King Arthur Movie Tristan

This is the first installment of something that will become regular here at 2ndnShort, the weekly betting podcast.

In this pod we break down all of the games we are going to bet on this week and detail the games we are staying away from.

As usual I am joined by my good friend Mr. Paulie Grouper.

I've been thinking about the UK and not just because the last movie I watched was MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis which was filmed in England :) I've noticed two things lately on the combo of British politics and religion ...

An audio interview with NT Wright about the failure (as he sees it) of secular government - Dr Tom Wright: 'The long failure of the enlightenment project' (and a comment on this interview by Andrew Brown - Bishop Tom vs the Enlightenment)

A article in The London Review of Books on Red Tory: How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix it by Phillip Blond, a mentor to the British prime minister, Cameron ..... Cameron’s Crank by Jonathan Raban. Although I've been having some difficulty understanding what red toryism is (see What connects Cameron to Italian Catholics) I think I'm beginning to understand it (correctly or not) as the British equivalent of the US religious right but with Catholic/Anglican religious mystique rather than Protestant Evangelical. I thought I'd post part of the book review as it mentions something I've been interested in - John Rawls' idea of justice (see my post Justice as fairness).

Here's a bit of the book review ....

***************************

It’s been a quarter-century since I last listened to The Archers on Radio 4 ..... they’ve been chiming insistently with my reading of Phillip Blond’s Red Tory and my listening to David Cameron’s ‘big society, small government’ speeches. When Cameron speaks of Britain’s ‘atomised’ and ‘broken’ society, and calls for a return to a ‘broad culture of responsibility, mutuality and obligation’, or Blond writes about the ‘revival of the associative society’, in which the ‘common good’ is ‘cultivated organically from within’, it’s Ambridge that they have in mind. The rhetoric of both men seems to be shot through with plaintive rural nostalgia for the small, self-contained life of the village; for a world where ‘frontline services’ are ‘delivered’ from within the community by the church, the WI and the Over Sixties Club, where no one dies unnoticed by his neighbours, the pub serves as a nightly local parliament, ‘ethos’ is reinforced by the vicar in the pulpit of St Stephen’s and ‘mutuality’ flourishes in the gossip at the shop ......

Since the immediate inspiration for this improbable scenario has been Phillip Blond, I suppose everyone has a duty to plough through Red Tory. Blond writes a kind of polytechnic prose in which the various jargons of philosophy, sociology, economics and theology are churned together as in a concrete mixer ..... the intellectual kernel, as it were, of his assault on the modern state (he means the New Labour government) as ‘the triumph of a perverted and endlessly corrupting liberalism’. After a drive-by shooting of John Rawls (‘he had no convincing vision of the good society or the good life’), and a wildly constructive misreading of Rawls’s famous ‘veil of ignorance’, Blond ties himself in verbal knots as he tries to assert that the liberal state is destined to become a tyranny precisely because it values individual rights too highly. Whatever merits there might perhaps be in this argument are lost in bluster, hyperbole and impenetrably bad writing .....

Once upon a time, long before the Industrial Revolution spoiled everything, it was different: Britain had an ‘organic culture’, a ‘vibrant agrarian culture’ with a ‘prosperous and relatively secure British peasantry’. In the good old days, everyone went to church, of course, and religion supplied the ‘transcendent idea of the good’, whose absence in our sorry, secular society is the root cause of our national misery. What we must now do, the parson says, is somehow resurrect the ‘British culture of virtue’; we need ‘a civil society built around the practice of virtue and exploration of the good’. For a start, schools must provide ‘education into the good’, but we ‘cannot have a moral society without a moral economy’, and it’s on the matter of the moral economy and the ‘moral market’, and how they might be achieved, that Blond’s sermon builds to its utopian climax.

He alludes, in passing, but with high approval, to G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, and their Catholic Distributist League. Aside from one quotation from Chesterton (‘Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists’) and one from Belloc (‘If we do not restore the institution of property we cannot escape restoring the institution of slavery’), Blond leaves the Chesterbelloc project – of which more in a moment – unexplored, but almost everything he says about the moral economy derives from it .....

