The Anchoress

I apologize to all of my Protestant/Jewish/Agnostic friends, but this one is for the Catholics, alone; I need to get something clear in my head. I may or may not write something about it later…depending, of course, on whether my head ever does get clear!

Catholics: A Few Simple Questions: - you can leave your answers in the comments section or email me at: theanchoress@gmail.com.

1) A few minutes before Mass begins, are you:

a) praying/reading
b) talking to a neighbor
c) simply sitting quietly

2) Sign of Peace:

a) I love it and look forward to greeting my neighbors
b) I hate it and wish it would go away or be moved to the start of Mass
c) I don’t love it or hate it.

3) Holding Hands during the Our Father

a) I love it - it’s so unifying
b) I hate it, find it intrusive and wish people would stop doing it.
c) I don’t love it or hate it

4) The Ushers at your parish DO or DO NOT greet you and shake your hand as you are exiting your pew for Communion:

If they DO:

a) I like it - it’s friendly.
b) I don’t like it. We’ve finished the sign of peace and I’m preparing for Communion.
c) I don’t like it or hate it

If they DO NOT:

a) I wish they would!
b) Please, God, don’t give them ideas!
c) I don’t really care

I’d really appreciate it if you could take just the few minutes necessary to answer these questions. I’m not telling my own preferences until ya’ll do! Feel free to expound on your answers, if you like! Thank you.

UPDATE: Due to the huge volume of responses, please forgive me if I am not able to answer each email individually. Just now, my email box is exploding!

…is really pretty impressive.

While other “brilliant” female media darlings get by on empty rhetoric and small, safe, carefully-polled ideas, Dr. Rice simply puts her nose to the grindstone and works, works, works…and gets quite a lot done, earning enormous respect from those who deal with her…and with almost no positive coverage.

This is a pretty fair - even complimentary piece on Rice. A pleasure to read from the WaPo.

And Ed Morrissey had a nice analysis.

I have no doubt that within 3-4 years you will see Tom Brokaw on the national political stage, somwhere, as a candidate.

You heard it here, first!

Varifrank has one of the best and most insightful pieces I have yet read on the whole idea of pulling out of Iraq, and the fact that we are finally “pulling out” of Germany.

…At this point the story of the end of World War II would end the way a thousand other wars had ended. But something happened at the end of this tale, something no one would have guessed, and it was something wonderful that should give us all hope.

Leaving Iraq in 2006 is not a defeat, it’s a victory.

I cannot excerpt it and do justice to it. Just go read it all.

This has to be one of the most picayune, small-minded headlines I’ve ever read:

Bush plans 50th ranch trip in five years

Yeah? So what?

The man has a house that he and his wife designed, built and paid for and he likes to go there to get away from the White House and Washington D.C. - to get a change of pace and scenery and maybe not have to wear a suit and tie as he works.

Why is that so awful? It’s not like he is not still confering, still phoning, meeting, talking, getting advice, monitoring, etc. He’s just doing it on his own comfortable grounds. What could be offensive about that to anyone but perhaps the WH press corps who hate going to Crawford.

To me, this is just extreme pettiness. The man wants a change of scenery. He goes HOME. He doesn’t poll to see where he should vacation. He doesn’t decide he needs to go out of town for a while, so he’ll take a trip to India with a 712 person entourage, or to Africa, or to Malibu or Martha’s Vineyard, and he doesn’t put his getaway on the taxpayer dime.

The man goes home ten times a year - sometimes just for a weekend. Include holidays like Christmas and Easter, Thanksgiving and his August vacation, and you’re talking about 6 little stopovers a year. What’s the big freaking deal? Why that is sooooooo terrible?

President Clinton did not have a home to go to when he was in office. This president does, and he chooses to go there.

You have to really, really hate a man to begrudge him time in his own home. You have to be a very small, niggling sort of person to do that.

This is a very troubling ruling

The General Medical Council has won its appeal against a ruling which gave a seriously-ill patient the right to stop doctors withdrawing food and drink.

Following the Appeal Court verdict, the GMC said it hoped Mr Burke was now reassured he would receive the treatment he needs, including artificial nutrition and hydration and that nothing in its guidance prevented this.

I don’t see how Mr. Burke could possibly be reassured, though, given this:

But during the appeal hearing, Philip Havers, QC, representing the GMC, said the original ruling had fundamentally altered the nature of doctor/patient relationships and was not in the best interests of the patient.

“Our guidance makes it clear that patients should never be discriminated against on the grounds of disability.”

Sounds like words that really don’t mean anything, to me. The bottom line is, when Mr. Burke loses control of his body - but not his mind - a doctor can decide, “well, he can’t walk, can’t talk, what good is he, here? I wouldn’t want to live like him; let’s stop nourishment and hydration and take him off the public dole…”

C’mon now, you’re not really going to try to convince me that that won’t happen?

Junkyardblog think’s this is a bad ruling too.

Julie at Happy Catholic tips us off to what sounds like a fascinating new novel, Valley of Bones.

