John DaFiesole writes on the experience of being shamed into shaking hands immediately before Mass: "to shake hands in this way ... to 'greet Christ in one another' strikes me as, what's the word, cant. I wouldn't intentionally greet Christ with a handshake and a smile, then turn away and ignore Him for the rest of Mass. What we do, if anything, is to greet one another in Christ, isn't it?"
NASA plans to read terrorist's minds at airports -- The Washington Times Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is developing brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm, which it did not identify.
Space technology would be adapted to receive and analyze brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into computerized programs "to detect passengers who potentially might pose a threat," according to briefing documents obtained by The Washington Times.
Space technology would be adapted to receive and analyze brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into computerized programs "to detect passengers who potentially might pose a threat," according to briefing documents obtained by The Washington Times.
Welcome to ThankYouFather:
We are a group of Catholics, based in Louisville, KY, who think it’s time to show our appreciation to the decent and ethical priests who serve us. We represent no group or organization. We are not "Conservative Catholics" or "Liberal Catholics." We accept no donations. We just want to say thanks to those men of God who have truly committed their lives to serving Christ by ministering to the people of the Catholic faith. You can help, and it’s simple. Please take a moment to tell us what you appreciate most about your favorite priest. Click here to tell us a special story about your favorite priest and what makes him special to you.
Link again via Amy Welborn.
We are a group of Catholics, based in Louisville, KY, who think it’s time to show our appreciation to the decent and ethical priests who serve us. We represent no group or organization. We are not "Conservative Catholics" or "Liberal Catholics." We accept no donations. We just want to say thanks to those men of God who have truly committed their lives to serving Christ by ministering to the people of the Catholic faith. You can help, and it’s simple. Please take a moment to tell us what you appreciate most about your favorite priest. Click here to tell us a special story about your favorite priest and what makes him special to you.
Link again via Amy Welborn.
Language as an Art Form by Michigan Right to Life:
"There is a misconception that some people have reached a compromise between the proabortion and prolife positions: being personally opposed to abortion while allowing others to choose a 'legal alternative.' No such compromise exists.
Prochoice lawmakers vote the same as proabortion lawmakers. Both object to legal protection for the innocent unborn child. To the baby who dies from abortion, it makes no difference whether those who refused to protect her were proabortion or merely prochoice."
"There is a misconception that some people have reached a compromise between the proabortion and prolife positions: being personally opposed to abortion while allowing others to choose a 'legal alternative.' No such compromise exists.
Prochoice lawmakers vote the same as proabortion lawmakers. Both object to legal protection for the innocent unborn child. To the baby who dies from abortion, it makes no difference whether those who refused to protect her were proabortion or merely prochoice."
SatireWire | Feature: Interview with the Search Engine
Well, it looks like SatireWire won't be posting anything new, ever. But this is a good one. Also, this "brief:"
WINDOWS NOT A VIRUS
Cupertino, Cal. (SatireWire.com) — Symantec issued an apology to Microsoft yesterday after the security software maker's AntiVirus Research Center issued an alert for a "widespread and lethal virus known to cause system crashes and data loss" that turned out to be the Windows 2000 operating system. Symantec CEO John Thompson called it a "regrettable but understandable" mistake.
Well, it looks like SatireWire won't be posting anything new, ever. But this is a good one. Also, this "brief:"
WINDOWS NOT A VIRUS
Cupertino, Cal. (SatireWire.com) — Symantec issued an apology to Microsoft yesterday after the security software maker's AntiVirus Research Center issued an alert for a "widespread and lethal virus known to cause system crashes and data loss" that turned out to be the Windows 2000 operating system. Symantec CEO John Thompson called it a "regrettable but understandable" mistake.
MEDIA ATTACKING CATHOLIC PARISH FOR REFUSING TO MARRY PRO-ABORTION COUPLE Catholic Wedding Not Possible For Unrepentant Abortion Supporter
Excommunication.net home page: This web site is dedicated to the proposition that "Catholic" champions of abortion should be admonished by Church authorities to publicly renounce their abortion advocacy; and that the refusal to do so should result in the public excommunication of the offenders.
D.C. Bid for Olympic Games Rejected
Hooray, hooray, hooray. D.C. would have been an awful choice for the Olympics. Please understand this is an anti-Olympics sentiment rather than an anti-D.C. sentiment.
Hooray, hooray, hooray. D.C. would have been an awful choice for the Olympics. Please understand this is an anti-Olympics sentiment rather than an anti-D.C. sentiment.
Lotsa good stuff, especially on pro-life feminism, at Musings of an Amphibious Goat. No permalinks though.
HMS Blog has an interesting post on the correlation between parental divorce and the child's choice to switcb between religious denominations. "In the relatively high likelihood of conversion to Catholicism among moderate Protestants who as children have experienced parental divorce, the researchers detect the possibility of 'a search for a stronger religious community, and perhaps also a rejection of divorce.'" I am a child of divorced moderate Protestants, and definitely think that the experience I had of living in a divorced home made me reject the notion that divorce can be reconciled with Christian living.
