Just when I thought I had nothing to blog about anymore...

Yes, it's been quiet around these parts. I'm finding that the time it takes to blog is time that I'd rather spend doing something else these days, like ... well, like just about anything else.

This is a strange hobby because it's so darn demanding and guilt-inducing if you neglect it for a few days.

Anyway, I thought I had nothing to blog about, until I read today's Chicago Tribune. The Perspective section had two articles written by American Muslims.

The first author, Hesham A. Hassaballa (identified as a Chicago doctor and freelance writer) is more Catholic than he realizes. He writes about the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and how much he loves Mary, even though he doesn't believe her Son was the Son of God. Quote:

Moreover, the Koran sets Mary as the ultimate example of an ideal believer. Thus, whenever I think of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, my heart stirs with happiness, for I love and revere the Virgin Mary very much.

[snip]

She is akin to a loving mother, comforting the crying child of humanity with a soothing song and delicate, warm embrace.

That love of Mary, the love of a child for a Mother, is very Catholic, of course.

True, he's a little confused about a few things; he says that since he's a Muslim,

"I do not attach any sort of divinity to the Holy Virgin. She was nothing more than a mortal human being."

But again, he's being very Catholic here: the Church teaches that Mary was no more divine than you or I. She was a mortal human being, with the only distinction of being kept sinless by the grace of God, in order to be a spotless New Ark of the Covenant for Jesus, the Savior.

At the end of the article, he says that he hopes he will be able to meet the Blessed Virgin in heaven, so that he can

"kiss her hand and tell her in person how much I truly loved and adored her throughout my time on Earth."

Now that's the part that's not really Catholic! Unless he's using "adore" in a poetic sense, he's doing something that we Catholics are sometimes accused of, but don't actually do. We don't adore Mary; we adore God alone in the Blessed Trinity. We venerate Mary, honor her, love her as our Mother and the Mother of God, beg her for her intercession with her Son. But adore? No.

Still, I thought this was such a beautiful, almost sweet, essay. And very Catholic. I have to believe that someone who loves Mary as much as Dr. Hassaballa does will surely be led to her Divine Son, someday, somehow.

Scary squirrels

I don't know if this is really true, but what a story! From a BBC News report:

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report. [snip]

A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.

"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

I'm really skeptical, but it does remind me of a book that The Husband and I read a few years back: Small Game, by John Blades. Check it out at the library, and read it, and then think about this story.

Scary squirrels, very scary.

On homeschooling and socialization

Thanks to our good friend D.O. for sending this article. (Update: The following is a long quote from an article written by Shaunti Feldhahn, a Harvard grad and columnist.)

Like many critics, I used to feel vaguely sorry for home-schooled kids. What a shame, I thought, that they might be deprived of the well-rounded education and social skills to become integrated, productive members of society. I never thought to question why cafeteria food fights or the predatory pack habits of teenage girls would be better for molding productive members of society.

This uninformed, critical opinion lasted precisely until I met my first home-schooled children several years ago. Within one month I met five home-schooling families, and their 13 children were among the most polite, well-adjusted, socially adept and academically advanced kids I'd ever seen. Being home-educated seemed to have given them a confidence and maturity — and yes, social skill — far beyond their years. They had many friends, but didn't seem dependent on their peers for approval — a far cry from what I remember as a kid.

Go read the whole thing.

OK, this is the last post about that shopping trip.

These posts, about girls' clothing that looks like hookers' hand-me-downs, are collecting several comments.

First off, I'm happy report that my teenage daughters do have some common sense and good taste. I let my girls shop in the juniors department on their own for awhile (because it was driving me crazy, mainly) and they reported that there wasn't one single decent pair of jeans to be found.

So, we headed to the misses department, where, thankfully, they found some "normal" jeans that fit well and looked good.

Some commenters below suggested sewing (great idea, but not for me), Lands End (yes, I do shop there, but to outfit all the kids that way would require a second mortgage), Boston Store (maybe fine for women but same problem in the juniors department).

Basically, these last few shopping trips were an eye-opener for my girls. They've realized that the juniors department is hopeless, that they can find nice things in the misses department, and that dressing modestly is more important than having something that's the latest style.

Will there be a trend toward more modest clothing? I'm not sure I believe it. Yes, this particular look is a fad that will pass, I hope, but I've been hearing for a couple years now that a more covered-up look was coming back.

Just the fact that they call it a "look" indicates that it's nothing permanent, even if the clothes do make it into the stores.

About that shopping trip...

Thought I'd just add a little bit to that last post because of the comments. (Thanks for stopping by, Dad29 and tee bee!)

First, we were shopping at Kohl's. Yep, Kohl's, that staid department store.

Second, the padded bras in the girls department? That was Target.

Just so you know.

On shopping for and with daughters: a rant.

Took my three girls shopping this weekend. What an infuriating experience.

Not because of my girls. They were all pretty well-behaved. At ages 15, 13, and 6, you might expect some difficulty from one or the other, but we actually did OK, with only a few minor crabby moments (which I chalked up to exhaustion and low blood sugar) for the entire 4-hour shopping marathon.

No, it wasn't them; it was the clothing that enraged me.

Really, it's almost an occasion of sin. I get so furious at the diabolical designers of clothing that makes innocent young girls look like hookers.

Really sleazy ones, at that.

What is the matter with those people?

The racks are filled with too-tight, too-low, dirty, ripped, trashy looking blue jeans. Sorry, make that dirty grey/green/dirt colored blue jeans.

Did I mention they look dirty? And I mean that in more ways than one.

And the tops. Most of them are absolutely appalling. They are low cut, spaghetti-strapped, too tight and midriff-baring. Then there are the t-shirts with rude or blatantly sexual sayings emblazoned across the bust. There are camisole tops with huge, built-in padded bras.

Oh, and don't even get me started on padded training bras. No, I am not kidding. There really is such a thing. What person in their right mind would want to buy a padded bra for a 12-year-old girl?

I would complain to the buyers -- and probably will -- but what are they going to say? People buy this stuff.

So now my question is, what is wrong with those people?

"A spine detected"???

Just what I asked for!

Drudge had big red letters:

IT'S A GO: IRAQ WAR SHOWDOWN IN CONGRESS: VOTE ON TROOP PULLOUT

Instpundit has this:

THIS IS INTERESTING: "House Republicans, sensing an opportunity for political advantage, maneuvered for a quick vote and swift rejection Friday of a Democratic lawmaker's call for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq."

UPDATE: "A spine is detected."

Let's hope the vote is overwhelmingly in favor of supporting the president.

We need to finish the job in Iraq, and make sure the terrorists all know that we will not cut and run. We are not the America of the Clinton years; this time, we will do the right thing.

A sick feeling...

... in the pit of my stomach, from this.

Hugh Hewitt has a good round up of reaction to this cowardly posturing by the Republican Senators. (Hat tip Instapunk.)

From Mr. Hewitt:

The proposed Senate resolution is an unmistakable vote-of-no-confidence in the Administration, and the best gift the United States Senate could give Zarqawi and his terrorist ranks. It is almost incomprehensible that Senate Republicans could see this in any other fashion.