In his final chapter, Blond, hailing Cameron’s ‘vision’, admiringly quotes him giving voice to thoughts he’s borrowed from Blond, which, in turn, Blond has borrowed from Chesterton and Belloc. ‘As Cameron pointed out, “The paradox at the heart of big government is that by taking power and responsibility away from the individual, it has only served to individuate them”’: this is pure Blond, especially in its but what does it mean? quotient. Does ‘them’ mean the singular ‘individual’? Does ‘individuate’ mean something like ‘make more “individualist”, and therefore selfish’? Who can tell. Cameron, who is usually plausibly articulate, abuses and misuses the language in a very Blondlike way when trying to channel his house philosopher. Blond tells us that Cameron offers ‘an associative society that is based on human relationships’, and pays this tribute to his pupil: ‘Cameron is crafting a politics of meaning that speaks to something more wanted and more needed than welfarism or speculative enrichment: it is the common project that the state has destroyed – nothing less than the recovery of the society we have lost and creation of the society we want.’ It doesn’t say much for Cameron’s vaunted intellect or his judgment that he is the willing mouthpiece for Blond’s secondhand ideas. The ‘moderniser’ of the Conservative Party has now found what he calls his ‘guiding philosophy’ in what began as Chesterton’s and Belloc’s homesickness for a rural and small-town life that never existed outside their Arcadian dream of Merrie England ......

If Cameron were to look into the unsavoury ancestry of his big idea, he might be surprised to find out that it was originally hatched by two admirers of Mussolini’s Italy. As Belloc, who despised all forms of elective parliamentary government ‘save in aristocracies’, wrote in The Cruise of the Nona: ‘What a strong critical sense Italy has shown! What intelligence in rejection of sophistry, and what virility in execution! May it last!’ Fascism is not what Cameron has in mind, but his embrace of Blond’s crankish political philosophy makes one wonder what on earth he does have in mind.

Cameron badly wants to win the election, and a big idea, however tainted its source, however underexamined and ill-thought-out, is a useful thing to brandish at the electorate, especially if it provides a cloak of nobility and ‘ethos’ for the old Conservative ambition to take a cleaver and sunder the connection between the words ‘welfare’ and ‘state’. Stripped of its obscurantist rhetoric and foggy sermonising, Red Tory issues a moral licence to government to free itself from the expensive business of dispensing social services and to dump them on the ‘third sector’ of charities, voluntary organisations, non-profits and the like. It won’t make Britain a more virtuous, civil, courteous or moral society. It certainly won’t restore us to that happy state of grace and comity in which, apparently, we all lived in medieval times. It won’t please Phillip Blond, who, in a recent article for Prospect titled ‘Why Cameron Shouldn’t Lurch to the Right’, berated the Conservatives for reverting to their ‘vestigial Thatcherite instincts’ when faced with narrowing poll numbers, and accused them of reneging on his (and the Distributist League’s) project of ‘recapitalising’ the poor to create a ‘popular capitalism for all’. It won’t even meet with much approval down in Ambridge. But it ought to make Lord Tebbit’s wintry face crease into a smile.

*************************

I'm as much a fan of the past as the next person - I used to belong to the Society for Creative Anachronism :) - but while it's a nice place to visit, I wouldn't want to live there, and much less would I want to live in the past that never was, invented by those who advocate a Catholic Third Way - maybe it's not so surprising that the political philsophy most associated with them is fascism.

I am so angry and so upset. Less than 5 minutes ago, I watched a video that caused a huge stir on the internet.. a video of some twisted little bitch, throwing PUPPIES into a river. The video is here if you want to see it, I don't advise you do... I regret even clicking on it. I watched 9 seconds of it and nearly got sick. I don't even know where to begin... It's some girl and she's standing beside a river, the camera shows you a BUCKET of tiny puppies beside her, and she flings them into the river.. one by one. Laughing as she hears their whimpers and cries. I have always, and I mean ALWAYS have detested animal cruelty. At the age of 8, I used to go around washing people's cars in my estate to raise money for the D.S.P.C.A, I have the receipts to prove it. I adore animals, I absolutely adore them. I prefer them to fucking humans! I was born with a bond with animals and I feel they are on an equal pedistal to us humans. Who the fuck are WE to choose that a creature has less rights to us? Just because they can't fucking communicate in our language? I feel physically sick after watching that. The video that aired a few weeks ago of a woman throwing a cat into a wheely bin had me in utter shock. I, and the rest of the world, watched that video in absolute disbelief.. thank god the cat is ok now (after 15 hours of being trapped in the poxy bin) but I doubt those 10 or so puppies had the same escape? See, I would of said she could of brought the unwanted puppies to a shelter etc if she didn't want them, but no, this girl is getting the act VIDEO TAPED and is ENJOYING herself. She did that for recreational purposes. I can't even find the words to explain how twisted, how messed up and how fucking disgusting it is. It happens everyday, but the internet and tv allows us to witness some of these acts on our own accord. I think people need to cop the fuck on with their attitude to animals. Realize they are EQUAL TO US. I'm so frustrated right now. I hope that girl and camera-man get caught.. but knowing this world, they won't get the punishment/jail time they deserve. What the hell is wrong with the world? We all need to seriously get a fucking grip.

