One only need to note that the majority of my hits right now are coming from an Altavista image search for Napoleon Dynamite

Sweet!!!

OK two weeks into my fantasy football league and here is how my team looks -- GOOD

I drafted based on what I was used to - yardage leagues, which is not what I was in. You win some, you lose some. This is a touchdown league with unusual defensive scoring -- as in HIGH ... one of them scored 53 points this week. Thus, it pays to have a stud defense. I picked up 9 sack performing San Diego after week 1. They nearly shutout the Titans and managed to come up with 2 interceptions to aid my cause. Here is my current roster ... (normal starters before --)

QB: Eli Manning -- Rex Grossman
RB: R. Johnson, C. Taylor -- D. McAllister, M. Bell
WR: C. Johnson, D. Jackson, A, Johnson -- A. Bryant, D. Bennett, T. Williamson
TE: L. Smith
K: R. Gould
D: San Diego

As of now it looks like I have stud starters at every position. My problem is bye weeks. I do not want to shed anyone from my team and I will have to in order to fill my defensive opening this week. Mike Bell anyone?

I want to immediately make it clear that I support a womans right to choose homebirth. I also maintain that every effort should be made by our society to ensure that women who do choose this route are not inhibited by law or selfish interests.

That said, our discernment about homebirth has become much clearer. There are several practical factors that must be considered which have us almost certainly choosing the hospital route.

We are setting aside the hopital intervention question as it is a seperate issue from the general homebirth safety question. Feeding the hospital intervention information into the queue as if it is relevant is clouding the issue. First off, it presumes that it is near impossible to have a natural delivery in a hopital setting which is simply not true. Everyone knows of people who have done it.

There are several of what I consider to be valid criticisms of almost all of the homebirth safety studies that exist. For example, in one frequently cited study (Johnson & Daviss) even excluding outlying conditions like midwives who try to deliver babies of higher risk (breach, twins etc), we see higher mortality rates in the homebirth group than the hospital group. Second, it is impossible to eliminate bias, as has even been pointed out by midwives

... because the women who choose homebirth tend to have a higher level of education, and higher socioeconomic status, than the general population. These and other traits are also associated with a lower risk of dead or sick babies. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether it is homebirth itself which gets the good results, or the women who choose homebirth.

Third, considering outcomes in other countries pertains to the unique situations that exist in THOSE countries. I have said this in a recent post ... The United States is not the UK. The Netherlands has a lower mortality rate than the United States. They also have high homebirth rates. These are all well and good and show how things SHOULD be in the US, but they are not. Quite simply, for our location, I can see no real evidence that PROVES that homebirth is as safe or safer than hospital birth when including the outcomes of both the mother and the baby.

At best, the studies simply suggest (that is, NOT prove) that under certain conditions home birth is as safe as hospital birth. The evidence is NOT overwhelming and more study needs to be done -- especially in the US where conditions are far from ideal both legally and practically.

Back to those certain conditions -- Every study purporting to show the safety of homebirth generally does so under the following conditions:
- Low risk pregnancies
- Well trained attendants
- Established channels for emergency care

The simple fact is that we do not meet two of these requirements.

Low risk pregnancies: VBAC is not low risk so even using the studies that do exist to make our decision is dubious at best. In fact there is a recent study suggesting that VBAC at home is substantially less safe than in a hospital setting. With the risk of uterine rupture, fetal monitoring is typically required as it is one of the first signs it is going to happen. This type of monitoring is not typically present in your average homebirth situation. Second, uterine rupture can happen quickly and it can be catastropic and result in the death of the mother and the baby.
Established channels for emergency care: Our path to the nearest hospital is not ideal and our nearest hospital is not equipped to deal with the situation we could be bringing them. Our transfer time is anywhere from 20-45 minutes to the nearest hospital. It would be catastrophic to be caught in rush hour traffic with an accident on the interstate for a transfer even with a police escort. Using an ambulance would delay our transfer by as much as 15 minutes (we sadly know this from experience). Accidents on the interstate are NOT uncommon during rush hour. Our two primary paths to the nearest hospital are significantly delayed under that circumstance.

