Sunday, November 30, 2003

I said I would name names, and I will. Huddsonline (an apparently subsidiary of something called Elite Media in UK) has ganked a lot of material, but the most egregious offender, whom I contacted WAAAAAAY back in October, is the St Paul Parish in the Diocese of Pensacola. They have a big ol' Internet committee and, get this, publish online in their minutes their intention to convert booklet material to the Web. With or, especially, without permission, I guess. Let's here a big, loud PFFFFFFT for them. Jerks.

12:44 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, November 29, 2003

Assuring accessibility to churches is not merely right - People with disabilities... may be a key to saving the spirituality of the church. They teach us how to abandon ourselves to God... Lord, when I'm rattling the pill bottles and railing against other parts of this odd life, help me remember this charism, this unchosen vocation.

9:38 AM | 0 comments

Oh. Now I see - In a study reported on November 27, women who have their first baby by Caesarean section are at significantly higher risk of losing their next baby to an unexplained stillbirth before going into labor, according to a new study.

8:39 AM | 0 comments

Friday, November 28, 2003

No big surprise here... Out of the Frying Pan is rated:

What rating is your blog?
brought to you by Quizilla

6:40 PM | 0 comments

Interesting bit about Bill Keller, fairly recently appointed executive editor of the New York Times: "Maybe we were a little too closed off to how the world sees us. . . . The more I interviewed people, the more I realized it would be more interesting to listen to someone who hadn't grown up in our culture," Keller says. Over time, he admits, "I may want to eat those words, or the staff may want to shove them down my throat."

5:57 PM | 0 comments

Rod Liddle on the laziness of women (like me) who stay home - there's a very funny cartoon in the article, as well...

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Osteria d'Assisi was simply wonderful. Great food, marvelous service, the nicest ambience.

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Thursday, November 27, 2003

Some day the Thanksgiving and Other Holiday Gods are going to catch up with my husband and me, I'm sure. We've happily flouted the rules ever since my mother died in 1989. Some years in Oregon we'd drive to the coast for a few hours, snacking from Safeway and letting the wind push us along the stormy beach. Thoroughly chilled to the bone, we'd return home and poach ourselves in the hot tub. One year Mr OotFP had a big ol' gift certificate to a local hotel known for its fine holiday buffet, so we met family there and sat and talked and ate and laughed until we were thoroughly sated. Once or twice Mr OotFP has roasted himself a cornish game hen in the spirit of the day. He has been away from home some years and in Paris, of course, it was not even a day off.

This year we have driven to Santa Fe just for a celebratory dinner at Osteria d'Assisi, a local Italian restaurant. Some day the Holiday Gods may catch up to us, but until then we trip along gaily enjoying our days off as we please, not as the Holiday Machine would have us. Maybe at Christmas I'll tell you about our traditional Christmas Day meal of tacos.

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Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Red Baby,
Happy birthday to you!

Your birth 22 years ago launched a journey that began both yesterday and a lifetime ago. right: Alice Shobert Ludwick and her namesake, early 1983

12:05 AM |

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Calculating Christmas: the Story Behind December 25 - ...the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

5:54 PM | 0 comments

Old Testament Parenting: Lamentations of the Father: Drink your milk as it is given you, neither use on it any utensils, nor fork, nor knife, nor spoon, for that is not what they are for; if you will dip your blocks in the milk, and lick it off, you shall be sent away.

5:15 PM | 0 comments

Johnny of the Cross - Cash could preach to offenders and the defenseless alike, and make faith believable in a way that most of us never can. We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise. That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully.

5:00 PM | 0 comments

Here ya go, philistines: Florence Fabricant's short course on how to set the table, and why

10:34 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Ordinary folks decide not to enable killing pre-born people - It's like a light has gone in in someone's head somewhere: "I cannot be forced to contribute to an effort I think is profoundly wrong."

10:02 PM | 0 comments

Homer -- yes, that Homer in the Queen's bedroom: Just days after the Mirror told of amazing security lapses at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle - where reporter Ryan Parry worked as a bogus footman - we can reveal how the cartoon character comes face to face with the shocked monarch in her bedroom.

9:58 PM | 0 comments

The sudden end of a career at al-Jazeera - It was a curious way to be given the boot. At 11pm a secretary from al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite news station, popped round to Yvonne Ridley's home in Doha, Qatar, and informed her that she was "terminated". Ridley, who had worked as a senior editor on the station's English-language website since July, was warned not to go back to the office and that security guards had been told to keep her out.

