Not-so-desperate housewives

Slowly getting back on my feet after spending many weeks coughing and whatnot. Cold and flu season: there's no upside, except getting to stay home from meetings.

Never mind burqas and FGM! Modern feminists are too busy going after soccer-mom evangelical preacher gals and their fans. My latest post at Mercator Net's Family Edge blog.

Boo.

Yes, you read that right. Boo!

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light....

Dear Mark,

Get well soon!

I would plead similar circumstances for my lack of blogging, but I don't think being boring is considered a health issue...yet.

BREAKING NEWS!!

Religious Affairs Correspondent writes erroneous story about Pope!

Oh, wait, that happens just about every day.

First of all, the Pope isn't the CEO of Catholic Inc. who can change "company policy" on condoms. And even if he did hold such a position, to say that using a condom to avoid transmitting AIDS is less immoral than transmitting the infection is hardly the same as saying

...the pontiff will end the Church's absolute ban on the use of condoms.

It's also less immoral to give your friend a clean needle with which to shoot heroin than it is to give him an infected one. So the Catholic Church must approve of it!

"Less immoral" is not equal to "moral" or even "approved". Keep dreaming, liberals. And go here to read an explanation of the Pope's words by someone who actually knows what she is talking about.

DOH is One Year Old Today!

Grab a chair

and a piece of birthday cake

as we take a poetic walk down memory lane and relive all the highlights of our first year of blogging:

December, 2009: A link from Steyn
September, 2010: It happened again
That's it for me. How 'bout you, Mrs. P.?
I'll be over there, stacking all these chair...s.

From Ezra

Who knows a shakedown when he sees one.

Christians: The Usual Suspects

I don't watch that much TV, but I've seen more hypocritical, abusive and self-righteous Christians on the tube than I've ever met in real life. So it's quite refreshing when someone decides to write a script in which Christians are portrayed as ordinary people. Not perfect, not super-saintly, but ordinary.

A couple of weeks ago The Office aired an episode entitled "Christening" in which two of the main characters have their daughter baptized. I find it interesting that a sitcom would venture into this territory, and that the most unpleasant people at the baptism were the show's other main characters: mostly cynical, snide, and self-centered, they were completely oblivious to the significance of the event being celebrated by their two colleagues. A real a**holier-than-thou attitude, if you will pardon my phraseology. Granted, their behavior was in keeping with their conduct in other episodes, but I am so used to seeing Christians depicted as the villains of the piece that their normality in this episode was remarkable to me.

Snide cynicism was not the only response to religion in the show; one character who admits he and God have "a lot of catching up to do" is shown later facing the altar of the empty church and asking plaintively of the Almighty, "Why d'you always gotta be so mean to me?" Another character is literally carried away by his yearning for the joy and camaraderie he sees among the members of the church's young adult group, but later realizes that, as another colleague pointed out earlier, "Church isn't a party." For a 25 minute sitcom, I thought they packed in some serious thoughts about religion.

The other show where I have lately observed the rare and exotic "Ordinary Christian" is a new program called Blue Bloods, which follows four generations of the Reagan family, several of whose members are or were New York City police officers. I have seen four or five episodes, among which can be found scenes of  characters saying a Catholic grace before meals or pausing to pray in a church.  In one episode ("Smack Attack") the sex abuse scandal is mentioned without the implication that every priest is either a molester or covering up for one. Really, you have to see it to believe it. Mr. B. and I always have a chuckle when a priest has to be questioned on your average cop show: the detectives wander into the church and the Padre comes scurrying out from behind the altar as though he lives there. Blue Bloods is guilty of this visual cliche, but I'm willing to cut them some slack, given how much I've been enjoying the show.  The bad guy hasn't yet turned out to be a Christian fundamentalist working for Big Oil, and Tom Selleck lit up a stogie in the second last episode. What's not to like?

Here's hoping for more script writers who are willing to step outside p.c. bounds.

My latest post

At MercatorNet's "Family Edge" blog: "Does the school board need to know Johnny's sexual orientation?"

Many thanks to Mrs. Beazly for originally posting the story here. (Expect something tasty and sweet in the mail at Christmastime in recompense...unless you'd rather have cash.)

By the way, it's only 6 weeks till Christmas, and yes, I am officially starting to panic...

