Sad news ... and an Action Alert—UPDATED

Elizabeth Foss of In the Heart of My Home has some saddening news for us here in the Catholic blogosphere:  Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life, a teacher, writer and recent convert to Catholicism, had a massive stroke on Sunday, Oct. 28, and is not expected to regain consciousness.

You can go to Elizabeth's page and read her and others' testimonials to this formidable woman.  For my own part, I read plenty of her columns whenever they appeared in New Advent (and you could count on at least one a week appearing there; in fact, Kevin Knight in a fit of possessiveness calls her a "New Advent blogger" in his link to Elizabeth).  I always found her sane, sensible, often amusing and with the enviable ability to not take herself too seriously.  We'll miss her voice and her wisdom; she was a true Defensatrix Fidei.

While you're there: Barbara was trying to raise $5,000 to send her daughter Maddy, a promising opera star, back to Catholic University for the spring semester.  Elizabeth has the hat (or the PayPal button) out for that worthy cause; please take the time to make a donation and help launch a potentially brilliant career.

Fac nos, Domine Iesu, sanctae Familiae tuae exempla iugiter imitari, ut in hora mortis nostrae, occurrente gloriosa Virgine Matre tua cum beato Ioseph, per te in aeterna tabernacula recipi mereamur: Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Grant unto us, Lord Jesus, ever to follow the example of Thy Holy Family, that in the hour of our death Thy glorious Virgin Mother together with blessed Joseph may come to meet us and we may be worthily received by Thee into Thy everlasting dwelling place: Who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen.

Update — October 31, 2012

According to Elizabeth, Barbara Curtis passed away yesterday afternoon, surrounded by her family.  Her funeral Mass will be held Saturday at St. Frances de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville, VA at 12:30.  Elizabeth is still accepting donations for the Curtis family, particularly for husband Tripp and to send Maddy back for her senior year at Catholic University.  I wasn't aware that Maddy had been a contestant on American Idol!  Here's a clip of her singing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".

Your first time: a love story

I've found a new love.

Oh, I still have a warm place in my heart for Norah Jones.  And Halle Berry.  Oh, and Penélope Cruz.  (However, they won't return my phone calls.)

But this is it.  This is real.

World, meet the love of my life: Julie Borowski.

I know the odds are against us: a young woman and an older man, a loud-'n-proud libertarian and a reticent independent.  But if we could meet, I just know we'd fit each other, like yin and yang.

Rape is a horrible, detestable crime

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Now what was all that fuss about ...?

In the week or so preceding the 67th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation fundraiser dinner, I got messages from the American Life League, ChurchMilitant.tv and a couple of other organizations fussing over the invitation Cdl. Timothy Dolan extended to Pres. Barack Obama to speak at this event.  Very little was said regarding the invitation Gov. Mitt Romney also received, though his pro-life street cred is almost non-existent.

That Cdl. Dolan would invite both candidates to the dinner is nothing odd; at least every other presidential election cycle the two leading candidates speak, beginning with Sen. John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in 1960.  Candidate pairs since then include Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter (1976), Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (1980), George H. Bush and Michael Dukakis (1988), veep candidates Al Gore and Jack Kemp (1996), George W. Bush and Al Gore (2000), and Obama and John McCain (2008).

Moreover, the night is hardly devoted to full-fisted politicking or the conferral of honorary doctorates.  The Foundation awards grants to several charities and institutions around the Archdiocese, and the Dinner brings out a lot of the 1%, who pay unconscionable sums of money for overdone chicken and underdone steak, to be entertained by people who don't often get a chance to show their lighter side.  Because while the chicken and steak may be cooked, the candidates get roasted ... first by Al Smith IV (who, I notice, is making sounds that make me concerned for his health), then by each other, then finally by the Archbishop.  I'm sure His Eminence was particularly looking forward to zinging Obama in a venue where the President couldn't fire back.

Look, guys ... just lighten up, would you?  The invitation to trade quips and barbs with Gov. Romney in front of a couple hundred insanely rich people for charity is hardly on a par with the invitation to Notre Dame; you really have to work hard to make an endorsement of either candidate out of the event.  (Though Romney, satirizing the MSM, stated that the headline would probably read "OBAMA EMBRACED BY CATHOLICS; ROMNEY DINES WITH RICH PEOPLE".)  Watch the clip, have a laugh, and for Pete's sake get a grip!

A kid, a Marine, and a magical moment of grace

© 2012 CNN/Ben Kruggel.

I'm sure by now most of you have heard the story of young Ben Baltz, an 11-year-old boy with a prosthetic leg and a whole lotta moxie, and the bad break which turned into the Kodak moment of the week (as well as the kind of PR for the Marine Corps that you just can't buy).  But in case you did just break free of a Turkish prison, or have emerged from a hermitage for a bidecadial convention of anchorites, let's go through it again:

When Ben was six years old, he lost his right tibia and fibula to cancer.  However, Ben is one of life's chargers; he has two legs, one of which is adapted for sports such as soccer, basketball and children's triathlons, such as Florida's Sea Turtle Tri Kids in Pensacola, which took place last Sunday (10/7/12).  Ben was "in it to win it", not just to be a token or a mascot; reporter/photgrapher Joel David, who found himself focusing more on Ben over the course of the events, said Ben "had an inspiring look of determination and I wanted to capture that emotion in a photo."  (For David's photos of Ben competing, the link is here.)

Obama Speaks Truism, Conservatives Dismayed

You know the campaign season is just about over when the two sides have to scrape stuff off the sidewalk to get angry about.  So here we go:

(Source: The Weekly Standard)


Okay, here's the line that causes the fuss: "We don’t believe that anybody is entitled to success in this country."  Even read apart from the rest of the paragraph, it's nothing.  Obama, darn him to heck, is right: we don't believe people are entitled to success.  People are free to work for success, to earn it; you don't get to succeed just by showing up and showing your birth certificate.  And that's what Obama says: "But we do believe in opportunity.  We believe in a country where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, and everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same rules."

Look, you know I'm no fan of the President, and that I have no intention of voting for him next month.  His presidency has been a disaster from Day 1, and I say this as a very vocal critic of his dumb-bunny predecessor.  But do you have to get worked up about everything that falls out of Obama's mouth?

PRES. OBAMA (recorded): "So I took a shower this morning ...."
RUSH LIMBAUGH: "Can you believe Obama said THAT?  Has he got something against taking baths, for Pete's sake?  Is that something only the capitalist élite do?  He's too good to sit down in the water with his washcloth and bar of Zest?  I suppose he has one of those effeminate poofy things you pour [mocking tone] 'body wash' onto.  How did this wierdo get elected President?"

 GET A GRIP!

Some warm food for a rainy fall day

Saturday, as promised by the forecasters at Accuweather.com, the remnants of TS Miriam sat over the D-FW metroplex and dumped rain on us for over 20 hours.  Actually, as I watched it come almost straight down from the sky, it did remind me of the rainy days I had seen as a child at Clark AFB, near Angeles City on "the big island" (Luzon) in the Philippines: warm, soaking and consistent, enough to put some water in the ditches and arroyos without creating white-water rapids or causing flooding concerns.

Just the perfect kind of day for a bowl of hearty soup, with some salad and bread on the side.  Homemade soup is dirt-simple to make (in most cases) and cost-efficient; I once heard someone from a large family describe his mother's welcoming attitude for when his siblings brought friends home for dinner: "Just put another bowl on the table and throw some water in the soup."  A good soup recipe will stretch quite a bit before it loses its taste and ability to fill you up.

Sadistic choices

One of the times I miss my old home town — Omaha, Nebraska — is when I'm driving to/from work.