Suddenly we are back where we were when the Congress turned on the Vietnam War. Hopefully some Republicans will emerge to lead the fight against this ill-advised and deeply defeatist onset of the shakes.

I was disgusted with them before, but this is beyond the pale.

Movies at the Family Theater lately

Friday night is Family Movie night in our household.

On the small screen here recently:

The Song of Bernadette. Beautiful film; very moving in its portrayal of faith, miracles, and the pure soul of a young French girl. A little long for the kids (2-1/2 hours), but it did manage to keep their attention till the end. From an Amazon reviewer:

There are very few "religious" films that actually achieve a sense of spirituality that makes them work for believers and non-believers alike. "The Song of Bernadette" is one of those rare films, and owes a lot of its power to the Oscar winning performance of Jennifer Jones as Bernadette Soubirous, the young French peasant girl who in 1858 saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in a grotto near the town of Lourdes. While gathering firewood with her sister and a friend, Bernadette was told by the "beautiful lady" to return to the grotto every day for fifteen days. The common folk of Lourdes come to belief in young Bernadette's visions, while the authorities try to put a stop to the nonsense, and the church keeps its distance for the moment.

My birthday is on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, so I have a particular fondness for St. Bernadette, but even if I didn't, I'd love this film.

The Courtship of Eddie's Father. Gosh, was Ron Howard a cute kid. As the mother of an eight-year-old boy, some of the scenes of the heartbroken, motherless Eddie really got to me. On the down side, parts of the movie seemed dated, or a little, well, odd. The kids liked it, though, and it has a happy ending. So, give it a thumbs up.

Home Canning: The bragging continues

If you know me (and most of you don't, you only know my blogging, or maybe you only know me as an acquaintance), you know that I don't take myself all that seriously. These bragging posts are more like "Wow, I can't believe this worked!" rather than "Hey, I'm so cool."

But I have to post about this because it was so much fun! There's a little element of living dangerously, too. After all, I could potentially kill off all my friends and relatives if I didn't can this stuff properly.

But I'm pretty sure I did it right.

(Think, think, think...)

Yep, pretty sure.

So, if you get a couple jars of apple pie filling from me for Christmas, just enjoy.

And keep your phone handy in case you need to call 911.

Okay, so maybe I am Martha Stewart

Except for the fact that I'm not rich, famous, powerful, or even all that domestically talented, that is.

Oh, and I'm not an ex-con, either.

Warning: As the Anchoress would say, this post is all about me, me, ME! So just come back tomorrow if you want something less narcissistic.

Anyway.

So, if you're still reading... you wanna know what I did here in our little household recently?

* picked spinach and tri-color lettuce from my garden for our dinners
* snipped a few pieces off my rosemary plant, which I brought inside for the winter, to add to a pork chop dish
* for the first time, did some home canning and put up 6 pints of homemade apple pie filling
* whipped up a batch of dried-fruit scones with my daughters
* made an apple pie with above-mentioned pie filling (had to test it out, after all)

Well, maybe I'm not like Martha after all. I used a refrigerated Pillsbury pie crust.

But about that home canning: It is sooooo cool. When I heard those little lids make that little "pop" sound to indicate they were sealing, I made the whole family pause the movie we were watching to come see.

You want to see, too? OK, I'm going to unload the camera tonight and post a pic of the jars tomorrow.

About those Republicans...

Obviously I'm not alone in being fed up with them.

Some links:

A couple of my fellow Wisconsin bloggers agreed with me on this post.

Rich links to a great cartoon that sums up the Repub's behavior on Alaskan drilling. Rich also posted a great rant on Thursday.

Michelle Malkin is posting letters to the GOP here (H/T)

Chasing the Wind posts an excerpt from the Bidinotto Blog.

Most of these bloggers seem to have lost it because of the ANWR failure. But I've been losing it with the Republicans for longer than that.

The most egregious failure of the Republicans? Their failure to explain to the country, over and over again, in the face of repeated lies from the left and their water carrier, MSM, why we need to fight, and win, the War on Terror.

Quote from Commentary via Instapunk:

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Glenn Reynolds is on this, too.

Warning: Rant about to begin

Drudge (in an earlier headline today linking this article) says "Bush unleashed".

To which I say, "It's about time!"

What on earth has he been waiting for? I was wondering how long he was going to sit around before fighting back. I'm so sick of the media distorting the reason for going to war, spreading Joe Wilson's lies, and generally bashing the heck out of the President and his agenda, especially in the GWOT.

And while I'm ranting here, let me also say I'm sick and tired of the feebleness of the Republicans. They have the House, Senate, and Presidency, and what on earth have they done? What are they, afraid of the Democrats? Afraid of Teddy Kennedy? Give me a break.

We got a call not long ago from the Republican National Committee, begging for money. I told them not one dime, not one penny, until the Republicans start acting like Republicans. I want budget cuts, pro-life judges, pro-life laws. I want every single Republican to be out there explaining why we are fighting in Iraq, what the stakes are, why the Islamofascist threat is serious, and what our successes have been so far.

I was one of Rove's army of volunteers around the country last fall. But I'm starting to wonder why on earth I wasted my time and shoe leather walking around the neighborhood doing lit drops and talking people into voting for Bush. Why'd I give money for Republicans if they're not going to act much different than Democrats?

Republicans: Grow a backbone. Rent one, if you have to.

But until then, you've seen the last of my support.

Must read Anchoress post

Via the Astute Blogger. You must read this post at the Anchoress; it's riveting. She posts an email from one of her French readers.

A little bit of it:

[O]ne state channel, FR3, has decided not to speak about burned cars. No fire reported=no fire at all. Most people don’t even know that dozens and dozens of little churches all over France have been set on fire during these past years. Our media don’t like the Catholics and as they despise the ordinary French people, they did not want us to put 2 and 2 together.

When we dare to grumble, when we dare to murmur that Islam is a religion of death, that we do not want to become an Islamic republic, the media and the politicians also scorned us saying we were racist and fascist and anti-arab, and islamophobic, and anti-Semitic. But our money was not scorned upon..... We pay, with our taxes, scores of “associations” full of communist-islamics and we just have to shut our mouths and say amen. Well, not “amen”; amen is not politically acceptable. (emphasis mine)

Go, read the whole thing.

What I love about homeschooling

* Art at the kitchen table with all four kids, ages 15, 13, 8, and 6. It actually works.

* Religion and art history in the sunny living room, with kids, books, and art prints strewn over sofas, chairs, and floor.

* Diagramming.

* Latin.

* The quiet that descends on the house after a trip to the library as each child settles into his favorite reading spot with his bag full of books.

About Europe

Drudge says today that the rioting in France seems to be losing strength. That's good. But the French are delusional if they think this will be the end of it.

The reason is this:

The average number of children per woman in the European Union is 1.5, according to EU statistics, but in some countries, including heavily Roman Catholic Italy and Spain, the average is 1.3.

This has been going on for a long time. The Europeans lost their faith, became a contraceptive culture rather than a life-giving one, let the birth rate fall below the replacement level, and thus opened up a huge cultural and demographic vacuum which was quickly filled with Muslim immigrants.