9:52 PM | 0 comments

"they're heroes and they need to know we think so": homecoming for the World Cup winners

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Monday, November 24, 2003

In the small mercies department: Someone who also had a gun but didn't pull it threatened others with a knife.

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Macho, macho, macho Max Baucus

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Beautiful story - "Beverly, I brought you the Lord today"...

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Sunday, November 23, 2003

Theodore Dalrymple being provocative again: ...since television causes boredom, it thereby causes social pathology.

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Liturgy patrol from the Anglicans: It's DIY religion. Clergy make it up as they go along because they don't know better. I am constantly horrified at the abysmal preaching, and the liturgy is even worse. Note to Roman Catholics: we are not alone...

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Learning about organic farming. It could be absolutely wonderful or simply awful.

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Yesterday the matriarch of a large local clan, the Champlins, told me about her plan to enhance information for the annual Christmas gift name draw. Fran, tired of hearing "I hope I don't get ______'s name, because I have NO idea what to get him/her", is adding two bits of useful information to each name to be drawn. The first is a list of three things the recipient would be delighted to receive (along with sizes, where relevant). The second is a list of several places where the items may be purchased. This is such an astonishingly good, yet simple way of adding ease and joy to family gift exchanges. When you use it, say a prayer of thanks for good Fran Champlin and ask God to give her many Christmases of joy.

Fran and I were talking on the phone because the weather cancelled plans we had to go out with another lady. We had several inches of snow on Saturday morning and overnight temperatures here were no warmer than 5F: maybe a little colder. Alongside this weather is an early and vicious attack of flu and other winter discomforts.

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Friday, November 21, 2003

The Friday Five
1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.
organize walk-in closet; unpack library; organize kitchen cupboards; commit to time at the gym four days a week; upgrade a bunch of software
2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.
my sixth grade teacher, Lee Whitaker; Uncle Vern (it has been six months or more - where ARE you?); families from our childbirth class; Jeanne LePoutre from Paris; Bobbi Osaki, who worked with Mr OotFP at Tektronix
3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.
dance, play the organ, swim, drive a stick shift, be competent in three more languages
4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).
donate heavily to Macdonald Center and Saint Mungo's; comfortable new houses for dearest Harriet and Mr OotFP's mother; horse lessons forever for darling Phyllis; nest eggs to help young relatives start off in the world; a pied a terre in Paris for Mr OotFP and me
5. List five things you do that help you relax.
Blog; read; take pictures in the country; hang with Mr OotFP; share humor

10:18 PM | 0 comments

Saintmaking by acclamation, which is the way it used to happen, anyway: [Yevgeny Rodionov] is Russia's new unofficial saint, a casualty of the war in Chechnya who has been canonized not by the Russian Orthodox Church but by a groundswell of popular adoration. More about Yevgeny Rodionov, scroll down the page

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Thursday, November 20, 2003

David Blaine and his 44 day fast have something to teach healthcare: Unfortunately for the estimated two thirds of patients who enter hospital undernourished - often as a result of cancer or a gastrointestinal disease - few hospitals ask patients about their normal weight and appetite, let alone field the specialist teams to ensure patients have the best chance of surviving surgery.

10:28 AM | 0 comments

This link will be good for only a few days, but it is well worth following and pondering: In Mourning, an Intersection of Faiths:

Turkish army sharpshooters kept watch from nearby orange-tiled rooftops and a rifleman clad in a billowing black raincoat stood guard amid a thicket of white marble gravestones shrouded in mist. Police helicopters patrolled overhead. Several mourners wore bandages on their foreheads or noses, or bore stitches and cuts on cheeks and necks, signs of their own narrow escapes from death in the bombings.

Throughout the services, Anet's fourth-grade classmates stood at the foot of her tiny coffin, clutching a poster-sized photograph of their friend framed in white carnations. Anet's broad smile and sparkling brown eyes peered from beneath a thick fringe of black bangs, contrasting sharply with the tear-streaked faces and trembling lips of the small mourners.

Her teacher, Necla Ozturk, stood above her young charges, her face grim, her head covered in a long black shawl. "She was the smallest child in the class," Ozturk told reporters who visited her primary school classroom on Monday. "Because of that, we always tried to protect her. But we couldn't protect her from the terrorists."