We are an outlying case. In our circumstance we feel it is difficult to justify a decision to homebirth.

My 5 year old son loves Star Wars BTW. In the top left corner he wrote Wednesday ... its hard to see though.

Last night my wife and I went to a timely talk titled "Discernment". It focused on discernment in the model of The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and was presented by a nun who resides in our parish. It was very thorough for the short time frame. Interestingly, in light of my adoration hour the night before, a particular aspect of her talk came into better focus for me. My prayer the night before had pointed it out, but the talk gave a name to it:

Indifference

This might be better defined as objectivity or total surrender to the idea that whatever the outcome of the decision, you are OK with the path that takes you closer to God. Ideally you do not care which of the outcomes He leads you towards so any of them need to be acceptable if it is His will. After all, His ways are not ours. To point this out let me point out some information that I *was* focusing on in our decision to homebirth or not.

ACOG supports contraception. In fact, OB's almost universally distribute them.
ACOG supports abortion and most OB's recommend testing that aims to terminate the lives of unborn children. In fact, ACOG opposes any restrictions to abortion.
OB's typically support methods of artificial fertilization which violate the unitive act of marriage in conflict with Catholic teaching
Inhibitors to natural child birth and breastfeeding are strongly encouraged by doctors and support staff thus violating the right of children to receive parental care within the effective natural processes intended by God to bring children into the world and nurture them.

Now those are likely true for most doctors. They may EVEN be true for OUR doctor. The problem is, we control the decisions our doctor makes that apply to our faith. We do not contracept. We will not use aritficial methods to achieve conception. We will not engage in testing in order to procure an abortion that will kill our unborn child. The relative stance of the majority of doctors does not apply to us. To that end, the majority of the statements above only cloud the decision and foster bias in favor of the homebirth decision. Of them, only one directly affects our birthing process -- hospitals typically are places that discourage, by their policies, natural childbirth. There are Catholic NFP-only doctors who adhere firmly to the teachings of the Church and there are midwives who support the same stances that I question above. If we were going to choose a care provider based on whether they share our Catholic beliefs we would be limited to only a few options. The real questions we need answers to regarding doctors and hospitals are more like this:

Can our doctor peform the tasks for which we hire her to perform?
Will our doctor undermine our faith by choices she makes? (from experience we know that she will not)
Is the hospital an acceptable, comfortable, nurturing place to give birth to our child?
etc.

Through prayer I have been led to consider things in a different light and in a manner that removes a strong bias I have that might have caused me to choose a provider of lesser skill based on the fact that we would be able to have great rapport swapping conversion stories and devotional tips. Who loses out on the benefit of superior care?

It seems logical to consider the items listed at the beginning and give them high weight in the decision making process but in this case they are clouding the real issues. It is difficult for us to rip down biases, especially those crafted in the guise of following our faith more closely. The fact is, we live in the world and we cannot preach Christ to the world if we spend the rest of our lives avoiding the world we are supposed to live in.

Oh and thank you Mark Shea for pointing me to Holy Office: The Medicine Cabinet

How to Give a Bad Homily
Pope You

It has been a while since I posted and it is this very reason that I will never be an influential blogger (see my Seven Habits for bloggers). My wife and I have been going through quite a few critical discernment issues. They are summarized below:

1. We decided against homeschooling for THIS YEAR because my wife is having our 4th child and our oldest is kindergarten age. It was a matter of answering the question: What sets up the most conducive environment for the development of ALL of our children? There are more factors than "pubik schoolz suck" at play here.

2. We thus, having the advantage of public schools that would make certain squeaky wheels chirp ceaselessly, sent our child to the local public school to start kindergarten.