Really Random Tuesday is hosted by Suko.


Happy Tuesday everyone. September is just around the corner, tomorrow actually, that was fast! I love Fall weather...apple picking, pumpkin picking, cooler days and leaves turning colors beautifully. It's my favorite season.


Talking about September, my children will be returning to school this week. I feel like summer flew by. My son is taking an important step, he'll be a Freshman in high school now. Should I have my mini-meltdown now, or save it for later on in the week? hmmmm? I'm nervous. Should I be nervous? What should I do?



I just don't like the idea of him roaming around the hallways of a high school. There's just something that really bothers me about this whole thing. I know, children are supposed to grow up and this is all part of that...but I feel like he's still a baby. *see photo above* I still have that Winnie The Pooh onesie and am tempted to pull it out of storage and cry into it.



Well, thanks for listening to my little rant there. I hope you are having a great Tuesday and are reading something fantastic.



I actually had a slow reading month for August. I average between 5-6 books per month. I wish I could read faster!

Books read in August:

1. Skellig

2. The Life O'Reilly (to be reviewed this week)

3. The Girl Made of Cool

4. The Shack

5. Let's Have A Bite! A Banquet of Beastly Rhymes (doesn't really count as a book read, since it's a children's book)




I'm currently reading:









I'll leave you with some music. Maroon 5 is coming out with a new album in September. *squeal* I loved their first two albums, so I really have high expectations for this one.





The first single off the new album is called Misery. It's really catchy :)

As all surgeries are not risk-free, there are risks in liposuction surgeries too.Especially There always the risk for facial nerves.If you have decided to have liposuction surgery you should keep in mind that everything can happen on the surgery table.

Experts say that liposuction is medically not necessary.Besides,before having surgery you should be sure of surgeon's experience and skill.Otherwise it could end up with some unwanted results.You should always stay away from those who claim that they will charge you with lowest cost.It may be so dangerous and unhealthy surgery.

During the surgery surgeon may damage your internal organs beacuse he or she can not seewhere the cannula or probe is.

If you have extra fats that ruin your look ,the best way to get rid of them is to go on a healthy and balanced diet.Experts suggest to keep appliying healthy diet with full of patience and effort.So that there would be no need for surgery and it is really not worth it's risk.

Unless it is too much necessary to have a liposuction surger is strictly not suggested.

This hit is so hard that I actually had to google him and make sure he was alive before I put up the vid. This happened a couple of years ago, and one of the first articles that popped up about him was a story about him recovering in the hospital. Then I realized it was from 2008 and this kid is fine now. Then he ran off the field and I felt like a real idiot.

So enjoy this video without feeling bad, dude got absolutely lit up


(thefritter04)

PS You know it's a big hit when the announcer says "OHHHHH what a hit and I hope he's ok" in one breath, and the trainers Usian Bolt onto the field

Birth defect is defined as abnormalities present at birth leading mental and physical disabilities or even death.There are various types of birth defects ranging minor to serious.Birth defects can be treated.However if it is not treated in one year after baby is born then it can be fatal.

Although %60 of birth defects have unknown causes,environmental an genetic factors play big role.Studies have shown a mother who is exposed to chemical is more likely to have a baby with birth defects.

Some Birth Defects are:
*Cleft lip or palate or both together
*Cerebral Palsy *clubfoot
*Congenital hip dislocation
*Neural tube defects
*Congenital hypothyroidism
*Heart Defects
*Down syndrome
*Fragile X syndrome

Here's some of what I read today online ....

There's a post at The Stone, the philosophy blog of The New York Times - Reclaiming the Imagination - about the way imagining work and its value. I spend a lot of time imagining :) but it's not just frivolous - what would Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises be without it? :)

Salvation by Lynn Ungar

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part -- the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?

Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven't you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything,
makes everything
beautiful, without exception?

James Carroll has another post in the Boston Globe on his series about the history of the problems in the Middle East. In this segment he brings up Christian Restorationism, the idea that the return of Jews to the Holy Land is a pre-requisite for the return of Jesus the Messiah, and the final redemption of the world.

Archaeologists may have proven the the Iliad and the Odyssey are based on fact ... Homer sweet home... Archaeologists find 'Odysseus's island palace'


- Ulysses and the Sirens by JW Waterhouse

ESPN has been showing a of HS football as they usually do around this time due to the lack of College or Pro ball. We at 2ndnShort have no problem with this and as long as there is football on TV we will be watching it.

