Eclectic Amateur

I haven’t stayed away from reading blogs. (At least it’s not technically Lent today.)

Evidence is at Amy Welborn’s here and here.

(For those who don’t follow the links, they’re commentary on various Catholic scandals.)

I keep seeing numbers about the quantity of adult converts to Catholicism in America yearly, in the range of 160,000 – 200,000. I find this absolutly astonishing. At that rate, supposedly Catholic converts alone make up the 9th largest religious denomination in America. (Certainly dwarfing the poor, befuddled ECUSA.)

Either a tremendous amount of these are via marriage, or there’s some serious work of Grace going on — because it sure isn’t the winsomeness of the hierarchy, for the most part. (Exceptions made for His Holiness John Paul II and various heroic local priests, of course. And not all bishops are destined as paving-stones, although certainly the peril is great …)

The full story is at NewFarm.org.

As Pavel Chichikov says, so much can be summed up by “How could it hurt?”, followed by “How could we have known?”

Cool Dino Links

An eclectic list:

• Dinosaur Data Files from The Natural History Museum, London
• DinoData.net
• Archives of the DINOSAUR Mailing List
  

Nothing that quite achieves what I was wishing for previously, but they’re still good.

Being a homeschooling dad definitely forces me to retain the “Eclectic Amateur” title. How else could it be, when in the same weekend I end up having to explain both the intricacies of presidential primary mechanics and help with tabulating and calculating body mass ratios for various dinosaurs for my eight-year old?

Bringing those two things together, has anyone else noticed that while the Political Graveyard exists for dead political dinosaurs (thanks to the good work of Larry Kestenbaum), there does not seem to exist a similar site to catalog dinosaur fossils? Am I the only one who thinks that it would be a nice resource to have available on the web for questions like “how many Diplodocus skeletons have actually been found? How complete were they? What was their size variation? Where were they found and where are they now?” As far as I can tell, these are questions whose answers can not be Googled and seem to require Serious Research from Serious Professional Paleontologists to answer.

Fair Warning

Regular readers (both of you know who you are) have no doubt noticed that blogging is a weekly thing, at best. Fully expect this pace to continue, if not diminish. You Have Been Warned™.

While I will not have the iron willpower of Mark Shea to give up blogging entirely for Lent, I am going to attempt the perhaps harder discipline of not reading blogs for Lent.

This may (or may not) have the perverse effect of causing more blogging, as I take the time to purge bookmarks and write rather than just read and/or comment in other people’s blogs.

… in a manner of speaking:

…A 157-year-old Episcopal church is nearly empty on Sundays now that its conservative members have broken off to form a new congregation. Historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Versailles, Kentucky, drew only 60 people to its three services this past Sunday. Most of its members left after diocesan leaders fired the church’s entire governing board, which had denounced Bishop Stacy Sauls’ support for the consecration of the openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Days after the firings, conservative members of St. John’s voted to form a new church and contributed $40,000 in seed money. They met informally in a supporter’s living room for three weeks and had their first formal worship service Sunday with a new pastor. [AP]

Welcome to “support for diversity” and “continuing to dialogue on this divisive issue”, Episcopalian-style.

Remember: Diversity will only be achieved when all think alike.

(via Mark Shea)

Empty Chairs and Responsibility

Tonight, I see that twisted GenX genius Victor Lams comments at Amy Welborn’s about reaction to Fr. Rob Johansen’s “Empy Chair” sermon (which references Victor’s comments on Baby Boomers; how’s that for circularity?):

And I do think that all of us, non-contracepting parents, genXers and Baby Boomers alike, bear the collective, national guilt of the crime of abortion.

For reasons unknown to me (not that I’m arguing!), my older boys want bedtime storytime to cover the whole Bible, including the “boring” parts like Numbers and Leviticus. (Reason #42491435 to both homeschool and keep Nintendo out of the house.) Last night, we got to Leviticus 20:

The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech.

— Leviticus 20:1-5 (NIV)

I think Victor has it right. There are a lot of laws in the Pentateuch. This is the first time I’ve noticed one where guilt is imputed, not simply to the one breaking the law, but to all of those who know and look the other way.

And there will be a special place in Hell reserved (or, if you prefer, a custom millstone) for those who not just close their eyes, but open them, and call evil good.

[Episcopalinal priest Rev. Katherine] Ragsdale called conservative evangelicals opposed to abortion “a small and wacko fringe” and said an abortion-rights stance is a natural position for a Christian.

Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.

— Leviticus 20:22-23 (NIV)

Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil,

who put darkness for light

and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes

and clever in their own sight.

— Isaiah 5:20-21 (NIV)

God have mercy. God have mercy on us all.

STFW

The new equivalent to “Read The FINE Manual”.

I had a brilliant idea today. Somebody should write a Java equivalent of Expect. I was all set to hack on it tonight. Of course, such a thing would need a name. “JExpect” ought to be about right.

Sigh.

At least the thing already exists as Free software, and I can just pick it up and see how well it works. Hopefully well; Expect is addicive and insanely useful once you get into the hang of using it to automate things.

Levis: Made In (Anywhere But) America

*sigh*

I was making a list with my wife the other night about all of the iconic American products which are no longer Made In America™. I had to stop because it was too depressing.

Along with his chronicling of the Electrolux debacle in Michigan, Dale Price mentions the news that Levi’s are no longer Made In America but are simply MIA.

Did you know that Etch-A-Sketch™ was made not far from here in Bryan, Ohio? The Ohio Art Company now does all it’s manufacturing in China.

(Bryan is a neighboring town to my hometown, and had one of the Episcopalian churches in our shared ministry cluster when we lived there. It’s not a ghost town, but I think “vibrant” is … ahem … a bit of a stretch.)

peace,

Snowbow!

There was a small, faint, but still unmistakable “rainbow” in the clouds today over the field behind our house as I drove home today. What else can it be but a snowbow?!

I needed that.