I received this e-mail this morning from the Family Research Council and want to share it:

“Would you invest in a company whose affiliates are complicit in sexual crimes against children?

Would you take your hard-earned money and pile it into a company whose fundraisers “get excited” when someone wishes to target African-American babies for extinction?

How secure would you feel if you found out this company was being charged by one of its own former executives with illegal accounting, billing and donation practices and with bilking the government?

Or that this company was taking your money and putting $10 million towards Congressional candidates who support eliminating abstinence funding, distributing needles to drug addicts, suggesting pornography for children to view and keeping parents uninformed in important medical decisions involving their own children?

Well guess what? That company is Planned Parenthood and each year you give them $300 million of your tax dollars, mainly through the federal Medicaid and Title X programs.

A majority of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion – however, still Planned Parenthood receives more than $300 million in taxpayer funding each year for “family planning” projects that help bolster their abortion trade. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kans.) put it best when he said, “While we continue to have a rigorous debate in this country about abortion, we should be able to come to some fundamental agreements. We should not use tax dollars to subsidize abortion clinics – particularly when there are serious concerns regarding their compliance with state law and medical standards.”

Please sign this petition to President Bush, which FRC will deliver, asking him to approve new Title X regulations that ensure no federal money goes to groups like Planned Parenthood. Ask him to see that legitimate clinics are not forced to refer for abortions. ”

 

The bad news: Housing prices on average are down across much of the nation due to the sub-prime mortgage mess and resultant fallout.

The good news: Austin, Texas housing prices remain strong!

The chart below shows the median house price and the increase or decrease from the year before:

Last year (2007) for many metro areas saw a drop in prices, but Austin on average increased almost 10%!  This year will probably be even worse for most cities, so I am interested to see how well Austin weathers the storm; I predict that in 2008 the median price will still increase, and will give a total guesstimate value of 4%.

It’s a little good news amid the housing gloom if you live in Austin.

I think I need to re-evaluate my computer programming job, and perhaps think more about a musical career, especially after being sent this picture from my friend Dave:

Katie and I were minding our own business in the backyard on Good Friday when a bee came up without warning and stung her under her nose!

I was trying to usher her into the house in case more came when another bee (or perhaps two) stung me on the ring finger.

We applied baking soda and water immediately after scraping off the stingers; Katie’s sting didn’t swell, but my entire right hand did and began to itch and burn. We think they stung us because, just before it happened, one of the chickens found a bee crawling on the dirt and pecked it, then ate it.

When a bee dies, it releases a pheromone that other bees detect as an alarm; the same thing happens when they sting, and this usually brings more bees out to defend the hive, so we think they sensed the bee that our chicken ate when it died and then came at us in retaliation.

Well, only one more month ’til our new queen bees arrive, and we can replace this mean one…

By Professor Budziszewski, whose class Katie is auditing this year:

The Next Theology on Tap is Wednesday April 2nd at Mother Egan’s Irish Pub
Join us on Wednesday April 2nd at Mother Egan’s Irish Pub (715 W. 6th St.) for our next installment of Theology on Tap.  Dinner will be at 6:30 p.m with a speaker at 7:00 p.m.

Just War Theory
Just War theory spells out when nations may go to war and how wars must be fought.  What is the teaching of the Church?  J. Budziszewski received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1981, and has taught since at the University of Texas, where he is a professor in the Departments of Government and Philosophy.  His books range from the scholarly (e.g. What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide) to the popular (e.g. How to Stay Christian in College).  He has published in periodicals like First Things, writes a monthly online column for college students, has been interviewed by the Catholic news service ZENIT, and has been cited in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.

My Jesus makes ugliness beautiful. He makes sorrow joy. He makes darkness light. He makes death life. Not Buddha, not Mohammed, not Krishna or Vishnu or Brahma. Jesus. And, He loves me.

Which means that He makes my ugliness beautiful and my sorrow joy and my darkness light. He makes my death life. Alleluia!

There’s still time for you to join us in the Divine Mercy novena, in preparation for Divine Mercy Sunday next week.  You can get the novena here.  Please consider praying with us.

Happy Easter dear friends and family! Christ is risen, hallelujah!

I receive the daily Gospel reflection emails from Legionary priests and consecrated (which anyone can sign up for), and here was part of today’s reflection that particularly struck me:

Imagine the Christian faith without the reality of the Resurrection of Christ. Good Friday would herald an altogether different message. It might inspire curiosity and sincere admiration among people, but it could not bring divine light to the human soul.

Without the reality of the Christ’s resurrection, the faith of countless of Christians would mean nothing and be pointless. A proof of his glorious resurrection is to see the invincible love practiced by so many thousands of men and women in bearing witness to Christ – facing countless obstacles and even heroically surrendering themselves to death. The living Christ himself has strengthened them.

Easter, like Christmas, is not just one day in the Catholic Church, but many days, celebrated joyfully throughout the world for the next 50 days, until Pentecost, when the Church celebrates its birthday, having been given the Holy Spirit and begun its mission to share the good news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Is this perhaps the year when you will answer God’s call to enter into His life of love, hope, and joy?

For my part, I have made a resolution to only make positive blog posts throughout the next 50 days of Easter; it may be difficult because I am, after all, a melancholic temperament, but I will do my best to.

Christ be with you!

Katie and I went to Pipe World and bought a nice pipe, since I have taken such a liking toward pipe smoking: The Nording.

We have had several friends and family members express their concern for me taking up this new hobby, which I know comes from their love for us. I also do not want to get cancer or emphysema and die prematurely, so I plan to make pipe smoking an occasional indulgence and will be careful of its potential effects.

This pipe, unlike most we looked at, did not have any type of stain or varnish on it; the patina will emerge as the oils from my hand rub off on it, especially when the pipe gets warm from the tobacco burning inside of it when it is being smoked.

Also, I can fit a “churchwarden” stem on this pipe for a small cost; the churchwarden stem is the long one that you see the hobbits smoking in the Lord of the Rings.

Thank you all for wishing me a happy birthday yesterday!

I received some wonderful gifts, including The Dangerous Book for Boys from the Garcias, a Borders gift certificate from my mom, and The Hive and the Honeybee from Katie.

Katie got me one other, very surprising gift, also:

A pipe plus pipe tobacco!

I am now a pipe smoker as of yesterday. The pipe is a starter corn-cob one, but after burning through just 12 matches, I was able to get it to stay lit with tobacco and puff away. The tobacco had a nice aroma.

I do not endorse smoking of any kind for the youngsters, but once you reach a certain age, like me at 30, you can make the decision for yourself whether to take up the pipe.

Katie and I are going to go together to Pipe World and pick out a more august and distinguished pipe soon. I picture myself looking like a young J.R.R. Tolkien: