Be Not Idle

The Lady or the Tiger Dog? Check out this ambiguous photo by Canadian blogger and cue the spooky music…

It was controversial when Arafat and Carter won, but politically-motivated awards often are. Al Gore winning might have been chaulked up to hysteria over a perceived threat to the world.

But giving a Nobel prize to someone whose international claim-to-fame is winning an election? Comparing President Obama to Lech Walesa or Nelson Mandela or… well, just about ANY Nobel Laureate from politics – that’s like comparing a drop of linseed oil to the Sistine Chapel.

He hasn’t done anything yet. After hearing him repeatedly refer to “my health care plan”, I went looking and discovered that it exists only in his mind. And don’t get me started on his recent choice for “school safety czar”: By law, educators and administrators must report and seek help for suspected sexual abuse of under-aged students, not encourage them to keep hooking up with strange adults.

Edit: As usual, James at Heelers Diaries made me laugh with his version of the announcement: “Other Nobel Prize winners announced this evening included Beyonce and Lady Gaga who respectively received the Nobel Prize for Physics and the Nobel Prize for Economics.”

According to my uncle, the Secret of a Long Marriage was revealed during a husband-only marriage seminar at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

At the session last week, the deacon asked Luigi, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay happily married all these years.

Luigi replied to the assembled husbands, “Well, uh, I’ve a-tried to treata my wife nizza, spenda money on her, but besta of all is that I tooka her to Italy for the 20th anniversary!”

The deacon responded, “Luigi, you are an inspiration to all the husbands here. Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th Anniversary.”

Luigi proudly replied, “I’m agonna go get her.”

In referring to an article about the Obama administration’s (so far) unsuccessful attempts to revive talks between Israelis and Palestinians:

I don’t believe Kool Aid is Kosher.

Sunday evening Mass was canceled, leaving us ladies to commiserate in the parking lot while the Baptist minister’s dog barked at us through the fence.

The President of the United States is going to get into the Fox Sports broadcasting booth during the All-Star Game.

I don’t have a lot of confidence in the job he’s doing as President. Now it appears he’s heard the tech school ads: “You could have a career in broadcasting!” Why doesn’t he just go into the nearest high school and ask the counselors to give him an aptitude test? Although, that would mean that Joe Biden would lead the country… shudder!

Catholic Carnivals, like the flu, get around. RAnn invited me to join Sunday Snippets, and I gratefully accept. I link my post on the acquiesance to accepting suicide, in which I mused on the various factors that redefine suicide as a loving choice, even a duty to society.

Jack Krasula of “Anything is Possible” is interviewing the 10th Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit on Palm Sunday (today). The show appears on WJR AM-760 at 7:05 pm (EDT). It’s available via streaming at WJR.com. (See link to the right, under “Media”.)

Archbishop Allen Vigneron was born in the small town of Anchorville , not far from where I live. His “home” parish was Immaculate Conception – or as I call it “The Church of the Tall People” since the locals tower over me.

He was bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, California from 2003 – 2008.
When the Pope named him Archbishop in January, he became the first  Detroit-area native to lead the Archdiocese of Detroit.

I decided to stay home for New Year’s Eve. When this post appears, I will either be asleep or reading a book. I will awaken to do major housecleaning, as per tradition. After that, it’s back to the grind.

I hope 2009 is a better year for all of us.

Lord Jesus, teach me to be joyful on this, the first day of the year, and on all the days of my life.  – Fr. John Catour, Joyfully LIving the Gospel Day by Day

On St. Stephen’s Day, I tend toward introspection. It’s natural; nearly everyone has gone home, and there’s a relaxed (some might say exhausted) atmosphere. I imagine that between Christmas and December 30th, many people write their New Year’s resolutions.

And then the end-of-year bank statements and tax documents come… There’s some miserable introspection, right there.

But the one thing that can be counted on, at least in my family, is that people are civil enough not to write each other’s resolutions. So Uncle Luigi won’t be handing a copy of The Midwestern Beach Eating Regimen  to Aunt Vanna. And Cousin Vita won’t be giving her daughter Lucia the phone number of a very good divorce attorney.

So I understand the bee in the Anchoress’s bonnet over a column by Jamie Lee Curtis. The American actress writes that the current financial crisis will “bring us into financial alignment. Families may have to live together again! What a concept. (…) Neighbors are going to meal share and carpool and child care for each other and maybe even rent out parts of homes to other families. Less meat, more beans. Might be better for you anyway.”

I don’t know what is worse: that Ms. Curtis wrote a column with three references to fiction and very little about economic reality, or that 30% of the piece was written by John Steinbeck. (What a hard-working dead man!)

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