Ten Most Fascinating Catholics of 2008

No one has tagged me but I have seen this making the rounds ... and began thinking about what qualifies someone as a fascinating Catholic of this year in particular.

The best I can come up with, personally, is who I'd like to meet ... let's say perhaps be seated next to on an airplane for a few hours of convivial conversation? Which means that I find them fascinating enough to want to be able to talk to them, right? (I'm excluding bloggers ... let's just take that as a given, ok?)

1. Pope Benedict 16. Well, duh.

2. Bishop Kevin Farrell, Dallas's bishop, and as Mama T put it with wanting to meet her Ft. Worth bishop, one who is breathing new life into our diocese.

3. Mike Aquilina, writer. He has been very kind in sending work to our company as well as unflaggingly enthusiastic whenever we are in contact. I know him "virtually" but would like to make it a face-to-face thing.

4. David Scott, writer. Met him (again virtually) via Mike Aquilina and David also has sent much work our way. There is no one better to have a phone conversation with. I'm just tellin' ya. Also, he wrote one of the most-ignored but best books I have ever read about Mother Teresa.

5. Dean Koontz , writer. His writing is getting more complex and nuanced and shows so clearly his Catholic soul. Plus, his very occasional podcast lets me know that he is funny, realistic, and self deprecating. A truly fascinating combination.

6. Jim Caviezel, actor. Everything I've read and heard from people who are in his parish tells me that he is a genuinely nice person who loves his faith. And, as you may know ... he's hot.

7. Michael Flynn , writer. Writes some of the best science fiction I've ever read and the careful Catholic reader sees his faith reflected in his work.

8. Aaron Neville, singer. He took me by complete surprise when listening to a brief podcast where he spoke of his life. Among all the many singers I heard on that show, he was the one who spoke of his faith and it was compelling. I later found out he is Catholic and has a devotion to St. Jude, whose medal he wears as an earring.

9. Peggy Noonan, writer. I especially liked her book about John Paul II and her faith.

10. John C. Wright, writer. I have liked the two books of his that I have managed to get my hands on, though I am under no illusions I could keep up with him conversationally I think it would be a blast.

Worth a Thousand Words

Czar Nicholas II of Russia (1868-1918) and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna
wearing state robes during ball at the Winter Palace. St. Petersburg, Russia, 1904

scribble ... scribble ...

Deacon Greg has surprised and honored me with the Superior Scribbler's Award (which saves me the trouble of tapping him for it!). He says, "One of the prettiest and pithiest and most engaging blogs around..." Oh you flatterer! And, of course, I love it!

I see that I am in very high level company ... which just makes this little baby even more precious.

Now, for my pick of five, which several of DG's choices took off my list ... so many excellent writers, so few slots. Ok, here goes ...

1. Conversion Diary: Musings of a Former Atheist
   Because of her recent religious journey and her continuing contemplation of the changes that her new-found Catholic faith has made in her life overall, Jen is one of the most compelling, honest, and thought provoking bloggers out there. She's a darned fine writer and I never miss one of her posts.
   
   
2. Practicing Catholic
   I met Heather when she bravely showed up for the Roe v. Wade pro-life march last year on the strength of responding to a post I wrote. What a pleasure it was to share that new experience with her and feel that I had come out of it with a new friend as a bonus. Then I read her blog and found her to be a thoughtful writer who is not afraid to bare her soul when necessary. Another one I never miss.
   
   
3. The Silver Key
   Brian Murphy discusses books, movies, and much more. I'll just say it like this. The guy reviewed an audiobook of Beowulf in such a way that I now can't wait to get my hands on one. Beowulf! I ask you! So, yes, he's a compelling writer who opens your eyes to hitherto unknown realms.
   
   
4. Good News Film Reviews
   I know that I must sound like a broken record sending you to Scott's reviews but, seriously, people! He can deliver an entire review in one pithy sentence as witness this for Encounters at the End of the World.
   
   If you're really into listening to the unintentionally laughable musings of a wealthy, over-hyped German over mostly boring footage of his trip to Antarctica, you're in luck.
   
   When that's just the beginning, then you know you're on to a good deal.
   
   
5. The Mad Tea Party
   March Hare has the knack of reviewing movies and books both intelligently and with an eye to Catholic sensibilities. She doesn't strain at a gnat while being faithful (which is a big plus to me). Even more important, she isn't afraid to speak up for something she sees has value even when the majority rule, whether secular or Catholic, might be bashing it as a knee-jerk reaction to "what everyone knows." In short, she has a brain and isn't afraid to use it.
   

Ok, now the mandatory posting of the rules:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
• Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains The Award.
• Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List (scroll down). That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

Mark Shea is Coming to Dallas in January!

SWEET!

From Mark Windsor comes the news of Mark Shea's upcoming visit to his parish.

It's confirmed. Mark Shea will be at St. Anthony's in Wylie on January 24.

Festivities commence at 9:45 with 101 Reasons NOT to be Catholic.

Continuing at 10:45 with This is My Body: An Evangelical Discovers the Real Presence.

Lunch (hotdogs...nothin' too fancy) at 11:30.

