Bango Performing an Insane Backflip Dunk!

I thought this was relevant to family matters.

South Park and Censorship

Comedy Central has decided to censor Muhammed, and all mentions of him, from an episode of South Park. This decision is notable for several reasons, not the least of which because Comedy Central would never censor anything else. (Amazingly, the writers of South Park were careful not to actually depict Muhammed at all to begin with- he was always covered up by a truck or a bear costume).

There's a great op-ed that was published in Sunday's New York Times about the implications of this troubling decision. The article ends up being a critique of American culture, and shows how this censure is actually a small indication of a culture in decline.

With God utterly absent from American public life, moral relativism has given rise to a crass, nihilistic free-for-all completely void of Christian morality. America is no longer confident in itself, as American culture is more than happy to mock its own history, past, and traditions. Just look how de rigueur it is to mock Tea
Partiers and other uneducated hicks who haven't yet figured out that it's not cool to be proud of America.

Not able to stand up for itself, the once proud, free people of America begin to cower in the face of a now resurgent Islam.

As Douthat puts it:

"In ours, though, even Parker’s and Stone’s wildest outrages often just blur into the scenery. In a country where the latest hit movie, “Kick-Ass,” features an 11-year-old girl spitting obscenities and gutting bad guys while dressed in pedophile-bait outfits, there isn’t much room for real transgression. Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place.

"Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing.

"This is what decadence looks like: a frantic coarseness that “bravely” trashes its own values and traditions, and then knuckles under swiftly to totalitarianism and brute force.

You can read the whole article here.

Making Wishes Come True

We celebrated Katie's 4th birthday last Saturday, although her b'day was really on the 12th--she was confused for most of the week, actually...

Anyway, we invited all of her friends and then invited Cinderella to grace us with her presence! Katie was speechless, which is very uncommon for her, but she warmed up quickly and was so excited.

Cinderella came in her "work" clothes and gathered all of the kids around her. She began to tell them her story and let the kids fill in the parts they knew. Of course Katie knew EVERYTHING even before Cinderella could say it! Then she said that since her Fairy Godmother couldn't be with her that day, she would have to get ready for the ball like the rest of us, and she dashed off to change her clothes. When she returned everyone danced like they were at the ball and everyone had a picture taken with the princess. It was a lot of fun!




This is a picture with as many kids as we could get together. There were a whole lot more running around, who could have cared less that Cinderella was there. (Note: George admonishing his friend, Samantha! He gets his bossiness from his big sister)








This is Katie and one of her best friends, Jace, with the Cinderella birthday cake I made at the request of the birthday girl.









I promise that not all of my posts will be about the kids, but I thought I'd share Katie's birthday surprise with all of you since you could not be there. If you want to see more pics, let me know and I can email them, we have a ton and they're really cute!

My Hockey Season DVD

Hello all,
I recently was given my 2010 USM Hockey Highlight DVD. Its really good and I've watched it twice already. If anyone wants a copy of it mailed to them, I would be happy to do that. Let me know if you are interested.

-Dan

The Smyczek Family Blog

Greetings everyone,

I want to invite you all to the Smyczek Family Blog, or "Fat Kid Soup." Given the fact that we have Smyczeks in Wisconsin, Minnesota (beginning this summer), Illinois, Washington D.C. (for the time being), and Alabama, I thought it might be a good idea to create a family blog that will better facilitate family contact in one centralized location (as opposed to email and facebook which is very decentralized) for announcements, articles on politics, culture, family, religion, and just anything else that folks would like to share with everyone.

I am sure most of you are familiar with what a blog is, but for the benefit of mainly Mom & Dad, a blog is essentially a website that allows users to share or "post" articles and opinions, and discuss various topics in the form of an online journal, while readers may comment on those posts. Entries typically appear in reverse chronological order, and each entry is called a "post" or an "entry" (duh). It's kind of like one of those cork bulletin boards you see in places like on a college campus, but it's online.

I decided to limit the people who can post on the blog to Mom & Dad, their kids, and the kids' spouses, which by my count is 14. Anyone else in the world can post comments to the blog entries, which appear at the bottom of a blog post, and are accessible through a link labeled "comments." But only the 14 of us can post blog entries on the main page. Any more than 14 and it just becomes too unwieldy and hard to manage.

Just a few quick notes. Because blogs are publicly available on the internet, they are technically open to the whole world (not that I expect anyone outside of our family and close circle of friends to want to go to our blog), so that means do not post any information that is private or personal in nature. In addition because this is on the internets, I know I don't need to say this to the vast majority of you, but please refrain from posting things that reflect poorly on the Smyczek family.

And one final note, for those of you who did not grow up on Hi Mount, Fat Kid Soup was the nickname given (by Bob or Dan I think) to that unique combination of cardboard noodles and crappy artificial chicken broth, also known as "Ramen Noodles", that was a staple of every lunch on Saturday afternoons. Most everyone can remember that bloated feeling of ecstasy that only high doses of sodium and MSG can give you. I hope this blog can become a soup of humorous, serious, interesting, and relevant discussions for the family.

I hope everyone enjoys the blog.