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Wednesday, November 19, 2003

turkeyhelp.com from America's Test Kitchen (Cook's Illustrated): simple, practical, thorough advice

4:19 PM | 0 comments

Meditating on the historical Mary - the final Advent letter of Robert Maloney, C.M., general of the Vincentians

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Ann Coulter on Michael Schiavo - oh, just go read the column even if you can't stand EITHER of them

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The 'genius' of Thérèse - "Thérèse heals because she reminds [people] they have already been loved in a perfect and completely satisfying way by God."

12:47 PM | 0 comments

Mickey needs a makeover? - Disney fears that Mickey Mouse has now become something he has never been before - irrelevant.

12:44 PM | 0 comments

Blogger is always eager to help: How Not to Get Fired Because of Your Blog (here's the blog of somebody who did... get fired)

12:37 PM | 0 comments

Those enterprising Brit reporters...

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Tuesday, November 18, 2003

2003 Portland Restaurant Guide - Is Jake's really still on their list? We've come to know them as a place that can seldom honor a reservation even near to on time without a "gratuity" being slipped to the host. The food is all right, but no more than that. And the waiters are unbearably arrogant. It's Portland, your food is entirely adequate, and the noisy bar drowns out most hope for adult conversation.

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The Anti-Blowhard Initiative - proposed in Oregon, but why stop there?

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Aggregator of medical Web logs - this is useful enough that I think I'll add it to my blog roll

12:30 PM | 0 comments

Why Democrats "borked" Miguel Estrada, in their own words

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Until only 120 years ago TODAY there were as many as a hundred different local time zones in the USA. Here's a review of a book that explores what standardizing time meant to Americans. It was not regarded, universally, as a good idea; indeed "most Americans found this time-quilt tolerable, and many cherished it. They took nature's word for time, and nature said it was noon when the sun was directly overhead, at times that differed with locations." The review is really worth a look and I may even get around to making time to read the book, Keeping Watch: A History of Time in America by Michael O'Malley.

11:57 AM | 0 comments

Monday, November 17, 2003

You won't read this much detail and speculation in the Telegraph about Conrad Black stepping down and what it may mean for the paper's future. Complete with current newspaper ownership regulations, in case you're thinking of an acquisition...

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"this week is her last chance to change her mind" - will Hillary Clinton run for president?

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It's a real problem for me to reconcile what St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Boulder claims about its ministries with its deferment of the simple things that could be done quickly and inexpensively to increase the building's accessibility. What would cause a session not to follow through on something that is manifestly so important to someone who uses the building? I simply do not understand. It starts to seem mean and hard-hearted, even for a bunch of Calvinists.

I come to this with respect for Presbyterians; before crossing the Tiber, I was a member of First Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon, which was the pulpit for many years of the late Dr Paul Wright. Mr OotFP and I loved Dr Wright and always tried to attend his Ecumenical Ministries course in the Fall. But this bunch of Presbyterians is more of the ilk of a stubborn and stupidly disposed Scottish Webmaster who insisted to me some time back that copyright had to be proven to him, "else where would the law be?" These folks, who would condemn any other organization that had so little regard for accessibility, seem to be lacking in the decency not to lay more on the back of an already burdened person -- which is really all accessibility does. Accessibility does not lighten the load; it simply does not increase an already heavy burden of living in a material world that does not, for the most part, take less than fully able bodies into account, even when it would be easy to do so.

Here's a special email link -- an address I've established just for this -- because I am so interested to hear the thinking (or justification) behind this church's corporate behavior. I'll assume that it is all right to publish anything sent to this address.

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National Catholic Register on Bill O'Reilly - Though taught by dedicated nuns in a robust blue-collar Catholic upbringing and a graduate of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he has an unusually poor grasp of his religion. Ouch!

4:10 PM | 0 comments

Uh-oh. Francis de Sales on dancing and mushrooms. I like mushrooms very much indeed and will go to my grave regretting that I am a poor-to-indifferent dancer.

12:54 PM | 0 comments

Some food blogs worth a look: Mise en Place, Il Forno, In My Kitchen, Chocolate and Zucchini, Chopstix.

12:43 PM | 0 comments

Early all around site about the inauguration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. I watched the speech and thought it was remarkable for the scope of what was addressed in only about 10 minutes: everything from his status as an immigrant to the fact that he knew that people had not voted for him because of his prior government experience. Of course, the Beeb isn't done with the sexual harrassment issues...