And speaking of nutty...

This little gem from Ralph R. Reiland at American Spectator.

Here was [Maureen] Dowd's instant analysis on the morning after the nation's voters delivered a stunning and nationwide defeat to Democrats: "Even though it was predicted, it was still a shock to see voters humiliate a brilliant and spellbinding young president, who'd had such a Kennedy-like beginning."

What planet has she been living on for the past two years?  

Mr. Reiland sums up:  

Ms. Dowd's description on the morning after of the previous night's political winners? Simply "a lot of conservative nuts." Quite a catty, bitter and erroneous depiction of events by a top columnist at the so-called "paper-of-record."

I'm more positive about President Obama getting his wings clipped. I think it's healthy for people to increase their skepticism about someone who declared, speaking of himself, "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Barack Obama: "Not technically insane"

David Warren: ya gotta love him.

...yet in the course of getting himself elected he said many things that were over the edge, including meaningless abstractions about hope and change, and actual suggestions that he could do things like stop the seas from rising. He is not "alone" -- nearly 70 million people voted for him, and a few million of those are still "hoping for change."

[...]

Consider, however: Barack Obama, though a little larger than life, is the caricature of a typical, career politician. The sanest of them can be disconcerting to converse with, at close quarters. The need to maintain various pretences, from sanctity to infallibility, contributes powerfully to habits of mental aloofness -- to the point where no question can be answered candidly.

Most journalists make reasonable allowances for the fact a man is a politician, but there are some like me who don't. While the condition may be mysterious, and the cause not singular, to me mad is mad. It has several times struck me, in meeting directly with "power," that if I heard a man speaking like this, while riding on a trolley, I would assume he was an outpatient.

Mrs. Blurn, this one's for you

Enjoy.

OOOPS!! Wrong Richard Armitage! Ahh, here we go:

Mrs. Beazly gets credit for this joke, having pulled it in a recent email to me.

Dear hoarders, you don't have to save ratty old catalogues

Because these are available at the library, or Amazon.

London is a riot

Life in Europe is just looking more and more scary. Carolyn Moynihan of MercatorNet discusses the latest riot over 'austerity measures' in London. The chickens of the welfare state are coming home to roost. Or smash and burn, as the case may be.

...there is something quite sickening about the petulance and fury of well-off people faced with losing some of their privileges when you consider that, not only has most of humanity never had such comforts, but that right now millions of people in under-developed countries don’t even have a roof over their heads. [...]

How, in the face of so much human need and suffering, can we spoilt children of the West complain about a little hardship -- assuming that is what the current wave of changes will actually bring about? Shouldn’t we be ashamed of our tantrums and reckless disregard for the rights and dignity of others that increasingly accompanies them?

.

We are the lost.

I wanted to post the video of Libera  singing "We Are the Lost," based on the poem "In Flanders Fields," but embedding has been disabled for some reason.  The song is beautifully done, so do jump over to You Tube and watch the video.

There's just one sad little irony in all this. The lyrics do not follow the poem entirely, faithfully. The lyricist has removed the line, "Take up our quarrel with the foe."

If we refuse to confront our foes, either out of cowardice or some misguided notion that pretending we have no enemies will make them go away quietly, then we have already broken faith with all those who died for our freedoms. We are the lost.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

from his poem "For the Fallen" by Laurence Binyon. Read the entire poem here.
On a related note, do read this piece by David Warren. "The quarrel"
.

My new gig with MercatorNet...

Check out my latest post on the "Family Edge" blog on Australia's MercatorNet, "a voice for human dignity on the internet."

Earth to Planned Parenthood: people drive economies

Eradicate the national debt and financial crisis by eradicating the nation’s future citizens? Good luck with that.

PP’s logic dictates that someone whose birth has been planned is more likely to be an asset to society, as opposed to someone whose birth was unplanned. Real life, however, doesn’t always follow that model. Many successful people emerge from less than ideal circumstances. “Rags to riches” stories (and there are many) in business, art, entertainment, and sports, will bear this out. It’s preposterous to suggest that the circumstances of one’s conception determine one’s destiny.

I will be blogging regularly (weekly) with Family Edge from now on. (Well, let's hope!) I've found that making commitments is the easy part...

Oh. My. God.

