Lift Up Your Hearts!

Heather and Jon gave us a gift certificate for the El Bodegon restaurant, because they know we've been mouring the demise of our favorite tapas restaurant.  We thought we'd celebrate our anniversary again tonight (the first celebration having been in Switzerland) and try it out.

Our intentions to use the gift certificate went by the board, however.  We arrived during tapas happy hour, and learned that we couldn't use both discounts.  We couldn't resist two-for-one tapas, so we'll need to return to use the gift certificate.  This is a good thing.  :)  The meal was thoroughly delightful: (More)

It doesn't really matter that Barack Obama was not my candidate of choice (see my election series, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 for some of the reasons why); as a friend said, "I didn't vote for him, but I hope he's the best president ever."  What boggles my mind is the adulation, ethusiasm, and outright joy that Inauguration Day 2009 brings—it's not all media hype.  I can't imagine any presidential inauguration inspiring that kind of joy in me.  At best I usually manage feelings of relief that the worst candidate did not win.  But perhaps that's just a character flaw:  I find it hard to get that enthusiastic about anything.  We recently returned from our daughter's fabulous wedding to a wonderful man, and though I am pleased and enthusiastic and joyful, even for that event I can't imagine participating in the kind of jubliant demonstration associated with Obama's inauguration.  Be that as it may, I truly wish our new president the best, and pray for him, because he will need it.

And yet my primary commentary on this Inauguration Day is a thank you to outgoing President Bush.  History alone will tell,  but as far as I can see the evidence so far pronounces George W. Bush a good man but an unfortunate and often unwise president, the same judgment I gave to Jimmy Carter.  Nonetheless, he had his successes, and a very important one was highlighted by yesterday's Mallard Fillmore.

Insofar as I care about the Super Bowl, which isn't any distance at all, actually, I did think it would be cool to have an all-Pennsylvania matchup.  Failing that, I'll give condolences to my Philadelphia friends, say congratulations to my Pittsburgh friends, and hope the latter were safely away from downtown last night.  :)

I've noticed a disturbing trend in recent writings condemning individualism and independence, from the oft-quoted "It takes a village to raise a child" (best response to date: "I've seen the village, and I don't want it raising my children") to several of the essays on Patrick Deneen's excellent blog, What I Saw in America, to the many Christian writers who are taking pains to distance their religion from currently unpopular, Western—and particularly American—ideas.  Collectivism is in.

Some of this is a much-needed correction.  Basic human sinfulness (there is no better word for the phenomenon) has bent a respect for the rights and responsibilities of every human being into an excuse for me-first, me-only, me-now self-indulgence that has torn apart community on every level, and especially in our families.  Individual rights without individual responsibility is not a workable equation, and the fault must be addressed. (More)

At this moment, the temperature is the same in Orlando and Basel, which means that Orlando is having a "cold snap" and Basel has warmed up a bit since we were there.  Hillsboro, on the other hand....  Stay warm, all you Daleys!

From Conversion Diary:

Want to get to get things done like never before? Try writing a book.

I guarantee you, every time you sit down and see the blank screen with the blinking cursor, you will suddenly feel an urgent need to clean the baseboards, get those crumbs off the kitchen floor, de-lint the couch, Windex the skylight, clean the gutters, do your taxes and mop the garage. If you can swing a contract that puts even more pressure on you to write something good and thus brings out writer's block in its worst form, you can count on having your to-do list cleared off in about a week.

So that's why I accomplish the most whenever something else urgently needs to be done.  I find it especially true when leaving on a trip.  Suddenly all the items that languished contentedly on my to do list for weeks demand to be addressed before I leave, even though they're much less important than, say, packing my suitcase.

A couple more quick takes, as I dig through the backlog.

Think Your Kid's Gifted?  You're Probably Wrong, from Geek Dad.  An unfortunate title, as is the similar title of the article on which he is commenting; I would have said instead, "You're Probably Right."  At long last parents are beginning to realize that children are not mindless lumps of clay, but are nearly all born brilliant.  (You doubt that?  Plunk yourself down in the middle of a foreign country and see how long it takes you to become fluent in the language.)  Finally people are realizing that what they do, or don't do, with their young chldren makes a difference, and that they need better opportunities than most of them get.  Why do some people feel it necessary to debunk the idea?  Probably because, being fallen humans, we tend to focus not on "my child is brilliant" but "my child is brighter than someone else's child."  Geek Dad catches the real issue, however. (More)

Diplomacy.  It was Henry Kissinger's favorite game.  It was also a significant part of our lives in the early 1980s, back when Porter thought he had time to spend on interminable strategy board games.  He played in person; he played by mail.  He designed and implemented a multi-tiered rope-and-pulley game board system for our basement, so he could keep track of several games at once.  By far his favorite—no doubt because it is all skill, no luck—was Diplomacy.