The final talk is at 11:45 - Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did.

I will ... repeat will ... be there! (Not to mention that I will get to see Mark Windsor again who is a heckuva interesting guy to chat with. So it's a double bonus.)

Sign up info to follow.

Are You Wearing Blue?

My youth group leader was giving a talk one night and he said, "There are over a billion Catholics in the world. If Catholics decided to wear the color blue tomorrow, everyone would be like...Blue is a cool color." And that made me have this crazy idea.... What if all of us Catholics actually did that? So I decided in honor of our mother Mary, on December 8th, which is The Feast of The Immaculate Conception, we will all wear the color light blue. Please help me accomplish this goal! Invite all your Catholic friends! Even if you are not Catholic and you want to honor Mary...that's cool too. Join us in this movement and be a witness to the world!

"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire. Let the truth be your delight...proclaim it...but with a certain congeniality."

-- Saint Catherine of Siena

Today's the day, people. I have to admit that I couldn't find a single blue thing at Target that didn't look dreadful ... so my "blue" is actually a teal. However, I do have my eye on a lovely mail order light blue sweater that I am going to have ready for next year.

As for now, get that blue on (or the closest equivalent) and flaunt it!

Catholic New Media Celebration to be in San Antonio for 2009?

I got an email saying that this was mentioned on Catholic Family Podcast but can't find anything "in writing" (so to speak) about it.

Anyone out there know about this?

Because if so, I could actually swing a trip to San Antonio for it ... c'mon people, give us the skinny on it!

A Smorgasbord of Cinema Awaits You

Bohemian Cinema is hosting this week's Carnival of Cinema and my review for Slumdog Millionaire is included. There are all sorts of interesting posts and reviews linked to and I highly recommend checking it out.

1st Sofanaut Awards

With the recent 52nd episode of Aural Delights, StarShipSofa has now delivered a year's worth of poetry, short fiction and fact articles. What better time than now to hold the first ever StarShipSofa awards: The Sofanauts!

The Sofanauts will recognise listener favourites from the first 52 Aural Delights shows. You can access all of these shows here.

Nominations for the following categories are now open:

• Best Flash Fiction
• Best Main Fiction
• Best Poetry Contributor
• Best Fact Article Contributor
• Best Narrator

You may nominate as many stories and contributors in each of the categories as you like. To make your nominations, please visit this online voting poll. Alternatively, you can head over to the StarShipSofa forums and list your favourites in each of the categories.

The top five stories and contributors receiving the most nominations in each category will make up a shortlist. Every nomination counts, so if someone on the forums has already nominated one of your favourites, you'll still need to nominate it yourself to give it the best chance of making the shortlist.

You will be able to vote on the shortlist in an upcoming online poll. Stay tuned to StarShipSofa for further details.

Nominations will be open from the two weeks following Aural Delights #53.

What have been your favourites in a year's worth of Aural Delights? Please get involved and have your say.

I'm a StarShipSofa fan ... ahem ... and also a narrator. Not that I'm asking for votes. Oh no! For one thing, my vote would go to Jim Campanella but that's beside the point. If you listen to the Sofa, head on over and make your voice heard.

Worth a Thousand Words

Raspberry Bismarck No. 2 by Duane Keiser

I think we would call this a jelly doughnut ... either way it's a great painting, isn't it?

The Blue Movement: Wear Blue on Monday to Honor Mary

My youth group leader was giving a talk one night and he said, "There are over a billion Catholics in the world. If Catholics decided to wear the color blue tomorrow, everyone would be like...Blue is a cool color." And that made me have this crazy idea.... What if all of us Catholics actually did that? So I decided in honor of our mother Mary, on December 8th, which is The Feast of The Immaculate Conception, we will all wear the color light blue. Please help me accomplish this goal! Invite all your Catholic friends! Even if you are not Catholic and you want to honor Mary...that's cool too. Join us in this movement and be a witness to the world!


"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire. Let the truth be your delight...proclaim it...but with a certain congeniality."

-- Saint Catherine of Siena

This is a Facebook group so I'm bringing this out into the larger blogosphere.

Wear blue on Monday to honor Mary ... now I have to think if I have anything that is light blue. Oh well, I'm off to Target to do some Christmas shopping. Hopefully they'll have something.

What's in My Earbuds?

Yep, The January Dancer ... the newest Michael Flynn book, thanks to Scott at SFFaudio keeping in mind what a Flynn junkie I am. So I got their review copy. Nice!

And, it's space opera. Uh huh.

Worth a Thousand Words

Girl Eating Pie

From Old Picture of the Day which also has this nice reflection. I highly recommend the blog, by the way.

This picture was taken in 1899 and shows a little girl eating pie. I find the photograph fascinating, in that it really could have been taken yesterday. It is amazing to me that for all that things change, some things remain the same. You know her parents adored her, and you can not help but wonder what things she saw in her life.

Savage Chickens does Day of the Ninja ...

... with hilarious results as always. Browse Savage Chickens for more Chuck Norris and, of course, more ninjas.

