Eclectic Amateur

Victor Lams reads Justin Raimondo. And he’s been commenting insightfully in St. Blogs, and I heard him call in to Kresta. And, he’s sort of local, too. Hi Victor!

Got together with a whole bunch of ex-coworkers (from an ex-company) this weekend. Had a really good time. Was more than slightly amused to note that homeschooled kids formed a majority at the party.

Of course, a standard conversation beginner was this:

“So, how many kids do you have now?”
“Four.”

Responses at this point varied from an enthusiastic “Cool!” to “Are you crazy?”. (Answer: “Probably.”) I’m taking this as further proof that we’ve entered The Large Family Zone™. Or, (taking my cue from MCJ), I Can’t Believe They’re Not Roman Catholic!™

This is wrong on so many levels …

Anne Wilson points to this NY Times op-ed on the place of King Corn in American life.

So. We are overproducing corn. We are using it to create soft drinks, junk food, and heart-destroying fatty beef. Oh, and helping to breed superbugs too. All while tying our agriculture to Middle Eastern oil. Could we be any more stupid?

Nancy’s reaction (after the initial horror) was to want to know “who did this to us”? This is a very good thought (not that I’m enough of a journalist to dig out the answers myself), but it seems important to remember that this situation is not an accident.

Just went back through my old town this weekend on the way to some family R&R, and was pleasantly surprised to find the place covered with “Bruce Caswell for State Representative” signs. Mr. Caswell was my math teacher from 7th grade on (except for 8th grade, where he was detoured into English for some administrative reason I never understood). He was also the track coach. All the cliche’s about a fantastic teacher and/or coach making an incredible difference in kid’s lives — well, they’re true.

I hope he makes it. Besides, it’ll be nice to know someone in the legislature.

Just found Sixteen Cows by Lisa Wheeler and Kurt Cyrus. It’s a romantic bit of rhyming whimsey about Cowboy Gene and Cowgirl Sue and their eight cows each. The kids love it; it gets the “Again!” seal of approval from Rachel.

I picked it up at the library because I’ve really liked Kurt Cyrus’s work before. Slow Train to Oxmox was one of our favorites for Josh and David a few years ago, and Tangle Town is great too. (Amazon.com claims both are out of print, which is really too bad.) Funny, inteligent enough for the adults, silly enough for the kids, and beautifully illustrated — what more do you need?

Favorites from the previous library haul were Get Set! Swim! and Hello, Ocean. (Hmm, I’m sensing a water theme for last week …) I was all set to not like Get Set! Swim! for being too PC (our heroine is Puerto Rican, there’s a small bit of angst about having to compete against the rich suburban schools who Have It All™), but it turns into a very nice little story of sportsmanship, and I ended up liking it anyway. I thought Hello, Ocean was OK as far as the writing went, but the illustrations are gorgeous (and Nancy and I are both jealous that they depict the beach outside the author’s home). Both of these made the “read it again and again!” list for the last few weeks.

Not much blogging for a while … been busy at work. At last, it’s released to the public! The result of my (and a whole bunch of other’s) labors is now HeritageQuest Online. We’re just getting started; before we’re done, we should have all census records from the U.S. Census from 1790 – 1930 searchable and viewable online.

The interface is simple, but we’re talking about hundreds of millions of names, and terabytes of image data. There are a few … technical challenges to doing this that I’ve never had the opportunity to wrestle with before.

So, lobby your library to sign up so you can use it! Or, go see our partners at Genealogy.com and sign up for the new “Family and Local History” library. Help make the product a sucess, so that I look good for my bosses and can support my family!

Budweiser kicks butt vs. Dow, NASDAQ, S&P500

I’m not quite sure what to make of that …

Finally “sold” part of our first successful batch of angelfish — actually bartered them to the fish store in trade for some baubles to go in the new goldfish bowl we picked up at a garage sale.

Hmm … $20-something to complete setting up a borrowed tank, $12 in frozen baby brine shrimp, some unknown amount of extra adult flake food, and umpteen hours of tank maintenance. In exchange, about $4 in cheap plastic and ceramic. I’m not so sure about the economics of this …

On the other hand, it’s cool. The kids have all been very excited about our angelfish babies, and love watching them grow up. Josh actually will go sit by the tank “to calm myself down” when he needs to settle himself. What price should I put on that?

… is shown by a comment on Mark’s blog referring to The Pelagian Drinking Song:

Now the Faith is old and the Devil is bold,
Exceedingly bold indeed;
And the masses of doubt that are floating about
Would smother a mortal creed.
But we that sit in a sturdy youth
And still can drink strong ale
Oh--let us put it away to infallible truth
That always shall prevail.

 

(There’s more. Much more. It’s the funniest bit of theology and Church history that you’re likely to read in this lifetime. Read it. Trust me.)

Wow. Rod Dreher captures a dynamic that I’ve noticed too. I seem to fall into the “crunchy-granola tastes, conservative religion, damned-if-I-know politics” camp myself.

My favorite quote:

Funny how I went straight from left wing to right wing without ever once passing through a phase where I trusted the government.

— Julianne Loesch Wiley