Julie is so excited about the book that she is giving it a rave while still only halfway through it:

Aside from the intricate mystery there is the spiritual factor. Emmylou claims to have communion with the devil which leads to her being put in a mental institution where, at the detective’s request, she begins writing a confession. However, her confession is more along the lines of St. Augustine’s Confessions … and soon she is filling four notebooks with the story of her life. At this point we meet Lorna Wise, a psychiatrist who is determining Emmylou’s fitness for trial. Both Wise and Paz have actual moments of seeing the devil that Emmylou has mentioned but they manage to lie to themselves. Little doubt is left to the reader, though, that what they are experiencing is real. Strange personality changes start coming over Paz who is beginning to wonder if he is possessed and then shaking off the feeling. I am screaming to him, “Wake up and smell the coffee! YES, yes you are!” Obviously this is no ordinary mystery.

She has a short excerpt here.

Sounds good. My hubby has been complaining he has nothing good to read (he can’t, for some reason, every finish a Harry Potter book), so it sounds worth ordering for him.

If you are interested in the book, please note it is at the top of my bookshelf (scroll down the sidebar). Anything you order via The Anchoress Bookshelf generates monies which are wholly donated to the hospice which helped see my brother thru his last days, so I always very much appreciate it when you enter Amazon via that portal!

H/T Amy Welborn.

Okay, everyone who reads here with any regularity knows that I am a pathetic technophobe who understands nothing about computers or the internet beyond…you know…I type on keyboard and it makes words on my monitor, and if I use the magic formula, I can link to other people’s blogs.

That’s it, that is ALL I know, and I don’t know if I even want to know more! I get so confused!

But…

Can someone explain to me what an RSS feed is? What does it do? Do I have one? Should I get one? I notice that my stuff sometimes appears at Memeorandum, which is a news aggregator, so does that mean I’m already doing the RSS-feed thing? What does it all mean?

PS: If you are a brave enough soul to try to explain this to me, please use baby words. Very small words of one syllable, accompanied by analogies, similies or parables, if you feel they will help…explain it to me as you would a 4 year old…because I am THAT pathetic when it comes to this stuff. You know how you taught your kids to tie shoelaces by making bunnies and holes? That’s about how you’ll have to explain it!

PPS: No, No, No…I am sorry March Hare, but I must disqualify your answer! We cannot have any of these “I think” sorts of answers, because all you will do is send me wailing off into the night in confusion - they will find me curled in a fetal position, with a bottle of Prozac between my knees muttering…”aggregator…email…RSS…what does it all mean? I’m scared! Mommeee!”

No, no, I must insist. Only answer the bleg if you know what it means.

And don’t all get cute now and start telling me all sorts of different things. For example, if you write that RSS means The Right Side Sucks, I will suspect that this is probably incorrect. If you tell me RSS feeds broadcast my blog to all the Royal Ships at Sea…well, the sad truth is, I might very well believe you! So be nice! Be kind! Please!

If you have not been following the story of how Air America sayed on the air by apparently using money meant for children and the elderly well, where have you been?

I admit when the story first broke, I figured it would be yet another story wherein the liberal/left perps get a free ride from the press (ala Sandy Berger) as the story disappears. And that may still happen…as it stands right now, the MSM has NOT covered any of this. But right now I’d say a blogswarm is begun, and that Al Franken (who is considering running for public office) has a few questions to answer along the “what did he know and when did he know it” lines.

Go-to bloggers on this are Brian Maloney (just keep scrolling down) who Hugh Hewitt says “owns” the story, along with Ed Morrissey, Michelle Malkin, Macho Nachos, Mark in Mexico, (who has a MAJOR link compilation) Wizbang, LaShawn and, of course, Hugh Hewitt.

Did I mention that the Mainstream, Establishment Media, which gave Air America a big kick-off, front page coverage, yadda yadda…has not mentioned any of this, yet?

UPDATE: I stand corrected. The Washington Times has a piece. But then, I don’t know that I’d call them part of the MSM.

Betsy Newmark wrote yesterday - and exceedingly well - on the issue of American History and how our students are being so severely shortchanged by the “social studies” curriculum of the last 30 years. You’ll want to read all her thoughts on the issue, but I loved this part:

Instead, the classes became endless exercises in coloring in maps and labeling tables of exports from various countries. The study of Russia involves a lesson coloring in a picture of St. Basil’s Cathedral and eating pirozhki. The kids can rattle off names like Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great but they don’t know anything about these people. I haven’t taught Russian history, but I’d start a lesson showing Ilya Repin’s magnificent painting of Ivan the Terrible right after he’d killed his own son. Show the kids that painting of a father who has just realized what he’s done and they’ll be clamoring to know more about him and why he was called “terrible.” Sure, they can look at a map but who cares if they can identify the outline of every country in Europe if they don’t know why that geography is important - how Poland’s history has been affected because they are a flat country stuck between Germany and Russia or how England’s destiny was different because it was an island that hasn’t been invaded successfully since 1066.

Betsy’s contention is that teachers of history should be people who love history - teachers of math should be people who love math. When you love the subject you are teaching, you will ignite your students with by the fire of your own passion!

History classes should be the most interesting ones in the school, but too many times those classes are the dullest. McCullough is right - get teachers who loved history so much that they majored in it college. Hire people who in their spare time read books about history for fun.

I SO agree!