restless reformer

Occasionally, I participate in Blog Tours for WaterBook Press.  They send me books, I review ‘em.  This week is the Children’s Extravaganza.  I’m not entirely sure how to respond to these three books in particular, quite frankly, so I’ll just post the info for them.  I have an extra copy of each.  First come, first served  (Update: They’re Gone!).  Just write me via the “contact” form with your address, and I’ll mail ‘em out.  Info below the cut. [Read more →]

by Fred the Fundamentalist

So, I’m watching the Olympics tonight, and I hear the theme: “One World, One Dream.”  I almost fell out of my chair.  Don’t you realize how blatantly obvious that is?  ”One world.”  I fact, if you take “One Dream,” and take out the “n,” the “a,” one of the “e’s, and pare down the second half of the “m” a bit so it’s a lower-case “r,” it’s a clear anagram for “order.”

“One World Order.”  That’s the theme of the Olympics.

I’m keeping my eyes peeled for someone who looks like Nicolae Carpathia.

It is our business, as readers of literature, to know what we like. It is our business, as Christians, as well as readers of literature, to know what we ought to like. It is our business as honest men not to assume that whatever we like is what we ought to like; and it is our business as honest Christians not to assume that we do like what we ought to like. And the last thing I would wish for would be the existence of two literatures, one for Christian consumption and the other for the pagan world.

(HT to TMH at BHT)

by Fred the Fundamentalist

Travis keeps talking about coming back to this blog.  I say, Stay away.  We don’t need your heresy. 

I’ve been quietly planning a takeover of this blog in his absence…apparently too quietly, as I haven’t acted quickly enough.  We don’t need more webspace taken up by mamby-pamby, libertarian-loving, catholic-friendly, baby-baptizing, liturgical church-killers. 

Forget Fred on Friday.  Fred on every day, as far as I’m concerned.  Unless, of course, Travis stops me … he’s a power-hungry bastard, because he won’t let me be a moderator, and he has moderator powers.

If you’ve been following my Suite101.com stuff lately, you’ll know there’s no much to follow.  Not being able to inject opinion, arguments, or even the first person gets a littie … uh … dry.  I’m planning to head back here and start writing for fun again. 

In the meantime, The Hog’s Head has been very active, most recently because of the release of the Half-Blood Prince Trailer.  Batman fans might also be interested in a post written by Dave Jones: Why Joker Succeeds and Voldemort Fails.

If you’re still paying attention to this blog at all … stay tuned.  It’s about to get active again.

“What distressed me most - more even than my own folly - was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near?”  ~ George MacDonald, Phantastes, chapter 7

So says George F. Will in Newsweek.  This is one of the reasons that, though I won’t be voting for Obama, I don’t buy the “he’s really, really left” meme.

“Every time I hear a Gordon Lightfoot song, I wish it would never end.”  ~ Bob Dylan

Had my dad not popped in an old “Gord’s Gold” tape when I was 11 years old, I would have continued ignoring the whole subject of music for who knows how long.  Gord rocks, despite the fact that he’s a folk musician, and that he’s almost 70, and that he can’t sing like he used to.  

Lightfoot is coming to Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, NY on September 21st, and there’s a pre-sale, um, sale starting tomorrow morning at 10am.  My dad’s buying the tickets.  We will see the Gord.  Oh, yes, we will see the Gord.

This will be my 6th Lightfoot concert.  Can’t wait.  He’s finally decided that he can’t do “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” anymore, as evidenced by recent setlists, but there will still be the regular list of classic folk tunes (”If You Could Read My Mind,” “The Wreck,” “Early Morning Rain”), a few songs from Waiting for You (my favorite), and hopefully an odd addition here or there - some non-single that he hasn’t played in a long time.  It will definitely be a good night; probably just me, my dad, and my brothers.

Join the rebellion - leave the GOP in one massive, rebellious, “We’re not going to take it anymore” storm.  Visit ConservativeRebellion.org, sign the pledge to leave the GOP on September 5th, and encourage others to do so as well.

Let’s send a message to the GOP: the Republican Party is not supposed to be the party of big-government, fiscally irresponsible, world-policing policies.  

The reactions to the SCOTUS decision to give Gitmo detainees due process is being met with apocalytpic anger from commentators on the right.  This is one of the many reasons that what passes today as conservatism doesn’t make any sense to me anymore.  It doesn’t look at all like conservatism.  

There are conservatives who applaud the decision (I’m one of them).  There are lots of complexities to the matter, to be sure, but if you wonder why there are conservatives who think the SCOTUS decision was both a morally correct and conservative decision, read Kelley Vlahos’s article from The American Conservative blog.  

The right wing talkers have wedded the very idea of a Democratic presidency — particularly an Obama one — with the loss of limitless executive power, thus the unusual desperation in their attacks. When Limbaugh headlines his online rant, “The Last Days of the United States,” one has to ask just whose country is he talking about?

My Suite101.com articles have an RSS feed, and that feed will be linked in the sidebar on the right.  Looking forward to your comments and feedback, as I will always leave comments open there!

Bob Dylan endorses Barack Obama.

Well, here we go.  My first article has been published at Suite101.com.  From this point on, I should be able to keep a steady stream of articles coming.