Hello

I think it's great that the blogosphere exists. It's a hobby that you can inflict on other people–I mean that you can share with other people. It's sort of like writing something and then publishing it on the web. Wait–that's exactly what it is... what was I thinkiing?

We bought a new house. Then we moved into it. I thought the buying process was sort of difficult, but it wasn't nearly a hard as moving all our stuff. Hindsight is 20/20, and now I wish that we had just put all the furniture on Craigslist and then bought other stuff from Craig as needed. That's where most of it came from to begin with, or so my wife tells me. We could have given most of the kids' clothes away and by the next week people would have donated everything back. I can't help it that we look like poor people. Well, no, that's not true–I just like getting free clothes from people who only planned to have one or two kids. It's always stuff from places that I've heard are really nice, like Baby Gap, etc.

Back to buying the house. Getting final approval was kind of a bitch. I thought they were going to want urine and stool samples by the time it was over! But they didn't, so the mortgage broker had them mailed back to my old address. I emailed a thank you note to him and added "It's a good thing the weather has been so cold, huh." He merely replied with a link.

The dust is settling here finally. We're happy to be closer to the school where our oldest two go ever since we "gave up" on home-schooling last year, and closer to our parish and of course, SBUX. And moving refreshes your memory with regards to important hierarchies in life, e.g., dryers weigh less than washers, washers weigh less than the piano that your mom who is still alive gave you, etc.

Religion Writing Versus Voyeuristic Schadenfreude

Once again, I'm slowly shaking my head.

I was really excited to read about Abp. Naumann taking Governor Sebelius out to the ol' Kansas woodshed over her pro-abortion stance. You can always count on Dr. Jeff Mirus, a great religion writer, to cover big stories, and this one is big.

Of course, Amy Welborn beat him to it. I'd call her a religion writer, too. Blogger Mark Shea blogged it also. Hey, what do you know? All the religion writers are covering this!

I thought to myself "Wait! I wonder what the Crunchy Conservative said about the Gov and the Arch-B? He's been covering religious stuff AND politics for years! He even referred to himself as a Religion Writer at least once. Plus he really likes the topic of Bishops. I guess he used to even be Catholic." So I wandered over to his blog and did a search on "Sebelius". Nothing. "Naumann?" Zilch.

Oh, but wait. He did do some writing about Catholic stuff today. More searches confirmed that Mr. Shea, Ms. Welborn and Dr. Mirus all missed that incredibly gripping story.

Now I'm pretty sure that Rod Dreher will get around to covering the Naumann smack-down at some point. Sebelius is being talked about as a running mate for Obama who supposedly has a "Catholic problem". But if she's damaged as a Catholic would she help him? Maybe -- if she looks like a martyr persecuted by the male hierarchy to all the po wittle pwo-choice Catholics, I wouldn't know. Regardless, the story seems difficult to ignore for a political blogger who dabbles with religion writing and is obsessed with Catholic Bishops. The only problematic thing about it is that it makes the Arch-B look good, don't you think? The man is standing on principle! Perhaps Dreher is waiting for a "not-so-fast" piece on the Archbishop's remarks from Ross Douthat or he's possibly still vetting the rumor which surfaced about how Naumann's niece's dog pooped on the tree-lawn ten years ago.

Catholic Radio

I've been feeling guilty for about a month now. Yeah, Catholic guilt -- the Cadillac of guilts. Well, maybe not that guilty. No hood ornaments, even in the pre-conciliar models. (WHAT is he talking about?)

Anyway, the reason for the guilt is that my friend, Cubeland Mystic, asked me if I'd blog on something really exciting and important and I said "Sure...." and just left his message in my inbox. So, dang it, here it is.

Cube is friends with Doug Sherman, President of Immaculate Heart Radio. IHR is doing great work in the realm of Catholic Radio way out in the western US and they've just cracked into the 5th largest market in the country, San Francisco-oh-oh, baby! as Jackie K might say.

I'm going to include the entire press release, but if you're too lazy to read it, just hop on over to this page and donate or pledge some money to this worthy cause. I'm going to give them some as soon as I sell my lawnmower.