3. We then discovered that kindergarten is different than it used to be. Most kids are 5.5 to 6.5 in age. This made our son the youngest in his class by about 6 months. We decided after much consideration to transfer him to a Catholic pre-K instead. It costs a little bit more but in the long run I think he will benefit. I then was alerted to an article on the matter of older kids starting kindergarten than in the past ... the bottom line, from our discussions with older parents and in the article, is that nobody seems to regret starting their kids a little later. Plenty of folks seem to regret pushing their kids beyond their means at such a young age. Err on the side of safety and allow our son to develop in his timing not that of businesses dying to get him on the payroll at 22 years of age. They can wait until he is 23.

4. We have a long story about birthing to recount, but essentially we are CONSIDERING the homebirth route for our next child. I have moved from the "it’s a crazy idea" camp to "it’s not totally irresponsible" camp to the "this is more in line with our beliefs on life" camp. I have to stress that we are still in discernment on the matter. I have some statistics on homebirth that I plan to critique. They LOOK great but as I have posted in the past, statistics are not science and ones done on populations are prone to the most abuse by those with agendas.

Never fear ... I will ask for input so I expect some different visitors with different viewpoints when I pose the questions criticizing the statistics often used to support homebirth.

I want to make it clear that I support birthing centers and the general homebirth movement. I think WOMEN should have that choice and avenues should be available to them to make that decision and make it as SAFE as possible. It appears that it is a big struggle for those who make this choice, as we are learning, and in these United States of America we should find that appalling.

Anyway, I have decided that my brain is full and it is time for me to vent on a variety of topics. They are, in no particular order:

Homebirth
6 year olds in kindergarten
Judging parenting decisions
Attachment parenting
The Parousians at LSU

OK, I am sick but this article is worth taking the time to read

Mark Steyn: It's breeding obvious, mate
Australia and the US can avoid the bleak future awaiting dying old Europe via Mark Shea

Now, bear with me, this is going to be a total nerd post but you might benefit from having read it. Geeks reading this will laugh that I am WAY behind on having discovered this. I have been using Firefox for quite a while. If you are not using Firefox, you are seriously missing out. Firefox has something called extensions, which allow you to add functionality to the web browser. I have several that I like to use. In fact, I listed my FIVE FAVORITE on a forum about 3 days ago. They were:

1. The combination of Adblock (or AdBlock Plus) and Adblock Filterset.G Updater - If you hate banner ads, this is for you.
2. CopyURL+ - If you blog or post links a LOT then this extension is VERY useful. Its worth the effort to customize it.
3. IE Tab - there are some websites you want to subject to IE only ... this allows you to switch a tab to IE without getting out of Firefox and it allows you to render certain sites ALWAYS in IE.
4. Dictionary Tooltip - right click on a word, know what it means ... uses several online dictionaries
5. Fasterfox - Trust me ... you will appreciate the performance increase

Then I discovered two more ...

1. Greasemonkey - Allows you to add scripts that modify how certain sites look and even act.
2. Platypus - Allows you to make modifications to web pages that can be saved and applied via Greasemonkey.

I will never browse the same again ..

Here is an example of a perfect use for Platypus (which uses Greasemonkey). I use WeatherUnderground to track storms. WeatherUndergound has TONS of information on the screen that I find useless when all I want to see is the radar and the list of the storms. In about 3 minutes I removed all of the extraneous information using Platypus. When you click save, Platypus shows you the Greasemonkey script and then gives you the option to install it, which I did. Here are before and after pictures.

Before Platypus modification:


After Platypus modification:


Notice the scrollbar on the BEFORE picture and also notice that the table containing the storm data (look for the yellow boxes) is slightly wider so that I can fit more storm information in the same amount of vertical space.

Now, I had to make a modification in Greasemonkey so that all of the radar URL's matched but that wasn't too difficult a task. When I surf around the rest of the WeatherUnderground site, everything appears as normal. It only affects the radar pages. All of the changes I made in Platypus I think anyone reading this can make after playing with it a little bit. Any changes you make while playing around you can get rid of by clicking refresh. The changes are not saved unless you SAVE and INSTALL the script.

