Peruvian shamans send good vibes to candidates: Most foresee Obama victory

Uh...y-e-e-a-h.

Bishop Joseph Martino of the Scranton, PA Diocese issued this pastoral letter to his flock regarding the primacy of abortion as an issue facing voters:

Pastoral Letter on Respecting Life

No equivocation or wishy-washiness here. Bishop Martino makes it quite clear that some issues are far more important than others.

Bishop Martino then backed this up when he unexpectedly dropped in on a political forum being held in one of his parishes. He particularly took issue with the fact that the forum was discussing a statement by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and was not including discussion of his pastoral letter.

Bishop stresses abortion view at political forum

That's leadership, people.

Both of these guys are funnier than I thought they could be. Gotta hand it to their writers.

McCain, part 1

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McCain, part 2

Obama, part 1

Obama, part 2

Current YouTube favorites in the Romer house:

Mashed Taters

They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard

Why is the Rum Gone?

Matrix Ping Pong

Matrix Karate

"Karate" (Looks more like break dancing or capoeira to me)

You know the grass has gotten too long when the toads take up residence all about your yard. Here in Memphis, we've been on the fringes of the hurricanes and tropical storms that have been hitting the Gulf Coast. Consequently, it's been raining just about every weekend, which has been a really convenient excuse to avoid doing yard work.

This past Saturday, though, I couldn't put it off any longer. We were in danger of losing Tangles, our little Corgi dog, in the back yard. Out came the string trimmer, the lawnmower, and a half dozen yard bags. Fortunately, the rain held off until after I was done. Unfortunately, it was a muggy 90+ degrees out there. I was trying to finish quickly so I could go back inside. At least, I was until I hit the toad.

We've seen lots of toads around our house. They like the flowerbeds and the spaces under the bushes. With the rain and the tall grass, though, they've been venturing out more into the yard. I didn't realize this until I stopped the lawnmower for the second time to empty the grass catcher. When I came back to the mower, I spied something in front of it. It was a toad that I had obviously run over. The poor little thing was on its back, making no noise, just breathing in gulps, not even twitching what was left of its limbs. There was nothing I could do for it but put it out of its misery, so I got the machete out of the garage and did so.

It took me a lot longer to finish mowing the grass after that. I was going a lot slower, keeping an eye out for the slightest movement. I know that I scared at least three other toads into the bushes. I don't think I ran over any more.

Isn't it great when one of your elected officials puts your city on the map? I'm sure there are many people thinking about my district with questions like "How can they be so stupid as to elect this guy?"

My congressman, Steve Cohen. For years I've heard his supporters talk about how smart he is. Well, yeah, I see just how smart he is. Not only making with an idiotic analogy regarding Barack Obama and Sarah Palin, but lifting the idea from DailyKos! While watching the video, take a look at Mr. Cohen's hair. Undoubtedly, the tremendous heat generated by the workings of his massive brain is causing an updraft.

Where to begin? Even if you leave out the fact that Jesus is God and Son of God, there are a few points to make (to be fair, these are mostly culled from other people's comments and are not original with me):

• Jesus was not a community organizer. He was an itinerant preacher with some devoted followers. His focus was on God and on relating to God properly. I'll bet you can't find one instance of him trying to help someone make contact with the government to get anything.
• Where Jesus did address people bettering their lives, it was always in the context of what they should do, not in what they could get others to do for them.
• If anybody was a "community organizer", it was Barabbas, the captured revolutionary who was freed while the enthralled crowd was chanting his name.
• Pilate voted "present", and so allowed the innocent to die.
• Jesus was bound to no organization. He clearly had a reform agenda, and wasn't afraid to stand up to his fellows.

Okay, that's enough. I need to get going.

This past Saturday, I took the older two children to the Delta Fair., which is the new annual fair that is competing with the Mid-South Fair.  This was the second year for the Delta Fair, and the first year that any of us went.

How did it go?  Pretty well.  Did we see a lot?  Yes.  Did we eat a lot?  Yes.  Did we spend a lot of money?  Uh, yeah.  Was it worth it?  I think so.

