For all my Tetris-playing family members and friends:

And may I remind you: I still hold the all-time high score for Tetris.

Well, on the old computer, anyway.

(H/T I Have to Sit Down, a blogger I just discovered today, via another recently discovered blogger, A Crocus in the Valley, who just gave me an E-Award, which tickles me greatly and which I must also blog about very, very soon.)

"Going bourgeois to the core"

Wow, this fashion news is pretty exciting! A conservative trend for the fall, with simple feminine suits, sheath dresses reminiscent of the '50s and early '60s, no mini-skirts, no stupid-looking designs that no real woman would ever wear.

Some of Seventh Avenue’s most influential tastemakers are invoking in their latest collections the proprieties, the seamless appearances and the tony aspirations of midcentury Middle America. They are, in short, going bourgeois to the core.

In collections for fall that American designers plan to present starting on Friday, when another Fashion Week begins in New York, many will jettison the baby-doll dresses, the thigh-high skirts and the disco boots of the spirited Warhol years — touchstones of recent seasons — in favor of a meticulously tailored look that evokes the White House years of Jacqueline Kennedy.

Of course, the NYT had to give it a snarky headline ("The Newly Uptight" - or is there a joke or allusion I'm missing here?) but just look at the photos!

And, "bourgeois to the core"? Excellent. I've been reading a great book lately -- if I find the time I'll post on it later -- that made me realize the nobility and beauty in so-called "bourgeois" values.

I really should add the book to my "Good Reads" list, too. Oh well, I'll just tell you: It's called "When God Looked the Other Way", written by a Polish American man who survived the hell created by the Soviet Communists. Who, of course, hated "bourgeois" values.

Wow, from fashion to politics ... what a post. Clearly, my brain is fragmented this morning. And I know why.

Haven't... had... coffee....

Excuse me while I go make a pot.

Study: "Colder temperatures = happier people"

This morning, I caught part of a Today Show segment about happiness.

They said, among other things that smack of dubious social science, that people are happiest in countries with the coldest average temperatures.

If that's the case, I should be deliriously happy today.

It's 4 below zero with wind chills of about 30 below.

Yaa hooooo!

48,589,993:

The number of Americans who have been killed in the most horrific genocide ever committed by a nation against its own people.

Forty-eight million sons and daughters destroyed in the womb before they could take their first breath.

Forty-eight million children who would never grow up to be mothers and fathers.

The oldest of these children would now be 35 years old, many of them with children of their own.

If we assume that just half of the 13,000,000 children who were killed in the first 10 years after Roe v. Wade would have been married by now, that means we're missing more than 3,000,000 young couples with their own little families.

If each of these young couples had 2 children of their own, that means another 6,000,000 souls who will never be born.

The destruction extends far into the future.

Finally, some sanity on "separation of church and state"

This is good news:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A judge says the University of Wisconsin-Madison must stop refusing to pay for certain religious student activities.

U.S. District Judge John Shabaz says the school's policy of turning down funding requests for activities involving prayer, worship and proselytizing is unconstitutional.
He says the policy violates students' First Amendment rights to free speech.

Exactly! I'm glad this judge understands that the so-called "separation of church and state" (try to find that phrase anywhere in the Constitution) doesn't mean stamping out all religious expression in the public square.

A Catholic student group filed the lawsuit.

The rest of the story

So how did the rest of today go?

Pretty good!

First, we made paper snowflakes, using this website for a pattern. That was good.

Then we read up on Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, who took these beautiful (and public domain) photographs of individual snowflakes, back in the late 1880's.

That was very good.



We marveled at God's artistry and the wonder of nature.

We ooohed and aaahed over the amazingly intricate patterns.

That also was very good.

And then... there were some not very good moments, when we tried to switch gears to do the next subject, when the cozy sofa we'd all been sitting on was suddenly no longer cozy but cramped and everybody was way too close for comfort and a head accidentally bumped into a nose, and then an elbow not-so-accidentally bumped into a shoulder, and then there were some tears and a small melt-down.

That wasn't so very good.