So Install them and have fun ....

I HAD to add this ... I couldn't stop laughing

Read more at CVSTOS FIDEI - Beirut Under Attack Again!!!

Since this has been all over the blogosphere in the past few days AND since I already do not have a healthy trust of the media, I thought I would direct you to a post on Bettnet.com titled Don’t believe your eyes … or the media. This makes me feel even less comfortable about what I read.

Pope Says Beaumont Cathedral Now a Basilica

Worshipped there before. It really is a beautiful church. The only thing I did not like about the restoration was that the wood floors are a little TOO brand new. When they age some it is going to look even better.

If you are along the coast stop in. You won't regret it.

I couldnt even get a good rant going on this ... but I'll give you a blurb anyway

I find it interesting, and disturbing, that I have happened upon TWO articles in the span of a couple hours on keeping our children entertained with media during various times of the day when they are currently NOT being entertained. First off, we have the addition of a telivised babysitter in shopping carts. Second, the burden of keeping teenagers in check on the bus may soon be replaced by an ad-driven subscription radio alternative. (I know there are already radios on busses and have been for years)

Now, back to the shopping carts. I can tell you now that the technology to gear the ads kids watch to coincide with what aisle mommy is on exists. When kids whine, mommy buys. Whether they go that far initially remains to be seen. Still, apart from filling our kids brains with advertising we have the extra "TV time" added to their day. As it is now kids spend about 4 hours a day in front of the TV **1. (that stat is mind boggling to me) ... Considering school, I am not sure how kids fit all that time in. I wish I had 4 hours a day to do anything much less to spend in front of a television. Consider further that video game time is NOT counted in that number. I know that many parents do not expect their TV's to be babysitters but I am certain everyone reading this blog has met at least one set of parents they suspect use it for that reason FREQUENTLY. It's as if some children are parented by television executives. TV's in kids rooms are common and studies SUGGEST (Disclaimer) that children with TV's in their rooms have lower academic performance and **2 are at greater risk of being overweight. **3

Here is some simple advice: "[The AAP] does not recommend television for children age 2 or younger. For older children, the Academy recommends no more than 1 to 2 hours per day of educational, nonviolent programs."

Everyone knows this. It is common sense. All I am saying is that you spend more time with your kids and NOT in front of the TV. After all, the TV time outside of your control is increasing. Your time with them is not.

DISCLAIMER: note SUGGEST is carefully chosen word here ... Statistics are not science. Statistics when viewed without a proper understanding of statistical methods can be very misleading. Media is the WORST about citing statistics to support a point. The articles I cite here do not give numbers so an accurate judgment is difficult to make. The conclusions, however, fit very well within a reaonsable theory about how TV affects childhood.

SOURCES AND LINKS:

**1 AAP on Television and the Family
**2 Bedroom TVs could ruin children's education
**3 Bedroom TVs Linked to Fatter Kids

See also Why is getting rid of your TV SO rAdiKal? -- we now have a TV that is placed such that it is difficult to access for long periods of time. I want the primary bulk of my kids day spent being active and learning new things.

My favorite churches are the old ones (see Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica for example) however, I like contemporary design. IMHO there will be a handful of flying saucer style churches that will survive the ages as good examples of design from our current time frame. The ones that will survive are the ones that took their cues from older churches and helped to make obvious the teachings of the Church. Too many of them are all about the people (its all about me syndrome) and less about worship.

In fact, MUCH discussion goes on in our town over St. John Vianney. People either love it or hate it. I personally love it save one thing. I wish the altar were on one end and the congregation was reorganized accordingly. I have heard that "in the round" is a really old school way of doing mass. I just personally do not like looking at half the congregation during mass.