This sets up an opportunity for an enormous cultural clash.

(The quote above was actually taken from this article about an Italian mother of 11 children who was just beatified by the Pope this week.)

Mark Steyn (via Instapundit) has some remarks worth noting:

For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.

And:

French cynics like the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, have spent the last two years scoffing at the Bush Doctrine: Why, everyone knows Islam and democracy are incompatible. If so, that's less a problem for Iraq or Afghanistan than for France and Belgium.

Jihad in Europe

Given recent events in France, this article from Human Events online, which I happened to bookmark a year ago, is apropos:

What Europe has long sown it is now reaping. Bat Ye'or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, the institutionalized oppression of non-Muslims in Muslim societies, chronicles in her forthcoming book Eurabia how it has come to this. Europe, she explains, began thirty years ago to travel down a path of appeasement, accommodation, and cultural abdication before Islam in pursuit of short-sighted political and economic benefits. She observes that today "Europe has evolved from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment/secular elements, to a 'civilization of dhimmitude,' i.e., Eurabia: a secular-Muslim transitional society with its traditional Judeo-Christian mores rapidly disappearing."

Later today, I hope to post about something from today's news that may not seem related at first glance, but that in my opinion is one of the leading causes of the plight of Europe today.

"May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace, Amen."

November is dedicated to All Souls, so it seems appropriate to post one of the cemetery headstones we saw on our walk last week:

What a beautiful inscription:

Brother Leo
Bernard
A devout Catholic,
a noble benefactor
and zealous employee
of the seminary
Died fortified by
the Holy Sacraments
November 1, 1880,
Aged 70 years.

Devout, generous, hard working. I wouldn't mind that kind of epitaph, but I'm pretty sure I haven't earned it yet.

And I didn't even realize when taking the picture that he died on All Saints' Day, 125 years ago this month.

Since I'm making his final resting place so public, please, if you don't mind, say a little prayer for the repose of his soul. If he doesn't need the prayers, don't worry, they'll go for someone who does.

More photoblogging

More scenes from our seminary woods walk yesterday. Here's a statue of gentle St. Francis with a lamb, in a beautiful stone grotto. The kids love this one.



A tree-lined road.



The old cemetery, tucked away in the woods. Many of the headstones date from the late 1800's.

The March of the Penguins

At my brother's urging, I took the kids to see "March of the Penguins", the acclaimed documentary about emperor penguins in the Antarctic.

We loved it. The penguins are fascinating, funny, adorable (in the newly hatched and "toddler" stages, anyway), and, if you allow for some anthropomorphizing, even courageous, noble, and awe-inspiring.

It's a wonderful story of life and death, the beauty and complexity of nature, and the glory of God's created world -- even in a place so relentlessly harsh that it's hard to imagine it exists on this planet.

Today, through a tangled web of links (randomly starting with this blog from the Pro-Life blogroll in the sidebar, then to this blog via the "headlines" links on the first one, and finally here) I discovered that the film has been hailed as pro-life.

From the article linked above on World Net Daily by Jill Stanek:

Almost every scene and narrative verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.

From the NYT article as reproduced here::

"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing."

Well, I'm not so sure about the monogamy part, since the penguins pick a new mate every year, but the rest of it? Yes, I guess you could say those things are all true.

But no matter what you think of the implied cultural messages, don't miss the movie. It's a wonder.

And the biggest wonder of all: That the cinematographers managed to shoot this incredible film while surviving the 70 below temps, howling winds, and blinding snow.

They are even more amazing than the penguins.

Photoblogging

Went for our annual nature walk through the seminary woods today. I love this grape arbor.



The woods are located on the site of the diocesan seminary and a convent, so there are lots of interesting statues on the grounds.

Here's St. Michael.






And here's a sweet guardian angel statue.







More later.

Cloning ban vetoed by Gov. Doyle.

Owen says it very well.

Our culture is quickly sliding to a point where people will no longer look at a child and marvel at the majesty of humanity, but will only see bits and pieces to be used as spare parts in case they contract an illness. Governor Doyle is greasing the slide.

UPDATE: Oh gee, what a silly typo. The title of this post said "Cloning van" for the past 24 hours. My husband read it just now and said, "Cloning van? What's that, a van that drives around snatching people off the street and duplicating them??" Sheesh.

As a Marquette grad....

I have to love this. Via Marquette Warrior.

On the subject of Oprah for President

I cannot believe how many hits I keep getting from searches on "Oprah for President", because of this post (one that I'm not particularly proud of).

As a commenter here pointed out to me, there really is an "Oprah for President" website. I think they're serious.

Let me clarify something here: I would not vote for Oprah for President, I do not want her to run, and I do not think she has a snowball's chance of winning.

I wouldn't vote for her because she's pro-choice, she's a leftie, she supported Gore in 2000, she's said things that strike me as just a wee bit flaky on occasion. Example:

"Sometimes I feel that in our carelessness (regarding pollution, global warming, etc.), we are strangling the earth, and like any living creature, the earth is fighting back."

Um-hmm.

I mean, Oprah's a very successful talk show host, actress, business owner, and general all-purpose celebrity, but that doesn't mean she's qualified to be president.

Just hope that clears things up.

Racism from the left

Found this yesterday on Blogs for Bush:

Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican.
Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an "Uncle Tom" and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log.

Read the whole story here.

Then we had this in a recent editorial in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America.

So, you're not truly black if you don't toe the liberal Democrat party line. You don't "count" unless you think the way a black person should stereotypically think. (The editorial was written by a black man, by the way.)

This is the end game of identity politics: everyone belonging to a certain ethnic, racial, or gender group by the accidents of birth must slavishly abide by group-think. If not, that person is scorned by other group members, his ideas, contributions, and work all despised.

Isn't this the most insidious kind of bigotry?

How I know Alito is a good pick:

From an article via Drudge:

Moments later, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, took to the ramparts opposite Mr. Frist.

"It is sad that the president felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor, who would unify us," he said. "This controversial nominee, who would make the court less diverse and far more conservative, will get very careful scrutiny from the Senate and from the American people."

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking minority on the Judiciary Committee, called the nomination "needlessly provocative."

Bring it on!

All Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween

Went to a pumpkin farm today.


Took a hay ride to the big pumpkin fields.

A nice pastoral scence.

"Europe's Ticking Time Bomb"

Galley Slaves have this; it's worth the visit.

UPDATE: Fixed the link. Sorry. It was missing the "h" in "http". Picky computers.

I'm tagged.

Love2LearnMom tagged me for one of those pass-the-meme blogger games. OK, I'll play along. Here are the directions:

On your blog...

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to it).
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along
with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

My 23rd post was from Friday, September 17, 2004. The 5th sentence:

Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

That sentence actually was part of a quote from President Bush. I was posting about the falsehood in the media that the President said the threat from Iraq was "imminent".

He never said that. In fact, he was arguing against waiting till the threat was imminent! Full quote from the Bush's speech:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

How many people do you think remember this correctly? Not many. Unfortunately, the media preferred the "Bush lied, People died" mantra.

