Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Some links 'n stuff

Those of you who do not permit yourself certain dietary indulgences might want to skip the first part of this post, which concerns the rich dark chocolatey batch of chewy nutfilled brownies I made last night. God they're good. Actually, that's all I have to say about it, so never mind.

I'm in a bit of a quandary. My two favorite NFL teams are meeting in the playoffs, the Saints and the Bears. Don't know who to root for. The Bears I guess.

Speaking of football, and in the hope it will provide no further annoyance to TSO, my mother (of Mouse Poetry fame) notifies me via email that her physician, a female of course, "...graduated from and got her medical degree from Ohio State. On my last visit to her, the week before the game, she was all excited because she was going to the Big Game, and was so sure her team would win. I begged to differ, so you can imagine all the needling I was planning when I went for another appointment the week of the Florida win. However, I didn't have the heart to really lay it on when I saw her. That's not to say I didn't mention the Gators' easy win. She was a good sport and admitted Fla. played a great game, and gave her congratulations. When I told her I had composed a little ditty in my head about the game, she told me to please keep it there. She didn't want to hear it, so I did...it went like this:

The itsy bitsy Buckeyes climbed up the water spout,
Along came the Gators and flushed the Buckeyes out.
41 to 14 was really quite a rout,
Making the Gators number one
Without a single doubt.
It seems the Heisman Trophy guy never found his way.
Instead Chris Leak and Tebow were the heroes of the day
So here's to the mighty men from the swamp,
Rah, rah, rah and a big ole Gator Chomp!!!!

Her demur is that she didn't put a lot of time into it.

In case you hadn't noticed, Jack is back. Yes, the new season of 24. Jack's body is scarred by the marks of torture after two years in a Chinese prison. What goes around comes around. But he gets back to his old ways pretty quickly, sticking a sharp object into a guy's bullet wound, then goes wobbly about it, saying, "I don't remember how to do this." Uh-huh. But somehow he ends up shooting his old friend, then goes wobbly again, throws up, and tells his superiors, "I can't do this anymore." Uh-huh. Then a suitcase nuke goes off. It went like this, rapid fire: shoot Curtis, throw up, watch mushroom cloud rising into the sky. I have a feeling he'll be back. There are four more nukes still out there.

Oh, those links. Well, there's an interesting discussion on the death penalty going on at Right Reason, provoked by Catholic philosoper Alexander Pruss. It's a lot to get through but worth it. Lydia McGrew extends the conversation here, at Enchiridion Militis. All are welcome.

TSO points us to a lovely rendition of the Ave Maria.

Lawrence Auster and his readers find reason to re-visit the interesting case of morally serious conservative atheist Heather MacDonald, who "...rejects the idea of a good and just God because God allows inequities. Mac Donald is not a conservative, but a kind of right-liberal materialist reductionist who is critical of certain extreme and destructive aspects of contemporary liberalism, and so seems conservative. A person who despises religious belief and wants it to come to an end is not a conservative..."

Over at Zippy's, he and Tom (of Disputations) mind their P's and Q's. Among other things.

At Hallowed Ground, Jeff Culbreath...sorry, I forgot.

Kevin Jones has been blogging a lot lately. And that's a good thing. In return for my saying so, he will kindly take the trouble to change the link in his sidebar, the one leading here, to its correct address.

Something has lit a flame under Sparki. It concerns the so-called Ashley treatment, given to the "pillow angel" at her parents' behest, but to Sparki "...'pillow angel' sounds like a stuffed toy you buy at Hallmark. It's dehumanizing." She's not pleased with the treatment, either, which sounds like mutilation in the interest of some notion of mercy. It seems the same sort of thinking that ends up in euthanasia.

Peony is pissed, Cella is incensed, and President Bush is to blame. Hear their case.

And finally, Micki talks about "cremains". The topic really burns some people up, but not me. Here's what they'll say at my funeral:

Here lies a fellow, we knew him as Bill,
Who left no instructions in his final will
As to how we should of his body dispose,
To pour him in a bottle or dress him in his clothes -
His wife seems to think he didn't much care
As long as they're serving Beck's Over There.

8 comments:

TS said...

Cruelty thy name is mother.

TS said...

Here lies a fellow called TSO,
Who left no instructions to kin or foe,
As to how we should of his body dispose,
To pour him in a bottle or dress him in his clothes -
But he probably won't care if Heaven's like Venice
with all the canals overflowing with Guinness.

(Yeah I know, but it tain't ez to find to think of a rhyme for Guinness!)

William Luse said...

Oh, you don't know the half of it. I was raised by her.

Btw, if you were her, wouldn't you be leery of accepting prescriptions from a doctor of that pedigree?

William Luse said...

Well, I like it. It's always good to have Guiness in us.

William Luse said...

Mother responds via email that if she'd known what beautiful granddaughters I was going to give her, she'd have been nicer.

TS said...

Doh! "In us"! Of course.

She did break the bank in the beautiful granddaughter category.

Lydia McGrew said...

Hey, Bill, I came to leave a comment, like you asked. (Grin.)

I see you've noted the Ashley "pillow angel" thing. I'm with Sparki (of whom I'd never heard before) all the way on this. Learned about it on Secondhand Smoke, Wesley Smith's blog. It's very bad stuff, especially as the parents are actively advertising this for other parents. One woman in the UK whose daughter as (I think I've got this right) muscular dystrophy is now pushing hard for her daughter to have an otherwise unneeded hysterectomy. That woman is very upset that she didn't get a chance to make her girl a "pillow angel" before she started growing bigger. If only the idea had occurred to her! Sheesh! And some guy who is in league with the parents is with one of these transhumanist groups and has been quoted as saying that it would be "grotesque" for Ashley to have a mature woman's body and the mind of a baby. Well, there ya' go: Severely mentally disabled people are grotesque. Let's maim their bodies to "match" their limited minds.

Worst of all, ol' mom and dad say they didn't hesitate *at all* about giving Ashley all of these surgeries and hormones. They hadn't the slightest doubts about it. Creepy indeed. Let's hope it doesn't become all the rage.

William Luse said...

All right! A comment from a bona fide lady philosopher. I'm coming up in the world.

I think Sparki does something for a Cath paper out in Nebraska. And I'm with both of you. The parents didn't "hesitate at all" because they're not convinced the thing they're dealing with is really a person, a complete person, rather than a pet on whom they are inclined to bestow their modern version of mercy.

Let's hope it doesn't become all the rage.
I suspect this is just the most recent incarnation of a manipulative impulse that's already the rage: in vitro, genetic screening for Downs (and for sex), ESCR, and, should this little girl's condition ever deteriorate, the removal of feeding tubes.