I personally think the crucifix is awesome as are the statues of Mary and the stations of the Cross. The pictures I provide do not do it justice. Also note, there ARE kneelers ... The visibility of the natural setting makes attending mass there a wholy unique and reverant experience, especially the early morning mass right around sunrise. It is what I think modern architecture in churches should strive for .... provided you go that route.

It was also a cheap (relatively) church to build which is unfortunately very much the high priority with our modern day cost conscious building committees.

**See also my post on Why beauty is a perfectly valid reason to return to Rome which contains a large photo of the altar at Notre Dame in Montreal. Also, my conversion story entry on Beauty and a post of mine critical of modern design in the Church titled Why modern design generally doesn't work in the Catholic Church.

Its Beauty ... and we like it



I heard a guy on the radio make the following statement.

"You know, we should have Hot Air balloon competitions every Friday. It makes my day to drive around town with hundreds of balloons in the air"

In the world of rising big box retailers and cheap functional buildings things like this give me hope.

Heart Mind and Strength Weblog (HMS) is one of my favorite blogs. I was originally going to link to Kevin Miller's post on The Transfiguration of Our Hearts because the art he included is really awesome. Since it is HMS though and it happens to be about the mass readings for today I suggest you take the time to read it ...

Also, I sent HMS an email about a birthing center that we are hoping to use. Here is the text of the email

Talk about weird timing :)

My wife's friend is going to have her baby there. There is also another one that is planning to open at the first of 2007 in Covington Louisiana that has a specifically Catholic mission. My wife is due in February and if everything works out we will be one of their first patients at the new birthing center.

Here is a link to ...the web site of the doctor/midwife who is starting it.

I must say this is all welcome, especially given that the epidural rate at our local hospital is something unreal like 97% (I am pretty sure that is what they said at our classes we took with our first child ... one of the highest in the nation I think). The section rate is also very high.

Many have a fit over exposed breast on the cover of Baby Talk

Summa Mamas ...

i think it's ironic that the answer to the question posed on the cover (why don't women nurse longer?) of the august edition of babytalk is being shouted from the mouths of all the "shocked and horrified" -- not to mention crude and callow -- female readers who are in some sort of victorian tizzy at seeing a sliver of a breast in action. less breast can be seen on babytalk than is shown by pam anderson's bikini top on the cover of the magazine across the grocery isle, but i don't hear of many women taking to the streets over that one.

I am not sure if I would have gone so far as to recommend therapy, but the rest is pretty close to how I feel. Part of me sympathizes just a bit .. it seems that in the 70's, breastfeeding was WAY countercultural. Our whole society has a wrong way of thinking, although it is not because they are jerks ... its because they are ignorant about breastfeeding. For some though, its similar to the reason some people are so "indignant" when they see a family with 5 or more children. After all, how outrageous and irresponsible are those parents really when the rest of the country is making sure we are barely hitting our replacement rate? Trust me, THAT it isn't irresponsibility upsetting people ...

FOLLOWUP: Summa Mamas hits a solid home run with a followup post entitled I wonder if these would be kicked off the cover of babytalk by angry mothers?

I Saw Below Me a Golden Valley

This is an absolutely stunning aerial photograph

Classical High Mass video

I have not had time to watch the whole video but if anyone wants to know why traditionalists prefer the Tridentine mass, there are few better reasons than this. Its simply gorgeous and everything points to the reality of what happens in the Mass. Commentary in the video is by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, whose case for canonization by the way has been assisted by two apparent miracles (as I mentioned in my last reading roundup ...)

Embryo research 'like Nazi experiment'

Ummm yep .. 50 years from now I hope we can look back and say that our society as a whole was crazy to even consider this ...

We have witnessed over 40 years of federally approved contraception, 30+ years federally approved murders of the innocent unborn. Years of "Not yet federally approved" euthanasia, or what is called "death with dignity"....And now we await approval by various states and governmental bodies to sanction that which we thought would never return - the wanton and destructive experimentation of human beings, humans in their most vulnerable and primitive state.