HS football is great because you get to see kids that might turn out to be stars at the college level and sometimes even NFL players completely dominate on the HS turf.

Baxton Miller is one of those kids.

And to tell you about him is our good friend Paulie Grouper...

Braxton Miller the # 1 QB recruit in the nation made his ESPNU debut last night as his Huber Heights Wayne team lost in a last minute thriller to traditional Ohio High School football powerhouse Cincinnati Moeller.

While Moeller prevailed by dominating the second half behind the tough running of tailback Tucker Skove, Braxton Miller put on a show in the games first few minutes running for touchdowns of 27, 75 and 21 yards. Not sure if he can make all the throws yet but this kid is certainly a special athlete.

Tune in this Sunday to ESPNU @ 3:30 to see how Miller holds up against a tough Canton McKinley Bulldog team led by fellow OSU commit Steve Miller, who just happens to be the #3 defensive end recruit in the nation.

Don’t forget to check out the noon game Sunday on ESPN featuring Cleveland power house Glenville (home of current NFL players Ted Ginn, Troy Smith, Donte Whitner and Pierre Woods) against Dwyer High School out of Palm Beach, FL.

And as always, some highlights...


(xlr8phenom)

While your at it you might want to watch the guy Braxton will be filling in for in the future. Here is Terrelle Pryor dunking on some poor kid in HS

I was planning on doing a video showing these to you guys, but due to not having the time/a fucked up sleeping pattern.. I haven't been able to! I will probably show them in my next Update video as well but sure here they are anyways! I've bought all these in the last 2 weeks, a mixture of clothes and beauty products! I sold my laptop so with the money I planning on buying a pair of leopard-print wedges in Office - but they were furry, and it creeped me out, so I didn't haha! Instead I bought all this stuff, went out on the town with the homiez and spent a ton of money on food.. as usual.

So I posted a status on Facebook the other day, asking my friends what their tips are for studying. I'm going into 6th year, my final year, tomorrow. I have always found studying quite difficult, I tend to daydream, I procrastinate and my motivation can lack from time to time. So, I got some realistic and decent tips off my friends and I decided to share them with you! Hope it's of use...


1. Sit up the front in class, you're less likely to get distracted.
2. Put your phone in your locker, don't text during class.
3. Do all of your homework, it helps you to remember info.
4. Limit your time during the week, on the internet/watching tv/playing the Xbox etc.
5. Gradually build up your study time as the year goes on.
6. Have a break every 25 minutes, even if it's just to get a snack or listen to some music.
7. Try an get all projects/assignment done before Xmas.
8. Don't procrastinate, do your work when you have to.
9. Use your exam papers - do a past paper every week, a question a day.
10. Don't give up your social life. Sleep, relax and have fun at the weekends!
11. Be realistic, don't push yourself to far - estimate realistic exam results.
12. Don't drop down a level in a subject until after the mocks.
13. Keep track of your colleges of interest on their websites.
14. Attend all career days and lectures. They help and put you at ease.
15. For orals, trying speaking to your mates in the language.. sounds weird, but it does help!
16. For aurals (listening), download language apps onto your iPod. (It helps, trust me!)
17. Don't leave anything until the last minute, do everything as soon as you get it.
18. If you tend to get distracted easily, go to an after-school study session or the library.
19. Remember, teachers are there to help.. ask them for advice/help if you need it!
20. Make sure you get a good night's sleep every night.
21. Have a good breakfast - and pack a healthy, packed lunch.
22. Last but not least, don't stress. There's more to life than school - do your best!

I just watched this video and it almost got me pumped up to work, well that and the 5-hour energy I just took.

I'm not sure if he got this from someone or if this is original material, but it is certainly one of the best speeches out there.

And a HS kid getting lit up...enjoy your Monday...


(plutonka1989)


(immaginevideo)

Lung cancer occurs when lung cells lose their functionality and start to grow as they should not.New cells form as body does not need them.There are various risk factors of lung cancer.The people who are with one or more risk factors listed below are more likely to develop lung cancer.

1-Tobacco smoke
2-Radon
3-Asbestos
4-Air Pollution
5-Whether family members have a history of lung cancer
6-Age(above 65)

Researches have shown that having certain lung diseases such as tuberculosis or bronchitis for many years may increase the risk of lung cancer.However it is not yet clear whether having certain lung diseases is a risk factor for lung cancer

title: Skellig

author: David Almond

genre: young adult fantasy

published: 1998

pages: 182

first line: I found him in the garage on a Sunday afternoon.

rated: 4 out of 5 stars







Michael is twelve years old, lives in his new house with his mom, dad and baby sister, who is very sick with a weak heart.
One day while in the garage in his backyard, Michael finds an odd creature, a man, with a squeaky voice, bugs crawling all over him and tattered clothes.

