Wonderful Matters

In my last post I opined about a blogging pundit's remark that a good blogger must write a thousand words a day to be effective. I did agree one must blog often enough, but also made mention of extraordinarily meaningful time constraints. There are indeed other things more important. I've since thought that I must add another important facet to the blog-posting-somewhat-more-infrequently-than-every-day position. That is simply that one must take time to actually discover things about which to blog . Certainly sometimes those things require an entire day of plain discovery sans any writing at any time. I thought today I'd add some examples of the things I've been looking at over the past few days. One is an event that happened just yesterday: Rome itself has been overrun by the "Occupy Whichever Powers-That-Be Street There Is" fever. This particular revolt has resulted in some violence, I'm told, so the rebellion is stirring quite nicely it seems. ...

I saw a note from some web expert guy who says to be an effective blogger, you must write 1,000 words a day. A day . Now I'm all for writing prodigiously -- I simply won't stop sharing the things I think are most important for the Kingdom. But I have a family, a job, and a home. Attention to those three things takes up 98% of my time. Yes I have a ministry, but much of that is wrapped up in those three things. I try to squeeze what I can into  The Catholicist Nation  and Wonderful Matters  from the other 2%. I am wholly devoted, though, to this ministry. But to write 1,000 words a day? I'd have to sacrifice far too much of those other things. Can I be a successful blogger otherwise? The only reason I'd consider myself to be relates to another critical aspect of web success, and that is that there must be content. That's what I try to achieve, and I just think slapping 1,000 words on the splendor of today's dog-walking experience is just not worth it. For e...

The other night my daughter insisted I watch one of her favorite movies with her, Tangled . It is the Disney telling of Rapunzel, and it was a fun film. I was kind of taken by the lanterns thing, and thought of it as similar to what followers of Christ do in their hearts waiting for Him to return. Hey, I rarely find any truly Biblical connections from Disney stuff, and sure, this is a stretch. I'm not saying anything except how it made me feel, that's all. Another thing that got me was how much Rapunzel was convinced by her fake mom that she needed to stay in her large room at the top of the remote tower because the world out there was too dangerous, what, with all the evil people out there. All of us viewers are certainly expected to think of how rotten that woman is for convincing her of such a falsehood, but then... That's exactly the way we all behave . Wherever I go, drive, walk, bike, I always take a look at the sides of houses for the satellite dishes. The ti...

Last week a federal appeals court ruled that much of the money lost to Bernard Madoff's humongous Ponzi scheme is lost forever and ever and ever. The funny thing is their reasoning. It was never there to begin with . Seems lots of investors are straggling about clamoring to get their money back, and they are finding stark ugly reality whacking them up-side the head. The value assessments they thought were veritable were not exactly that. In other words, somebody somewhere sounding really on-the-ball about these things told them their value was one thing, and, well, it wasn't. Even funnier -- or sobering if you'd rather -- is that Jesus said something even more stunning. You're worthless . Hey, don't take my word for it. Look in the gospel of Luke, 19th chapter, 22nd verse. Jesus spoke of someone who was supposed to take the value of their God-given gift to do something valuable for someone, and they didn't. What did Jesus say to this person? Did He say...

I saw that controversial musical artist Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment. One thing that struck me about it was that she died at 27, the same age as my oldest son. I really didn't pay attention to much of what she did except that she was extradordinarily popular and she did some crazy stuff in some of her concerts. This happened as I was polishing my latest webzine feature, yet another letter to a college student . I'd already written a few letters and published them, but I just haven't been pleased so far. I'm still not fully satisfied with the latest, even though I think this one hits closest to where young adults are. But I'm feeling much like most young adults do, which relates to why so many young adults are wrecklessly careening about with their lives, which is wrapped up in one profoundly insightful declaration I heard from one: "I want to keep talking until I know what I want to say." The reason I spend so much time bloggi...

Today's Los Angeles Times featured an opinion piece from a Jesuit professor and community organizer who made the case that one of the best ways to douse the raging federal budget conflagration is to tax charities. As it is non-profits may register with the federal government to acquire a measure of legitimacy, and in return they are afforded tax-exempt status. The author of the piece makes his case, and closes by simply stating that everyone needs to make sacrifices, and he is willing to be the first to step up and lay on the altar. In the brief author bio at the end of the piece is a statement that rarely shows up: "The views expressed here are his own." I have a feeling these words were added in this instance because of the volatile nature of his argument. "Tax a non-profit?! That's just wrong ." And I further surmise that one reason it is considered so wrong is that the religious institutional infrastructure of this country would be the most viol...

A week ago on this day, two notable individuals departed. No, they didn't "depart" as in the metaphor for dying. They just departed their place of note and went somewhere else. Both have some extraordinarily profound similarities. The first departure was that of Whitey Bulger, the notorious organized crime figure and FBI's most wanted, found holed up in an apartment in Santa Monica after 18 years on the lam. On this day, he was put on a plane and taken to Boston for prosecution. The funny thing is that apparently he was the individual upon which the 2006 Oscar-winning film The Departed was based. The other departure was that of Sheila Bair, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. She was stepping down, and on this day she gave her departure speech prominently containing some choice "what's-what" words for the banks. During her tenure she oversaw the -- well, I guess you'd call it "reorganization" of hundreds of banks thr...