Washington awaits an Olympic decision -- The Washington Times
Everyone cross your fingers and hope that DC does not get the Olympics. Even though I will be long gone by 2012, this would be a complete logistical nightmare. DC can't even get its own mayor on the ballot for re-election.
Everyone cross your fingers and hope that DC does not get the Olympics. Even though I will be long gone by 2012, this would be a complete logistical nightmare. DC can't even get its own mayor on the ballot for re-election.
Husband and Wife -- And the Father (washingtonpost.com)
This WP story about a priest breaking up a family is one of the saddest things I have ever read. Please pray for these people. The story does confirm my prejudice that the Anglican/Episcopalian church is just a place for Catholics who can't handle the hard teachings of Christ.
This WP story about a priest breaking up a family is one of the saddest things I have ever read. Please pray for these people. The story does confirm my prejudice that the Anglican/Episcopalian church is just a place for Catholics who can't handle the hard teachings of Christ.
Yahoo! News - DEPLOYING THE MARINES FOR GAYS, FEMINISM AND PEACEKEEPING: A decent Ann Coulter column in which she makes a point rather than just making funny nicknames for liberals (though she does that too.)
About.com's Graphic Design page has a nice Web Color Gallery with some color combinations that may inspire you.
I had my gall bladder out. I bet you didn't even know praying mantis had gall bladders. Here's a picture of me visiting the doctor. Thanks for your prayers and kind thoughts. I'm still pretty tired, but will be back to normal (HA!) in no time.
Drug companies toned down marketing campaigns for smoking-cessation products like nicotine-based gum and a skin patch in the 1980s and 1990s because of pressure from the tobacco industry, according to a medical journal report. ...
In one instance, a Dow Chemical pharmaceutical subsidiary that made Nicorette chewing gum scaled back educational materials encouraging doctors to urge their patients to quit.
This happened in the early 1980s, after executives at Philip Morris, a major purchaser of Dow's tobacco crop chemicals, objected to the materials' anti-smoking tone, according to the report.
In 1984, Philip Morris suspended purchases from Dow, the report says, citing a Philip Morris memo from May of that year.
"Dow was informed that the recent spate of activity can only be interpreted as a conscious corporate decision that Nicorette is more important than the Philip Morris (and other tobacco) business. That is, they cannot realistically expect a customer to spend millions of dollars for materials, when the profits from those sales ... are used to attack that customer's product," the memo says.
Another Philip Morris memo details how it resumed purchases after Dow changed its practices.
In one instance, a Dow Chemical pharmaceutical subsidiary that made Nicorette chewing gum scaled back educational materials encouraging doctors to urge their patients to quit.
This happened in the early 1980s, after executives at Philip Morris, a major purchaser of Dow's tobacco crop chemicals, objected to the materials' anti-smoking tone, according to the report.
In 1984, Philip Morris suspended purchases from Dow, the report says, citing a Philip Morris memo from May of that year.
"Dow was informed that the recent spate of activity can only be interpreted as a conscious corporate decision that Nicorette is more important than the Philip Morris (and other tobacco) business. That is, they cannot realistically expect a customer to spend millions of dollars for materials, when the profits from those sales ... are used to attack that customer's product," the memo says.
Another Philip Morris memo details how it resumed purchases after Dow changed its practices.
FrontPage magazine.com: On January 19th of this year, a white man named Ken Tillery was lynched by four blacks in Jasper Texas — the very same, small Texas town where James Byrd was lynched by whites four years earlier. The Byrd lynching was on the front page of every American newspaper. The president made speeches about him. The nation hated his killers. Ken Tillery disappeared without a trace. You think Phil Donahue will make a show out of that?
Cellular Habits and Personality Traits - Interesting research into what we reveal about ourselves by how we hold our cell phones. Link via Fr. Jim
Propositionsonline.com from the Institute for American Values. Very cool site, don't have enough time to summarize it.
Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/07/2002 | Theaterlike sets changing the funeral scene: More on funeral trends.
The Fathers of the Christian Church: A Weblog Those who are interested in studying the writings of the Fathers of the Christian Church are often overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the volumes they find before them. In order to introduce the curious reader in a very simple way to the writings of these beloved Fathers, this website contains excerpts on various subjects from their writings in the hope that the reader may be spurred on to further and deeper study of our forebears in the faith.
Is Georgetown University Committing Suicide? - 1967 For more than a century, from 1830 to after 1940, Catholics in America lived in a ghetto. When American Catholics decided to leave their ghetto (right after the Jews and just before the Italians and Negroes), they did what any people fleeing a ghetto do: they uncritically embraced the outside world, without seeing that that world was moving rapidly toward increased chaos, corruption and absurdity. They abandoned completely a basic principle of the Christian West: that salvation is to be found, either for the individual or for the community, only in slow growth in terms of one's own traditions and background.