So I dried some tears and gave some hugs, got a drink of water for everybody, had a little chat about things, and then, eventually, it all was better.

As I said in the morning, days like today are a gift, pure and simple, with the good and the not so good. It's all a gift.

Days like today....

... are a gift.

This morning I got up early because it was my turn to go to the farm to get the 40 dozen eggs for the egg co-op. These eggs are fantastic, by the way. The yolks are so golden, unlike the wimpy pale yellow of grocery store eggs. They have all kinds of wonderful omegas (Omega-3, omega-6 --whatever it takes) because the happy little chickens lead happy little chicken lives, running around (with heads still attached, whew), eating bugs and greens and scratching the dirt and keeping their beaks. Then the farmer collects the big, beautiful brown-shelled eggs, and we moms take turns driving out to the country every two weeks to pick them up for distribution among us.

So, I had my peaceful drive out to the countryside. On the way home, I saw a deer and her two little ones, and a guy ice-fishing on the pond in our subdivision, and all of that made the trip interesting and enjoyable. Well, except for the cop zipping around me to pull over the speeder (in a work-zone, no less) who'd also just zipped around me, and the absolutely insane SUV drivers who obviously were late for their commute... but let's just ignore those unpleasantries, shall we?

Then, home to the family. Alas, none of the children's alarm clocks seemed to work this morning. Hmmm. Oh well. Got everybody up and moving, without too many threats to life and limb, hugged the youngest two (still short enough that I can rest my chin on the tops of their heads), felt their sleepy warmth and enjoyed the moment.

Husband had already made the coffee. Ah, the joy! The aroma! The caffeine!

Said good-bye to Husband and sent him out into the cold for his commute (poor guy). And then we all gathered around the kitchen table.

That was the best part of the morning: Having all four kids there, chatting and laughing. I'll miss this next year, when our oldest daughter goes to college. Even though she'll still be living at home, she won't be a regular part of our kitchen-table mornings, and we'll miss her.

We talked about politics (I quizzed them on who the presidential candidates were), and the news report about a brand-new picture of the far side of Mercury, and I pointed out this article ("Abortions at 30-year low") for the teen daughters to read later. We talked about snowmen, and carrot noses, and trips to museums, and other things I can't remember now. It was just so nice.

Then off to do school work. We watched the big fluffy snowflakes start to come down as the youngest ones and I read aloud from Black Ships Before Troy (for a long time, as it's just so awesome and I kept hearing, "More! Another chapter, please!"), and I snuggled up with my youngest to work on math.

If the rest of the day continues as the morning did, I couldn't be happier. I'll find out soon as lunch break is ending now; time to get back to work.

Another article to read with a tissue nearby

Another beautiful essay that brought tears to my eyes. Read the whole thing, as it's an incredibly powerful piece on the beauty of even the most tormented and difficult of marriages.

What keeps people from believing that a good God loves them and desires never to be parted from them, unless they themselves should flee that love? Look in the mirror, and see the cause of despair in others. Do not repeat the words of the great divorcer at the bottom of hell, who says in his loneliness and misery, "I am my own, I am my own." Say rather, "I am a wayward child, and the one I am called to stand beside is a wayward child." Do not dare mull over your "quality of life" and your "fulfillment" -- wrapped in a shroud of deadly self-regard, while the Lord of life, who dies to bring you to life, gasps for His last breath on the cross above. If anyone had grounds for divorce, He had; no one ever loved as deeply as He, and no one was ever betrayed as He. You, reader, have betrayed Him shamelessly, as have I. Yet He remains faithful, and waits for us, to bring us life.

David Brooks: "Every revolution devours its offspring"

The revolution of identity politics is now feasting on Obama and Hillary.

All the rhetorical devices that have been a staple of identity politics are now being exploited by the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other. They are competing to play the victim. They are both accusing each other of insensitivity. They are both deliberately misinterpreting each other’s comments in order to somehow imply that the other is morally retrograde.

All the habits of verbal thuggery that have long been used against critics of affirmative action, like Ward Churchill and Thomas Sowell, and critics of the radical feminism, like Christina Hoff Summers, are now being turned inward by the Democratic front-runners.

