Cy Steen Baseball Tip 1

A Day in the Life of Ivan at the Discount Store

My wife and thirteen year old daughter were talking about how hard it was to find clothes that were not sexually suggestive for young girls. I told my daughter to show me what she was talking about and we went to the super discount store.

Like most guys, I avoid the women's clothing section, so I felt a little awkward, but I soon saw they had understated the problem. Panties with "Who needs credit cards?" on the front. The Jim Benton collection with these phrases: "Let's focus on me". "Cruel but cute so I'm worth it". "Hating you makes me warm inside". "Hate is a special kind of love we give to people who suck."

Are these really the messages we want young girls wearing on their underwear? My blood began to boil as I visualized the marketing steps this garbage went through, and how many people who should have vetoed this clothing line chickened out to protect their paycheck. I had no idea you could buy see-through thong panties at the discount stores, but you can.

Why?

We went to the greeting card section where my daughter handed me a birthday card. It had this shining example of creativity on the front: "Jack wasn't nimble, Jack wasn't quick, He sat on your cake, and burned his. . ."

At the toy aisle we checked out the posters. Maxim Girls and The Girls of Hawaiian Tropic with perpetual come hither looks next to Tinkerbell, and cartoon Cars. One poster said, "So many boys, so little time". Another poster was an Andy Warhol version of Playboy logos.

Why?

We went to the movie section. Many had bold red labels boasting "Uncensored". In the kids section I picked up a Black DVD titled Metalocaypse with this label: Warning. Uncensored. Special Features contain mature themes and vulgar and sexually explicit language not for viewing by children under 17. Viewer and Parental discretion are strongly advised.

Why?

We went to the books and noticed an entire section devoted to Harlequin /Silhouette Desire paperbacks. I picked up "What She Really Wants for Christmas" and opened it in the middle. I cannot write here what I read, but it was pure, hard core porn. I looked at the floor to eye level display of Christmas themed books with titles like, "Christmas in His Royal Bed", "An Affair before Christmas" and so on. No indication they were X-rated adult books. I called a female associate over and handed her the book. She read one line and slammed it shut.

"I'll get a manager."

The manager came and I handed him the book. He glanced at the text and turned red. "See any warning label?" I asked.

"No."

"Is that appropriate for just anyone to pick up?"

"No."

In 1978 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize winning author and Russian dissident who courageously exposed the atrocities of the Soviet Gulag system, was addressing a graduating class at Harvard University. He shared these observations about the problems he saw with Western culture: "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Solzhenitsyn understood the corrosive nature of evil. He had seen first hand a society that cast off God, only to reap a whirlwind of injustice, pain and suffering. That day at Harvard he pleaded for the West to repent, only to be dismissed as a fanatic by New York Times and get uninvited to the White House by the Carter Administration.

Solzhenitsyn's books should be required reading, but they require (and teach) a basic understanding of world history, philosophy, and theology. In other words, they require too much thinking for textbook to test teachers and attention deficit students. It's too bad, because understanding the truth of history would cure our indifference to creeping socialism.

The ACLU and other godless organizations send letters (and in some cases lawyers) to every school board in the nation to make sure children are "protected" from any exposure to unconstitutional religious ideas, yet no one sees the need to protect children from the hypersexed swill marketed directly at them in every discount store in the country.

Why?

Across The Line While Waiting In Line

In my last column I lamented the increasingly sexualized products now available in almost every store, especially those targeted at younger children. I received a lot of e-mail, and most of it asked me to address the problem of sexually explicit images on television which are increasingly impossible to avoid.

Before considering television, I have to go back to the discount stores and grocery chains. Isn't it odd that businesses which have no problem selling books with titles like, "What She really Wants For Christmas" or "Christmas In His Royal Bed" have cut most, if not all references to Christmas from their advertising, display and promotional materials?

Who is making these decisions?

The reason we and our children get an eyeful of silicone implants and garbage headlines from the tabloids every time we go through the check out stand is because no one objected. Now pornographic paperbacks without any age restrictions or warning labels are on the book racks, the girls clothing departments look like sex shops, and the raunchy videos. . . hey, no one's objecting. If a strip bar opened across the street from your house, I doubt you would just avoid looking and let it go, but for most people the embarrassment of taking a stand against evil. . .

Evil? Did I just equate tabloid and magazine covers at the check out aisles with evil?

Evil is the Nazi extermination of men, women and children. Evil is Stalin murdering millions of "cogs" and falsely imprisoning millions more. Evil is people who open fire at schools or the mall.