I thought he was dead. He was sitting with his legs stretched out and his head tipped back against the wall. He was covered with dust and webs like everything else and his face was thin and pale. Dead bluebottles were scattered on his hair and shoulders. I shined the flashlight on his white face and his black suit.

Michael tells his best friend Mina about his discovery, he wants to make sure that what he is seeing is real and not just his imagination. Mina is homeschooled and has a passion for William Blake's poetry, which appears throughout the story.


We later find out that this creatures name is Skellig and that he has wings. What he truly is or where he has come from, remains a mystery. He is clearly sick and Michael decides he needs to nurse him back to health.






Michael's baby sisters illness is always on his mind, and he feels as though when he feels his own heart beating, he can also feel the baby's. I loved the thought of that.

"They say that shoulder blades are where your wings were, when you were an angel," she said.


"They say they're where your wings will grow again one day."


"It's just a story, though," I said. "A fairy tale for little kids. Isn't it?"


"Who knows? But maybe one day we all had wings and one day we'll have wings again."

I enjoyed this book very much. There's that bit of creepiness to the story, due to the way Skellig is described. And there is also that mystery as to what this creature really is. He seems to be angelic, but has features and habits that go against how we might think an angel would be.



Michael is likeable right away, he has a kind heart. He wants to nurse Skellig back to health. He visits him and brings him food. The way he loves and worries over his baby sister is also touching. His baby sisters illness is a big part of the story, as are his parents and the way they deal with it.




All in all, a great read. Highly recommended.

Writing can be difficult, but sometimes it really does feel like a kind of magic. I think that stories are living things-among the most important things in the world.
-David Almond

- detail from the Arch of Titus showing spoils from Jerusalem

My latest book from the library is The Last Ember by Daniel Levin. I'm not far into it yet but it's kind of so-so. What's lacking in the writing is somewhat made up for by the interesting subject matter - it tells of a search by good guys and bad guys for the gold Menorah taken to Rome after the sack of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and then probably taken to Carthage by the Vandals who sacked Rome in 455, and then maybe secured by Belisarius in 515 and taken from Carthage to Justinian in Constantinople, after which it may have been sent to a Christian church in Jerusalem, where it might have been captured by the Persians in 614, but was probably instead smuggled back to Constantinople where may have lived until the crusader siege of the city in1204, whereupon it might have been taken back to Rome, languishing to this day in the secret vaults of the Vatican. Or not :)

Here's a review of the book from Biblical Archaeology Review ....

********************

The Last Ember by Daniel Levin
- Reviewed by John Merrill

The Last Ember by Daniel Levin is an archaeology adventure novel, in the same genre as, for example, King Solomon’s Mines or Raiders of the Lost Ark. As we have seen from Eric Cline’s nonfiction account of searches for lost artifacts,a there is considerable public interest in such topics, and readers who have that interest may find author Levin’s tale to their liking. Its premise is that the fabled gold menorah, thought to have been looted from the Jerusalem Temple by the Roman general (and later, emperor) Titus, in 70 A.D., was in fact saved by none other than the controversial Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. The hunt for the fabled artifact, triggered in modern time by clues in the writings of Josephus himself, involves a dashing protagonist, a not-very-transparent version—i.e., lawyer trained in classics—of the author himself. Together with his once and future girlfriend, a gorgeous Italian archaeologist, the hero traces clue after clue through a maze of plot twists, with a colorful supporting cast that features terrorists who finance their activities by selling looted artifacts, a Colombo-like Italian police inspector, and so forth.

Although the tale is imaginatively constructed, it betrays some of the stylistic cracks that are often found in a first-time author’s armor. A well-known rule of imaginative fiction is that, in order to get readers to buy in to one’s made-up plot elements, the verifiable facts of the story need to be accurate. Thus, when the hero on page 1 is found arriving in Rome on an Alitalia flight from New York at midnight Rome time, the reader who has actually made such a trip, which in fact lands at midday, will have difficulty suspending his or her disbelief of the more imaginative parts of the ensuing plot. The plot’s credibility is similarly tested when Josephus’s birth date is given as 30 A.D., when it is widely accepted (and ascertainable from Josephus’s own writings) that he was born in 37 A.D.

