Silly me—no, stupid me: for not considering that a James O’Keefe-sponsored NPR video just might possibly maybe could have been. . . edited.
That should have been my first response: Is this even real?
h/t to the commenters at TNC’s joint, especially &chik and his/her link to a critical look at the video at (goddess help me) Glenn Beck’s The Blaze.
Hell of a week.
I went from chest-cracking anxiety over finances and work to chest-thrumming over-work.
More later, but, you know, LOLcats in the meantime.
(And welcome back, dmf!)
Okay, so that whole unable-to-post-grades-on-Webgrade problem?
My fault: I haven’t checked my official e-mail in, oh, awhile, and, apparently, 10 days ago a message was sent to my account informing me of the expeditious expiration of my password. Which I didn’t see, because, well, I haven’t checked my official e-mail in, oh, awhile.
So completely totally obviously my fault.
I hate that.
Remember that nun in Arizona who was excommunicated for sanctioning life-saving surgery for a pregnant woman, surgery which resulted in the termination of her 11-week pregnancy?
Well, now the entire hospital has been disciplined, losing its official Catholic affiliation.
Bishop Thomas Olmsted called the 2009 procedure an abortion and said St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center – recognized internationally for its neurology and neurosurgery practices – violated ethical and religious directives of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“In the decision to abort, the equal dignity of mother and her baby were not both upheld,” Olmsted said at a news conference announcing the decision. “The mother had a disease that needed to be treated. But instead of treating the disease, St. Joseph’s medical staff and ethics committee decided that the healthy, 11-week-old baby should be directly killed.”
St. Joseph’s president Linda Hunt took the outrageous position that
“If we are presented with a situation in which a pregnancy threatens a woman’s life, our first priority is to save both patients. If that is not possible, we will always save the life we can save, and that is what we did in this case,” Hunt said. “Morally, ethically, and legally, we simply cannot stand by and let someone die whose life we might be able to save.”
It was precisely this attitude, as well as the unwillingness of administrators and doctors to promise never ever ever again attempt to save a pregnant woman’s life when that procedure might end the life of the fetus that led the diocese to strip its affiliation from St. Joseph’s.
Now that’s life.
h/t: Huffington Post
Or, my parents visiting:
It was fine.
Two-thirds, that is—I’m about 2/3 of the way through the chop-edit of my first novel.
I’ll go back over it, again, once I’ve finished with the axe, but by then sandpaper should do.
As I’m thwacking my way through this, it’s so, so clear how much a first novel this is. I knew that, before, even when it was still my darling, but my cold eyes now see all of the cracks covered by my previous affection.
Still, I plan to go through with my plans to Smashwords this. Flaws and all, it is still an engaging enough read. And I’ll never write another novel like this one.
Perhaps that’s why I’m willing to put this cracked-pot out there: because I won’t ever write something like this again.
My second novel, as I’ve mentioned, is better, more complex, and my third novel—well, two of my three third novels (not counting the first third-novel, now languishing in a persistent vegetative state)—take(s) me even further away from my experiences and more into ‘what-if’ territory. I don’t want any of these novels to become mechanical (cf. Ian McEwan, Richard Powers), but I do want to see if I conjure a novel out of the air rather than memory.
I rush to remind that the first novel is not autobiographical—and in the reminder hope you don’t notice the rush. To say that the characters are not me or her or her or him is true enough, but, in fact, I’m not wholly comfortable with how much is recognizable. This is one novel that, for those who know me, one could say Oh, yeah, I see that. And not just see what I see, but see parts of me that I don’t see.
Terrifying.
But if I am to write for others, I have to allow that those others will see what I don’t see. I can control everything up to the point I let it go, at which point I must simply let it go.
So that’s why I want to put (the still provisionally-named—please, if you have any suggestions, let me know) Unexpected People out there. Few people are likely ever to read it, certainly, but the risk—the risk!—that it might actually be read, well, let me start dealing with that now, with the novel that got me started.
