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January 7, 2009Explaining the NewsI love this fellow’s expressions. Pretty funny; some great one-liners. Check back later for a linkfest! Textbooks, we get textbooks!Actually, my Elder Son gets textbooks. I did think, though, that when Buster majored in music, it would cut down the cost of textbooks. I didn’t realize how much music scores can cost, though. They can get pretty pricey! If you’re heading back to school this week - Buster is - Amazon has new and used textbooks galore with special deals. None of the music scores we need, though! January 6, 2009Voting is Open!![]() I hadn’t realized it but voting opened today for the 2008 Weblog Awards, and you can vote for all of your favorite blogs here. (My li’l old category is here, if you’d like to vote for me!) Best Blog: Hot Air, with my Blogfather, Ed Morrissey, is my go-to-several-times-a-day site. I can always count on Ed to give the story straight up, lucidly and fairly, and in our balkanized age, that’s a rare thing in blogging. Best Individual Blog: I could lie and say I won’t vote for myself, but since I’m going to lose anyway, I figure why not throw a few votes my way as I scatter them throughout this list of interesting bloggers. Best Humor Blog: Treacher. Anyone else surprised Iowahawk wasn’t on that list? Best Comic: I admit, it’s the only one I read of the nominees, and I am also spoiled because Chris Muir once drew a flattering cartoon me, but Day by Day is the answer to Doonesbury, and deserves recognition. Best Liberal Blog: Taylor Marsh. Best Conservative Blog: I think I once came in second to Ace in this category before I got kicked out of the “pure conservative” club, which was okay with me, since I’m not much of a joiner. He’s currently in the lead and I expect it will come down to him, and Michelle Malkin, and that’s probably as it should be. But because I like so many, my votes will be scattered, with attention paid to Kate the Great and to Eject, Eject, Eject because I wish I could write like Bill Whittle. Best Political Coverage: I frankly thought Ann Althouse had the best, and funnest, and most insightful coverage of the election and I wish there was a category for Best Live-Blogging With Outstanding Commentary from Readers, because although my commenters are great, and Ace’s are funny, I do believe Ann Althouse has the best comments threads to be found anywhere. But since she’s not in this category, I’m going with The Politico, mostly, with some votes scattered among other sites. Best Military Blog: Michael Yon. His stuff is just astonishing. Best Middle East or Africa Blog: Michael Totten Best Law Blog: The Volokh Conspiracy. Law writing that even I can understand! Best Business Blog: For the life of me I don’t know why Bizzyblog isn’t in here - that would have been my sole choice, but the nominees here are all good, and I’ll likely scatter my votes. Best LGBT Blog: Gay Patriot and Tammy Bruce Best Religion Blog: This is a category full of great, profound, instructive and moving blogs, but my vote will go solely to Happy Catholic, which is outstanding, everyday. Julie’s blog is classy, thoughtful, wise, faithful, humorous, sometimes searingly honest and she is the exceedingly modest and generous blogger who will continually link to all of the other religion blogs - whether Catholic, Evangelical, Lutheran, Jewish, Atheist or whatever - whenever she gleans something good for all of us, and she does it without ever asking links for her own efforts. I love Happy Catholic, and I bet most religion bloggers would agree that she is sorely under-recognized, even among those of us who appreciate her, because she is so busy pushing everyone else to the front of the stage. Happy Catholic is a hands-down great blog. Vote for Julie! Best Food Blog: Cake Wrecks. So, it’s cakes. I like cakes. Best Blog Design: Snapped Shot Best Culture Blog: Dirty Harry’s Place Best Aussie or Kiwi Blog: Tim Blair Best Major Blog: Instapundit. Of course. Glenn Reynolds is the best gleaner of worthwhile reading I’ve ever seen. Best Very Large Blog: Scattered among many great blogs. Best Midsize Blog: Betsy’s Page. I love straightforward and challenging teacher that comes out in all her writing! Best Up-and Coming Blog: Sundries Shack And a hearty round of applause to Kevin Aylward, founder of Wizbang, and founder of these Awards, who every year puts this together - and it’s a lot of work - and gets few thank-yous from the rest of us who are too busy jumping up and down shouting “vote for me, Vote for ME!” Ummm….yeah, vote for me! I like the maps…a lot!Okay, I am a sucker for colorful, interactive things - I like my Rosetta Stone stuff, too - but this is a little different. If you look to the right sidebar there is a new ad there, for ScriptureDirect.com, that offers a 15 day free trial. Tonight I signed up for it, just to check it out, and I likee. ScriptureDirect.com is a useful tool for religion teachers, preachers, discussion group facilitators and those interested in studying the New Testament with the original Greek texts close at hand. Once you open it (it can register multiple users), you choose the book you want to study, or insert a bit of text and have it opened to you within that book, and you’ll find a map colorful and fascinating map (including way cool animated missionary routes) highlighting where the accounts took place, or to whom the epistles were directed. Here you can also get a summary of who wrote the book, to whom, for what purpose and the literary style. Then you can click to see how the book is structured (helpful for reference) and finally, another click brings you to the text itself, line-by-line in Greek with the translation directly below, then the KJV off to the side. I see there is room for two more translations, but haven’t figured out yet if those are purchased separately and plugged into the program or something. Once you’ve opened the Greek, you can color code text to suit your needs; whether you want to do a word-comparison or so forth and there is an excellent tool (very intuitive, even I can use it!) for outlining and writing a paper, sermon, questions for discussion or your own journal-type entries. I like ScriptureDirect.com a lot, and as it’s not terribly expensive I’m considering taking it on, but I’ll decide about that after trying it a bit more. If you’re kicking around in the winter looking for something new to jump start your brain or your prayer life, give the free trial a whirl! January 5, 2009In ParadisumA reader writes to say she is at her father’s deathbed and he will soon be gone. While he has been ill for over a year, the whole family feels very blessed that they have had time together, and the opportunity to walk with each other through a journey of terrible beauty. Please pray for DMD’s father and her family.