It's also quite apropos, given the whole Wilson/Plame/Libby/ Miller/Niger/Yellow Cake/Ad Nauseam thing going on right now, to remind ourselves about what the President really said.

Oh yes, the blog game: I tag Attila, Paul, Theresa, TeeBee, and Jib.

Bonus tag: Rich, for something to blog about when he gets back from vacation!

Miers Withdraws

Looks like the President took the Krauthammer strategy.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Attila, who did a great job of covering the Miers fiasco, sums up my reaction to her withdrawal perfectly.

I never did pile on the Oppose-Harriet bandwagon. But The Husband and I weren't thrilled about the nomination at the start because of her lack of judicial experience. After reading the documents on Smoking Gun, learning that once she was a Catholic but then became an Evangelical, and once was a Democrat but then became a Republican, I wasn't so sure that she would, indeed, be the same person 20 years from now that she is today, as the President tried to reassure us.

I shared the concerns of many that she didn't have the intellectual ability to serve on the Supreme Court, and that all the "good intentions" in the world aren't enough if you can't put together a coherent argument for your principles.

My first request to the President for his new nominee: Please, we don't need an affirmative action program for the Supreme Court! I don't care if we have another woman on the court; just give us a solid nomination.

No, I just can't believe this!

From today's Chicago Tribune:

Newspapers in Britain reported on government contingency plans for up to 600,000 dead and painted an apocalyptic picture of troops being called in to prevent people from fleeing infected areas

What? Newspapers painting apocalyptic scenes? Exaggerating things? Generally screaming "the sky is falling" in 24-point headlines?

That must only happen in Europe, because it surely never happens here.

Martha Stewart, I'm not

How to make a celebratory White-Sox-in-the-World-Series cake:

1. Buy a black-and-white frosted birthday cake at your local grocery store.

2. With a dull butter knife, scrape the black frosting "Happy Birthday" message off the cake. Discard.

3. Using a tube of black decorator frosting (also purchased at the grocery store), write "Go Sox" in big, squiggley letters on the cake.

4. Hope family doesn't notice the greyish residue from "Happy Birthday" on the cake top.

5. Eat cake while cheering on the White Sox. Try to take mind off the fact that The Husband is actually attending the first two Series games, while you are home with the kids. Tell yourself that seeing it on TV is just as good. Eat more cake. Repeat as often as necessary to feel better about not getting to go to the game, or until sugar-induced coma sets in.

A quantum dot bulb?

I love stories about serendipitous discoveries like this one.

Interesting, too, that this possible replacement for the lightbulb came about in such an unexpected way, as opposed to the dedicated, repetitive, methodical trial-and-error method that Edison used:

He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material."

Contrast that to:

"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."

Of course, any so-called serendipitous discovery is usually preceded by years of hard work; it's just that the the result wasn't what was expected.

But I think I'll miss the humble light bulb. As the witty reporter noted,

"One big question remains: When a brilliant idea pops into your mind in the future, what will appear over your head?"

Election Day

I voted today. Just one race on the ballot, for County Executive.

When I was there, I said to the woman at the table, "Do I get a purple finger tip, like the Iraqis do?" They just laughed.

But I do wish they would ask for ID here. Too bad our governor has vetoed a bill for photo ID once twice I-lost-count how many times.

Fall glory

Almost every fall, I get the urge to plan a major trip to see the fall colors. Somewhere up north, or to Holy Hill, or even, someday, Vermont.

But then I discover that it really only requires a three-block walk with an 8- and a 6-year old to appreciate the beauty of the trees in your own little neighborhood.

Peter Singer on the ethics of eyebrow plucking (bad) and the killing of infants (good).

Peter Singer, the Princeton ethicist, believes that it's morally wrong to spend $100 on having your eyebrows professionally plucked.

This is the same Peter Singer who advocates infanticide of less-than-perfect infants for up to 28 days after a child is born (or actually even up to a year later, though he says the sooner the better).

He also says it would be OK to conceive a child in order to kill it to harvest the organs for another child, that bestiality, necrophilia, and a variety of other, ummmm, choices, are all fine.

But that $100 eyebrow thing? Bad, very bad. I learned this bit of ethical wisdom from reading the Chicago Tribune's entertainment section yesterday.

You can read more about Mr. Singer, including this about how he usually would advocate saving a human being over a mouse from a burning building (on the grounds that the mouse's family probably wouldn't mind quite as much as the human's family would), but that in some cases, perhaps the better choice would be to save the mouse.

No, I'm not making that up. It's from his own website. (Though I admit I checked it a couple times to make sure it wasn't a spoof site. It's not.)

And this man teaches "Practical Ethics" at Princeton.

Oh, and just for the record: I wouldn't spend $100 on an eyebrow tweeze. But I still think that killing a one-month old Down syndrome baby would be worse.

But maybe that's just me.

Absolutely the worst reason to be opposed to Miers, ever.

Found in a comment at this site:

Can we find anyone with a somewhat normal life. She's a 60 year old spinster for goodness sake.

Posted by roux October 9, 2005 08:12 PM

Ridiculous, yes? Why on earth would that disqualify her?

But apparently "roux" isn't the only person who seems to have a problem with never-married women. Today the Anchoress posts on that topic, quoting an emailer:

I wholeheartedly disagree with you and Hugh, and agree with Laura Bush. I had thought sexism to be part of the reason behind the whole Harriet hysteria long before Laura Bush mentioned it. Maybe not sexism per se, but more the fact that she is a single older woman who has never been married. Call it what you want, I think that is the problem most conservatives have with her. I have heard a few of them even have the guts to come clean about it on a talk-radio show or two.

More people should have had my good fortune: one great-aunt who was a nun, charming, sweet, smart; another great-aunt who never married (though not for lack of suitors), delightful, loving, wonderful sense of humor; and finally an aunt who also had plenty of suitors but chose to remain single, and is similarily delightful, generous, fun to be with.

All of them healthy, happy, normal women, leading good lives. If more people had aunts or cousins or sisters like that in their lives, I'm guessing they wouldn't be so... what would it be: puzzled? put-off? bothered? frightened, even? ... by Harriet Miers.

Now, I'm still not sure where I stand on the Meirs nomination (and haven't blogged about it partly for that reason and also partly because of lack of time for any serious blogging), but I know for sure that her status as a single woman absolutely does not disqualify her.

And another welcome!

Welcome to Tee Bee, of Guide to Midwestern Culture. She's also a posting member of the BBA, and I'm happy to add her to my blogroll.

Welcome, Steveegg

Steveegg, prolific commenter on Badger Blog Alliance and many other blogs, is now a blogger himself.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Steve, and to my own humble blogroll!

Oprah for President!

No, not really.

However, she's on to something that would almost make me say just that.

UPDATE: Welcome to those finding this post via a Google search on "Oprah for President" (a popular search lately!). Please be sure to check out my other posts on Oprah, here, here, and here. Especially that first one.

I'm sure that by now almost everyone has heard about her campaign to track down child molesters. She announced on today's show that she believes she heard a call, from God, to devote her life to tracking down these sexual predators and getting them behind bars, and to getting laws changed "state by state by state".

She's already claimed credit for several fugitives being tracked down.