Sacramento, May 21 (CRU) — Immaculate Heart Radio, which operates a network of Catholic stations in California, western Nevada, and much of New Mexico, announced today that it is purchasing historic KOIT 1260 AM in San Francisco from Bonneville International. The $14 million deal will bring Catholic radio to the fourth largest radio market in the country, with 5,891,000 people 12 years of age and older, and the fifth largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the nation, 7,039,362 people.


The daytime signal of KOIT will cover the entire Bay Area and the distant cities of Santa Rosa and San José with a good signal, given the 5,000 watts (reduced at sunset to 1,000 watts) and the transmitter location on the bay. San José also enjoys an excellent nighttime signal.

The stunning news had been rumored for several weeks in the broadcasting world, and there were a number of postings in the online radio forum RadioInfo.com. The sale by Bonneville of the last station in their once full portfolio of San Francisco Bay Area stations to Immaculate Heart was stated, as was IHR president Doug Sherman's name. Catholic radio circles, too,
were abuzz that a Catholic broadcaster was about to embark upon a major market in California, which necessarily narrowed the field considerably as to likely buyers, one of whom was Immaculate Heart. But no one would identify the station or purchaser. According to comments in RadioInfo, Bonneville International, owned by the Mormon Church, took special pains to accommodate Immaculate Heart Radio, preferring to sell to a fellow religious group rather than a commercial interest.

The new Catholic station will serve the Church of four dioceses in the Bay Area : the Archdiocese of San Francisco, presided over by His Excellency Archbishop George H. Niederauer (425,000 Catholics, about 24% of the population); the Diocese of Oakland, presided over by His Excellency Allen H. Vigneron (381,000 Catholics, about 16%); the Diocese of San José, presided over by His Excellency Patrick J. McGrath (423,000 Catholics, about 25%); and the Diocese of Santa Rosa, presided over by His Excellency Daniel F. Walsh (150,000 Catholics, about 19%).

“The possibility of purchasing a station to bring Catholic radio to the Bay Area is exciting and clearly a gift from the Lord,” said Doug Sherman, president of Immaculate Heart. “But it is not a done deal. We have already been given strong support and blessings from the Bay Area bishops, Right now, we are talking to major donors. As soon as we can see that we have sufficient support to make a go of this, we are going to be asking for everyone's help. This is a $15 million project to cover the purchase price and expenses.”

“To make sure this project is viable, by the end of this month we have to know that we have enough major donations to put down a $700,000 payment to Bonneville, which is non-refundable. We are talking big money here, obviously,” he said, looking at the multi-million dollar transaction. “While we have to be at 100% confidence by May 31st, we don't have to have it all in hand or pledged, but we have to see the momentum there, and we have to have a sufficient amount in hand. We have to know we can pull it off,” he emphasized; “A Catholic lender will write the check for the station in mid-August if we can show that we are well on the way and things look reasonably good— that we have been pledged the funds. Right now we are at the $4 million mark, but by the end of May we hope that figure will have risen considerably.”

Sherman says that after the first of June, if things go as everyone hopes and God is willing, the second phase of soliciting donations will be broadened to include everyone interested in helping to bring Catholic radio to the Bay Area. This will be the time for fund raising dinners, meetings with donors, and short talks after Mass in parishes throughout the four dioceses. On-air promotions over IHR will also seek the help of listeners.

“We have met with all four Bay Area bishops, and we have their prayers, blessings, and support,” added a happy Sherman. “They see this as a great opportunity for the truth and beauty of the Catholic faith to be broadcast over the airwaves of the Bay Area, where millions will be able to learn more about our faith.”

“This is a huge undertaking for us, and we are asking your prayers,” he concluded.

Summorum Pontificum

Here it is, babe. Someone emailed me an English translation, but I'm sure it will be available online soon.

Oh, here it is on the USCCB site.

The Big Z has the big scoop, so check it out here. Here are my favorite parts:

As a result, it is unacceptable to suggest that these provisions were made merely to accommodate a bunch of nostalgic old fogies who can’t get with the program. The provisions were made with anyone in mind who wants older forms, for any decent reason. People who want to avail of this extraordinary use are not second rate citizens.