And while you’re praying, if you could remember Michael’s three year-old daughter who is in crisis and for adorable little toddler Gwyneth, who has been diagnosed with a sometimes-lethal skin infection. As we know, everyone gets a turn in the crucible; if we can pray for each other, perhaps our own turns will burn a little less whitely. Mystery Chords and Idols“Thrummmmmm….” “It’s been a hard day’s night You can hear the chord, of course. But can you play it? Exactly? Many have tried, all have failed, it seems, until now:
If you’d like to try comparing the studio chord to a live strike, here you go. I don’t know if they prove anything, though, since mic set-ups, equipment, different timbres and so forth can all make subtle differences. And my goodness how young and beautiful they all were… Opening to the film AHard Day’s Night, with the magic chord Live performance in Paris, 1965, perhaps more notable for the audience and the spare stage Rock and roll has changed a great deal. The world has, too. It is very interesting, indeed, to look back at the crowds. Funnily enough, we don’t even consider their behavior odd, anymore. We’ve become very used to the idea of mere mortals screaming for, adoring and idolizing other mere mortals. Such outpourings for a rock star - or a “rock star politician” - are not looked at as aberrant or psychologically questionably behavior, whereas the (by comparison) relatively staid cheering for a pope is looked at, by some, as embarrassing, oogedy-boogedy weirdness. Cheering crowds are cheering crowds - but what we’re cheering matters. Even a “rock-star pope” is “in” the culture, but not “of” the culture - and as we see here, they tend to strike a different chord, altogether.
And too, the crowds cheering for a pope are - often as not - cheering as much for the Office as the man: Meanwhile, can we say it: rewriting a Christmas Carol to reference Barack Obama must be a kind of idolatry. It really must be. January 4, 2009What I’m listening to right now…![]() September’s Child by The Joel LaRue Smith Trio I don’t have much exposure to Afro-Cuban Jazz, but I was given this CD as a Christmas gift, and I like it a lot. Although I’m no aficionado, I found this album to be immediately engaging. I love Smith’s fluidity at the piano; he has a very smart, bright sound that reminds me a little of Vince Guaraldi. Smith is on the music faculty of the Tuft’s University. There’s no Amazon connection, but if you go to his website and hit the “MEDIA” button, you can hear samples of the work. I like it a lot - I suspect many of you will, too. Give it a listen! January 3, 2009“…Jesus Christ is better.” - UPDATEDA profile of three young Dominican sisters from the Ann Arbor-based teaching order, the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, yields some good things:
This jibes rather nicely with Deacon Greg’s homily for The Epiphany of the Lord, which we celebrate this weekend - we finally get to sing We Three Kings - my favorite!
Next week we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord, and then we head back into Ordinary Time until Lent. But the Christmas story is still going on; it is still being read at daily mass. We have read about the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, and the Presentation of Christ, at the Temple, where Simeon and Anna recognise the Messiah, and where Simeon told Mary about the sword. Because Christmas and Easter, in their way, always come together, as this nun-blogger shares in this wonderful poem If you feel like Christmas is over, and it all went by a little too fast, pick up your scripture and read Luke, and keep reading Chapter 2 for a little while. It’s okay to linger, a bit, when you have caught sight of a star and found something that changes everything. In fact, without lingering a while - to wonder at it all - we may miss the point. UPDATE: I like this last paragraph here. Deacon Greg has a story about a fellow following the star via the Capuchin route. The Caps are exceedingly good men, and many of them are the brightest lights of the priesthood in the current age. Bro. Vito’s blog is here 2008 Blog Awards![]() Heh. I’m a finalist in the Best Individual Blogger category, which is very cool, and I thank y’all for the nomination! Up against a bunch of interesting bloggers I won’t mind losing to. If it weren’t for Happy Catholic, I don’t know if I’d even realize it. Julie, of course, gets my vote for best religious blog, even though it’s a tightly-matched group. I haven’t had a chance to look over the whole list of nominees; I’ve been having computer problems, but Doug Ross has already made his endorsements, and he kindly mentions me; how nice! Another list I’ll have to look over! Voting begins Monday, January 5. Oh, and the Winner of the Grande Conservative Blogress thingie over at Gay Patriot was Atlas Shrugs. That was fun. Also, meant to link to this earlier, but computer problems prevented: an end-of-year look at what many bloggers submitted as their best blog posts of the year. A chance to catch up on what you may have missed! January 2, 2009Happy New Year!![]() Buster, March 1991 Happy New Year!!! A day late; my new year began with company in the house and a computer that needed to more or less be rebuilt! More later! Houseguests are making writing rather difficult! Part of my new years resolution is to “blog-smarter” and earn more money to help out with that kid’s tuition. Until I get back on track, why not tell me what are your new year’s resolutions? HAPPY NEW YEAR AND MAY GOD BLESS US ALL! |
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