12:22 PM | 0 comments

I'm going nuts. How much clearer could our BOTW permissions policy be? It now says: COPYING OR REPRINTING CONTENT FOR ANY PURPOSE IS NOT PERMITTED. And still I get questions like this:

I am a School Chaplain. I would like to use a prayer from the "Children Learn to Pray" section by Fr. Victor Hoagland, intending to acknowledge clearly his authorship. The prayer will be a resource for teachers to use in Advent. However, after reading your "FAQs about permission" section, I am still unsure whether or not I am allowed to do so. Can you clear this up for me?

My response: Does your use involve making any copies of it? If so, as the permissions page clearly states, this is not allowed.

How can someone be smart enough not to split an infinitive ("intending to acknowledge clearly"), but not smart enough to parse COPYING OR REPRINTING CONTENT FOR ANY PURPOSE IS NOT PERMITTED. Huh?

12:08 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, November 16, 2003

New Yorker's take on General Wesley Clark, in the pack of Presidential candidates: When the Washington Post reporter Lois Romano recently asked Clark about the mistrust that some of his peers have expressed, he grew testy. "How do you think I could have succeeded in the military if everybody didn’t like me? It’s impossible," he said. "Do you realize I was the first person promoted to full colonel in my entire year group of 2,000 officers? I was the only one selected. Do you realize that? . . . Do you realize I was the only one of my West Point class picked to command a brigade when I was picked? . . . I was the first person picked for brigadier general. You have to balance this out. . . . A lot of people love me." Oh.

5:46 PM | 0 comments

Panama Canal web cam

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New favorite variety of apple: Cameo. Crisp, juicy, not too sweet -- perfect.

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Winning DIY in UK - I'm especially taken by the winning basement, but the cost -- especially considering that this is DIY -- is a jaw dropper. Ours, last year, ran around $30/square foot, about 1/6 or so the price. The best small house is really eye catching. Worth noting, folks, is that most of the designs used an architect, like we did last year. A small price for great results; Mr OotFP still says that was by far the best money we spent on the project. We used Brian Brown of Longmont. Interesting postscript about that: recently we recommended Brian to some folks contemplating a project. They duly called him and scheduled a visit. He looked things over and said, "Doesn't look to me like you need an architect for this one, folks." How about THAT? The Telegraph also has an article about whether you should attempt building your own house. The title: Patience, tenacity, recourcefulness

4:55 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, November 15, 2003

George Steiner on "fascism of vulgarity" - I know this has made my position a marginal, and certainly disliked, one. But if Nietzsche - Nietzsche - can speak of Tristan and Isolde as the real mysterium tremendum, then little Mr Steiner need have no illusions.

9:17 PM | 0 comments

Patrick Jephson's lucid and sober evaluation of the Prince of Wales' troubles: ...it is inescapable that his ambiguous domestic arrangements have compounded and maybe even caused the prince's current troubles. Left unresolved, they will continue to sabotage all efforts to show him in his best light.

9:03 PM | 0 comments

A demonstration of how to get it horribly wrong when talking about a victim of sex abuse. Margaret Hodge should stand down at once and if she does not do so, the Prime Minister should declare her position, Minister of Children, vacant. The Telegraph's take on the same situation and Alice Thomson's sensible opinion piece.

8:53 PM | 0 comments

Having driven myself crazy with the playlists of a number of choral CDs I have, suddenly I remember that the Magnificat setting I am seeking was composed by Paul Inwood, formerly of the St Thomas More Group, and appears on their first hits CD. It's a wonderful setting and you can hear a snippet (mpeg); it's the "Great is the Lord". Absolutely wonderful, but it again increases my yearning for decent choral music in church. Not my church, realistically. But some church.

8:44 PM | 0 comments

Gastric bypass for TEENS? More and more, apparently.

8:02 PM | 0 comments

Series of BBC graphs about conceptions (and misconceptions) about AIDS around the world, based on a BBC survey conducted in 15 countries

4:55 PM | 0 comments

Review of a remix - Presumably [Paul McCartney's] influence on the Beatles' legacy has increased as the membership has (shall we say) decreased, for this revisionist release restores the album according to his original intentions, remixing (or perhaps that should be demixing) the tapes to give us the Beatles raw and unadorned.

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Friday, November 14, 2003

Very personal post - The mother of a parishioner died Wednesday, and the funeral supper machine began to be cranked up. Thursday I learned that the service was to be today, which is late to be asking for help, especially when the supper will not be held in the community. No worries: the grande dame of these events visited the facility with me yesterday and another woman offered her capable and gracious help.