Sexy pictures are not evil. Those who think they are, well, there's evil for you. After all, didn't Hitler and Stalin want to run everyone's life and tell them what to do?

My interest in studying Hitler and Stalin, both God hating sexual perverts determined to destroy families, is that they came to power in post-Christian countries. I'm convinced our culture is traveling a similar path, and one obvious indication is our plummeting standards for decency. Sexual immorality and unbelief fuel each other, and they have always led to disaster in individuals, families and cultures.

According to scripture, sex was meant to be highly valued, but subservient to family. Today sex is overvalued, one might say hypervalued, while families are disintegrating. If sex were limited to faithful married couples, STDs would disappear without drugs. There are now over two dozen STDs and many of them have no known cure. HIV/AIDS has killed more than all our wars combined. One in four girls are sexually molested before reaching adulthood, and the percentage of molested boys is growing. I could bury you in statistics which should be shocking, but nothing shocks us anymore. Do people have the right to think about sex in any form? Is viewing or reading about people engaged in sex evil?

Every single one of us has a line which we think crossing is evil. Almost all would say sexual fantasies which involve abusing children or killing people are evil—way over the line. So there is a line. What basis do we have for drawing that line and where should that line be?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Allright bro! Consensual sex! I'm totally there!

Did I hear you say it would be okay if your sister or daughter was a stripper or prostitute? Would it be all right if she joined the drug addicts in the porn industry? How about if she was used and dumped by some guy who just wanted to hook up? Would it be okay for a man to introduce your son to sex? Are you okay with a woman seducing your daughter? Would you want your child's struggles with drugs or infidelity splattered on the cover of the tabloids?

Only the blind can't see that today's hypersexed culture is doing irreparable damage to our families, especially the children.

I can't control the way life turns, but I would have my daughters and sons (and yours) chaste, innocent and able to present themselves to their spouse for a lifetime of sexual intimacy that remains in its proper place.

We must consider every person as someone's son or daughter—because they are. To cross the line, to seduce, deceive and use people for profit or pleasure is to be on the side of evil. Those responsible for the garbage children are now exposed to have crossed it, and they are dragging along all of us who do nothing to stop them.

Evolution? Heil No!

I got a funny look followed by the comment, "You really don't believe in 
evolution?" I think the look accompanied the fall of my perceived intellect to the 
level of religious nutcase. To be precise, I do not believe materialistic 
naturalism, the underlying assumption of darwinistic evolution.
While working on my MA in film studies, I watched a classic film noted for 
it's powerful cinematography. Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", was then 
and is today breathtaking on many levels. It was the crown jewel of 
propaganda for Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. 
Considering the Holocaust and World War II, "Triumph of the Will" is 
jaw-dropping. Those people literally worshipped Hitler with all of their heart, soul, 
mind and strength. Other film students remarked about the mise en scénes, 
camera angles, and so on, but I was bothered by the power of film as tool for 
propaganda, and pondered the meaning of the title, "Triumph of the Will". I 
vaguely remembered something about a German philosopher linked with the word "will". 
Whenever I visited a large library, I searched for information on the impact 
motion pictures had on the rise of the Nazi's in the German culture. Films 
like "Triumph of the Will" helped convince the German public they were taking 
part in the most momentous occasion in the history of mankind—the glorious 
inevitable progress of the favored race.
I was also interested in the role of the German church. What happened to the 
state run churches in Germany was easier to track. Enlightenment dizzy 
liberals gutted them. Many evolution-believing theologians jumped in bed with the 
Nazis like drunk prom dates and were rewarded by being put in charge of the 
churches and seminaries. Most clergy kept quiet, preaching feel good sermons to 
confused and dwindling flocks. The few who stood against the culture's insane 
momentum were ridiculed, ignored and martyred.
The enlightenment had set up the dominoes for Darwin's Theory of Evolution to 
start an avalanche that swept through the halls of academia, and nowhere was 
the victory swifter or more complete than in Germany. Prior to W.W.II, Germany 
was peerless in higher education. Any serious student of anything studied 
there. The confident boast of scientifically fixing mankind's problems and curing 
all social ills was made in almost every discipline, including economics, 
education and politics. 
Some nagging philosophical problems remained. If God was dead, what about 
ethics, morality, beauty, love, meaning and purpose. The "higher criticism" 
liberal theologians competed to invent the next "evolution" of religion, keeping 
whatever they wanted from Christianity, minus the miracles or those annoying 
absolutes. Formerly unthinkable ideologies like eugenics and pederasty 
flourished. Germany degenerated into an arrogant, godless, science-driven and 
increasingly pagan society. 
Those who claim Hitler was a Christian fail to understand (or ignore) that 
Hitler, like the liberal theologians of his day, used Christian terms common to 
Western culture. In fact, while most German theologians considered 
Christianity the highest evolved religion because of it's obvious role in building 
Western Civilization, Hitler preferred Nordic Mythology because it did a better job 
of justifying his desire to purify the Aryan race. 
About that film's title, "Triumph of the Will", I discovered it was indeed 
linked to the teaching of Friedrich Neitzche, an atheist German philosopher. It 
was Neitzche who wrote the famous lines, "God is dead. God remains dead. And 
we have killed him."
Educated Germans all knew another quote from Neitzche very well; "Every 
healthy aristocracy. . .will have to be the incarnated Will to Power.  It will 
endeavor to grow, to gain ground, and acquire ascendancy —not owing to any 
morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is precisely Will to 
Power."
The path from Darwin to Nietzche to Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party is a
lmost impossible to miss, yet I've met no one who was ever taught about the 
connections between Darwin and Hitler. I have run into many who parrot the 
silly notion that Hitler was a right wing Christian. Fancy that. 
World War II was primarily about Germany's attempt to ascend the evolutionary 
ladder because they were convinced evolution was settled science and they 
were leading the inevitable march of progress. The Nazis sacrificed the Jews, the 
youth of Germany and many other nations to prove the widely held but 
absolutely wrong idea of evolved racial superiority.
No, I really don't believe in Darwinian evolution. I know God exists, so a 
theory which defines reality so as to deny His existence is wasted on me, Time, 
Newsweek, and National Geographic's continuing public relations campaign 
notwithstanding. I get that defining life as the "will to power" is diametrically 
opposite the first commandment, no matter how cleverly adorned in academia, 
enshrined by the media or mindlessly assumed by pop culture. I also get that the 
claims of Jesus and materialistic naturalism are mutually inexclusive. I'm 
going with Jesus.

