Thump... thump

Yes, indeed, my heart is still beating and I am still breathing. Sorry for the lack of updates.

Bishop Conlon visited our county this week, and he celebrated the Sunday Mass at St. Paul's. The homily was excellent; he noted the phenomenon of people saying that they do not understand the Church's teaching, when in fact it's simply a matter of not wanting to accept the Church's teaching. I received the Holy Eucharist from his hands both on Sunday and at daily Mass on Thursday, which he concelebrated with our parish priest.

Catholic Student Outreach has been fun, too; it's wonderful and very encouraging to know a bunch of girls who share my values. Who'da thunk it, on OU's campus?

My mother recently received a letter from my sister, Sister Elizabeth. She sounds wonderfully happy in the convent. My mother cried because Sister Elizabeth addressed her as "Mama" in the letter. Mothers can be funny sometimes :)

No blog post would be complete without a link to my latest column. So here it is, enjoy.

Chilling

Horror story in the UK Independent today:

People who suffer from depression or mental illness could be allowed to legally end their lives at a Swiss suicide clinic, if campaigners win a legal test case next month.

Ludwig Minelli, who runs the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, wants to extend his assisted suicide service to patients who are not terminally ill. The Swiss Supreme Court is to hear the case in October of a patient with bipolar disorder who wants the right to die at the clinic.

Mr Minelli told a fringe meeting of the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton that he wanted all people, including the mentally ill or depressed, to be given the "marvellous opportunity" to end their lives if they wanted.

My mother has bipolar disorder. "Marvellous opportunity." What a charmer you are, Mr. Ludwig M.

Note this paragraph:

Mr Minelli told the meeting that people who were depressed or had mental health problems were often left without appropriate options and that his clinic offered counseling and care before allowing assisted suicide.

Which makes it sound like he isn't waiting for any legal decision and has already begun killing mentally ill people.

Full article.

Well, well. Come on now, let's hear it. "There's no such thing as a slippery slope." "These religious people are just alarmists." "We'd only off terminally ill patients, really, we swear!"

This development fits in well with the discovery, about two years ago, that hospitals in the Netherlands had begun to implement the "Groningen Protocol" which guides the decision to euthanize (that is, murder) terminally ill babies. Although no one in the Netherlands had even proposed a law to allow this, the doctors had decided on their own to begin carrying out the Protocol.

See this story from MSNBC:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.

The announcement by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives - a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates.

Natural evolution. In other words, slippery slope.

Full article.

Another week

Another column. This time on Papa's recent contretemps with the followers of Allah. Note: This time they identified me as a "junior" journalism major. Maybe that's just a web thing and they got it right in the actual paper ;)

Alas, as is obvious, I did not get a chance to write more "on the weekend," but I do not intend to just post a link to my column every week. That would be boring and unimaginative.

Let me tell you a very non-boring story about my roommates and the lengths they will go to in order to give me a hard time. On Sunday, I spent five or six hours at the library writing this week's column and doing some other homework; Sunday is unfortunately my busy day, between Mass, finishing class work, and my copy staff meeting. On my way home, I noticed that I had gotten a couple of frantic voice mails from two of my roommates detailing how Dearest Roomie Jenn had tripped over the ottoman in the living room, sprained her wrist, and was now at the hospital being attended to. I put some pep in my step, and when I got home, what did I find but Jenny lying in her bed with a most terrible-looking sling on her right arm.

After consoling her, I went up to my room to dither around, which is how I spend most of my time.

Long story short: After about three hours, Jenny and her conspirators(my other roommates) admitted to me that the "sprained wrist" story was, in its entirety, a crock. They regaled me with the information that she had changed the sling from her right arm to her left arm approximately 1,573,477 times without my noticing. She unwrapped her bandage to reveal a perfectly healthy arm.

They had me hook, line, and sinker. Touche, touche! :)

Hola!

My latest for The Post is online.

Hopefully I'll have more time to write this weekend!

J'accuse

Myself, for not updating more often. But I have excuses!

This quarter is shaping up to be the mind-melter I suspected it would be. A fun mind-melter, mind you. Eh, that's quite a mouthful.

So far I have had one column printed in The Post, and today they printed a positive letter from a reader; they don't have the column online yet, or I would link to it. Alas, you will just have to wait.

I have had one night of copy editing, but they only let me read one story. It was a somewhat amusing piece about the new mascot - the old Bobcat was a friendly-looking fellow, while the costume of the new Bobcat makes him look very intimidating and... Hungry. It was a late night, 2 o'clock in the morning, and there was a lot of downtime - but I'm told that probably won't happen again (the downtime, not the late night!).

I have yet to find out what my staff assignment is on Southeast Ohio Magazine, but I'd really rather copy edit than write. I had an interview with the Managing Editor and the Editor-in-Chief yesterday, and I got the distinct impression that they wish I would write - gulp! Since generally people are assigned to two staffs, I would be willing to do both the copy staff and the writing staff, if I was assigned smallish articles.

I am trying to get a hold of the naturalist with the Hocking Hills State Park in my quest to find out some dates for the regional calander we publish in the magazine, but we have thus far elevated phone-tagging to an art form.

And today at daily Mass, a nice young girl named Kate came up to me and informed me that she is starting a little Catholic group on campus, and would I like to come to the ice cream social? Indeed, I would.

As you can see, I am already busy, busy, busy, and it's just the start of the quarter. This is not an apologia for a lack of updates, just an explanation. I will probably not be able to udpate daily again until after I graduate at Thanskgiving time, but I'll be sure to post some things at least a few times a week. After all, with all this stuff going on, I'm sure I'll find I need a way to vent... ;)