This morning the parishioner called in a panic. The organist had a heart attack last night. After about 90 minutes of calls, I was at last able to find a substitute. Fast forward through the afternoon. The grande dame (this is NOT sarcastic; she really is a great lady and the most capable organizer of catering, to boot) was de-railed by a family emergency. The other helper is -- God knows where. My husband, inordinately helpful in such situations, is tied to his office by a conference call. But at least I hear organ music playing in the chapel, so I hustle hence to proffer a little envelope of thanks for our substitute. Except it is not whom I expect; the stricken organist has made a valiant and remarkable recovery. The substitute has gamely arrived and departed.

My other catering helper has not yet arrived. The service in the chapel is beginning when my phone rings and Mr OotFP calls into my ear, "Where are you?" "Where are YOU?" I shoot back, really on the edge of tears. "We"-- the other helper and he -- "are at church", miles away. But they soon arrive, just after the service ends and other people have begun to help me arrange the great pile of sandwiches and salads and desserts. It is a little crazy.

Mr OotFP and I were talking about this a little while ago: the Eucharist connects us physically, visibly, and concretely with people we simply would never know, except that they, too, gather at the table of the Lord where, as journalist Cathleen Falsani memorably wrote, "None is worthy, but all are welcome."

Often I feel like a Keystone Kop racing in circles on a little motorcycle, going nowhere, but fast. It is hard to see the object of various exercises: why did we need to get a substitute? Why were Mr OotFP and Susie so confused about where the supper was held? (They did not each think it was at church; they simply ended up there after they came to think that they were wrong about the places they had gone.) I despise the faux-piety that turns every little happenstance into a parable or fable. I am more comfortable admitting that I do not know why little bumps happen in life; I know only that they do occur, regularly, trailing trouble and chaotic results. It helps me, this little practice of humility, to meet the bigger bumps with respectful silence. I've no idea why bad things -- or even simply silly things -- happen; I know only that we are always being gathered around the table of love and sent forth to share what we have received. The feast of heaven and earth provides everything we need, even valet parking for a Keystone Kop.

7:13 PM | 0 comments

Margaret Thatcher almost quit - and this is news, fifty years after the fact. Her official site seems to be down at the moment, but the documents about the pause in her political ambitions are apparently available there.

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Thursday, November 13, 2003

boy + blog + mom

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Nobody does humiliation like the French - Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president renowned for his hauteur, has been reduced to a Paris laughing stock for requesting admission to the Academie francaise, home to the "immortals" of French cultural life. Maurice Druon starts out kindly enough: Quel accès d'humilité, assez inattendu, vient-il de pousser M. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing à se présenter à l'Académie française ? Voilà un ancien président de la République... Heh.

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Who's happy now? - Michael Howard capped his first week as leader of the Conservative Party yesterday by being named Parliamentarian of the Year.

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A meditation of sorts on aging - If, during his active years, he made an occasional leap of faith into the unknown, he’s found himself living there permanently now. Also, Keith Richards at 60 - A prince of darkness, but a prince nonetheless.

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One man's response to grade inflation: ...ever improving school exam results are the nearest thing yet to a panacea for universal happiness.

5:11 PM | 0 comments

Yum, yum. A tasty anti-spam page.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

John Keegan on the evoluation of America's power - Iraq is still a tribal society and ... the key to pacification lies in identifying tribal leaders and other big men, in recognising social divisions that can be exploited, and in using a mixture of stick and carrot to restore and maintain order.

7:59 PM | 0 comments

Let justice roll on, says Amos. The link takes readers to the beginning of a saga of a congregation that is almost motivated to make its church accessible, but finally lacks the compunction follow through. It's about a church in Boulder, but it could be about many churches. Read it and consider whether justice can roll on through your church building, or whether it will be dumped unceremoniously on a bathroom floor.

4:49 PM | 0 comments

Interesting facts about crocodiles

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Crib sheet for MTV's Cribs - right on the mark!

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Waiter, there's a condom in my soup - ...she and her companions ordered drinks, appetizers and soup, but sent the soup back because it was lukewarm. When she got it back she found the condom.

6:59 AM | 0 comments

A holy blog of obligation for New York area foodies; an occasion of envy for the rest of us

6:56 AM | 0 comments

So many uses for this ingenious product would not leap instantly into the mind of a truly righteous person ...

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Does this mean he won't murder anyone any more? - Ordeal made Robert Durst a better person

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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Nat Hentoff on Terri Schiavo: ... of the $750,000 to be held in trust for Terri's rehabilitation, two of Michael Schiavo's lawyers pressing for removal of her feeding tube have been paid more than $440,000. Whom did that rehabilitate? Any comment from the ACLU? If the husband and the lawyers succeed, maybe the ACLU will send flowers to Terri's funeral.