Conservatives' Billions Fuel Leftist Establishment
WASHINGTON – Huge left-wing foundations, created with the money provided by pioneering conservative entrepreneurs, are driving the agenda in the U.S., and by extension, through much of the world. And a CEO who has studied the problem says it is time to act.
The "liberal establishment” did not just appear out of thin air, says Neal B. Freeman, founder and CEO of the Blackwell Corp., a television production company with a broad range of client services. Just as the left is better than conservatives at gut-fighting street-smart politics, it is also more adept at maneuvering to control the vast fortunes left by industrialists whose ingenuity built this country’s wealth and left us with a standard of living envied around the world.
"An enormous [generational] shift in wealth is currently taking place,” Freeman pointed out. Presenting a list of the top 10 left-wing foundations sitting on combined assets of nearly $90 billion in tax-free assets, he said the time for conservatives to strike was now.
The goal: Save the next generation of foundations, funded by entrepreneurs whose wealth was sparked in large part by the Reagan revolution.
WASHINGTON – Huge left-wing foundations, created with the money provided by pioneering conservative entrepreneurs, are driving the agenda in the U.S., and by extension, through much of the world. And a CEO who has studied the problem says it is time to act.
The "liberal establishment” did not just appear out of thin air, says Neal B. Freeman, founder and CEO of the Blackwell Corp., a television production company with a broad range of client services. Just as the left is better than conservatives at gut-fighting street-smart politics, it is also more adept at maneuvering to control the vast fortunes left by industrialists whose ingenuity built this country’s wealth and left us with a standard of living envied around the world.
"An enormous [generational] shift in wealth is currently taking place,” Freeman pointed out. Presenting a list of the top 10 left-wing foundations sitting on combined assets of nearly $90 billion in tax-free assets, he said the time for conservatives to strike was now.
The goal: Save the next generation of foundations, funded by entrepreneurs whose wealth was sparked in large part by the Reagan revolution.
Ooh, I'm featured on Mute Troubadour: Antiphons of a Street Monk. That's awfully nice!
And how does he get that cool window side scroller effect??? Inquiring minds want to know.
And how does he get that cool window side scroller effect??? Inquiring minds want to know.
Aide Was Reportedly Ordered to Warn Stewart on Stock Sales
What I want to know is, why is this guy
a stockbroker?
What I want to know is, why is this guy
a stockbroker?
Pop Songs Challenge Funeral Favorites
Tue Aug 6, 9:28 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - ...Contemporary pop songs rather than traditional hymns provide the music for an increasing number of funeral services, the Co-operative Group's Funeral Service said Monday.
Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" from the 1988 tearjerker "Beaches" topped the funeral chart in a Co-op poll conducted throughout Britain.
"Perhaps mourners want to recreate the emotion of their favorite films and ensure their loved ones receive a funeral worthy of a star," Lorinda Sheasby of the Co-op, one of Britain's biggest undertakers.
The Co-op said 68 percent of its undertakers reported increased use of pop songs.
Weepy Hollywood film ballads are the most popular choice.
In second place was Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," the theme from the blockbuster film "Titanic." Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was number three.
Other top 10 selections were "Candle in the Wind," sung by Elton John at the funeral of Britain's Princess Diana in 1997, and "Angels" by Robbie Williams.
There were also those who chose to bid a more whimsical farewell. Among the more unusual requests were the Village People's "YMCA" and Wham's "Wake Me Up Before you Go-Go," not to mention the Queen classic "Another One Bites the Dust."
Tue Aug 6, 9:28 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - ...Contemporary pop songs rather than traditional hymns provide the music for an increasing number of funeral services, the Co-operative Group's Funeral Service said Monday.
Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" from the 1988 tearjerker "Beaches" topped the funeral chart in a Co-op poll conducted throughout Britain.
"Perhaps mourners want to recreate the emotion of their favorite films and ensure their loved ones receive a funeral worthy of a star," Lorinda Sheasby of the Co-op, one of Britain's biggest undertakers.
The Co-op said 68 percent of its undertakers reported increased use of pop songs.
Weepy Hollywood film ballads are the most popular choice.
In second place was Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," the theme from the blockbuster film "Titanic." Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" was number three.
Other top 10 selections were "Candle in the Wind," sung by Elton John at the funeral of Britain's Princess Diana in 1997, and "Angels" by Robbie Williams.
There were also those who chose to bid a more whimsical farewell. Among the more unusual requests were the Village People's "YMCA" and Wham's "Wake Me Up Before you Go-Go," not to mention the Queen classic "Another One Bites the Dust."
