Freeswimmingness achieved again. This time, it looks like we can absolve mom and dad — some of them are getting sucked into the filter. Time to look into an alternate filter.
Yet again, lost the last batch (are mom and dad snacking on them? It seems likely). New batch hatched this morning — I almost saw it, I must have missed them by about five minutes.
I couldn’t resist commenting on Mark’s noticing protesters about trained chickens. And indulging in a moment of schadenfreude in learning via Google that Buckey Egg Farm owner might be jailed for contempt — although further reading indicates jail time probably won’t happen for this scoundrel.
In the unsung heroes department, find Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. What this man managed to do with a mere handful of troops and no support in World War I is simply astounding. Even more astounding is the respect he kept from his African troops and his British foes after the Great War (when he was destitute after a failed political career, it was British soldiers who collected money to provide him a pension).
I haven’t been that happy with “My Place In This World” as a blog title, but it was the best I could come up with at the time (and it seemed marginally less lame than “Zach’s Blog”). But I’ve had trouble coming up with a really good title.
Considered and rejected: on my old home page (before the deletion), I described myself as pathologically eclectic, but I don’t truly believe that eclecticism is pathological (at least I hope not, I agree with Lazarus Long that “specialization is for insects”). I really like eclectic polymath, although I’m pretty sure I haven’t attained polymath status. Eclectic dilletante is more like it, although it sounds more artsy and “kultcha” than I really am.
So eclectic amateur is the winner, at least for now. It will describe this blog pretty well: I certainly don’t get paid for this, it could be about the oddest assortment of things, but it will relate to amare (“to love”).
I was pointed to a great (and very funny!) explanation of why you should not try to learn Japanese.
I will admit to having been a “deer-in-the-headlights” student of nihongo way back when.
Trying to get archiving to work, accidentally trashed the index page to my site. Grrr …
“Backups? We don’t need no steekin backups!
Karen Marie also shares a wonderful exchange from the REBORN list.
Karen Marie Knapp, who saw much more of the Bishop’s conference than I could hear, tells me that when the motion (for episcopal pennance) was reintroduced, that the bishops did agree to a day of fasting and abstinance in reparation for their faults and set the date as August 14.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re doing that much. But do the math, this is 1/270th of the nine months of pennance that Abp. Flores proposed.
While I’m not a moral theologian, and I don’t know how to quantify pennance, it seems to me that a single day of fasting fails to address the gravity of the bishops’ failure and complicity in this terrible scandal.
… is my basic thought in listening to the EWTN coverage. With the exception of a few glimmers of light struggling to break out here and there, it seemed depressingly political and non-spiritual. (Yes, I know, everything should be done “decently and in good order”, but one would hope that the successors to the Apostles ought to know that parliamentary procedure is a servant, not a master.)
Most inspiring moment: the bishop (Abp. Flores?) who rose up and called the entire body of bishops to remember that this is not just a matter of poorly-coordinated policies, but that this is sin that has offended and pained Jesus greatly, like unto his Passion. And called the bishops to enter a nine-month period of pennance, with holy hours and fasting and prayers, to begin to make things right.
Most depressing moment: Although this proposal received an immediate second, it was not part of the approved agenda, and was therefore tabled. Discussion then turned immediately to the utterly mundane and administrative matter of the division of once province into two.
(OK, so the justification of this is that they needed to get the provinces in administrative order so that some lay oversight board with representation by province could then be filled ASAP. Still. It shouts to the world, to anyone with ears to hear, that most of the bishops Just Don’t Get It™.)
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