I don't watch Oprah much, partly because about 90% of the time I can't get decent reception on Channel 12 (but that's another story), and partly because I'm usually running carpool, making dinner, or cleaning up the house between 4 - 5 when the show airs locally.

[Note to The Husband: Yes, honey, I know, I always put these disclaimers in when I write about Oprah. But it's true.]

But today I did see part of the show, and you know, it was honestly a chills-down-the-spine moment (well, a small one, anyway) to hear her say that she woke up one morning knowing that this was her purpose in life, that she had come full circle for her from being an abused girl herself to now being a woman who can help to bring justice to these criminals.

She vowed to use her resources, which, in terms of both power and money, are considerable, to make this happen.

For starters, she's giving a $100,000 reward to anyone who contributes a tip that leads to the arrest of one of these predators.

This will be something to see. We already know Oprah is a sort of cultural goddess; we know what happens to a book that she recommends; we know what kind of media empire she has established.

All I can say is that child molesters will have no peace, no rest, no hiding places, now that Oprah has taken on this cause.

Good.

Two downsides to this: First, that innocent men may be unjustly arrested and jailed; two, that it creates another mass hysteria similar to the "every-day-care-provider-is-a-molester" hysteria that swept the country in the '90's.

If she can avoid those while still helping track down these fugitives, it will be a very good thing.

But I still wouldn't really vote for her for president.

The End is Near! Or, maybe not.

This is the kind of hyperbole I was talking about in the previous post, though from a different corner of the political world. It's not the "blame Bush" crowd; I suppose you could say it's the "blame God" crowd, more or less.

People have thought the end times were upon us since Christ ascended, but "of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Mark 13:32)."

Historically speaking, the times we live in are some of the most peaceful ever, and the death totals from natural disasters some of the lowest ever.

I'm content to wait and see when the Lord decides to come again, without resorting to the reading of the natural disaster tea leaves to try to nail down the exact moment.

Besides, any of us could have our own personal "end time" at any moment. That's the moment we should all be concerned with, and be ready for.

A disastrous year

Since the tsunami last Christmas, this has been quite a year for natural disasters. Katrina and Rita, of course; now the devastating earthquake in Pakistan/Afghanistan. We even had a terrible tornado season here in Wisconsin recently -- though just one man lost his life.

Drudge is now reporting that a hurricane a tropical storm is headed toward Portugal, which is a pretty rare event.

Still, those who claim that things are getting worse than they ever have been in history, and that this is all our fault because of global warming, or it's Bush's fault because he -- well, he's just Bush, that's all -- are ignoring history (not to mention science and logic).

For some perspective, check this page. How about the 1887 flood in China that killed a million people? Or flooding there in 1937 that killed 3.7 million? Or the Turkmenistan earthquake of 1948 that took the lives of 100,000? The famine and flooding in North Korea, between 1995 - 1998, that killed 3.5 million?

Compare that to this year's natural disasters:

Zarand, Iran, 2005: earthquake (500 dead)
Nias, Indonesia, 2005: 8.7 earthquake (1000 dead)
Mumbai, India, 2005: monsoon (1,000 dead)
China, 2005: floods (567 dead)
Louisiana and Mississippi, USA, 2005: hurricane (1,069 dead)

Even adding this week's earthquake (20,000) and last year's tsunami (over 118,000) doesn't bring the total for the year anywhere near to that of many previous years.

Still, human suffering is human suffering, no matter the total. It's always hard to hear about these disasters without feeling great empathy for the lost, the injured, the homeless, the stranded, the orphaned.

Posting at the BBA today...

... about Bayfield.

The Bayfield Apple Festival is this weekend, and I would just love to be there. But a busy schedule of soccer, and a trip to Holy Hill with some friends, and a neighbor's birthday party, all keep me here. Happily here, I might add, but sometimes I wish I had the gift of bilocation!

Great Excitement in the Swart Household...

...because of the White Sox. Yes, we live in Milwaukee, but The Husband is from Chicago (southwest side, Evergreen Park, to be precise), and as I always say, "You can take the boy out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the boy."

So we're just about nuts here because The Husband's beloved Sox are just three outs away from sweeping the Red Sox in the playoffs.

Watch it on Gameday. (The headline writers there just had this: "Pale hose try to sweep aside world champs." Pale hose indeed!)

UPDATE:

Sweep, sweep, sweep!!! Very cool.

So a week goes by...

... without a post here.

But this is my life these days: very little spare time, and the days fly by faster than I can believe.

Just for fun: Here's a search that brought someone to my blog. There aren't many "Mary Eileens" in the world, but there must be a Mary Eileen Powell somewhere out there. It's just not me.

And here's an Ask Jeeves search that also brought someone here -- someone who enjoys words, I'm guessing.

Oh, and I'm almost up to my 20,000th 17,000th visitor here, which is kind of cool. That's about an hour's worth for some bloggers, but hey, I'm not one of those bloggers.

Update: I really need to get my eyes examined. I could have sworn it said "19,988" or whatever yesterday, but today realized it was just 16,988.... oh well.

What's a good day in our homeschool?

When we read "Romeo and Juliet" together and remember to do all the different voices, and act out the sword fights

When a friend calls to say, "History in the making! Turn on Channel 6!" and we do, and we watch the 17th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court get sworn in, and have a discussion about the use of the Bible for the swearing in, and what if someone's a pagan and they don't want a Bible, and why have there only been 17 Chief Justices, and what does it mean to be the Chief Justice

When I have to run the carpool to Tae Kwon Do, and we listen to "Carnival of the Animals" in the car and have fun guessing which animal is being portrayed

When the two teenage girls are goofing around together, just being silly, and then they both pile into the rickety old wing-back recliner at the same time and it collapses under them, leaving us all speechless at first, and then dissolved in laughter.

Well, that business about the chair breaking wasn't exactly the best part of the day, but it sure was funny at the time.

Busy today...

...but not with Sudoku. I gave up on that after it sucked a couple of hours out of my life, leaving no trace of anything productive, useful, or even fun, toward the end. In each game I played, just when I thought I had several rows, squares, and columns wrapped up, I'd discover an extra "1" or "9" or whatever where it shouldn't be. "D'oh!!!"

I'll let my husband remain the unchallenged Soduku champion.

So no Sudoku for me, but I've been busy anyway with our little homeschool, or as the DPI likes to put it, our "home-based private educational program". I'm happy to say that it's going very well. We're in the fifth week of the quarter, and having the best start to the year we've ever had.

I attribute that mostly to the fact that I've spent the last year paring out the non-essentials from my life (including teaching at Carroll College, doing the homeschool group newsletter, and a few other things).

Still, I am finding a little time to blog again. (It beats Sudoku any day, hands down.) You can find me over at the BBA today, posting about the ban on human cloning that was just passed by our State Senate, and which is just about to be vetoed by our governor.

(I spent a few moments there trying to think of a choice adjective to put in front of "governor", but my mother always said that if you can't say anything nice, you must be talking about a Democrat. Wait, that's not what she said! But you get the point.)

Drat my husband, drat him!!!

He's got me hooked on Sudoku.