I doubt the number of games Porter persuaded me to play exceeded two, but that didn't stop the whole family from being sucked into the vortex.  Somewhere in the process of all the conventions, fanzine activity, and of course, game playing, we made some lifelong friends, including two for whom Porter would subsequently be best man at their weddings.  Heather gave Porter his less sinister nickname, Dippy Daddy.  (The other, bestowed by one of his favorite opponents, was Porter the Knife.)  Two of our close friends published their own "Dipzines"—small publications with a few articles that primarly served the purpose of managing play-by-mail games—to which I occasionally submitted an article.  In one of them I even had a short-lived cartoon, which I called Dip City. (More)

Feeling the relief of the immediate pressure of travel/Christmas/wedding, I decided to make some long-overdue blog modifications.  Some were easy, and some...well, let's just say that—as with much system maintenance—it started by breaking more than it fixed.  Specifically, links.  And because this particular change was system-wide, it messed up Janet's links as well as mine.  Not all of them, but some, and finding out which ones is part of the fun.  :)  So please be patient as I continue to work on this, all the while trying not to let it consume too much of the time that should be spent on laundry, etc.

Your Webmaster.

This was going to be another set of Casting the Net quick takes, but it got a bit long.

Theodore Dalrymple's The Roads to Serfdom (thanks to Random Observations) observes the effects of socialism on the character of the British people, a warning Americans would do well to heed. (More)

There must be several proverbs similar to this one, but being for the moment unable to find an example, I made one up.  This is a lesson God has apparently decided to teach me recently, given that several opportunities to explore it have appeared in quick succession.  No, not from literal enemies, but why create a proverb if you can't be a little hyperbolic? (More)

One reason I keep this blog is to share with others what I find in my meanderings: large or little, delightful or dreadful, whatever I think someone else might enjoy, learn from, or care about.  Having learned the hard way that providing full commentary for each subject is not the best use of my time, I'm trying a new tactic.  Instead of apologizing each time I can't give what I'd call a proper response to a book, issue, or article, my omission has become purposeful.  "Casting the Net" is the title I'm giving to short introductions to random items of interest to me—and maybe to you. (More)

Li'l Writer Guy has return from his monastic retreat (we picked him up on our return from The Wedding), but is still experiencing re-entry, so you'll still mostly be getting quick takes and pointers to what others have written.  Probably lots of both, however, as the number of comment-worthy events and posts has multiplied almost out of control.  The most efficient way to deal with them is probably to present them with a simple "here, you might find this interesting."

I'm also working on a restructuring of this blog, so please bear with me as I play around.  For the first time in months I haven't had the immediate pressure of travel/new grandchild/wedding/holidays driving my life, and I'm looking forward to some signficant housecleaning in many areas of my life.  This feeling of reduced pressure is probably a fool's paradise, as there are still major wedding plans to work out (for the U.S. ceremony in the summer), other travel coming up, and the backlog of important work that was set aside for the more urgent (but also important)—but let me enjoy the moment.

Li'l Writer Guy completely understands that what you are all waiting for is the story of our trip and the reason we made it, and plans some serious work on that once his desk is dusted and the piles organized.

With a fair amount of admitted prejudice, I have said that Heather and Jon's wedding was the most perfect, beautiful, and appropriate wedding ever.  Now I must expand that statement:  Janet and Stephan's wedding was totally different, yet equally perfect, beautiful and appropriate.  (I can say this because I had little to do with the planning and execution of either wedding.)

The all-day festivities deserve a much longer post, but the day is very nearly over, so details will have to wait.  But to all you who were praying for and/or thinking of us today, rejoice that from the ceremony in the ancient church to the dinner in the Medieval castle, from the radiant bride to the adorable ring bearer, from the live Medieval music to the lively Renaissance dancing, all crafted and infused with the great love of family and friends, the wedding was a magnificent success.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Stephan Stücklin!

Marie Winn, in The Plug-In Drug, tells us that it's not enough to substitute good television shows for bad, because the process of watching television has physical and psychological effects that are independent of content.  Andrew Pudewa makes the same point for music, in The Profound Effects of Music on Life.  Most of us are reluctant, for good reason, to believe that harm can be inherent in a particular technology, but take the view that good or evil is a matter of intent:  the question is whether the knife is in the hands of a surgeon, a chef, or a hit man.

The Chinese government, however, understands:

Amid post-Olympics shifts in China's attitude toward the West, the government decided that sacred music should disappear. "Quietly and without publicity, the Chinese authorities have let it be known that Western religious music should no longer be performed in concert halls. It's an unexpected decision, and one for which there is no obvious explanation or trigger," Catherine Sampson wrote in The Guardian. Even things that merely seem like Western sacred music—including Carl Orff's decidedly unsacred Carmina Burana—have been stopped.

Carmina Burana—the gateway drug.  :)