And I mean that as a prayer, a cry for mercy, not as a vain use of the Lord's name. I'm still hoping this is just some kind of hoax/fake tabloid headline. How do you spell "ICK"!?

Woman Gives Birth to Homosexual Son's Baby

You. Just. Can't. Make. This. Up.

LifeSiteNews

It's bloody well amazing.

At least someone isn't just screwing around at the lab.

I can hear the conversation now:

"Yeah, we turned skin into blood. It could revolutionize cancer treatment! What's going on at your research facility?"

"Uhhh...we got people to look at meat."

Getting at the meat of the issue

More proof that our institutions of higher learning are losing their way:

Sight of meat calms us: study 

No, it's not from The Onion. Let me guess - the scientists who did this study thought it up while they were getting plastered at a buddy's barbecue.

  Kachanoff said it's difficult to say what practical applications could result from the study's findings.


I'll bet.


 

In the shadow of the Chesterbelloc

I'm ashamed to say that I had never before heard of Maurice Baring, until today (thank you, Dale Ahlquist and EWTN). Now I'm going to start reading whatever I can find of his work.
From a short article by Joseph Pearce:

Ten of Baring's books were translated into French, with one - Daphne Adeane - going through 23 printings in the edition of the Librairie Stock. Others were translated into Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Hungarian, Czech, Spanish, and German, a true and apposite reflection of the author's panoramic vision of European faith and culture. [...] Like a great literary light hidden under a bushel of neglect, Maurice Baring's work still has the power and the potential to shine forth like a beacon of faith and culture in a faithless and cultureless age.

Yep, "outrageous" about covers it. -or- Thank God for Home Schooling!

The Ottawa school board wants to know your twelve-year-old's sexual orientation.

There are nine options to choose from, including “prefer not to disclose.”

It's a multiple choice test! Which one of the three Rs does this fall under again? Ridiculous? Repugnant? Really, really intrusive?

Of course sexual orientation is not the only thing they want to pry into. This article contains a link to the survey. Read it yourself, and contemplate what our schools are becoming.

Mrs. Pinkerton's two cents: The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Unless, of course, it's the nation's children's bedrooms, and then it can be there without parental approval or permission. Prying into your inmost affairs...for your own good!

The Life of Pie

You know our readers will be clamoring for it.

Purity Pastry (from the Purity Flour Cookbook)

Yield: One 9" double crust pie or two 9" pie shells or 12-14 medium sized
tart shells or 24 small tart shells or 48 REALLY small tart shells or 96
minuscule tart shells or....well, you get the picture.

Blend or sift together:

  2 cups all-purpose flour
  1 teaspoon salt

Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in

  3/4 cup shortening

Sprinkle with

  4 to 5 tablespoons cold water

Add the water one tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with a fork until
all the flour is dampened. Turn dough onto a piece of waxed paper and
form into a ball. Chill if desired.

Bake as directed for the filling recipe. For a baked pie shell, prick
with a fork at 1" intervals (the crust, not you) and bake in a 450 F
oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

A pie, on the other hand, lasts about 15 minutes. Mr. Beazly, this one's for you. I made pies to celebrate Mr. Pinkerton's recent milestone birthday, cuz he's only going to turn 50 once. And if you have to be half a century old, you might as well eat pie. (Flavours in photo below: saskatoon, apple, peach and pecan.) Being domesticated is fun, now that I know how to make a good pie crust (thanks for the Purity recipe, Mrs. Beazly!) Photo courtesy of Doris Rose Jones Photography

Because nothing highlights the importance of having a home...

...more than wrecking someone else's.

Nothing gold can stay.

Mark Steyn's "Lock Up Your Adjectives" Canadian mini-tour has come to an end. I hope it will not be his last, but if he decides not to return to the "deranged Dominion", I may yet hope to catch an appearance across the border.

Of all his Canadian stops, I think I am most sorry to have missed the one in London. Everything I read only makes me wish more that I had been there.

Incidentally, no one should be surprised that "He's no Ann Coulter". He's already pretty busy being Canada's Brigitte Bardot.

In case you were wondering just how meaningless the word 'racist' has become...

...it's now being applied to inanimate objects.

...some blogs...claimed Kinect is unable to detect dark skin tones. Consumer Reports, however, said its tests show there is no substance to such claims.

