Hooray! Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts! Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the attempted Leftist takeover of the country. Woo hoo! Now let’s get back to some common sense, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, smaller government, and all that good stuff.
So President Obama has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. I woke up to hearing that this morning and I thought it was a joke. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee lost credibility long ago, but this really tops it off. I just…. I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. The nomination had to be submitted by 10 days into his presidency. Someone on the radio noted that when the president gave the commencement address at Arizona State University earlier this year, the university determined that he did not yet have enough of a body of work to merit an honorary degree; but apparently his existing body of work is plenty for the Nobel Peace Prize folks.
Maybe President Obama can give his $1.4 million prize to fund the Iranian human rights abuse investigative agency that his State Department recently defunded. Oh wait — that was defunded because there are absolutely no human rights abuses in Iran these days worthy of investigation.
This thing is pretty comical, and I will try to laugh instead of cry, except that it’s deadly serious. The security and freedom of our country and the world are at stake and we have leftists paling around with terrorists and dictators and world bodies applauding them for it. Heaven help us.
Oh please. But our pastor seemingly tried to canonize Ted Kennedy from the ambo on Sunday. I was so disgusted. We’d hoped to go to our new parish this past weekend, but since things were still so up in the air on the house deal, we held off on it. What a stunning example we got of why we’re looking forward to switching parishes!
He stood up there and kept saying, “This is not political.” Oh come on! You’re talking about one of the most viciously partisan politicians in Washington. I could have gone along with noting that a man who had the means to live a life of leisure devoted himself to years of public service. (I’d push aside my opinion that his public service wreaked havoc on our society; I’d give him credit for being a public servant.) He apparently had intentions to help the poor, and those are good intentions. And if Father had gone on to say that today we hope Senator Kennedy is meeting his Maker, who is recognizing the good he’s done and extending mercy to him for any ways in which his goals and the agenda he pushed were errant, I would have been fine with that. But instead we got, “I hope today he is meeting his Maker, who is saying, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Yes, well done leaving a young woman at the bottom of a lake. Well done putting poison pills in all sorts of legislation to promote a radical abortion agenda, leading to the slaughter of so many unborn babies. He once held pro-life views but sold his soul for power in the Democrat party. Maybe he thought he could do more good that way than the harm he caused. (I wonder what Mary Jo and all the babies have to say about that?) Apparently concern for the poor doesn’t extend to the poor unborn, or born people who become inconvenient to a Kennedy. Maybe he was simply misguided. We know he had his demons. So sure, I pray he receives the mercy for his sins that all of us hope for for ours. But “Well done, good and faithful servant”? And I’m supposed to believe that wasn’t a political homily?
I hope our new parish will be more Catholic. Our current parish’s website is pretty reflective of its culture, so if that holds true for the new parish’s website, then I’m pretty hopeful about the culture there.
Last Saturday night, L. babysat for The Agent while Mr. Tldz and I went out to dinner with RW and S. It was goofy how giddy I got about it in the days leading up to it. Wow — I could actually get a little dressed up, spend time with adults, and eat a meal that didn’t involve keeping an eye on a toddler and his meal. (Do you think maybe I’m feeling the isolation and lack of conversation of being stuck at home with a toddler all day? And a non-verbal toddler at that?) Mr. Tldz and I tried to remember the last time we went out somewhere without the Agent. We were horrified at that thought that maybe it was our anniversary in November; but then we remembered that we’d had dinner at the home of some friends from church in March or early April. L. stayed with the Agent then, too, and we went over after our friends’ daughter was down for the night. Okay, that’s not as pathetic as its having been November, but still.
Anyway, we met RW and S at Athens Pizza. I’d had their pizza, but never been to the restaurant to check out the rest of the menu. Good Greek food. Including gyros. Why didn’t I know about this before?!? And fabulous desserts, too. And always fun to see them. Unfortunately, the conversation turned to politics — the proposed government healthcare plan, in particular — and I found it depressing to see in living color in front of me the stranglehold Leftist thought has on mainline Protestantism and academia. As Mr. Tldz said, it’s just further proof of the old academic joke about a Ph.D. being just “piled higher and deeper.” Oh well.
So I’ve been meaning to give President Obama a modicum of credit for waiting unitl the day after the pro-life march to rescind the Mexico City policy. At least he didn’t pour salt directly into the wounds of pro-life advocates. But we don’t for a moment believe he’s moderated his radically pro-abortion positions. And the cynical part of me thinks that he did that executive order signing without media coverage, etc. like what had accompanied his previous signings because he wants to keep the pro-lifers who vote Democrat because they always have from starting to discover just how pro-abortion he is and his party has become. Wake up, people! The Democrat platform says we should be obligated to pay for women to slaughter their children. It’s as pro-abortion a platform as they’ve had yet.
So last weekend at our parish we ran a signature drive to oppose the Freedom of Choice Act. It took most of this past week for me to get all the cards processed, but Agent Murphy and I finally went by the post office yesterday afternoon and dumped them all in the mail. We sent a total of 2.497 cards to senators and representatives. This is a campaign coordinated by the U.S. bishops. Several people commented, as they were signing, that this seems like too little too late from our bishops. I can’t help but agree; but we do what we can.
