So a few weeks back, a friend gave me a present of two skeins of yarn. I started knitting them up into a scarf-like item. Now when dealing with hand-painted yarns and variegated yarns, they sometimes group themselves into colors, called pooling. While sometimes it can be a cool effect, a lot of the time it isn't. However, I kind of like what the colors are doing on this:



Happy accident, and I hope I'm able to match it up on the second skein.

I tend to keep the memes on my livejournal, but this one's pretty interesting and ongoing for another two days. Every day, you post six pictures that represent your life. Monday and Tuesday were similar, so I didn't take any on Tuesday. Wednesday I was at work, and the rhododendrons were blooming, so there were more. Today I had a field trip to an Asian grocery to make my lunch tomorrow. And so on. It's been an interesting kind of meditation. Here's a few samples.


My church.


My long-suffering mini papyrus plant. I say, "long-suffering," because I forget to water it, and it needs to be kept in standing water.


Rhododendrons for the win. Or: so that's why I'm sneezing.


Taken on the bus to downtown, looking out towards Lake Union from the University Bridge.


That's new to the International District. I like my city.


Space Needle! If you magnify it, you can see it better. Taken from the same bus as before.

If you want to see the rest of them, they're in my album here.

I found two posts, both excellent, written by the mother of a daughter with autism about the Adam Race story. She makes a number of points, ones I hadn't considered not being a parent.

http://simplycatholic.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/about-carol-race-from-someone-who-knows-her/

http://simplycatholic.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/i-cant-discipline-him-out-of-his-autism/

I can't help but feel for the parents, but after reading her blog posts, I think the parish made the right decision, as hard as it was.

Wow, this one's hard. I found this link from a friend on LJ. Briefly, a priest has to get a restraining order on a family at his parish, because the family's autistic son was disruptive and threatening to the other people.

Now, we aren't talking about minor disruptions and stimulating behaviors, here. We're talking about a 6-foot, 225 pound teen pulling a little girl onto his lap, starting other peoples' cars, knocks people over, spits, and urinates. (Who leaves their car keys in their cars? Maybe I've been living in the city too long.) Lest I sound like the evil childfree person, I can't help but feel for the family, as well. I can only imagine what it's like to raise a special-needs child, and they do need a place to worship. Although it does sound like the parish tried to work with the family.

If you were the pastor, what would you do? If you were the family, what would you do?

I don't think I would've done anything differently, were I the pastor. Perhaps if I were the mom, I'd take turns attending Mass, or get someone as a caregiver to watch the son during Mass, because it sounds like the family needs some extra help. (Or perhaps find a lower-key Mass that we could all attend that wouldn't set off my hypothetical son so badly.)

Rare political post from me. This is the definition of pwned.

Sometimes I really dig being Catholic, especially when the Vatican astronomer comes on record saying that aliens wouldn't contradict the faith, and that they'd be as much a part of creation as we are. I also like the comment he made about how original sin may not be an issue for them, but if it is that they'd be included in salvation, as well. As a matter of fact, there's a branch of theology, called exotheology, that deals with the issue of aliens and theology.

These are things I've been thinking about a lot, actually. For instance, do aliens need to be baptized, or is original sin only a human thing? (I could see the Orthodox arguing that original sin is only a human thing.) I tend to think that if they're able to choose between right and wrong, they're able to sin, so they'd need some sort of grace, like the rest of us. (I'd think it would be easier for an alien to convert to Orthodoxy, since they're not as hung up on original sin as Catholics are.)

Here's another one. Suppose a race of aliens has a device (like the chameleon arch in Doctor Who) that would change their biology so that they're human. They'd have no memory of being anything other than human. Assume changed alien as a human finds Jesus and gets him/herself baptized. Then when the alien changes back into an alien, would the baptism be valid? (Assuming proper form.)

You know, Seattle is generally a cool place to live. It doesn't ever get too hot or too cold, but I do get sick of the twentysomething snark, especially out of some psuedo-liberals.

Now, I take the bus. I don't drive, so if I have to get from one place to another and it's too far to walk, I take the bus. And, yeah, sometimes it really sucks. I wonder if Bus Chick isn't either on some serious medication, getting kickbacks from the Metro, or some combination of the two, because she makes it sound like some great, grand social experiment. The buses are often late, overcrowded, or don't show up at all. Chicago and Boston, hell even LA, were better than Seattle. Grocery shopping on a Seattle bus is a nightmare.

On the other hand, this is the kind of thing I'm getting rather tired of. Maybe I'm getting old, but I don't see what's so funny or witty about that kind of post anymore. It's sociopathic in its disregard for humanity. And, yeah, I know all about having to sit near obviously schizophrenic people. You quickly learn what routes to avoid wearing open shoes on, as well.