Drat him, anyway!

More about the rumors and instant urban legends from Katrina

Drudge links to this as his main headline today.

I disagree with this assessment (from above link):

Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part.

"If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."

What's he saying here? That white people would have been less likely to start these kinds of rumors, or less likely to pass them on? I'm not so sure; I've heard plenty of gullible white people passing along all kinds of urban legends as gospel truth.

Perhaps blacks are more used to living with violence in their neighborhoods, so they were willing to believe that murders and rapes could be taking place. It's also possible that oral story-telling is more central to black culture, but that's just flat-out conjecture on my part. (I surely hope it doesn't sound racist because it's absolutely not meant to be; when you're as much of a white-bread suburbanite as I am, it's hard to have a good ear for these things, and of course these days, almost everything can be construed to be racist.)

I still think much of the blame has to be placed on the media itself for accepting and passing along wild rumors as fact. I warned about this here and here.

Of course, the reporters are only human, and they, too, were caught up in the true horror of witnessing the disappearance by drowning of a beloved American city.

The Corner is on top of this story now (h/t Instapundit).

And as far as my blogging during this: Golly, I wish I had posted about my skepticism on the reports of young girls being raped and killed in the Superdome. As I said to my husband at the time, "Weren't there any men, any fathers, in that place? Because if there were, they wouldn't have let anybody do that to a young girl -- or any woman, for that matter!"

I also wish I'd posted about my doubts about the stories of scores of bodies being piled up in the Superdome and Convention Center.

Then I could really crow about my astute blogging. As it is now, I can just sort of weakly pat myself on the back for my tepid little warnings about media inaccuracy.

Oh well. Next time. If, God forbid, there is a next time.

On the vagaries of Google searches

When I titled this post the way I did, it was meant to be humorous, of course.

But look at this google search that brought someone to my blog today.

Normally I'd be happy to be the first hit on a google search, but I'm not so sure that being the first hit on a search for a classic example of bad writing is a good thing.

Sigh.

So why did we believe all the horror stories?

Here's the truth about what happened in the Dome and the Convention Center in New Orleans.

"I think 99 percent of it is bulls---," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong, bad things happened, but I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything. ... Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

I knew that those stories about gang rapes, throat-slittings, and other mayhem were just wild stories and rumors. Every televised report I saw about it was always, "Somebody told me." Never, "I saw a murder in front of my own eyes." Not once.

The other reason I was very skeptical is that every time I saw footage from inside the Convention Center (Geraldo's report on FOX, for example), they were reasonable and well-spoken, and the people in the background were quietly sitting or walking around, not rioting, shouting, fighting, etc.

Yet even Matt Labash seemed to fall for some of the worst stories.

And that's not even the worst of it. A block away, I meet Patricia Watts, a postal employee, standing in the back of a line for escape buses, a line she's stood in futilely for three successive days. The buses never came. Watts tells me that there are dead babies, and that they are being kept in the freezer in the kitchen of the convention center. I dash to the side service entrance to confirm this and am forbidden from entering by an Arkansas National Guardsman. "Sorry sir," he says. "We can't let you in." I tell him why I've come, and though he hasn't seen them personally, he tells me it's his understanding that the story's true. "But I can't let you enter in case something happens to you." God forbid a reporter should slip and fall on his way to checking out dead babies in the freezer.

See what I mean? No one had really seen them -- but they all believed the unbelievable.

So why didn't the media do its job? Why did they just pass along false rumors, and racist ones at that?

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

"I had the impression that at least 40 or 50 murders had occurred at the two sites," he said. "It's unfortunate we saw these kinds of stories saying crime had taken place on a massive scale when that wasn't the case. And they (national media outlets) have done nothing to follow up on any of these cases, they just accepted what people (on the street) told them. ... It's not consistent with the highest standards of journalism."

No kidding! But then, why would we expect the highest standards of journalism from MSM? Haven't we learned?

And why did we all believe the worst about the people of New Orleans? We were willing to believe that our fellow citizens were monsters.

Was there some racism involved? If it was racism, it was black on black racism as well, because the black folks seemed to believe and pass along the stories just as readily as the white reporters.

Was it just fear of what was happening as we watched a city destroyed by a storm before our very eyes?

Was it a lack of critical thinking, a certain gullibilty? Or just the love of a good urban legend in the making?

And why are we still so willing to believe the media?

More about that government pork

I'm posting over at the BBA again about this topic.

My fear is that too many citizens have given up. I feel this way myself sometimes; that it's hopeless, government spending is out of control, the system is completely broken, we are no longer a republic, we are an empire, and those who hold the purse strings are so far removed from those who earn the money in the first place that there's no way to get it back under control.

I'm encouraged by this, this, and this, but disheartened by the lack of response from local bloggers so far.

Porkbusters

It's infuriating that the media only offers two choices in polls about how to pay for Katrina: Either cut spending in Iraq, or raise taxes.

There are other options! First, start with Glenn Reynolds' great poll. See what a difference it makes when you give people other response choices?

Now, Glenn and N.Z. Bear have teamed up to get the blogosphere involved in idenifying pork in the federal budget. I posted about it at the BBA. The idea is to identify spending that could be cut so that we can pay for Katrina.

So far, bloggers have identified almost $13,000,000,000 in pork. I'm sure by the time you click on that link it will be higher.

The object of this exercise should be to find pork that we personally are willing to sacrifice. It's always easy to point to someone else's federal windfall as wasteful, but harder -- and far more productive -- to cut our own dependence on government money. (See this post for one example of the attitude you'll need to cut the purse strings.)

It helps to always remember that "government money" is nothing but our own money taken from us in the first place, of course.

I'm going to call the New Berlin mayor today, to find out what kind of federal money we get here, and I'm also going to call my State Rep and State Senator.

Anyone else want to join in, please do.

Chilling

Why does this comment bother me so much?

"Now we can go where we please and the Jews are gone, thank God."

Palestinians are burning and bulldozing the emptied synagogues in Gaza, too (h/t Attila).

In Memoriam

No words are needed; just click here. Be sure to turn the audio on.

Posting at the BBA

I've been posting a little bit over at the Badger Blog Alliance about the possibly illegal confiscation of guns from New Orleans residents.

The thought of the New Orleans police being the only ones with guns is somehow not very reassuring. I wouldn't feel any better about it if I lived down there, either.

"72 hours from the 18th Century"

Interesting article to mull over, h/t The Anchoress.

There is a tendency in the Modern age to think that the problems of our forefathers are behind us, and for the most part they are, but its times like this that remind you just how weak we are in the face of true disaster.

We are all living just 72 hours from the 18th century.

Why Homeschoolers Didn't Want an Extra $100

It probably surprised a lot of people when homeschoolers said they didn't want the $100 tax credit that State Senator Tom Reynolds put in the budget at the 11th hour back in July. (Just a clarification: Doyle vetoed it; see the link for details.)

Why? Because all the cliches apply:

there's no such thing as a free lunch;

there are always strings attached;

the scariest phrase in the English language, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

The fact is, Wisconsin is a good state in which to homeschool and we really don't want to mess with that. In one study, Wisconsin ranked third in the nation in terms of educational freedom.

