• It’s hard to believe that The Dawn Patrol is going away. I’m not sure how long I’ve been a regular reader but it’s measured in years; perhaps five. Her archives go back to 2002 and I don’t think there was more than a year or two there when I first ran across it. I can’t…

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  • A Few Amusing Things

    Three things I’ve run across in the past few days: xkcd hits the mark again. See if you recognize yourself in this. I did. Some years ago I read a short story by Ursula LeGuin (not by any means a favorite writer of mine) which really slammed this point home. I don’t remember the name…

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  • This is from one of the daily meditations in Magnificat. Which one of us can say that we are not wounded in some way? Who among us still does not have open wounds? This wounded existence is us, every one of us. It is the first school for being able to be close to the…

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  • This is Great News

    Sometimes the good really do get rewarded. Dr. Regina Benjamin, a local Catholic physician who has devoted her career to providing health care to poor people, is the new Surgeon General. Bravo! UPDATE: There’s a good picture, and a bit more info, here. She is as unpretentious as she looks in this picture—my wife had…

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  • I want to express my agreement with this piece by Dawn Eden and William Doino decrying the hatred so often on display in the intra-Catholic debate. Here’s a key passage: But while it is no secret that American Catholics have been publicly bickering with one another since the end of Vatican II (and well before…

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  • The Last Guinness

    All things must pass, but some need a memorial. By the way, Guinness is not so expensive or so hard to find that I couldn’t have it more often. But I rather enjoy limiting it to special occasions. Along with the beer itself, my wife gave me a pair of these glasses for Father’s Day.…

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  • You know how you’ll be filling out a form and there’ll be a box labelled something like “Do not write in this space”? Well, don’t. Pre-TypePad http://js-kit.com/for/lightondarkwater.com/comments.js

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  • I’m almost too late for this, since the meeting is probably only twelve hours or so away, but I wanted to ask people—people who pray, of course, which means most but not all the people who read this blog— to pray for Obama’s heart to be touched by his meeting with Benedict. I did not…

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  • …and I’m already sick of it. Or, rather, sick of the argument about it. I cannot express to you how utterly sick I am of the factional hostility within the Church. Yes, that’s three uses of the word “sick” in three sentences; perhaps that will give you an idea of how I feel. We can…

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  • And ain’t it making me hungry. Behold: the Hushpuppy King. As my wife said when she sent me this link, be sure to read the description. It appears to be manufactured by the people who run my favorite restaurant, which I think I’ve mentioned before. And here is a true fact: I am distantly related…

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