The novel is a cornucopia of Latin, Hebrew and contemporary Italian expressions, as well as a complex catalogue of archaeological features—some real and some imagined. It moves at rapid pace through multiple venues, with plot transitions that will alternatively thrill readers or confuse them. In the end, even the author betrays some signs of fatigue, with early promises of workmanlike phrasing degenerating into lines like the following: “... Jonathan’s voice was around them like something vibrant, moisturizing. They gasped with delight, their cataract eyes ablaze.”

In his acknowledgments, the author praises his editors, as is customary. But in places like the foregoing, readers may find themselves wishing the editors had provided a bit more input.

********************

Ouch :) I'm not sure I'd recommend the book, but I'm finding it interesting - a virtual visit to Rome and Jerusalem, with some history thrown in.

Not a huge fan of the song but this video is great...


(chrisjonesnation)

It is really so important to have quality sperm as well as enough quantity of sperm to have healthy sex life.Most of men are looking for ways to increase their sperm count without taking any pills.There are some ways to increase production of sperm naturally.

Stop Smoking
Smoking is one of the main causes that reduce sperm count.If you want to increase your sperm count you have to immediately quit smoking.

Wear loose outfit
Dont wear tight dresses.

Eat Well and Right
Studies have shown that eating habits directly affect productions of sperms.

Decrease the amont of sex and masturbation
Each time you masturmate, your sperm desity gets lower.

Do not take alcohol
This is the second big factor reducing your sperm count.

Make Exercise Regularly
Making exercise on a regular basis and losing extra weights can help increasing sperm count.

Bad breath,also known as halitosis is the desease of having smelly breath.Currently most of adults suffer from bad breath .Bad breath also causes people to feel themself bad psychologically. There are many of causes that affect mouth and airways.Bad breath is usually caused by breakdown of proteins in the mouth.There are about 400 types of bacteria in mouth which are main cause of bad breath.Some other causes are:

*Dry mouth
*Gum disease
*Dental decay
*Foods left between the teeth

For People who have bad breath it is necessary to visit a dentist.Bad breath is a treatable desease.So there is no need to worry about it.In addition there is something that you can do by yourself to prevent having bad breath.

• High level of oral and dental hygiene are required. In addition to brushing, clean between the teeth using dental floss, woodsticks or an inter-dental brush
  
• When you brush your teeth ,clean your tongue too.
• Use a mouthwash recommended by your dentist or pharmacist. The best time to use it is just before sleeping.
• Drink plenty of fluids, avoiding too much coffee.
• Clean your mouth after eating milk products, fish and meat.
• Chew sugar-free gum, especially if your mouth feels dry.
• Eat fresh, fibrous vegetables.
• Visit your dentist regularly and have your teeth professionally cleaned as required.

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your weekend.

I thought this past WG's topic was another fun one: Reading from the Decades

So today's Weekly Geeks is about examining a book (or books) which were published in your birth decade. Tell us about a book that came out in the decade you were born which you either loved or hated. Is is relevant to today? Is it a classic, or could it be? Give us a mini-review, or start a discussion about the book or books.

I was born in the 70's, 1976 to be exact. It seems this was a great decade for one of my favorite authors, Stephen King.



I prefer his older work, and below are a few of my favorite Stephen King novels, all published by the master of horror during the 70's.



I do think these books are ageless, they can scare the crap out of you no matter what decade we are in. These are more than just scary stories, there's heart and soul to the characters he creates and I think that is one of the reasons so many people love his work. He also has a way of delving deep into our innermost fears, and making them come to life within his books. A story that stays with me long after I've read it is one of the reasons I enjoy his novels so much.



I think these books can be considered classics. Nobody can tell a good scary story like he does, and I think King really set the standard for writers in the horror genre.








The Dead Zone, 1979 This one is both scary and sad, with a bittersweet love story in the midst of all of it.








Salem's Lot, 1975 This book gave me nightmares, and that's just what I expect when reading a good King novel. If you want a good vampire story, look no further.








The Shining, 1977 This is one of my favorite King novels. The way he made the Overlook Hotel into a menacing, living, entity in this novel had me hooked on every page, and had me sleeping with the lights on.






The Stand, 1978 One of his most famous novels. I haven't read this one yet, but I have it sitting on my shelf. I'll get to it one day.

I believe these stories exist because we sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives: the parent who punches instead of kissing, the auto accident that takes a loved one, the cancer we one day discover living in our own bodies. If such terrible occurences were acts of darkness, they might actually be easier to cope with. But instead of being dark, they have thier own terrible brilliance it seems to me, and none shine so bright as the acts of cruelty we sometimes perpetrate in our own families. To look directly at such brilliance is to be blinded, and so we create any number of filters. The ghost story, the horror story, the uncanny tale-all of these are such filters. The man or woman who insists there are no ghosts is only ignoring the whispers of his or her own heart, and how cruel that seems to me.