That all sounds backasswards, I know: I’m afraid not that I won’t have readers, but that I will. But there it is.
And so if I am ever to make a move with my other novels or any other writing, I have to stop hiding, stop protecting whatever the hell it is I think I’m protecting, and let it go.
And so, after the chopping and sanding, and the running of my hand over it one last time, I’ll let it go.
A follow up: Before I implemented my Fordist approach to lunch production, I did make a stove-top version of the mushroom/cheese/tortilla thingamajig.
It’s similar to the, um, m/c/t thingamajig, but good to eat right then and there!
For a single serving, I simply saute mushrooms & peppers (no tofu), season, then scoop onto mustard-smeared and cheese-strewn tortilla, roll, then return to pan (low heat), to allow cheese to melt and produce a nice, crispy exterior (I flip the roll when one side is golden; I also flatten it—because that’s how I roll [sorry, couldn’t resist]—but it’s your lunch: do what you like).
I eat eat it by hand, but do note that juice usually drips out of end. Oh, and I do use hand-rolled tortillas for the EatRightNow version—I do notice the difference.
Other cheese-tortilla variations:
If I want to be neat, I combine a sharp cheddar and decent mozzarella cheese on an olive oil-smeared tortilla, add salt & pepper, fold into neat package, and toast on stove top (low heat) flipping once.
Sometimes I add a thin slice of tofu; sometimes I smear tortilla w/pesto; sometimes I add marinara sauce internally; sometimes I use marinara sauce as a dip.
If I want to be messy, I simply turn this all into a quesadilla, smashing the torts as flat as possible and causing cheese to ooze out of the sides and bubble into a crispy golden deliciousness.
Hot cheese and tortillas. You really can’t go wrong.
Amy Welborn asked those of us who are pro-choice why we bother worrying about reducing the numbers of abortion.
It was a fair question. (My reply, here.)
So now a question for those who think abortion is murder: If abortion is murder, and those who perform abortions murderers, why is the murder of a murderer abhorrent?
Rod Dreher and Robert George (who is quoted at Crunchy Con) each condemns the murder of Dr. Tiller, and George offers the most the conventional rejoinder to those who believe that this is a just killing: We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life.
It is a reasonable response, and one which likely covers many who call themselves pro-life.
But it does not cover all. It does not cover those who, unshackled by any sort of seamless garment argument, seek justice by any means necessary.
I’m a leftist and not a pacifist, and think there are some necessities beyond morality; thus I, too, have to consider the ramifications of the ‘justice by any means necessary’ argument.
But not today. Today, a man was killed in the name of life. Today, it is the turn of those who proclaim their fealty to that cause to answer the question.
*Update: I’m not the only one asking this question.
From the New York Times Lede Blog:
Updated: 7:38 am
The new head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols — who said on Wednesday that it “takes courage” for members of the clergy in Ireland who abused children “to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at” — tried to clarify his comments on Thursday.
Archbishop Nichols, who officially takes over the post of Archbishop of Westminster at a ceremony on Thursday, told British television on Wednesday, after the release of a 2,600-page report detailing the abuse of Irish children at Church-run state institutions:
It’s very distressing and very disturbing. And my heart goes out today, first of all to those people who will find that their stories are now told in public…. Secondly, I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at. That takes courage. And also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did.
On Thursday, Archbishop Nichols told BBC Radio that his remarks were “perfectly sensible” and stressed that he also said that anyone guilty of abuse should be prosecuted. The BBC reported that Archbishop Nichols said, of members of the clergy who had committed abuse:
It is a tough road to take, to face up to our own weaknesses. That is certainly true of anyone who’s deceived themselves that all they’ve been doing is taking a bit of comfort from children.
The Irish Times reports that Archbishop Nichols was also asked if members of the clergy should be subject to prosection and that he replied: “Yes, absolutely. If the offenses are such that demand that.”
——
Oh, at least he wants them prosecuted. So what is doing to make sure that happens?
AbsurdBeats 