9:20 PM | 0 comments

Veterans and homelessness: A new television public service announcement depicts a gathering of homeless people warming themselves around a fire in a trash can. According to the script, the homeless, who are singing the national anthem, are American military veterans. It isn't just a script to Doug Dolan, a former homeless vet who is now the lead cook at the Great Falls Rescue Mission. A veteran of the U.S. Marines who served in Vietnam, Dolan says more than one-third of the homeless men at the Rescue Mission are veterans.

7:08 PM | 0 comments

*grumble* I've just had email that says "You [sic] permission page is not very clear". What part of "You may make a single paper copy of Web pages at this domain for your personal use. Additional copies are not permitted; copying or reprinting content for any other use is not permitted" is not clear? Well, I guess I'll go back to the drawing board. Maybe it is the "other" that is confusing people. *grumble*

Whilst grumbling, let me put in a word of complaint about people who treat us as their personal Catholic fast-order cooks. *grumble*

6:52 PM | 0 comments

The times are changing: Boris Johnson made Tory vice-chairman

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Crazy windy here today. The tumbleweed assaults the car and, Mr OotFP says, his office window. Driving home from Boulder past some open fields, gravel pelted the car body. I was too shaken to survey the damage.

3:56 PM | 0 comments

Monday, November 10, 2003

Mervyn's sends a message that they do not want my money anymore: Kevin Dalcamo, acting executive director of StateWide Access Alliance, said Mervyn's has sent the message that people who use wheelchairs are not welcome.

2:10 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, November 09, 2003

As it was a gift from God I felt I ought to give it away - astonishing story of a rather poor 19 year old who appeared on a TV game show, won a pile of money, and gave it all to Christian Care Foundation for Children with Disabilities in Thailand.

9:10 PM | 0 comments

Blogging in Baghdad: Can you imagine the shock my family was in when I walked into our house in Baghdad with three bags full of filming equipment? I basically decided to go for an offensive, and ditch the apologetic approach. "Surprise! You are going to be on TV." My mum ran out of the room with a screech. "Ya Allah!" she said. "The boy has no shame." My brother gave me the are-you-insane? look accompanied by a certain finger.

9:08 PM | 0 comments

That loony couple who were ultimately convicted of cheating on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire": I'm not a gifted communicator." She hesitates. "I've got dozens of friends all of whom I get on with really well." Diana says she found the Lady Macbeth thing "quite funny and just slightly flattering. I mean not the homicidal bit, that's not so good, but the powerful masterminding woman, I thought, ooooh, I quite like that." Oh.

9:04 PM | 0 comments

V. Gene Robinson has a particular understanding of Anglican history: quoth he, "A church founded on unhappiness and anger is not going to go very far." A Seattle columnist is the one who nails this whole business when he writes, "In all candor, there is a wisp of selfish arrogance to some of the bishop's remarks I find infinitely more distracting than any tensions between his holy vows and his living arrangements." Yup.

8:45 PM | 0 comments

Heh. I cracked the top 5000 of Amazon reviewers.

8:35 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, November 08, 2003

Is Christopher Reeve having an effect on how research is conducted in the U.S.? - The New Yorker’s Daniel Cappello interviews the physician Jerome Groopman, whose interesting article appears this week in the New Yorker and whose book, The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness, will be out in January.

8:34 PM | 0 comments

The first list of Christmas crafts that we will not be doing at my house this year. Or any year.

5:00 AM | 0 comments

Friday, November 07, 2003

Simon Heffer on the man next in line: I have often had my doubts about the Prince of Wales. I am not sure he chooses some of his friends and courtiers wisely. He has an obvious streak of self-pity and lack of self-knowledge that are unattractive and dangerous. Yet for all his personal and human faults, he shows no sign of being anything other than a conscientious, kind and probably wise future king.

6:04 PM | 0 comments

Now this is funny...

I will flattened by falling piano



How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test

5:19 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Camilla Parker Bowles wins a major award and HindustanTimes.com tells what it really thinks of the Prince of Wales; a review of that book in the UK Telegraph: You can disapprove of this book as much as you want, but I defy you not to find it gripping. Oh, the Telegraph saw to it that the Camilla bio got reviewed, too. Apparently the book brilliantly evokes the boisterous, Jilly Cooper world of Camilla and her friends.

