Google-Share Drama, Episode 2

Here’s a link to the very helpful info Entropy recommended at Melissa Wiley’s site.  Some good ideas (in addition to what Julie & Sarah mentioned bleg combox.)  Hey and wow, another great blog to read while I’m at it.  Yay.

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What’s the big deal about the Google change?  Here’s what I wrote in Melissa’s combox when I thanked her for the info:

Thank you for posting this!  I’m feeling the pain of not being able to share posts anymore.  I don’t like to do my topic-sharing on the social networks, because most of what I read and write about on the internet is politics and religion, two topics that don’t mesh well with my very diverse real-life set of friends. So I keep FB and the like purely cocktail-party talk, and if people want to know more about what I think, they can click on my website link.

I don’t have a double life on the internet anymore than I do in real life.  But I do try (no seriously, I do try) not to be a jerk and a bore.  My real-life friends are very kind, considerate people who make a point of not ramming some topic down my throat that I don’t care to debate.  I try to return the favor.  My friends on Facebook are real people I know in real life, people I respect and whose company I enjoy.   The link to this blog is on my facebook profile — if anyone wants to know what I think about death or taxes, they can click.  But they don’t have to.  I like it that way.

I debated whether maybe Google+ should be more like this blog and less like Facebook, and therefore, hey, yeah, fill it with links about politics and religion, why not?  But I don’t like that solution, for the same reason I don’t like (and therefore don’t do) flooding FB with Fr. L and Darwin and all the team.

And don’t tell me that Google+ promises to keep all my circles separate blah blah blah. I’ll believe it when I see it.  The general rule on the internet is that even when I try not to bore people by linking stuff in places it doesn’t belong, some clever inventor decides to combine it all anyway.  Also, I’m not looking for a new hobby.  So building up a thousand separate “circles” isn’t on my list.  If I do Google+ (and I suppose I probably will), you’ll all be in one very large circle.  Feels like a giant Girl Scout Camp ice-breaker activity.

Mater et Magistra – Renewal Time

Mater et Magistra magazine reminds you to renew (if now is your time to do so).  Click here, it’s easy.  And though the print edition is lovely, it will still be a great little publication even if it goes all-digital.  Support your small catholic homeschooling press today.

Fr. Z Poll Bleg

As requested.  Go vote.  The topic is “Does an all-male sanctuary foster vocations to the priesthood?”

The results (given that this is Fr. Z’s blog) are unsurprising.  But vote anyway.

[I voted yes.   FYI I have a daughter who loves serving at the altar,  and as long as my pastor is good with it, I’m good with it.   My parish has about half and half boys & girls serving.  Last time the secretary counted, she said it was more boys than girls.  But my intuition is that a mixed server-corps encourages vocations to the sacrament of matrimony.  I could be wrong.  H/T to Sr. Meris the New Nun, who used to be an altar server.]

Saturday Linkfest

I’ve got another episode from the Homeschool Photo Contest to post, but am waiting for just the right time.  Ha.  Meanwhile, here’s how you should goof on instead:

1.  Read this article from the Apparent Project on Why You Should Not Mail Peanut Butter to Haiti.  No, really, take it out of the bubble-wrapped package and eat it yourself.  Haiti thanks you.  Because it turns out that shipping bunches of free stuff to impoverished countries undermines local businesses.  That make peanut butter.  Or would, if only Haitians weren’t getting boxes of the stuff from other countries.  Go read.

2. A longtime friend, engineer, amateur gunsmith, and EMT, sent us this YouTube video on Gun Safety.  PG WARNING: If your head is screwed on straight, there’s at least one scene that is objectionable even for comedy noir. It also means you aren’t the target audience.  [Hint: If you have given up watching action-adventure shows because all the egregious gun safety violations– by law enforcement good guy characters no less!!– have caused you to throw your tv out the window, you aren’t actually the target audience for this clip.]  But it is funny. With proper parental guidance as required.