Best Place on Earth Part II

In a previous column I offered that the primary solution for making Kansas 
the best place on earth to raise a child would be to encourage stay at home 
mothers. During a conversation about that column I was asked to address the 
problem of absentee fathers and told that I was not living in the real world. Fair 
enough, the following ideas are for men, and they don't require legislation or 
tax increases.
There is a word that describes you men who have sired children just to leave 
them fatherless and unprotected. No matter how much free time you have, how 
less complicated your life is as you forge ahead without your kids, the word for 
you is. . . loser. I don't mean the term as a pejorative, I mean it 
literally. Contrary to the beer ads, life is not about sex, money and motor vehicles. 
Deprived of a relationship with their dad, your children will be scarred for 
life. Statistically you have left them at a higher risk for teen pregnancy, drug 
use, prison and suicide. 
Let me put this in language you should understand.
We salute you, Mr. Left-your-kids-to-live-your-own-life, for missing out on 
the true meaning of life. We salute you, Mr. Left-your-kids-with-a-single-mom, 
for dumping your share of the load like a spineless coward. We salute you, Mr. 
Left-your-kids-with-their-grandparents, for avoiding one of God's primary 
means for teaching you about Himself, and about yourself. We salute you, Mr. 
Left-your-kids-but-they'll-get-over-it, for squandering away the unconditional 
love of your own children, blowing off the future benefits of responsibility, and 
forfeiting the rewards of strong family relationships. Whatever the evil one 
whispered to you when you decided to take off and leave your family, you lost, 
big time, and are still losing. 
As for you men who haven't left physically, but have checked out of your 
children's lives, wake up guys, you won't get this time back. Turn off, or better 
yet, throw out your television. If your kids must see a movie, watch it with 
them. Make sure they understand the many levels of information they are being 
bombarded with so they aren't sucked in by cleverly hidden messages or seduced 
by the inane and false images of pop culture. Play catch, ride bikes, go 
fishing, or read a classic. Visit a park, you'll have the place to yourselves. Kids 
do not require much. They just want to be with you. Here's a little secret 
guys. You need to be with them.
Don't even think about divorce. In grade school not one of my classmates had 
divorced parents. In high school I physically prevented a friend from climbing 
a water tower and jumping the day his parents announced they were getting a 
divorce. Divorce is now so common it's hard to imagine it was once rare, but 
the wounds to children are no less severe. At the very least we should stop 
screwing around with marriage and take it seriously as a vow to God between one 
man and one woman with a purpose higher than meeting our own needs. This also 
means to stop screwing around, period. 
Fathers, take responsibility for your children's education and values. Do not 
leave it to the school system. Do you know your child's teachers? Do you know 
if they are cheating on their spouse, belong to a cult, or think getting kids 
to reject their parents values is an important part of their job? Where you 
live such things might be rare. I have lived where they were not, yet most 
fathers know almost nothing about the people they entrust their children to the 
better part of each day. This is insane. You would not treat your car this way. 
Good teachers appreciate involved parents, bad teachers don't. News flash: 
There are bad teachers. The school district isn't going to tell you who they are, 
and your kids probably won't either. Remember Jr. High and High School when 
we thought teachers who told dirty jokes were cool and those who made us work 
were bad? Your children's education is your responsibility dad. You will live 
with the results.
Raising kids requires. . . love. The word love gets a lot of air time, but 
our culture teaches us to pretend love comes and goes against our will. That is 
so not true. According to Scripture love is a choice, and a commandment. We 
may have to live in the real world, but with God's help we can choose to live 
according to the rules of heaven, and that, my brother, is the best way on earth 
to raise a child, in any state.