-Stephen King

What about you? Have you read Stephen King?

,

Insomina is the desease of not being able to sleep for long period of time.So that people who have insomnia have lack of proper rest.Insomnia basically can be described not falling asleep or not sleeping enough to make you feel you got rest.

Sleep period for an avarage person is 8 hours in a day.6 hours could be enough for adults.If you do not get enough sleep you will feel uncomfortable throughout the day.

The causes of insomnia is of three types:

• Psychological Problems

• Social Problems

• Medical Problems

Insomnia can be experienced by both men and women.how ever women in the menopause years are mor likely to have this desease.

Some tips that will help you :
1) Do not go to bed until you feel fully sleepy.

2) Use your bed only for sleeping not for watching tv etc.

3) If you do not fall asleep within 15 minutes get up and do something else.

4) Do not take naps during the day.

5) Do not drink alcohol,tea,coffee before you sleep.

Although there are various ways that diet experts suggest you to burn your fat there are 3 great ways to get rid of those annoying fats.These tips are used by professional sporters,athletes and top models.

Tip1
Replace bread,pasta,rice with fruits and vegetables.By doing this you will be doing changing carbonhydrate type.The carbonhydrates that vegetables and fruits contain are quick burning carbonhydrates.

Tip2
Drink at least 15 glass of water in a day.Water is perfect to renew cells.So that metabolism has more energy to burn fats and throws out the toxins.

Tip3
Do a light session of weight lifting or resistance training for about 20 minutes.If you want to lose weight in a proper way you should not hinder this.

Statistics show that people diagnosed with mesothelioma can live maximal 5 years after diagnosis date.However studies have proven that patients are not exactly alike and their responses to treatment are different.

I dreamt about Kermit last night and in the dream I was singing her this song - Be Careful, It's My Heart. It's from the movie Holiday Inn which starred Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin. The video below shows Crosby singing the song to the woman he's hired to dance at his Holiday Inn. He's trying to keep her away from his friend, played by Astaire, afraid he will sweep her off her feet and out of his life as he did with his last girlfriend, but in this scene, his efforts fail (the song and dance start at about I min, 20 secs into the video, so don't lose patience) ....

- pre-conversion Augustine from the film Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire

It's true that Augustine of Hippo is the saint I love to hate, but tomorrow is his day, so here's a short video about an exhibit from last June in Rome on his writings titled "St. Augustine, We know only what we love" ......

As we get ready for the college football season to start we will be doing a lot more podcasts. This podcast runs through the best games of week 1, and as always features Paulie Grouper.






If you want to be featured on the podcast send us an email at 2ndnShort@gmail.com

Hello blogging friends. Ahhhhhh....it's Friday....finally! It's been a long and busy week for me, especially now with getting the children ready to go back to school. I still can't believe my son will be a freshman in High School next week. When did that happen? *sigh*



As far as reading goes, I finished up Skellig and will have my review up on Monday. I'm trying to finish up The Life O'Reilly this weekend.


I hope you all enjoy your weekend. We are expecting some beautiful sunny weather after a long week of rainy days here. Whatever you are doing, have fun!





I'll leave you with a Godward painting and a bittersweet quote:

It's not love's going hurts my days

But that it went in little ways.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

I haven't been paying much attention to the issue of the new translation, though I did notice Bryan Cones has had a series on the subject at US Catholic. Here's part of his Getting to know the new Mass, Part 3: Wait a second... ....

As I was singing the Holy, Holy (Sanctus) last night at Mass, I was struck by the fact that all the well-known settings of the Ordinary are being rewritten to accommodate a single change in the Sanctus, from "God of power and might" to "God of hosts" (armies, not wafers). Then, as I sang "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again," I was angry that such a simple text, composed in English, that so well captures the "mystery of faith" will be lost to us on the First Sunday of Advent 2011. Incidentally, that acclamation has been picked up by our Christian family in the churches of the Reformation, used at almost every Lutheran and Episcopal liturgy I've been to.

So it is with some dismay that I am already hearing a general surrender among the liturgical literati who taught me what I know about the liturgy. "Make the best of it" seems to be the attitude: In other words, let us try to contain the pastoral damage by making this a teaching moment on the liturgy. Let us protect the faithful from their sacred pastors and not tell them what has really happened here, and why they will be saying something as meaningless as "And with your spirit" four times during the liturgy ....