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This is called 'adding life to your years' - a reason to keep on keeping on: The simplest of things - knowledge, water and formula - restored life to a nearly lifeless child. The smallest of sacrifices can do a great deal, they say.

3:19 PM | 0 comments

Lean Cuisine makes better tasting cheese ravioli than any Italian restaurant I've tried in Colorado. The three cheese rigatoni is pretty good, too. I won't be eating their chicken products again very soon, though. Tried their chicken teriyaki and bit into a big ol' hunk of chicken fat and gristle. Ugh.

11:00 AM | 0 comments

Convicted embezzler Alan Reavley goes on trial for murder on February 9, 2004. He's cooling his heels at Deer Lodge until then.

10:19 AM | 0 comments

Calling Dick Tracy: Japan's largest mobile telecoms company, NTT DoCoMo, is developing a wearable mobile phone that uses the human body to make calls. Called Finger Whisper, the device is built into a narrow strap worn on the wrist like a watch.

10:11 AM | 0 comments

Political obituary of Iain Duncan Smith.

10:04 AM | 0 comments

Sparing a thought for Mr OotFP and his glamorous life of international travel

9:55 AM | 0 comments

I been born to play domino - Dominoes is Jamaica’s national game, practically a national obsession. Instead of scratchcards or bingo, the Jamaica Observer promotes itself with a ‘Supa Cash! Dominoes’ game. You see Jamaicans playing alfresco as Russians do chess or Chinese mah-jong.

9:50 AM | 0 comments

About a law school reunion: Rarely have I been in such a lewdly self-congratulatory ambiance. Never have I witnessed such ravishing self-love, and I have been to Hollywood, California.

9:45 AM | 0 comments

A young man dear to me finished a losing season last night. He may never play (American) football again, but if he has learnt the lessons of being poorly coached and of what happens when a team fails to coalesce, it will have been a worthwhile and even valuable experience.

9:34 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Two articles that look at the diaconate: not of much interest if you are not Roman Catholic; of tremendous interest (or concern) if you are

10:57 AM | 0 comments

Now here's an interesting article by Richard R. Gaillardetz, Ph.D. on The Ordinary Universal Magisterium: Unresolved Questions

10:43 AM | 0 comments

God seems so very close right now that prayer almost seems redundant - the Guardian's profile of V. Gene Robinson; meanwhile, Kenya's Anglican Church wrote to all its dioceses yesterday, barring them from dealing with the gay Bishop Gene Robinson and Barbados thinks about how to respond. And the Primate of Ireland Robin Eames says, "The ordination of anyone to the diaconate, priesthood or episcopate in the Church of Ireland who is known to be in an active homosexual relationship would be in conflict with the mind and accepted practice of this Church."

The Beeb opines that until now all Anglicans, whatever their reservations about their fellow-worshippers, have accepted that everyone is a member of one church. That will now change, with more traditional members of the Church denying that Gene Robinson really is a bishop at all, and refusing to have anything to do with him or his diocese. Many will extend this rejection to include the other US bishops who took part in the service to consecrate him as bishop.

In eTaiwanNews.com, [t]he Reverend Dean Steward, .... who went to seminary with Robinson and thinks him "a nice fellow," said everyone is a sinner and faces temptation. But sinners are supposed to repent, not say that "certain things are no longer sins," he said. Bishop Sadiq Daniel of the Karachi and Balochistan diocese said: "We cannot stop (the West) but we can disapprove."

Finally (at least for this entry), the report we've all been waiting for, from Al Jazeera.

10:43 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Time to get the jab... maybe: the map shows the flu creeping toward Colorado. I have an egg allergy, which gives me pause about getting stuck, but maybe I should just do it, especially because sometimes I keep company with folks whose immune systems are temporarily impaired.

9:29 PM | 0 comments

Colorado voters don't tolerate a lot of nonsense: Wembley is being sent packing, the property rate tax cap will stay in place, and -- the biggest surprise, because of the heavy, heavy artillery backing it -- the water measure went down about two to one.

9:06 PM | 0 comments

Sad parody in Great Falls of The Virgin Suicides

1:16 PM | 0 comments

Monday, November 03, 2003

Ha!

Athena


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

11:14 PM | 0 comments

The UK Guardian reports on what "they" are saying about V. Gene Robinson, new bishop of New Hampshire. Meanwhile, The Independent calls the odds for schism in the worldwide Anglican church.