Let's not follow the GLBT parade

It was Halloween. I'd finished working on a commercial in a studio in the 
Village area of New York City. As I was walking home, I ran into a Gay, Lesbian, 
Bi-sexual and Transgendered (GLBT) community parade. Men wearing only what 
appeared to be diapers were marching chained together by their nipple rings. Men 
in drag marched next to crew-cut women dressed as masculine as possible. A 
float was pulled by men with dog collars and leashes held by a leather-clad 
woman(?) with a whip. There were topless women(?) and others too obscene to 
describe. People were drinking, kissing, and having a raucous party as they marched 
by.
In West Hollywood, a self-described GLBT community, the annual Halloween 
Parade is even bigger than New York City's. Year round the West Hollywood store 
front windows pretty much mirror these parades. The prevalent theme is group 
sex, and terms like lusty, sinful, kinky, and taboo are incorporated into the 
names of the stores. I understand this is true of other GLBT districts in most 
large cities.
Those in the news media help create the zeitgeist and know instinctively they 
gain peer approval by carrying water for GLBT activists. Many are GLBT 
activists. Editorials applaud our governor's executive order to add GLBT to the 
state's anti-discrimination policy. Dear Abby calmly teaches us that a 
transgendered person is someone who has been born in a body of the wrong sex. Recent 
Columns by a gay Iranian and the ex-governor of New Jersey poignantly portray 
suffering under the shame of being closeted, but both admit to the practice of 
meeting with men for sex, starting in high school. A recent AP story about 
"Freaky Parades" was essentially a free advertisement for GLBT Halloween 
celebrations like the one I witnessed in New York City. It even suggested that readers 
check out the "Drag Race & Pageant, which does not refer to race cars." I guess 
that would include the many school children who read the newspaper.
Gay people do not all live in a constant state of bacchanal partying, but to 
ignore the reality of normative and accepted behavior in predominantly gay 
communities and the publicly stated goals of GLBT activists is to be a naive 
victim of an ongoing propaganda campaign.
Ideas have consequences. Freedom of sexual expression, rejecting traditional 
morality and changing societal norms and are the ideas being promoted. While 
the issue of same sex marriage dominates the discussion, the activism does not 
stop there. Efforts to influence laws, elections, public schools, libraries, 
and universities are all easily confirmed, but the postmodern media heartily 
approves of all such efforts.
Politicians, news reporters and educators who aren't actively promoting 
tolerance are often "homophobic" in a different way. That is, they are afraid to 
show the slightest disapproval of the GLBT community, and for good reason. Many 
GLBT activists do not play by any established rules. The "greater good" of 
moving society toward "progress" justifies anything. The only postmodern absolute 
wrong is intolerance.
If greed alone ruled Hollywood, all the movies would be G-rated. In the 
entertainment industry GLBT activists dominate the culture, and have for quite some 
time. The sex, violence, and inane garbage being marketed incessantly to our 
children indicates such open-mindedness has not produced responsible conduct. 
The acceptance of alternate lifestyles and the increase in sexually explicit 
and formerly unthinkable content in entertainment fuel each other. Where does 
this end?
As a recipient of God's amazing grace, I do not hate those I must strongly 
disagree with, including "straight" people who are obsessed with sex. I would 
argue there are thoughts, fantasies and activities we are all clearly not 
supposed to nurture and follow, whatever our genetic and/or environmental issues 
are. Some paths are much harder to turn back from than others, for individuals 
and societies. Saint Paul warns us to flee from sexual immorality, but our 
society marches on defiantly, away from God and toward debauchery.
Christianity teaches that God forgives, but God's demand of complete 
surrender is for our own good. We have the freedom to say yes to God's call, but we 
are in no position to negotiate or place conditions upon our Creator. Our 
conditions only protect that which we need set free from.
Christianity is about the chance to start life over and walk through the 
struggles and temptations of life following Jesus, on His terms, with His help. 
Following Jesus is certainly no parade, but it leads to better things for us and 
our children.

