Nice post here. For all of you who are with me when I complain the movie didn’t include enough accounting stories.
(For the record: I personally vote for sugar over corn syrup. Ceteris paribus. Though I had never considered the exploding factories thing. Then again, I also eat flour, and you get exploding factories with that, too. Maybe I am not a good example in the eating-for-worker-safety department.)
Not cheerful reading: http://goatpath.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/cholera-reaches-port-au-prince-as-victims-are-left-in-mass-graves/
Thanks to the Livesay’s for the link.
UPDATED to add:
Sanitation and the cholera panic from the Mangine’s. Additional perspective, not graphic.
Here and here are photos of the RHFH Rescue Center’s Cholera House in action.
And if you are a Catholic Relief Services supporter, here’s their report on what they are doing to help curb the spread of the epidemic.
The fall issue of the catholic homeschooling magizine Mater et Magistra is now out in electronic format, and you can get a copy free Here.
Worth a look, eh?
(It was worth a look even when it wasn’t free, I would note. You can see my review of my first issue here.)
Tell your friends!
My new Catholic Company review book arrived yesterday, and I’m tearing through it. Super good. It’s Who is Jesus Christ? Unlocking the Mystery in the Gospel of Matthew by Eric Sammons.
–> Whose blog, The Divine Life, is the one I click on in my feed reader second, right after Dr. Boli. So I guess I should have known that I would like the book, but somehow with the title and Eric’s smartness and all that, I thought it would be too difficult for me, or sort of dry, or something like that. I thought this because I am pretty stupid that way.
Not boring at all. Not one bit. Eminently readable, no big words so far (I’m on p. 74), and the chapters are short, too. Just plain enjoyable. But jam-packed solid good. You know I have no patience for touchy-feely watery blathery stuff.
So that’s my mid-book pre-review, which I had to post because SuperHusband is getting sick of me saying “wow, this is such a good book”, so I thought I’d plague the internet instead. Full official review coming soon. Meanwhile, I think you can safely ask Saint-a-Claus to get you this one for All Saint’s Day.
[Editing to clarify: It was my much more sensible co-catechist who proposed we do the journals. Needed to give credit for brilliance where it really belongs. I was too chicken to mention it myself.]
Peeking in to say an enormous thank you to Dorian Speed, whose Journal thing we copied wholesale with the 5th graders. First night of class. Went beautifully — kids had something to focus on during those first fifteen minutes of class when everyone is still trickling in, and for me as a catechist it was a privilege to have this way of connecting to each student. Our choices for topics were:
1) What’s on your mind this week?
2) What prayer requests do you have for us?
3) What questions would you like answered this year in Religious Ed.
I will concede we’ve been spoiled — pretty much someone stacked our class with all the best kids. (Well, okay, I looked at the roll and the other 5th grade class got some of the best kids too.) Once again proving my end-of-year fear wrong: I always wonder how my next year’s class can possibly hold up to the standard set by the current year. But they do. Every time. Man I love that job.
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H/T to Domenico Bettinelli for this happy little video:
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Upcoming on the blog:
-I owe you my review of the St. Francis DVD from Tiber River. Draft is on my PC, waiting for me to do a final edit and stick in the necessary links. Coming soon.
-Still reading The Salvation Controversy by Jimmy Akin. (That’s my current Catholic Company review title.) So far it’s a recommended read, if you are the target audience. I have a spare copy, btw, if you are local and a real-life friend and would like to borrow it. A spare because, of course, I lost the first one, and had to order a replacement. I assume that was all part of the Divine Will. In a chaos-redeemed kind of way.
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Foot news: No change. Getting about 20 min/day of walking out of it, and then it’s all over. More or less, depending on everything else. Have a call in to the referral lady to get an appointment with the foot guy.
–> Discovered that my girls can be very helpful and cooperative in the grocery store when I actually need them to be. (Well, Squeaky just likes to ride in my lap.) So that’s nice. Taught Aria about unit pricing. Been a little overwhelmed other wise, and must tell you that my attention to blogging responsibilities is about representative of the rest of my life. Ah. Go watch that video again.
In working on the homeschooling book (still working on it), I begged Karina Fabian to tell me about her experiences with homeschooling versus school-schooling. She obliged me despite a crazy-busy spring, and this is the crux of what she shared: “I’m a better mother when my kids go to school.”
Me? I’m a better mother when I’m not allowed to walk.
Started back to school this week, and conveniently I came down with some kind of foot-ailment on Saturday. While awaiting diagnosis the nurse advised me to keep my weight off the thing, and I agree — what with the bit about how it only hurts when I use it, hehe.
–> Turns out I’m a better teacher and a more attentive, involved mother, when I’m not sidetracked trying to do everything else other than the heart of my vocation.
Reminds me of that twinge of dissappointment when the lights go back on after an evening power outage. The house flips back to life with buzzing and beeping, you blow out the candles, and family members gathered by the fireplace disperse to their preferred distractions.