[snip]

What we have here is worthy of a Tom Wolfe novel: the bonfire of the multicultural vanities. The Clintons are hitting Obama with everything they’ve got. The Obama subordinates are twisting every critique into a racial outrage in an effort to make all criticism morally off-limits. Obama’s campaign drew up a memo delineating all of the Clintons’ supposed racial outrages. Bill Clinton is frantically touring black radio stations to repair any wounds.

It would be funny, in a sort of just-deserts way, except that 30 years of identity politics have been disastrous for this country. That turns the Obama/Hillary spectacle into nothing more than bitter irony.

[Update: Oh lordy, I spelled "just desserts" incorrectly. It's now corrected; the term is, of course, "just deserts". It wasn't until I looked at the post after publishing that I realized I had chocolate on the brain instead of justice.]

[Second Update: Welcome, everyone coming here from Real Clear Politics via Buzztracker! I'm honored to be listed right alongside Instapundit, Althouse, and The Anchoress, even if it is only because I linked to the same article they did....]



(h/t Althouse)

"Something's Not Right With Mom...."

Got my cup of coffee this morning, before anyone else was downstairs, and sat down with the Chicago Tribune Magazine.

I read this article through to the end.

And then put it down, and wept.

Poetry Friday

I know there's a "Poetry Friday" group out there... is it a Carnival? Is it exclusive? How do I sign up?

Anyway, even though I'm not officially a part of it, today is the perfect day to post this poem. We had a beautiful snow last night; it really did begin in the gloaming, and covered everything in a gorgeous white softness exactly as the poem describes.

Before we begin, a note: When I was a child, my dear aunt taught me this poem -- but only through the third stanza. That was all that she had learned, too, so it wasn't until a few years ago that we discovered the additional stanzas -- which are very sad. So, I'm only publishing the first three stanzas here.


The First Snow-Fall
by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.













Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara
Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,
The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

Medical Cold Fusion? Or a tantalizing treatment for Alzheimer's?

This is amazing (h/t to The Anchoress)! A drug that "instantly" relieves symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.


I hope it's not the medical equivalent of the cold fusion debacle of 1989.

What's the item that will be on every one of my shopping lists from now till 2014?

President Bush signed a bill last month that will make it illegal to manufacture or sell the incandescent lightbulb by 2014.

But it won't be illegal to use them.

So, that means we only have 6 years to stock up on enough incandescent bulbs to last our lifetimes, and then some, so as to have enough to bequeath them to our children and grandchildren.

As my oldest daughter sagely said, when told of this new and very dumb law, "Does that mean there will be a black market in lightbulbs?" Well, yes, I bet there will be!

Truly, this is the stupidest bill ever passed. Well, that's a tough claim, as Congress has passed an incredible number of really stupid bills, but this is at least in the running for the Top 10 Stoopidest Bills of All Time.

The Weekly Standard did a great job of explaining why this is so dumb in last week's issue ("A Nation of Dim Bulbs"). A few points in order to educate yourself, your blog readers, your friends, and your family members:

• The compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs that we'll be forced to buy instead of incandescents are toxic; they contain mercury. If you break one in your house, you're advised to open windows and clear the area for a half hour or so. Reassuring, yes?
• They can't be dimmed or used with timers. Newer bulbs that can do these things require you to buy new dimmers and timers, at considerable expense.
• The quality of light is horrible. Sure, this is subjective. But the vast majority of people I've informally surveyed say that they greatly prefer incandescents. No, that's not true. What they say is something like "I hate those *&^# florescent bulbs!"
• You can't just turn them on and off, as you can a regular bulb, since that greatly shortens its expected life span. You're supposed to turn them on and then leave them on for at least 15 minutes. How convenient, especially if you're just turning on a closet light to grab your shoes. < /sarcasm off>
• They can't just be tossed in the trash when they burn out. You have to carefully (so as not to break them and poison yourself and the surrounding environment) take them to a special toxic waste disposal center, wherever the heck that may be. Most likely it's a considerable distance from your house which means you'll have to fire up your eeevilll internal combustion engine automobile to get there.