Believe it or not, a must-read about Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light®. The weirdest part of the article follows: "One of the oddest aspects of the Kinkade phenomenon is that his historical fantasies are becoming reality. Late last year, The Village, a gated community of houses based on those in his paintings, was opened in California. Half a million dollars will buy you any one of four separate types of model home, each named after one of the Kinkade daughters (who, oddly, themselves appear to be named after model houses): Chandler, Everett, Merritt and Winsor. There are Kinkade prints in every room, paisley curtains, wood-panelled fridges and as many gables, dormers and white picket fences as a body could wish for. It might, though, occur to residents to ask, where are the old-fashioned community values Kinkade extols, in a town without a village meeting place, a square or even a church?"
O.O. says: "What wouldn't Jesus do? Isn't that really the question?"
and
"Our kitchen is narrow - kind of like our views on gender."
and
"The worst insult in the Muslim world must be: 'Your wife is so ugly, she is the reason all our women must wear head scarves.'"
and
"Our kitchen is narrow - kind of like our views on gender."
and
"The worst insult in the Muslim world must be: 'Your wife is so ugly, she is the reason all our women must wear head scarves.'"
Excellent Boston Globe editorial on the abortion issue: The real extremists. Link via a new blog I found: Reflections of a Catholic
I enjoyed Kairos' analogy of male marital headship to military command.
"Every military officer is trained from the first never to give an order that won’t be obeyed, and this is the kind of obedience a husband must start from. A good officer rarely needs to give direct orders as such. He and his troops are in accord, and when they are not, the troops trust the officer because he has earned the trust—in some sense, the troops and the officer “love and honor” one another. A good officer listens to his troops, and learns when they need to be led and when they need to be pushed. He finds compensations for his own limitations within the body he leads, so that the sum of strengths is truly greater than the individual parts. On the other hand, tyrannical officers cause mutinies, and tyrannical husbands do too.
If we are to continue the military metaphor, we should think of a wife as not so much “the troops” as an officer of the same grade, only with slightly less seniority. A senior colonel may tyrannize a junior lieutenant with little fear . That same colonel would be wise to treat a junior colonel with more respect and deference—even when giving orders—for the junior colonel may be a general in charge of the senior one at a moment’s notice.
Thus, for a husband, “orders,” if given at all, are given with due respect and deference, with a realization that it is greatly to be regretted that the decision had to be arrived at in such a manner, and in the firm hope that mutual understanding will be soon enough restored that such unfortunate circumstances will not arise again. For a wife, the realization ought to be that she has tremendous power to influence decisions in advance, that her duty to obey is tempered by her duty to solve problems without pressing the issue of who is subordinate to whom. After any such occurrence, both parties must make whole the rift, that personal rivalry not affect the good of the whole."
"Every military officer is trained from the first never to give an order that won’t be obeyed, and this is the kind of obedience a husband must start from. A good officer rarely needs to give direct orders as such. He and his troops are in accord, and when they are not, the troops trust the officer because he has earned the trust—in some sense, the troops and the officer “love and honor” one another. A good officer listens to his troops, and learns when they need to be led and when they need to be pushed. He finds compensations for his own limitations within the body he leads, so that the sum of strengths is truly greater than the individual parts. On the other hand, tyrannical officers cause mutinies, and tyrannical husbands do too.
If we are to continue the military metaphor, we should think of a wife as not so much “the troops” as an officer of the same grade, only with slightly less seniority. A senior colonel may tyrannize a junior lieutenant with little fear . That same colonel would be wise to treat a junior colonel with more respect and deference—even when giving orders—for the junior colonel may be a general in charge of the senior one at a moment’s notice.
Thus, for a husband, “orders,” if given at all, are given with due respect and deference, with a realization that it is greatly to be regretted that the decision had to be arrived at in such a manner, and in the firm hope that mutual understanding will be soon enough restored that such unfortunate circumstances will not arise again. For a wife, the realization ought to be that she has tremendous power to influence decisions in advance, that her duty to obey is tempered by her duty to solve problems without pressing the issue of who is subordinate to whom. After any such occurrence, both parties must make whole the rift, that personal rivalry not affect the good of the whole."
Midwest Conservative Journal: This blog should be read for one reason: the author has coined a new name for Anglicanism - "I Can't Believe It's Not Roman Catholicism! TM."
NYPOST.COM World News: BUBBA: I'D FIGHT AND DIE FOR ISRAEL By ANDY GELLER and RICHARD JOHNSON August 2, 2002 -- Bill Clinton - who avoided serving in Vietnam - says he would take up arms and "fight and die" for Israel if Iraq attacks the Jewish state.
"If Iraq came across the Jordan River, I would grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die," the ex-president said to wild applause at a Jewish fund-raiser in Toronto.
"If Iraq came across the Jordan River, I would grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die," the ex-president said to wild applause at a Jewish fund-raiser in Toronto.
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