My last job there was two miles from my front door straight down Blondo Street; with clear traffic, it was seven minutes door-to-door.  In rush hour, twelve.  And Omaha's not exactly a teeny-weeny burg, either: population 415,068 by last year's estimate, with just over 877 thousand in the eight counties comprising the metropolitan area and just over 1.2 million people within a 50-mile radius.  So while it's still possible to get from one side of the city to the other in twenty-five minutes, the roads have to be relatively clear and you have to be able to use the I-680 loop.

Not so here in the D-FW metroplex.  I live in Denton and work in Carrollton.  If I leave at 6:30 am, I can stop at BK for a Croissan'wich, stop at QT for a refill on my coffee and still be at work before 7:30 strikes.  If I leave at 6:45, there's every possibility that I won't even be able to glance at QT as I scream by to get to work just fifteen minutes late.  Does anybody else wonder why we fill our megalopoli with huge, multi-lane, limited-access freeways in order to pile them up with cars going 10 mph?

From the "Vapid Transit" department

This dress just screams, "Take me seriously!"

Lady Gaga shares her stunning insights into politics and religion with Europe 1, and On Top Magazine breathlessly reports the words of the oracle:

Lady Gaga has criticized Pope Benedict XVI's opposition to gay marriage, saying that his views don't matter.

On Friday, Benedict called on Roman Catholics in France to “defend marriage,” telling a group of French bishops that the institution would harm society.

Lady Gaga made her comments on Sunday in an interview with Europe 1.

“I think that gay marriage is something that is going to happen, it must.   We are not truly equal part of humanity if we are not allowed to freely love one another.” [Because we all know that sex = love, right?]

“What the pope thinks of being gay does not matter.  It doesn't matter to the world.   It matters to the people who like the pope and follow the pope.  It's not a reflection of all Christians.  It is not a reflection of all religious people.  It's a point of view of one person,” Lady Gaga said.  [You think maybe it will occur to her that she's one person, too? ... Na-aaa-ah!]

Wait a minute, wait a minute ... here's the good bit:

“And to all the gay people here. May you live and love each other until the end of time. And I hope you will have the human right to breed as an entirely equal, valuable and special member of society.”

 Apparently, she was so wrapped up in appealing to her fan base that she forgot her well wishes might be biologically challenging.  But then, I recently was in a combox debate with another person who said, in full sneering earnest, "Who says sex has anything to do with reproduction?"

Oh, please ... just make the stupid stop.

From the "Compounding ignorance" department—UPDATED

Get ready, this extract from NBC News' Cosmic Log needs to be quoted and fisked at length:

Reality check on Jesus and his 'wife'

By Alan Boyle

 A fourth-century fragment of papyrus that quotes Jesus telling his disciples about "my wife" has set off a buzz among scriptural scholars — but this is no "Da Vinci Code" come true.  Rather, the "Gospel of Jesus' Wife"  [a bit of an exaggeration; more like the "Fragment of Jesus' Wife"] is just the latest discovery to suggest how the early Christian church took shape.  [You always start the spin right with the lede.] 

Fans of the Dan Brown thriller are already familiar with the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a husband-and-wife relationship.  The basis for such speculation lies in Gnostic gospels that came out in the second and third centuries, but were left out of the standardized scriptures — texts such as the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary and the recently reconstructed Gospel of Judas.  [Poorly written; none of these books were "standardized scriptures".  Boyle should have inserted this appositive phrase right after "Gnostic gospels" rather than at the end of the sentence.]

Even though only a few phrases can be read on the papyrus fragment that's just come to light, those phrases are consistent with the Gnostic view of early Christianity [error: the Gnostics weren't Christians (more below)] — which tended to give a more prominent role to women, and particularly to Mary Magdalene.  The text, written in the Sahidic Coptic dialect, includes the phrase "Jesus said to them, 'My wife...'" as well as references to a woman named Mary being "worthy of it," and to a woman who "will be able to be my disciple."