But there's more. According to a letter to the editor in this week's Weekly Standard, they also can be a fire hazard. The writer said that he had a CFL in his kitchen, which began to smoke and catch fire when it burned out.

Rich Glasgow has been all over this, with "Is it Time for a Light Bulb Tea Party?", "How Many Lobbyists Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?" and "WND: 'Vacate Room When CFL Bulb Breaks'".

Read this, too, for more about the insane "energy saving" regulations Congress has mandated.

So, this week's shopping list:

• 2 gallons milk
• 4 loaves of bread
• 96 incandescent light bulbs

Book Giveaway!

Love2Learn is having a book giveaway to celebrate both its 10th anniversary and the unveiling of the new-and-improved website.

See this post at the Love2Learn blog for all the details, and then browse all the posts to see which books are being given away this week.

I personally would love to enter in the drawing for the Rita Munn Journal, but alas, I'm a reviewer for Love2Learn so I'm not eligible. So, you go ahead on over there and see if you can win a nice free book, even if I can't.

I may just pop over here to enter a book giveaway for which I am, in fact, eligible.

Good luck to all both of us!

A beautiful quote I'd hoped to post here in Advent...

That was the idea, but as you know, my Advent and Christmas weren't quite what I'd planned, what with multiple hospital stays for my parents and all.

So, I was sorting through my drafts of posts this morning and found this one, dated December 10, 2007. Funny thing is I have no recollection of where I ran across the quote below. So, if one of my blogger friends deserves a hat tip, please raise your hand and I will be happy to give credit where credit is due.

Oh! Oh, wait! I just remembered it! My brain is not completely fried, it's really not!

Anyway. The hat tip goes to a woman I've never met; she's an online friend who also is part of the review board for Love2Learn.net. So, thank you, Maria, for including this quote in an online discussion.

From C. Houselander' s "A Child in Winter":

It is part of God's plan for us that Christ shall come to us in everyone; it is in their particular role that we must learn to know Him. He may come as a little child, making enormous demands, giving enormous consolation. He may come as a stranger, so that we must give the hospitality to a stranger that we should like to give to Christ. He may come to us in His Passion, disfigured by our sins and all sin, asking the utmost courage of us, that we may not be scandalized and may believe. He may come to us as a servant and compel to the extreme of humility which accepts His service, as Peter had to do, when he washed His feet, and as the disciples did with unquestioning joy when He cooked their little meal on the seashore.

If we see everyone in our life as "another Christ" we shall treat everyone with the reverence and objectivity that must grow into love and, as a matter of sheer logic, we shall accept whatever they bring to us, in the way of joy or sorrow or responsibility, as coming from the hand of Christ; and because nothing comes from His hand that is not given for our ultimate happiness, we shall gradually learn that the things they do, the demands they make, are all part of God's plan for us. Once that is understood we can never again feel completely frustrated by anyone, or lose the serenity of our minds by nursing a grievance. Neither shall we ever again miss a joy that should have been ours through another person because we dared not give ourselves to it bravely.

The above reminds me of Mother Theresa's comment about "Christ in Distressing Disguise".

And this is lovely, too:

The story of Joseph's bewilderment when he realized that his future wife was going to have a baby is well known, and it is well known, too, that Our Lady did not explain. Her example here teaches us wisdom, when misunderstandings arise because of Christ conceived in us. There is little gained by trying to explain. At that time, at Advent time, God's voice is silent in us; it is simply our own heartbeat.

Love is more effective than words. The only thing to do is to go on loving, to be patient, to suffer the misunderstanding. Explanations even of what can be explained seldom heal...and there is so much that cannot be explained. Even the presence of Christ in us does not do away with our own clumsiness, blindness and stupidity; indeed, sometimes because of our limitations, His light is a blinding light to us and we become, for a time, more dense than before ..... Explanations, words, at this stage, may only wound, but love will be a bridge over which at last, in God's time, we shall cross to a better understanding.