Is it just me, or is this kind of attitude getting more common?

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Did I wake up and wind up in bizzaro land this morning?

Item the first: Darwin in cahoots with the Nazis. (Did you just yell "GODWIN'S LAW, BEYOTCH?" I sure did.) I think one can be skeptical of a scientific theory--that's what a theory is, after all, but I don't get the certainty by which people push intelligent design. If it's science, then it should be able to withstand the tests and rigors any scientific theory does, something ID supporters decry Darwin has never been subjected to. Since when was it a sign of being a Good Catholic^tm to reject science? I'm hearing this crop up more than I'd like--there was a dig against evolution in a homily this weekend. Since when did a Good Catholic have to be a Jesus Camp follower?

Item the second: vaccination. Did the Vatican come out and say that we shouldn't vaccinate our children when I wasn't looking? OK, I can see their point about chickenpox, flu, and hepatitis vaccines. I can even understand delaying them. But not vaccinating against polio, rubella, and the really horrible diseases that are almost always fatal? I have to wonder where peoples' heads are at. Anti-vaccination people seem to be cropping up more on Catholic boards.

Item the third: Being gay is not a sin. The USCCB even say so, although the types who are squicked out by homosexuality would ignore the bishops. (Funny how both extremes in Catholicism pick and choose just as much as they claim the other side does?) Methinks they doth protest?

Item the fourth: Politics. Yeah, not going there. Funny how those who attack the Democrats never seem to remember how the Republicans are for torture. Like I said. Not going there. People like William and Liam have said what I'd want to say, anyway, but with less profanity.

Someone please tell me this is an American Catholic thing I'm noticing. Because if it's the entire Church with these attitudes, then we're screwed.

And so I don't end on a downer, new NIN album out. This one's on Reznor, too. It's pretty good, although I absolutely fell in love with Ghosts I-IV. I hope more bands adopt this model of distribution, since it seems like it's produced a surge in creativity for people like NIN. While Ghosts I-IV was more abstract, The Slip is more rock.

Now why don't they talk about Doctor Who at my parish? Hell, I'd settle for discussions of morality and religion in Battlestar Galactica (new series). I don't really see the Doctor as a Christ-like figure. More like St. Michael, for me.

I had to turn off the news tonight.

More stories about the Democrats making their party implode, the food crisis, the housing crisis, recession, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe. So then I decide to go get a burger and check my mail. (I have a PO box. Just makes sense with as much traveling as I do.)

Somehow I got on the mailing list for a bunch of conservative Catholic groups, some barely in communion with Rome and others I wish weren't. (Sorry, folks, I've got a reboot of the ovarian operating system happening, and I'm a bit thin on charity today, for reasons that will become apparent.) Today's junkmail offering was from the Human Life International group.

On the surface they seemed decent. But if you look in their mission statement, they're Yet Another Catholic Group that doesn't see any other social issue beyond the gonads. They're against birth control and abortion, obviously, but also sex education. Come on, people. Quit giving people who think the RCC is only about the repression of sex any more ammunition. I was also invited to sign and send back the Humanae Vitae Pledge with my donation.

Now, I'm cranky at these people because I'm on the Pill, and there isn't a month that doesn't go by that I don't thank my Maker for giving the people who developed it the knowledge to do so. It allows me to lead a normal life, otherwise I'd be laid up in bed for two weeks out of every month. Yes, I've discussed it with my doctor (a naturopath, by the way), and it's the cheapest, safest, and easiest alternative. Now, this use of the Pill is allowed for under the encyclical Humanae Vitae. (Yes, I've read it. I totally agree with most of it.)

Yet you wouldn't believe the people who suggest I should either "offer it up," use natural alternatives, or just use NFP. Well, last I checked, NFP doesn't do squat when the red army is on the march. Why are people so dismissive of women's health? There are medicines that impact a man's fertility and abilities (shall we say), yet I never hear them get the same kind of grief a woman gets for being on medication that affects her fertility.

I think all of this is really a big sign of a larger issue. Why are we dismissive of women? It seems like there is a part of the Church that still dismisses their gifts and abilities. (And so the Pope noted in this article at Whispers in the Loggia. It's well-worth a read, and it's what convinced me that Benedict wasn't so bad, after all.) I'd like to posit that it's political, at least in this country, an influence of the "Jesus Camp" types who're rampant in the government.

I'd also like to posit that the "culture of death" isn't so much about couples contracepting, but people looking for the easiest possible thing to latch onto. Being pro-life is messy. It asserts that the life of the homeless guy who defecated in your bushes is just as sacred as a cute baby, the person on Death Row, or the Iraqis we bombed last week.

Still working on the post about Torchwood, Doctor Who, and reconciliation. I'm kind of dragging my feet on it, since I want to see how season 4/30 plays out.