There is nothing like adoration at midnight to remind you that all of the good intentions you have of praying for everyone under the sun can fall totally flat when the reality of your humanity insists that you cannot keep watch for even one hour. Tonight was one of those nights for me. Fortunately I was able to read a few intriguing chapters of The Sinners Guide to give me ample ammunition in dealing with my apparently large number of shortcomings.

Nothing like a dose of reality from a loving God to remind you that He wants you in Heaven and will make every effort to get you to realize what is necessary to get there.

Confession, here I come ... (and no, its not for falling asleep at adoration .. it was due to an unexpected examination of conscience)

Christian Retailers Put Their Print on Products

I am not at all opposed to the idea of making things in order to help increase the opportuinty for dialogue with the world when it comes to your faith. In small doses and in certain circumstances I generally find it to be a good thing. However, I have two general problems with some of this type of stuff.

1) Questionable Legality. This is obviously depending on whether or not the item derives itself from, for example, a popular brand. My wife made a t-shirt once, interestingly enough for a Christian group. My wife pointed out a scene in a Disney movie that birthed the idea for the t-shirt to a lawyer who was to review the design for any legal issues. Trust me, the design was a vague resemblance. The lawyer was concerned that a jury might label it as a derivative work and shot down the design. Now there are other factors to be considered, like legitimate fair use and threat to the brand itself. Its murky waters with copyright law. I am pretty sure Disney would have not come after an obscure t-shirt to be worn by about 50 persons. Still, the fact that we see BLATANT examples of derivative works in Christian t-shirts adds to an overall impression that Christians are not themselves creative or, even worse, that Christianity itself stifles creativity. Furthermore, to defy copyright law, even if not blatantly, lends itself to a certain amount of deserved criticism for hypocrisy.

2) Pop-Culture driving Christian art. Our Christian faith should drive art -- not the other way around. To better make my point here let me point out that until the most recent centuries, Christian art had a long history of driving the art world. Sit through any art history class and count the centuries of Madonna and Child paintings. It is hard to deny that the resources Christians poured into works of art from painting, to sculpture and even the architecture of the great cathedrals themselves was a great boon to art and culture. The great works of Christian art have and will continue to be taught about in art schools. Art schools, no matter how secular, cannot get out of it. Christ WILL BE PREACHED with every slide, Powerpoint presentation and print bearing a photograph of, for example, Michaelangelos Pieta. Today art seems to be dominated by the world. For Christians, it is an afterthought requiring little more than a shifting around and a stamping of Jesus onto it to make Christ palatable to the masses. After all, we didn't have to develop the artform, only the Christianizing of it. I certainly feel that avenue affects some people but I am not sure that the legacy of Christian trinkets we are building in the current time frame is one that will remain a lasting one. A fad is a fad. It has a comeback in 20 years and generally is lost forever. It sure would be nice if Christianity were to regain an appreciation for the fine arts and develop artists for the glory of God, rather than relying on the "more cost effective" option of allowing the starving, secular artists of the world to drive new ideas and promote their values in culture and just retooling it a little to pretend it is a most effective means to bring people to Christ. If the Church focuses more energy on the arts, and Christianizing art again, then we might have less starving artists and more art that Christians would be proud of -- and that the rest of the world would sit up and notice.

and now we have this unexpected twist regarding Tropical Storm Chris. The storm looks mighty impressive for being one that wasn't supposed to do much (as everyone was saying this morning) ...

Anyway ... looks like it is headed for Florida and the Gulf. Are you ready? .. and that includes people outside the south. I have a feeling some gas price panics might occur after last season ... or so everyone around here (at work) seems to think.

OK, last post on the Tropical Storm ...

Steven Colbert

OK, I am posting this for my parents because I promised to.

An example of his humor

And the segment with Catholic League president William Donohue


Catholic News items

A couple of newsworthy items for Catholics, neither of which interest me all that much but everyone is talking about them so here you go.

