Fluid Thursday

Stream of Consciousness Thursday I'd forgotten about this short-lived feature. It garnered some boos and some laughs, and I like laughs, like that scene from Mary Poppins ("I love to laugh. Hahaha"), but that weightlessness stuff reminds me of astronauts, and I hear they have

The End of Volunteerism

In a Service Club, a Long Time Ago I belong to a service club that has a somewhat unique officer arrangement. If you "go through the chairs," you're committing to a five-year stint. Three of the years require you to be at every weekly meeting,

Tuesday Miscellany

Bubba Cometh While at my parents' on Mother's Day, my father told me to check out this article at The Economist [http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13528224] . It's about a new line of business: prison consulting. Or, "How to

Hip, Kangaroos, and More

Hip Me with Your Best Shot Professor Charles Rice at Notre Dame liked to tell us, "You don't have to wear a pony tail and sandals to be counter-cultural. You just have to be a good Catholic." So I was a little disappointed (not surprised

Something for Sunday Morning

"When you feel the assaults of passion and anger, then is the time to be silent as Jesus was silent in the midst of His ignominies and sufferings." St. Paul of the Cross

Brews You Can Use

A celebratory BYCU today: My tweaked TDE format appears to be paying off. Average daily visitors this week have exceeded 600. Traditionally, about 400 people come through (run through, accidentally click on site then swear "Catholic Fascist!" then log off, etc.). This week has seen a 50% uptick,

From the Notebooks

Waste We waste money. We waste time. Teenagers get wasted. Broken old drunkards wasted their lives. T.S. Eliot wrote of The Wasteland. Freddie Fender sang of Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, and The Who sang of Teenage Wasteland. Anorexics waste away. Landfills contain waste and sewage is known as

Wednesday Miscellany

Porn Hurts, Episode 1,982,001 > A 45-year-old internet porn addict is facing jail after he attacked his wife and forced her to have her genitals pierced. Police said the man from Istria had demanded she get the piercing done so she would be more like a

From the Notebooks

The crazy season is officially upon me: two boys in baseball (same team, thankfully), JV soccer, 8-year-old soccer, 5-year-old soccer, track, piano, dance, end-of-school-year stuff . . . and that little thing I call "my job." I'll have to lean on my

Feature Essay

The Cell Phone Imbroglio An interesting thing happened at my local high school on Friday. The senior class organized a school-wide prank: the students programmed their cell phone alarms to go off at 10:30. Because cell phones are supposed to be kept in lockers during class, this would