The Allen Family in Mozambique

When my oldest son went to preschool, I would pick him up after school was out and would stay afterwards out back to chat with Dan Allen, one of the few other dads who wasn't working a job that time of day. We would adjourn to the schoolyard, with his kids and mine running ahead and climbing all over the playground equipment.

In those days, Dan and I spoke of many things. Dan is a deeply convicted and devout Protestant, and I the same thing, only Catholic. We discussed abortion, evil cultural influences on children, Islam, and morality. We spoke of sin, redemption, forgiveness, faith, heaven, and hell. We saw something unfold over time, a truism I first heard from Mark Crutcher at one of his seminars I'd attended 15 years before - namely, that because religious conservatives seek, affirm and embrace that which is true, they find more in common with each other beyond sectarian lines than they do with liberals bearing their own denominational label, who reduce and deny that which is true.

All the while our children played near us, sometimes cutting in competing for our attention. His two beautiful little girls had a way of hugging each other "sorry" when they'd accidentally hurt one another, and would hug my kids when they accidentally hurt them.

Those people are very far away from me now. After having given the matter much prayer and thought, the Allen family - Dad, Mom, and girls - sold their home, packed everything up and went off to Mozambique to do missionary work for their church. I've added their new blog to my blogroll.

Personally, I wouldn't do that with my kids. Mozambique is poverty stricken, AIDS ridden, and not as safe as America. By Dan's first blog entry alone, it looks like the country suffers from poor infrastructure, scarcity, and overpricing as well. Personalizing the situation by imagining my own family in it clarifies in my mind why the Catholic Church defines unmarried vocations for missionary priests, brothers, and nuns. But this family feels led there by the Spirit to do God's work, to bring the Gospel and loving hands to the people of Mozambique.

And so they have. And so they do. I pray for their success and eventual safe return.

Boy Eating Halloween Flesh Fries. Yechh!

Between the school party and trick or treating, our kids got lots of loot on Halloween. And because we strictly ration their candy consumption, they still have lots of Halloween loot.


A couple days ago, Patrick dug through his bag (the one from the school party, not the trick or treat bag) and found a sealed black plastic bag from one of his classmates. Inside that bag was a wrapped french fries cup that held 5 candy severed human fingers.

Here they are out of the package.

Yechh! Even though they're made of the same gummy stuff they make chewy fruit snacks out of, no one would actually raise one to their mouth and take a bite of it, would they?

No, wait. Oops!

Even kiddom has its limits. One bite is all he took, and so they remain back in the cabinet to this very day.

Takers?

Added: Glenn Walker's French Fry Diary has more on these foul confections here.

Can I Get the Padding in Mauve?

Now that it's official that I'm on board St. Blogustine, I've been given my monk's garb, and writing desk, and shown to my cell.

I had to have my head Photoshopped onto St. Augustine and come up with a personal tag line in Latin, but what to do about the tag line? Since I don't know Latin, I could either coopt a listed saying or motto or run my own concoction through an online translator.

Matt sent word back that he would run the picture I submitted even though my head is too big (which it always has been in the Real World). That's pure inspiration that describes me, and thus became my signature phrase on the front page:

"Meus Caput Capitis Est Nimius Magnus"

(My Head Is Too Big)

All human readers are invited to correct any flaws in the robo translation in the comments or by email.

Update: My friend Todd emailed me this, which I'll go ahead and accept at face value since I know nothing of this subject.

I am a beginning Latin student so take all of this with a grain of salt. Latin uses different "cases" for nouns if they are the subject of a sentence or direct object or indirect object, etc. Caput means head used a subject. Capitis is a possessive meaning of the/my head. Capitis is also second person plural meaning you take or receive. Obviously this was done on purpose to torment Latin students.

Word order in Latin is not terribly important. Latin uses different forms of the word to tell us subject and object, while English more so uses word order. That said, the most common word order is noun adjective verb. For "my head is too big," I suggest Caput meus nimius magnus est. Free advice and worth every penny.

Done. Thanks, Todd!

TheSeriousBlog and StBlogustine

The resolution of a few short conferences with Matt Cassens is that St. Blogustine is officially our team blog. Over there, I'll post issues related pieces that are national in scope, and here I'll keep everything else, the lighter and more personal stuff. St. B has a larger, established readership that's come to expect a National Review Online lite, and thus much of what I find amusing to post wouldn't have a happy home life there. The Serious Blog will stick around for the less serious stuff.