Trojan Donkey

   One crisp November morning Common Sense and his pal Notso Dumb headed out 
to go fishing. At the edge of town was a massive wooden statue of a donkey on 
wheels.
   "Whoa C.S., What is that?" asked Notso.
   "I don't know N.D., lets look at the inscription. It says this is a 
Trojan Donkey, a gift from the Kansas Democratic State Committee. It says this big 
donkey will bring more funding for education AND hold the line on taxes. It 
will even bring down the cost of health care.
   "That sounds great, let's get some help and haul this big donkey into 
town!" yelled N.D.
   "More funding AND less taxes? I don't think so N.D.," Common Sense 
pointed out. "Look underneath the belly of the donkey, there's a catch. Let's see 
what's inside this thing."
   They climbed up and knocked. A hatch opened and a voice whispered, "You 
guys are late, get in here."
   C.S. motioned for N.D. to keep quiet and they climbed inside.
   "Welcome aboard, I'm Ed Funding, here's my partner N.E.A. Meet my pals 
A.C.L.U. and W. Hater. On the right are, oh, there's no one there. Well, on the 
left over there is Protect Abortion, there are Mr. Gay, Ms. Lesbian, and, uh, 
I'm not sure if Transgender is a Mr., Mrs. or Ms. today.
   The three jumped to their feet.
   "I meant no offense! I have friends that are gay and it's okay!" Ed 
quickly added. He whispered to C.S. and N.D., "They take offense easy, but they are 
tireless workers for our side."
   "What do they want?" asked N.D.  
   "Tolerance training in schools. The marriage thing."
   "Tolerance of what?" C.S. asked
   Ed clasped a hand on C.S.'s mouth. "You do not want these guys mad at 
you, they have enormous influence over the press and practically own the 
entertainment industry. Let's keep em mad at the Christians."
   "You mean those few Christians who insist God prohibits sex outside of 
marriage?"
   "Exactly!" Ed chuckled, "Self-righteous fanatics!  Who are they to say 
what is right and wrong.  Just ask A.C.L.U. over there. It's all relative. We 
all have our own path to truth."
   "So everyone is right, EXCEPT those Christians who believe there is such 
a thing as absolute right and wrong?" asked Common Sense.
   "Hey," Ed insisted, "I was raised, you know, a Christian and all that, 
but I'm no conservative. We need to keep conservative Christians out of the 
government!"
   "Let me get this straight, said Common Sense, "You say you're a 
Christian, but you're in this big donkey working hand in hand with the A.C.L.U who 
threatens schools if they let children whisper a prayer. You hang with the N.E.A. 
whose newsletters to teachers are filled with shameless propaganda, and even 
Abortion Providers who kill babies that would survive a C-section. You don't 
object to the Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered groups blatant efforts to influence 
early education . . ."
   "Hey!" Interrupted Atheist Science Standards, "Imagine what would happen 
if the government were run by committed Christians?
   "It's not hard to imagine," C.S. replied, "It happened once and the 
result was The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of 
Rights. . . you know, pretty much the United States of America."
   "Women couldn't vote!" screamed Militant Feminist.
   "They were evil slave owners!" shouted NAACP.
   Everyone began shouting, "They were fur trappers and whale killers! "They 
believed men were created equal! Thanks to Darwin we now know better! 
Creation is mythology! The Founding Fathers believed men were depraved and needed a 
self-limiting form of government with constitutional checks and balances! We 
know humans are essentially good if you can get to them early enough!  They 
thought men's rights were inalienable and endowed by their Creator, we know rights 
come from the State! We will educate our way to world peace and harmony once 
we liberals have control! More power to the State! We need human cloning! 
Science will design the next leap in our collective evolution! So what if we use 
deception and propaganda, the ends will justify our means!"
   C. S. looked hard at Ed Funding. "Hey, I just want more money." Ed said 
sheepishly.
   "Come on N.D. Let's get out of here."
   Common Sense and N.D. climbed down.
   "We must warn the townspeople about what's inside this Trojan Donkey!" 
Common Sense insisted.
   Nah," N.D replied, "I don't want those guys upset with me. I'm going 
fishing.  I told Who Cares and Too busy I'd meet em at Lake Headinsand today.