We were the first group to do a project like this in the new church, and we hit some snags with the setup. Staff didn’t seem to think through how things like this would go in the new space, so when I did what I was told to do but it wasn’t really what they wanted done, I got chewed out. A real pain in the-you-know-what. I hope it’s time off of purgatory for me… (The cynical part of me says that if the first thing in the new space had been a recycling project sponsored by the social justice committee, the staff would have thought it all through perfectly and everything would have gone smoothly; but then, we’ve long known the priorities of our parish. But our director of religious education did step in to help Sunday morning, and I really appreciated that.)
Edit: In response to a wrap-up report I sent him, I did receive an e-mail from our pastor today apologizing for “barking” at us before mass last weekend. That is much appreciated.
So, not surprisingly, President Obama is set to undo the Mexico City Policy, which has prohibited US funding to organizations that promote or provide abortions overseas. So now our tax dollars will be used to offer, or in some cases force, abortions in other countries. Just what we need – to spread our Culture of Death around the world.
Clinton had undone the policy first put in place by Reagan, then W. reinstated it. And this back and forth always takes place on the Jan. 22 anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But this seems like such a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life supporters, especially those who will march today. For someone who says he wants to reach out to those who disagree with him and find common ground… Well, he couldn’t have waited until next week to do this? We know the pro-abortion forces won in Novmeber, and we know they’re going to make policy changes like this. And now we know for sure that there really is no desire to find common ground. It’s just going to be about forcing a pro-abortion agenda on everyone. It doesn’t bode well. At all.
I say again what I did after the election – Lord, have mercy on our souls. Shame on all those who voted against their conscience on the very existence of life because they wanted to vote for a black man, either because race meant more to them than millions of innocents slaughtered or they were so excited about voting for a black man that they chose to remain ignorant of the virulant pro-abortion platform of the Democrat Party and this president. Shame on our bishops for not speaking more forcefully about this, particularly our own. He put out a reasonably strong statement about the preeminence of the life issue, but he waited until right before the election to put it out – really too late given all the early voting here. And then he rushed to congratulate Obama on his historic election. That’s all well and good, but perhaps he could have added a statement like, “From one black man to another, I need to point out to you that this abortion position you support so fiercely is killing *our* people.” It really is a genocide in the black community, and we need to be able to say that.
Shame on all of us for electing a man who strongly supports such evil. Shame on all of us for abiding this evil in our country for so long.
I wasn’t going to, but I watched the inauguration on CSPAN. We do definitely do pomp and circumstance well. The orderly, peaceful transfer of power really is rather remarkable when you think about it in a world context. And it’s a good day for America to have our first black president. I hope it will mean good things for race relations in our country. Though I’m not sure what to make of Joseph Lowery’s “benediction.”
Why is the vice-presidential oath more elaborate than the presidential? And why did both President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts fumble the presidential oath? President Obama delivered his inaugural address flawlessly, though it wasn’t memorable; but he stumbled all over the oath.
The first daughters are adorable. Malia (she is the older one, right?) seemed pretty busy with her little camera during the whole ceremony.
I will admit to shedding some tears watching George W. Bush board that helicopter and depart. I hope he has many happy, healthy, carefree years that he has certainly earned. Thank you, Mr. President, for keeping us safe. There are a number of things I wish you had done differently, but on the key task of the president, you done good. I wonder if it feels weird to suddently not receive a daily inteligence briefing, or if it’s just a huge relief – “Not on my shoulders anymore!”?
My biggest kick, though, came after the Obama’s returned to the the interior of the capitol, in a room off the rotunda for his first signing ceremony. (He noted, “I’m a lefty – get used to it,” as he signed.) But the funny thing was Senator Dianne Feinstein standing next to him, commenting, “What a distinctive signature!” as he signed. Eye roll.
The Dog made one today. It seems someone felt it was just hunkey-dorey for them to open our relatively new drive-through gate, and of course, The Dog couldn’t resist the opportunity to go exploring. The local city animal services picked her up and called. So Agent Murphy and I bundled into the car to retrieve our puppy, who was sitting in a cage on the back of a truck. The county animal services office was useless when I called them, so that’s just one more reason to support the annexation of our plot of land by the local city, instead of remaining an unincorporated piece of the county. Too bad they messed up the recent ballot initiative on annexation. But at least I feel confirmed in our decision to support annexation.
The gate is now chained and padlocked, since people feel the need to mess with it. We’re glad our girl is safe. Agent Murphy would have started to miss her, I think, if she’d been gone much longer.
Mr. Tldz worked from home yesterday so I could go vote without dragging Agent Murphy along. (He voted absentee – Mr. Tldz, not The Agent.) I went over after Agent Murphy went down for his afternoon nap. Silly me, I thought school would be out of session yesterday – at least those schools used as polling places. But no. And my arrival during naptime coincided nicely with afternoon pickup. What a nightmare. One of the teachers trying to manage the kids asked me, “Why did you come during dismissal?” Umm, because the polls are open from 7-7, and this is when I could come.
It’s always struck me as odd when schools that are polling places are open for school during elections. Seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Anyway, very glad we’re sending Senator Chambliss back to Washington.