The Delta Fair takes place at Agricenter International, which has lots of wide open spaces and is a great place to put on an indoor/outdoor event like this.  I imagine the Mid-South Fairgrounds used to feel like this in years past, when the city was much smaller and what is now midtown was the outer reaches.  Sadly, the Fairgrounds now is more asphalt than field.  The last time I went to the Mid-South Fair, it was kinda sad how much of it essentially took place on a parking lot.  You lose some of the "agricultural" and "county fair" feel when you're mostly on blacktop.  The new space down in Mississippi they'll start using next year may help.  Anyway...

I just took Paul and Joanna with me.  Kathy is six months along in her pregnancy, and she would not have enjoyed all the walking around.  As for Michael, there was no way I was going to try to keep track of my 2-year-old monkey as well as the other two.  I wanted to have some fun, too.  I had the forsight to bring our two-seater wagon, because I knew Joanna would not be able to keep up just by walking.

At the Delta Fair, you have to enter through the exhibit hall to get to the rides and games.  The entrance in the front is on the floor above the exit in the back, so I carried the wagon down the steps (thankfully, for the return trip, I saw the elevator--didn't think about that on my own).  We had to pass down a corridor containing lots of vendors hawking their wares to get to the exit.  This worked out well, because the last vendor before we reached the door was selling sunglasses.  I got a pair for each of the kids and a set of clip-ons for me.  Then it was out into the open.

It only took about ten minutes of us being out there before one of the kids asked about going home.  I tried to make it clear that we were here to have fun and we drove a long way and walked a long way from where we parked and under no circumstances were we going to pack up and go home without at least seeing most of the fair and would everybody please RELAX and try to have a good time?!?  I tried to be gentle about it.

Anyway, I announced that we would walk around and look at the rides.  If anyone saw a ride he or she wanted to ride, they should let me know and we would come back to it after I had figured out how many ride tickets we would need to buy.  As it turned out, the answer was none.  Joanna told me during our drive that she did not want to rid a Ferris Wheel.  Paul did not want to ride any of the rides.  Let me correct that: there were many rides that Paul definitely did NOT want to get on.  Joanna only wanted to get on a single little walk-through fun house type of thing, but she was too short.   So we saved a bit of money there.  To buy some time, I bought some chicken strips and fries for the kids.  I hoped a full stomach would lessen the ordeal for each of them.  Imagine, being dragged around the fair by your dad just because he wants to have fun!

Things got better after we got to the lower midway and saw the circus tent.  The Circus Vasquez put on a mini show every three hours, and the next one would be starting in a little over half an hour.  The kids wanted to see that.  So, we wandered through the midway a bit and played a few games.  I almost shot out the red star on the paper with my 100 rounds and got nothing.  I popped two balloons and got Joanna a stuffed frog.  Joanna pulled five rubber fish out of the pond and got a pink bear (or cat--everyone who sees it has a different opinion).  I challenged the guesser to guess my age and he missed by three years (he said 38 instead of the actual 41) and got Joanna a red clownfish.

Then it was time for the circus.  We rushed back to the tent in time for the show, but not in time to get chairs, so we had to stand in back.  The first act was a young lady doing hula-hoop tricks and doing them well.  The second act was two guys riding motorcycles inside the "Globe of Death"--yikes!  I was cringing on that one!  The final act, which we had to leave the tent to see, was a man on the forty-foot 'Giant Wheel of Death", walking first on the inside then on the outside of the wheel which made the forty-foot tower turn.  All in all, it was an impressive little show, and the kids liked it.  I've got to wonder now, though, if I missed the part where they announced the first act as "Lupita and Her Hula-Hoops of Death".

One highlight of the circus for Joanna was the purchase of some cotton candy.  Sadly for her, I insisted we all share it.  Didn't want her downing three ounces of pure sugar, now, did we?  I think getting the cotton candy and not riding the Ferris Wheel checked off the two items on Joanna's list of things to do at the fair.