Mel Gibson was arrested on suspicion of DUI

Reclaiming the Feminine Spirit in the Catholic Priesthood

Ummm yeah. Lots of press on this item. I wonder if I could get some air time if I tried to get my pet fish ordained?
As I have posted in the past

"... I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." - -Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, May 22, 1994

How much clearer can it get?

For a summary of related Canons and the near certain excommunications to soon be delivered see †Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam†: Before the "Ordinations" Tomorrow, Let Us Recall...

A couple of late additions

Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, John Paul II, 22 May 1994 - Apostolic Letter
and from the CDF (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)
Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (15 October 1976) which clarifies the matter.

And all it does right now is point back to here ... Don't worry. I am not leaving this blog behind for my space. I have MUCH more control here (namely I use JavaScript for my blogrolls and music lists) and the URL is WAAAYYYY cooler.

If anyone is interested, catch up with me ... its a good stopping point to discuss the first 8 chapters ... here is your link ... no excuses ... click it. Go ahead. The chapters are well written and short.

A question to throw out for the idea of hating sin ... How to go about it? Should we focus on its negative effects to develop such hatred? Should we bother with sins that do not affect us (like, I am not personally every going to have an abortion) ... Should we focus on the ones that tend to affect us and especially those to which we are most prone to?

I personally have come to loathe the idea of using contraception (you might note that I rail on it occasionally) thus it isn't a tremendous temptation any more. In fact, I bore of railing against it. Would slacking on hating sin cause a love of it to return?

I can think of a few I need to loathe more ..

Just some thoughts after having read Chapter 8 ...

OK I am tired tonight ... but I wanted to post some reading material up that I have collected over the past few days ...

Christian Retailers Put Their Print on Products via Get Religion as cited by ++ relapsed catholic ++

The Baroque Qwik-E-Mart Artistically Considered

I think this is awesome and more consideration should be given to such things. I am personally tired of hearing ads for 70-billion square-foot metal buildings for every manner of use. I hear the ads because the demand for bland buildings serving their "function" is quite high. Functionality is great for, say, a warehouse.

I am pleased that most of the new establishments where people actually congregate are starting to look nicer.

So ... now I want to see the massive Gothic retail outlet.

And along those lines ...

A New Church in WV...And It Looks Like a Church

It is always inspiring to me to see a beautiful Church and know that things such as these are not confined to the past.

Patron Saints of Graphic Design from Happy Catholic

Catholic Church NOT Opposed to Stem Cell Research: Catholic Bioethicist

To sum it up

Among the four primary sources of human stem cells (human embryos, fetal tissues and organs from aborted or miscarried babies, pregnancy matter (umbilical cord, placenta, amniotic fluid), and adult tissues and organs), the extraction of stem cells from human embryos is always morally evil on account of the method necessarily destroying the life of the embryo. Fr. Pacholczyk explained that the Catholic Church only applauds that research which uses stem-cells procured from methods that do not violate human life.

Two 'miracles' surface in Sheen sainthood bid

St. Mr. T

Don't miss this one. The picture of St. Mr. T is the best ...

Feed2JS

I found this nifty tool that I am using to display my 10 most recently listened to songs from Last.fm. I tried using the images. This, however, is much cooler. You can take any RSS feed and publish it in a block on your blog (or website).

Try it out and give the site much love.

Here is what I did with it.

I am working on some changes to the blog. I like some of the new themes they have available but I need to work on fitting what I already use with it. If it looks goofy for a few days, forgive me.

A couple of news items ...

Banker in food scandal is found dead after Opus Dei meeting

"Police have made no linkage between his disappearance and Opus Dei."

So why include the organization in the lead of the article? I happen to know that lots of people have been abducted in Wal-Mart parking lots and then found brutally murdered. That doesn't mean that the "secretive" retail giant had them knocked off.

