If they're old enough to have grown long hair or be dressing like a boy, they're certainly old enough to tell you their name if you ask. That's usually a big clue. Great Girl has a pixie cut, and she sometimes gets this when she's in her fencing gear (she's very curvy, so in normal clothing there's never any confusion). It annoys her vastly when someone walks up to her on the strip and blurts "Are you a boy or a girl?" Whereas if they said "Hi, what's your name?" they'd be in no doubt. On the other hand, it's taught her all about the wonderful socialization these other kids got going to school.

Oh yes. Here, Unpopular Opinion: I think Stewart's conviction for obstruction of justice reeked of "Can't embarass ourselves: must convict her of something."

Yes, this. Conversation from yesterday: Great Girl: What book did you get? Me: War and Peace! Only six dollars! Great Girl: Don't you have War and Peace? Didn't you just read it? Me: That was the Pevear. This is the Maude translation, Oxford edition. Look, it still has the little fold-out map!

I don't think we can be friends anymore. (Can I have your physical books?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25345627 During a press conference, Ms Bogopane-Zulu, the deputy minister for women, children and people with disabilities, admitted that a mistake had been made but said there was no reason for the country to be embarrassed. ......... But she accused Mr Dyantyi's employers, SA Interpreters, of being cheats, and said the company's directors had now vanished into thin air. ......... He said that during the event, he had lost concentration because of voices in his head. He said he had started hallucinating, and saw angels coming into the stadium. "I was in a very difficult position," he said. He also indicated that his past behaviour had sometimes been unpredictable, telling the Associated Press news agency that "sometimes I will react violent on this place, sometimes I will see things chasing me". --------------- Good vetting, there.

Spontaneous composition, apparently indebted to Wordsworth. --------------- Deep inside his hidden nature, Hidden power, deadly power. Slow but endless outward raining, Disappearing, dripping, draining, Never gone but slowly waning Warning off all creatures near thee Making men and all beasts fear thee, Uranium!

In my fallible opinion, the case made by the author of that article, that money was once "unfruitful" but is now "fruitful," is risible. I think there are good reasons not to see the change in the teaching regarding usury as a failure of infallibility; but the argument that the nature of money suddenly changed in the Renaissance is not one of them.

The strongest case for that is probably the prohibition on usury (lending money at interest). It's explicitly condemned in Scripture, and Church teaching condemning it was unwavering through the Renaissance. It wasn't so much "overturned" as eviscerated, thus (Caution: wildly simplified history here): Italian merchants needed to know what kinds of contracts counted as usurious, as they were illegal and so invalid. Insurance and shipping contracts were legal; interest-bearing loans were banned. The crucial difference was determined to be that the latter bought and sold the use of money (usury), while the former bought and sold risk. Theologians and economists agreed that this was the relevant distinction. But any loan contract could easily be drawn up as a contract for the transfer of risk, and of course this was done. Thus the ban on usury effectively disappeared without ever being changed as infallible teaching. The modern catechism feebly condemns excessive interest on loans; but this definition of usury is a novelty, and is universally ignored. Aren't you sorry you asked?

We live right by forty acres of campus, with a student population of more than 50,000. Like you, I take for granted that any student currently on the sidewalk, earbuds in and texting away, may abruptly fling him or herself in front of my car without looking up once from the smartphone. That assumption has served me well. Eta: Forgot, there's supposed to be an unpopular opinion in here somewhere. Here: I think Peter Falk is sexy.

Great minds. Here, have a Zima.

If it's any help (and actually I find this comforting), the point of Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is not that early choices, well-made - especially unusual choices - make "all the difference." The point of the poem is that we don't have enough information even at the time to choose the better future; that we certainly don't know in retrospect which path would have made a meaningful difference; that we tend to attribute great import to choices we've made despite the lack of any good reason to do so; and that, in the end, it isn't going to matter much what we do.

I had a reliable revelation that the Official Beverage of Hell was Zima.

