1.
Beautiful babies ~ My little niece Nora was welcomed into the Church last Sunday.
2.
I am naive, I suppose. I never knew that our weapons used depleted uranium (nuclear weapons, sure, but not ground artillery). After the battle for Falluja, in Iraq, that uranium has contaminated the area. The Houston Chronicle last Sunday reported that 24% of babies born in Iraq live less than a week because of severe birth defects (SEVERE, like two heads). I googled a bit, and The Guardian sums it up.
There’s nothing for me to “do” about it. There’s no petition, no celebrity cause to join, no ribbon to wear, no way I can help. All I can do is pray. And I do, for all of these beautiful mothers and beautiful babies that have war etched into their very bones.
Prince of Peace, have mercy on us!
3.
John C. Wright, scifi author extraordinaire and lover of space princesses, puts our deficit in perspective with a post on Million, Billion, Trillion.
A million dollars ago was five (5) seconds ago at the U.S. Treasury.
A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury. [Note: this was pre-Obama]
A trillion dollars is so large a number that only politicians can use the term in conversation.
Here is some perspective on TRILLION:
Trillion = 1,000,000,000,000.
The country has not existed for a trillion seconds.
Western civilization has not been around a trillion seconds.
Read the whole thing.
4.
The Texas Education Agency has released their recommendations for revising the state’s history curriculum. I browsed their list of historical figures to be studied, and shook my head at my lack of education. I don’t know who a few of these people are!
Why would a homeschooler want to know what the public schools are teaching? We may not always be homeschoolers, and my children’s friends, future co-workers, and future spouses are most likely learning these things!
I am glad to see they deleted Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyun from the historical figures section. I do hope they put them in the literary figures, where they belong. The American Tall Tale is a unique cultural form.
5.
Alli has a tooth! And she sits up! And she’s learning to crawl! And, I have no pictures because my children love the digital camera and it needs to be fixed now.
6.
I loved this post at Real Life. I agree with her that we shouldn’t depend on the Capitol lawn or town square to display a Nativity scene. We shouldn’t rely on public school choirs to teach the kids carols and hymns. We should all, as a culture, pass down cultural traditions, not rely on institutions to do it for us.
Keep Christ in Christmas. Perform an act of love.
UPDATE!!! Look what my talented sister made for me!
Feel free to grab it for your sidebar if you wish!
7.
The Anchoress has just started to wear a brown scapular, and covering her head at Mass occasionally. I wear a scapular, and didn’t realize it was seen as odd by many Catholics. Do you cover your head when you pray? I’d love to hear why you do – or don’t.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not Catholic, but I believe in covering at worship. I’ve often thought on the subject of covering during prayer at other times but haven’t stepped out that far.
Thanks for sharing the info about the babies in Falluja. Heartbreaking.
Milehimama, do you have the link to the Chronicle story? I’ve searched and I can’t find it. I do know that infant mortality in Iraq is going down, and that there are 59 countries who have higher infant mortality rates than Iraq. The UN lists 16 other countries with higher infant mortality rates. From what I’ve read on the subject even some Iraqi doctors are not willing to pin the blame on DU.If the rates of birth defects were so high I would expect some sort of correlation in infant mortality. I do agree that a scientific investigation could be warranted, no one wants to think of children suffering. I do want to point out that as the mother of a child with multiple disabilities who was not exposed to DU there are often other causes of birth defects. Neural tube defects have dropped significantly in countries that have pregnant women adding folic acid to their diets. Britian, where the two Western doctors are from, and who should have professional knowledge of these facts, had the highest rate of spina bifida, which is nueral tube defect, in the world. That’s right, the highest. Rates of defects dropped in western countries because of the availability of abortion coupled with folic acid supplementation. Abortion is not as readily available in Iraq as it is in other parts of the world, like the UK and the US. Not sure if they have a program for folic acid supplementation. So, yes, lets investigate, but not be too quick to blame because Climategate has shown us the folly of stacked and fudged sceintific data.
One of the British doctors quoted in the Guardian article is David Halpin. A Google search would take you to a webpage where you can read wonderful articles titled “Don’t Support Our Troops” with the usual shill about our troops and war crimes, the plight of the poor “oppressed” Palestinian people and the evil Zionist entity that rational people call Israel. A Google search of Chris Burns-Cox, the other British doctor, will bring up loads of info on his political leanings, and there is even a lovely photo of him showing support for his pet cause, Palestinians oppressed by Israel, wearing his keffiyeh. he was supportive of a boycott against Israel, by the way. Not a shock. Against sanctions for Saddam, for a boycott of Israel. If you follow the breadcrumbs, I think you could say some people may have a teeny-tiny agenda.
It would be a shame if real concerns by real Iraqi doctors were to be politicized and exploited. The Guardian should have made clear the backgrounds of the British doctors in the article. It makes me go “hmm…”. But wait, wasn’t the reporter who wrote the article for the Guradian, involved in his own little dust-up, covered three years ago, alleging Israel’s bombing of Red Cross ambulances?
Shame if help to Iraqi children takes a back seat to left-wing huckstering.
I don’t have a link. It was on the feature that has a map of the world and major things happening, like earthquakes or whatnot. I think that’s a national feature, I just saw it in the Chronicle.
Although perhaps you misunderstand my words. By no means do I think ALL birth defects are caused by depleted uranium, but certainly some are.
My original info came from an article in the Tehran Times, but I published the Guardian link because that is more accepted in the West.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=208095
Here’s a Christian Science Monitor story, too, from 2003
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html
No, I didn’t mean to imply that you believed all birth defects are caused by DU. I’ll go back and browse the Chronicle site again.
I followed your link to the TEA. Cynthia Parker deleted, I remember her story from when I was a youngster.Wonder why she was deleted as her story is very much a part of early Texas history. Quanah is still there. No tears shed for Henry Cisneros’ deletion and will admit to not knowing Irma Rangel.
And yes, we cover at Mass, and when I pray at home. I don’t wear a scapular but my daughter does. I never thought it was strange. I do feel that my not wearing one is probably a sign of my personal spiritual laziness at this point.
What kind of head covering is appropriate for Mass? I understand that chapel veils are common in some parishes (especially those with a Latin Mass). I guess I should ask what is inappropriate, then, shouldn’t I?
I usually wear a chapel veil (sometimes called a mantilla). You can see it in Alli’s baptism pics, I think – or at least on some of the other women. I’ve also worn hats. I love hats – er, but so do my kids so they don’t last long, LOL! I’ve seen other women use a scarf (like a babushka or a hijab), and nuns often have a full veil.
http://www.milehimama.com/2009/09/08/tiny-treasures-tuesday-2/
I asked my husband about the DU shells, since he used to be in the Navy. He said he knew about that, and the military is phasing them out now that we have the technology to reprocess the DU to get more energy out of it. It happened to be a waste metal that helped minimize problems with guns overheating. Gun designs have changed, as have procedures for use and frequency of use, so other metals are being explored. The military is switching to titanium.
Anyhoo, he wasn’t terribly surprised, because Gulf War Syndrome was linked to soldiers’ exposure to DU shells, among other things.
I do not currently cover, but I am fascinated by the practice, if that makes sense. Nobody in my parish does it, and I ‘m really not brave enough to do it on my own. It’s something I’ve done a lot of reading on, though, and I admire it as a spiritual practice.