Luckily, Consumer Reports is there to defend the Xbox Kinect from this damaging accusation. You can't undergo testing to determine if you are racist (yet), but here are a few simple pointers.

If you admit that you are able "to detect darker skin tones", not to mention cultural and religious differences, you are probably racist. Unless of course you have been instructed to hire employees or admit students based on their color rather than on their merits, abilities or character - then skin tone is of crucial importance. Also, if you disagree with someone whose skin tone is not the same as yours, you qualify as racist...unless your skin tone is darker than theirs - then I guess they would have to be the racist in that situation...unless you vote Republican, because then that would cancel out your skin tone.  Your racism can even be divined by the greeting cards you purchase, which brings us nicely back to our first topic of racist inanimate objects. See? it all makes perfect sense.

Proud to be part of the Alternative Catholic Media

Orthodoxy is no longer being stifled in the Western church, and the lef-lib namby pamby types in power don't like it at all. A great article by Hilary White at LSN. The video of Michael Voris is worth watching.

Last June Bishop Gabino Zavala, the head of the U.S. bishops’ conference communications committee, said that there is “consistent agreement” between bishops that the orthodox Catholic blogs and websites are “most alarming.”



“We are particularly concerned about blogs that engage in attacks and hurtful, judgmental language. We are very troubled by blogs and other elements of media that assume the role of Magisterium and judge others in the Church. Such actions shatter the communion of the Church that we hold so precious.”

Mmmhmmm. Wonder what communion he's talking about? The kind that they give indiscriminately to pro-abortion politicians?

And how about that hurtful language! This sort of language? "You brood of vipers" "You den of thieves," "You hypocrites!" "You whitewashed sepulchres." I think that guy from the Gospels said all those things.

Or maybe he means language like "Taliban Catholic"...  My bad--it was a liberal who made up that one.

The church is in trouble because there hasn't been enough strong language used in the past 40 years. They made out like everything was groovy, but it's not.


Like that guy said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace..." (Matthew 10:14)

Because there aren't enough real problems in the world...

...let's wring our hands about the Minifigure gender ratios in Lego sets.

Except for when they are recreating Stargate SG 1 episodes in the medium of Lego and need a Captain Carter, my kids don't seem to care what sex their Lego guys - oops, persons, are. In fact, they have been known to add injury to the insult of under-representation by using a female figure's long hair and flowered shirt to create yet another male role model: Dippy the Hippy.

I'll bet he's still living in his parents' storage tub.

h/t Sobering Thoughts

Thanksgiving Every Day

A wonderful reflection by Mark Shea.

Could you be this generous?

I have a feeling I couldn't.

UPDATED :The Hippy-Dippy Interpretive Dance Fundraiser for Darfur

You'll understand the title when CTS posts Mark Steyn's appearance on The Michael Coren Show. It doesn't seem to be on YouTube yet, either, but do watch for it. Mr. Steyn is well worth listening to, as usual...good thing, because my antenna doesn't pick up CTS very well so I couldn't see much of a picture.

Toward the end of the interview Mr. Steyn talked about  the decadence of our secular culture and how it offers immigrants little incentive to assimilate. He also spoke briefly about some prominent atheists' warped view of the contribution which Christianity has made to our civilization. It's too bad his time ended shortly thereafter because I'm sure those topics would have made for another couple of hours of interesting discussion.

The video is now on YouTube. Here's part 1 of 4.

Which to ban first, the chicken sandwich or the egg?

The egg.

I don't think I want my city's law and order entrusted to this guy.

Docked pay should only be the start.

To Our Dear American Friends

Have a happy Election Day! And by that I mean, "Throw the bums out!"

You know who they are, no matter what party they belong to.

Speaking of clinging to guns and religion...

Don't expect the mainstream media to report this story anytime soon (EWTN):

Evangelical Christians Attack Baghdad Catholic Parish During Mass; Dozens Slain

...er, no, wait; I made a mistake...

Islamic Militants Attack Baghdad Catholic Parish During Mass; Dozens Slain

Gunmen linked with al-Qaeda stormed a Catholic church in Baghdad during Mass on October 31.

“They entered the church with their weapons, wearing military uniforms,” said an 18-year-old who survived the attack. “They came into the prayer hall and immediately killed the priest.”