After that, everyone was a little more relaxed.  We indulged in a couple of snow cones while we wandered around more of the midway.  When we reached what looked like the largest of the sideshow exhibits, I looked at the signs, then announced "Who wants to go see the 50-POUND GIANT KILLER RAT!?"  Nobody took me up on that, but Joanna saw the sign for "(Some say it's the) WORLD'S TINIEST HORSE!"  She just had to go see the tiny horse, so I gave some money to the silent, strange-looking man at the front and we went in.  Inside, there was indeed the TINY HORSE (he was a pigmy horse that was rather cute, though there was no mistaking that he was a male pigmy horse.  Some bits just didn't seem dwarf-sized.  Oddly enough I didn't hear any comments about that).  In the pen next to the horse was the GIANT RAT (in reality, it was a capybara taking it's ease in the tub of water in its pen).  Oddly enough, the sign on the pen didn't give any details that would lead the reader to the "killer" adjective.

Among the other live "freaks of nature" were a giant python, a two-headed tortoise, and a six-legged cow (it looked like it had partially absorbed a womb-mate while it was still a fetus, and had the rump end (with two legs) growing out of one shoulder.  The dead/preserved/fake exhibits included a two-headed monkey, a five-legged goat, a crocodile man, a two-faced pig, and two completely different looking bodies or mock-ups that were both claimed to be the chupacabra.  While they found parts of it icky, both kids seemed to like the sideshow.

Finally, it was time to check off one of my "to-do" items.  I wanted to get an old-timey western photo with my kids.  We went and did that, and I think the results speak for themselves.  Joanna looked really purty in her dress and hat, and Paul struck just the right pose of serious menace, don't you thnk?  In addition to the two copies of the photo, we went ahead and got one matte that turns the picture into a wanted poster.  Joanna was given the option of holding a gun or the money bag, but she chose the fan.  She's such a little lady.

Last stop before we went inside was to get some funnel cakes (one for right then and two to bring home), and some ice cream.  I really wish I hadn't gotten any ice cream for myself, because Joanna's portion would have been enough for all three of us.  I ended up having to eat my entire blizzard and probably half of her ice cream.  I mean it.  I had to.  You wouldn't throw out any food you paid fair prices for, would you?

The kids were ready to go home, of course, but I wasn't.  I told them I wanted to look around the exhibit hall a bit.  I think Paul is glad we did, because we came across a stall that was selling Chinese-themed items.  Paul had brought some of his money with him, and I told him he could get whatever he wanted.  He got a set of chopsticks, and I bought Joanna a small silk-looking fan.  Paul tried on a robe that looked really cool.  It looked like silk.  It was reversible, red on one side and black on the other, and it had dragons embroidered on the arms and the back.  I had to agree with him it looked great.  Then we heard the price, and it wasn't so great any more, even when the seller told me they took plastic.  Reluctantly, Paul put it back on the hanger.  A few twists and turns, and we started approaching another stall that I knew would catch Paul's eye.  I was right.  He really brightened up when he saw all the swords on the racks.  Much to his excitement, he had enough money to get a katana and sheath.  Much to his disappointment, I vetoed that choice.  Not with small children in the house.  Paul was finally willing to settle for what I think was a suburito, a wooden practice sword that I made clear was only to be used outside.  That left him basically happy.

I had had enough fun and had put the kids through enough hanging around with Dad, so we went back to the car and drove home, bringing Mom and Michael a share of our bounty in the form of two funnel cakes.

The Mid-South Fair starts up in a couple of weeks.  I wonder if we can go have fun there, only this time without spending anything?

This past weekend, Nancy Pelosi said some mind-bogglingly stupid things about the Catholic Church's stance on abortion. In particular, she stated that the Church started condemning abortion around 1950, and that it's still a matter of controversy within the Church.

I would attempt to respond, but Archbishop Chaput of Denver put it much better than I ever could:

Archbishop Chaput's letter responding to Pelosi's comments is attached.

Scrappleface - Obama: Iran Needs to Know We Mean Talk

My favorite line:

The fellows at JibJab are some of the funniest satirists going these days.