The Anchoress

I know I say almost every day that I can’t blog because I have a pressing deadline on a book…

It happens to be the truth, and because every day I say that I can’t blog and then commence many hours of blogging and ‘net surfing, I am now really up against it. I have to deliver this dubious project by December 1, and in between there is, you know, Thanksgiving-at-my-house and many-Buster-projects that need supporting.

So having posted on La Pelosi earlier, I am going to give a quick round-up and then really, really, really get to work on the stuff that dangles a paycheck before me. Which reminds me, let me shout out a great big and sincere “thank you” to two people who donated $20.00 each to the site via the Amazon Honor System button. For some reason Amazon no longer tells me who these nice folks are, so I can’t send a personal email of thanks. Please know I appreciate your kindness and generosity very much. You help keep the site going!

IN THE MAIL TODAY: Let God’s Light Shine Forth; The Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI, edited by Robert Moynihan, Doubleday. I hope to get to reading it after December 1, but don’t wait for my recommendation - you know whether you dig Benny or not, and if you don’t, this looks to be an excellent volume to help you figure that out - a nice overview and introduction to his life and work! I’ll stick a helpful button-link to it at the end of the post!

ON THE MILITARY: Some excellent posts - check out the US Soldiers taking their oath of citizenship at Average Gay Joe’s blog. Fortunately their citizenship does not require them to subscribe to the NY Times. Best of all is Julie’s picture and excerpt from a soldier caught tenderly holding a sleeping Iraqi child.

No, not this picture, it’s a different one. But I like this picture so much I wanted to show it again! The beauty of that child and the obvious carefulness of the soldier just take my breath away.

A WAR AND NOT A WAR: AJ notes that the Dems think ten years to settle Afghanistan is reasonable, but three years in Iraq is too much, and wonders why. He writes: I am not for bugging out of either place - but if we had to pick one to give up to Al Qaeda, my choice would not be Iraq with all its oil resources, educated populace and WMD expertise.

Good thinking.

BUSH: STUBBORNLY CLINGING TO HONORABLE VICTORY OVER IGNOBLE RETREAT?: Not so fast there, you redeployers! Writes Ed Morrissey: Fresh on the heels of the New York Times interviews with retired generals opposing the cut-amd-run/phased deployment strategies of the Democrats, the Guardian (UK) reports that the White House will propose a concentrated effort to stamp out the sectarian violence in Baghdad…Simon Tisdall quotes his anonymous source as saying that the plan can be described in a nutshell: “lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it.”

I dunnnnnoooooo…I don’t think you can win a war with an expedient maneuver, particularly if the effort is understood to be followed by withdrawal. Anything can be waited out. Rick Moran says Bush is trying to get the single-minded “pull-out” Democrats and the ISG to think strategy for Victory, here. Gaius says Bush Dumb Like Fox Curt at Flopping Aces thinks Bush won’t run and the report is wishful thinking by some. Meanwhile…

BUSH: SCREW ALL YOUR BASE?: Rob (not Curt) at Flopping Aces is rounding up all the angry conservative reaction to Mel Martinez and shaking the fist. Powerline is kind of neutral on it and Hutchison is saying, quit bawlin’ and step center. I have opined previously on this question of base-screwing. I think “the base” abandoned Bush starting with the Miers nomination - a bit of rope-a-dope our strategy-minded president never got to play out - and they’ve rather enjoyed pummeling him on almost everything since then, portraying him as the chuckle-head who never seems to know just how important things are, or how vital it is that the president listen only to them, and not think for himself or be true to himself.

I think it’s debatable at this point who has abandoned who.

That said, I am very fond of the fact that here on the right we’re allowed to disagree with each other and enjoy a diversity of opinions. I never did like the goose-stepping that was expected of me when I was on the left. Here, we disagree but we’re manage to keep it friendly. Mostly! And that’s a good thing, because DJ Drummond says the GOP is going to take the WH in ‘08, so we’d better iron out our kinks now!

STEM CELL NEWS: Now that the election is over, it’s amazing how much good news we’re seeing about ADULT stem cell research, a subject which went woefully underreported in the past year. AJ has the news on a major breakthrough now being published. Hint: It has a Muscular Dystrophy connection.

CULTURAL TERRORISM: Has CBS identified a new sort of terrorism? In discussing the flesh-crawling spectacle of OJ Simpson pimping his “maybe murder”for-profit, Couric & Company’s editor Greg Kandra may have just introduced a whole new concept and phrase into our minds and lexicon:

This is a kind of terrorism — cultural terrorism — that chills the blood and boggles the mind. It speaks to crassness. It reeks of ego. It drips cynicism, drop by drop, and it carries O.J.’s DNA. The man who led the country on a slow-speed chase through the freeways of California is continuing to lead people, mile by mile, exit by exit, through the darker avenues of media exploitation.

Well, the avenue of media exploitation is a long one, and every network and paper has had a share in constructing it, but yeah, I’d say FOX has reached a nadir, here. Like Ed Morrissey, who will not be watching, you can include me out.

CRIMINALIZING RAPE: Neo-neocon reports good news for Pakistani women and Dymphna expounds on it and the provisos.

HAPPY PAGANS: Even if you don’t think you do, you know some, I know some.

HAPPY CATHOLICS: At least we Catholics who long for beautiful places to worship as opposed to the sterile warehouses constructed over the past 30 years have something to be happy about in this. Nice pics. Living in one of the ugly-church capitals of the world, I long. I covet.

HAPPY ECUMENISM OF A SORT: Holy Whapping finds the Christians coming together. We Catholics called it Humanea Vitae, the Evangelicals call it Filling the Quiver, but it’s all pret-ty similar in the end.

OUR LADY OF THE INCREDIBLE CANDY: It’s that time again! Just ordered a case of the mouth-watering stuff (that would be the chocolate covered caramels) to give out as Christmas gifts to various and sundried folks. Egad, but their stuff is fantastic.

ANIMAL UPRISINGS: Gauis continues monitoring the animal hijinks he says suggests something rather nefarious.

ONLY A WEEK TO TALK GAY?: Oh, come on, now. Found this at Althouse: Cozzarelli said many gay students were disappointed with the counter-chalking, feeling that they had one week per year to express their voices, “not to create a dialogue of voices of people who aren’t normally silenced on top of the chalkings of people who are silenced.” We’re talking college campus here, aren’t we? So this is bellyaching that aside from the freshman orientation classes that are all about diversity, all the gay/transgendered-directed classes, the sexual-orientation oriented clubs and op-ed pieces in campus papers, the annual depiction of lesbian “good rape” in the campus production of The Vagina Monologues and all the rest of it, is someone really complaining that gays in college are being silenced? C’mon, already. The only people being “silenced” on college campuses these days are invited conservative speakers and anyone who wants to get an A in their social-science classes. I talk to college students all the time - they’re all over the house - and you know what they think about gay? They couldn’t care less, they’re just sick of hearing about it all the time or, as one kid said in my hearing, “yeah, you’re here, you’re queer, get used to it already, and get over it. The rest of us really don’t care! Can we study, now?”

I get the impression, often, that a lot of the “hostility” that some gays complain about has less to do with people giving a crap who they sleep with, and much more to do with folks just being fed up with having to hear about it all the time, and knowing that if they suggest the subject be given a rest they’ll be harangued for “insensitivity,” or called “haters.”

Miss Kelly, meanwhile, can point these students to places where gays really are being silenced.

Okay. Now, I really, really am going to get cracking on my other work. Really. I am!