After the gunmen took the worshippers hostage, US troops and Iraqi police stormed the parish in a rescue attempt. One gunman detonated a suicide belt, and a shootout ensued, leaving 39 hostages and seven members of security forces dead.


The Islamic State of Iraq-- the Iraqi al-Qaeda affiliate-- said it was responsible for attacking what it called “the dirty place of the infidel which Iraqi Christians have long used as a base to fight Islam.”

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Rage, yes; pointless, not remotely

Scary, but Mrs. Beazly and I (though  thousands of km apart) were posting on virtually the same phenomenon at the same time. (BTW, Mrs. B, what the heck are you doing awake at this hour?)

Punditry from the always enjoyable Ms. Wente:

The media think they understand why people voted as they did. As one Toronto Star pundit helpfully explained, the voters – Ford voters, that is – “were full of largely pointless rage.” Only pointless rage could explain why voters ignored the editorial endorsements of two leading newspapers, as well as a long line of former mayors who begged them, in the name of decency, to vote for George Smitherman. Even Justin Trudeau’s twinkle dust didn’t work.

[...]

Both Barack Obama and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller insist the voters simply don’t appreciate what they’ve accomplished. They say their only real mistake was to not focus enough on positive PR. Both the Democrats and Toronto liberals are convinced they know what’s best for the masses, even if the masses massively disagree. They believe that many of the people who vote for their opponents are basically deluded, ignorant and poorly educated (even though the Republicans are currently leading by 20 per cent among U.S. college graduates). They also believe the people on the other side are basically intolerant, anti-immigrant racists (even though a pre-election poll said half of voters born outside Canada were set to cast votes for Mr. Ford).

Americans believe their country is in crisis, and they’re right. By next year, the United States will reach Third World debt territory. Yet both major parties seem oblivious. Neither of them has a plan, or even publicly acknowledges the severity of the crisis. If the Tea Party does nothing else, it may at least force the Republicans to face this highly unpleasant fact. If Mr. Obama wants a second term, he’ll have to face it too.



[...]


Although Canada is far more blessed, even we won’t entirely escape the massive restructuring that faces almost every country in the Western world. The problem is simple. People have a lot more government than they can or will pay for. Mr. Ford and Tea Partiers know that. Scaling down the scope of government is the political challenge of the next generation. And if mainstream politicians stay in denial, they’ll be toast.

Radio Rob

This Rob Ford interview with As It Happens is a hoot. It seems that Mr. Ford gives as much respect to the media as he (and his supporters) got from various media outlets during Toronto's mayoral race.



Shocking, isn't it? We are used to well-mannered politicians who only say nice things: they  helpfully remind us that we're apt to spend all our money on beer and popcorn, or inform us that we vote for the "wrong" candidates because we're stupid, angry or afraid. They constantly point out that we don't know what we really need or want because our tendency to cling to guns and religion makes it impossible for us to think straight. The mainstream media seems to agree that all these things are perfectly true of the great unwashed. That must be why it's so satisfying - not to mention entertaining - to witness a politician effectively flipping the bird to the CBC instead of insulting the electorate.

From our bulging "Beyond Satire" files

"Iran, where a woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning, is likely to become a member of the board of the new UN agency to promote equality for women..."

Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are "vying" for spots on the committee. They oughtta get along great with the hardcore fembots, since they all hate women and womanhood. Via The Jerusalem Post. (h/t Steyn's "Ports of Call"). 

One simple solution? Deep-six the UN altogether.   

The Distant Triumph Song

                     For all the saints, who from their labors rest, 
 who thee by faith before the world confessed, 
 thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. 
 Alleluia, Alleluia! 

 Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might; 
 thou Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight; 
 thou in the darkness drear, their one true light.
 Alleluia, Alleluia! 

 O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, 
 fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, 
 and win with them the victor's crown of gold. 
 Alleluia, Alleluia! 

 O blest communion, fellowship divine! 
 We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; 
 yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. 
 Alleluia, Alleluia! 

 And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, 
 steals on the ear the distant triumph song, 
 and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. 
 Alleluia, Alleluia! 

 From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast, 
 through gates of pearl streams in the countless host, 
 singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: 
 Alleluia, Alleluia!

---