They may not be treated any longer like the nutty aunt in the attic.

This is only bad news for all those people who want to be treated like nutty aunts. (ACLU lawyers, call your offices.)

The issue the Triduum and this reasonable restriction has nothing to do with the prayer about the Jews on Good Friday. This is simply a matter of what the Church’s logical practice is based on the sacred nature of those Triduum liturgies. The Jews were not part of the equation. Remember also that the 1962 Missale Romanum is used for the Triduum in those places where it will be permitted to use the older form at that time. The 1962 edition and not some earlier edition before the changes to those Good Friday petitions.

Uh, yeah. I've been subscribing to a Google news alert for keywords "pope, latin, mass" for about a year now. There are not just a few that warn about how upset the Jews may be about this. But I already blogged about that canard.

Everything goes into effect on September 14. This seems like it will be a big development. I'm guardedly optimistic; I have a Priest friend who celebrates the Latin Mass who has told me that he doesn't believe it will change anything. The only reason he gave was the Pope isn't strong enough to battle the bishops, so we'll have to wait and see.

"I can't believe the news today"

Bono Buys Palm. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed.


Dude, that red piece of crap you got there better run Palm OS.

And Now For Something Completely Different....

To all appearances, the bar is set pretty low for who can run for President of the US in 2008. I was thinking that between Ron Paul, Mike Gravel and my own Congressman, Urban D. K., Ross Perot looked pretty normal. Lots of people have ears like that.

Anyway, here's where you need to go to kick of your big run for office. Elect Me Tees allows anyone to order t-shirts, hats, and other sportswear for their 2008 campaign for POTUS. Most likely you'll have to go to the custom page. There you can put in the write-in candidate of your choice, either your own name or your favorite famous personality; from Jackie Mason to Yours Truly. In fact, take a picture of yourself in a "Pauli '08" t-shirt and send it to me and I'll post it on the blog!

Yep

To this. Excerpt:

It looks like liberal indoctrination hasn't reached everybody yet. If someone is breaking into your house at night, are you going to call the ACLU? The anti-gun crowd? No you will call the police, but the odds of law enforcement getting there before the intruder breaks in, are somewhere between zip and nada. Where does that leave you? On. Your. Own.

Retreating

Starting at 9:00PM tonight, I'll be doing my annual Lenten retreat. I'll be back on Sunday evening.

I've got a piece of paper with the names of the regular commenters here, so consider yourselves being prayed for by this sinful man. I hope you'll pray for me also so we can all "give the ol' Devil a black eye" as I heard it put once on a gospel station.

Couple more things: Mark Shea posted what I consider to be a very sincere public apology on his blog today.

And the obligatory humorous link: Top 11 Things Causing Al Gore to Spend $30K a Year on Electricity.

From the banks of chaos in my mind...

Yeah, well COOL if they're finally able to get past the "din of their Rice Krispies" and rock again. The big man can't quite hit those high notes, as evidenced at the Grammy's, but nonetheless it was a great performance. They flew in the original vocal track and made it work really well. It's hard to imagine the trio not doing something well.

I remember watching that video Police around the World circa 1988 with one of my bandmates. It had hilarious sequences; one was Andy Summers wrestling a Sumo guy in Japan in slow motion while "Walking on the Moon plays in the background. I guess Stewart Copeland is spinning a lot of the same type of material into a new DVD?



Andy Nowicki(e), you know about this WAY more than I do, I'm so out of it. So I'm designating you as the Police news update correspondent. Don't be timid -- feel free to high-jack every thread, this is not high-school. Cubeland Mystic is a huge fan, too, BTW.

So I guess the reunion is now a substantiated fact? I read most of this interview with Copeland (foul-mouth warning) and checked out some rah-rah blogs. Ever since the Pistols did their "Filthy Lucre" tour I can't help thinking about the $$$ aspect. Missing high-notes notwithstanding, the paycheck from a reunion tour would buy plenty of high-fiber Rice Krispies, Sumo wrestlers encounters, etc. for everyone, plus there'd be enough left over for Sharpy markers so Copeland can write swear words on his drum-heads.