The split happened today, according to the UK Telegraph: Worldwide Anglicanism split in two yesterday after conservative leaders representing up to 50 million worshippers angrily rejected the Church's first openly homosexual bishop. Primates from Africa to Latin America denounced the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson, which has plunged the 450-year-old Church into one of its greatest crises and provoked schism. 

"The devil has clearly entered the Church. God will not be mocked," said Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya. Archbishop Peter Akinola, the primate of Nigeria, said that he and other leaders were "appalled" by Canon Robinson's installation as Bishop of New Hampshire on Sunday. Speaking for about 20 primates from Africa, Asia and South America, Archbishop Akinola said most of the worldwide Church was in "impaired communion" with America's Episcopal Church.

Another Telegraph article elaborates: "The overwhelming majority of the primates of the Global South cannot and will not recognise the office or ministry of Canon Gene Robinson as a bishop," he added. A state of "impaired communion" now existed between the Episcopal Church and "most of the provinces within the Communion". The Archbishop, a spokesman for the "Global South", was speaking for up to 20 of the primates, more than half of the senior bishops and archbishops who head the 38 autonomous provinces that make up the worldwide Church.

Moreover, their combined membership represents the vast bulk of churchgoing Anglicans - an estimated 50 million. They include provinces across Africa, South-East Asia, the Middle East, the West Indies and the southern half of Latin America. The liberal sympathisers are a much smaller club. Apart from the Episcopal Church, they consist of Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and much of Australia. Scotland, Wales and Ireland are also fellow travellers. Like a number of other provinces, the Church of England sits uncomfortably in the middle.

The primates prefer to speak of "realignment" and "impaired communion", but what has really occurred is a major split or schism. One part of the Church is refusing to recognise a bishop legally consecrated in another part, and has effectively cut off ties with the liberal leadership of that part.

9:13 PM | 0 comments

The dollar strengthened a bit against the pound today, which is all the encouragement some of us need to daydream about shopping in Scotland.

5:31 PM | 0 comments

Marian Keyes' story Soulmates, which appears in the anthology Irish Girls About Town.

5:16 PM | 0 comments

USA Today says 3000 people attended the consecration of V. Gene Robinson yesterday (and they put this flattering photo with their coverage. NY Times calls the attendance nearly 4000 and prints a prettier, but more incendiary, picture.

8:28 AM | 0 comments

Used to be, I had passed not even a tinkle of a thought about the disposal of Buffalo Bill Cody's mortal remains, but then we moved into the neighborhood...

8:15 AM | 0 comments

Sunday, November 02, 2003

Now that New Hampshire Episcopalians have followed the refrain of that old Fleetwood Mac hymn, you can go your own way, responses are beginning to roll in. From the Archbishop of Canterbury: "The divisions that are arising are a matter of deep regret; they will be all too visible in the fact that it will not be possible for Gene Robinson's ministry as a bishop to be accepted in every province in the communion."

Another article from the UK Guardian.

9:16 PM | 0 comments

Now in the Passionists' Compassion Magazine, a thorough look at Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of Christ. Lynn Ballas offers a "look under the hood" of the controversy, including an absolutely marvelous comment by Peggy Noonan. Paul Zilonka, C.P. takes a theologian's view of making movies about the Passion, and the indefatigable editor, Victor Hoagland, C.P., looks at the rubrics of dramatizing the Passion and takes a closer look at Christian mystics and the credence they should (or should not) be given. The links page provides a long list of resources.

This issue already has had its critics, which is unsurprising given the controversial subject matter. But I think it offers an insightful resource that frees readers to make up their OWN minds about the movie. It's possible, given some resources I located in the course of taking this issue from dead-tree to Web, that the issue will be extended a bit in the next few weeks.

12:56 PM | 0 comments

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Coming soon to an Episcopal parish near you? Also, program for the various activities planned around the Episcopal Church's separating itself from Christianity by consecrating V. Gene Robsinson as a bishop tomorrow.

5:16 PM | 0 comments

A day late... - Christianity Today's collection of articles on Halloween and a more Catholic response by Michael Dubruiel, one that I truly appreciate

5:07 PM | 0 comments

A sweet, sweet love story: Both of us give in to each other. At 50, I am young enough to be the child of these folks, and I would say that is a very reasonable and happy governing principle in a marriage; it does not have to wait for the "last hurrah". (Mr OotFP agrees, I feel sure.)

5:00 PM | 0 comments

Utterly shocking that this plan for a memorial to victims of the Holocaust has been obstructed for so long.

4:53 PM | 0 comments