Today I noticed a post at America magazine's blog (English Jesuit on New Translations Process: "Abusive") on a Tablet article (Worship and power) by Philip Endean SJ on the translation. As I've been reading Fr. Endean's books on Karl Rahner lately, I thought I'd post something on his Tablet article. The article is really good (and long), so be sure to read the whole thing, but here's just a bit of it ....

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Worship and power
- Philip Endean

[...] There are problems here about what counts as good translation. There are also serious questions about how authority is being exercised. In some ways, there are overlaps with the clerical-abuse scandal. Of course, the objective damage done by bad liturgy is as nothing to the moral wrong of children being violated. But in both cases authority has dealt high-handedly and secretively with the sacred, the intimate, the vulnerable. High officialdom has been evasive; lesser authority has tacitly colluded. What the situation needed was salutary English plain speaking .....

The best advocacy for the new translation that I have seen, from Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra and Goulburn - who has also written well on the abuse crisis - refers to "an extraordinary level of consultation" in the preparation of the new translation. Perhaps, but I was myself involved in a couple of peripheral ways, and I was instructed to maintain strict secrecy when, through my then provincial, I was asked to comment on a draft of the Ordinary ....

This situation hardly inspires confidence or trust. Given that there are also strong objective arguments against Liturgiam Authenticam, we have a serious problem. How are responsible Catholics to cope? The standard answer to that question is: "trust the authority of the Church's office-holders; give them the benefit of the doubt; make the best of the situation." But it is just such moves that have proved so catastrophic in matters to do with sexual abuse. Why are we to suppose them appropriate in this liturgical context? ......

How might sensitivity mark the impending transition? .....

In general, the new translation's significance has to be situated within the conflicts underlying everything in Vatican II and its aftermath: how the Church deals with change; the relationship between Rome and local churches; how the Church addresses contemporary culture. Options about translation often imply controversial positions on more intractable human and spiritual issues. If Rome's real agenda when liturgical change is in question is that the English-speaking Churches got Vatican II wrong (or indeed the other way round), we should have that conversation openly. Arguments about ecclesiology are not conducted well in code ..... recognise that reverence and accessibility are theologically complementary. Vatican II's liturgy document speaks of the rites radiating a "noble simplicity" (n. 34). To be true to the Gospel, the liturgy needs to be both dignified and straightforwardly intelligible. It is as un-Christian to choose between these as to opt for Christ's being either divine or human. Orthodoxy could be defined as the refusal to fall into such ways of thinking. If the introduction of a new text can be described as one side "winning" some kind of competition between gospel values, things have gone badly wrong ..... at no point - on this or any other subject - should pastoral ministers teach or preach anything to which they cannot personally assent. Still less should they come under any pressure from their superiors so to do. Defending what you do not believe will be far more harmful to the Church than any public disharmony. Surely we have learnt by now the dangers of keeping up appearances "for the good of the Church" .....

This new translation, both in its content and in the manner of its imposition, represents a retreat from the salutary, evangelical reform of church style and mood that Vatican II represented. Those of us who experienced pre-conciliar Catholicism as abusive received Vatican II as a powerful reassurance that the Church was mending its ways. That gave us hope and liberation. It will be a scandal, in both the common and the theological senses of the word, if - at a level that really hurts - the new translation takes that reassurance back.

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title: Let's Have A Bite! A Banquet of Beastly Rhymes


author: Robert Forbes (Author), Ronald Searle (Illustrator)

genre: children's/ nursery ryhmes

pages: 79

published: ARC/ release date September 16, 2010


rated: 3 1/2 out of 5









With rhymes like Hugh the Emu, The Rhino's Wine, The Inchworm Sprint and Flick the Fly, coupled with great illustrations to match, Let's Have A Bite! A Banquet of Beastly Rhymes makes for a fun book to read to the kiddies in your life.








There are 33 rhymes in this book, all about different animals, koalas, bears, pandas and monkeys and some of these animals aren't always being nice. I really liked this funky collection, and my daughter(10) and I read them together. This one would make a great gift as well, especially if you're looking for something a little different than your everyday children's nursery rhymes.

My friend Lala,

A cuddly-snuggly koala,

Lives at the zoo.

Kids think she is cute

But it's not true!

Lala is a nasty brute.

When she spies her keeper she spits,

And throws tantrums and fits

If her dinner is not what she wants,

Or the weather's too stormy for jaunts.


Lala is not a nice girl at all!


-quoted from Ooh, Lala! p.27

About the Author

Robert Forbes serves as the Vice President of the Forbes family business as well as the President of the life style magazine Forbes Life.