like the ones Wrangell, Alaska; Griffin, Georgia; Thomasville, North Carolina; Gilroy, California; Kalispell, Montana; Fort Lauderdale, Florida and countless other places across the USA. When you throw your money into the red kettle, are you thinking about helping people in need or about maintaining the temple in Rochester, New York?

I’m not denying that the Salvation Army does some good things with its own resources, but most of the good work it does is with government resources that could just as easily go to other programs that don’t discriminate, don’t lobby the government, and don’t mix religion with social services. Let the Salvation Army support itself, and rely purely on private donations. If the Salvation Army wants to keep preaching a right wing agenda, then it’s long past time that it get off the government dole.

Want to get even with the Salvation Army
for discrimination in Jesus' name?



Click here to find out how!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All of the above text was copy/pasted from the original journal (angry_biscuit in the link. The following is me.

So how many people who don't believe in or are against what the SA lobby for toss in a couple of bucks thinking that all that money is going to help some poor needy kid or homeless family for the holidays? I certainly don't want to donate money to an organisation that is going to work against me. I'd want that money to go to the needy kid or homeless family. I'd look for a different way to help.

It really irks me is that they're taking government funds for this. If a religious organisation took private donations and used part of it for lobbying for conservative religious right wing legislation, I can hardly say that I'd be surprised. I'm not saying I agree, but could you honestly be surprised by that? But using government funds to do it? If there weren't all those extra funds I'd hope that they'd use their donations more for what the people donating surely intend for their money to go for. And then perhaps the government could use that money to I dunno, support government programs in place that help families in need? Just sayin'.

I'm all for helping people, but there are other organisations that don't use these underhanded policies.