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These moments of forced-quiet are an illusion. Lacking electricity, there’s no reason to think the SuperHusband and I wouldn’t assemble plenty of lower-tech conveniences and distractions. Blessed with a permanent injury, I’d figure out how to re-mobilize and get just as busy as ever. I score in the 99th percentile for the ability to think up new hobbies.
But for now, I’m enjoying the quiet. In a wishing-I-could-grow-up-to-be Bill Shannon kind of way. Incorrigible. Utterly incorrigible.
. . . is what we get if I pull a would-have-drowned child out of the pool, and she gets an all-clear on the lung check afterwards. Yay! A certain mother needs to work off a little adrenaline now . . .
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In the meantime, back-to-back interesting posts by Eric Sammons:
Just say ‘no’. Hands down this is my number one spiritual problem (in addition to all the others). And of course he posts these timely words just when I’m trying to goof off on the internet to unwind a little, heh.
And then, 100 things? I’ll consider it, if I get to count all my books as a single item. Otherwise, I guess it’s 99 books and a toothbrush? I think everything else maybe I could borrow from someone.
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Funny story about self-denial and materialism: SuperHusband and I are in the market for a new motor vehicle. Exact nature TBD, but we’re leaning towards a commuter-mobil. There’s about $5K difference between the car he really wants, and a less-expensive, more practical car that would (we think – haven’t test-driven yet) do everything we’d expect from the dream car. Poor guy, he’s checking out vehicles on the internet last night, and his wife leans over and says, “$5k would build a lot of houses in Haiti.”
Or, part of a hospital? Investigate this one, if you are looking for a worthwhile cause. No personal connection on my part, so do your own due diligence.
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Meanwhile, a funny story from the child-not-drowning incident:
So I’m watching my preschooler from the sidelines at my local community pool, because I am one of those mothers who lifeguards her own children even when there is one lifeguard on duty and three others giving swim lessons nearby, and I see Squeaky go under. So I walk in and pull her out — real easy, because we’re in the shallow end, and she is right next to the wide concrete staircase so it’s just step in, pick up child. Hurray.
[Yes, my child was literally one step from where she could have stood up and been fine. But she stepped down to where it was just over her head, panicked, and didn’t think “oh, just walk up the stairs”.]
I carry her up out of the water, do my check to make sure she’s okay (she is), and I’m standing there with her swim instructor from the previous hour’s lessons, who had come over both because she saw the incident and because she had some papers to give me. Then the lifeguard on duty looks over in our direction; the whole incident couldn’t have lasted ten seconds, probably more like three or five — and he didn’t see it happen.
[No fault here: there was nothing for him to hear – neither my daughter nor I made any noise through all this — and this one guy has an entire pool of swimmers to watch. No one can physically keep their eyes on that much space and that many people simultaneously. The best a lifeguard can do is scan continuously, and hope he sees what he needs to see when he needs to see it.]
So the poor guy sees me there standing soaking wet in my street clothes, realizes something is amiss, and comes over to speak to me. And his brain has not connected all dots yet, so it falters on the what-happened-here process: He kind of hestitates, then says, “Um, we’re supposed to wear swimming attire in the pool.”
I assured him I don’t *usually* swim in leather shoes.
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Have a good week. And no combox pile-on about my lifeguard.
H/T to Mark Shea.
[It’s the Pater Noster, set to music, with subtitles. Sing along fun!]
. . . a complete goof-off.
Visited the I Write Like text analyzer, because it seemed like such a better idea than accomplishing any of the items on my to-do list. Copied and pasted an entry from the blog, and learned I write like:
Dan Brown.
No, no, that won’t do at all. But they asked me if I wanted to analyze another text. Yes! Please!
What I would have done if blog post #2 proved equally brownian, I do not know. But there was hope. Analysis #2 determined I write like:
Charles Dickens.
I was not entirely persuaded this was an improvement, but at least my friends who are smarter than me might be impressed. Decided I’d give it another shot. The writing analyzer told me that blog post #3 was written like:
Cory Doctorow.
Who?? Apparently I do not read like a Writing Analyzer.
But maybe this was an improvement. I picked another post, and this time the Writing Analyzer told me I write like:
Stephen King.
So I’ll just stop there.
Highly recommended. Here’s the main site – top of the page is where you click to see the conference schedule and all that. (See Karina Fabian’s site for yet more info.) In case you weren’t sure, Mark Shea and Michelle Buckman are both stupendously enjoyable writers. And this is pretty much the go-to event for hanging out with the superstars of the catholic world. Attend the writers conference, and you get to go to the Catholic Marketing event free. So it’s a combo deal. Plus, the writers conference will be relatively small, which for individual attention and encouragement is much much better than some giant massive event.
If you are going to be in or near Valley Forge, PA August 4-6, plan to attend.
(Hey I thought I would add just to clarify: Sadly, I will be nowhere near VF, PA on the necessary dates. Just in case anyone had been secretly hoping to see me there, thought I’d dash your hopes now rather than a week from now. But all the other cool kids will be there, so go anyway. 🙂