Our state homeschool laws work well; we don't need to change anything about them. As soon as you do -- even to provide a tax benefit of any kind -- you make homeschoolers a target for new legislation.

The immediate impulse would be, "You're getting some tax money back? Then we need to make sure you use it well!" or some something similar.

Yes, we homeschoolers pay double -- or triple -- since we pay our taxes for public schools, we pay for our own books, curriculum, and all other educational materials, and in some cases we also help support parish schools.

But that's OK.

To our state government: Please, just leave us alone. Let us educate our children without your interference, your bureaucracy, your mandated tests which require that we "teach to the test" at the expense of real education.

We're doing just fine without all that.

In fact, if you want to do better at educating children in the public schools, come talk to me. I can give you some pointers on curriculum that just might be helpful.

(Welcome, Carnival of the Badger readers!)

And my husband is William Powell

(Or not... see the update at the bottom!)

As my reward for an intense day of homeschooling (all four kids: religion, math, grammar, Latin, music, reading, penmanship, history), I decided to have a little fun and took one of those silly "which person are you?" tests.

Well, honey, do you agree? (Oh, and by the way, I found this on another homeschooler's blog -- not at the "Free Cupid Dating Site" or whatever, so don't worry!!)

Myrna Loy You scored 26% grit, 28% wit, 19% flair, and 40% class!

You are class itself, the calm, confident "perfect woman." Men turn and look at you admiringly as you walk down the street, and even your rivals have a grudging respect for you. You always know the right thing to say, do and, of course, wear. You can take charge of a situation when things get out of hand, and you're a great help to your partner even if they don't immediately see or know it. You are one classy dame. Your screen partners include William Powell and Cary Grant, you little simmerpot, you.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 28% on grit You scored higher than 57% on wit You scored higher than 14% on flair You scored higher than 99% on class

Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid Free Online Dating

UPDATE: Actually, my husband isn't Bill Powell. He took the Classic Man test, and my husband is....



CARY GRANT!

He scored: 23% Tough, 23% Roguish, 4% Friendly, and 47% Charming.

Sounds about right to me.

(Changed the time stamp to keep this near the top for awhile; it's just too much fun to let it drop down right away!)

President Bush and Katrina

Followed a trail of links. including this really good one, to find this article, published last Monday.

Category 5 storm nearing La. coastline
August 29, 2005

By Mike Hasten
mhasten@gannett.com

BATON ROUGE -- Loaded with winds clocked at 175 miles per hour and a storm surge of 34 feet, Hurricane Katrina had both barrels aimed at New Orleans late Sunday.

[snip]

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered evacuation of the Crescent City less than 24 hours before the Category 5 storm was expected to hit.

Nagin's order came moments after President George W. Bush told Gov. Kathleen Blanco that he wanted everyone to get out of New Orleans, if possible.

More media ineptitude

Here's a good example. It's pretty close to slanderous, and here's why. (Read that entire second link!)

This is important. Yes, we as a nation have to focus on relocating the evacuees, and rebuilding New Orleans, somehow - but we can't let the media get a free pass on this.

Katrina and the media

Just remember: We've learned over the past year or two (thanks to bloggers) that MSM absolutely cannot be trusted. We know they are so biased that they can't even see the whole truth, much less report it.

So as you read or view coverage of the disaster in the south, just remember that. When they blame Bush, and write stories about his "failure", remember that.

And if you want another current reminder of how they cannot be trusted, read this.

Just one more post...

Please give something to disaster relief if you have anything to spare. We gave to Catholic Charities today; that would be a good one, unless you already have a favorite.

Click here to go directly to their donation page.

I joined the TTLB donation roundup. It's always heartening to see the huge sums of money that ordinary people can raise to help in a case like this.

Technorati tags: flood aid and hurricane katrina

And here's the link to Glenn's roundup.

UPDATE: If you do make a donation, you can go to the TTLB site and log your donation, indicating that this blog encouarged you to donate to Catholic Charities. Thanks.

The horror that is New Orleans

It's too overwhelming for me to blog about; once I'd start, I wouldn't be able to write about anything else. So this is my only post on it, and then I will not blog again for a long time, but will keep my nose to the grindstone of homeschooling and homemaking, and praying for God to have mercy on all those wretched souls trying to survive the aftermath of Katrina.

I'm posting this because it's the only shred of hope I've found in this whole awful thing so far.

One man was lying partway on a cot, his legs flopped off the side, a forgotten blood pressure monitor attached to his right arm. Some people had wrapped plastic bags on their feet to escape the urine and wastewater seeping from piles of trash. Others, fearing the onset of disease, had surgical masks over their mouths. An alarm had been going off for more than 24 hours and no one knew how to turn it off.

Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor," the Adagio, pierced the desperation.

Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument — made in 1996 by a Boston woman — as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the last two months.

"It's the most important thing I own," he said.

He had guarded it carefully and hadn't taken it out until Wednesday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.

Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sold pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach's Sonata in A minor.

Thompson's family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. In the meantime he will play, and once in a while someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.

"These people have nothing," he said. "I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something."

Read the whole article.

"Alas, hunting for the continuous witch"

Funniest English/French/English translation ever:

The American [Lance Armstrong] did not change a iota his speech, repeating with the envi his innonence. "Once again, a European newspaper reports that I was controlled positive with drugs supporting the performance. Alas, hunting for the continuous witch and the article of tomorrow (this Tuesday) are nothing other than journalism with scandal.

[snip]

After its victorious fight against a cancer of the testicles and its return in the group, Lance Armstrong always defended nozzle and nails [would they mean "fought tooth and nails"?] used unspecified produced doping in spite of suspicions. With only one recovery, the American champion had been controlled positive, at the time of the turn 1999, but had been bleached after its the US team Postal one had produced a medical certificate showing that it had used a pomade to look after a pain with the saddle [a pain with the saddle?!?] containing a prohibited corticoid.

Read the whole thing. It's a hoot.

Oh, and as to whether the charges are true? I have no idea. But this article (via Drudge) sure makes it all clear as mud.

Don't EVER do what I did today!

Don't ever, ever, hit that "next blog" button.

You know how I said I'd wandered into the wrong neighborhood in the blogosphere? Well, that little wrong turn also unleashed spambots from h*ll that loaded my post with spamments.

AAAAaaaarrrrrrrgh! I thought I was going to escape the scourge of bloggers. Now I have to waste time deleting stupid spam comments, and figuring out how to block them in the future.

UPDATE: Wow, that was easy! I deleted all the spamments, and discovered that Blogger has a new, "permanent delete" feature, so you can trashcan the offending comment and it doesn't even leave a trace.

Second, I discovered that Blogger has a word-verification setting built right into the new settings menu. Who knew? I really hadn't messed around with the settings or template much lately. (Probably because I hadn't blogged much lately, either.)

So, I think it should be fixed now.

Oh, and obviously I have discovered a reason to use the "Flag this Blog" button from now on... if those spam blogs would just sit there quietly waiting for people to stumble across them, that's one thing, but to send spam bots out on vicious blog attacks, well, that's beyond the pale.