On St. Blogustine, we discuss how the USCCB is playing post-election catch-up ball. The bishops are defunding ACORN, now that they've done so much damage over these many years, funded in part by Catholic money.

The conference failed to unify against Obama before the election, and consequently now risk shutting down the nation's Catholic hospitals because of Obama's support for FOCA. There's a little you can do yet to fight FOCA.

If Only He Were President

Friday was the parent-teacher conference at the school and, per laws of physics, the chain of parents ahead of me extended over their alloted face time with the teacher; thus, arriving at the appointed time entailed a wait out in the hall. In anticipation of parental wait times, the teacher hung up essays written by the entire first grade class out in the hall, entitled If I Were President.

With one exception, every child's essay's points were confined to the following:

• I would stop the war in Iraq.
• I would bring all the soldiers home.
• I would give the poor people money.
• I would give the poor people food.
• I would move into the White House.

Two of the boys added "I would play" as the final point.

My son reports that the entire first grade class except himself voted for Obama in the mock election. Were they under the misimpression that we don't give money and food to the poor people now, and that Obama's the only candidate who would do it? Who guided them to think that the only policies worthy of the President are of pacifism and redistributive socialism?

As I said, there was one single exception to the above manifesto; I'm proud to report that my son singly strayed from the lockstep with this opening sentence of his essay:

First, I would stop uborshin.

You done your daddy proud, son!

The Democrats Want to Confiscate Your Retirement Portfolio

Got money in an IRA, 401k, or pension plan? Now that the election is over, the Democrats have wasted no time to remove the boxing gloves, and hatch plans to reach their bare fingers into your savings - and move all of it to the Social Security Administration fund.

Read my post on St. Blogustine for more.

Now that you Obama voters drunk yourselves blind on Obamania and did something stupid on election day, how come I have wake up with him in the morning?

Show Your Patriotism For President Obama!

Obama's got me feeling pretty patriotic these days. I was feeling so patriotic I designed my own bumper sticker, and here it is!



Liberals thought they were pret-ty clever by driving around with this slogan stuck on the rears of their cars during the Bush years. Now let's see how they like this updated, patriotic-for-real, NObama version!

While you're at it, show how much smarter you are than they were by not conspicuously displaying their popular misattribution of this quote to Thomas Jefferson.

That it's done up in a Revolutionary War era font adds an extra helping of patriotism with a classic touch. Go on, click the bumper sticker. You know you want one.

Please Don't Call Him 'Obamarx'

The results of our pre-election poll are in. Thanks to my 6 readers who responded with me!

Election Day in Cook County

I just voted while my two preschoolers were fawned on and given slices of poundcake by the pollworkers. My four year old son gazed all around the place hoping to spot McCain and Obama somewhere in the room, greeting all the voters.

Here in Obama's home state of Illinois, the political winds are blowing in such a way that voting for McCain has about all the effect of voting against Castro. From my small sample of mass going Catholics I've spoken with, I think if McCain wins it'll be by the grace of God that resides in the Protestants. Or maybe that's just the Chicago regional Robocratic hue that stains the Catholics of the Chicago Archdiocese.

In the conversation I had last night with our friend, a practicing Catholic mother of four whose husband is trying to nose into Obama's victory bash in Grant Park without a pass, I brought up the subject of Obama's stance on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

1.1 million babies are aborted each year here, and this election is a pivotal moment to change that direction. She replied, "I'm not a one-issue voter," which translates to "I don't give a crap about the 1.1 million babies."

God help us. If He is, I haven't been shown it in my parish.

Update:
When I went to pick up my kids at the parish school this afternoon, an announcement came over the PA with the final count in the mock election, which no doubt correlates with how the children's parents will have voted.

The score: McCain 55, Obama 149. A loud cheer erupted throughout the school. Catholic kids in their uniforms scurried and whooped about the parking lot, cheering and giving each other high fives. I seethed. My two fine sons, raised right, voted for McCain. They know enough about abortion to be against it. The oldest felt sensitive about the defeat on the ride home.

The "Catholic" vote in my home parish is an abrogation of moral responsibility, an abuse of citizenship. God save our country!