3.  Look, Sarah Reinhard one of my favorite writing friends, has a new book out:

She let me look at one of the later drafts, and it is a really nice little book.  If you are looking for a family-friendly Advent Book, I’d give it a recommend.  From what I recall, it is protestant-friendly.  But just e-mail her and ask if you have any questions or concerns, she is one of those extroverted writers who likes to talk to readers. Or leave a comment in her blog combox.  She’s totally chatty.  Super Nice Person.  Happy to talk about her books any day.

4.  And is just me, or does it look like the new John McNichol book is now out on Amazon?

Serious coolness.

Not for people who don’t read genre fiction.  But highly recommended if you are looking for fun, readable Catholic GKC Sci-Fi Alternate History goodness in a package your boy will enjoy.  Do you know of a different book that will cause an 11-year-old boy to beg to read Huck Finn?  Maybe you do.  Or maybe you think that no day is complete without the threat of an alien attack.  In which case, McNichol is your man.

School Photos, Prologue

So we’re officially entered in Dorian & Bearing’s homeschool photo contest, and it looks like the deadline is being extended, yay!   So if you have had photo drama as we did, do not despair.  Share your pics.

I submitted seven in the official flicker location — the ones that looked most homeschooly.  I thought, does anyone really want to see the purple hippos?  Even though they are an integral part of my homeschool?  You’ll be relieved to know that most of the photos we took never made it to the internet!  Yay!  But if you want the complete flicker Fitz homeschool collection, it’s here.

–> Note that there are some duplicates, because we had three photographers working on this project, and they all got to post their favorite photos, no matter what. And since two of us shared a camera, there was some arguing over who snapped which shot.  Not all the captions are my work either – check the tag to verify.

As seen at the liquor store.

My post on Pagans & Tax Collectors is almost ready to go up.  But what you really want to read is Simcha’s column at the Register.  Bet you can guess what my favorite line is. 

WordPress is misbehaving this morning so I can’t make a link directly, but try this: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dear-greenypantses-this-is-why-no-one-likes-you C&P’d from the Register‘s special find-me magic.

Hey, look, a Tollefsen article!

Yeah, it took me by surprise too.  You’ll be relieved to know it’s on a nice, quiet, non-controversial topic, Contraception and Healthcare Rights.  Here were my thoughts as I read:

1. Yay!  A Tollefsen article my readers will actually like!
2. Ooops.  Nope.  More mad readers.  Uh oh.
3. No, never mind, I think it’s good after all.

So, er, read at your own risk.  It’s written philosophy-style, of course, so you’re constantly behind the curve, never really sure whether you agree with the guy or not.  But I’m pretty sure he makes sense.  In that special philosopher way.*

 

 

*Keep in mind that professional philosophers have to work day in and day out with people who aren’t strictly sure they exist, or perhaps are sure they exist, but also that they only turned up at the conference or the coffee bar on account of their molecules making them do that.  I’m not making fun.  That’s what a subset of real live tenured philosophy professors actually think.  I’ve taken the classes . . . I know.  You’d write reaaally caaarefullly if you had to present your papers to those people.    (I mean, for a living.  If you’re a student, you could just write normally and live with the B.)

Music for Mortals

So I like a good guitar or mariachi mass as much as the next person.  But really, listen to these chant settings for the new mass translation, courtesy of the Church Music Association of America.  Nothin’ says Four Last Things like gregorian chant.

Counting down . . . entering the contest

The girls are busy running around taking photos of the schoolhome for Dorian & Bearing’s contest.  It seems like a better idea than cleaning than the house.   Photo-essay coming.  I hope these people of mine know how to upload their photos.

And more joy.

I didn’t change because I liked Jesus’ message or because I decided to follow His teachings. I changed because I experienced His love for me and I responded to it. His love was so encompassing that I had to offer it to others.

Sometime when you have a few minutes to sit down, go read Antonella Garofalo’s conversion story.   It is longer than the usual twenty-second blog post, but eminently readable and full of life.

Looking forward to seeing more of her work.