Something for Hannah and Rose

For Hannah: Parrot Pets Kitty
Via Miss Cellania.



For Rose: Atlas Shrugged

It’s a novel! It’s a philosophy! It’s the instruction manual for a crazy cult! Atlas Shrugged could be all of those things. Then again, maybe it’s just about a little Russian girl who really hated growing up around Bolsheviks.

Mental Floss Blog takes a look at the masterpiece and its author.

Some Wonderful Movie Posters ...

... can be found here.

You keep saying "free speech." I don't think that means what you think it means.

Recently, I was interested to read the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal explaining about a legal suit that Singapore won against them.

Let us begin with an apology to our readers in Asia. Unless they are online, they will not see this editorial. For legal reasons, we are refraining from publishing it in The Wall Street Journal Asia, which circulates in Singapore.

Our subject is free speech and the rule of law in the Southeast Asian city-state -- something on which the international press and Singapore's government have often clashed. We can't say which side would prevail if the Singapore public could hear an open debate, but the fact is that we know of no foreign publication that has ever won in a Singapore court of law. Virtually every Western publication that circulates in the city-state has faced a lawsuit, or the threat of one. ...

Click through above to read it all. Clearly, Singapore has a different understanding of "free speech" than we have here in America.

Then this morning I outright laughed out loud reading this letter from no less a dignitary than the Ambassador of Singapore to the United States. He says a lot ... repeatedly ... but here's the money quote.

... We do not fear or stifle criticism of our policies. But we will not allow our judiciary to be denigrated under the pretense of free speech. ...

Worth a Thousand Words

The Artist’s Cat Deceived
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 – 1861)
Mid-1840s

Does this mean when I stop by Kuby's for pimiento cheese I'm going to have to shove the Secret Service out of my way?

Bushes confirm purchase of Dallas home in Preston Hollow

The White House confirmed Thursday that the Bushes have purchased a house in Dallas’ Preston Hollow neighborhood for the couple to live in after his presidency ends in January.

First lady Laura Bush’s office declined to specify where the house is, but it appears likely the couple will live on Daria Place, a cul-de-sac in the upscale neighborhood.

The story is at the Dallas Morning News. I can see President Bush dropping into Kuby's of a morning to grab breakfast as so many are doing when I whisk buy to buy the best bologna and hotdogs in town ...

It would be my chance to tell him that I think he's the bees' knees.

Uh Huh. Take That Pagans!

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance. ...

Check out Calculating Christmas over at Touchstone.

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. -- Joseph Stalin

His face wracked with sobs as he cries for his mother, tiny Moshe Holtzberg has had a miraculous escape: He was inside the Jewish centre stormed by Islamic militants during last week's Mumbai attacks.

His rabbi father and mother were both murdered by the militants. Moshe was rushed to safety - drenched in blood - after his nanny found him crying by their bodies.

Read the whole story here

Even one or two hundred become a statistic if they happen far enough away. This photo of little Moshe puts the human face back on the butchery perpetrated in the name of religion by the terrorists in Mumbai.

Darwin Catholic puts it well and I am lifting this post from him ... (you can always count on the Darwins for clear thinking and if you are not visiting their blog regularly then you're missing out).

One of my co-workers, an immigrant from northern India, is a Jain. He eats no meat, including fish and any other animal. He once rescued a roach I was about to kill in the office and took it outside.

But he supports the death penalty, because although the terrorist attack in Mumbai last week were unique in scale and in happening in one of India's major financial centers, they're hardly unique in recent Indian history. I think one figure I read was that more than 4000 Indians have been killed in terrorist attacks since 2001.

When one of my American-born liberal co-workers asked him how he could be so emphatic on preserving life in all other cases, but support the death penalty he replied, "When someone comes into your village, and enters your house, and kills everyone in your family because they do not like your race, or they do not like you faith, they have crossed a line."

While I accept the wisdom of our Church's leaders that the death penalty is seldom needed in modern society -- but seldom is not never. If any of the perpetrators of last week's terror attacks in Mumbai failed to be escorted off this mortal coil by the Indian commandoes who sought to rescue their hostages, I could certainly find it in me to hope that they receive a short trial and a long rope.

I also was much struck by this Wall Street Journal editorial examining the mainstream media's role in adding fuel to terrorists' anger.

For purposes of self-justification, Azam Amir Kasab, the only terrorist taken alive in last week's Mumbai massacre, offered that the murder of Jews in the city's Chabad House was undertaken to avenge Israeli atrocities on Palestinians. Two other terrorists cited instances of anti-Muslim Hindu violence as the answer to the question, "Why are you doing this to us?" before mowing down 14 unarmed people at the Oberoi Hotel. And if dead terrorists could talk, we would surely hear Abu Ghraib mentioned as among their reasons for singling out U.S. and British hostages.

One suspects the terrorists spent far too much time listening to the BBC World Service.

Let's hasten to add that by no means should the BBC alone be singled out. When it comes to terrorists and their grievances, nearly all the Western media have provided them with a rich diet on which to feed. ...

Would that the media would take a bit more care anyway, but definitely when reporting inflammatory facts that are not facts at all.