How generous and artistic in arrangement St Nicholas is at your house! Here, he just dumped in a lot of chocolates and pistachios, tangerines, and holiday Pez dispensers. College girl was especially pleased with her Pez. (She had had a bleak theory that she no longer qualified in St Nicholas' book.) -Violent Crime I mean, Violet Crown

And thus you got to hear the Oakland joke twice. :D

Time for a Habsburg picture. No kilt. Actually I'm not quite sure what it is he's wearing.

I understand, and I actually think we are saying the same thing here, or close to it. In your example of an ectopic pregnancy, deliberately provoking a miscarriage would be the intent, and as such of course would not be permissible. Intent goes to the means: you can't abort or contracept in order to produce a desired medical outcome. What I was saying was that a drug or procedure may cause direct harm to a fetus and still be permissible, as in your example of removing a ruptured tube. Another hypothetical might be taking drugs to treat cancer which will certainly cause a miscarriage: this is permissible, even though the drugs might have a medical effect which could be seen as directly attacking the unborn child, because this isn't the intent of the woman taking the drugs. Anyhow you're right that this thread is derailed, and I'd be happy to take it private if you want; but I'm fairly convinced now that we were just talking at cross-purposes and not actually in disagreement.

I'm not aware of any form of hormonal birth control that "directly attacks" the embryo; but I'm happy to be corrected on this point. The sole purpose of the doctor prescribing hormonal treatment while the patient is on Accutane may be to prevent pregnancy; but if the patient is abstaining, she is by definition not contracepting. It's her intent, not the intent of the doctor or government regulators, that matters. Hormone pills are not forbidden. Contraception (an act involving intent) is. ETA: Even if a drug or medical procedure "directly attacks" (I assume this means something like "causes immediate harm to") an embryo, if that effect is not the intent of the woman, she may use the drug or undergo the procedure. This is a longstanding Catholic ethical principle. ETA2: Moxie, many prayers for you and your family. You're a better Catholic than I am.

If this were true, no Catholic woman could take any medication or undergo any medical procedure that might involve a risk to an embryo. For that matter, no Catholic woman could engage in any activity that could conceivably lead to miscarriage. Fortunately, that isn't Catholic teaching.

That would be the nickname of a different city. Probably Oakland.

Ignoring the implicit ban on politics in this thread: Both political parties have proved themselves disasters for civil rights, the economy, world peace, and all else that has stood between them and their corporation-banking-insurance masters. We should give up on the whole democracy disaster, invite Karl von Habsburg to take over the nation, and hope for better under a sane and benevolent monarchy. Maybe he'll give us our Constitution back. And Archduchess Francesca would make an awesome First Lady.

You're sweet to miss me. I haven't been gone for any sensible reason. Recently the protective order that kept Delusional Obsessed Stalker Guy away from my daughter expired (order effective only because he didn't want to lose his job by being arrested). Everyone is stressed, and I just haven't felt up to internettage. Or much reading. A little, though. Since last time, I think: 39. Dante, Inferno (Ciardi trans.) 40. Joyce Cary, Herself Surprised 41. Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience 42. Gilchrist, The Life of William Blake The Dante and Blake were re-reads. I will post a bit from the Gilchrist, which I much enjoyed. It's not the most scholarly bio of Blake, but it was written when people who had known Blake could still be interviewed, and Gilchrist had access to letters and gossip that have since been lost. I especially liked the anecdote of Mr. and Mrs. Blake sitting around in the altogether in their greenhouse, playing Adam and Eve. Mrs. Blake seems to have been an extraordinarily patient and easygoing woman.

Holiday confessions: I judge people who say Merry Christmas to me during Advent. Except hapless employees who are acting under orders. Happy Holidays is nice, though. I haven't taken communion in two months, because I am seriously considering leaving my church. [edited]

I'm not taking any responsibility for this one, but when someone asked dh about co-op classes (for that all-important socialization), he said: "If I wanted my child taught by unqualified people, I'd put her in public school." The nicer version of that is that we homeschool because that's the only affordable way to have a private tutor; we're just not interested in classroom-based education.

Many happy returns! :)