I don't get this. I have had no problem finding anything out about Opus Dei. Of couse, the reason I have never joined is the temptation to use my membership to freak out Da Vinci Code believers. *smile*

A Changing Church: More Vietnamese Americans Are Becoming Catholic Priests

Asians make up just 1 percent of the Catholic Church within the United States but account for 12 percent of all Catholic seminary students nationwide

I have seen this first hand. We have a beautiful parish in our diocese that is heavily Vietnamese. In fact, they even have one of the masses entirely in Vietnamese. You could hardly identify a Vietnamese population in Baton Rouge 20 years ago. Today they have taken one of the dying inner city parishes in an unsafe part of town and turned it into a vibrant Church filled with tremendous works of mercy. It is also one of the most beautiful churches in town. The glory of Christ shines brightly with the Vietnamese Catholics in our diocese. I am glad to hear that the same holds true elsewhere.

Trying to get my blog back on track.

Apparently the world has learned to use RSS readers and whatnot so more people are visiting even though my posting has been somewhat spotty. That and Google is picking me up so I am still getting about 4 times as many visitors as I got at this point last year from Google searches alone.

Powerful Stuff - "Rosalind Moss's talk, "Mary, Our Jewish Mother" which can be found on iTunes under Ave Maria University Presents" - Rosalind Moss is one of the many puzzle pieces in my return to the faith. You have to love the sincere zeal displayed from a woman who clearly loves the Church as much as she does. An example from her conversion (and on Houshold of Faith, the video series she did with Kristine Franklin)

"If Christ's sacrifice was sufficient, then how was it that we added to it? Because to offer ourselves with Christ is to say that His sacrifice is not sufficient. And everyone I had asked said we didn't add to it because they wanted me to understand that the Catholic Church believed that Christ's sacrifice was sufficient. But Msgr. O'Connor said to me, 'Yes, we add to the sacrifice of Christ; and yes, His sacrifice was sufficient. No, He doesn't need us; but He receives us. We legitimately add.'

"I thought, 'Aha! The truth is out at last. This is heresy. You believe that we add to the sacrifice of Christ and now it's out in the open. I <knew> I couldn't trust the Catholic Church.'

"And in the next moment what he had said penetrated my mind, or my heart, and became the most beautiful thought I'd ever heard. I thought immediately of a mother baking a cake, and her little child in the kitchen with her. The mother has everything there sufficient for the cake; but here comes the daughter and says, 'Mommy, I want to help.' So the mother receives the daughter because that love receives. She lets the daughter put the eggs in. Is the mother sufficient? Yes. Does she need the daughter? No. Does she allow the daughter to add? Yes. The daughter's addition is not needed, but it's received and it's a true addition. And I thought, 'That's love.'

"The human mind, and certainly the Protestant mind, could never conceive of it. Two weeks later, driving home from Mass, I realized for the first time, 'I don't think I want to be outside of this too much longer.'"

It's Pretty Clear That We Need More Pirates - The real truth behind Global Warming. As the number of pirates decreases ... well ... you do the math.

New Houston Co-Cathedral coming along Seems like the 5 or so hour drive might be worth it when the cathedral is complete.

NCR worried about SSPX reconciling with Rome?

Personal notes:

* I am averaging about 208 in the few games (10, was injured after game 1 last week) I have bowled in league this season. I am not sure I will make 21 games though so my highest official average will likely remain 202.

* I was putting my oldest son to sleep last night after watching the Dreamworks film "Prince of Egypt" which is about Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Anyway, afterwards he was interested in hearing more of the story so I started to read Exodus to him. I figure any opportunity to read large blocks of the Bible to your kids is a good one to take. As he started to fall asleep I started to summarize the plagues and ask him questions.

A little background is necessary here. We have lots of frogs around the home and we even have a few regulars that clean our windows of flying insects at night.

At one point, I queried "Hey, did you realize there was a plague of frogs?" He peeked up at me and went "Yeah Dad .. remember *I* saw the movie and YOU didn't"