Depressing takeover of Blogger

I just did something I haven't done since I started blogging a year ago: I hit the "Next Blog" button (upper right corner).

Well, it was very depressing. Virtually all of the blogs were junk blogs, spam blogs. "Windows XP and other stuff." "Home equity loans". "Payday loans." "Industrial Shelving Units."

I felt like I'd wandered into a bad part of town in the blogosphere. It used to be that you could occasionally find a good blog that way, but my little experiment seems to indicate you can't anymore.

Improve your Vocabulary

John McAdams is a professor, so he knows some really good words. Like:

Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

Click on the link; you may find others that make you chuckle even more.

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Yes, it was. We didn't really get anything here other than a little rain and a fantastic light show high up in the southern sky, but places west of us were hit hard.

Heard this morning that 18 tornadoes touched down in Wisconsin last night. In the town of Viola, 80 to 90 houses were destroyed; about 30 were flattened in Stoughton.

During dinner, at about 7:30, our 8-yo son said, "What's that coming down from the sky?"

"Probably a leaf, honey," said I.
"But mom, it's blue, and kind of squarish, and coming down sort of like a kite" (here he demonstrated a twirling sort of motion with his hands).

It wasn't until about 9:00, watching the news, that I realized he probably saw some debris from the tornadoes coming down.

A woman just a mile or so south of us found an intact utility bill in her yard -- from Stoughton.

A man found a photograph of an unidentified woman in his yard. Others found tar paper and shingles.

There's nothing in our yard today. Whatever came down yesterday must have blown eastward again.

"End depression, shred newspapers"

I couldn't top that headline, so I just quoted directly from Chrenkoff. Haven't been reading him enough lately, but in the face of the Sheehan spectacle in Crawford (or the "Crawford quagmire") I think that should change.

Here's a quote from the above headlined post:

LAUER: Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that might be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks you're facing... What would you say to people who doubt that morale could be that high?

CAPTAIN SHERMAN POWELL: Well sir, I'd tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I'd be pretty depressed as well.

Starbucks? NO. Local coffee shops? Yes.

And here's why (hat tip to brand-new blogger Michele):

Not only is Starbucks sponsoring "Pride" week, but an event that places innocent children in the middle of sexually explicit materials ... and registered child molesters will be there running the show? If Starbucks is doing this knowingly, it is blatant irresponsibility, and if they are doing it unknowingly, it is irresponsible of them not to have done their homework. I started pacing back-and-forth, and all I could think was "Starbucks hates children."

[snip...]

I overestimated, but discovered that if I drink five grande lattes a week for a year, the total number of lattes would equal 260, coming to a total cost of $1,040. So, in my four post-college years, I could have contributed as much as $4,160 to a company that supports the volunteer work of child abusers, "Pride" events, abortionists, and do I really need to go on?

I've never been a Starbucks person, except for the Barnes & Noble cafe, but then again, I'm not much of a Barnes & Noble person, either. I'm mostly a Mrs. Sippi's / internet shopping kind of person. But this gives me just one more reason to never step foot inside a Starbucks again.

Two words that sum up the sole but significant benefit of a hot, dry summer:

No bugs.

Hoax!

I was right; it is a joke.

Thanks to The Husband for sending me an email just now; thanks to our friend Jim S. for the catch on Rizzn.com:

I spoke with Maura Buxbaum at ID PR today; Maura is Christopher Walken’s publicist. She said that she’s been innundated with calls all day about Christopher Walken’s ‘bid for public office,’ but she did in fact confirm that the site is a hoax.

“Mr. Walken has no intentions for public office,” said Buxbaum. “Perhaps one of his fans got a little excited seeing him play Secretary Cleary with presidential aspirations in Wedding Crashers.”

Later in the post quoted above, the blogger (Mr. Rizzn???) says

most of us bloggers imitiate Mainstream Media most of the time to get past the gatekeepers.

Au contraire, mi amor! Whenever I've called a government office or any other entity (including the Crawford newspaper that published the endorsement of John Kerry), I always say I'm a blogger. And you know what, I always have been given the same access to press briefings or answers to questions as any other media person, for what it's worth.

Which isn't much, usually.

(But still... gotta have MORE COWBELL!!! And again, thanks for the link, honey!)

Christopher Walken for President?

This must be a joke, right?

But Instapundit (Michael Totten filling in) says it's so, and here's the website.

My family loves the goofy Fatboy Slim video he dances his way through, and Tom and I often do the "Cham-pag-nya?" bit from Saturday Night Live.

But want him to be President? Ha!

Summer of my Discontent

I despise August. I really don't like heat much, and so by August (especially this summer), I'm really sick of it. I'm longing for cool days, chilly nights, a brisk northwest breeze to knock leaves off the trees, a hint of snow in the air, and dusk at about 4:30.

I must have the opposite of SAD. It's in the cool, dark evenings of fall and winter that I feel most invigorated and happiest.

Of course, my summer discontent isn't helped by the fact that all my children were born in either March or April, which means I spent lots of Augusts feeling queasy.

For several years after my last child was born, I would physically react to the sound of crickets chirping in August; I'd feel a sense of dread, almost depression.

Finally I realized I'd been classically conditioned to feel ill at the sound of crickets because of all those awful first-trimesters that were spent in the doldrums of August.

Today is shaping up to be another in a series of relentlessly sunny, hot, dry August days.

Good Lord, I can't wait for November.

Some interesting pro-life news

Quoting from a Pro-Life WI email today:

Contraceptives don't reduce unplanned pregnancies

A new report from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI, the research arm of Planned Parenthood which openly supports abortion and widespread access to birth control) includes support for the claim that readily accessible contraceptives do not reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.

The report claims that 48 percent of pregnancies in the U.S. are "unplanned." Of those pregnancies, 47 percent end in abortion, 40 percent are carried to full term, and 13 percent end in miscarriage. Advocates of abortion often argue that to decrease abortions, unintended pregnancies must be reduced through increased access to contraceptives. But AGI’s own research indicates that 53 percent of women who have “unintended” pregnancies used a contraceptive method during the month they got pregnant.

The data also indicate that marriage plays a unique role as a protector of the unborn. And cohabitation is not an adequate substitute for marriage. (emphasis mine)

The report also reveals that women choose abortion overwhelmingly for reasons other than health, or for extreme reasons. According to AGI, only four percent of abortions are obtained as a result of rape, incest, or for the “health” of the mother.(emphasis mine)

Meeting the BBA

Well, finally had a chance to meet some of the BBA folks in person at State Fair. Had a very good time, though as you can see from Jib's post, there's not much that I can actually blog about.

But welcome to everybody stopping by here from the other BBA blogger's sites! Pop back again soon, as I'm returning to blogging more consistently and hope to have some good stuff over the next week or so.

And if you hear any remarks about typing speed on those other guys' blogs -- just ignore! (Off the record, off the record...)

Blogging elsewhere

You can find me over at the BBA today, as well as on a new blog that I've been invited to join.

Hoping to post some pictures here today; we'll see how the day goes!

UPDATE: In my haste this morning, I cut and pasted the same link twice. The link to the new blog is correct now. Sorry about that.